I hope mine DON'T start leafing out. We had an extremely mild January, and lots of flowering trees and daffodils have already started blooming. Some cherries that started blooming this week had some bad freeze-back after we got a few cold nights earlier in the week. I am afraid that we'll get some late freezes that kill back my Japanese maples if they start leafing out too soon. So far, mine are holding tight, however.

I have a few small maples and received an Autumn Moon in the mail about two months ago. I promptly potted it and watered it. About two weeks ago it leafed out and looks very good, but when there is a front coming through I bring it in for the night and put it back out in the morning. Otherwise it's doing fine (for zone 9a.) None of the other maples have shown any signs of leafing out yet.

Being in Zone 9 yourself might help a bit, but protect it however you can if there is a cold snap.

Only my crimson queen has just started to leaf out, while all the others have not. We still have a month of potential freeze temperatures. Since all my maples are in containers, I have them near a large window in the garage.

xman