Mallet Court Nursery

Foreword to: The Gardener's Guide to Growing Maples

I was brought up on maples and have had a passion for them all my gardening life. It is, perhaps, not surprising that one of the oldest and largest trees at Flergest Croft is Acer pseudoplatanus, the much-despised sycamore. This was planted around 1800, one hundred years before the garden was started, and is still vigorous and fertile.

When my grandfather began to plant the garden in 1896, maples provided the backbone of much of his early planting, Japanese maples were much used and unlike some of the ‘dwarf’ conifers with which they were intermingled in the original rockery, they have grown old gracefully and remain ornamental in the garden today. Acer paimatum ‘Sango-kaku’ is many visitors' choice as the most beautiful tree here. With its red winter twigs, its flush of young yellow-green leaves and its golden autumn colour, it is a plant for twelve months of the year.

My grandfather planted many of the larger species as well, including a number of great rarities, and my father continued the tradition. He took great pleasure in Acer giraldii, probably an original introduction by Ernest ‘Chinese’ Wilson from Veirch’s nursery. Before its recent reintroduction, there were thought to be only three specimens in Britain, but when he visited Dawvck in Scotland, my father noticed one, almost swamped in a sea of rhododendrons. Finding that the owner was away, he hung a luggage label on the tree. On it was written: ‘This is not a sycamore’.
I have become captivated by the beauty of the ‘snake bark’ maples, whose waxy barks and brilliant young growth mark them as a distinct group of species. Their distribution is a botanical evolutionary pu::le, with one species, Acer pensylvantcum, growing on the east coast of North America and all the others in China and Japan.

James Harris’s book covers the whole range of this diverse genus and provides a cornucopia of information about its members. Maples are suitable for those with gardens, either great or small (or, come to think of it, those with no gardens at all, as many of them make excellent subjects for bonsai). He has been growing maples for more than 25 years and can thus claim an intimate knowledge of their charms and foibles. Not everyone will agree with his taxonomy but this in no way detracts from this book: after all the ‘correct’ name is known to botanists and not to plants and he has helpfully indicated where differences of opinion exist.

I hope this comprehensive hook will encourage more gardeners to experiment with growing different species of this delightful and diverse genus, and that maples will give them as much pleasure as they give me.

Lawrence Banks, Hergest Croft, April 2000