Hi all.

I got a beautiful 45 gal container grown Red Maple Tree 3 weeks ago. I planted the tree in the NW corner of my yard. I have heavy clay soil. We dug a large hole (2X width of tree ball) and as deep as the container. While backfilling with soil, we put the hose in the hole in order to eliminate air pockets. However, in our haste, we forgot to turn on the water. By the time we realized it, we had filled in the hole by 2/3. We turned on the hose and tried to eliminate air pockets by pushing the hose in the area around the root ball. We saw bubbles come up through the water so we thought that was fine. I created a berm around the tree and watered it every day for the first week.

The next week, we got heavy, heavy rains. I did not water the tree, as when I checked on it I noticed standing water in the berm area after it had rained. Last Friday it rained like crazy. On Saturday morning, I noticed the tree had wilted leaves and had dropped several leaves that were brown/yellow. I looked around the tree and while stepping on the ground I discovered that it was soaking wet & oozing water.

I started to dig around the tree and realized that a) the tree had sunk into the hole and was 1-2" lower than grade and b) the soil was not draining. We removed soil around the top of grade to create more of a slope so water would drain away from the tree. I dug a hole next to the root ball to allow some water to drain out. That hole filled up with water and then just stood there- it did not drain.

Here are pics of what the tree looks like this morning, the area around the grade and the standing water. The tree has many more wilted leaves today. Some are falling and some are staying on the tree.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stingydiva/

I thought the only way you could kill a new tree was by not watering it enough but it looks like my maple is dying from too much water. What- if anything- can I do now to save it?

And in the future- what can I do to prevent this from happening again???

THANKS.