Emery Davis wrote:

Shin deshojo is by all accounts a great tree, sounds like that's what
you have.
You're lucky to have a good one, apparently the cultivar is somewhat
diluted and
there are some around that don't look very flash in springtime.

There are red leaved cultivars of A. palmatum that stay red through
the season:
Okagami, Trompenburg, Fireglow, Bloodgood. But they all tend to fade
a little in the
shade (with maybe the exception of Fireglow), so it's a balance
between leaf burn
and colour loss. Also of course culture counts, it is widely believed
that too much
nitrogen will cause greening.

My Deshojo stays nice and red, it's in pretty heavy shade.

cheers,

-E

I did say red! To my mind, Bloodgood is a rather deep burgundy.
Trompenburg looks a bit better, but not Fireglow or Okagami (although its
autumn colour is good). Some great photos to be found he
http://www.fujiyamagarden.com/showcase.html

My Shindes only gets sun pm in summer (west facing), and is watered twice
daily by timed drip. A couple of years ago I had to cut out a branch which
appeared to get dieback, but since then it seems ok.

The best "purple" palmatums (no idea what they were) I've ever seen were
growing a few hundred yards from the coast near Mystic in Connecticut. Both
were around 30 ft high and across. They looked perfect (early June - temp
was about 27°C), growing in full sun. It's a zone 7 area, they must have
got a lot of salt spray, and in midsummer temperatures must often have
exceeded 35°C. Perhaps not what we would call ideal conditions!

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)