Top 20 Japanese Maples For Small Gardens | MrMaple Show Podcast

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today on the Mr Maple Show podcast Matt and Tim count down the top 20 Japanese maples for small gardens [Music] [Music] [Music] K you y’all and welcome to another Mr Maple podcast I’m Matt Nichols that’s my brother Tim Nicholls hey y’all today we’re bringing you the top 20 Japanese maples for small gardens we know many of y’all are just getting into growing Japes Maples and youall probably have a smaller Garden so we’re going to talk about Japanese maples they’ll be perfect for you now these are some trees that are frequently found on Mr Maple so these are some ones that should be easy to access uh we love making trees available so if you will shop with us at mrmaple.com it’s a great way to support the podcast we do let’s get into it at number 20 we’ve got a narrow selection that fits great in the small area Garden we’ve got sucasa silhouette sucasa silhouette is an upright narrow Japanese maple bar friend yaka Tanaka in Japan sucasa Maple and it has this really narrow shape and some really good fall color now this works great because in the small garden as we get less and less space sometimes we still want some verticality we want something with a little bit of reach that’s going to expand the Garden Room you know I think one of the best ways to look at some of these tall cumer plants is they bring the eye upward they they evoke a little bit different emotions sometimes we still want a tall Cathedral going on in our garden even though we don’t have a lot of space sucasa silhouette’s a great way to achieve that that tall skinny look and it’s easy for many people to grow it’s fairly heat tolerant and sucas silhouette fits in that small garden because it doesn’t take up a lot of space and doesn’t get a lot of width to it stays with that narrow colum or habit making it easy for people to use in the landscape and garden but to ca a silhouette it’s one of those trees that can you know really just give some Dynamic fall color out there and stay in that smaller space good work zes 5 through n uh typically around 10 to 12T tall you know 10 to 12T Tall Tree especially if grown in a good amount of sunlight and uh grown uh I I do prune it when it’s young to take out any low branching that’s multi-branched that’s always a good key for keeping this one more narrow you don’t want to a ton of uh multi branching going on which is easy to achieve on a young plant but keeping a good Central strong leader on this one typically this one is only around four maybe even 5T wide in a 10ft span so great for that more narrow we’ve seen this used in Hendersonville as a street tree even here we we recommended that the city of henders after seeing it used as a street tree in Japan uh so a great tree for small area Gardens to still get some vertical interest to still bring that room of the garden up you know you want sometimes you want to bring the eye up in the garden you don’t want everything to be so small and that’s a great one for a small garden but still has some height and one thing to note about sucas silhouette giving it more sunlight will keep it more narrow in a more shaded location you may get a little more width to it as it’s stretching out trying to look for the sunlight so keep that in mind guys coming at number 19 we’ve got a classic it’s one of the it’s one of the best midsized upright Japanese maples this has that red color number 19 we’ve got Acer pomum Fire Glow now our idea on this wasn’t picking the smallest Japanese maples because if we were just picking the tiniest trees Fire Glow wouldn’t be on the list but it’s one of the best small upright Reds for a small garden space so if you got a backyard you know maybe you’re on a half acre and you’re not looking to have a tree that’s going to be 25 ft fire glove is one of the perfect trees to kind of put in there because typically around 8 to 10 foot uh so a midsize tree great to evoke great fall colors great spring colors holds that red late into the season but it doesn’t get so big that it’s going to outgrow a small area guard and when we talk about sizes we’re typically talking about a 10e size time frame and that’s because the term maturity or a garden size kind of made up cuz A Tree Grows every single year and Fire Glow is that midsize tree it’s got a a slow to moderate growth rate giving you that good red color but if you plant Fire Glow where it gets Morning Sun or afternoon sun it has like an orange glow to the back side of the leaf so when you’re looking up from underneath it it glows and that’s where it gets Fire Glow and it is amazing to me it’s one of the best red uprights and it’s got some phenomenal bright fire engine red fall colors yeah you can put this out and expect to have a tree that you can stand in the shade of but not a tree that’s going to you know overgrow your home and garden so it’s not going to be something that’s bigger than your house great for that midsize a small garden all right coming in here number 18 we’ve got PE starfish this is Acer palum peev starfish really fun plant typically in that 6 to 7 foot range really interesting small upright to add texture to the Garden so again not a gigantic plant but a tree that’s going to come in there give you some different feels for the garden different textures for the garden each little leaf kind of looks like a starfish I can’t think help help but think about our cultiv our highlight with on this where you say they call it a starfish cuz it looks like a starfish I think I beat that point home in that one pretty oh you you beat it dead and if you like C of our highlights or learning about Japes Maples you’re listening to us on your favorite podcast platform right now check us out on the Mr Maple show on YouTube we put out daily videos there on YouTube some about our 10 at 10 listings and then some about cults of our highlights and other advice about growing Japanese maples so if you’re just getting started you’re going to definitely want to check that out so Talon bucks was walking by this tree and pet veltz AAL ation Block in Holland and he said that looks like a starfish and it kind of stuck pet velt took that name and ran with it years later Talon said oh I see you named one starfish he said well you named it so uh Talon kind of was a little influential on there pet velt likes to put a signature on there as many of you know if you’re longtime listeners we talk about that a lot you’ll see PE at