Yes, it's acidic! Argh. My lawn (alone) is an acre--I am NOT looking forward to this.... Over the last four years, my husband was the main yard person. I just handled overseeding. I got tired of him killing the grass, so now I'm doing all the yard work, and he gets to dig stumps. :-P He *was fertilizing haphazardly about once a year. He'd mow, AT MOST, once every other week, but if it rained on the weekend, he'd skip that week. He managed to kill off big swaths of the backyard, and that's when I had enough. Now that I'm in control, I'm doing MAJOR rehabbing. He spread some Pre-emergent + Fertilizer in mid-March for me--and missed a huge section of lawn, which is now covered in crabgrass. So that was the last time he touched the yard. But most of the front yard wasn't part of what he missed, and we've never had much crabgrass there, anyway. (Actually, we have other annual weeds that had already reached seedheads by mid-March and the grass got its first mowing, so we really should have started March 1.) I fertilized again 4 weeks later with a weed & feed-type product. Normally, I'd wait at least 6 weeks, but there were stripes of missed areas everywhere, and the grass was still not as vigorous as I'd like to see given how long it had been growing. We had one brief dry spell, and I supplemented water in the front where there are so many tree roots because the grass was getting quite wilty. I really need to hit everything again with a weed-b-gone product (without fertilizer) this weekend. Then I'm going to wait until June 1st, which is the last time you can fertilize around here before summer, and use a final weed & feed-type application. Already, grass I didn't know I had is really spreading out. I think that poor mowing, fertilization, and watering practices were really making the grass struggle under there. So DH will be shifted to trimming dead branches and removing trees when the digging is done, and I'll stay on yard duty and get it done right. I think I have SOME perennial rye, but it's near the house, which gets more sun and stays pretty thick. I get good germination every year, and the grass makes it to winter fine but mostly disappears in spring. (Which was when DH took over...hmmmm....) When I overseeded in the past, I've used a deep shade mix from a big box store. I then applied Starter fertilizer. I keep everything very moist until first mow, then watered less frequently but still regularly. This year, I'm planning on using Outside Pride's Combat Extreme transition zone mix at 80% with poa supina at 20% in the shady areas and 50% Combat Extreme and 50% Supreme KBG. I want to stop overseeding EVERY YEAR. So I'm looking to add enough running grasses to self-repair small holes. I mulch everything right now.... My entire schedule looks like this: Mid-March: Pre-emergent + fert Early April: Realized husband missed neglected strip 10-30' wide and 250' long. Crabgrass already starting, so overseeded with cheapo seed and fertilized. Mid-April: Weed + Feed on main area End of April: Weed + Feed on neglected strip, Weed-b-gone main area Early May: Apply grub killer, because the grubs are terrible this year. After it's used up, I'm switching to Milky Spore. Mid-May: Lime the most acidic and unhappy sections. Weed-be-gone anything left standing. Early June: Last fertilizer--something like Scott's Summerguard. Mid-June: Try the baby soap trick. Early July: Check out for any need for weed-be-gone Early August: Check out any need for weed-be-gone Mid-August: Baby shampoo. Early Sept (earlier than before): Overseed. Apply starter fertilizer. Mid-October: Fertilize with something like Scott's Winterguard. I have to stop mulching around mid-October because of the leaves. From then through Thanksgiving, I mow and bag, then I compost the leaves to use in the gardens. Next year, I plan on only 4 fertilizations. I'll apply a stronger stand-along preemergent in late Feb, then fert in mid-March and mid-May, then early Sept and mid-to-late Oct. There is no way that I will ever apply organic compost instead of fertilizer to this size of yard. It's just not happening. EVER.

Nin, The cracked bark and twig/branch dieback are the results of the Easter Big Freeze Disaster of 2007, complicated by the severe drought conditions we experienced last summer. I saw Japanese maples here- an hour north of Nashville - killed outright, though most were smaller than yours, but some had been in the ground for a number of years. Even well-established natives, like persimmon, pecan, and mulberry were killed back to ground level, so you're fairly lucky that your tree looks as good as it does. I'd prune out the dead wood, and within a year or two you'll hardly notice anything abnormal about your tree.

I don't see any "black spots" in your photo album so hard to tell you what's up. What I do see seems to be some physiological leaf spot and that is harmless.....it is not a fungus but can occur from all sorts of cultural conditions, including the tree falling over and hitting the floor! FWIW, having the tree indoors through the growing season is not ideal. Trees that are native to temperate climates do not fair well as indoor plants - just too little light and too low humidity. Best to put these outdoors during the growing season and bring in only during the cold weather and for the least amount of time you can manage. And keep it a very low temps during this period as well. Also, Japanese maple foliage is extremely sensitive to nearly any type of spray - fungicide, insecticide, horticultural oils, etc. - and frequent spraying can cause all sorts of foliar reactions. It is very likely your spraying is creating more of a problem than the tree was having on its own! Regardless, at this late time of the season, I would not be overly concerned about any sort of foliar spotting....allow the tree to go dormant as it should and clean up any fallen foliage and destroy. Next season, I would rethink how you approach growing and tending this tree -- I don't think you are doing it any favors by keeping it indoors.

Here is a picture of my Japanese princess taken today: And here is how I planted it. The soil here is alkaline clay loam, so it took some work. After removing the grass, I added dirt from another area to raise the level slightly above the surrounding area. I did not add anything to make the soil more porous at that point, but I did mix in some sulfur to acidify the soil and then squashed it flat . Then I created a wide mound on top of that using a mix of good store-bought topsoil, clay turf dressing AKA Turface, fine sifted pine bark pieces, some black compost, and a tiny bit of sulfur. After planting the tree in this porous mix, I formed a saucer shaped circle around the plant to keep the water from running off and mulched it with bigger bark pieces.