Suggestions/ideas?
2-parter
I posted about 2 weeks ago about my crimson queen (misspoke, it’s actually an emperor I - I had a brain fart between queen and emperor, both royalty lol) looking shabby. The community said to wait a while and see what happens. Well, as you can see my bloodgood is fully leafed out and looking great. But the Emperor looks also “leafed out” and barely anything. Should I prune? Leave it? Pot it? Ultimately I had a hard time with the emperor last year, I bought it and planted it first but our soil is very wet clay and it didn’t like that. Potted it in the shade and then it poured all summer so she got waterlogged more, mound planted it where it is now and recovered a little. But now I fear it’s mostly dead with the exception of those few new shoots that started last year after her final planting. The bloodgood was mound planted from the start and is looking great this year so far
Second part of my question is, what should I plant with these? I’m having a hard time landscape designing. I have 2 hostas flanking each one as you can see starting to sprout, and I planted some dwarf white azaleas as well as you can see but they’re not looking too good (at least yet). I’m trying to compliment the maples while making them standout, I DONT want any evergreens. Also thinking about a coral bark to go in the middle of both maples, or some other green cultivar. Thoughts?
Also, how long should I keep the stake with the bloodgood? Thought I read somewhere 2-3 years?