I forgot to add that I live in zone 6 (need to check to see if a or b). Also, house faces east - so, sun in morning but receives shade in afternoon (not sure of exact time - I know that the left side (when looking at photo) where Japanese Maple is) gets shaded before the lanscaping beds on the right side do.

Also, here are some additional photos that may help:

More photos:

I have two other trees in my front yard:

It appears to be fine.

Second tree:

It has one small branch that looks kinda dead - but otherwise seems okay.

I truly appreciate all suggestions/advice. I am really concerned about him! Thank you.

I'd attribute the decline and early leaf loss to any or all of the following:

• excessive pruning
• an extended period of hot, dry weather
• inadequate irrigation - 5 minutes a day is almost like not watering at all, especially if using pop-up sprinklers

All of these can cause stress and a stressed JM is vulnerable to a variety of issues, not the least of which is verticillium wilt (fatal and untreatable). Any disturbance in the tree's root zone can also encourage problems.

JMLs are not the slightest bit drought tolerant so in any continued hot, dry spells, be sure to water thoroughly and deeply once every 7-10 days. Pop-up sprinklers are only good for lawns!

All you can do now is water as necessary and wait and see. It may respond next spring....or it may not.

It's worth it to dig into the soil close to the tree to see what is happening with the irrigation. If you get dry dirt a few inches down then that's very bad. IMy guess would be not enough water, second guess would be a pathogen

you really beat around the bush.. so much.. gal didnt even note you did significant wall work not many feet from the trunk ...

i attribute all of what you are seeing to that work ...

a tree 25 year in situ.. should NEVER need any water.. unless you mess with its roots ..

a tree of that age.. will NEVER sunburn.. unless you mess with its roots.. and it cant move enough water to maintain the leaves ... in this case the little supplemental water you are giving it.. isnt hurting it.. but wont be necessary next year ...

canopy reduction did not cause leaf damage... root reduction did ...

we dont care zone A or B... where are you.. big city name;. z6 is roughly 1/2 the US ... its not real important here.. but it would give us an idea of what winter will be like ... i would make sure the plant goes into dormancy full of water... no winter drought if it can be avoided .....

i suspect it will recover.. and be just fine next year .. as the roots will have had a whole year to recover and take care of business ...

ken

Nice try, Jordan!! But if you think that new account and screenname is fooling anyone - including Houzz mgmt. - you are sorely mistaken!!

And you wonder why your posts and accounts are being deleted. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out.......

How old are you anyway........5????

ken, in many cases, root disruption/damage to JM's can be fatal so returning from this situation is by no means a given. And I DID remark on that fact.

Also, never say never!! You do not have the experience with Japanese maples to make absolute statements like they will never need watering or will never scorch! They can and do when exposed to conditions outside the norm, which climate change is providing everywhere. Since a JM's roots are concentrated very near the soil surface, extended drought without providing proper irrigation or periodic deep watering can be a fatal mistake.

It is not recommended to prune off more than 1/5 of a JM at any one time and that "crown reduction" did a whole lot more than that!! Excessive pruning can weaken the tree and also make it more vulnerable to insects and pathogens.

^^^ That is simply NOT true and any JM specialty nursery will state otherwise! JM's require a consistently moist soil, especially the top surface layer of around 6 inches. If that dries out - as it can in any higher temperature dry spell - the tree will suffer the effects.

Garbagegal48 - lol. You know you’ve made it when you’ve inspired paradoy accounts.

I might consider it mildly humorous if the account holder was not such an irritating little PITA!!

"If there’s no drought or excessive dry spells there’s enough moisture content well below the surface where a 25 year old JM roots are already well established."

Japanese maple roots do not travel "well below the surface" or have a "deep established root system". They are very surface oriented and the feeder roots responsible to accessing needed soil moisture are located primarily in the top 6 inches of the soil profile, the portion that is most likely to dry out rapidly in any hot, dry spells.

I paraphrased nothing you said as you made no comment remotely close to that. The OP has already very clearly stated that they have experienced both of these conditions - hot weather and a lack of rainfall and adequate watering so comments addressing conditions other than this are immaterial and distracting.

I have grown plenty of JM's in the ground over my gardening career so the container comment is also irrelevant. And also very telling as to your true identity.

You really do not ever have much of anything of value to add to these discussions, do you? Other than to troll long established and far more knowledgeable members and get your accounts booted off.

And now since the comments made by the mocking account holder have been deleted, the thread once again reads disjointed and with seemingly unrelated comments.

@dmac1108, if you have not been put off entirely by the inane comments of others please comeback if you have any further questions.

Unfortunately, Jordan and his alter egos and other cronies have made it a habit of disrupting perfectly good threads with a lot of unnecessary - and often inaccurate - garbage.

A 25+ year old Japanese maple absolutely can need watering, and 5 mins is totally inadequate if it does. It needs about half an inch over the entire root area, which will be more like 30 minutes to an hour in a single watering. If you look at the trunks, you will likely also find cracking in the bark indicative of lack of water stress. (I'm pretty sure I see some in your pictures.) 5 minutes barely wets the surface and may actually be worse than not watering, as it can encourage the roots to come up to the surface seeking the water.

Oh, and the horrid heat this summer has been stressful on all the plants. Our Japanese maple isn't loving it either.

I guess enduring is relative ... our tree is not in danger per se, but weeks of 90°+ and multiple days up over 100° with little to no rain are still hard on it. We've never had to water the perennial gardens other than new plants and ones disrupted by weeding, but we'd be losing plants this year if we didn't. This tree is actually situated adjacent to my highbush blueberries, so it gets watered with them this year; I don't usually give them much either, but the berries were shrivelling if I didn't this year. I'm actually a little worried for the two that didn't get watered ... (different bed).

