From Playground to Dream Garden | Japanese Maple Garden Tour 2026

It's the third week of May and our maples are all leafed out so join me for a tour of our Japanese maple garden. Hi it's Steph, welcome back to my garden. This area here used to be a children's playground and in 2021 my husband and I started transforming it into a Japanese maple garden and since then we've added about 30 plus maples in our collection and some beautiful conifers. So today we're going to go through and do a tour and name these plants and starting here on the patio we have a number of potted Japanese maples. These trees actually make great potted plants and they look decorative, they're beautiful and they give you an opportunity to test light conditions by being able to easily move the pots around. This one which is a newer one to our collection it's called strawberry spring and about a week ago the leaves actually had a really pretty light pink coloration and as the days go on the colors begin to change and currently they look a bit more peach but you can see that the leaves are smaller on the strawberry spring. In the back here we have a version of a makawa Japanese maple and this one is called lily pad and it is a dwarf variety. It was actually gifted to us by a friend when we did a garden tour in her garden. She's the garden mouse here on YouTube and we're going to repot that in the fall but it's also a really interesting tree. This one is a really beautiful fall colored tree. So Japanese maples either shine in spring or in fall and we have mostly a spring collection but this one turns a cherry red in the fall. It's called dancing peacock and it has really interesting leaves they're like a fern like leaf and the seed pods or sumaras look like little earrings kind of dangling underneath the foliage. Here's one we have in the landscape that is also really pretty in spring. It is called the orange dream and about a week ago again it was a orange coloring and now it has transitioned to this really bright chartreuse kind of limey yellow green color. Very vigorous grower it's been here for a couple of years and it's put on quite a bit of size at this point. Here we have another really pretty potted Japanese maple that we picked up at a local nursery a couple of years ago now. It is called pastel. This is another one that had a pretty pink tone to it about a week ago which is when the color on our maples were really at peak but it's difficult to catch that because we were waiting for all of them to leaf out so they change every day. So now it has more of a peach coloration and really large leaves. This one is quickly becoming one of my favorites because it looks very similar to my amber ghost which we'll get to later on in the tour. And this one here was the first maple that we planted in this garden and it is called Shiraz. Now online it's debatable whether these are called Shiraz or geishas gone wild. There might be a slight variation between the two trees. I purchased this one as a Shiraz. It's a very airy tree. I really like the structure of it and it's got pink margins with a darker interior. Here we have another potted Japanese maple and this one is a moonrise. We actually love this tree so much. We have two of them and it's a really pretty one. This is what they call a shirasawam or a full moon Japanese maple and it gets that name based on the shape of the leaves which we have a couple of these variety of maples the full moon in our garden and I'll point them out as we go through. But you can see that it mostly has kind of a yellow green coloration but the top of the leaves where the sun hits it has kind of that pink orange color which is really interesting. Let's actually go check out the other moonrise that we have in our garden right here. It's much larger. As you can see it's a beautiful tree and you can see that predominant kind of yellow green color and again the top of the leaves where the sun is hitting has that pink orange coloration and this beautiful conifer here is one that we often get questions about. It's called the golden duchess hemlock and what I love about it is it has a really kind of airy structure and it has this golden color which provides a pop of brightness in this somewhat shady area. You can see that it currently has all of its spring growth coming onto it and it's hardy in zones four through seven and having conifers mixed into this area is great because it provides some structure and some interest in the winter when all of our maples lose their foliage. And right in front of it we have a Japanese maple that is in most collectors collections and it is the mikawa yatsubusa and what's cool about it is that it has a stacked leaf structure and in the spring when it first leaves out it has lime green foliage which you can actually see here on the newer leaves and then it goes more green like you see on the mature foliage here. It's also a pretty mature specimen as you can tell by the caliper of the trunk but my husband George who is our cameraman today he likes to prune this to keep it nice and compact and it looks really pretty here in this space as you come down our path. Now if you've been around for a while you might notice that I like to wear dresses when we do garden tours. The reason for that is because typically we film tours in the summer and I find dresses really comfortable easy and breezy and the other reason is that I'm less likely