Acer Help Please!

[LazyDoll]

Hi,
I am looking for an Acer for our garden.
Baffled by the sheer amount of different ones. Looking for maximum of 4-5 metres high 2-3metres spread and most importantly the biggest range of colour change possible!!
I've seen one near us but no one knows the exact variety of it. It's bright red now and is simply stunning.
Please help!
Thanks

Look on the RHS website for Plantfinder. The link is a bit hidden but if you get the right page, you can enter the height & colour etc and it will list all plants that meet those criteria

I have a beautiful one - starts out palest green, almost yellow, with tiny red flowers; then gets greener & greener; finally usually turns dark red depending on Autumn conditions

I'll find a link, hang on

One of these

www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/74232/Cut-leaved-Japanese-maple/Details

3 pics from Spring/early summer

I'll get an Autumn one tomorrow

This is early August - beginning to turn

Oh thanks so much Finest that's gorgeous!
Eagerly awaiting an Autumn pic!!

Two here - both taken on 2nd Nov but lighter one was 4 years ago. Colour is different every year. The tree is thinner than it used to be due to a couple of unfortunate BBQ incidents - I have some actual photos from several years back, I'll look up one of those too

This was in 1997 - it had been in maybe 8 years at this point.

oh damn, I've done 6 in the last 24 hours, it won't let me do another one yet.
I will post it later though

oh damn, I've done 6 in the last 24 hours, it won't let me do another one yet.
I will post it later though

Oops

finest - stunning tree! (In all its colours).

I think it's worth looking at bark on acers, because that can be a stunning (and colourful) feature too.

I have a small Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku'. New bark is bright pink, rivalling dogwoods for winter colour. New foliage is pink-tinged, running through orange to yellow in autumn. Like all acers, it can be pruned to keep it to a manageable size.

Thanks, holly

Although I'm a bit sad looking at this year's pics & realising how much foliage has gone from when it was in its prime. It seems as if acers don't regrow/branch out when bits are removed?

Yours sounds lovely - I have a small one in a pot which may be the same kind as the colours sound very similar. I'll get a pic of that tomorrow. (I think it needs a bigger pot though.)

And there I was, thinking you'd done the pruning with superb finesse!! (Which is just a fancy way of saying: I love it! Just as it is! It looks sculpted and Japanese).

aww, thank you

I think it's done the sculpted Japanese look all by itself

It's now more than 24 hours since first pics posted - I'll see if I can slip another one in...

Yay! That's the one from 1997, approx 8 years old (maybe a bit less)

What a colour!

I do like it better now in its sparseness, though! Sometimes nature does a better job than any secateurs could.

Thank you thank you!
My DH is currently shopping for said tree after me forwarding him this thread!

Oh good - hope he finds a nice one

Mine started out as basically a small trunk with lots of short branches all the way up. I have got a pic somewhere when it was quite new - if I find it I'll post that too

Please post yours once it's in, LazyDoll - if leaves have gone already then next spring!

Will do definitely.
Thanks for your help! We have totally decimated our garden and landscaped it and now replanting from scratch so we have A LOT to learn!!

I don't think you'll be doing much gardening this weekend! have fun with it all

This is my (very feeble) version of what I think is the same as holly's sango-kaku (???) It used to have a label but it's gone. It came from Aldi on one of their multiple-acers weeks & was the last one left when I got there. It grows, but not much. It is pretty though.

Pictures fell off after I previewed

Is this the sort of thing?

www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/acer-palmatum-inaba-shidare/classid.95/