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Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures I took from Oct. 22-29, 2011 at the
4th International Maple Symposium in Belgium. I hope you get as
excited about the world of maples as I am and join the Maple Society.
Before I even entered the facility at the Wespelaar Arboretum near
Antwerp, I was met
with this very rare Acer tsinglinsense that comes from the central China
mountains. The first two mornings we listened to eleven maple experts
speaking on every topic from growing to conservation, and toured
Arboretums in the afternoon. |
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My first sighting of Acer cappadocicum. This is the
European counterpart to the Shantung maple that you know I love to grow in
Texas. |
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Many maple species in the arboretum. Here is a very
colorful Acer pseudosieboldianum. |
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Large Japanese maple dissectums were just coloring up. |
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The second day, after speakers all morning, we visited
Kalmthout Arboretum where in their plant sale area I saw this Japanese
maple 'Marlo'. We were told it has this color all year. |
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A giant Japanese maple 'Palmatifolium' that must have been
30 feet tall and wide. This is the very tree that produced the seedling
that created 'Trompenburg'. |
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Acer japonicums were very colorful all over Belgium. I
see 'Maku jaku' which I thought was the same as 'Aconitifolium' but learn
that the former has much smaller leaves. Everywhere I turn there are
maples and much new information from talking with the fifty
or so Maple Society members who were at the 4th International Maple
Symposium. |
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A good view of a dissectum Japanese maple and surroundings at
Kalmthout Arboretum. |
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There were also many, many maple species and lots of good
looking bark too. Here is Acer rufinerve, a snake bark maple from Japan. |
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Acer lobelii bark is also very distinctive. It is listed as a
subspecies of A. cappadoicum which is in section Platanoidea. It
comes from southern Italy and has a very columnar habit with bluish bloom
on the new shoots. You would get bored if
I listed all the maple species I had never seen before. It was seen
at Hemelrijk, the botanical garden of the de Belder family which was
purchased in 1961 to expand their collections that were started at
Kalmthout. |
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My first view of Acer cappadocium in fall color. This
one is cultivar 'Aureum' that produces light yellow leaves in
early spring. Most of my maple literature warns that this cultivar
burns in the sun but I did not witness any burn on the half dozen or so
different trees I found on this trip. |
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Trompenburg Arboretum was fabulous. Here is an old
trunk of Acer platanoides, also called Norway maple. This tree is
native to Europe and also planted in the northeast US. During
this trip I was able to study almost all of the section Platanoidea
maples, of which Shantung is a member. |
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A great looking cultivar called 'Pulverulentum' which is a
variegated Hedge maple, Acer campestre. Another member of section Platanoides. |
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Overview of a more fanciful area at Trompenburg Arboretum. Rain
all day but it didn't get us soaked. There were lots of old
trees of every kind, everywhere you looked. |
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Back on the bus and now to the Netherlands to
visit the 150 year old nursery and maple expert, Esveld Nursery and Cor
van Gelderan. Here are some of his large maples in his display
garden. Everything was well labeled on wood stakes that were painted
white with stick on black lettering. |
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Esveld Nursery is only 6 acres but devotes a lot of land to a
beautiful and old display garden where you can see 850 different Japanese
maples. These old dissectum trunks have been allowed to grow but
many maples are cut back hard every year as space is limited for so many
trees. |
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I had to show you this old trunk of 'Osakasuki' which
shows the heavy and thick branching that this cultivar produces. |
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Esveld Nursery with light rain and maples. The soil is peat 50
feet deep which then turns into sand. There are many
bridges as fresh water canals divided the nursery and surrounding
houses. They do not use heavy equipment as it tends to get lost
(sunk). |
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Just one of the more unusual cultivars of Japanese
maples. This one is aptly named 'Star Fish'. I have never seen
so many different Japanese maples. A mind boggling day. |
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Everywhere you looked were more Japanese maples I have never seen or heard of. |
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We spent some time at Tervuren Arboretum near Brussels where trees
from all around the world were situated as best as possible to recreate
their native forest feel. Here is an American Sugar maple in the
North Carolina area. |
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At the National Botanic Garden of Belgium in Brussels we see Acer pictum
from China, Japan, and Korea, which is a
very close relative to Shantung maple. It is more upright in habit and
does not have the fissured bark. The leaves do not have as deeply
incised lobes and this tree gets much bigger. |
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A 31 year old Acer truncatum, Shantung maple. The
arboretums do not prune at all and prefer to let trees grow naturally,
although I doubt that in nature it has this much room to grow without
competition.
