General Culture:

Easily grown in moist, organically rich, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Performs well in bright, sun-dappled, part shade locations. Pruning off some poorly colored mature branches may stimulate growth of new stems with much better pink coloration. Avoid hot and dry sites. Site in locations protected from strong winds.

Noteworthy Characteristics:

Japanese maple is a multi-stemmed shrub or single-stemmed small tree that typically grows to 10-25’ tall. General plant form is rounded to broad-rounded, often with low-branching. ‘Sango-kaku’ is an upright, slow-growing, vase-shaped form that typically grows over time to as much as 20-25’ tall. It is sometimes commonly called coral bark maple in reference to its distinctive and showy pink bark which provides excellent color and contrast to landscapes in winter. Pink coloration is less pronounced to almost absent in summer. Best pink coloration occurs on young twigs and branches. Palmate, 5- to 7-lobed, almost ferny leaves (to 2” long) with serrate margins emerge yellow-green with reddish margins in spring, mature to light green by summer and turn yellow-gold in fall. Small reddish-purple flowers in spring are somewhat attractive on close inspection, but are not showy from a distance. Flowers are followed by samaras that ripen in late summer to fall. Cultivar name means coral tower (sango meaning sea coral and kaku meaning tower/upward growing) as if to suggest this pink-barked cultivar resembles coral rising upward from a reef. Synonymous with and formerly sold as ‘Senkaki’.