the beginning of his trees uh P Vergil named this one peev starfish and it really is the perfect name because it kind of captures what it does but also adds value to the plant I like when a name adds something to the plant this is a tree that when you talk about it with children they’re going to remember that it looked like a starfish they’re going to want to go back out and check on the starfish in the garden and it’s not just that it has that leaf that looks like a starfish I mean texturally it’s really interesting it’s very claw-like and stoic out there in the garden which is really nice as well and being a small to midsize red upright it fits in everyone’s Gardens as well at that 6ot range too this has great fall color really underrated for that pink red fall color um really elevated fall colors so this is one you can have in a container but also looks great in the ground in a place where you don’t have room for you know a giant blood good or something like that Peevy starfish great way to do it and it’s going to give you a smaller interesting texture to pair with the other plants like this looks great next about anything and you’re going to have a Japanese maple that has a little something outside the box you know something a little bit more unique now guys coming in next we’ve got a pink Japanese maple at number 17 we’ve got gisha gone wild yeah this is another tree named and found by Talon bucks to reoccur in sport off the cultivar gisha gisha gone wild classic for so many reasons I mean this one um more durable than gisha oddly enough it’s a weird case where the sports actually a little faster than gisha but it can handle a little bit more sun now this is typically 5 to 6 foot tall again most of the trees we’re talking about here are going to work zones 5 through n I’ll let you know if there there any variation to that but this one’s another one’s going to be zones 5 through n uh durable heat tolerant a great pink variegated plant that can handle a decent amount of sun Force here in the South uh small vase shaped upright though my favorite stage is when it’s got more of the pink on green going on you kind of get a little more of that like late summer early spring though red on pink really a showstopper I was asking my wife to do a cultivar highlight for a Japanese maple and she said I really like the pink one can I do gagon wild so she actually introduced our Cult of our highlight on gagon Wild on the Mr Maple show channel on YouTube and it’s it’s Dynamic I mean the pink spring color is unreal it looks like something from a Dr Seuss book it looks like something from The Lorax the pink color is just insane the you know it seems like something that’s unreal the way how pink it can actually be I mean a tree that can be this pink who knew that could happen you know in your garden I mean that’s just awesome and then the fall color is that pink red in the fall that is just extremely Dynamic the strong upright habit makes it a really nice tree for the garden to really show off that pink color and it can really just gloss be glossy and shiny out there in the garden so guys com in here at number 16 we’ve got another classic we’re going to one of our first lace on the list now this is what a lot of people think of as far as Japanese maples for small gardens we’ve got Acer palum waterfall now one caveat I’ll give it waterfall SL verus we did find out in ver trees archives that he says they the same plant uh so interesting little caveat there I do think that could be the case now uh waterfall though great for that small area Garden um also it’s got the name waterfall so it kind of evokes that that Garden waterf flowing theme going on kind of works really well with Japanese gardening waterfalls a Green Lace Leaf it’s going to typically be four to 5 ft tall 5 to 6ot wide you know even in a 15year span so a low cascading umbrella goes from that bright chartreuse green to A kelly green Midsummer and then golden yellows to oranges in the fall so you get a lot of color change this one’s also exceptionally heat tolerant so with waterfall and veritus being uh you know both synonymous trees one of the reasons we go with waterfall is because veritus has become to represent a group of greens so a lot of times verus can be like atpr porum and it can mean a wider range of things and waterfalls a specific cult are in that group so we kind of feel that supersedes uh the verus name now we still list verus on our website you’ll see we say they are the same now we always keep them listed separately just to make sure uh but we have found over time I believe that they have become the same tree in the trade even if at one point they were not now everyone always thinks about a lace Leaf as the the traditional thought of a Japanese maple but in the United States people often track down the Red Lace leaf and then they want to put it in front of their dark home that cascading habit and the tree gets lost something like a waterfall is going to give you that green color it’s going to give Dynamic contrast with the backdrop of a darker house and really stand out and give a more summery lively feel in the garden so waterfall is an excellent tree for those small gardens also a tree you can keep in a container for quite a while so uh you know works great in a small garden in a pot as well so coming here at number 15 we’ve got Acer Shir solum Autumn Moon now this is a fun one for the container or in the ground slower growing Acer sh Sol them you get a lot of fun oranges on this one the early spring that’s kind of where it gets that Autumn Moon is that orange hue those big October moons you call them the Harvest moons sometimes those giant moons that have that bold orange to them we get that a lot here in North Carolina especially in late fall uh beautiful time of the year and Autumn Moon really evokes that kind of feel it’s got a large Sher solum Leaf if you give this some early morning sun in the early spring you could definitely get some of those bold oranges going on uh and then the fall is a bold orange to Red too now in most climates I’d recommend giving protection from the hot afternoon sun for autum moon for the best growth rate the best colors and the health of the plant but autum with those full moon like leaves and that sort of malting it has across the leaf I mean it’s great for the small garden I mean we’re talking 6ot in 10 years and so you’re talking about 6 Ines of growth in a year I mean it’s slow it’s awesome it’s great for containers make sure