to start working in the garden and getting all dirty if I'm wearing a dress and this beautiful dress is linen which is nice and cool and it's by Quince who is the sponsor of today's video. I've been buying and wearing Quince clothes for a while now and I've genuinely been impressed by the quality. Everything feels soft elevated and really well made. I picked out pieces in natural fabrics like cotton linen and cashmere and they honestly feel comparable to much more expensive brands I've tried before. I also really appreciate that Quince focuses on timeless high quality essentials instead of trendy fast fashion pieces. These are the kinds of clothes that feel classic and wearable year after year. They offer really beautiful quality at a more affordable price point. They also carry so much more than clothing too including home goods, bedding and accessories. I actually refreshed my bedroom this spring using their curtains, bedding and sheets and I've been really happy with everything. If you'd like to check out Quince use the link in my description below or scan the QR code on the screen for free shipping and 365 day returns and thank you to Quince for sponsoring today's video. Now let's get into some more of these trees. This one here is the first of the ghost series that we're going to show you in our garden. We currently have two ghost trees and this one is called the sister ghost and you can see that it has a really beautiful lime green coloration and then it goes more yellow before getting a bit more green in the hotter summer months and what's cool about the ghost series is that they have reticulation on the foliage. You can see there all of that veining and this tree has taken on a really beautiful shape. It's nice and open the canopy. I just love the way that it looks. Now George has pruned this to give it this shape and currently you can see that it's kind of cascading over the path so he will have to go through and take it back just a little bit. Now the best time to prune Japanese maples is when they're dormant and they don't have foliage on them so they can really see the structure but if you have to cut off a couple of branches selectively it's okay. They'll be fine. They're very forgiving trees and this one here that has this bright red foliage is called the fire glow. It's very similar to the blood good and to the emperor one in the sense that it has this red foliage all year and it's an Acer palmatum and you can tell that it has the traditional Acer foliage and right underneath the fire glow we have a really cool evergreen. It is called the Tom Thumb. Now in the Japanese maple collector world conifers and trees go hand in hand and this one is a really great one to have because it's a dwarf conifer. It is more compact has a really slow growth habit and a really pretty yellow coloration. We also have some other plants in this area that I think complement the conifers and trees really well. These here are some Japanese forest grasses or Hakana Kloa. The variety is called areola and it's one that has a variegation of green and yellow and it's really pretty has a really beautiful shape. I love them. I have them dotted here throughout the garden. This tree here has a neon coloring. It's very bright lime green and it's another Shirasawam type. It is called the Jordan so the full moon leaf as you can see here. Really pretty tree. It's been here for about three years now and it's put on a good amount of growth. When we first got it it was a little stick and that's often how you get maples when you order them in the mail. They're usually pretty small but they're pretty fast growing in most cases and here I have another conifer. This is a really cool pine. It's a Mugo pine which I really like and it's a true dwarf by Eisley. It's called the Caloos mini Mugo pine and it's also pretty slow growing only two to four inches per year. Has a 10-year garden size of three feet in height, three feet in width and very hardy down to negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I also have some ferns planted along the bottom of the trees here lining the walkway and this tree is one of my favorites. It's called the Ariadne. Now this was a tree that we also added pretty early on. It's growing pretty well. Has a nice open canopy and this one was bright orange just a week ago. In fact some of the new leaves you can kind of still see some of that orange coloring and this one goes through several color changes throughout the season. So first it gets orange then it starts to lighten up and get more green and then as the fall comes it has shades of both orange and red. Really beautiful especially on the tops of the leaves where the sun hits it. Coming around the bend here I have some caramel heuchera planted. I've mentioned before that I have a hard time with heuchera in my garden but this caramel variety tends to do pretty well so I've planted quite a few of those. I probably have about six or seven in the garden at this point and we recently planted this conifer here. This is the Butterball by Eisley and it is a globe shape or round conifer. Has this really pretty golden yellow color. It's a type of hinoki which is a has a really nice texture and I really like it. That's the third butterball that we've planted in our garden. Here's another type of hinoki that we've had for a couple of years and this one here which was George's favorite. Is it still your