All About Japanese Maples | Ask This Old House

[Music] japanese maples are some of the most beautiful and imposing trees in a landscape i absolutely love them and i have six at my own house [Music] japanese maples are not native to north america they are native to japan and there they've developed many different cultivars so they're all called acer palmatum they all have this palmate leaf the leaf of five but there are several different cultivars with growing habits some grow outward this one is a more dwarf variety this is your classic blood good japanese maple has that brilliant red color you see it in a lot of landscapes around here so there's different varieties uprights some that grow more outward and dwarf and then ones that cascade down japanese maples grow in zones five to eight and they also prefer partial shade there are many reasons i would use a japanese maple in a landscape plan in this application i love that it's the perfect understory tree that it really gives scale to this building it's a transition between the building and the grounds so that's definitely a good choice and then the one we have over here is a thread leaf japanese maple and completely different characteristic of growing it arches over and it has this gentle slope of of its branches and it's an amazing focal point and where i like to place it is near a water feature or a pond or somewhere to reflect it's beautiful japanese maples should be pruned in either the winter or summer you don't want to prune it in the spring because all the new leaves are emerging and sap will be coming out so it's safest to do winter or summer winter you see the overall shape of the tree so you can see the whole branching structure without the leaves and then in the summertime you have the opportunity to see the foliage and where that's going to shoot out and land so this tree is gorgeous but there's just the one piece that kind of gets in the way for me personally so what you're going to do is take your bypass pruners that cross over each other and you know if you're nervous at first just do a small snip but i know where i want to go so i'm going to go right back to where it meets the other two branches and just at an angle give it a little and one clip can improve the overall shape if you're looking to add character to your landscape i would recommend a japanese maple that fits your space thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed

Channel: This Old House

Views: 102,404

Rating: 4.8624482 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, DIY, Construction, Home Improvement, Ask This Old House, Building, Jenn Nawada, landscaping, trees

Id: vdyxiaYIF8A

Length: 3min 5sec (185 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021