You’ got good drainage as well but autmon is one of the most beautiful Japanese maples for small gardens all right guys comeing here at number 14 we’ve got Acer palum doctum orangeola I love this one orangeola is super durable it’s uh one of the more colorful lace leaves I absolutely love this one in container uh you know one of my favorite characteristics of orangeola is that it is more bell-shaped than umbrella shaped so we talk about a lot of these lace sleeves having a little bit more of that umbrella Cascade to them uh this one’s almost on that like rayus level pendula so you get a shape that kind of weeps down more than width so it’s pretty pretty unique in that characteristic there’s a lot of things to love about this one um it’s probably one of our more requested lace Lees now yeah oranga it’s just a classic lace leaf that is like you’re mentioning is becoming one of the most popular trees in the trade because people love the color changes it goes throughout the seasons and it’s such a beautiful tree with one of the most heavily cascading and pendulous habits of any of those weeping lace leaves and so because of that people often will stake it up and let it just Cascade straight downward it is really beautiful it’s easy to grow it’s fairly heat tolerant and the color changes of just the bright orange Reds and then the multitude of colors you get during the summer where it’s like green with those orange red new growth coming across it it is a Next Level weeping lace leaf and because of that heavily cascading habit it doesn’t get too tall so it makes it perfect for that smaller Garden beautiful colorations on this super durable handles a good bit of sun and uh really all around just kind of one of the the perfect plants in my opinion I like it a lot for the midsummer interest I talk about that a lot great fall colors great spring colors it’s going to fit in a garden really nice too if you already have something like a waterfall and a tamiama you’ve already got you know kind of your more common lace leaf and then a green gosh think about orangeola I I like orangeola almost as a primary tree to then pair waterfall with because it’s so different unique and you get a little bit different color pattern so for me it’s it’s a no-brainer that it’s one of like the perfect lace Lees now coming at number 13 we have we’re cheating a little bit on this list because this one is technically a native to the United States it’s not technically an Acer palum or a Japanese maple it’s not even a Japanese maple hybrid we’re talking about Acer cers him little gem this was a witch’s broom that was found by lean cook and taken and introduced in the trade by JD verri one of the many trees that JD ver trees introduced like Autumn Moon that we were talking about earlier uh he introduced a lot of really cool selections and he doesn’t even get credit for many of them little gy it’s a compact form of a dwarf mutation called a witches broom or a blessing that they find on some trees like Japanese maples and Acer cers which is the indigenous tree that’s close related to a Japanese maple the Acer palum and is found in that Oregon Washington California area uh really awesome if you go back to Le and Clark expedition you know pers actually spotted that and actually recorded it as acers adom for the first time during that Lis and Clark expedition and there’s like a print of the leaf like in some museums where he made a print of it as they’re on the ls and Clark expedition so pretty awesome cers Adams have some amazing fall colors oranges and reds and Little Gym it does that in that compact form typically only 3 to four feet tall 3 to four feet wide more of a small Globe shape very multi stemmed from The graft in a 10-year period beautiful plant verri was fascinated with cerss I think his goal was to eventually find a North American uh replica of the Japanese Maple and find as much genetics there as we could in Japanese maples now you find more more cool genetics within Japanese maples but it’s certainly fun to have this North American Native in the mix very unique plant great Leaf shape uh you know just great PL now this one’s going to work zone 6 through 9 uh really colorful fall colors like Tim would say it’s not uncommon to get reds oranges and yellows all at the same time little gy looks great in a container as well and fun way to mix it up get a get a cers here on the list certainly smaller in its habit certainly if you want to try it’s a great one to experiment with in your landscape and get some different textures going on yeah I mean a them I remember at the maple society when we were going through uh Mount St Helen’s area with suig GFF and we saw the cers in the wild in fall color and it’s just like wow this is a Next Level tree catoms I’ve learned they want some protection from the hot afternoon sun in most climates so little gym for the smaller Gardens make sure you give them some protection from the hot afternoon sun but also like many dwarf Japanese maples make sure you have good drainage um good drainage is essential when you’re growing your Japanese maples and it helps the tree really Thrive and do well all right guys coming in here at number 12 we’ve got another colum or tree we’ve got TRS the tw’s red Sentinel tw’s red Sentinel is a great red upright and one of the quintessential Coler Japanese maples now we talked about this with sucasa but it’s the perfect way to add vertical interest in the garden and create that that upward feel uh especially in a small garden you got something where you don’t have a lot of width uh for space but you want some height Twan BL red SEL is going to do that and also give you some beautiful Reds mimics a little bit of that A Fire Glow you get a lot of deep color changes um you get a holds the color very well and then a bright bright picked up red almost pink red in the fall um exceptionally heat tolerant there’s not a lot of things you can go wrong with Twan bl’s red Sentinel I mean make sure it’s got good drainage and it’s one of those trees it’s really going to perform in the landscape and it’s a pillar of color it’s been fairly heat tolerant for us and it fits in that small footprint in the garden but just gives you that flag pole of that bright cherry red to maroon and so it’s gives you that verticality but also color which is really awesome in a Japanese maple it was found as a dwarf mutation where they thought by kin twam and then when as it matured out it turned out not to be a witches broom that people