Hello Reddit arborists.
I hope you can offer me some advice.
Last October my wife and I purchased a house in Chelmsford, UK which has a beautiful, well established Japanese Maple Acer as the garden centre piece. I believe the tree is around 60 years old, and I am keen to keep it healthy and happy throughout out ownership of our new home.
I noticed 3 small beaches which have experienced some die back, where the flowers formed but leaves never grew. In one spot, I cut the branch back, but then I read I should only prune in Autumn so I have left the other 2 spots where some small die back has occurred. You can see these spots in the images. Is anyone able to advise me on what may be causing this small die back and what I can do to help the tree flourish?
I don’t know if it helps, but the tree is on a rockery so I believe it have pretty shallow roots, and it gets sun for around 12/15 hours a day in the spring and summer. I manually water when we have dry spells, which are firstly frequent here in South Essex.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
by fractals83
2 Comments
The tree is approximately 4 meters high and the canopy is around 4 meter also
Sounds like you’re doing it right. Sometimes branches, especially lower ones that are small and shaded, will get ‘abandoned’ by the tree. She felt these weren’t earning their water so they dont get any. Dry>Die>Reinvest