Why is my japanese maple dying
Why Is My Japanese Maple Dying? - JAPANESE MAPLES EPISODE 135
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hi i'm tim and welcome to the mr maple
show hey i'm matt and today we're going
to be discussing one of uh the questions
i think will help people a lot it's why
is my japanese maple dying
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so first off why is my japanese maple
dyeing now a lot of times when people
will ask us this we'll get an email
about something it might even be from us
we get a lot of general maple care
questions and somebody will say hey my
japanese maple is dead or it's dying can
you help me identify what's wrong with
us why is my japanese maple dying and
oftentimes the first answer i'll start
off with is it isn't like japanese
maples are a deciduous plant i mean
they're going to drop their leaves you
know in the fall believe it or not we do
have some people that don't don't catch
on to that and they're like hey my
tree's dead you ship me a dead tree
and it's out of leaf remember the guy
who
called and we had this guy call matt
and about the fall color yeah yeah there
was a there was a gentleman who bought a
tree uh it was in columbia south
carolina and uh he called me in the fall
and he was in tears
and uh i thought it was another nursery
prank calling me i'm like who is this
and the guy's like uh you know i bought
this hogyoku from you and it's neon
orange and the guy was literally in
tears
and i was like well it's gonna do that
right before it drops leaf every year
and that really that really set into
tears and uh you know i talked through
it with him and he said well you know i
think i could start to look forward to
this every year it's actually kind of
pretty this fall color on this hogyoku
it's neon orange i thought it was going
to be green all year every year all year
long but i maybe this is something i
could learn to enjoy
this is an amazing fall color so if it's
turning to fall color it's not dying if
it's dropping its leaves it's not
necessarily dying yeah so there actually
are some stressors that will cause
japanese maples to drop leaf early now
deciduous plants are easy plants to
reset so if a japanese maple has a
stress and we'll get into some of these
stresses but oftentimes one of the first
line of defenses for a japanese maple is
to start to drop leaf and to have some
leaf drop
if the tree's holding too much water if
it's staying too wet if your tree is
continually soggy that may be something
that you want to look into and it may be
causing your tree to drop leaf
the fortunate thing with with maples
versus a lot of evergreens are it's
easier to turn that process back around
and fix it yeah with japanese maples if
a plant doesn't get water in the summer
after its buds are already set for the
next flush of growth it will often drop
leaves and then once you fertilize it
and water it it'll actually push growth
out again
before fall now you don't want to
encourage that going too late in the
fall because that can cause some issues
yeah but
if that plant is already dropped leaf
going in the summer
often you can just water it give it a
little bit of liquid fertilizer and that
plant will reflush out with a new flush
of growth so that's a great way to reset
it
if that happens during the summer and
this happens all the time because people
will put a young plant out that's not
established yet or put one in a
container outside forget to water it and
it drops the leaf and they say oh my
plant's dying they came back from
vacation they said oh no my tree's dead
and sometimes one thing you'll see in
container gardening especially the tree
had didn't have a full root system in
the pot and so often times the tree is
very happy in the container they're not
having to pay attention to that water
amount but they hadn't checked on that
root system in many years and then one
summer it dries out really quickly
because there's not a lot of soil left
in your container so the trees actually
go and deciduous from lack of water
because there's roots in there taking up
all the energy much much quicker so
that's something to be conscious of as
well i think that's one of the most
common times when people are like oh my
tree got out of nowhere and it's been
doing so well
and it dropped all of its leaves
now another reason you might think your
tree's dead and it might not actually be
would be a late frost we're here in
western north carolina we're in zone 6b
here it's not uncommon for us to get a
late frost and those can look pretty
brutal one of the beautiful beautiful
things about japanese maples they do
rebound from those things quite quickly
so
it's not uncommon for our main display
garden to get a little bit of frost each
year and look amazing still in a couple
weeks now it depends on the level of
frost certainly you're getting but we do
get a little bit here almost every year
and a great way to encourage that to
rebound quicker
is to give it some liquid miracle grow
and some watering after one of those
late frosts
if you have a late frost and then a
drought afterwards that's the worst
possible thing that could happen because
the plants need that water and energy to
push new growth out again after the
first set of buds have been damaged yeah
now we'll get into some things that
actually may be killing your japanese
maple and paramount amongst these you've
probably heard us say it here on this
channel a million times but i have seen
it in other youtube videos explaining
what's going wrong with maples
they were describing that maples want to
be in marshy and wet feet so don't do
that i can't reiterate enough drainage