'Northland':

Native (straight species):

Though I digress ...

That would be why the effects of the weather on other plants would be a digression; however, it is relevant to note that the weather this year has had a greater impact on the plants and their water needs, as that is part of the issue impacting the original poster's Japanese maple.

I apologize for the delay in responding to say ”thank you” to those of you that spent time to post helpful comments. I was a little thrown off when I initially came back to my post - and also wasn’t feeling well (was in hospital for a couple days). While I started participating on the interior home design/renovation areas of Houzz about 1 1/2 years ago, I only started reading through posts related to gardening and landscaping for about two weeks.

One of the things I really liked about spending time in this new area was how respectful/helpful everyone was - it seemed to be very different than over on the other topics. While there are many helpful/respectful/thoughtful comments posted over there, there are also snarky/overly critical - and sometimes rude - comments posted over there fairly often. Many people are extremely hesitant to post questions - and even more hestitant to post actual photos of their homes/interior rooms/floor plans due to the remarks that are posted.

Sometimes I have to take breaks from over there because it can be stressful! And stress is a huge aggravating factor for my health issues. I do have some other questions related to my backyard, but thought I should just start off with the post about my JM in order to see how that went! LOL!

ANYWAY -

I have just recently been feeling physically able to spend time/effort for anything related to landscaping/gardening (I was actually bedridden for 4 years - which is part of the reason why I was absent from my home for so long). Prior to the weather becoming so HOT, spending time out on my new patio in the morning/early afternoon reading/listening to music was really enjoyable and relaxing.

I’ve always loved plants/flowers/trees/nature in general - but do not have any special knowledge in this area. Now that I’ve had work done in my front and back yards (and have been feeling better - except for the past few days), I’d really like to start learning how to take care of my landscaping + additional planters.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) - I knew that the bed was being watered every morning at around 5 a.m. - I only discovered that it was for a 5 min session the night before I decided to post my dilemma. I wasn’t sure exactly how much to adjust this based upon the fact that the area never received any additional watering before. I am going to use an actual sprinkler in that area - how long should i let it run in order to give it enough of a deep watering? Since the JM reveives eastern sun exposure - what time of day would be best for me to do this?

I really was upset when I saw how much of the canopy had been removed. I assumed that some would be removed, and then additional amounts would be removed later as appropriate in order to slowly reduce the size. However, my SO handled this for me as a favor - he hired a professional to do the work (I need to find out what exact ”type” of professional was engaged to do the work).

I thought that since the ”wounds” (not sure if that’s the correct terminology) had healed up since it had almost been two years - but since I am new to this, I am just learning.

QUESTION - is there any way to determine if it is verticillium wilt? Or do I just have to wait and see?

@BlueberryBundtcake - 6a/5b MA - I just saw that you provided information re: how long of a soak to do - does that mean i should use a soaking hose (not sure if that is correct name) instead of a sprinkler?

I actually told my SO that I thought that the 5 mins of watering could possibly be an issue because it seemed logocal to me that the roots might grow upwards even more towards the surface in order to reach the water. He looked at me like I might be a little whacked! What time do you think that I should give it a good soaking?

@BlueberryBundtcake - 6a/5b MA - I just went out to check soil -

mulch is damp (about 3 inches - maybe 2 1/2 some spots?) + right undeneath mulch is moist - we have a high clay content in our soil (pH is alkaline - 7-7.5 - that’s not result of ctually testing pH of my soil - it’s what I’ve read for my city/county). Due to the slope, this bed never is damp - my house is up on a hill (not fun for winter - when I had a front wheel drive car, my driveway was awful!)

I checked several spots - they all were same as observed above.

Found two spots of cracks -

Question - did the landscape/hardscape people put the mulch too close/deep next to trunk of the tree??? This is the first summer that I used them to do this. Also, the mulch is darker than I’ve used in the past (maybe this doesn’t matter - just want to give everyone all the information that I can to try to figure this out!) Thanks!

Also - i snapped a photo of my neighbor’s JM - it doesn’t look particularly great at the top - but appears to be doing better everywhere else. While it is also located on east side of house (in basically the same area as mine) - it was already shaded while mine was not yet.

It also wasn’t mutilated two years ago. . .

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) - I really appreciate all of your help with this! People like you and @BlueberryBundtcake - 6a/5b MA are the reason why this site is so successful. I am very grateful for the time you have taken to help me with this.

I apologize for sounding like an ”idiot” at times - I am really interested in all of this, and having people like the two of you sharing knowledge is invaluable!

Not an idiot at all! We only learn from asking questions ... I didn't start off knowing this all; I had to ask ... and I still have a lot to learn; you just happened to ask something I had some knowledge on.

I'm not an expert, but I would say those look similar to what an arborist told us was water stress on ours. Our tree is relatively healthy, though it's having some additional stress right now because it was recently pruned, so some of the branches are in more sun than when they first bore leaves, so there's some added crispy leaves from that. (Maple is positioned on the east side of the juniper, due east of the back edge of the house.)

Drought cracks:

The neighbor's tree looks like it's got an issue with a major branch, though I'm not sure what it is; I'd guess most of the defoliated portion is on one or two branches if you trace it back.

@BlueberryBundtcake - 6a/5b MA - I thought that maybe the issue with my neighbor’s JM was just with a particular branch - however, the husband is kind of a jerk, and I was trying to discreetly take a photo!

I am going to buy a soaker hose tonight - and then give it a good soak tomorrow.

Should I remove the mulch that is right up against the trunk? I’ve read on here that a JM shouldn’t have mulch right up against the trunk - but I’m not sure how many inches. I read just a couple - but then I also read at least 4 inches.

I don’t want to make a mistake! Thanks!