What's the watering been like? and how do you tend to the area under the tree canopy?

It has been a dry summer. I do have sprinklers nearby but am not directly watering the tree. I do have another japanese maple about 20 ft away and it is doing very well.

I do nothing to tend to the area under the tree - it has a few weeds - but it is basically mulch.

We have a lovely red acer but recently there is some white and black spotted slime on the bark any ideas what it is? Thanks.

Jill - best to start your own thread and include photos. It's impossible to make reasonable guesses just based on descriptions.

Anyone any ideas what this might be?

Photos not close or clear enough and won't enlarge. Still can't see what's going on.

Agreed the photo doesn't help much.However are there lots of round black blobs surrounded by white goo? if so google 'Scale insects',if not a better photo is needed :)

Strong thread hijack lol

It's an infestation of cottony maple scale.

Click link to verify.

The hijack isn't such a big deal because the OP is pretty old, but if you have questions about your plants, the polite thing to do is start a new thread. What you did is called piggy-backing - no big deal, but it would be better if you start your own thread.

Al

Holy smokes, Al!! Your eyes are a lot better than mine :-) I can barely make out a few white specks where the tree starts to branch but nothing clear enough to determine what it was.

LOL! Here it's birch trees and aphids :-) I'm not at sure why but scale infestations on landscape plants are not overly common here although you see it a lot on houseplants. Now and again I encounter scale outdoors (mostly on conifers) but fortunately maple scale is not very common at all.