I recently bought a fireglow from the nursery and found some white spots on the leaves after a couple of weeks sitting in my backyard. It is still in the pot and the cloth coming from the nursery and I put it in the place where I would like to plant the maple later. The location receives morning sun and the shades move in after 3-4pm. The spots will eventually "burn" through the leaves. One observation is that the white spots only appear on one side of the maple (east side) and in the lower part of the tree. The top leaves are perfectly fine. Also I have a waterfall (in pot) about 6 feet away from the fireglow and it is perfectly fine. I water both the maples twice a day, more water in the morning and just wet the soil in the evening. The container for the fireglow has pretty well drainage so I usually give it more water to make sure the soil in the cloth receives enough water. It would be very appreciated if someone can tell me what the white spots are and how I can fix this problem. I am new to japanese maple and like this tree very much, I don't want to lose it because of whatever I do wrong. I've attached a few pictures of the leaves. Pardon me about the quality of the picture. I don't have a good camera to take some close up. Thanks.
I am no expert, but that doesn't look like a serious problem to me. In wet spring conditions maples can suffer from some leaf blight. I wonder whether or not you are overwatering a little? You could try moving the plant to a different position? The fact that the spots are on one side of the plant only, and low down only, suggests a very localised (possibly wind?, or merely a draught?) condition. I am assuming that you have checked for grubs, insects etc etc. Remove damaged leaves if they upset you Sometimes you can fuss over a plant too much .... allow it some freedom
Any chance you might have used a broadcast spreader near that side of the tree. Maybe fertizer burn? regards doug
Thank you very much for the response. I will keep my eyes on the tree. In fact, both of your suggestions might be possible: It was very windy the last couple of weeks and I did notice morning mist on the leaves; I added plant food (10-10-10) to the tree about 1 week ago. I've already reduce the water to the tree and will try to move it to another spot and see if it will improve. It's a very nice maple and I am afraid I will ruin it because of my ignorance. Carl
Hi Carl: Just a quick note as I am out of the state for a while. I will say that the condition you are seeing is quite common to Fireglow and most but not all palmate forms of Atropurpureums in many locations in the San Joaquin Valley. You will not lose your Maple because of this sun burning condition. The burn on the leaves like that in most areas usually means that moisture on the leaf was burned by the sun, sun burning if you will. We see it come about with overhead waterings in warm to hot weather. An allover (many leaves, widespread throughout the plant) condition plus some leaf margin and leaf tip burn generally means the Maple did not have enough water movement when the leaves were scorched by some hot winds. What makes Fireglow unique for us where we are, is that a missed watering can also show symptoms of sun burning with the same type burned areas as on your Maple but those burns are generally located on the leaves where the Maple received the most intense sun and affect many leaves throughout the plant. Most likely cause of your sun burn is lack of water and it may very well have been due to how the Maple was cared for at the nursery. It is not unusual at all to see leaves shows symptoms of sun and wind burn a few weeks after they are brought home from a nursery. Jim