Hi Everyone, I purchased a Osakazuki Japanese maple from Home depot about 3-4 years ago and planted it in the ground. I left it there and thought nothing of it for a while, but I noticed the tree was dying back. My first instinct was to cut off the dying part, so I did. This continued for a few years. The tree was about 7 feet tall when I got it and it is now about 4 feet tall with no canopy. The die backs continue despite my cutting. Can someone tell me what to do? I'm in zone 8B if that helps. I want to transplant, but I feel that will hurt the plant further. Here are some pictures. http://i.imgur.com/lo3UK82.jpg Top part of a piece I removed, this piece is darker in this photo than it is in real life. I took this piece off prior to thinking about posting online for help. http://i.imgur.com/UGVIMwS.jpg side shot, notice the top is dead, and the bottom seems like its alive http://i.imgur.com/7z6Y9nq.jpg bottom side; this part was from the live side. http://i.imgur.com/DGfPoix.jpg http://imgur.com/ESaAAse Whole plant http://i.imgur.com/4X9QbCv.jpg leaves http://i.imgur.com/uk2HKbY.jpg whole plant It's embarassing to admit, but I obviously did not take good care of this plant. My ultimate plan for this maple is to salvage it into a bonsai, if possible... Any help would be appreciated... Thanks a lot
Your problem might relate to what I experience today.... Last spring I found a mislabeled Orangeola JM at Home Depot. It was large and lovely, and when I planted it in the ground the entire pot of dirt/roots came out as a chunk. I made a mental note to come back this spring and work on loosening the root ball. When I did an inspection of the trunk last spring, the height of the dirt seemed okay-- so I planted it at that level and left it until today. When I started digging it out today, I almost stopped. It had put out a lot of new roots, well beyond the root ball, and it seemed very happy and healthy. When I tried to put my fingers into the area of the old root ball, however, it was solid. That worried me, so I started digging into the mass of dirt and roots nearest the trunk. What I found was surprising... The roots were wound around the trunk (big ones, small ones, tangled ones) like a solid ball of yarn. It took me almost 45 minutes of picking, digging, clipping, and chipping to figure out what was going on. It turns out the tree was planted too deep, first of all, almost two inches too deep (the root flare was pronounced once I dug down), and in those two inches there were dozens of roots wrapped around the trunk. some were small, but many were larger and one was even fused into the trunk already. I did the best I could to untangle and remove everything above the root flare, but there are a couple of spots where I had to remove roots that had grown into the trunk. It left some damage. I replanted it, higher this time, and made sure to rinse the wounds well and leave them open to the air. We'll see how she does this year, and in coming years. Long post, I know, but I wonder if your Home Depot JM is being strangled from below? I've never seen such a horribly root bound tree as I did today, and I have no doubt that if I had left it alone, as I thought maybe I should when I saw how healthy the new roots were, that tree would be dying a few years from now. Home Depot has no reason to worry about deaths of trees from being root bound... that's well past their warranty period and I doubt most people would think to blame the store for a death that occurs 5 years later. Many of my other maples are smaller and came in a very loose planting mix from reputable nurseries (I order most of them online)... I've read that even though they start small (3-, 4-, and 5-year grafts), the healthiness of their root structure can mean the grow faster and healthier than trees bought from big-box stores and careless nurseries. Something to consider. I hope others have some advice for you. Good luck.
Hi! Thanks for the reply. Yeah, this plant had a very tightly bound root ball that I loosened up prior to planting. I found that most big box store bought JMs have the extremely compacted root ball within the pot. I've seen plants at bonsai nurseries that have broken the pots they were growing in. haha. I've had to cut plants out of their pots before :)
Maplesmagpie has an excellent point about the roots - have you checked this at all? Also, when you planted the tree initially, is/was the root flare at or just above the soil line? Where is the root flare now (can you get a shot of the base of the trunk, the leaves are blocking this in the pictures you've given links to)? When you say that it keeps dying back, what happens with the portions that are dying? Does it just start turning brown/dry? Do the leaves wilt first, or show some other visible sign? Is there any blackening, ie black spots, that preceded the die-back? In the last picture of the whole plant, there is a black spot four 'rings' down from the top; what is this? Is this how the die-back starts? Do you have any budding higher up on the trunk, or is the bark green underneath when scratched above that last set of new leaves? Does water stand/collect where the tree is located?
