Hi I'm new to this site and a new acer owner. I've just bought a acer pal ukigumo and it is in a large pot (4 times as big as the one it came in) but unfortunately the beautiful white leaves have started to shrivel. It is partially shaded in the afternoon, sun in the morning, I'm going to screen it more to give it 80% shade in the afternoon, it's not over watered and it's not in a windy position. Any suggestions about saving it would be very gratefully received as I really dont want to lose it (or my £70)!
Just move the pot to the shade for 2 weeks so its gets shade all day with no afternoon sun . After the 2 weeks you can start gradually exposing it to more light (morning sun only, especially at first). Transplanting it may have shocked it but with plenty shade and correct watering, it should recover by mid summer and push new growth out and start looking better. This tree will probably always do well with morning sun only. Variegated trees can lose their variegation in too much sun. Moving the pot around for a couple years, you will find the spot that the tree seems to like and look its best at.
Hi Attached some photos. The large one was one week ago when i bought it and the other two were taken today.
That looks to be a fine looking plant Gary although £70 is quite a lot of dosh :) If it is properly drained and you are not watering too much I would think it will be fine I don't know where you are in the UK but usually we don't get enough sun to have to worry about it Having said that, May was certainly a lot drier and hotter than most and may well have contributed Matt's advice will do no harm if there is strong sunlight or windy conditions to avoid I hope your plant does well for you
Hi Sam Thanks for your reply. £70 was a bit steep but I really like the acers, I'm going to screen the area so this one only gets morning sun and afternoon shade, I reckon it might be the wind that causes the problem although it is pretty well screened. Thanks Gary
Yes, I would have to say I am not too familiar with the sun in the UK. I have only been in the area once. At any rate, I expect it to recover with its summer push of growth. Good luck.
Ukigumo and Floating Clouds are highly susceptible to Powdery Mildew. This fungus can brown out large portions of the leaves and can cause disfiguring of the lobes, leaving part of the leaf looking fine and the rest of the leaf looking as though it had experienced some real wind damage. What exacerbates this latter condition is salt buildup in the soil. The best thing to do is when we are pretty sure the leaves have been affected by Powdery Mildew is pluck the infected leaves off of the tree and discard them far away from the tree. The fungus is capable of overwintering on the infected leaves that stay on the tree that may fall to the ground in late Fall or even drop off later in the year. Cultural cleanup is still a preferred method for dealing with this fungus, rather than using a topical fungicide spray or a systemic ground applied drench, which the latter can hold or stop the fungus from spreading but also can retard the growth process of the tree. In other words using a drench in some areas can protect the unaffected leaves left on the tree but we may not see new growth soon to compensate for the growth we have lost either. With the form plant you have high humidity is your enemy as Powdery Mildew can attack your tree almost anytime when left in too much shade. Oregon growers that have this same form of Ukigumo leave the plants in full sun until late May, early June and then will protect it mainly from wind damage more so than projected sun damage. Then by early September may bring the portable container trees out into the sun again. The coloring they can get from the Floating Clouds form and the so called improved form plant of Floating Clouds does wonders in Central Oregon using this same method. We've envied them for some time how they can retain year round color on those trees so much better than we can here in the San Joaquin Valley. The inland northern coastal areas here can achieve pretty much the same coloring as the Oregon growers can as well - is not restricted solely to Oregon but Southern Oregon can have some of the same color up issues that we have here as these Maples require lots of light to see the better coloration that we cannot give them as they will burn up with lots of leaf shrivel that enables the leaves to stay on the tree. If the leaves fall off of the tree we may get new growth but that new growth may not be variegated is our main issue with two of the three plants here. One of the issues that has been trouble for grower nurseries is when we bump a Ukigumo up to a larger container or in some instances give the plant new soil. We may see some lobe damage occur from us not giving the plant enough water at the time of the transplant. New soil can be toxic to a plant at first and we will see the early results of this in the leaves of some of the variegated plants. Even when it may seen unlikely, some of the variegated groups of plants can be rather sensitive to organic forms of Nitrogen and what may seem like wind burn may in fact be a burning from the residual Nitrogen in the new soil. This state does not last long but in some areas we see some fertilizer burn even when we have not applied any fertilizer to the tree. How we help protect the tree is to give a supersaturation, or with a hose, a good enough application of water to thoroughly soak the new soil and then not water again until the soil seems dry. Another soaking soon after a thorough soaking can do us more harm than good. Our initial soaking should leach out some of the salts and solute impurities in the soil while the second soaking a few days later can cause too much oxygen loss in the root zone - the roots lose the ability to breathe for a while in this case. It is a fine line to know how much water to apply when we transplant but one thing for sure we do not supersaturate one day and two days later do it again in cooler and in humid climates. Then our second watering can be toxic to the plant as the perched water table that was left from the first supersaturation was not allowed to dry out before we came back in and forced the water table to rise even further up in the container. The solutes in that perched water table can be quite toxic to the plant if that solution is allowed to move up the container into the root zone for any length of time, which is why after the initial hose watering supersaturation we wait a while until the soil appears dry to come back in and water again after a transplant. Not as big an issue if we use overhead sprinklers. Cannot supersaturate, apply enough water using drip systems at time of transplant. For now, what you see going on in this Maple is rather common to see from this cultivar. Bottom line after all of this "jabber" above, is your Maple looks okay to me. Some of lobe burn is expected with some of the more sensitive when transplanted variegated Maples so soon after a recent transplant. You have a nice plant to work with that hopefully will do well for you where you are but you will need to read up on Powdery Mildew as this fungus is a real nemesis to this plant in certain locations and where you are you can get hurt big time by this fungus by mid to late Spring in some years. Jim
Jim, what may be "jabber" to you was knowledge to me. Thanks for the 2 long posts - I did not know about Floating Cloud vs Ukigumo and I did not realize that a 2nd heavy watering could be so oxygen-depriving for transplants. Thanks for the info!
