Japanese Maple help...diseased?

[greenpizzabread]

Hi,
I have a Japanese Maple that's not doing too great. There are a lot of brown leaves and a lot of green leaves with brown tips. I've also attached a picture of the bottom of the trunk.
Is my tree diseased and/or dying? I'm inexperienced when it comes to tree care, so any guidance would be much appreciated. TIA.

 

[Raintree]

The first thing we need to look at is the root collar, expose the stump flare by excavating. Post pictures once you've done, need to rule out root collar disorder.

 

[greenpizzabread]

The first thing we need to look at is the root collar, expose the stump flare by excavating. Post pictures once you've done, need to rule out root collar disorder.

Spent a while digging through the mulch volcano that the landscapers created trying to get to the stump flare, but it's proved incredibly difficult even after soaking with a hose. There are so many small roots in the way that I'm hesitant to cut and clear away. Here are some pictures so far. Bear in mind this is still a good 5 inches from flat ground. Should I keep going?

 

[Raintree]

Yes, keep going. It's OK to snip out the small roots.

 

[greenpizzabread]

Appreciate the help, Raintree! Made a lot of progress. I think we found the root flare, but I'm not sure since it looks weird. As you can see, one root is a few inches higher than the other side while another side goes straight down with no root in sight. There were also a lot of small roots girdled around the trunk that aren't visible in the pictures because we had already cut them away. How does the tree look and where should I go from here?

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Wow, they really buried that poor fella

 

[cookies]

poor little tree was getting smothered to death, even with all of that removal it still looks buried.

 

[Raintree]

Unfortunately you haven't reached the root collar yet.
Before you go any further, I want you to grab hold of the trunk near the first branch. Give it a firm wiggle back and forth. We want to know if the tree stump has rotted out below. If it feels loose and wobbly no need to keep going. You are doing this because you have exposed advantageous trunk roots.

 

[Del_]

I believe the term for those roots is:

https://www.google.com/search?q=adv...rome..69i57.5357j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Raintree]

Yes, Del is correct, auto correct with no proof read = my bad.

 

[greenpizzabread]

Unfortunately you haven't reached the root collar yet.
Before you go any further, I want you to grab hold of the trunk near the first branch. Give it a firm wiggle back and forth. We want to know if the tree stump has rotted out below. If it feels loose and wobbly no need to keep going. You are doing this because you have exposed advantageous trunk roots.

Shook it and it seems stable to me. Guess we’ll keep digging.

 

[greenpizzabread]

Once we find the collar and it’s in decent shape, what would we do after that? Fertilize and remulch lightly and hope for the best? Just wondering how this would play out.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

How long ago was it planted?

 

[greenpizzabread]

How long ago was it planted?

No idea. We moved in not long ago.

 

[Raintree]

You are doing the maple a world of good just by digging out and exposing the lower trunk. Hopefully there will be no girdling roots to extract.

 

[greenpizzabread]

Just wanted to post a couple of pics of the final result. It’s not perfect, but the mulch is now ground level and not up against the trunk. Man, it was crazy how many roots were growing upwards and sideways. It’s hard to see in the picture, but you can kind of feel the trunk start to taper where we exposed it. May or may not try to excavate more but for now we’ll just monitor. Thanks again for all the feedback!