On a scorching summer's day in 1993 I came across a scraggly stub of a tree growing out of a crevice in the crumbling, foot and a half high remains of the original brick wall that surrounded Funari Barracks in Mannheim Germany. It's trunk was about as big around as a pencil and it had obviously been chopped off at least once by a weed wacker. At the time, it had but three tiny leaves on it. I decided it needed a better home if it were to survive. I set to work wiggling it back and forth to get the roots to let go without ripping off. The crevice turned out to be deeper than I expected but I finally managed to get it out relatively undamaged. Even though it was 90+ degrees that day, I dumped out my soda and stuck it in the cup with it's roots wrapped in some wet paper towels. I took it home and placed it in a brown plastic pot along with some dirt from the garden. I put it on the corner of the patio, gave it some water and hoped for the best. Frankly, I expected it to die within a week but after a brief period while it recovered from the shock of being uprooted, it started to thrive.
Over the next five years, it grew so fast I had trouble keeping it in check. I usually trimmed it back during the winter but once or twice I had to do surgery while it was growing. I had thought that once it became root bound in a small pot, it would naturally dwarf the tree but it still thinks it's a "big tree" to this day. One summer, after a 30 day vacation back to the U.S.A., it grew almost a foot. Other years it suffered from lack of water a few times and that helped keep the growth in check.
In 1998 we left Germany for a new job in Washington State. After five years, I'd become quite attached to the little guy and couldn't bear to leave him behind and contrived a way to bring it with me. Once we arrived, it took up residence on top of a large rock in the middle of our flower bed in front of the house. The change in climate and longitude didn't seem to faze it a bit. In the summer of 1999 the old brown pot cracked and I put it in the green one it's in now. The new pot is not quite as wide but is a little deeper. It also lost a limb that year after one of my kids hit it with a ball. I offered to knock off one of their limbs in return. They ran.
It hasn't produced seeds so far and I wonder if it's limited habitat is the cause. Another side effect of life in a pot is that the leaves generally turn brown in the fall instead of the usual yellow/orange/red associated with maples. Only once has that occurred, in the fall of 2001. The change in temperature must have been slow enough that the tree didn't go into shock like it usually seems to.
In July of 2003 we moved to Beaufort, SC. Most of our goods were professionally moved but there is always stuff left over. We loaded up the explorer with what was left and drove cross-country from Washington to South Carolina. It was a six day trip and it was 100+ degrees in every state we drove through. The tree "weathered" the trip reasonably well. Some of the leaves got crispy around the edges but otherwise it seems fine. I've placed it on a pedestal in the flower bed in front of our house.