think of like some of the other small witches brooms it stayed tight and dense and had that narrow habit and he said it looked like a red Sentinel out there it’s interesting when I talked to Kim twamley he said that uh in Connecticut some people are using them as a deciduous hedge because they don’t take up a lot of the room but then they can give you some amazing red color which I thought was an interesting and unique way to use a Japanese maple absolutely beautiful plant so many great uses for it again you can grow this on a container for quite a while then switch it to the small ground landscape or just start out in the landscape right away it’s a perfect tree for small area Garden where you want color but you also want height so it’s not going to rob you of the height but it’s going to provide that more narrow footprint in the small garden and that’s what we’re looking at today is plants that are going to fit you know in small spaces we’re as gardeners we’re always run out of room and TW really fits the bill so well for not giving you a ton of width but it really brings the pop for color height and and for dramatic color change throughout the seasons now coming to number 11 we’ve got a classic Japanese Maple and when I mean Classic this is a Japanese maple that was listed in the 1700s it is an amazing selection we’re talking about shishi gashira and translates as the lion’s head Japanese maple yeah beautiful plant uh been around like you said since the 1700s so you know it’s it’s been fitting a lot of small area Gardens now this is a beautiful tree that has very unique foliage it has if you’re familiar with this one you know it it’s a classic but it has that that uh kind of ruffled leaf look to it and a dark Evergreen color it doesn’t really match any other Japanese maple for fall color it’s a for spring color it’s a darker green than most of the other Japanese maples and then it goes to a very unique or fiery orange with red and yellow throughout it in the fall so it really it really is unlike most of the trees I can’t think of many of the Japanese Maples that would fit that color pattern for that darker Evergreen too like it has a Evergreen so it’s deciduous but it has a Evergreen type color to it especially in the spring so showy um the one that’s been used for bonai for hundreds of years because of that that small habit but also that that thick density to it one you can get a lot of color change and a lot of dynamic interest in a small area Garden yeah I me for that small garden it has a very stoic of presence where it gets thick branching it has just a unique upright structure and the leaves are small and real close to the actual branches the dark green color is a color you don’t get on many other plants in the landscape and the texture with that ruffled Leaf really gives it something really interesting and they say that you know the texture and the fall color is where it looks like a lion’s man now shishi was actually actually a mythological Lion in Japanese literature and so it’s basically talking about a female lion from Japanese literature but it is an amazing Japanese Maple and it stood the test of time it’s easy for people to grow it’s proven itself to be heat tolerant durable again you want to make sure you give it good drainage but it’s been able to handle sun in a lot of situations which has really impressed me even in areas like Columbia South Carolina which is one of our areas where it’s really hot I mean they often advertise it’s the new Hot Spot it’s been really hot there for numerous years I see that on billboards and I’m like that’s not a marketing to get me to go to columia I think about Columbia the new Hot Spot I’m like think about my sunglasses melting console that’s what I think about but my cousins did have this one in front of a brick house in clay in Columbia full son yeah and it’s it’s durable as all get out you’ll be shocked at how resilient shishi gashira is um just an all-around great plant and again 6 to8 foot in 10 years you can see some bigger ones cuz trees never quit growing so you go to Japan or Holland I saw a 40ft shishir in Holland but the thing was like 300 years old it was one of the old it’s arborium trompenburg there’s a massive one there uh but yeah really cool plants especially over time uh but in that small area Garden for most of us in a 10year span Shish kir is going to fit perfectly what we need it’s going to provide Dynamic Color change Dynamic fall color and give you a lot of architectural interest even when it’s out of leaf now coming at number 10 we made it all the way down to number 10 from number 20 for our Japanese maples for small gardens we’ve got Acer palum red dragon and this is almost like what you think of a red weeping lace Leaf but it’s got a lot of those characteristics we like about Fire Glow as well I mean it gets a little bit of orange red to the back side of the leaf so when it blows in the wind the leaves blow it looks like it shines and glows in the landscape and garden and on a dwarf weeping red lace Leaf it’s perfect for the small garden I’ve said this a few times but I’ll point out again because it’s always fun and if you don’t know it you’re going to remember it every time now if you turn the leaf sideways it kind of look like a Chinese dragon with a beard like you kind of get the horns you kind of get the bottom of the Chinese dragon beard cool cool thing to note there beautiful fall colors great brilliant red in the fall durable as all get out small typically in that 4ft tall 5ft wide range so a little bit smaller than trees like ukama making it fit into that small area Garden even a little bit better than some of the more popular red lace sleeves Now red dragon certainly popular in to R people can say it so it’s easy to locate but a great plant for the container garden a great plant for a lace Leaf in your landscape where you don’t have a lot of room for width so you don’t have room for that larger English lace you don’t have room for something that’s going to put on the size of ukama red dragon’s kind of the the quintessential smaller red lace sleeve now some people claim that this is a New Zealand or Australian introduction it was actually an introduction by Dick Wolf of red maple nurseries and he introduced him to the trade and sent it plants to Canada and then you know he got real popular for his introduction of Emperor one or Red Emperor he focused a lot of his effort on that and sort of red dragon fell by the wayside on his production