Diseased acer palmatums. Can they survive?

Hello,

Here's some background info before I showpictures of the sick maples.

Last year I bought 5 acer palmatums which I planted in my garden.

Species are:

2x Sango Kaku
2x Osakazuki
1x Orange Dream

Weather conditions of the past months haven't been the best for acer palmatums.

February was a very cold month with freezing temps around -18 °C at nights;
March was a very dry month;
April is a very windy and rainy month month with, often, freezing temperatures at night.

It looks like the osakazuki is suffering from another disease than the other 2 species.

Any advice would be very much apreciated. I hope to be able to save my precious maples. I've read a lot about verticillium wilt but I haven't seen any verticillium wilt infected trees with leaves turning black so it is probably not verticillium wilt?

I've uploaded the pictures but they're also available here in higher resolution:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sre...62209&authkey=Gv1sRgCPnP5p_x1qv9VQ&feat=email

 

This looks like damage due to wind dessication and frost....

 

Thank god I hope you're right.
Will the leaves come back again when weather conditions turn better? Do I need to give the tree any special treatment? for Example: Prune the twigs with black leaves?

 

Don't do anything to them other than protect them from any additional frosts or freezing weather and care for them normally (watering if they need it, etc. NO fertilizer!). If they are going to survive, they will sort things out on their own. You will know soon enough.

 

Thanks for your advice. New leaf buds are apearing so it looks like it survived.

 

These plants have a second set of buds for just such an occurence. Be aware though that they do NOT have a third set, so give them protection as indicated :)