Pick a winner

Who doesn’t love to debate a good list? Whether it’s TV shows, sandwich places or best quarterbacks of all time, your Top 5 will differ from someone else’s Top 5.

Matt and Tim Nichols, the brothers behind online mail-order nursery MrMaple and owners of wholesale grower Buchholz Nursery, know this well.

The list is just the start. The debate that surrounds the list fuels engagement and interaction. It keeps Stephen A. Smith on television. It’s the source that leads to message board forum posts with thousands of comments or viral videos.

One of my favorite comic strips of all time shows a man typing furiously at his computer as night falls. His wife calls to him, “Honey, are you coming to bed?” But our protagonist thrusts a finger in the air and declares that he cannot, because “someone is WRONG on the internet.”

Personally, I’m better equipped to debate LeBron vs. Jordan than Amber Ghost vs. Pung Kil, but the MrMaple guys can do that sort of comparison all day. Visit their YouTube channel, MrMaple Show, for a truly stunning amount of video content, including so many lists. Now, a video on the Top 5 Japanese maples for fall color may not create a war in the comment section like others might. But plant people are passionate about their favorites, and Matt and Tim always back up their picks.

As last year wound to a close, they filmed three videos covering their Top 75 Japanese Maples of 2025. They split the videos into chunks of 25 each, building anticipation as the countdown continued.

Now, the channel is not all lists. In fact, if you filter their videos by popularity, many of the most viewed videos are the basic educational ones answering typical gardening questions.

In this month’s cover story, find out how the Nichols brothers took what they learned at their mail-order nursery and applied it as new owners of Buchholz Nursery. If you want a deeper dive with Matt and Tim Nichols, watch for a podcast on The Growth Industry, coming soon.

What’s your favorite Japanese maple? Let me know at the email below.