Maples are an incredibly diverse group of trees. You’ll find huge specimen trees right down to small weeping ones. The range of leaf forms and colours is spectacular as well. We often associate them with southern gardens, but there are many that’ll thrive on the north coast of NSW providing you with year round interest.

The first we featured on Prime was the purple form of the well-known Japanese Maple called Acer palmaltem 'Atropurpureum'. It’s a small growing tree that gets to around 5 m with a dense spreading habit. It's perfect for providing shade in an average size garden or courtyard and grows well in a pot too.

There was another Japanese Maple called ‘Viridus’. It has a delicate fine foliage and again is a great one for a small garden. So is this one with the we saw with ruby red foliage called ‘Garlet’.

But what about the cheery variagated form of the Box Elder Maple? The golden leaves always look fabulous. This ones a fast grower to about 15m, which makes it more suited to a medium to large garden. 

So what do they like? Well good drainage is essential, and it’s important to keep some moisture in the soil especially during summer so always keep them well mulched.

And were to put them? Well the ones that I’ve seen doing well in our area get a little morning sun with protection from hot afternoon sun. They’ll thrive in part shade as well.

Maples respond well to pruning so if you don’t have room for another tree you might want to grow one in a pot or train one into a Bonsai.