Weeping Japanese Maple: Perfect for a small space
Weeping Japanese Maples are excellent trees to include in your landscape. They are small enough to add an accent to even the smallest yard but elegant enough to draw attention in a larger yard.
Our weeping Japanese Maple branches flow beautifully to the ground around the large boulder as part of our Japanese-inspired garden.
Our weeping Japanese Maple may not be very large, but it’s a big performer in the Japanese-inspired garden where it anchors one side of the garden with its delicate branches softening the hard edge of a giant boulder.
Its unusual form and dark red foliage makes a bold statement despite its rather demure size.
In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a better tree for that location in our Japanese-inspired garden.
Let’s take a closer look at weeping Japanese Maples with any eye on how to get the most out of these small-growing trees.
How big does a weeping Japanese maple get?
All Japanese Maples should be grown as understory trees, meaning they are generally smaller trees meant to grow in the shade of larger trees or buildings that protect them from harsh weather, especially extreme sun and heat.
Most weeping forms of Japanese Maple are dwarf, cutleaf varieties meaning that they are not only smaller than a regular, say Bloodgood variety, but are more susceptible to harsh conditions.
Interested in Japanese Maples. For more information be sure to read my other posts here:
The same weeping Japanese Maple in its fall colors just before it drops its leaves.
The typical weeping Japanese Maple will grow to about 8 feet with a similar width, but I have found the weeping Japanese Maples grow at a particularly slow pace.
While a traditional Japanese Maple can grow one to two feet a year, the weeping Japanese Maple will put on growth much more slowly. Be prepared for a vertical growth rate of just a few inches per year.
You can expect the average dwarf, weeping Japanese Maple to reach between 4-5 feet over a ten-year period making them ideal small trees for small yards or areas in the garden where you are looking for a tree to provide a spot of color without ever dominating its planting space.
Examples of the beauty of Japanese Maples including some of the weeping variety.
Which Japanese maples are the weeping variety?
There are many varieties of weeping Japanese Maples to choose from including:
• Acer Palmatum Dissectum ‘Inaba Shidare.’ This red to maroon weeping maple grows to about 5 feet with a six foot width and sports bright red fall colour. This laceleaf, pendulous tree is very hardy and is able to adapt to most situations, including sunnier areas. Three to four hours of sun helps the tree keep its best color. It can be grown in containers and is hardy in zones 5-9.
• Acer Palmatum Dissectum ‘Waterfall.’ This weeping maple leaves emerge an almost neon green in spring turning a golden yellow to orange into fall. It grows to about 5 ft by 6 ft in about ten years and is hardy in zones 5 through 9.
• Acer Palmatum Dissectum ‘Orangeola.’ Leaves emerge in spring in various shades of red, orange and green helping to give the tree an interesting look. This multi-colored pendulous dissectum acer is considered one of the most cascading Japanese maples. The leaves turn an orange red in fall and the tree is a little more compact than others reaching only about 4 ft tall with a width of about 5 ft over the course of ten years. It is hardy to zones 5 through 9 and can be grown as a container plant.
How to care for a weeping Japanese maples? Are they hardy?
Weeping Japanese maple are hardy trees (zones 5-9) that do not require a high degree of special care.
Although they benefit from some sun, they are meant to be understory trees and, therefore, benefit from being in the shade for the sunniest and hottest parts of the day.
Some varieties may have better color if exposed to short periods of sun.
Besides adequate water and mindful pruning, these small trees require little maintenance.
A nice example of the weeping Japanese Maple in front of Miscanthus ornamental grasses in our front yard.
How to prune weeping Japanese Maples?
Please use restraint when pruning your weeping Japanese maples and do not remove the lower half of the trees to create umbrella-looking trees in the landscape.
Japanese Maples have inherent beauty and unlike, say a weeping Catalpa tree, do not benefit from harsh pruning. I have seen Japanese Maples that are pruned into odd umbrella-looking trees that look out of place in the garden. Maybe the owners wanted to plant flowers under the trees or just didn’t think the pendulous branches would benefit from touching the ground.
Try to refrain from severely pruning these trees in such a manner. Embrace their inherent pendulous habit and let them reach their full beauty. Feel free to trim them up off the ground if you feel you must, but I have never pruned the bottom of our weeping tree and don’t intend to in the near future.
Japanese inspired garden: Six elements to success
Japanese-inspired gardens are meant to look simple but are, in fact, highly designed, nature-inspired landscapes. Stone, water and plants form the structure of a Japanese garden with Japanese Maples, small evergreens and moss adding life to the design.
Finding serenity in a Japanese inspired woodland
I’ve always loved the peacefulness a Japanese garden evokes.
They seem so simple, yet, in reality, are highly thought-out designs that reflect the natural world. This appearance of simplicity hides what often is the meticulous placement of elements in the garden.
The main purpose of the Japanese Garden is to create a feeling of serenity and nature. A well designed Japanese garden strives to remind us of a natural landscape, but, in fact, is a carefully controlled landscape highly designed and maintained. They are nature-inspired, but it’s unlikely you will ever find them growing naturally. But that doesn’t mean they don’t evoke feelings of some of your greatest memories of wandering through the woodlands and coming across a beautiful moss-covered grove with large boulders protruding from the ground.