favorite George or do you have a new favorite? It's one of his. So this is very similar to the Moonrise. In fact there's often some arguments about whether or not they're the same tree but this one is called the Autumn Moon. It is another beauty and another chirosawum or full moon type tree and you can see these really large leaves and again where the sun hits it it has this orangey pink coloration. In a few weeks from now this is what our Autumn Moon will look like. So this picture was taken last June. It will continue to get more vibrant as the sun hits it and it gets warmer throughout the summer. This one is a very vigorous grower. This is the Katsura. Now there are Katsura trees and this happens to be the Katsura Japanese Maple. In the spring this is the first tree to leaf out and it looks like a fireball. It has really beautiful shades of red and orange and a little bit of yellow and even in the winter time the bark has a hint of red to it so it's really pretty. But I will tell you this tree grew fast and it's pretty dense too. And here's the Katsura right after we planted it back in March of 2021. It's been five years and look how much it's grown. So this is one that we're going to have to have a good pruning right? We're going to have to give it a good pruning this this year at some point. And and the bottom here I have some Ladies Mantle planted which I love the foliage on Ladies Mantle. They hold on to droplets of water beautifully and in a few more weeks it will start blooming with these sprays of chartreuse yellow green flowers that look like baby's breath. I think that they're gorgeous. Here we have another Mugo Pine. This one is called Sunshine and you can see that it has all of its spring growth. These candles that come up in the spring and little tip if you want to size control your Mugo Pines or any pine really what you can do is candle prune which means in the spring you would just cut off these tips or these candles and that will keep it more compact. I also have some Ito Peonies in this area. Here's one of them. I probably have I think three at this point. And I have a Dwarf Oakleaf Hydrangea. This one's called Little Honey and it has a really pretty golden foliage. I purchased that as a little four inch container in the mail about three years ago and that's how big it has gotten. Very slow growing but it's finally starting to put on a little bit of size in year three. Now this fern here is the Godzilla and this is Georgia's favorite fern. It is gorgeous. It can get upwards of two and a half to three feet in diameter so I planted it by itself as a single specimen here by this rock underneath the autumn moon and I think it looks really beautiful. It also gets a good amount of shade which they need to keep this beautiful coloration. And this beauty is a Golden Oriental Spruce. Now it has been pretty slow growing but this year it seems to have taken a leap and George is a little afraid of this tree. He thinks it's going to become a problem at some point. I think it's beautiful. I don't mind it. If the Ariadne starts to grow into it we'll have to prune it a little tighter but it has all of its spring growth at the moment and it looks like these golden little cones and it's just really pretty. It's wider at the bottom and then it gets thinner at the top. And right here we have another conifer that I really love. It looks like it has frosted tips. This is a Korean Ice Breakers and it also has a lot of new growth for spring and you can see that white coloration that looks like frosting. Very slow growing. It's been this size for a couple of years. And right here we have a new Makawa that I gifted George last year. This is called a Chance Seedling and what happens is in greenhouses all of these Makawas are bred and then you will find one that has a really unique coloration and that is what this one is. The way George explained it to me it's like when you have a litter of puppies and they're all black labs but then you get a golden one, right? So that's what happened here and this is a really beautiful one. It has that same stacked pattern of leaves that is common with the Makawa and it first came out a bit of a red foliage then it went a little bit pink and now it has a little bit of this kind of coral orange coloration. But it's really cute. I think it'll look really pretty in this area because he's going to keep it pruned and compact like our other Makawa. This is another Itopini. This one's by Isley. It's called Scrumdiddlyumptious and it has the most beautiful kind of pink coral colored flowers. They're about to burst open in the next couple of weeks. You can see it has lots of buds on it and I can't wait to see it bloom this year. And this is another pretty conifer. This is a pine. It's called the Goldilocks and it stays pretty compact. It's been pruned pretty cool as well. Kind of like a cloud prune it looks like. Very open and airy. We bought it this way. This is a pretty mature specimen and it's going to grow really slowly and so I think it looks really nice here in this area. And right off to the left of our Japanese Maple Garden we have this Golden Falls which is very similar in style to the Ryusen where it has a cascading habit. Now this one is one of the three that are first to leaf out in our garden. It is the Golden Falls that you see here, the Katsura as well as the Orange Dream and all three have bright orange foliage