is the key you want really good drainage
on your japanese maple in the container
in the ground always be conscious of
that water amount one of the quickest
things and i can't say it enough on this
youtube channel either that can go wrong
with a japanese maple in a container as
a saucer below it you hear me say it a
lot but it's certainly something that's
gonna you know water stays to that point
and then stays above that so you're
gonna get stagnant roots the roots like
to dry out and expand that's gonna help
them go in search of moisture with that
watered completely to the drying out
completely staged you don't want them
staying continually moist or continually
damp that's one of the easiest ways to
kill a japanese maple is a location
that's holding water or a pot that's
continually holding water they don't
want that swampy boggy wet feet i had a
gentleman who had bought a huge japanese
maple here at our nursery and i
delivered it to him not knowing where he
was going to plant it he built after he
planted he built a river
down inside of it without any pond liner
or anything so the plant was just
getting saturated and he called me to
say hey come check it out what's going
wrong and i come look at it and the
plant is just sitting in a bog i mean
literally has bog plants growing right
beside of it and he's like what's wrong
two wet feet causes root rot i mean that
can make major issues for a plant and
even kill a japanese maple so that could
be something that is actually killing
the japanese maple so be sure to be
conscious of those water mounds that can
definitely be why your japanese maple is
dying now another reason and it may be
sounding too simple but over fertilizing
that can often cause a tree to stress
out and drop leaf too high nitrogen
especially during hot times of the year
a lot of our fertilizers are temperature
released so if you're watching your
fertilizers some of those will activate
and dump all their nitrogen at once but
when a maple gets stressed out by that
one of its first line of defenses is to
drop leaf completely now what you want
to look for either with the water or any
of these stages are good healthy buds if
you have good healthy buds the tree's
likely to relief it's likely going to be
in a recovery stage and it's salvageable
so it may be something that isn't
completely dead yet it may be something
that isn't doing well but if you don't
watch some of these steps it could be
something that progresses to get worse
dad we used to sell at tailgate markets
and dad actually had somebody who said
yeah i've been fertilizing my japanese
maple come check it out it's dropped all
of its leaves so dad went out there and
he said what do you fertilize it with
and the guy said
triple phosphates they said that's a
little bit much for this and he looked
and the guy put a whole bag a whole bag
of triple phosphates under a japanese
maple because he knew japanese maples
were a little slower growing and he
wanted to grow faster well it had
defoliated an acer palmatum butterfly
completely
and you don't normally want to bare root
a plant but if you've done that you're
going to have to wash off the roots
really quickly get that fertilizer off
the roots repot it and hope that it
leafs back out and surely enough it did
uh it was amazing that it responded back
and even came back from that
but over fertilizing can definitely
cause some issues so we've covered over
watering we've covered a little bit
about late frost we've covered a little
bit about over fertilizing another thing
you know there are some maple diseases
we'll get into that just briefly most of
those can actually be avoided by
skipping those other steps so if you're
watching the over watering and the over
fertilizing you're going to increase
your chances of the tree not having a
disease in it there's pseudomonas and
there's other bacterial infections that
japanese maples can get the problem with
a lot of these are most damages to
japanese maples look similar so people
say oh my gosh it's got a black spot on
it this is pseudomonas the whole tree is
dead well it may look like that if you
have been over watering as well if you
have frost that means
frost may look like verticillium dieback
but the issue is is that all you're
seeing when you're seeing these people
say diseases are they're seeing issues
that are with the plant and just because
you see dead parts on the plant doesn't
necessarily mean that it's a maple
disease in fact most of the time it's
not most of the time it's caused by
something that you're doing
and if you can keep them from being so
active going into the winter you might
not have that die back on it
light fungal foliage issues or even
things like powdery mildew these are not
things that are typically going to kill
your japanese maple they may they may
take away from the look of it that
season but they're not typically
something that's going to be fatal so
they're definitely something to be
cautious of or like the leaf hopper spot
and things like that those will be
things that can hurt a japanese maples
looks that particular year but they're
typically not something that's going to
take the tree out so you want to be
conscious of what's causing those issues
so oftentimes the leading cause of
pseudomonas is actually the tree staying
too wet now pseudomonas is something you
can test your soil for uh you know
phytophthora is something you can test
your soil for those are conditions that
you'll want to check on your soil if
you're having continual issues with it
with a grounded area and you're there in
your garden but they're not typically
the main problem the main problem
