Growing Japanese Maples in Colder Climates

If you are growing Japanese maples in pots, keep in mind that potted plants lose one zone of hardiness because of the cold air circulating around the pot and the plant’s roots. Keep the potted Japanese maple outdoors, but in cold climates you can bury larger pots in the ground over winter if possible, or keep them in an area that is protected from cold, drying winds and cover the pot with leaves to provide more protection. Snow cover is especially helpful in preventing the root ball from becoming too cold. A tree that is in a pot that holds less than five gallons of soil may also be kept inside an unheated garage or shed, away from windows. A smaller pot will not provide enough protection from the cold to survive outdoors, but it must still be kept cold enough that the plant will go dormant and stay dormant until Spring.

Japanese maples that are in the ground should always be given a blanket of mulch over their roots. The mulch will help maintain moisture levels in the soil and help prevent the roots from becoming too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Make sure the mulch isn't piled up around the trunk where it would keep the bark too moist and encourage disease and insect problems. Keep the mulch a few inches deep over the root zone, but no closer than four inches from the trunk.

Because Japanese maples need to go dormant, they will have a hard time surviving in climates where the weather doesn't get cold enough for dormancy. They will also have difficulty growing in areas where the temperature drops below 10 degrees Fahrenheit for a length of time. However, some have had good success growing Japanese maples outside of the suggested growing zones of 5-9. 

If you live in a zone 4 climate but you have an area in your yard that tends to stay a bit warmer than the rest of your property, you might have luck growing Japanese maples in that spot. If the plants in that corner of your yard tend to survive early frosts longer than plants elsewhere in your yard, it’s possible that a Japanese maple could survive there too. Alternately, if you have an unheated garage or shed, you could try growing Japanese maples in pots and bringing them indoors to the unheated building once they go dormant. Do not allow the plant to dry out completely over winter. Give it some water, but not too much, about once a month to keep it from desiccating.

One problem to be aware of if you are growing Japanese maples is spring weather that arrives too early, followed by an extended cold snap. If the weather turns warm too soon, causing the trees to leaf out early, there is the danger of the tree being damaged or even killed if freezing weather returns again. Warm spring weather causes the sap to flow up from the roots into the tree, and if this sap becomes frozen it can cause the trees’ bark to split, resulting in the demise of the tree. 

We can’t do much to change the weather forecast, but if your tree has leafed out early and an extended spell of freezing weather is expected, you might try constructing a shelter around small Japanese maples to protect them from the cold, drying wind. As added protection, keep an incandescent light bulb burning inside the shelter to maintain a higher temperature for the tree. This attempt to prevent damage to the tree would be worth the extra effort.

Whether you are growing just one Japanese maple as a specimen plant in your garden, or if you have a Japanese maple collection, these delightful trees will surely become sort of pets and will bring many years of satisfaction to their proud owners.

Garden Design - Water and Drainage II

What to do when you have poor drainage

Poorly drained soil doesn’t mean that you can’t grow a good garden. It only means that you have to pay special attention to drainage and select appropriate plants as you plan your garden. There are many options for working with soil that is persistently or periodically wet.

1.       Level out low-lying areas? Fill them with good quality topsoil. Fill small areas by hand or rent a skid steer loader, such as a Bobcat, to fill and grade larger areas.

2.       Amend tight clay soil: Spread a 4 to 6-inch layer of organic matter and rototill or dig it in 12 inches deep.

3.       Use raised beds: to grow plants that need more soil depth than your site provides. We’ll be discussing on how to build a raised bed in future articles.

4.       Contour the site: with berms and swales. A berm is a low, rolling hill that sits above the surrounding soil level and channels the water’s flow. A swale is an open grassy drainage ditch, with sloping sides, that carries away excess water. Use berms and swales together in areas where standing water is a frequent problem. Building berms and swales requires the use of a skid steer loader, backhoe or bulldozer.

5.       Create a dry creek bed lined with rock. A dry creek bed functions like a swale, carrying away excess water. Ornamental grasses, ferns and other plants with well-defined textures look smashing when massed along a dry creek bed.

6.       Make a bog garden in an area that stays permanently damp. In addition to accommodating interesting plans such as willows, sedge and Japanese iris, bog gardens attract aquatic loving wildlife such as dragonflies, frogs and turtles.

7.       Install a French drain: This is an underground drainage system made of 4-inch wide perforated pipe which is laid in a bed of gravel 2 feet below the surface. Because water flows downhill, you will need an outlet area such as a drainage ditch that is lower than the area that needs to be drained. A 4-inch wide pipe will drain 25 square feet of area on either side of it.

What are the effects of Poor Drainage?

1.       Soil stays cold and wet in the spring, which delays planting and reduces seed germination

2.       Plants drown due to lack of oxygen in the soil

3.       Plants develop  shallow roots

4.       Roots and crowns rot during the winter

How to test for Drainage

Run this simple test to see how your soil drains. Dig a hole 18 to 24 inches across and the same depth. Fill the hole with water. If water disappears from the hole in 10 minutes or less, you have sandy soil with fast drainage. If the water takes one hour or more to drain away, you have clay soil or an impermeable layer of compacted soil beneath the soil surface (hardpan), and the soil is poorly drained. There are many acceptable variations between these two extremes.

Stay tuned as we continue our series on Designing your site and overcoming or correcting obstacles that may stand in the way of your having the Garden of your Dreams.

Garden Design - Water and Drainage - Introduction

Water and Drainage

It’s impossible to read a seed catalog, garden magazine or book about plants without encountering the subject of drainage. It is always a critical element that affects how a plant adjusts to the place it is grown. The definition of drainage is the movement of water through the soil. Water moving quickly through the soil means that drainage is good or fast. This type of soil is referred to as well-drained. When water moves very slowly, drainage is poor.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have a garden in a poorly drained area. But your choices of plants will have to be limited to species that grow well in in wet soil conditions. There are ways to improve drainage (which we will discuss in further entries). When the soil is very fast-draining and sandy in arid desert regions, one can still support a variety of plants. But again, you must choose plants that adapt to low levels of soil moisture. We will go further into this are as well in the following articles:



Improving Poor Drainage, leveling out low-lying areas, amending tight clay soil, using raised beds, contouring the site, creating a dry creek bed, making a bog garden, installing a French drain, how to test for drainage, and the effects of poor drainage.

At Leaves and Petals we have plants to satisfy both dry/arid and wet conditions. Visit us and check out our vast assortment.

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