I have an autumn blaze maple that has developed several vertical cracks, This tree was planted by professionals (s0 they say)( This tree was planted with the metal basket holding the root ball still in place, is this normal? The tree is about 20 ft tall.
Hello, Leaving the tree in its basket is poor practice under any circumstances, and really poor in a metal basket. It isn't necessarily fatal but it could certainly interfere with the development of the tree. Too late to do anything about it now, presumably the tree has been in the ground for a while? However vertical cracks are not usually problematic. Typically this happens because of uneven water uptake, e.g. rain/drought/rain where the bark hardens and then the tree puts on rapid width. Trees deal well with vertical damage so it doesn't usually represent a danger. If you see big vertical cracks with blackening and bark peeling back from them, that's another story. It would be useful to know how long ago the tree was planted, and to post a picture of the cracks. HTH, -E
Thanks for replying. This tree was planted in July 2012 and was about 15' then. The wire basket was substantial, This was planted using a Hyab to offload and the manhandled into a hand dug hole, by Connon Nurseries supposedly our premier supplier. The tree seems to be thriving but these cracks don't look good. I added pics.
It looks fine. The larger wound in pics 4 and 5 is old and healing well, could be mechanical or freeze damage. The long vertical is nothing to worry about, as I described before. For the basket, hopefully it was chicken wire, and will rust out quickly, or maybe is gone already. Anyway nothing to be done about it now. cheers,
It looks almost as if a wild animal had decided to sharpen its claws on the trunk: any bears on the loose around? ;°)
