I'm glad your damage wasn't as severe as I thought. You've been given some good advice on pruning. I think you'll be surprised how it looks when it's done. On another note, I would not refer a company to anyone for an accident, especially if they felt bad about it. Accidents happen as we know just from the weather. I'd hate to count the times that I've accidentally stepped back on something or dropped something myself and broken a plant or limbs. Now if they didn't care that it happened it's a different story, but to possibly hurt someone's livelihood is a big step to take. Cher

From the appearance and your description, it looks a bit like 'Shindeshojo', however I would be very hesitant to assign it a specific cultivar name. With the huge number of registered cultivars on the market and the very close similarities many of them share it is virtually impossible to ID a Japanese maple with any degree of certainty. As one very reputable JM source states: "There are things that are absolute in life such as death and taxes. Unfortunately being able to visually identify a specific Japanese maple cultivar with 100% certainty isn’t one of them. There are several reasons for this. First, your tree may be seed-grown guaranteeing that it is not a named cultivar. Many older trees that may have been grafted lose there graft “markings so it is impossible to tell whether they are seed grown or not. Second, many Japanese maples are similar to each other in color, leaf type and many other visible ways. The actual differences in many cultivars can be very subtle. Even with the ones that are VERY distinctive you cannot guarantee an ID although you could give a “likely” ID. There are also many differences brought about by environmental conditions that could also make the actual subtle differences in appearance even more obscure. Finally, the number of different cultivars that have been produced over the years is astonishing and may possibly number a thousand. A person would be hard pressed to know all of them in any intimate way. In my opinion it be unethical for even the most expert old-time Japanese maple grower or even J.D. Vertrees himself to give a 100% guaranteed ID on any Japanese maple.

no idea on specific variety FWIW, it looks like an Emperor to me. That's based on the color and shape of the limbs. There are several red varieties, though, so as it fills out it might take on a different shape. I can triple down on the "pull back the mulch" statements. I know you don't want to because it looks really good, but having it against the truck will overheat the roots and just do more damage :-( I have a Tam that struggled for a few years, and when I pulled the mulch back from the roots it did a LOT better! Most Japanese maples do best in part sun, at least until they're mature. I couldn't see the canopies of the bigger trees in the picture but it looks like they'll probably shade the tree pretty well, which is good. If you start seeing burned spots on the leaves or wilting, though, then you might want to set up a light shade for at least the first few years. But let me also add that I'm one of the less knowledgeable people on this forum, so if someone disagrees with me then you should probably listen to them :-)

I apologize for the delay in responding to say ”thank you” to those of you that spent time to post helpful comments. I was a little thrown off when I initially came back to my post - and also wasn’t feeling well (was in hospital for a couple days). While I started participating on the interior home design/renovation areas of Houzz about 1 1/2 years ago, I only started reading through posts related to gardening and landscaping for about two weeks. One of the things I really liked about spending time in this new area was how respectful/helpful everyone was - it seemed to be very different than over on the other topics. While there are many helpful/respectful/thoughtful comments posted over there, there are also snarky/overly critical - and sometimes rude - comments posted over there fairly often. Many people are extremely hesitant to post questions - and even more hestitant to post actual photos of their homes/interior rooms/floor plans due to the remarks that are posted. Sometimes I have to take breaks from over there because it can be stressful! And stress is a huge aggravating factor for my health issues. I do have some other questions related to my backyard, but thought I should just start off with the post about my JM in order to see how that went! LOL! ANYWAY - I have just recently been feeling physically able to spend time/effort for anything related to landscaping/gardening (I was actually bedridden for 4 years - which is part of the reason why I was absent from my home for so long). Prior to the weather becoming so HOT, spending time out on my new patio in the morning/early afternoon reading/listening to music was really enjoyable and relaxing. I’ve always loved plants/flowers/trees/nature in general - but do not have any special knowledge in this area. Now that I’ve had work done in my front and back yards (and have been feeling better - except for the past few days), I’d really like to start learning how to take care of my landscaping + additional planters. @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) - I knew that the bed was being watered every morning at around 5 a.m. - I only discovered that it was for a 5 min session the night before I decided to post my dilemma. I wasn’t sure exactly how much to adjust this based upon the fact that the area never received any additional watering before. I am going to use an actual sprinkler in that area - how long should i let it run in order to give it enough of a deep watering? Since the JM reveives eastern sun exposure - what time of day would be best for me to do this? I really was upset when I saw how much of the canopy had been removed. I assumed that some would be removed, and then additional amounts would be removed later as appropriate in order to slowly reduce the size. However, my SO handled this for me as a favor - he hired a professional to do the work (I need to find out what exact ”type” of professional was engaged to do the work). I thought that since the ”wounds” (not sure if that’s the correct terminology) had healed up since it had almost been two years - but since I am new to this, I am just learning. QUESTION - is there any way to determine if it is verticillium wilt? Or do I just have to wait and see?