I have seen Japanese maples in South Florida but only in inland area away from the sea air. For me I struggled to grow JM at my old house near the sea. The salt air burned the leaves no matter what I tried. That happened not only with JM but also with many other species including Chinese chestnuts which practically grow anywhere. Once I moved further in land JM grow fine in areas where there is only morning sun.
I am very sure we are in zone 11 here in São Paulo.
My circle of Florida bonsai peeps...can't grow them. Interesting.
Jade plants in water tubs sounds like a bad idea. Acer rubrum can take mostly sun, this one is in filtered sun, but it does love wet feet since it naturally grows in wet soils. Get a big dish or humidity tray and use finer particles of pumice and more organic matter to your bonsai mix. You won't find this at any of the bonsai places because sadly those bonsai shops all kind of suck. They sell cheap soil, cheap pots, and cheap chinese grown plants. I recommend you go to a commercial or native nursery and get a tree. This one was a yamadori sapling, but you can easily get a 3 gal nursery stock if you want to train early, or get a larger container nursery stock with a fat trunk and give it the chop, now is the right time to do it. Lowes sells them too. You can also try to collect one from a swamp forest. I've found that it is a pretty forgiving plant species. Any wetland area in your area will probably have some red maple seedlings, I saw a few near my house the other day.
Also check out Green's nursery in Sorrento. They have a lot of old neglected stock so you might have to hunt through it but they have some good stock as well. Dwarf schefflera, boxwoods, weeping yaupon hollies, chickasaw plums, simpson stopper. Even a few japanese maples.....
Thanks for sharing those. I've been to Greens Nursery and found a treasure there. An abandoned rose that was really special.
Kind of far for me. But thanks for the tip.
Historic records show that minimum temperature ever recorded at sea level is 6 Celsius. I’m at about 50 m above sea level. I have since found a few places around the island where Japanese maples are grown in gardens. Mine is still going strong, despite the fact that the pot fell and broke half of th tree
Yeah...that puts you at a zone 11. I guess...it depends on climate as well. As to a depends factor. As my friends are so envious of our northern Japanese maple bonsai. It just made me pause. But ... trees don't read books.Historic records show that minimum temperature ever recorded at sea level is 6 Celsius. I’m at about 50 m above sea level. I have since found a few places around the island where Japanese maples are grown in gardens. Mine is still going strong, despite the fact that the pot fell and broke half of th tree
I just got a deshojo and a Katsura. Still just stocks in a pot but let’s see what they can handle.
they do their thing.
The natives is really interesting. They have a lot of trees used for bonsai. Fascinating work they're doing. We're both Fl natives and hate to see what's happened to out natural resources.
They need even less than that. In my climate, it doesn't get below 50F in the Winter. But we have lots of hours between 50F and 65F. My JM leaf out in June. Note that our seasons in Hawaii are 2.5 months behind the solstices. So peak cold is March and April, peak heat is Sept -Oct. Trident maple needs even less. June is still cool, 68-72F. I have been talking to folks in Thailand about acer, seems burgerianum, rubrum, platanoides and saccharinum all just molt in late Spring, don't even need dormancy in Bangkok.
Interesting.
I recently went to a nursery near Stuart in south FL, with is zone 10, and the owner had a decent looking JM. He just keeps it in an airy spot that get plenty of shade. No specific cultivar.
I've only tried this on one set of saplings, so not a lot of data. But I didn't have mold issues. I did spray them with a fungicide before they went in, and I kept them fairly dry. The humidity stayed around 45%. I kept an open cup of water in the cooler as well -- may have helped with the humidity.
Because there is no need to bother. I’ve been happily growing JM for at least 6-7 years now in zone 11 with no problems. I just leave them outside with all the other trees (tropicals included). They do fine. They need protection (read that as shade) from late spring, through summer. But no worries about winters. They tend to drop leaves later as expected but they still do the regular cycle.
You're in the Azores? What are your Winter temps like? There's still plenty of chill accumulation between 7.5C and 10C and your temps rise to no more than maybe 20C in the Winter. That's way different from a Florida zone 10 where it drops into the 0-5C range once or twice per Winter and then it is back to 18C night to 27-30C days. Winter heat will cancel our most chill. Here in the mountains in Hawaii in a zone 11b/12a the Japanese maples leaf out in July and lose their leaves in December-January.
