Can you post a photo? The height is less of an issue than the canopy spread. In my climate, Osakazuki gets to be pretty good sized for a JM - 20' tall and at least as wide, perhaps more in time. And Hogyuko is no shrinking violet, either :-)

Personally, since the JM's are such great specimen trees, I would think that planting them that close together may detract from their individual aesthetics.

osakazuki visible in foreground

IMO, they are too close. And further, they are both much too close to the house.

Hi Leslie

I am total agreement with Gardengal.

It wont be long before these Trees & Shrubs are competing for position aside from the Expanding & Developing Root growth which may cause additional problems.

Perhaps work out a different plan for their positions.Are you specifically wanting to Locate these Shrubs and Trees just in the "BARKED AREA" ?

One consideration may be to Plant some of the Trees in Large containers.This way they can be moved about if necessary.

The tree in the Background looks worryingly close to the Property and could present future problems and possibly eat the House,LOL.Perhaps seek some professional advice from a Recognised Arborist.

Happy Gardening

Proper spacing is one of the most difficult concepts to understand in landscaping. Initially the trees and shrubs look too far apart, but they grow faster than most people realize. A lot of my Japanese maples are over 20 feet wide. I plant evergreen shrubs and groundcovers under them to visually tie things together.

You all have much more experience than I do - and I do have a hard time visualizing what this will look like in 20 years!

I can believe the snofozam cherry in the middle might cause crowding conditions. I'm so confused about that tree. It's supposed to grow maybe 15 ft tall at an ultra maximum in my zone. But it's a serpentine, which is why I got it - I wanted it to stay fairly "short" to showcase the maples more prominently. Because it is all twisty, its total height from the ground is shorter than I am. But I measured the total length at the garden shop, curves and all, and it *already* has well over eleven feet of trunk to it! So I have no clue what it's going to do. Stay the same? Grow a wee bit more? Completely overwhelm the grace of my maples as it skyrockets heavenward? I am short on facts. I would definitely pot up or move this guy, Japanese garden or no. I have many spots on the estate for the likes of him.

As for the tree in the background far corner, it's a dwarf forest fountain hemlock (8 ft tall at maturity with a total of a 6 ft spread.) I am not so good with framing photos to represent distance accurately, but it's a solid 6 ft from the back wall.

But back to the maples. Now I'm not arguing here, or rather I'm making an argument but I hope it's a lovely argument about trees and how they grow in various climates and conditions. (How can arguments about trees get nasty when trees are so fun and pretty?) Anyhow. I just went out with my tape measure and measured my distances. The osakazuki and hogyuko are slightly over 11 ft apart. I am told that in zone 5a they will never get as big as they do in proper climates. Max height would be 15 feet for the osakazuki, and about half that for the hogyuko at a literal and figurative stretch.

Assuming they will grow about as tall as they are wide, that means the osakazuki would only spread 7.5 ft, and the hogyuko only about 4 ft, any given direction. They would be kissing at full maturity, but perhaps not too ickily. Re the back wall, it is 9 feet from osakazuki, 6 ft from the hogyuko.

Is the concern aesthetic rather than geometric? Japanese maples are special. This garden was engineered to feature two of them. I was trying to put together that classic osakazuki/hogyuko red/orange fall contrast thing. Do we not like trees this close for feng shui reasons? I don't know a thing about feng shui. For that matter I don't know much about Japanese gardens overall. Anyhow I could easily pot up the hogyuko. Its still quite wee.

I see your point, you are correct in that your maples won't grow as large, or as fast in your Zone 5 climate as they will here in the Zone 8 of the Pacific NW.

There are a large number of posters on these forums that believe each tree should be an individual specimen by itself, separated from each other by a respectable space. Collectors comes to mind. I'm a bit of a collector myself, but to me the over all look of the garden has precedence over the individuals. I don't mind if trees touch, in fact, I encourage it in most cases. Neither is wrong, it's just a different approach to gardening.

http://s75.photobucket.com/user/Botann/library/

Mike

Is that your house or a botanical garden

My garden.

Mike

You sir are a rock star

Thank you, Leslie!

Stephen, I'm retired and most of my spare time is spent working in the garden. Not all ten acres is worked on. Some of it is left natural with a minimum of interference. Most of my work in the garden is maintenance even though I've tried to keep that to a minimum. I don't grow anything I would have to spray to keep it healthy. Nothing that self seeds to the point it's a pain. The only plant I shear is the Crocagator and I'm usually behind on that. I don't even grow any trees with large leaves I have to rake up. Small leaves are absorbed by the groundcovers or chewed up by the lawnmower. My lawn has been reduced to the size of the average living room. A certified arborist drops his chips off here and I use them as much as I have time for. My wheelbarrow has more miles on it than my truck and my tiller has more miles on it than my lawnmower.

I am landscaping a new area of about 6000 sq. ft. and should have it done by this Fall. There's a lot of prep work involved consisting of stumps, old logs, roots, rocks, grade change, and blackberries. Water is available and the rock wall is finished. The work is going smoothly, albeit slower than I'd like. At 72, I'm slowing down a bit. That, and my wife keeps dragging me away on vacation.

The work is fun and it keeps me young. If I had stayed behind a desk at Boeing, I'd be dead by now.

Mike

Mike makes some valid points but there are some major differences between his garden and most others that may not make his points as appropriate for just any gardening conditions :-)

While I have never had the pleasure of seeing his garden in person, I have seen enough of his excellent photos over the years to know that he has considerable real estate to work with and has a very naturalistic, almost uncultivated woodland setting. With that sort of gardening situation, placement is far less of an issue than it is in a more typical house/foundation planting beds/lawn situation most of us residing in suburbia deal with.

You can get away with closer placement and less of the 'tree as a a specimen' philosophy in a very generously sized and very natural looking, woodsy environment but attempting to try to impose that same philosophy on a typical planting bed in averaged sized lot in suburbia is NOT going to provide the same effect. Eventually the planting area is going to become crowded and look congested......unless careful and frequent pruning is involved.

I still maintain the trees are sited too closely and too close to the house/structure as well.

I've only lived in Wisconsin for a decade, so I'm not sure if I'm in suburbia by Wisconsin standards. (I am a New Yorker by birth, so I kinda perceive my new property as an open field of native prairie.) The estate isn't quite an acre, either. It only has perhaps half a dozen small gardens, and the rest is mature trees and grass.

gardengal, you may be pleased to know that I have a few other Japanese maples in single "specimen style" placements throughout the property. Here is geisha. No idea if she will make it through the winter, but I have a nice dappled shade spot protected from winds, and high hopes. The stuff around her is creeping thyme.

I'm growing some of mine (zone 5b) too close together, but since I'm starting them small I figure I can see how each one grows and enjoy it, then if I care to I can remove or transplant my least favorites as they grow larger. Growth here is slow!

...but yes, if you plan on keeping those three trees long term, I'd spread them out. You don't want to damage the roots of the others by needing to dig one (or two) up in five years.