typically comes from being too wet and
that's leading these other issues of
root rot and other issues and the other
thing check out our
video on fertilizing japanese maples
because we go into when to fertilize you
never want to fertilize the japanese
maple going into the fall because what
you'll end up being seeing is a plant
that's too active that may have die back
on it because it got cold with soft
fresh new growth that can also encourage
diseases to come in and bacteria so you
may develop further issues with your
maple from doing that so i'll bring it
up because we often see this in emails
too but there may be conditional factors
that you can alleviate that may be
causing your japanese maple to look less
desirable that may be given the effect
that your tree is dying now certainly
paramount amongst these the one i warn
against the most is keeping your
japanese maple inside all year we'll
often get people who've had their
japanese maple inside
you know for a very long period of time
in a window they've got the tree too
active it's leafed out it's had an early
spring and then they're in spring and
the tree just looks a little more it's
alive but it looks a little more burned
on the foliage the fold just kind of
looks you know like it's a past ripening
right it's kind of rotten looking on the
foliage that's because japanese maples
need that deciduous
time so they need that dormancy period
so if you're forcing them to stay in
leaf longer it's certainly going to lead
to less desirable foliage
and long term it's going to lead to more
issues you know be conscious of your air
flow with your japanese maple if you
have an extremely stagnant area where
there's not much air flow that can
certainly cause that kind of look as
well
so we've talked about a lot of things we
see going on in the spring we're going
to move towards the summer issues we
start seeing of people saying why is my
japanese maple dyeing during the summer
and one of the first things we start
seeing in the summer is plants that
really don't show a lot of vigor they
start feeling like the plant is starting
to show decline during the summer the
first thing to check is to make sure you
haven't planted that plant too deeply
often during the summer is when you
start seeing the effects of when someone
has planted a tree too deeply and put
too much mulch from the last winter
trying to help it over winter putting
those big volcano mounds you see
landscapers do bad idea make sure that
it's raked away so you can see uh the
top of the plant where it was originally
planted was originally in a container
when you purchased it i'm not sure what
horticulture schools are still teaching
that one but japanese maples do not want
the volcano of death so if you pile up
the dirt and the mulch you definitely
don't want to bury the graft you want to
keep that graft exposed and have a good
layer of air above that those roots
actually like that air so you don't want
to cover your your base of your japanese
maple too heavily you know leave that
exposed it's going to do better long
term now definitely in the summer months
that's when we start to see a lot of
weed killer burn so it's easy to get
drift when applying weed killer
you may have a landscaper or someone in
your yard maybe your husband or wife
would probably get somebody in trouble
with this video but what you'll end up
seeing is a little bit of drift
oftentimes i'll have somebody say i
don't know what was wrong with my
japanese maple everything was looking
great the foliage was awesome we had a
beautiful spring
and
you know it's june july and now all of a
sudden it just looks terrible all the
leaves have dropped you have to be
careful that drift when you're spraying
weed killers out oftentimes people send
me a photo and all the grass around the
plant is black and brown
and it's kind of easy to figure out
what's happened there someone sprayed it
but they've gotten too much on the
japanese maple and so be very cautious
of that be very cautious of not doing it
on a windy day when the drift is hitting
the foliage because these are things
that certainly can kill a japanese maple
yeah we see this constantly people we
always ask for a photo because a photo's
worth a thousand words and then you'll
see
everything in the photo has weed killer
damage but of course the thing they care
about most of the japanese maple
and it's not doing well well the reason
it's not doing well is because you've
got you've got weed killer on it when
you're spraying out on everything else
and often they'll say i didn't put weed
killer out and then they'll say oh my my
my husband did oh my wife did or the
neighbor was putting it out and it must
have drifted and so it's something to
always keep in mind there are actually
directions on the packages to not put it
out when it's windy
and i've had people here at the nursery
says i didn't uh
it was i didn't put out when it was
windy it was a day just like today and
he's sitting here smoking a cigarette
and the wind is just blowing that smoke
and i said you see that smoke and he's
like
and then they realized it was weed
killer drift
it seems a little overkill but these are
definitely things we can almost put on
our calendars right i mean you can
almost schedule the seasons and know the
issue by the time frame we've progressed
to so early spring it could possibly be
you know the things we talked about but
in summer you're definitely seeing more
weed killer burn um you know that
planted two deep burn
animal damage can be a thing it
typically doesn't kill a japanese maple
unless you get a deer and run it scrapes
it down past the cambium layer
but but typically that's not going to be