Shantung maple, Trident and Paperbark maples were all found to be
slower growing in the cool Belgium climate.
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The above Shantung maple trunk as grown untrained and with lots of room
to grow.
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On to England because I could not return home without a visit to the world famous
Westonbirt Arboretum. The weather could not have been better and I
saw giant trees of all kinds, many planted in the 1850's. They
are most famous for their thousands of old maples like this very old
japonicum. |
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This 'Trompenburg' is one of the best fall red leaf pictures
I have ever taken. None of my pictures have been retouched in any
way. |
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I have seen Japanese maple 'Koto no Ito' on 3 continents and it has
always looked good. |
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Westonbirt has century old maples but are planting new cultivars by the
hundreds also. |
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An old Acer palmatum seedling. |
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I told you they had old palmatums. |
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One of the oldest Japanese maples was this 35 foot tall and
wide Acer japonicum. If you look carefully you'll see massive
branches dragging the ground from several trunks, each of which were a
foot in diameter.
Westonbirt believes their greatest achievement is not its collection of
trees, but is the landscaping achievement, as they were spaced properly
with great vision about 150 years ago. This picture represents the
feel of Westonbirt but they have 37 miles of trails to walk that aren't
shown.
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Spectacular Acer sieboldianum and the best shaped one I have
ever seen. |
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I took the opportunity to get a picture with Hugh Agnus,
just retired Head of Tree Collections of Westonbirt on the left, and author and earlier
manager of Westonbirt, Peter Gregory on the right, with Acer sieboldianum.
This tree hails from
Japan, China and Korea and makes a great, very
colorful small tree. |
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Here it is again, this time without all the humans blocking the view.
Hugh thought some of the maples to be a bit too much color and I
disagreed. After 2 weeks of thinking about his statement I can see
his point and make a note to myself to look beyond the brightest and also
to enjoy and experience the less colorful just as well.
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My last day I awoke in London to find my left foot swollen and in great
pain but I am determined to find an old Shantung at Kew Gardens. The
pain had me walking at a snail's pace but I limped straight to it as if it
was drawing me near. This is most likely the oldest Shantung will
you see unless you go into China. If this is the original tree out
of China as I have read that went to Kew Gardens on 1871 it would now
be140 years old.
It was over 35 feet tall but probably not over forty. You cannot
see at least 6 feet of the top in this picture. The spread was fifty
feet. On the left you can see an arching branch that first goes up,
then splits, then flows downward again to where the leaves were 10 feet
off the ground. The left side is missing about six feet in this
picture. The right side goes up even more but it also cascades
back to 9 feet off the ground. The far right side is only
2/3rd captured in this picture.
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The impressive trunk is 3 foot across measured at ground level.
The first branch crotch is 6 feet high and branches are over 2 feet thick. |
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The bark is heavily fissured and with bigger pieces when compared to a
younger tree. |
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Looking up were some awesome branches that are much bigger than you
would expect. |
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Detail of the right side which had some great bends that were not fully
captured digitally. These branches at left are at least a foot
and a half thick and 15 feet off the ground. |
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The left side also had nice thick branches. |
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The growth was about 4 to 5 inches this year and the slow twiggy growth
gave the tree a beautiful character. A few upper leaves had already
turned and fallen to the ground. Spring leaves were much larger than
the late spring leaves. |
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Every 5 minutes a Jumbo Jet was descending overhead this beautiful old
Shantung maple reminding me I was flying back in the morning. I
stayed a whole hour or more noticing only 2 people passing by the whole
time and then hobbled back to the tube station a
half mile away having seen nothing else at Kew Gardens. |
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