Hi, This is my first post and hope someone will give me some advice. We went to a nursery and bought a 12-15 foot autume blaze maple tree. It is a beautiful tree. The nursery planted it in April It looked liked it was doing pretty well until about 3 weeks ago. Now the leaves are all turning color. It looks like I would imagine it looking in the fall. I called the nursery and they told me it was a common problem. They said it was probably under stress. I was told to water it slowly, about 20 minutes a day, every day for about a week. I live in lower Michigan and the weather has been very warm the past few days. Does this seem to be the right thing to do. I told the nursery that they planted the tree in clay and they said that wasn't a problem. They said the leaves would probably fall off early, maybe in September, but not to worry. Thanks so much for any imput.
Carol, this is the same exact problem I'm having (and I live in lower Michigan as well!). I have a post that you can visit [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16178]here[/url] that shows a few photos of my tree. I also have clay soil, but I don't think mine is suffering from lack of water since I planted it last year and the soil around the tree is still moist from the last rain.
It's June of 2010 and I am in Ohio and having the same problem with mine! I'm wondering if your problem was resolved with your autumn blaze. Should I be hopeful?
Although it may be warm watering a tree that much might drown it if you have clay soil. Wind may be a factor as well so I would suggest instead of watering everyday is to spray water on the leaves in the evening and soak once every three days.