Shaina Japanese Maple

The range of beautiful Japanese Maples that are available never ceases to amaze. Each variety has its own unique properties, and offers unique uses in the garden. Among the most popular are those with red leaves and these too come in a range of sizes and shapes. If you need a rounded bush, with beautiful Japanese Maple foliage in terrific shades of red, then the Shaina Japanese Maple should be your first choice. Within 10 years, this wonderful rounded shrub will grow to 5 feet tall and around 4 feet wide. More a shrub than a tree, this Japanese maple will fit into any garden space, and grows well as a potted shrub too.

Growing Shaina Japanese Maple Trees

Choose a location that is sunny or partially shaded for your new shrub. Morning sun and shade in the hot afternoon is ideal, or the dappled shade beneath large trees is perfect too. It will grow in most kinds of well-drained soil, and adding plenty of rich organic material when planting will get it off to a flying start. Water well once or twice a week during the first season or two, and after that whenever the soil becomes dry. Placing organic mulch over the root-zone each spring will help preserve moisture and give your bush valuable nutrients too.

Appearance and Coloring

The Shaina Japanese Maple has leaves divided into 5 long, tapering lobes. They grow in dense tufts on the stems, giving the whole plant a dense, bushy appearance. In spring, the leaves are a rich, bright red with no trace of the purple that tints many ‘red’ varieties. Over the summer, the leaves take on a bronzy hue, with the new growth still clear red, making the bush sparkle in the light. With the arrival of fall the leaves are transformed into crimson glowing embers, bringing depth and vibrant color to your garden.

This plant grows into a dense mound of branches, with red bark that is colorful all winter long. In spring small purple-red flowers hang beneath the leaves. You may not even notice them, but when the leaves fall you will see that they have changed into hanging clusters of red seeds. These are attractive miniature versions of the well-known maple keys that fall from larger maples in winter.

Uses in the Garden

Because of its rounded form, the Shaina Japanese Maple is ideal to use in shrub beds, or in the foundation planting around your home. One on either side of a doorway or entrance will make a lovely feature. Grouped in clusters, or in a row along a fence of driveway, they create a stunning effect. With the development of modern smaller gardens, it is an ideal plant to choose where space is limited, but a striking specimen is needed. Because of its small size, this is also an ideal plant to use in planter boxes or large pots, where it will bring height and interest to a terrace or patio. It has no pests or diseases, and grows well in most kinds of soil that are well-drained. Although all Japanese maples need a good supply of water, once established the Shaina Japanese Maple is resistant to mild summer drought, because the leaves are less finely divided than more drought-sensitive varieties.

History and Origins of the Shaina Japanese Maple

The Japanese maple, Acer palmatum, is a small tree that grows wild in the forest of Japan, Korea and eastern Russia and Siberia. Japanese gardeners have collected unusual forms for centuries – an old variety widely seen in gardens in America is ‘Bloodgood’. In the 1980’s Dick Wolff of Red Maple Nursery in Pennsylvania found an unusual clump of branches on a Bloodgood Japanese Maple estimated to be over100 years old at the time. Wolff had discovered and developed many different Japanese Maple forms, and he saw that this clump of branches was something special. Gardeners call these dense clumps of dwarf branches on large trees ‘witches brooms’. When he grew plants from it, they developed into the beautiful rounded bush that he called ‘Shaina’.

Buying Shaina Japanese Maples at The Tree Center

Since its discovery, this unique plant has become a favorite of gardeners everywhere, offering something very different from the typical tree forms, or cascading forms of red-leaf maples. If you like rounded, shrubby plants you, like many of our customers, will love the Shaina Japanese Maple. Skilled growers produce our plants by taking pieces derived from this original plant and joining them to the roots of seedling maples. Such a unique plant can never be grown from seed, so cheaper seedling plants cannot be the real thing. Because of its popularity, our stocks are limited, so order now to make sure you can enjoy this wonderful and different plant in your own garden