allthetrees
New Member
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For a while now my maple tree has had this growing dark spot on the south side. Since we are in the PNW, my subconscious glossed over the spot as just being wet, so it took a while for me to notice something might be wrong. It has grown from being similar to a dark wet spot, to being clearly concerning. My kids said they touched it last year and it was a bit sticky so they assumed it was sap. I went out a few days ago to check it up close and realized the bark is loose/peeling in many places. It doesn’t look like there is sap there to me. The dark spots don’t seem to be powdery, just discolored and cracked. The branches have been a lot less leafy for the past few years - mostly producing only on the ends of the branches. Our summers have been drier and hotter than usual so I have tried to be good about watering just the backyard deeply once a week not for the sake of the grass but for the sake of the trees. I had contacted a pruning company last year to come out and trim this tree back, thinking that might help with the dwindling leaf production (before I noticed the dark spot), but they never came so it hasn’t been pruned in over a decade. 2-3 years ago we did encounter a ten-lined June beetle in our yard which worried me a lot for our trees but we killed it and haven’t seen any more of them.
Is it diseased? Just old? Can I save it? If it is diseased, is it safe to plant a new tree in the same spot or would that tree be likely to get infected as well?
View attachment IMG_0690.jpeg
View attachment IMG_0693.jpeg
View attachment IMG_0692.jpeg
For a while now my maple tree has had this growing dark spot on the south side. Since we are in the PNW, my subconscious glossed over the spot as just being wet, so it took a while for me to notice something might be wrong. It has grown from being similar to a dark wet spot, to being clearly concerning. My kids said they touched it last year and it was a bit sticky so they assumed it was sap. I went out a few days ago to check it up close and realized the bark is loose/peeling in many places. It doesn’t look like there is sap there to me. The dark spots don’t seem to be powdery, just discolored and cracked. The branches have been a lot less leafy for the past few years - mostly producing only on the ends of the branches. Our summers have been drier and hotter than usual so I have tried to be good about watering just the backyard deeply once a week not for the sake of the grass but for the sake of the trees. I had contacted a pruning company last year to come out and trim this tree back, thinking that might help with the dwindling leaf production (before I noticed the dark spot), but they never came so it hasn’t been pruned in over a decade. 2-3 years ago we did encounter a ten-lined June beetle in our yard which worried me a lot for our trees but we killed it and haven’t seen any more of them.
Is it diseased? Just old? Can I save it? If it is diseased, is it safe to plant a new tree in the same spot or would that tree be likely to get infected as well?