the major deciding factor especially on
an established tree you have to watch
out rutgers actually rates japanese
maples a b-plus on the deer scale which
to be an a you have to be poisonous or
spiky so it's pretty good and you know
you'll see places that sell
japanese maples as completely deer
resistant but i think if they were
hungry enough they would eat the pot so
i don't find that to be an honest answer
i don't think there's any plants that
are deer resistant if they're hungry
enough so you want to be cautious of
that you want to watch out for
you know sometimes if you're seeing a
decline it's because there's been so
much transpiration because something's
tripped the bark off so maybe an
animal's gotten down low and peeled away
at that bark
not always the case again they're
normally not our favorite things as
gardeners we normally have a whole
buffet of tastier items in our gardens
than japanese maples but it is something
to be cautious of if you're looking for
why your trees decline so if you have a
plant in a container in your uh and then
you see all of a sudden leaves start
falling off on the ground
often that's because an animal has been
eating on it we get this email all the
time what happened it had leaves
yesterday yeah and then you look in the
photo and then there's leaves on the
ground that have been munched on uh
first check for caterpillars
caterpillars are really small hide
underneath some of the leaves
they often can be munching on japanese
maple and you don't notice it if it's
deer or something like that
they're going to be coming up
and structural changes yeah they're
going to be coming in from above a lot
of times rabbits often come in a lot
lower so that'll help you identify sort
of what animal is actually coming in and
biting on the plant it's not very common
japanese maples really don't have that
many issues with yeah things but it's
something always
there's not a lot of uh insect issues
the things to be conscious of there are
what's creating those situations as well
you know leaf hoppers can certainly and
spider mites can create an issue where
your foliage doesn't look that that good
but it's typically a lot like
the powdery mildew and it's something
that's going to affect the trees looks
that year especially on an established
plant it's going to affect the tree's
looks that year but it might not be
something that kills the tree long term
so that's something to be conscious of
as well and changing those conditions so
that you can alleviate some of that as
well so if your trees already had some
damage we want to get that back into a
growing mode so the first thing to do is
to remove the stress first figure out
what the stress is remove the stress the
second thing is to give it a light
liquid fertilizer and that will really
help it
get some growth back to it after it's
been damaged or stressed a lot of times
the second step after the tree's already
been stressed that's what leads to the
decline of the tree and the death of the
tree people will do things mid-summer
like they'll say i noticed my tree had
dropped leaf i went on vacation i came
back it didn't look good so i put in a
bucket of water or you know i bare
rooted it and checked for everything you
only want to bare root trees out a leaf
you don't want to bury the japanese
maple in leaf there's too much
transpiration which can shock the tree
and lead to an over formation of the
tree just not be able to keep up with
that uh that needs that foliage during
the months where it's in leaf to to feed
it it's giving it its you know
everything it needs right there it's
getting all the chlorophyll through that
and if you're taking that away from the
tree by bare rooting it it's going to
drop foliage and it's going to shock the
tree even more it's going to take it
much longer to recover so be conscious
of some of those things if you have one
of the first stressors occur be careful
that you're not creating more problems
by over watering or by over fertilizing
to try to make up the difference you
brought up a good point that i want to
mention too is make sure that if you're
transplanting a japanese maple make sure
to do that when the plants had a leaf if
you're going to do that during the
spring or summer it's likely going to
die on you not a good chance of survival
and that's one of the reasons you might
actually kill your japanese maple by
moving at the wrong time of the season
yeah if you're going to change a pot or
something you want to keep as much root
ball intact we typically only recommend
you know if you're going to lose that
root ball or disturb a lot of the feeder
roots you only want to do that when
they're dormant doing that in the peak
heat is going to create more stress than
it's worth so it's ideal to move it when
it's when it's dormant even potting it
up you risk some of that root ball
falling off and then causing some undue
stress so if you can wait to pot it up
that's ideal with japanese maples
they're very easy to grow these are some
of the reasons people have contacted us
from our years of experience of
answering lots of questions getting lots
of emails going out and seeing trees out
in the landscape people have grown
incorrectly and
we want to pass these tips on because
it's always better to learn from someone
else's mistakes than your own hey we
hope this gave you confidence in growing
japanese maples that's our idea here
with this channel we want to make it
easier for you we want to give you all
the tools to succeed and these are just
some things from our experience this is
just the beginning of the conversation
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