Glazed thoughts

Japanese maples or Acer palmatum are usually available in cheaper rates. But this is not true for all the varieties. Some of the rare and most prestigious are not much easy to buy if you are looking for an affordable match. Grafting is an ancient and trusted method to propagate the plant, but in the case of these maples trees, it is not an easy job to say the least. As grafting involves cutting of some part of the plant, and in the case of these trees it becomes hardly possible, for this reason another alternative method is chosen.

The commercially popular verities are grafted onto the seedling of Japanese maples. But as the seedling takes a lot of time to fully develop, which consequently means the whole process will take unnecessarily a longer time to complete as well. Moreover this situation becomes worst and helpless in the case of notoriously slow growing varieties. The type of grafting differs on the requirements and sometime decision between low and high grafting depends solely on the desired outcome of the whole process.

Grafting is not the only method to propagate the Japanese maples and many of the verities do not even require this process. They can be easily grown from the seeds. Take the example of Atropurpureum, this incredible tree is grown from seeds without any great hassle. But seed stratification is a must to even begin. Seed stratification is not an unfamiliar term for anyone into the business of plants for a while. It is an essential part that must be accomplished before sowing the seeds. An un-stratified seed is not a good idea to start with as it can take couple of years to even become ready for sowing.