I never trusted myself with Japanese maples: thought the climate was too cold to reliably grow those elegant small trees other than perhaps one or two varieties. So when it came on the market I snatched up the charming Acer pseudosieboldianum, or Korean maple, reliably hardy well into Zone 5. This rounded small tree (to 20 feet or so) puts my various potted Japanese maples to shame come fall, coloring first to a butterscotch tone then an insane red. Delightful. One caveat: The Korean maple doesn’t shed its faded leaves, at least not here, so they persist in curled-up tan-colored condition to spring, when the pushing buds force the old leaves off the tree. Some people don’t like this; I think of it as winter color and A. pseudosieboldianum and I live happily together. I especially love not having to wheel it in a huge pot inside the barn as I do each of its more-tender Japanese cousins, who are about to scream for shelter any day now.
Margaret .. I am so HAPPY to have run across your blog and especially about the Korean Maple tree !
I had a problem spot that has been driving me crazy .. an old lilac well past being helped back to the land of the living .. it just has to go ..
A corner spot that needed privacy screening .. for some other tree to tick all these boxes , be appropriate sizing for a small garden and look that fabulous in Autumn .. well I am so happy I can’t even tell you. Now all I have to do is FIND one in the Spring here in Kingston at one of the garden centers or a nursery and successfully plant it with having it be “happy” in its new home .. a pure gardener’s moment might just happen .. and it is down to you !
Thank you : )
Joy
@Joy: Thanks for the good words, and I bet you can ask for one to be found for you in time for spring. I would place a call or two now and tell them you want one; I always do that with things I want a nursery to find for me, and that gives them plenty of time. See you soon again!