Help! Need help identifying problem with Japanese Red Maple

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froggy08 Farmington, MI(Zone 5a) Aug 23, 2007

Hello everyone!

I need help identifying what's wrong with my Japanese Red Maple tree. This tree is beautiful and was already here when we moved in six years ago. It's huge. A few weeks ago I noticed the bark looked strange. I've never really paid attention to it before so I'm not sure if this is a normal process it goes through before winter or what. I loving gardening with plants but I know nothing about trees and how to take care of them. Any help would be appreciated.

This is the link where you can view the pictures that I took. I took closeups of the bark:

http://s225.photobucket.com/albums/dd271/froggy0804/

Thanks,
Angie

Post #3889497
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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Aug 23, 2007

The one picture that shows a lot of blackening makes it look like maybe the tree was struck by lightning? Is that a possibility at all? If that's what it is, there's really nothing you can do, sometimes the tree will make it and sometimes it won't but there's really nothing you can do to change the outcome (besides making sure you don't create any additional stress for it by watering too much/too little or something like that)

It definitely doesn't look like something that should normally happen though, there's definitely something going on.

Post #3890101
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froggy08 Farmington, MI(Zone 5a) Aug 24, 2007

The blackening was underneath the bark I pulled off -- which I know now I shouldn't have done that. I'm not sure if lightening struck it or not. One thing, though, the leaves change in the fall as usual and in the summer they're red so I'm not sure if it's dying or dead already. I think I'm going to have to cough up some money to have someone come out and look at it.

Thanks for taking a look at it.

Post #3893556
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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Aug 24, 2007

So what did the bark look like before you pulled some of it off? I assumed the blackening was the weird stuff that made you suspicious that something was going on, but I guess it must have been something else? I think it's less likely that it was lightning if the blackness didn't show up on the outside, honestly I don't know that much about it though.

Post #3893573
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froggy08 Farmington, MI(Zone 5a) Aug 24, 2007

The bark was buckled and puffed up -- that's the best way I can describe it. So I just pulled it off to see underneath it. Plus, those are really close up pictures. It's acutally quite small.

This message was edited Aug 24, 2007 12:04 AM

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