The One Tree That Transforms Any Garden | My Top 5 Japanese Maples!

The one tree that everyone loves in their garden is the variety of Japanese Maple known as Acer. The leaves are beautiful, the colours are spectacular and there’s a variety that works in any size garden, you can even grow them in large pots!

Now is the perfect time to get one as they are looking their best. In this video I show you 5 of my favourites, how to plant them and when you should prune them. I also show you one variety that’s looking good in my garden.

ALAN IS USING:
Japanese Maples and Pot from Blue Diamond Garden Centres – https://rb.gy/0ehb4p
All tools from Spear and Jackson – https://rb.gy/6wl4lh
Ericaceous compost from Melcourt – https://rb.gy/6wl4lh
Hose from Gardena – https://rb.gy/ud9afv

Here are my 5 choices:
5 – Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ – a popular variety with vibrant coral coloured foliage.
4 – Acer ‘Arctic Jade’ – a variety that spreads less and has fabulous green leaves.
3 – Acer ‘Moonrise’ – a smaller variety that’s great for small gardens
2 – Acer ‘Blood Good’ – a deep purple variety that looks stunning against pale green evergreens.
1 – Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Garnet’, the dissectums have even finer leaves and this one is brilliant for growing in a pot

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My name’s Alan Titchmarsh, and I’m absolutely delighted to welcome you to my YouTube channel! I’ve been a gardener for over 60 years and I can safely say that gardening is one of life’s greatest joys, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Whether you have green fingers or just starting out with your very first window box, join me in my garden for practical tips, step-by-step guides, and plenty of friendly advice to help you make the most of your garden — large or small.

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Few trees can match the Japanese maple when it comes to versatility and beauty. At this time of year in particular, their autumn color is stupendous. And now is a great time to plant whether your garden is large or small. [Music] I have never met anybody who doesn’t like Japanese maples varieties in the main of Asa Palmatum because they’re so beautiful. They’re so obliging and they will fit in the smallest of gardens because they don’t grow terribly large. But out of all of them, I think this is perhaps the most popular. This is asapalmatum sango kakaku. [Music] It used to be called senkaki but sangok kaku is the name now. At this time of year you can see the foliage beginning to burnish. The colder weather starts those sugars in the leaf forming and turning them this lovely reddish color. And when you look at the stems, they’re always described as coral red. When the leaves are fallen, as they do on all Japanese maples, the stems are revealed and they give you color right the way through the winter. In summer, the leaves on sangokaku are green, but you can see them now in their autumn finery. All Japanese maples change their leaf color in autumn. They do it at different speeds and they go different colors. Some grow scarlet, some orange, some crimson, some yellow. This one here, Arctic Jade, changes more slowly than Sagu Kako there. [Music] And this one starts to color from the outside of the leaves inwards. And its stems here are green as opposed to that coral red color on sangokaku. They vary in height as you can see. These two are relatively tall growing but none of them will eat you out of house and home. Few of them grow much taller than 10 ft and they’ve got light and feathery canopy. Others stay lower like moonrise here. [Music] Moonrise has these leaves which are bright fresh green but with pinkish tinged leaf tips. It’s also remarkably resistant to scorch. Now the thing about all Japanese maples is they hate drying winds and scorching sunshine. Dappled shade is what they like. [Music] Provided Japanese maples are sheltered from scorching sunlight and drying winds, they have few problems, but you will occasionally notice branches dying back. We don’t always know why, but keep your eye opener when you see little stems like this which have died. Snip them off as soon as you see them to avoid that dieback going further down the stem. Then you will usually arrest it. When it comes to dark foliage, few are a deeper shade than this one. This is blood good. This is a moderate size Japanese maple. Really dark leaves. They color up before they fall, but again it’s a good one to add contrast with lighter green ones around it. The Japanese maples with very very finely cut leaves are varieties of asopalmatum dissectum. Dissectum meaning the the leaves are dissected divided up even more. And then we get to the purple varieties of dissectum. [Music] They tend to form a lower mound of growth rather than being tall and upright. And that makes them very suitable for small gardens, but also for planting in pots and tubs. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do with this one. [Music] Decent size pot. Good rain shell in the bottom. Bit of croc. Make sure the drain shell doesn’t get blocked. I’m using Pete free ericacious compost. Ericacacious means it doesn’t have lime in it. Japanese maples prefer acid soil and ericacious compost is acid. If it’s too chalky, they can get a little bit anemic and go a bit pale. But this one will be very happy and ericacious. It’s not essential, but for me, I like to give every plant a good start in life. And if you like that compost, you shall have it. Right. Tap it out of its pot. And oh, now look at that. We’ve got a really rootbound plant here. Use a little hand fork. Just tease them out. It encourages them to leave that central root ball and spread out into the compost where there’s much more nutrition. You’d have to be too brutal, but this will just say to them there’s a lot more compost out there than the one you’ve been used to. The big wide world. Here we are. I love doing this. It means you get sort of up close and personal with your plant. That’s about all it needs really. It’s just, you know, encouraged it to travel a bit. I’m going to drop it down into there. Now, that is too high. I want to leave sufficient gap between the rim of the pot and the surface of the compost so that I can fill it up with water and it will soak down. So, I’m going to take a bit of that. In fact, what I can do is just pull it to the sides of the pot so that it will sit deeper inside it. There we are. Now, that’s pretty perfect. I’ve also got about 3 in 8 cm around the side which I can fill with new compost and encourage those roots to come outwards. [Music] You don’t have to ram it. You see me? I’m in here. You don’t have to ram it down. I feel the root ball under there. It’s just about an inch below the surface. When I put water on it in a minute, it’ll soak straight down. But later on, when roots have really begun to occupy that compost, the water will sink more slowly. And that means if you can fill it up to the rim and then leave it, remember always an inch of water travels 9 in downwards. And isn’t that handsome? Now, there it sits. How long can it live in a pot like this? It’ll certainly do four or five years quite happily before you need to give it some extra nutrition. And that can mean either taking it out, scraping away some of the root ball, and repotting it in the same pot, but with fresh compost, or moving it up a size. In a pot this big, this maple is going to be happy in here for quite a few years. I know I watered it before I planted it. That’s important. But so too is watering it immediately afterwards and then just keep your eye on the surface of the compost. When it starts to look a little bit dry, give it a really good soak. Then don’t go back again till it looks dry again. Then come the spring and the summer cuz they’re all thirsty. They’ll need a little more. [Music] The variety you get in terms of foliage color and shape means that everybody wants to collect them. Everybody including me. I planted them in the situation I knew they would like. It’s a raised bed with good well- drained soil and it gets shade from the scorching sun of midday and afternoon as the sun goes round from these birch trees. It’s also sheltered by the U hedge behind which throws off the color of the Japanese maples as a brilliant foil. [Music] If I was allowed just one Japanese maple, it would definitely be this one. Seru. I grew it in a pot for about 10 years. Then we moved house. So 23 years ago, I planted it out and it’s turned into this glorious arching tree. Delicate foliage. glorious orange autumn color and just a habit which is full of grace. So, have I included your favorite Japanese maple? Comment below and let me know. If you want more gardening advice and inspiration like this, then why not subscribe to my channel? I’m posting new videos every week.