when they first open up or leaf out. And right underneath it I planted some Lamium or Dead Metal because I really like the way that the silvery foliage contrasts with this Golden Falls golden coloring. It's a really pretty ground cover type perennial and it gets these little blooms. You can see it actually has some purple blooms on it at the moment but really the foliage is the reason I like to grow it because it's really pretty. And in this bed here we just recently planted this as our centerpiece of the bed. It is a beautiful Serbian Spruce called Bruns and it's very compact. And look at these beautiful burgundy colored cones that it gets in the spring for its new growth. Isn't that gorgeous? So here is the information on this beautiful conifer. It is the Bruns Weeping Serbian Spruce by Isley. It has a narrow growth habit. It grows 6 to 12 inches per year and it will eventually in 10 years get up to 15 feet in height, 3 feet in width and it's hardy down to and it likes full sun. And this was the perfect conifer to add some vertical interest and to be the centerpiece of this bed. And right here we have another beautiful Japanese Maple. This is the Twomply's Red Sentinel and it has more of a columnar growth habit but this really vibrant beautiful red foliage. And this is one of the last trees in our garden to lose their foliage. So it holds on to its leaves really long in the fall. The brightness is starting to fade. Yeah the brightness is getting a little bit more muted but in general in the spring it is super bright red. One of the brightest ones in our garden for sure. And this is my personal favorite in the collection. It is the Amber Ghost. This is our second tree in the Ghost series which also has that reticulation in the foliage. Now what I love most about this tree is the large range of colors that it goes through. So here you can see the reticulation and on the tips you can see the peach color that this tree had about a week ago when it fully leafed out. And some of the newer leaves you can kind of still see that on right here. Can you see that peach coloration? Really beautiful. This whole tree looked like that about a week ago but that's the thing. In the spring things change so quickly and the color on these trees change from day to day. But this if you don't have an Amber Ghost in your collection highly recommend it. Such a beautiful variety of Japanese maple. And then I also have been adding some plantings here. I have some of the Japanese painted ferns underneath the tree. Some other varieties of ferns. This here is a maidenhair fern. I've also added some of the Hakana Kloa All Gold. Here I have the Gold Heart Bleeding Heart. It's a really pretty variety with gold foliage. Here's the tag. I think I still have it here. Oh it's called Ruby Gold Bleeding Heart. And some variegated Solomon's Seal. I absolutely love this plant. I actually have to keep it here closer to the house because the deer also really love it. But you can see that it has its little pendulous white blooms at the moment and a really pretty foliage. But this conifer I have here on the floor, this lower one, is a really pretty spruce. It's called the Poosh and it gets these really interesting red cones for its new spring growth. Let's see if I have a tag in here. Here it is. It's a Pisces Abbeys Poosh by Isley. It's a real good one. Also very slow growing dwarf conifer. All of my Bronnera is blooming which has a really sweet blue bloom in the spring. Very similar to Forget-Me-Nots. And this Japanese maple is one of the first ones we've had in our garden as well. We started with the red maples and this one is a Bloodgood. Now this was bought as a really small tree. It was given to me as a Mother's Day gift several years ago and it has grown beautifully. It is huge and I absolutely love it. Now initially we just had this one tree here in a tree rank and of course like gardeners do we expanded it to have this bed to add a few more things to it. And at the end of the bed, well actually we have another beautiful conifer right here. This is a blue one which I think adds a really nice color contrast and it's called the Blue Prostrate Noble Fir by Isley. And it's a spreading variety. Grows three to six inches per year. So also a dwarf and will eventually get up to three feet in height, six feet in width and hardy down to negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit. And similar to the Jordan that we looked at, this is another tree. A Japanese maple that is a Cherisawem with a full moon leaf that stays this vibrant limey green color yellow. Very beautiful. I don't even know to call it lime green or bright yellow. It is just so neon and beautiful. And you can see the really large leaves that it has. Here in our patio bed we have another yellow variety and this one is called Summer Gold. And it's actually one of the yellow varieties that is more heat and sun tolerant. And it has been here for about three or four years now and it's doing really well. It's put on a bunch of growth recently as well. And at the other end of the bed we have a red foliage variety. This is a lace leaf Japanese maple. Also relatively low growing as you can see by its shape. It's more of a spreading variety. And this one is called Garnet. And you can see the difference in the foliage here with the lace leaf varieties. And now we'll head over to the driveway where we have three more maples I'd