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Join Date: Aug-2001
Location: Silicon Valley
Country: USA
Posts: 9,737
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How do I propagate Japanese Maples?
Here are five ways to propagate maples, in order of increasing complexity. - Collect them. If you have a Japanese maple in your neighborhood you are almost certain to find some You may find some young seedlings growing up around the base of a parent tree in springtime. They could be blown a block or two away and appear in planterboxes nearby, wherever the soil is fertile. You'll recognize these young seedlings by their leaf shape and the fact that they will typically have just one or two leaf pairs. Dig 'em up and put them in a growing container!
- Maples grow very easily from seed. Harvest seed after leaves drop. Clusters of ripe, winged seeds will hang from the branches before they fall to be carried on the breeze. Rub the wings off put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator with just a bit of slightly damp paper towel to maintain humidity until late winter. Soak the seeds in some water before planting. Plant about a half-inch deep in a combination of peat and perlite. Not all the seeds will sprout, and the seeds that do will not always exactly resemble the parent plant, but take traits from both parents. You could even wind up with something new!
Some seeds require stratification - storage at low temperature or scarring of the seed coat in order to germinate. Japanese maple and trident maple are pretty easy.
- You can also propagate maples by a technique called air layering. There is more info about that in the same folder. This is a good way to jump-start a collection by harvesting some older, interesting material.
- You can also propagate maple by taking cuttings. There are some hints in the Propagation board here on that explaining how to take cuttings and treat them with rooting hormone. Sometimes bottom heat and frequent misting during the day is required.
- The most common method for propagating special varieties of maple is by grafting. This is an advanced technique, but basically you take cuttings about 1 year of age from the specimen tree and insert them into 1-2 year old seedlings of a common, garden-variety maple. Timing is everything, the cuts need to be extremely sharp, immobilized and kept in a high humidity environment until the grafts "take"
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1-Nov-2001
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