Tiny Japanese Maples

Fig3825 · Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:14 pm

I bought some Japanese Maples from Amazon last fall because I was able to get three of them for $12 or so. At the recommendation of the folks here in the forums, I threw them in the yard to overwinter. In the past 2 weeks I have watched them burst into bud followed by a ton of lovely crimson leaves. The trees range from about 10" tall to about 16" tall. The caliper of the trees is tiny, ranging from about 3/16" to maybe 3/8". They are teeny.

My wife and I are about halfway complete with our new house, which is not where we live now. Ultimately, I'll want to move them to the yard of the new house and might prune them to keep them small (in the future).

What my question NOW is should I just leave them in the ground and water them (how often?) and transplant at the new house when I'm ready or should I transplant them to pots now and plop into the ground when we're ready at the new house? I suspect we'll be moving around the end of June this year.

bullthistle · Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 pm

The option I would use is if you can get 1 gallon pots or even 1/2 milk containers with holes in the bottom and cut in half is to transplant them now and water every other day and set in the shade. Or you can wait unitl fall after they lose their leaves. Plants leafing during transplanting out sometimes for the novice can be a bad time.

Fig3825 · Thu Mar 22, 2012 8:16 am

Okay, I have pots lying around that I can use to transplant them. I also have a shady place I can put them.

Is there a better soil mixture than others I should use or can I just dig up a cylinder of the ground I've planted them in and drop it in a pot? Whatever I need to do, I need to do it quick since the leaves are already out of the buds and growing...

tomc · Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:58 am

Add some coarse sand, or Grani-Grit (poultry scratch), to speed up how fast soil drains and pot them up.

They were planted to feild last fall? The roots are not that married to the soil they are in. Be gentle.

Hold them is shade for a couple weeks post-repotting.

Fig3825 · Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:27 pm

Sounds good. And, yes, they were planted just this past fall. They arrived with the roots wrapped in plastic and had some moisture retention stuff in there to keep the roots wet. So the roots were bare when I put them in the ground. Should be relatively easy to just shovel them out, wash them off, and re-pot them in some better growing media that drains.

Thanks for all the help!