I have a small, dwarf?, Japanese. Maple in my front yard in chicago. For the last 2 seasons it has been having a problem where the leaf tips are brown and dried out almost like fall leaves on the ground. I see no signs of anything worng with the tree except for these leaf problems. I have tried watering it once weely for 2-3 months then i decided maybe i was watering too much so i stopped many months ago. The ground in this area is never bone dry nor is is soaking, except when we have good rain. The soil is rich and dark so i dont believe i have a problem there. It was fert. by me last year with some time release pellets but that session was after i noticed the leaves looking funky Could this be fungal? If any one has an opinion as to what it is and what i should do please tell me. attached are some pics
Your maple is not happy and it shows it. Now the problem is to figure out why it is not happy. Let me first reassure you that maple growers like myself have dozens of maples in our gardens showing symptoms like the one you describe. If this is the second season with the problem and at spring all branches leaf out OK, you may eliminate the dreaded vascular diseases but that leaves a lot of different possibilities both environmental (too much sun or too much water or too little water or soil pH too high, roots girdled,..), chemical (too much fert, soil poisoning, weed killers applied too close,...) or pathogens (my guess would be root pathogens like weevils grubs or others). You are the best placed to figure it out. Something I do sometimes in cases of chronic unhappiness in my garden is to pull the tree out in the dormant season, clean the roots and replant it with new soil; sometimes it works. Gomero
