Coral Bark Maple 'Sango-kaku' (Acer palmatum)

Japanese maple 'Sango Kaku'

we recieved a coral bark maple that had been in a pot for some time. It had lovely golden yellow leaves and perfect red stems and seemed very healty. It was recently planted in a garaden bed that gets full sun until late afternoon. The weather the last week has been unusually hot for our area (north east of Seattle by about 25 miles) and now all of the leaves have curled up. Is the tree gone?? We sure hope not - any advice would be great. Thanks, dforth

'Sango Kaku' doesn't seem to like a lot of sun. I've had a lot of leaf burn during hot spells on mine as well (it's still in a planter, albeit a large one). Lots of water seems to help, and if your bed isn't mulched, put a good thick layer down to help conserve moisture -- don't pile it up against the trunk, though.

Good luck!

thanks for your experience - do you think moving it at this time to a less sunny location would be wise or should we wait? Luck is needed!

dforth, lol, you e-mailed me with the maple question, and I immediately went to Dave's Garden to look around and found you had already contacted them!!! How long have you been a member? I'm pretty new and still finding my way around.

hope to see you this weekend!

Carole

I'd wait until the tree goes dormant before moving it. Better to err on the side of caution!

To my new Oakland friend, thanks so much for the information. We are going to do a 'wait and see' with the tree where it is now, keep your fingers crossed. Giving it plenty of water.
Dianne

Thanks Carole, so good to see you this weekend and to find you are also one of 'Daves' group.

I have the same maple. It, too, gets sun scorched during heat waves. The leaves turned brown and curl up. I have had it for 3 years now. I have it in partial shade now with filtered sun during the day. It gets the late afternoon sun. During our 115 degree heatwave it burnt the leaves, but is now bouncing back more beautiful as ever!
The first year it did this, I thought it was a gonner. Kept it in the planter, and low and behold, in the spring it started showing its beautiful leaves!

Well, we lost the maple, it had a good life but is now in tree heaven (I hope). On a brighter note, we re-potted the second one in a larger container with more shade and it is very happy.
To qualify all of this, both tree's belong to my good neighbor Dona. The previous owners of Dona' house had planted 48 arborvitae between our two yards ( my husband and I were not interested in joining them in a fence project). When they sold to Dona and her family two years ago we decided to join our yards with a flower bed! Out came the arborvitae which was replaced with a sculpted garden going into both yards. We like it so much better than a fence and now our neighbor to the south of us has also joined our 'garden club'. We get so many compliments from other neighbors and visitors. It is a friendly atmosphere and, of course, we all get along great.

Glad to be a part of such a neat supportive group here at DG. Be watching for more of my questions and problems, there will be many!! Dianne