and then it made it around the world and then started becoming more and more popular because it’s such a slow growing weeping red lace leaf it’s one of the slowest growing weeping red lace leaves on the market today so it fits in a lot of people’s Gardens because that nice cascading habit doesn’t get a lot of width so it fits in containers and if you’ve got that smaller place in your garden that you’re just looking for something that’s going to just glow and give you some good red color red dragon’s the tree that you’re going to want all right coming in here at number nine we’ve got one of our best small yellows for landscape Garden summer gold now this is a classic 6ft tall small upright great pink red fall colors but really what it’s known for is that golden uh yellow bright yellows holding that late into the summer so it’ll hold that summer color very well anything you can get a little bit of green for it right before fall color but this one’s super durable super colorful and it’s surprising really with Summer gold that it’s so durable because this one can handle a good bit of sun even in a high heat setting making it perfect for small gardens you might not have a lot of big trees in your garden especially in a small area Garden you might not have a lot of late day sun protection this one can handle a good bit of sun even in areas like at Atlanta as this one gets established it’s very Sun tolerant in zone 8 so zone 9 is going to need some protection but even up to zone8 typically very durable and summer gold in that 6ot size adds a lot of bright yellow in the garden if it’s a more Sunny situation it’s brighter yellow if it’s in a deep shade situation it’s a lime yellow green uh with more on that yellow side but it brightens up those dark spaces in the garden and the shadier spots and in the sunlight it’s just like a highlighter when you have that yellow color out there in the garden that summer gold provides it brings out all the colors in the greens and contrast with your Reds your blues and everything else in the landscape that color is an underused color in the landscape and summer gold is one of my favorite trees to put out there in the garden to make your whole garden just tie together so well summer gold awesome Tree in that 6ot size for that small garden to give you that yellow color out there with a nice upright habit but it’s underrated for its fall color I mean the Fall colors can give you some pink Reds that are very dynamic in the landscape as well all right coming in here at number eight we got Acer pum kurohime this is a classic from Japan fairly new plant but it’s still a classic that smaller Habit to it um love the color patterns it gets to it you really get a lot of cool pinks with this one I love it for kind of that Midsummer when you get the dynamic Greener color you get going on on the older growth with that pinkish New Growth this one’s typically four to five foot even in 10 years making it a nice compact tree with a lot of interest yeah Kuru 2 has a unique upright habit and at a young age It just fits in a small space fairly well not giving a lot of height it’s going to block some Vision but fits in that small garden extremely well I have noticed with some of our older specimens at buol Nursery which are some of the oldest trees uh of Kuru in the country they can get some width to them with age and so it’ll actually have an upright habit but then start becoming more shrub likee as it ages is the pink spring color is very dynamic in the early spring when it first leaves out and the blue green color gets Midsummer is exceptional but the purple New Growth that’s almost like a black purple over top of that during the summer is to me what makes this tree really stand out it gives you some summer interest that you don’t get out of many other trees and in that small compact form it really steals the show in that summertime all right y’all coming in here at number seven we’ve got a coral bark on this list this is a fun dwarf compact coral bark named by Talon buckolz we’ve got Acer pomatum little Sango now this one’s going to work zone 6 through n nice compact habit typically 5 foot tall 5 foot wide tends to grow in a little bit more of a globe shape uh there’s there’s a couple different brooms on Coral barks this might be the smallest of them all though now with little Sango it gives you the bark interest that many Sango Kaku and typical Coral barks have that everyone loves you know they give you that bright red bark that really brighten up that winter drab landscape and little Sango does that in a smaller compact form fitting in the small garden really well fitting in containers again make sure you give it good drainage and this is going to be a tree that can give you some Dynamic interest in that winter landscape I love it guys this is a great PL for the container garden but we’re talking about the small the small garden today so this one fits perfect in that container that setting too uh in the ground now if you have a a need for a coral bark you want some you want some winter interest you want that lush green spring color that golden yellow fall color that you get with sangu Kaku but you don’t have space for a 20ft tree little Sango fits that perfectly it’s going to give you that miniature coral bark uh you know you’re going to get that same winter interest put in a more multi- stemmed approach too so it gives you a lot of what you like down low if you like Coral barks it gives you more branching of that in a smaller setting absolutely perfect uh as a Japanese maple as opposed to something like a red twig dogwood you’re going to get fall color spring color all the beauty of a Japanese maple but also that bark interest in the winter which I think’s just unbeatable I mean I love this for small area Gardens um especially as you get like a like a nice round hedge of one of these you can really get some nice shapes to this and uh you’ll really remember this plant it’s easy to maintain it’s easy to grow and it’s one that’s going to stand out in the landscape now coming to number six we have Acer palum Rhode Island red and this is you know people think of the Bloodgood upright red Japanese maple this has that style Leaf but in a compact tight form so if you’re looking for a red Japanese maple with that big leaf but you have a small garden Rhode Island red fits that really well typically reaching 4 to 5T in height by 5 to 6 foot in width in 10 years and a very dense compact shrub like habit you know I’m second