Japanese maples are quite difficult - but not impossible - to grow from cuttings. The vast majority of nurseries or growers specializing in Japanese maples propagate by grafting. It is much faster and far more economical/commercially viable.

Why are you looking for a cutting grown tree?

if it was possible to root them...

then they would not have grow root stock and graft them ...

and they would make more money ..

and of course.. sell them cheaper ...

i suppose.. if you had 1000 cuttings.... you might get one to root .. anything possible.. but the odds are very high

ken

For bonsai.... Actually they aren't hard to root. I've rooted jiro shidare, blood good, and a generic green japanese maple (every type ive tried) and I'm just a regular guy without a greenhouse or any special equipment. It just takes longer to grow them into plants people will buy. I'd like to do a bonsai with a less common cultivar but without a conspicuous graft union.

I guess I'll have to air layer a grafted plant.

In the Netherlands I see that some Japanese maple cultivars are more and more propagated by cuttings (among others: Atropurpureum, Katsura, Wilson's Pink Dwarf). Much cheaper than grafting. The majority of JM cultivars is still grafted though.

You're right GArdenPrince,we get a lot of them here and are very popular in garden centres.Strangely we never get the 'easier to propagate' cultivars here...rather the more delicate and I guess difficult ones..eg Beni Komachi,Taylor,Marlo and Phoenix to name a few.