Request for help with a sick Maple

[Stoopy]

Hi Folks,

I am new to your site (very nice by the way!) so thank you in advance for any assistance you feel like providing, and I apologize if this is a dumb question but it looks like the right place to ask....

We are in Northern Virginia and have a young-ish Maple tree in our yard that has been struggling. We have been in this house about 10 years now and the tree was a few years old when we moved in. The problems started with some bare, dead-looking limbs at the top about two years ago and the tree appeared very sick. I wasn't sure it would pull through but last summer it came out with a good set of leaves (to my amateur eyes) and this spring it started off well again, only to now have many limbs with dry, dead leaves falling off and the trunk looking "naked" and sick, even somewhat atrophied. Pictures showing this are below. Hopefully not too many pix...just trying to show the problem from any angle that helps.

I am by no means knowledgeable about trees or how to treat them, but am eager to learn. I was hoping that leaving it alone and not fussing with it or pruning it would help it out, but it obviously needs something else.

I do not mulch, just not in the habit, but perhaps that's a contributor to the problem? Any ideas what, if anything, can be done to help nurse this Maple back to a semblance of health?

Again thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Erich

 

[ddhlakebound]

Sunscalded to hell and back, root flare buried, probable girdling roots....

Best to start over now rather than later with that one....

It may be possible to improve it's health over the short term, but it's fully compromised imo.


Edit: Mulch the new one.

 

[treeseer]

:agree2: with ddh on problems but not solution. Young trees are resilient.

First find the flare of your sycamore (not maple) by digging away the dirt off the stem untiul you see roots. then take another picture.

 

[treemandan]

Sunscalded to hell and back, root flare buried, probable girdling roots....

Best to start over now rather than later with that one....

It may be possible to improve it's health over the short term, but it's fully compromised imo.


Edit: Mulch the new one.

I think that maple is in such bad shape it turned into a sycamore. Gonna be a tough TD at any rate. It looks like you could get a crane in there.

 

[treemandan]

:agree2: with ddh on problems but not solution. Young trees are resilient.

First find the flare of your sycamore (not maple) by digging away the dirt off the stem untiul you see roots. then take another picture.

Yup, that thing could grow to 80 foot high and 4 feet wide at the trunk and you would never know it was in such bad shape when a sapling.
Sycamore can really hang in there. I am trying to recall the last dead one I have seen.

 

[ddhlakebound]

:agree2: with ddh on problems but not solution. Young trees are resilient.

First find the flare of your sycamore (not maple) by digging away the dirt off the stem untiul you see roots. then take another picture.

It's pretty rare that I call for removal point blank, and I agree that the root system problems can be addressed.

But the sunscald is severe, and when those two rams horns meet each other the only thing they can do is exert force on one another until the new wood around the hollow core splits the trunk compromising it even further. Or am I wrong? (again)?

What can be done to keep the rams horns from self destructing the trunk?

 

[S Mc]

I agree the damage is severe, but Platanus are resilient, young trees even more so.

I will be very interested in seeing the root flare. Right now the trunk has a waist which is a concern.

Dean, we have seen many trees with major rams horning that have not split and caused self-destruction as you describe, so I am not thinking this is a given.

David is also reminding me that platanus graft amazingly well, lending themselves well to pleaching projects. So again, I am not thinking a future self-demise is guaranteed.

We also have seen major sunscald, mechanical damage on a trunk of a Norway maple that has outgrown the injury and is in fact doing very well. Not nearly as pliable of a species.

Sylvia

http://www.decah.com/platanus.html

 

[treeseer]

ddh, thin-barked and younger trees will graft more readily, so the rams-horn = cracking scenario may not be inevitable.

Nice link on the Basket Tree--can you imagine free climbing that trunk from the interior??

 

[Stoopy]

Wow - THANK YOU all for your replies so far - very much appreciated, and color me embarrassed for thinking my Sycamore was a Maple!

As requested here are some pictures of the root flare, a 36-degree view for that matter. I've since covered it back up but should maybe take advantage of the opportunity to mulch it, water it some, or... ???

Thanks for your advice and I'm rather ashamed that I've let this tree down with the lack of care to this point, I'm hoping there's a way I can make it up to it. Your time is appreciated.

 

[rarefish383]

I've always loved that "Basket Tree". One of the neetest things I've ever seen was a Sycamore that had been back filled maybe 20' up the trunk. It was in a steep back yard where a giant retaining wall had been put in years before. Then the whole yard was back filled. The tree wasn't fazed. It was neet to see that great big trunk sticking out of the ground with great big limbs just a couple feet off the ground. Good luck with yours, Joe.

 

[Stoopy]

(bump).... any opinions on what the root flare pictures above might indicate? Thanks...

 

[treeseer]

(bump).... any opinions on what the root flare pictures above might indicate? Thanks...

the4y indicate a normal flare planted to grade; like it oughta be.

 

[Stoopy]

Thank you very much for the input, and that's a very helpful site you've got linked in your signature line.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

It would be hard to convince me right off the bat that the tree has sunscald, with the damage on several sides (using the fence as a reference).

The trunk looks worse than multiple sunburns too. Like where the tree got burned in a nursery facing one, way, then again after planting facing another way, then showed the symptoms years later as bark peels loose. I don't think its that either.

Sunburn and sunscald are not exactly the same. Could have a little bit of those, and it would be toward the sun side. Or, something that reflected sunlight energy with intensity, like a new energy efficient window, which is not in this picture.

Almost looks like it got struck once.

Either way, its pretty gruesome looking.

 

[Vrutter]

Do you have any deer in the area? Could a buck have rubbed its antlers on it two or three years ago? That may explain the vertical streaks of healthy tissue that appear to be growing over the necrotic parts. It's always way too hard to diagnose from just a few pictures.

 

[Jace]

That is one mangled tree trunk.
I'm wondering if perhaps at some point in time several years back during a major storm, if strong blowing wind twisted the tree and ripping cracks from top to bottom. The tissue seems to be twisted all the way up the tree.

Whatever the cause, for me personally, mixing the factors that a Sycamore tree grows so very tall when mature, with being so close to "my" house as in the photos, and with knowing it may be quite the task for it to compartmentalize from top to bottom, I would saw it down and replace it. But thats just what I'd do personally.

$.02