I am not sure what is going on this year but many of my trees have changed to their early fall colors and it is only the begining of July. Here are some of the japonicums which are long past green.
Stress. Pure and simple stress. I see that a lot on the native trees here in Tennessee when we have a drought year. The trees in the forest just give up early. I guess its better than dying.
I say it is caused by the weather, over the last few years our weather has been a bit strange. Last winter I had leaves on the trees in early december, this year I had new growth in the end of feburary. The year before was not much better. I still do not know what happens iin fall.
Trees here which give up the earliest are usually the weakest or the one most affected by whatever. If your neighbor's October Glory drops its leaves in July and yours does in October then yours is probably better off.
This happened to one of my young trees two years ago (grown from seed). It was a superb brilliant scarlet in July before losing its leaves. It then unfortunately died. I hope your trees do not have the same fate Yes .. I think it is the unusual weather conditions and it is weaker trees which are affected
As I look at the different locations where maples are being grown, it looks like everyone is having abnormal weather. We have a large sugar maple in our neighborhood that is showing its fall colors. It has probably gotten too much water over the last couple years, since we have had record breaking rainfall amounts. It's sitting next to a drainage ditch that has had water most of the summer. Different kind of stress, but still a problem. Kay
I can say some varieties are more affected than others, my Aj Otaki in the ground is similar to the one in the pot and both have been watered regularly. I can also say, other japonicums which spent the winter in the greenhouse are their normal green color.
By the chart, it is a zone 7b but I am in a little pocket next to the Puget Sound where I am a bit warmer than houses a couple miles away. .
i've noticed some nurseries in my area that have a lot of Sango Kaku's and Japonicums showing fall colors. I have a tray of seedlings that have been getting more sun and less water than the others that are also showing bright reds and oranges. oooopsss.
For me, it gets even more difficult to figure out since I have other trees pushing out its second growth which I thought came out later in the year. At this rate they could have a third growth in one year based on last year where I had new growth coming out in october.
i have some japonicum,with a little number of leaves with autumn color many leaves in acer negundo Variegated,in my zone b this spring is very rained and the low temperature are remain for June , the grown was is super !!for my zone..i agree with Sam unusual weather
I looked back at my thread I started in feburary about early leafing out and found that my japonicums where leafing out in feburary, with that as the starting point the leaves onthe trees are more on their nature time line than they are on our calender. The part I still am curious to see is this gap before our fall.
I've seen Japonicums do this when exposed to a what I consider a late season application of Nitrogen, usually an ammonium form. I've also seen mature trees really balk at urea form applications late in the growing season as well. So, with this in mind let's rule out fertilizer, either liquid applications, timed released gel-caps or even commercial granulated applications. I can say that I've seen some Maples, even in greenhouses turn some Fall colors with late applications of liquid fertilizers but we seldom ever see nice sized and good aged in ground plants do this. I have seen it happen before however with mature aged trees which makes me wonder with caution what this or these trees do next. Not going to say why just yet but if these trees drop their leaves this early in the growing season and where those petioles were attached to stems do not yield replacement buds I'd be worried about these trees for next year. These trees have been very well kept by the looks of them. The pruning of them has been first rate to remove all deadened twigs and branches - wish more people with Maples realized just how important this can be for the tree as well as aesthetics for some but not all people. Some people like the look of deadened limbs and branches remaining in the tree but I for one do not like them as I want unobstructed air flow into the canopy of tree and I also want the deadened limbs removed to limit blockage of light to other inner canopy branches and lower limbs - just my feeling. In some rare cases environmental stress due to varying climate can cause this sort of Fall color event to happen in mid to late Summer in some growing areas. To me it is a matter of what does the tree do next that matters - does the tree slough off all of the leaves and goes dormant, does the tree drop some of the leaves and develops some new growth buds, or does the tree drop some of the leaves and just sits there for the rest of the growing season and develops overwintering buds for next Spring later on. It is the first scenario that I would be most concerned with as I've seen this before and what later ensued for me and for a few others I know or knew the following year was not pleasant. Keep in mind that Japonicums do have issues with Tight Bark interacting with Verticillium alboatrum in their systems. This is a devastating combination for any Japoncium to have as the trees I've seen develop Fall colors early in the growing season, have few to no new buds form later on and the tree does not always set overwintering buds to leaf out the following Spring. This is the worst case scenario for these trees but it happens more frequently with some of the Japonicum cultivars on less than ideal rootstocks than people want to freely admit. I can understand why as it has happened to me with a couple of juvenile to mature trees. Even my old red form of Meigetsu from Japan did this same sort of thing years ago - early season Fall color and set no new vegetative or subsequent overwintering buds either. Did this tree leaf out in the following Spring? No, it did not. Jim
