Hi kvolk,

Maples like Conifers prefer acidic soils. You may just need to go out on a limb and plant what you like.

Dax

Hi again. Eric up here in Logan. I'm getting things together for my masters project. I'm going to be attemping a series of grafts or buds. There are not Asian Maples that like alkaline soils. If you think about how they evolved. The soils of the orient don't match ours. Well, the soils that produce these beautiful asian species. So, I'm am going to be using a Bigtooth (Acer grandidentatum) rootstock and attempt compatability with something more ornamental like the Japanese Maples. I know that grafts will generally only take within the species. But, sometimes different genus' will take like the apple orchards on the quince rootstocks. I found online someone successfully grafted an Arizona Almond on a Bigtooth rootstock. Anyway, I said all of that to say this. Your question is my emphasis in school. And, so far, I have found nothing to give you hope except a lot of sulfuric acid or moving. And, Utah is great. So, you don't want to move. If your interested, I'll keep you updated on my research.

Eric, Certainly none of the asian maples "like" the alkalilne soil but that is not to say that at least some of them won't tolerate it. I have had palmatums in my yard for 18 years. Do they do as as those in the PNW? I am sure that they do not. I have a couple of A.j. Aconitofoliums in my yard that though new seem to be doing quite well. And one of your faculty memebers who lives over here (my tree hunting and horse riding buddy) has had one that has flourished for more than 5 years now. I have given Bill three soil samples from my yard to be tested over there. In Logan the temperature is a bigger problme for you with the Asians than pH. Your soil is better than over here.
I am pretty sure that the only way that I am really going to find aout about pseudoseiboldianum and shirasawanum will be to plant them and see what happens. I have started the process and will expand next year.
Certainly let me know what happens with your grafting.

For me pseudoseiboldianum has severe chlorosis problems - shirasawanum seems to be a much better performer on our Niagara escarpment based soils - pH 7.5+.

Acer gresium, Paperbark Maple, and Acer truncatum, Shantung maple do very well in alkaline soils. Many of Japanese maple cultivars are grown in the alkaline Fort Worth/Dallas area with good results. They are not that picky.

Happy to see that I am bringing back an old but good topic. I have a collection of over a dozen different species of maples growing on limestone-based soil, and of them all only the snakebarks and Acer stachyophyllum have shown any chlorosis. My Acer rufinerve and A. tegmentosum get a little yellow if I don't give them miracid in the spring, but nevertheless are growing like weeds.

Also, no problems with A. mandshuricum, which is supposed to prefer more acid-type soils as well. The only Japanese-type maple I grow right now is A. robustum, which seems unaffacted by the lime (or the CNY cold) and is doing quite well. Would love to hear more about the acid/nonacid preferances of the Japanese-types, as I will be adding several more of them this coming spring.

Alkaline soils occur widely. Asia is the largest continent. There are many species of maples, many of these occur in Asia.

Gelderen/Gelderen, MAPLES FOR GARDENS:

"Soil for many maples may be alkaline or acid. Some choice species such as A. distylum, A. micranthum, and A. nipponicum prefer an acid soil with a pH of about 5.0"

Sunset WESTERN GARDEN BOOK:

"In California, consider the local soil and water; wherever azaleas are difficult to grow and suffer from salt buildup in the soil, Japanese maples will show burn on leaf edges. Give same watering treatment as azaleas--flood occasionally to leach out salts"

Hillier MANUAL OF TREES & SHRUBS:

"TREES and SHRUBS suitable for SHALLOW SOIL OVER CHALK

Acer campestre
Acer negundo and cvs
Acer platanoides and cvs
Acer pseudoplatanus and cvs"

As a bit of an update on my posting above, my Acer mandschuricum really took it on the chin this year. The main culprit was drought and infrequent rainfall, but it was definitely suffering from chlorosis as well. All of my plants that are supposedly acid-loving that seemed to be doing well on our limestone soil were visibly chlorotic, with A. mandschuricum the worst off. The Acer rufinerve, which put on a meter of growth last year, grew about 4" this year.

My theory on this is that in years such as last year where my area received a larger than normal amount of precip, the base cations from the limestone that some of these plants seem to hate were diluted. It should be noted that despite the drought my Acer tegmentosum (an accused lime-hater) put on about 2.5 feet, no chlorosis. Nevertheless, the moral of this story is that if you're on limestone and you have some of these maples, stay vigilant- things might not be quite as good as they look!