HelpfulGardener.com

Hello,

I live in Columbus OH. I got a beautiful Japanese maple, with about 6 years old. Starting from last fall, this tree didn't look well. This spring, half of it is even dead. I usually don't water it and put a fertilizer spike at spring. Can somebody help me save this tree? Really appreciate any input.

A few photos are at https://ppl.ug/OWyFpnsBWE8/

It's normal for Japanese maple branches to winterkill in my area -- Zone 6b -- and I think winter in YOUR area this year was particularly severe... A level of cold that this tree never experienced before.

One of my spring cleanup chores is to go around testing and breaking off small or cutting off larger winter killed Japanese maple branches. They recover from even severe pruning very well, so go ahead and prune off dead grey branches that feel and sound dry and brittle. Once the tree leafs out as yours has done, no more buds will unfurl so it's easy to tell what's dead and what's not.

I'm not sure about the spots, but in my experience Japanese maple leaves are very sensitive to weed killers/herbicides. My neighbor accidentally or intentiinally sprayed a swath of weed killer across our front lawn, and the 4 ft tall Japanese maple tree that was in the spray's path shriveled up and died. I was not happy because this was a seedling tree from a friend's garden that she gave me before moving away.

Thank you for the information. I am sure I didn't spray any weed killer to it. Hope it can come back to its beauty.