Few ornamental trees match these maples in terms of leaf color. Leaf color: A characteristic of all Japanese maples-including dwarf ones-is their colorful foliage. The smallest dwarf Japanese maples are around 3 ft. Height: Most people grow dwarf Japanese maples for their compact sizes. Here are some facts about choosing a dwarf Japanese maple tree: There is height, leaf color, leaf shape, growth habit, and growing zone to consider. There are many types of dwarf Japanese maple trees to suit every gardenįive main factors can affect your choice of dwarf Japanese maple tree. Descriptions and pictures of Japanese maple tree leaves will help you decide on the best kind for your garden landscape. This article describes the features of the best dwarf Japanese maples that you can buy.
These small, elegant trees with cascading, drooping branches are perfect where garden space is limited. There are also some spectacular varieties of dwarf weeping Japanese maple trees to choose from. Other dwarf Japanese maples have leaves with five to seven lobes, like traditional maple trees. Some small Japanese maple trees have lacy, feathery leaves that have a spiky look. Different dwarf Japanese maple varieties have different colored leaves. There are many types of compact Japanese maple trees to plant in your yard. Typically, dwarf varieties of Japanese maples grow between 3 and 10 ft. A stunning feature of dwarf Japanese maples is their red, orange, yellow, purple, green, and pink leafy foliage. Small varieties of Japanese maples are ideal for small gardens, growing in containers, or miniature lawn trees. Kept outdoors they drop all foliage in autumn, coming back into full, vigorous growth in spring.Email Pinterest Facebook Twitter Linkedinĭwarf Japanese maple trees are small decorative landscape trees with colorful ornamental palmate leaves. Kept indoors they will keep their leaves for most of the year – dropping some, or all, of their foliage for brief periods, usually in response to the diminishing light and temperature levels that occur in autumn. The Chinese Elm is exceptional as it may be cultivated indoors or outdoors. The trees we classify as indoor may be grown indoors as they require a minimum temperature of 50F / 10C, and would therefore not tolerate winter conditions in the UK. Many bonsai styles are listed on our ‘Bonsai Styling’ page.Īll trees, whether cultivated in pots or in the open ground, grow naturally outdoors in their country of origin.
Although the ‘rules’ set out a framework for bonsai it is important to remember that they are just guidelines and ultimately your bonsai is your piece of art, so you can style it how you wish. The art of Bonsai has been practiced for centuries and rules for styling and shaping have been passed down over time.
It is always growing and changing and opening up possibilities for styling and shaping. Just like a garden, a bonsai is never finished, never fixed in time to look and feel exactly the same. How one chooses to practice bonsai is very much up to the individual and provided the horticultural needs of the tree are being met, the tree should continue to grow and change over time. Many view it simply as a horticultural pastime one that requires no more than a little common garden sense and a measure of artistic creativity. Some people interpret the care of bonsai on a transcendental level as the intermingling of spirits and a way to communicate with and feel connected to the earth. The smaller the leaves the bigger the branches appear and this is very desirable when creating a bonsai.
In bonsai we try to mimic these naturally occurring shapes and the scale of the trunk and branches to the leaves.
A full size tree may have have literally thousands of leaves per branch and the weight of the foliage weighs the branches down to create interesting shapes. Bonsai is an attempt at creating the perfect miniature of a large tree (one you may see in a woodland). Of course the art of bonsai is a much larger topic and requires a bit more explanation than the simple translation above. This may be a simplified way of summing up the cultivation of the miniature tree, however it does hit the nail on the head, so to speak. The literal translation of the word ‘Bonsai’ means ‘tree in pot’.