What to Expect from Maple Ridge Nursery to Start 2020
2019 marked Maple Ridge Nursery’s 30th year in business. It’s only fitting that it was one of our most successful years in recent memory. Of course, the nursery wasn’t specialized to Japanese Maples for its entire history. It has gone through quite the evolution since my parents purchased the nursery in 1989. In fact, it was once a traditional garden center and flower shop where people in the Decatur and Stone Mountain areas would come to get their shrubs, annuals, perennials, and pine straw. Actually, we still sell pine straw, just not nearly as much. In the early 90’s my dad fell in love with Japanese Maples, and the nursery began to transform to the maple farm that it is today.
I have been involved with the nursery in a minor role and surrounded by Japanese Maples my entire life, but I didn’t begin my full-time role with the company until early 2016 shortly after my father passed away. Even though I have been here full-time for nearly 4 years, I still didn’t get really serious about it until halfway through last year. There was no eureka moment where I realized that this was my calling or anything, just a growing realization that this was what I loved and that I wanted to do it to the very best of my capabilities. This is partly why I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish this past year and why I am so bullish for the future of our Japanese Maple nursery.
We are a small team at Maple Ridge Nursery. There’s just me and my mom, Christy, a couple part time employees here and there, and lots of help from friends and family members. And of course, there’s my daughter, Sophie, who makes this all possible. The thing we do have is passion for what we’re doing and that drives us to grow the best Japanese Maples and Conifers that we can, and to provide the best customer service possible. At the end of the day, we believe that combination makes us a great nursery and a great business that helps us provide beauty to the city of Atlanta and beyond.
While I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish the past few years, I am extremely excited for what we have coming up in the future, and I think you will be too. That is what I will be discussing with you with this first installment of the 2020 version of Maple Ridge Musings. I want to give all of our readers a sneak preview of all that will be happening with the nursery over the next several months.
Winter Conifer Grafting
We have already begun grafting conifers for 2020. We have maintained a steady amount of conifer grafting every year over the past several years, but it has always been a side project of sorts. We had been recycling the same rootstock crops for years and the quantity and selection was starting to leave a lot to be desired.
This past fall we finally got new crops of all of our conifer rootstock allowing us to graft more conifers than we have in a long time. Our plan is to continue adding new crops of rootstock year after year so that we can graft more varieties and more trees in general than ever before. We know that our grafted conifer selection has been dwindling over the past couple of years, and we want to rectify that situation by building out the most diverse selection of conifers we have ever had.
Of course, this is not something that will materialize overnight and nothing that we graft this winter will be available until 2021, but our goal is to have 100 varieties of grafted conifers to choose from by 2025. Here is a small preview of what we have coming down the pipeline:
One of the trees we are most excited about and have been grafting heavily over the past couple of years is Abies koreana ‘Horstmann’s Silberlocke’. This tree has attractive curled needles that display a lovely silver-blue color. ‘Silberlocke’ is a slow grower with an upright habit that develops into what many would refer to as a Christmas tree shape. We’re also very excited to get Picea orientalis ‘Skylands’ back into heavier production. We always get a couple of these trees propagated every year, but we’re putting additional emphasis on it this season. Pinus sylvestris ‘Gold Coin’ is another tree that we currently have a available, but we hope to have many more to choose from in the coming years. This is a lovely dwarf pine that shines bright yellow all year long, but it is especially showy in the Winter.
Winter Maple Grafting
While we love conifers, Japanese Maples will always be our primary focus. Once we finish grafting conifers, we will transition to Japanese Maple grafting. People often talk about how they only graft Japanese Maples in the wintertime, but we have never really had much success with grafting maples in the winter. Normally, we do much better grafting them in the summer. However, I am determined to make this the best winter grafting season we have ever had. Our plan is to graft over 3000 Japanese Maples this winter including over 150 different varieties.
