Thursday, November 02, 2006

Autumn Moon

This is a picture of the fall foliage of our Acer shirasawanum Autumn Moon; it is rather faster growing, fortunately, than the golden full moon maple, and should be bigger, at perhaps 15 feet. It's spring foliage, as mentioned in yesterday's post, displays a wash of pink-orange. The full moon maples in general, are quite a bit hardier than the palmatums; I don't think I've had so much as a twig die in winter so far, on my full moon, golden full moon, or Autumn Moon maples. There are limits, though; I read a garden message board posting recently from some poor soul in Minnesota who last fall went to the Minneapolis arboretum plant sale, and paid $125 for a large golden full moon maple, which he planted in his yard, apparently with no special protection. In the spring it was deader than a dodo. Now, Japanese maples are rather shallow rooted, and I don't think I'd plant one even here, in the fall; at least not without wrapping it up like a mummy and burying it in mulch, and watering it until the ground froze solid. I was pleased to see though, that the fellow in Minneapolis was a true, intrepid, upper midwest gardener; he was planning on going to the arboretum's spring sale the next day.Posted by Picasa

Comments:
Oh, my word that is a beautiful tree! I know from experience that many of the arboretums and botanic gardens buy many of the plants they sell at a wholesale place. For years it was my job at the Memphis Botanic garden to remove the wholesale tag and replace it with a marked up tag with MBG on it! Folks think the garden grew it, but they could get it 40% cheaper down the street!
 
Sissy... wow, that's interesting about arboretums reselling commercial plants; I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I know the prices are pretty sky-high.
Don
 
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