I recently purchased a Japanese maple and planted it a week ago. I am new to this and as far as I can tell I did everything I was told when it came to planting the tree with the exception of finding a place in my front yard with suitable shade in the afternoon hours. It gets plenty during the morning and early afternoon. My issue is that since planting it the leaves have steadily been drying out and wilting. They've yet to start dropping but I fear that is the next step. I've been told lots of different things such as its not uncommon for newly planted maples of the lace leaf variety to drop their leaves due to stress and not to be worried because they have a second set of leaves for this purpose. The branches of the tree don't seem to be drying out and a friend told me to lightly scratch the bark on some of the branches to see If there's a nice green color and if so then that's a sign that theres good life in the tree. Needless to say I'm at a loss as to what to do and could use some help from some of you out there that have a good green thumb getting me in the right direction so I can save this wonderful looking tree.