Among these 150 varieties will be tried and true stalwarts such as Crimson Queen, Bloodgood, and Viridis. We will also continue to produce a large quantity of the Ghost varieties such as Purple Ghost, Sister Ghost, and First Ghost; as well as some of our newer favorites such as Tsuma gaki, Peaches and Cream, and Jordan. We also have many of our own introductions such as Dixie Delight, Dixie Spirit, Dixie Morning, and others that we will continue to propagate and evaluate.
Grafting season is always an exciting time of year for us as it is an optimistic practice of creating new Japanese Maple trees. Our goal each and every grafting season is to continue to bring you all the trees that we know you love while also introducing you to new and exciting varieties that will become your new favorites in the future.
Winter Grafting Classes
We want to have way more Japanese Maple grafting classes in 2020 than we ever have before. We love teaching anyone about grafting who wants to learn, but we often struggle with having enough time to get our own work done while also finding the time to teach you all. That is why I am going to go ahead and put out the call now for people interested in taking a grafting class with us. If you are interested, you can email us at themaplefarm@msn.com or give us a call at 770-987-4066 to schedule your class.
Classes typically take around 2 hours and you get to graft and keep 6 Japanese Maple trees of your choosing. The class begins with the process of cutting scions from the original tree all the way to after care for your new graft. We also include a tour of the nursery and our propagation house if you’re interested. Classes cost $50 and you get a 10% discount on trees you purchase the day of your class. We have a lot of fun with these classes so go ahead and schedule your class today!
March Maple Madness
Something we’re incredibly excited to bring back for 2020 is March Maple Madness! Last year’s tournament was a huge hit and we hope to have even more involvement this year. For those that are unfamiliar or need a refresher, this is our Japanese Maple version of the classic March Madness basketball tournament. We will have 64 contestants with one maple picture per contestant in the tournament. These 64 maples will go head-to-head on Facebook to determine which tree is the best of 2020.
We are accepting submissions now for the competition. You can submit your maple pictures directly to me at maplemadness2020@gmail.com or you can comment on any Facebook Post that we make calling for submissions. You can submit as many pictures as you like as long as they are pictures of just one tree, and you include the name of the tree. If you would like you can also provide a numbered ranking of the pictures that you submit so that we know which tree pictures you want in the competition the most, however we still have the final say on which pictures actually make the final cut for the competition.
We will once again be offering prizes to everyone who makes the final 64 competition and the prizes get better for each round that you advance. Be on the look out soon for an announcement of the specific prizes!
Tons of new trees available including more available directly online
We have been collecting Japanese Maples for nearly 30 years. My dad always used to say that we are just collectors and that we only sell trees to pay for our collection. I completely agree with this statement and it still holds true today. We have been continuing to add to our collection over the past couple years and many of these new trees are finally available for sale!
We should have roughly 50 new varieties available in 2020. Some may be familiar to the die-hard maple collector while others may be new to everyone. One tree we’re very excited to finally have available is Acer palmatum ‘Radiant’. This has been a very popular tree in the trade for the past few years, and we’re happy to have some available. However, quantities are still quite limited for ‘Radiant’ so be sure to get yours soon! We have also been very happy with a dwarf variety called ‘Frilly Willy’. This is a lovely little tree that has grown excellently for us and we’re excited to share it with all of you. This is just a snippet of what will becoming available, so be on the lookout for any and all updates involving new cultivars!
We will also be adding many more cultivars to our online store. We opened our online store in November, and we weren’t exactly sure how it would all go. I wasn’t sure if anyone would buy online or if the orders would be overwhelming. Therefore, I decided to roll out the store with only a limited number of varieties available. Now that we’re more comfortable with the process, we will begin to introduce more and more trees to the store throughout 2020. Be on the lookout for announcements on the new trees that will be added. I also welcome all suggestions and requests for specific trees to be added to the site.
