Hi!! As I'm sure you hear all the time I'm very stressed about the Japanese Maple I just bought. I'm attaching a little video and pics. The spots and leaf curl started about 3 weeks ago. I thought it was leaf burn but it's getting worse. Please help!!! Bradley
To put your mind at ease, I am not too concerned. Later today I will try to provide a few tips if others don't chime in beforehand.
Hi JT, Just wanted to update. The spots are now covering all the leaves on the tree. Within a few days of new growth seems to be affected. As this is a container planting I moved it under shelter from the rain and have been watering it at the base avoiding getting the leaves wet. I have completely bare branches now that are going black and have new growth that has dried up and gone black all over the tree. Any advice would be very appreciated!!! Thanks
Japanese maples have surface roots so you will want to water the surface soil. Is it still in a nursery container or did you pot it into your own container? What size is the tree and container, how many drain holes, if it's your container does it have a dish?
Remove any dish at the bottom. Get a bucket larger than your pot. Fill it with filtered water if you have city water or if well water make sure you are not using a softner or salt. Put the pot in the water all the way up to the top of the pot wall. Allow the water to flow up from the bottom, totally saturating the root ball. Allow all air bubbles to escape out of the ball to eliminate air pockets. Let the soil get completely saturated for a few minutes and then pull the pot out. Air pockets that form from drying out can be a problem. Also the soil can become very hard and not allow water into the roots. Completely saturating the root ball from the bottom up to the surface is the best solution to soil that has completely dried out at the surface and center of the root ball. We need to get the surface roots saturated again. If your soil is already saturated then advise because too saturated soil looks a lot like dried out soil when it comes to the leaves showing brown spots. I want to know what we are working with to give further advice.
Thank you so much for the assistance!! I have transferred the tree into a large 30" fiberglass cube planter. There is a drainage base layer of rubber shavings mixed with peat about 9" thick at the bottom with a screened drainage hole in the center of the base. The planter has 1/4" feet to allow circulation. The planter contains a promix soil and was fertilized with a promix. I planted the tree into this approximately a week after your first reply. I have been watering in the evening every 3-5 days based on heat and sun. The tree receives about 3- 4 hrs of direct/in direct sun. When planting I disturbed the exterior of the root ball roots and saturated the soil after the transplant slowly over 2 hours.
We need to water your tree from the surface and more often. Can you give it a slow watering over the original pot area to get the root ball saturated. Or pull the tree out and dunk the original root ball into a bucket of water, allowing all the air bubbles to release by holding the entire root ball under water for a minute or two until all air bubbles stop. Then replant it into the pot. What pro mix soil did you use and specifically what fertilizer? This may need to be addressed, but right now we need to get your roots hydrated again. If you go with the slow watering method instead of dunking the root ball (note if given a choice at this point I would recommend the dunk method). Tip for slow watering, if only option, take a pencil and drive it two inches into the root ball at the 12,3,6,9 o'clock position(s) first then let the hose slowly water in each position for about 5 minutes on each position.
I will do my best. We live in an apartment so watering is manual....no house available. Rootball dunking may be an option if I can find a big enough bucket. I will report back. The fertilizer is 7-3-3 and the soil is their general planter soil.
We use Tubtrugs brand (large 10 gallon, 38L) flexible tubs for dunking root balls before planting, re-potting, ECT.
I wish we could do that but unfortunately living in a west-end apartment doesn't allow a lot of extra space for large tubs.
So the latest are small worms hanging off the branches. I have sprayed the tree with Safer's 3in1 Garden Spray on the Maple and everything around it. Soil is thoroughly saturated.