guessing this one I I should have put it higher up on the list I think this one could have moved up higher for me had I really thought about it I love what this one brings to the table I mean a lot of people are looking for a dwarf blood good they look for that that upright red but then they figure out how big blood good gets and they’re like I don’t want that that’s too big for my garden I I can’t have a tree that size and R Island Red’s the perfect substitute for that you’re still getting that blood good size Leaf you’re still getting that blood good amazing bright red fall color but it has a nice compact dense full Habit to it absolutely love rhod Island red I think it’s beautiful in a container it really fills out a container and gives you everything you want I mean we grow this and we get one at a 10 gallon you don’t have to do anything to it and by the time it gets to a 10 gallon it’s just the perfect tree like you look at that you’re like that’s perfect you don’t need to shape it it’s dense it’s full it’s it’s compact it’s round it’s got everything you want put that your landscape you’re can to have a little miniature tree right there it’s just perfect looking now Rhode Island red has that shape that everyone always wants in their Garden I mean it’s got that compact form and that bigger blood good style leaf and you don’t have to prune it to get it that shape no maintenance no maintenance it’s it’s perfect it’s got that perfect shape all naturally all by itself so it’s a for the low maintenance landscape it’s easy to grow and it’s beautiful those big red leaves that everyone loves with a blood good but in a small compact habit a selection by Rhode Island nursery and they found it at their Nursery in Rhode Island but most people think it’s named after the chicken the little Rhode Island red cuz it’s got that compact form love it man I’m thinking about getting into chickens price eggs keeps going up me they’ been talking about chickens so I don’t know maybe I need some rad all and red chickens I saw them on the list of best chickens so might be might be thinking about having a chicken coop next to my Rhode Island red Japanese maple out here too beautiful plant guys I I love it and again typically 5 foot tall maybe 6ot even in a 15year span equally as wide so you’re getting just a nice Globe shape there in the garden and and one that you’re not going to have to maintain that for it just grows that way naturally so I could have been talked into putting this higher up on the list I love it Rhode Island red here at number six so now we’re into our top five Japanese maples for compact Gardens guys for small space Gardens some Heavy Hitters here some great plants if you’re watching this on uh YouTube let us know in the comment section your top five if you’re listening to this on a podcast platform go over to Mr Maple friends on Facebook you know join the conversation there with us let us know your top five Japanese maples for compact spaces let’s get into it Tim and number five we’ve got the infamous the great Shaina now Shaina was named after our friend Billy schwarz’s daughter Shaina it’s Hebrew for beautiful and sha was found as a witch’s broom by Dick Wolf at the University of Villanova campus the Department of Public Safety there’s this dwarf mutation that happened in a red upright Japanese Maple and basically given to Billy Schwarz to sort of introduce and is introduced jointly through Red Maple nurseries we talked about earlier it has a compact form that is amazing and just some really nice red color Dr cre calls us as best red Japanese maple for Texas so it’s hard to not have it on our list when he sings his Praises so well he’s growing trees there in nakad docious you know noad docious there in Eastern Texas they do have those High Pine covers but he absolutely loves Shaina you know make sure it’s got good drainage but beautiful small compact red typic 4×4 and more of a globe shape it’s one of the quintessential red brooms you’ll find on a Japanese maple and there’s a lot of red brooms we can talk about we we’re also getting into ones that are frequently available on Mr Maple ones you can find in the trade I love Shaina great pink red fall color dense compact now it has that witches broom that short and Center node so the middle Leaf is kind of the middle part of the node is kind of missing so you kind of get that bubbly appearance to it which I think is really unique it gives it a a more interesting texture going on especially in the small area Garden where you can get up and interact with this kind of plant and it is one of the slowest growing red compact Japanese maples in the landscape and garden now it can give you some pink red colors on new growth in the spring and during the summer and the Fall colors are just amazing on this dwarf compact form as well making it a tree that’s heavily desired for that small garden Shaina coming at number five it’s a crowd favorite and you’re going to love it as well all right number four we’ve got Acer palum kohime that’s why would you say uh kohime is different than miraki kohime interesting question Matt kohime has a more lateral growth and stays a little bit shorter than miraki kohime which has a more semi-upright and compact form they’re both Compact and dense but kohime definitely has more lateral growth to it where miraki kohime has a semi-upright and horizontal habit so you’ll see a miraki q Hees as the mature they’ve got a little more upright slightly upright shape where Koh are going to be a little bit flatter towards the ground see that that’s how this guy’s one of the top experts in the world right there you see that former president North American Maple Society Tim Nichols young guy don’t mistake him for not experienc he knows stuff put on spot guy’s an expert here Lo stuff I love Q him me that that purple border is exquisite in the early spring the heat tolerance to this one excellent um durability shape and color are excellent for this one we call it toad stool Maples a lot you know Ken was joking on when he was on our podcast one of our friends from Alabama about this being a toad stool shape he talked about being a toad stool and it kind of is more of that small Dome like think of this one 4 foot tall 5 to 6 foot wide great for putting under a window or something where you don’t want any height like it’s not going to be a plant unless you manipulate the shape greatly now you can stake any Maple and change the size of them I’ll let people know you can I’ve seen trees