2nd Annual Spring Fling
We are extremely excited to announce that we will be hosting our 2nd annual Spring Fling event this spring! Last year’s spring fling was such a hit that we plan to host the event again this year and for years to come. Last year’s event coupled as our 30th anniversary celebration, but this year will be more of a spring showcase. It will be an opportunity for everyone to come and check out what we’ve got going on at the nursery. The event should be during peak spring color for all the Japanese Maples, so the place will look spectacular.
Once again, we’ll have food and drinks and hopefully live entertainment. We’ll have special deals that will only be available the day of the event. We’ll raffle off a few trees, and there will be new trees available that have never been available before at Maple Ridge Nursery.
Most of the details of the event still need to be locked down, so be on the lookout for those, but we know for sure that there will be another Spring Fling. We hope to see you there!
More Blog Posts!
Starting this blog last fall was a very nerve-racking experience for me. I’ve blogged before so I wasn’t terribly worried about that, but I had never written in great detail about plants. I talk about maples every day at the nursery but actually putting my words down on digital paper was a little scary. I had written a few of the plant pages on the website, but most of those were done by my dad so I suppose I was experiencing a little bit of imposter syndrome. However, each blog post was welcomed with tremendously positive responses that made me want to write more.
I had every intention to continue my weekly blog posts through the fall and winter, but I just got so bogged down in the Christmas Tree season that it just wasn’t feasible. However, 2020 will see the return of the Maple Ridge Musings blog and these posts will be much more consistent through the year. I hope to also make these posts longer and more detailed. I will be highlighting individual trees, discussing news and updates of Maple Ridge Nursery, and answering important gardening questions. So, if you have a question, a topic, or a specific tree that you would like to see me write about then let me know!
More tree write ups on the website
As mentioned before, my dad wrote roughly 200 tree pages that we use on our website. We believe that we still have one of the most thorough references for Japanese Maples on the internet, but we have learned so much and added so many trees since my dad passed, it is long overdue for us to add a lot more information to our site. My goal in 2020 is to add or update at least 200 more pages on our website by the end of the year. We have strived for many years to be an excellent resource for the everyday gardener and the collector alike, and I want our site to not only to continue to be that resource but to become an even greater one in the years ahead.
This is another opportunity for anyone to reach out to me if you have any ideas or requests for trees that you would like to see highlighted and described on our website. You can also reach out to me on social media or email and tell me your experiences with certain varieties that could help with the write ups. My personal email is michaelhfrancis@live.com and that or social media is the best place to reach me. I am not a scientist or a horticulturist. Most of these write ups will be based on my own experiences with these trees, so any experiences that you can share would be fantastic! Pictures are welcomed and encouraged too!
Possible Youtube channel
We really want 2020 to be a year where we engage with you all like never before. Therefore, we are considering starting a Youtube channel and exploring even more mediums in which to display our love for Japanese Maples. This would be a big endeavor as we are a small team here at Maple Ridge Nursery, but we do believe it could be both fun and beneficial.
The Youtube channel would likely consist of me or Christy discussing particular trees or events as well as how to videos. We might show how to properly plant a Japanese Maple, how to graft a Japanese Maple, or many other things. We might make videos where we show off new and exciting cultivars or discuss oldies but goodies. It is something I have been wanting to do for a while but haven’t had the time. I am now trying to decide whether it is something that I need to make time for or not. So, please give me some feedback in the comments or on social media and let me know if this is something you would be interested in.
I hope and expect 2020 to be a big year for Maple Ridge Nursery. The beginning of a new decade is an exciting time. My goal is to continue to grow and improve the nursery day after day, month after month, year after year, with the hopes that Maple Ridge Nursery is in a much better place in 2030 than it is even now. We have some very fun and exciting things planed for the future and we hope that you all join us for the ride. If you’ve enjoyed this blog or any of our other content, please share it on social media and tell a friend about us to help us grow! Also be sure to comment or reach out to us on social media or email if you have any questions, comments, or advice. We love interacting with all of you as it helps us all learn and grow the community.