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Drought stress symptoms

13 years ago

My brother bought a Japanese Maple 'Bloodgood' from Home Depot a few days ago. He just called to say that it has been getting yellow spots on the leaves and the leaves are curling. He planted it within an hour of buying it and it's gotten worse each day. He mentioned that the soil seemed extremely dry.

My first thought was possibly some type of leaf spot but now I'm leaning more towards drought stress.

He also mentioned that there was a yellowish film on the branches and trunk that he could wipe away with his fingers. I've never heard of that and without a picture, I'm stumped.

Any ideas?

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Comments (4)

poaky1
13 years ago
The yellow film may be pollen from surounding plants, that's a guess. If you watered after planting and mulched that would help the tree, if it's not too late. I mean water good, I think a gallon per foot of tree height. That's what I've always heard anyway. At least 2 inches of mulch, wood is best, away from trunk at least 3 inches so it doesn't touch trunk.If it suddenly gets full sun and didn't before that can shock it a bit. I've killed 2 of these years ago, I finally have a happy one, so don't feel bad. Make sure soil stays moist but not saturated, water when rain isn't really abundant, at least once per week, stick your finger down at least 3 inches under the mulch.
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
13 years ago
Dan's standard default answer: Improperly Planted.

Surely consuming from HD & already having dry potting soil doesn't help.

Dan
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what you are seeing is DROUGHT .... most trees.. shrubs.. conifers.. otherwise healthy ... cope by doing what you see .... they just arent processing water sufficient to look pretty .. sorta like you and me.. we go out all fresh .. and by noon we look droopy ... lacking vibrancy.. etc ... but we can refresh overnight with liquids.. and air conditioning .... in drought and the high night temps of august ..... your plants cant recover over night like they should normally do .... and .... what i said in your other posts about trickling some deep watering ... and inserting pix in your posts ... ken
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Thatch is a build-up of organic matter which can include, dead grass leaves, stems, stolons, rhizomes, and overcrowded grass roots and lateral weed growth (Wikipedia). I can live with that definition. Key is build-up. You have one layer of fallen over dead grass. I don't think that meets the definition. I guess when I rake up the leaves I'm dethatching. Have you tried raking up the dead grass? The reason not to use a mechanical dethatcher is it is abusive to the turf. If you have stolons it will chop them into pieces. For St Augustine that can kill the plant. Zoysia is mostly spread with rhizomes, so you would not see it, but with a rake you can be a lot more selective as to how much of a beating the turf gets.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
13 years ago
or it was improperly shipped..

or frost/frozen at bigboxstore ...

he has no real idea what happened to it for the week prior to purchase ...

ergo ipso facto.. no way to tell what the problem is/was ...

the suggestion that it would wilt.. within hours of transplant .. seems a bit far fetched.. it just doenst happen that fast.. unless it is august.. and 110 degrees in the shade ...

ken
forensicmom
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks. I was wrong about the wilting. Sorry. I misunderstood him. The leaves are curling fast and getting more spots. I doubt it has anything to do with the way it was planting since it started so fast. He commented how dry the soil was, so my guess is that didn't help.

He's returning it to HP tomorrow and will go to a local respected nursery for a different one.

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