For more suggestions and some of my favourite garden things, be sure to check out my Favourite Things post.
Three elements make up the Japanese garden: Stone forms the structure of the landscape; water which gives it a life-giving force; and plants that provide what little color and changes the gardens provide throughout the seasons.
With all this in mind, I embarked on my Japanese-inspired garden.
If you love Japanese gardens and want more information, be sure to check out my post on Using Japanese Maples in the landscape. For more on the majesty of a mature Japanese Maple. Weeping Japanese Maples for landscapes big and small.
The Japanese-inspired garden in late spring with the blue Fish In The Garden moving through the plants.
The plan was to create a garden that would hide the fact that our home’s garage was long ago converted into a family room. Up until the garden was installed, the driveway’s blacktop came right up to our family room where the garage doors were once located. It never looked right to me and emphasized the garage conversion. So, by reducing the length of the driveway by adding large boulders, pea gravel and square cut gray flagstone, we were able to not only create the Japanese-inspired garden, but hide the fact that the family room was once a garage.
Three Japanese maples, the large boulders surrounded by pea gravel, a fern, moss and a bird bath combine to create an area that allows the primarily woodland garden to showcase a separate japanese-inspired garden area.
Key Components of a Japanese Garden
Adding Japanese garden art helps to create the mood of the garden.
1) A single large boulder or several large boulders (depending on the size of the garden) form the basic structure of a Japanese Zen Garden. Stone in a Japanese garden represents longevity and the forces of the nature. They anchor the garden to the ground and give it its specific personality. They should always be buried in the ground to look like they are emerging from the sand or stone they are on. Stones are laid out depending on their shapes and sizes. Their placement is key to creating a cohesive look. Look for boulders that are different in size and shape. A bonus is if you are able to grow moss on the boulders to give them a lovely aged look.
2) Pea gravel or sand surrounding the boulder(s) is another structural element. In zen gardens, it represents water, or, like the white space found in Japanese paintings, emptiness and distance. They are perfect places for meditation. In Zen gardens, the pea gravel is meticulously raked to create the illusion of waves surrounding an island of stone.
3) Incorporating evergreens (often pine trees) not only gives the garden year-round interest but they add a sense of permanence. Preferably, the evergreens should be smaller, slow-growing specimens that can be trimmed and either given a bonsai look or kept on the small side. The large boulders are the perfect place to display bonsai specimens either growing in pots or in pockets carved out of the boulders.
4) A water source is another important garden feature. It is said to represent renewal, calm, wonder and continuity in the garden. Everything from a small on-ground stone pool to an electric fountain or a bird bath can be used. There are many alternatives available which can either be created or bought commercially. Every effort should be made to keep and commercial products in keeping with the Japanese theme.
5) A beautiful Japanese Maple (or several) can either become a focal point or used as smaller trees in the landscape. Their natural form complements the garden style and they can be used as bonsai.
6) Statuary really helps to bring the Japanese theme into the landscape. Sculptured in stone, the Yukimi-gata lantern, sometimes called the snow lantern, was originally intended to guide visitors during evening events. Its light was also considered the light of knowledge clearing away the clouds of ignorance. Praying Jinzu statues positioned in strategic areas will delight garden visitors.
The Japanese-inspired Garden includes large boulders that provide a strong foundation and a mature Japanese Maple planted more than 20 years ago.
Keep garden proportions in check
Keep garden structures such as pathways and plantings in proper size relative to a human body.
Feel free to use a variety of plant sizes to keep the eye moving around the space.
Balance large trees with gradually smaller trees and shrubs to bring them into scale.
My Japanese-inspired garden plan was given a major boost when a neighbour over estimated the number of boulders needed for a large landscape project and I was able to nab 11 massive limestone boulders. Four of the boulders formed the structure of the Japanese-inspired garden. The rest were used as a retaining wall for the driveway. But they all worked together to provide the foundation of the Japanese garden.
Adding to the basic structure was a large Japanese Maple I planted the year we moved into the house twenty-plus years ago. Back then, Japanese Maples were just beginning to gain in popularity in this area of Southern Ontario. Time has turned the sapling into a beautiful, full-size multi-stem specimen.
With the basic structure in place, we placed square-cut, blue flagstone through the space and moved yards of river rock and pea gravel into place around them. The flagstones provide a path from the front of the home to the backyard.
A small cutleaf weeping form of Japanese maple backed by large grasses took it’s place on the opposite side of the larger mature specimen.
Under the mature Japanese Maple, I’ve planted variegated Japanese Forest grass, a clump of epimedium, a ghost fern and a couple of very small blue hosta. The connected garden that stretches across the front works as a transition from the Japanese-inspired garden to the Woodland garden that dominates the rest of the property. The front garden contains several small fountain grasses, a large clump of Japanese Forest grass to complement the clumps around the mature Japanese Maple and a large horizontal blue spruce ( picea pungens Dietz) all on a black mulch backdrop.
Where the stone meets the garden, just beside a square birdbath water feature, we’ve added three small Jinzu praying on a bed of moss. The three statues represent our small family – me, my wife and our daughter.
It’s also important to include evergreens into the design. We have two – the horizontal blue spruce and a serbian spruce growing in a container on the square-cut flagstone pathway.
Low-voltage lighting allows us to enjoy the garden both day and night.
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