Planted Just Past the Garden’s Entry Gate, This Weeping Laceleaf Japanese Maple is an Iconic Beauty in Every Season
By Corinne Kennedy
Located in Area B, just past the Garden’s entry gate, this magnificent weeping red-foliaged laceleaf Japanese maple displays glowing orange-red fall color. (photo: Aurora Santiago)
Acer palmatum, known as Japanese maple, is a small deciduous tree native to Japan, Korea, and Eastern China. This species, including its varieties and cultivars (cultivated varieties), is arguably the most important deciduous tree in the gardens of Japan. Prized there and in Japanese-style gardens throughout the world, including our own Seattle Japanese Garden, it grows particularly well in our region.
The elegant weeping laceleaf Japanese maple in dressed in green welcomes visitors in summer. (photo: Aurora Santiago)
Acer palmatum is my favorite deciduous tree, and in past blog articles I’ve written about several of the Garden’s most beautiful cultivars. But I haven’t yet written about the very old and striking specimen just past the entry gate in Area B, west of the path—the Japanese maple Garden visitors are most likely to admire. An iconic tree within our Garden, it has a bold architectural branching structure, created by skillful pruning, and beautiful laceleaf foliage—burgundy-red in spring, bronzy-green in summer, and glowing orange-red in autumn. With its red-toned, finely-divided leaves and gracefully cascading branches, it’s the only form of Japanese maple most people are familiar with.
Washington Park Arboretum (WPA) records are unclear, but this iconic maple was received either as Acer palmatum dissectum (weeping laceleaf Japanese maple) or Acer palmatum dissectum atropurpureum (weeping red-foliaged laceleaf Japanese maple), which more accurately describes its red foliage. It may have been planted in its current location more than a decade before the Japanese Garden was created. Currently, Acer palmatum var. dissectum atropurpureum is the botanical name used by most authorities.
The Japanese have revered Japanese maples for more than 300 years, developing hundreds of cultivars. They selected for leaf size, texture, form, and color (including color changes from spring through fall), for the colors of trunk and branches, and for tree size and habit, breeding a remarkable diversity of named forms.
To distinguish among the hundreds of cultivars that have been developed, not only in Japan, but throughout the world, various groups have been created, most based on how the leaf lobes are divided. The Dissectum Group, including our Garden’s entry specimen, is distinguished by leaves with narrow lobes very deeply divided and deeply dissected into sub-lobes. The Seattle Japanese Garden also contains four younger Dissectum Group trees, but none—including two nearby trees, located across the path in Area C—are comparable to Area B’s magnificent specimen.
The burgundy-red spring foliage of Area B’s magnificent weeping red-foliaged laceleaf Japanese maple. (photo: Aleks Monk)
In general, Japanese maples labeled dissectum atropurpureum have leaves divided into 7 to 9 lobes, each lobe multi-divided into subdivisions—hence the common term “laceleaf.” They are also “weeping,” with a form that is horizontal and pendulous. Unlike most Japanese maples, which tend to have an upright, somewhat vase-shaped habit, theirs is arching and umbrella-like. Some young plants exhibit an almost prostrate branching habit, so growers stake them for a few years to ensure they will not remain too low-growing. I once did a consultation for a homeowner with a very old Japanese maple that was under three feet tall but at least twelve feet wide. Unfortunately, it was next to and level with the house, and could only be looked down upon.
There are more than a dozen red-foliaged forms of weeping laceleaf Japanese maple, generally available at our region’s retail nurseries. Trees with specific cultivar names—including ‘Crimson Queen,’ ‘Ever Red, ’Inaba shidare,’ and ‘Garnet’—will match their descriptions. Traits that are especially important are how finely divided the leaves are and their color throughout the seasons. But trees labeled dissectum atropurpureum, without a cultivar name, are often grown from seed, rather than from cuttings, hence tend to be variable, with leaves that aren’t predictable in color or form. Fortunately, our entry specimen has delicately dissected foliage and magnificent color in both spring and fall.
Winter reveals the tree’s carefully pruned living architecture. (photo: Aurora Santiago)
As they mature, weeping laceleaf maples become twiggy and dense. Unpruned, as they are in so many U.S. gardens, they often resemble shapeless mops. In Japan, however, skillful pruning eliminates not only dead, diseased, and ugly growth but also extraneous branches, opening up the trees so their living architecture is revealed throughout the year. Though used to prune all Japanese maples, this approach is especially important when pruning weeping laceleaf forms—notably Area B’s venerable maple.
Here’s a link to an excellent 2020 webinar in the Seattle Japanese Garden’s free Kaleidoscope virtual event series: “Maple Pruning with Pete Putnicki.” The Area B tree is featured in this video.
As Senior Gardener, Putnicki is responsible for maintaining this wonderful specimen, enhancing its health and beauty. Skillful pruning and a deep knowledge of Japanese maples and Japanese gardens in general are required. He emphasizes that “successful pruning works with the tree’s natural growth, not against it.” His objective, then, is to “encourage [its] grace and beauty… clarifying and refining its form.”
Like other Dissectum Group maples, Acer palmatum var. dissectum atropurpureum is cold hardy to USDA Zone 5 (minimum temperature -20 degrees Fahrenheit), and grows best in moist, fertile, well-drained soil, in part shade or sun (but not reflected heat). Best foliage color develops when grown in sun, which it tolerates well here in the Pacific Northwest. During our dry summers, it requires regular irrigation.
The Seattle Japanese Garden’s oldest weeping laceleaf Japanese maple, located prominently in Area B, brings beauty, gracefulness, movement, and dynamic change to the Garden—consistent with the design intent of interpreting and capturing the essence of nature. In fact, the beauty of this maple was enhanced by a challenging winter project in the early 2010s. To display this very large tree’s best side to all who enter the Garden and to move it further from the path, the gardeners dug it up, rotated it 180 degrees, and replanted it about four feet from its original location. A magnificent and beloved tree, it’s a powerful presence as we walk through the entry gate and leave the everyday world behind.
Corinne Kennedy is a Garden Guide, a frequent contributor to the Seattle Japanese Garden blog, and a retired garden designer.