Advisability please, of planting Japanese maple in Austin?

--
Catbird

"Oh-oh, her schizo is about to phrenia" - Bob Hope

Catbird wrote:
Advisability please, of planting Japanese maple in Austin?

Depends on the soil conditions, location, and varietal. Your best bet would
be on areas with clay, ammended with crushed granite and compost, in the
shade and using a non-grafted tree. It will likely suffer in the summer, even
if you water it regularly. Ours has ever single leaf curled up on the edges
due to heat stress.
If you like maples, a good option is a bigtooth maple from the Hill Contry.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message
...
Catbird wrote:
Advisability please, of planting Japanese maple in Austin?

Depends on the soil conditions, location, and varietal. Your best bet
would
be on areas with clay, ammended with crushed granite and compost, in the
shade and using a non-grafted tree. It will likely suffer in the summer,
even
if you water it regularly. Ours has ever single leaf curled up on the
edges
due to heat stress.
If you like maples, a good option is a bigtooth maple from the Hill
Contry.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv


Thanks. My daughter desires all thing Japanese, including this beautiful
little tree. I've seen some lovely examples at the Fort Worth Japanese
Botanical Garden. The spot I was thinking of is not in the shade in the
afternoon and next to a hot driveway to boot. I guess the heat and sun would
not make it happy (but the back yard might be perfect). I'm trying to find
something to plant in that corner of the driveway and sidewalk, about 3 feet
in. Big Tooth sounds very nice but may be too close to driveway.
--
Catbird

"Oh-oh, her schizo is about to phrenia" - Bob Hope

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:42:13 GMT, "Catbird"
wrote:


"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message
...
Catbird wrote:
Advisability please, of planting Japanese maple in Austin?

Victor's experience notwithstanding, you probably won't have much luck
planting any maples but the bigtooth in Austin. They need acidity;
we've got alkalinity. There are so many diff jap maples out there
that you might find some variety that is more suitable than most. As
maples go, at least you'd have a fighting chance with the jap maples,
since they are small enough that you could regularly acidify the root
zone.

Keith
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