Dwarf Japanese Maple Varieties

Dwarf Japanese maple trees are beautiful trees that gardeners and landscapers choose for their colorful foliage. Growing only to only about a foot tall, dwarf Japanese maple trees make great container trees and bonsai trees as well. These trees typically grow short and shrub like. If the trees are cultivated properly, the trees can grow to look like miniature trees. Foliage of Japanese maple trees typically turn red, orange or gold in the fall.

The Akita yatsubusa is a small dwarf tree that grows to the height of only 3 feet, which makes it ideal for bonsai and container planting. In mid-April, it leaves out in new growth of salmon pink, which then turns to green leaves with red tips. In the fall, the leaves turn into a lovely orange against the dark brown shoots. Akita yatsubusas thrive in USDA zones 5b through 9b and need to be watered once or twice a week regularly. These trees require full sun to very little amounts of shade to thrive.

The Corallinum really stands out because of its leaf color, which starts out very pink almost red, turns green for summer time then fades back to a pink in the fall. This particular plant has pink branches that lose their color with age. Only growing to the height of 4 feet, these trees make a wonderful bonsai or container tree. These trees require partial shade and frequent watering to keep the soil moist. During the first year, the Corallinum requires a fertilizer with phosphorus and low nitrogen, which should be fed to the tree as prescribed on the packaging of the fertilizer.

Bloodgood Japanese maple trees are the most popular of all the Japanese maple trees because they are easy to grow, have wonderful color and can be planted further South than other Japanese maple trees. In the early spring, new leaves appear a wine red color, which fades to a bronzed green in summer until fall when leaves turn scarlet to wine red. New branches and limbs are a red-black color that fades to grey with age. These are fast growing trees, able to grow to heights of 15 feet in ten years and is one of the largest of the Japanese maples. The Bloodgood trees were first introduced to America after the Civil War.