Japanese maple seedling

This little beauty is one of only two which sprouted for me from a seed sent to me from Canada ... an Italian variety called 'Villa Taranto'. a lovely lacy leaf. The original had green leaves. Seedlings seldom accurately reflect the parent .....

 

That's nice.

 

It is a good way to get free Japanese maples, and the fact that they are not like the parent is not really important .. sometimes they are better
This year the maples have almost all flowered and are carrying loads and loads of seed. Should be a bumper year for new maples next year

 

I suppose someone must have thought of it / tried it - but cannot Japanese Maples be grafted onto a "vigorous" rootstock - similar to the way that Apples are?

 

Grafting is a rather more specialised subject, and it has to be a Japanese maple rootstock
The trade would grow their trees from seed to supply the rootstock

 

Always surprises me that seed is used for rootstock, as I would expect it to be slower getting under way than a cutting, and that the variability would be undesirable - although I suppose they could chuck away anything non-conforming, before grafting onto it.

There is room for the development of a Turbo Japanese maple rootstock I reckon

 

Japanese maples from cuttings is difficult beyond belief ... try it ... if you succeed I will send you a free tree
Variability would be irrelevant if used as rootstock only surely?
I have heard a few claim success from cuttings but am personally sceptical ......

 

Interesting, thanks Whis4ey. I was assuming that bog standard Japanese maples (rather than "poncy" ones) would be easy to propagate, but if seed is the only easy way that explains why they do them in that way. Blast! Thought I was onto a winner for a moment!