Chang in Japan you know ukiam that are 30ft tall because they’ve been Stak continuously and all kinds of funky stuff but unless you’re doing something interesting do this one’s never going to be more than four to 5ot tall even really mature specimens I’ve seen of this I’ve seen 50-year-old specimens this maybe 5 foot tall in even 50 years now they get some width to them but they’re not going to put on a ton of height I mean there’s some beautiful specimens from the one that was at grismill Landscaping to the one that Maple Walk if you go check out our Maple Walk video it it is an amazing tree it’s heat to it has really small leaves it’s been really popular for bonesy because the early Springtime the purple red border compact form it almost looks like little flowers out there in the landscape it’s heavily desired for containers because it just makes such a beautiful spring interest container out there in the garden but it’s easy to grow it’s extremely beautiful and it’s nice width means it’s one of those trees that you can put out you know underneath your window out there and it’s not going to grow up and block that view which is really important in the garden because you know when you’re inside a house your window is often your view of enoy your garden from inside your home and that’s why I put you on the spot with the miraki kohime versus Kim that’s a layup for you I know it was an easy question for you but that arching up does make mirak Kim a little bit bigger long term than kohi why we pick this one for that smaller area Garden the height is a little bit less here now I will say that I have seen kohime and kohime atusa those are the same plant so if you see those out there or see that extra a word at the end of kohime Just note that’s the exact same plant we’re talking about it’s a tree it’s going to be easy free to to grow really beautiful and really durable out there in the garden all right guys number three we picked Acer pomatum golden Falls now we easily could have picked any of the different rayuse styles it’s fun to get a little bit more color in the garden here so we’re picking a yellow golden Falls is everything you love about rayuse and everything you love about cat Sur and then blend them together I I love this plant uh much like rayuse say uh you tend to stake this one for its height so if you don’t stake this one up tends to be a little bit more of a ground cover which can be really useful in the small area landscape so if you have a small garden you don’t want a lot of height pretty easy start out with a low graft on this and don’t stake it up you can get a pretty cool ground cover a lot of good width going on here without a lot of hiy and it gives you that yellow color out there in the landscape so well and because of its heavily cascading pendulous habit you know what it’s going to do so often people will stake this tree up to 6 to 8 foot and let it Cascade and have this fountain-like effect out there in the garden which is extremely beautiful and heavily desired among many people and you add the colors that golden Falls provide out there in the landscape as well that springtime when it’s golden yellow with a red border like Katura and then after that you get that yellow color in the landscape that I love so much about summer gold that I mentioned earlier but on this weeping habit you have a tree that really puts on a show and becomes a specimen that everyone’s going to talk about now if you’re in a small area garden and you have any kind of elevation change this is a great plant for a bank and kind of let it take the bank a little bit kind of let it weep down the bank or hang over a rock so you don’t NE neily have to have Garden space for this one you can actually have it hang over a crevice over a rock in the garden you you can really get creative with the siding of this one because it’s so malleable now if you have a small area Garden where you don’t have a lot of room for elevation change this type of shape is also very useful because it evokes that kind of mountainous terrain look to it so you can create different especially when in leaf different kind of plateaus with the ey so you can kind of look at the Garden and get these little Mounds going on so you might not have a lot of room for you know changing around your whole landscape and building you know all these areas for top areas but with something like golden Falls you can actually get a very creative and and have some different flow kind of take the eye through the garden rather than everything being the same kind of tier now coming at number two we’ve got a newer Japanese maple one of the newer trees that got up pretty high on our list we’ve got the red lion’s head that’s Acer palum Kai gishi absolutely love it Kai gishi uh beautiful typically four to five foot making it one of the smaller ones on this list durable uh really leavs out a bold red you can get some Greener older growth in it Midsummer but then kind of red highlights over it interesting twist to the leaf I love it in the fall though I talk about this a lot but the fall reminds me a lot of Shish kashir that’s when it actually I think the is is in that lion’s head family the most in the fall this thing can just light up with orange with red and yellow throughout it giving it kind of the same kind of essence of fall that you get from shishi gashira in a small compact habit perfect tree for Bonsai perfect tree for small area container gardening and therefore great for the small area Garden it’s not going to take up a lot of room it’s going to bring High interest and again a lot of interest that’s easy to interact with like I think this is a tree that I like to plant somewhere near a pathway near an area where I’m going to be close to it I like to walk up and actually look at this plant you know it’s not one of those plants I need like on a bank or Hillside I need this up close where I can interact with it and that’s kind of what some of the small area Gardens do you want plants that are going to be intimate they’re closen your interaction level in a small garden now with K iishi you’re going to want to give it some sunlight that really Peaks up some of the colors you know you can really get some of those brick Reds out of K iishi with that brick bold red that you don’t get out of many other Japanese maples the color is unique itself but the twisting Leaf is really where it gets the name of it’s got that people think that shishi kir like Habit to me I I remember when this was the tree