HelpfulGardener.com

Hi,

My beautiful red japanese maple has new branches but no leaves. Can someone tell me why this has happened and how I can correct the problem.

I live in the northeast and had a very bad winter including ice storms that affected my forsythia bushes. Could this be the problem?

Should I prune these branches or wait to see if they will leaf out?

Scrape the bark with your thumb nail and if it's green you are okay if brown then progress down to see if there is any green and when you find it prune down to that point.

Sounds like a late freeze. Once the Japanese maples break dormancy in the spring they are quite susceptablew to late freezes. Follow bull thistle's advice. You can wait a spell to see if there is any leaf out and then prune back to that point.