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greentiger87

Japanese Maples in containers - I have no idea what I'm doing...

greentiger87
11 years ago

On a whim, I bought some Japanese Maple "saplings" on clearance (2.00 each!) late last summer from a nursery. They were really tall (like over three feet), but grown bunched up in tiny, tall containers. Looked healthy enough though. I've never grown a maple of any kind before, and I really have no idea what I'm doing.

I transplanted into my first, flawed iteration of the gritty mix, in which I used unscreened decomposed granite. I think I just got lucky that this resembles JM's natural habitat. I think?

The leaves burned and dropped after the midsummer transplant. They looked dead. But erupted back into life this spring.

What I think was thrips damage made the second flush of new leaves look very ugly. I chopped the trees in half and pruned off the damaged foliage to hopefully get less leggy growth. Did I mention I have no idea what I'm doing?

So my question to you gurus of growing containerized JM's is.. should I keep these? Do they have any potential? Did I ruin them already? I've grown attached, despite my horrible treatment of them.

They're mostly in shade, but get occasional dappled sunlight throughout the day. Fertilized when I get around to it with dyna-gro, and lately Miracle Gro + Cal-Mag. I have a lot of old Miracle Gro I need to use up.

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