light

Plants require light.

Plants accept light at a variaty of acceptable levels, many plants cannot accept extreme intensity, or lack of light.

Different plants, different acceptable levels and different tolerances of extremes.

The basics are that if your plant is not getting the proper amount of light it will not grow or be healthy.

Too much light causes leaf scorch which is very evident very quickly. The leaves turn white, then die turning a brittle brown.

Too little light causes a plant to grow long, skinny, weak branches or no growth at all; as well the roots may die back, shown by the plant rocking in the soil.

When in doubt, most (like 90% of) plants can take 6 hours of sun in the morning, before the day warms up.

More specifically, there are many different levels of light including: full sun, part sun, morning sun, part shade, shade, deep shade.

It is important to know as many latin names for your plant as possible. There are 220 plus varieties of japanese maple (a. palmatum). Of the 220 varieties, there are some which can only be grown in specific conditions (like nigiri - full shade), as well as those with tolerant ranges (bloodgood - full shade to full sun).