Hello, I have been collecting Japanese Maples for the past three years and I am brand new to this forum, actually this is my very first post. My wife and I bought our home about six years ago and at the time knew nothing about landscaping or Japanese Maples. Now we are hooked and love landscaping and we have a real passion for Japanese Maples. We are on our city's pond and garden tour and many of our visitors asked us to post pictures of our yard to Flickr. This past summer I finally got a chance to create a photo tour of our yard. At the time of the pictures we were up to 34 different varieties of Japanese Maples. Currently we are up to 45 and growing. You can view the slide show via the following links then click on the slideshow icon on the upper right corner of the Flickr webpage: -Summer pictures and photo tour of our yard- http://www.flickr.com/photos/65934757@N06/sets/72157627216800757/ -Spring pictures- http://www.flickr.com/photos/65934757@N06/sets/72157627668717234/ At the end of the photo tour we have dramatic before and after pictures. I will post fall pictures in the coming month. Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy the pictures! (I have attached one of the photos from my photo tour)
Welcome to the forum. What a pretty garden, I'm sure it must bring lots of pleasure; I enjoyed browsing. Thanks for posting it. cheers, -E
Thank you! We feel our back yard was the best investment and these days it’s the only investment that grows. We use it as our outdoor living room during the spring and summer. I'm glad you enjoyed browsing and thank you for your feedback. Take care, JT
Well this is just stunning. You have some lucky neighbors! Great color combinations and those pics are razor sharp. I obviously see lots of hostas and ferns - What are some of the other favorite JM companion plants that you have used? Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! We like to use contrasting color and texture in our garden. Because of the small space we like to use dwarf, rare and unusual plants to give our garden a larger feel. My wife is from the Bahamas, so I wanted our garden to be lush and colorful (but not tropical by any stretch of the imagination) to make my wife feel at home. At night our garden takes on a new life as landscape lights illuminate the landscape, giving many of the Japanese maple leaves a translucent appearance. Because our garden is a 4 season garden, we like to use plants that will give year round interest. I also like to incorporate small plantings in front and behind my Japanese maples. I feel it gives an element of depth and surprise. Some things you don’t even notice until you stop and look or sit down on the patio. I try to use colors that you don’t commonly find strongly present in Japanese maples (blue, deep yellow, white) and textures that will contrast the Japanese maples leaf. I also like to use a lot of stone. Not only as a boarder, but incorporated into the landscape. The things I like about incorporating a cool rock into your plantings are their one of a kind, hardy in any zone, can handle any lighting conditions, and they stay the same no matter the season. Some of my favorite choices in companion plantings are: Ginkgo biloba 'Jade Butterflies' –Cool leaf shape and color, interesting bark, great fall color Acer griseum – Paper bark, cool leaf shape and an unusual green summer color, great fall color, bark reflects landscape lighting making a neat effect at night Amelanchier X grandiflora 'Robin Hill' – Privacy along the back of our property, loaded with beautiful spring flowers, berries have a good flavor if birds don’t eat them first, cool silver bark Betula pendula ‘Youngi’ – Beautiful weeping growth habit, hides my neighbor’s garage, provides shade and year round interest Hypericum × moserianum 'Tricolor' – Amazing color. Small yellow flowers in the summer Daphne burkwoodii 'Carol Mackie' – Spring flowers smell amazing by the patio, interesting growth habit and bark. hinoki cypress varieties – Too many to name – love the texture and varieties of greens and yellows. Very slow growing Japanese grass varieties (Blood grass is one of my favorites) Dwarf Japanese white pine varieties Golden Ruby Barberry – interesting spring color, very cool variegated leaf develops in the summer Magic carpet spirea – Deep red new growth on top of yellow green mature growth, great deep red fall color Mouse Ears Hosta – Blue and variegated varieties Japanese Painted and ghost ferns and many other varieties White Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Snow' Brunnera varieties Lamium maculatum Weigela florida ‘My Monet’ Euonymus fortunei Yellow Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Golden Mop' Golden Nugget Dwarf Japanese Barberry Buxus sempervirens 'Variegata' Ilex crenata 'Drops of Gold' Juniperus horizontalis 'Mother Lode' Blue weeping blue atlas cedar Juniperus scopulorum 'Blue Haven' Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star' Blue Rug Juniper Elijah blue fescue Black Black Mondo Grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus Nigrescens
Well, thanks again. Scrolling through these pictures re-inspires me to get out there and try some new things in the garden. Also nice to see this thrive in a midwest climate somehat close to myself. A couple of last questions: 1) do any of those companion plants do particulary well in shade - my place is largely under a canopy of trees. 2) What is that great weeping evergreen - The one in the first pic that you posted in the thread itself. I think I saw another in the flickr album with the lower branches pruned off to give it an umbrella look
I will get a list together over the weekend. To answer question #2, I believe you are referring to the Green Japanese Juniper. It is normally an evergreen ground cover, but it's grafted on a standard, so it spreads and cascades down searching for the ground. I keep mine trimmed to keep an interesting effect, but I have seen some that are allowed to grow down to the ground. It's since been moved to the front yard. Please see the attached photo.