What Goes with Japanese Maple?

Perennials

• Perennials come back year after year, adding colorful blossoms during the growing season. Shade-tolerant varieties that prefer rich, acidic soil and grow well with a Japanese maple include herbaceous peonies (Paeonia lactifolia). Blooming in spring in a range of colors, from red to white, the versatile plants grow to 3 feet tall and are hardy in USDA zones 3 through 7. Begonias (Begonia grandis) also grow well with a Japanese maple. The shade-loving perennials, hardy in USDA zones 6 through 9, perform best in moist soil and produce pink blooms from summer through fall.

Ground-Covers

• Ground-covers grow low to the soil and spread, making them able to fill empty space under a Japanese maple. Shade-tolerant varieties include ajuga (Ajuga reptans), an evergreen that grows to 4 inches tall and forms a carpet of rosette-shaped foliage. Ajuga is hardy in USDA zones 3 to 9, where it grows best in a shaded, moist site. It attracts bees with its purple-blue spring blossoms. Hostas (Hosta spp.) also grow well with a Japanese maples. These versatile, herbaceioius plants have a range of foliage shapes and colors and thrive in partial to full shade. Hostas are hardy in USDA zones 3 through 9 and grow from 6 inches to 3 feet tall.

Shrubs

• Plant flowering, acid-loving shrubs such as azaleas and rhododendrons (both Rhododendron spp.) with your Japanese maple. These shrubs grow in many sizes and bloom in a range of colors. Varieties include the sweet azalea (Rhododendron arborescens), a 6-foot-tall, deciduous shrub hardy in USDA zones 4 through 7. Sweet azalea produces fragrant, white-pink flowers in spring and summer, and its dark, shiny leaves turn orange and red in fall. Rhododendrons also thrive in a shady, moist site but have evergreen foliage.

Ferns and Grasses

• Several ferns can thrive under a Japanese maple in a moist site. Plant varieties such as Japanese tassel fern (Polystichum polyblepharum), which is hardy in USDA zones 5 to 8) and can grow 4 feet tall, and Japanese painted fern (Athyrium nipponicum "Pictum"), an 18-inch to 2-foot-tall variety hardy in USDA zones 4 through 8. Shade-tolerant ornamental grasses for Japanese maple understory plantings include variegated sweet flag (Acorus calamus "Variegatus"), a 2- to 4-foot-tall grass that performs best in moist soil. This grass grows in clumps of striped yellow, white and green foliage topped by aromatic flowers and is hardy in USDA zones 5 through 10.