I was poking through old photos and came across this oddity:
What you are looking at is Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) being grown hanging upside down. I saw this year ago at a nursery in Japan. (You are also probably looking at a disaster of girdling roots in those tiny plastic pots, but that’s another topic) When I asked about them, I was told that they are weeping forms, and grown this way temporarily before being planted in the ground right-side up.
Looking at the image, it makes me think that the particular variety grown here might have a mutation that makes them negatively gravitropic, and so respond to the pull of gravity in the opposite way a normal plant would. (For more on that see my earlier post on gravitropism in corn) Growing them upside down would allow them to produce a fairly normal branching pattern, and then once plants, new growth would, presumably, cascade down from the established trunk and stem.
Anyway. That’s your oddity for the day.
Joseph Tychonievich
And to think I told my customers that the “upside-down-tomato” planters were a ripoff. Oh well.
Those clever Japanese
I have just discovered this wonderful Japanese nursery and my friend has just taken delivery of very fine plants. (Not sure about importing into the States)
http://www.yuzawa-engei.net/08English/