every nurseryman was after they there was rumors of the red lion’s head in Japan and everybody was chasing after it our friend masio shano who had World Maple Park good friend of ours who passed away recently you know an expert when it comes to Japanese maples this was found by one of his friends and he put that name Kishi on it and when it came over to the United States about 2008 it hit the market and it’s been super popular ever since because it is so dynamically beautiful I remember being in New Jersey at Ed shins when he had one of the first ones in the ground and us taking photos of his tree and it was just one of those trees I was just like that is so beautiful that is amazing and you know we got that tree and got it into production and it is one of those trees that fits in that small garden it doesn’t take up a lot of width and it just becomes one of those trees that is uniquely special that grabs your attention and you know that’s why we have Gardens you make them interesting that’s why we love gardening and this is one of those trees that’s going to make your garden interesting believe it’s Mark weon who we’ve interviewed on here it says Life’s too short for boring plants couldn’t agree more it’s a great quote coming here at number one a lot of you guys can guess it it’s number one on a lot of list for a lot of good reasons it’s the maawa atusa it’s King maawa no shocker here a lot of people call the office I used to be the number one person that answer the phone so I used to answer the phones first here at Mr Maple thank God we’ve got a great staff now so I don’t have to answer the phone first thank you that’s my favorite thing that’s ever happened but I did love the interactions and one of the one of the things that people would ask pretty frequently even when they called the middle of the night people called it used to be my cell phone so if they called I got the phone 11:30 and I’d answer it too but anyway people call and they would say I’m looking for a Bonsai Tree I want to plant a bonsai tree in my yard and I got so tired of explaining that so many different trees could be used for Bonsai I just say yeah we grow those it’s called maau yets ausa and for most people that’s perfectly what they’re looking for because small it’s compact it’s got a dense Habit to it it’s got interesting structure it’s one of the perfect trees for the small area garden now me many of youall may be familiar with our top five Japanese maples that we do on the Mr Maples show on YouTube but we’ve been asking people their favorite Japanese maples for years in fact Matt made the when he was uh on the board for the executive branch before he was the actual president of the maple Society he also made the maple of the Year program with the North American branch of the maple Society so basically people would vote on their favorite tree each year the board would make some recommendations and then the whole membership was supposed to vote on what they like best and this is Academia nurserymen and maple collectors from all over the United States mawi at tabuso won the very first award in 2014 doubled up everything else too on the votes yeah I mean it is an amazing tree it’s easy to grow it’s beautiful it gives that Lively feel but the texture of that tightly layering larger Green Leaf that’s that chartreuse green is so appealing and so interesting as a dwarf compact form y’all MAA had the Boost if you don’t have it try to get it because we T always try to offer this on mrmaple.com and make this tree available it’s one of our favorite dwarf Japanese maples for that small garden now you know we’re doing tons of variations this from Mona to red panda there’s all kinds of interesting variations on it maau is the first though and it’s so awesome like whenever I would ask nurserymen their favorite uh their favorite tree they’d be like I don’t know kid get out of here but then they would say well if it really put me on the spot maybe mawi had saboa that was most people’s answer like if people really thought about what their favorite Japanese maple was you know it’s like nine out of 10 times nurer come back and said probably maawa and it’s for good reason it’s heat tolerant it’s durable uh it’s not the fastest growing plants it’s not like the money maker of like oh this gets 20 foot in 5 years and you can sell a giant one for a ton of money it’s really not that it’s a slow growing long-term investment in the garden but once you have a mature uh mawi atusa you know anything over 10 years had such a presence in the landscape you get a 10e maau and Landscape people really gravitate to that even on a leaf it has such an interesting architecture to it you know it’s one that’s typically only about 5 foot tall in 10 years you get think of that 20 foot range and you’ve got you know or 20-year range you’ve got a talking piece in the garden that people are just in awe of yeah MAA at abusa it’s so interesting in that 10 to 15E range you’ll often have a tree that puts up different almost like arms out there in the landscape and with that tightly layering hat it looks like a lively green creature out there so it’s one of those plants that everyone just instantly falls in love with because it seems animal and creature alike out there while also looking like a big bonesa I mean you add that stuff together and it’s just a really cool tree to add a unique interest I’ve actually had MAA was talk to me in the garden it’s it’s something people don’t talk about it’s like I’m like the like the doctor doitt of maaas they will they interact with me they actually do speak to me in the garden so guys I love today’s list uh these are trees for small compact spaces if you love Japanese maples you got to be subscribed to our podcast we talk about cool and interesting plants every single week on the podcast we put out seven days a week content on the Mr Maple show on YouTube also go to your favorite podcast platform give us five stars uh it’s a great way for other gardeners to find us we really appreciate if you share it with other gardeners as well we’re a niche market here so we love it when you take this and you say hey let me send this to my East meinberg Garden Club you know I’ve got a group here of people who would probably like to hear about these trees for small compact Gardens that that that helps us out so much so we really appreciate it thank you all for jumping in today take care God bless and have a great day [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music]