like to share with you. And here in our driveway we have the very first Japanese maples we ever bought for our property. These are blood goods and we purchased them as smaller trees at the Home Depot. And they have been here for years and they've also grown really well. And you can see that they have the traditional Acer palmatum foliage. And right across the way on this retaining wall here we have this really beautiful Tamaki Ama just kind of draping over the wall. And I absolutely love the way that it looks. Now this tree was left for dead. We actually had it planted in our patio bed where we now have that Garnet. And it wasn't doing anything. It looked like it was completely dead. And we took it out of that bed and we left it in a pot over by the trash can. And after a couple of months it started to push out new growth which was amazing. So we said well it looks like it has the will to live. And we planted it here in this bed where it has been ever since growing beautifully. And I absolutely love it. My mom has asked me if I was going to cut it so that you could see the wall. And I said why would I do that? I think the tree looks beautiful hanging over the stones of the wall. It's become a feature and I really like it. And right behind that Tamaki Ama that we have growing on the wall we have this beautiful conifer. This is a weeping blue spruce. And it was growing upright because we had a stake in it. And when George went to go try to fix the stake to make it straighter again the wood wouldn't bend. And I didn't want to risk breaking it. So now we've left it to grow to its own devices. And I actually think it's looking really interesting. And I've started to really come around to the shape of it. And I'm starting to enjoy it a whole lot. And right here in the corner of this bed we have a beautiful Hanoke cypress. Now this tree has gotten huge. But I absolutely love it because when you pull down our driveway it's become a focal point. And it has a really graceful kind of arching growth habit which I think is really lovely. Here we have another Tamaki Ama Japanese maple. And this one I have had to size control a little bit because it starts to want to grow into my knockout roses. But it's also been a pretty vigorous grower and done really well again with those lace leaves. And in the corner where George is right now is another fire glow Japanese maple. We have two of them in our garden. Again a very vibrant red burgundy color especially when the sun comes through the foliage. And here I have another conifer that I often get questions about. This is a blue Alaskan cedar but it's been trained into what they call a serpentine shape or an s-shape. And we've had to prune it a little bit to keep its size controlled. But in general it's a pretty slow growing and well-behaved conifer. Because it's been trained into this shape it mostly weeps downward which keeps it pretty compact. And this beauty which we planted last spring to replace a Colorado blue spruce that had gotten too large for this corner. This is the Engelmanni Bush's Lace Spruce. And you can see it has all of its really soft spring growth which feels really nice and looks beautiful in this light shade of blue. And this is what it's going to look like. It has a very pendulous habit. The Bush's Lace Engelmanni Spruce. It's a narrow upright. Grows about 15 inches per year. And will eventually get 25 feet in height, 6 feet in width. And it's hardy down to negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So I think it'll fill out this corner beautifully. Now let's head down to our hillside garden so I can show you some other things we've recently planted. And this year we're adding a greenhouse to our garden. So please excuse the mess. Everything is still under construction. But we've recently added a couple of trees in this area that I want to share with you. So our greenhouse is going to be glass sided. And my husband and I were talking and we thought that it would be nice to have a red-leafed maple in the back of the greenhouse to draw your eye backward. And this new one that we just added is part of the Jack Frost collection by Eisley. So for any of you who live in a really cold climate, who have had trouble growing maples in the past, this would be a great option. But the foliage looks very similar to the Dancing Peacock that we looked at earlier in the tour. Has a really pretty foliage in this red color. Then it will get somewhat bronze before going shades of orange in the fall. Here's the information in case you were interested in a cold hardy maple, the Alpen Glow. And it's a broad upright growing 12 to 15 inches per year. And it has a 10-year garden size of 15 feet in height, 12 feet in width, and hardy down to negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a zone 4. Most maples are generally hardy in zones 5 through 8. So this one is a little extra hardy. We also added a trio of three beautiful Weeping Alaskan Cedars. This variety is the Jubilee and they will eventually get to be about 25 feet in height and 12 feet in width. They're a really majestic looking tree and I think they're going to look gorgeous in this area. Well I hope that you've enjoyed checking out our tree and conifer collection. Let me know if you had a favorite and if you grow any of these varieties in your own garden. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and I'll catch you in the next one.