Hi Maplesandpaws. I'll take more pictures. The black spot is a result of some wound sealer I put on the plant. I made a small cut to make sure the plant was alive, that's all. I went to a bonsai nursery to ask about my tree's sickness and the guy suggested that bacteria were going in through the cuts that I made. He suggested pruning, and then sealing the cuts. I have not messed with the roots at all since planting the tree. I want to, but I think it is too late now to dig up the tree. When the dieback started, it was on the branches of the tree, it spread from one branch to the rest of them, so cut off the canopy... The branches were bone dry when I cut them off. My hope was that the tree would start again from the point where I cut because it was alive prior to cutting. The problem is after I cut back to a live part, the dieback continues, further and further down the tree. Regarding the leaves, the plant really didnt produce many leaves even when I was "healthy". If I remember correctly, the branches that were somewhat close to the afflicted regions didn't not even bud out. In my most recent trunk chop, I cut it, and put the wound sealer on top. hopefully that does the trick. In addition, I fertilized with Osmocote and ammonium sulfate.
I would make sure there's nothing site-specific going on, then unless it's an important tree for some reason I would call it a day. It's cut back to almost nothing right now-- you could have the same start with a healthy Osakazuki and have a tree again in a few years. Have you tried online ordering? I see there is a reputable dealer selling 30" Osakazuki on ebay right now for $35, and there are some larger ones available from the big Japanese Maple nurseries with websites.
It's nothing super special... but I can't just let it die haha if I can save it i'll make every effort. This tree has quite the girth and I think it would make an excellent bonsai and an even better story if it can come back from the close to death. Here's the picture of the trunk http://i.imgur.com/PHFfIha.jpg
Others with more experience will know better than I, but to me that looks like it was planted too deep. Everywhere I've read it's been "plant at the root flare"... so you'd want to see the trunk flare out into its uppermost large roots, not just a cylinder of trunk going down into the ground. Again, that may be the fault of Home Depot. Lots of nurseries will have their trees a little deep, requiring some movement of soil away from the trunk before you plant, but like I said-- the tree I worked on today had soil two inches up the trunk from where it should have been, and it had been that way a long while. There were rootlets and roots sprouting out all along that two inches, and almost all of them were circling the trunk.
The black bark areas in the cut off piece of trunk picture look like some type of bacterial infection. Possibly pseudomonas. Whether that was the primary cause of the tree's decline or a secondary infection is an open question. I am also not too impressed with the reddish color of the bark in a large section of the remaining trunk. When the branches of JM's with green bark turn this color it is usually a sure sign that the tree is shutting down that branch and it will soon be dead, generally just natural self-pruning by the plant and nothing to worry about in small branches. I interpret it as a similar mechanism as when the leaves turn red in the fall, sugars and other compounds are being redistributed away from this area and it initiates a color change. Note how there is little to no shoot growth on the reddish section of the trunk of your tree, but good growth on the green section. I agree that the tree looks as if possibly planted a little deep, and agree it is well worth investigating the root zone as suggested above. Now, after looking at the roots, if you decide the tree is worth trying to save here is how I would go about it: Judging by the shoot growth so far this season there is a decent amount of stored energy in the root system. You need to direct this into a single stem (or two or three if you prefer a multistem tree) to create a replacement trunk(s) for the one that is lost. If you let all of the shoots grow you will just get nasty, messy shrubby growth that will not make a nice tree. Choose your shoot or shoots and cut the main stem off just above the last node above this, probably worth sealing the wound as suggested by your bonsai guy. Remove all other shoots apart from the one(s) you are keeping and going forward keep rubbing off any new shoots that emerge from the main trunk. With good luck you might get several feet of new growth this year, use a stake to support and train the leader, at least until leaf drop this fall and maybe next year too, depending on how it grows. Good luck!
