Plant Database

Other Names:  Cutleaf Japanese Maple, Threadleaf Japanese Maple

Description:

A superb small home landscape tree with beautiful soft green leaves that last through the season turning brilliant orange in fall, artistic spreading habit of growth; a fine choice for small home landscapes and shrub gardens

Ornamental Features

Baldsmith Japanese Maple is primarily valued in the landscape or garden for its ornamental globe-shaped form. It features subtle corymbs of red flowers rising above the foliage in mid spring before the leaves. It has attractive light green deciduous foliage which emerges red in spring. The deeply cut lobed palmate leaves are highly ornamental and turn outstanding shades of orange and red in the fall. The rough gray bark and red branches add an interesting dimension to the landscape.

Landscape Attributes

Baldsmith Japanese Maple is an open multi-stemmed deciduous shrub with a more or less rounded form. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which can make it a great accent feature on this basis alone.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned in summer after the leaves have fully developed, as it may 'bleed' sap if pruned in late winter or early spring. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Baldsmith Japanese Maple is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• General Garden Use

Planting & Growing

Baldsmith Japanese Maple will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 15 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 80 years or more.

This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. You may want to keep it away from hot, dry locations that receive direct afternoon sun or which get reflected sunlight, such as against the south side of a white wall. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution, and will benefit from being planted in a relatively sheltered location. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.