This was a sale buy . B&B Fireglow . I purchased Last week . It had some bark damage but nothing looked affected. It looked much more alive when I bought it . I planted it on a cool rainy day . I carefully removed the clay from the root ball with a hose as well . Planted in a mix of the rootball clay native soil and half a cup of bone meal tilled up thoroughly . Planted the root flare high and thoroughly drenched the hole . Mulched heavily and away from trunk . Soil has stayed moist to wet . " maybe drowned "? The leaves wilted but never fell off , most are not crispy . Limbs and twigs are still bendable . And I see buds . I dont know if those are new or not . I also pruned after planting and used a spreader to open up canopy . The pruning was not severe mostly dieback but I did remove some crossing limbs . It is in an area that receives full sun but for two hours at noon . It has been windy . I have a acer palmatum that is in the same siteing no scorch at all. Any opinions ?
as a rule of thumb most japanese maples show some sign of stress when transplanted during this time of year and throwing leaves is a common sign. i have found that if it holds its leaves and wilts like that it is dead. your pictures dont look good for the future of the tree. hard to tell what caused that much stress and larger trees are usually harder to kill. may have started with some disease that killed tree whne transplant stress was added to the equation. has happened to me many times with my collection. justin
I second Justin, I have never seen an acer palmatum showing the symptoms in the picture recover. Gomero
Thank you for all your thoughts . I will wait two more weeks and then return it . I was hopeful seeing the buds .
OH man man MAN ! I killed my tree ! It was way too deep and in clay . I over watered it in . When I planted I used the remaining clay from the ball and burlap root ball and I have alot more clay in this site then other close by sites . I further did it in by installing it high and using a large amount of backfill up the trunk which I was going to settle when I watered it in , which I did not do the way I intended . I believe it all sunk . So I dug up to the bottom of the root ball and filled with a little potting soil and removed the mulch . This was a night time mission after the rain I will replant much higher after compacting the soil . Do you folks agree with removing the nursery soil and straightening root structure at planting ?
I do not claim to be an expert, but I have put about 15 trees in the ground on my property. I buy some average trees and try to plant one specimen sized tree every year. This year's specimen was a 14' stewartia pseudocamellia, and it is doing fine so far. In any case, I have never, ever done what you are talking about. After I get my tree in its hole, and cut the cage / burlap, I will clean the top level of the root ball down to the flare, I have seen up to 2" of material piled onto the original ground level / flare. I will rough up the edges of the root ball, then fill with the mix I always use / water in etc. That's essentially it - I have never removed the nursery soil - this would be the equivalent of bare rooting the tree during the growing season, which can not possibly lead to good things in my humble opinion. Best of luck CSL
Thanks for your post . I have heard school of thought both ways . I have had success with it . Though I have never experimented with that being the only variable . It does seem to be more popular with not disturbing the root ball .
