'Autumn Blaze' Maple Budding On Trunk, Branches Dormant

12 years ago

By way of introduction I should say that I'm almost completely inexperienced in matters of flora and my knowledge comes almost exclusively from my mother-in-law or the internet. Both offer tons of answers; neither, it seems, are that reliable.

I recently bought an 'Autumn Blaze' maple ( a hybrid acer x freemanii) to plant in our backyard. I was assured that our zone, soil type and sun exposure would be acceptable. A silver maple had thrived within 15 feet of my intended location for over 80 years (it was dying and was helped along by a hurricane).

I planted the tree - around 7 feet tall at the time - as instructed by the nursery and a local gardening enthusiast. This was in early October. The tree quickly dropped its 7 or 8 leaves, but as it was a recent planting and late in the season I didn't think it cause for concern. Come Spring the tress in the neighbor's yards started to bloom and mine remained dormant.I was told that new plantings can be slow to bloom and to be patient. Several weeks later still no action, so I called the botanic garden's help line. They suggested the plant might have spent too lonmg in a grower pot and the roots could be 'potbound'. This turned out to be the case. After gently breaking up the rootball and replanting, mulching and daily watering the tree is a riot of life but only on the trunk. It started budding immediately along the trunk and now has many leaf-bearing small branches that look quite healthy. Above the crotch the branches remain pliable and colorful, but the buds remain dormant.

I'm told that the sprouts along the trunk are stealing nutrient from the upper branches, but I'm reluctant to prune. Anybody have any thoughts on this situation? I'd like to reiterate here that I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to these matters, so if I've done something stupid please bear with me and know that my intentions were good!

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Comments (5)

Embothrium
12 years ago
The parts where there are leaves now may be the only parts you are going to get growth from, definitely do not remove the sprouts.
blackthumb77
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for your reply. At present the trunk of the tree is completely alive with stems and leaves that look quite healthy, but above the crotch the canopy is completely bare. Is there any chance that the canopy will EVER bloom, or is it too late?
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It's a maple tree for heaven's sake.......it doesn't have a central leader. I'm not sure how it got into everyone's head or why it is such a widespread concept that every tree MUST have a central leader. It depends entirely on the species. Many trees, including most conifers, do have a growth habit that produces a central leader or dominant growth point - an excurrent growth habit. Other species, including a great many shade trees, produce a wide, rounded crown that does not feature a central leader but rather a number of codominant growth points - a decurrent growth habit. With decurrent species - like maples - it is counterproductive to the long term growth of the tree to encourage a central leader when none exists. Dan has the right approach - decurrent growth trees do need some early structural pruning/training to develop a good balance and placement of scaffolding branches and to avoid situations that can result in occluded joints but to encourage the development of a "central leader" in a species that does NOT develop a central or single leader is a waste of time and effort.
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iforgot - I've linked another web source, and a search for "invasive acer palmatum" turns up quite a few links that at least list potential invasiveness. The two links I've posted also list sources. I will say that when I worked for a year at Philadelphia's Morris Arboretum, in their Urban Forestry Department, there was absolute concern at the arboretum, and there was a significant problem of Japanese maple seedlings coming up throughout the wooded "natural" areas of the arboretum and surrounding parkland. I'm absolutely not saying that they're a problem everywhere, just that they have the potential to be a problem and were definitely a problem at the specific arboretum I worked for in a particular part of my country and state. Here is a link that might be useful: Another source
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It is amazing. Speaking with the farmer behind us he believes his corn is about 2 weeks behind because the rainfall has come down in very short periods and mostly run off. On top of that most of the large rain producing systems have gone either north or south of us so far. It all evens out in the end so of course last night and today we got pounded with rain. On the bright side I will not have to water it for a while. The mulch now does look kind of weird compared to the way everyone else piles up mulch to the trunk. Hopefully as it grows I can expand the mulch ring and keep it not as deep so that it is more flat and does not draw attention to the flare as if it disappears into a hole of mulch. Thanks for all the advice and I will keep an eye on the tree the rest of the summer and provide updates. My hope is that the tree is putting a lot of energy into creating new roots so that way it can take up nutrients and plant itself firmly in the ground since it is in a very windy location. Then in the next couple of years it can start adding height. Kimberly, keep me updated if your tree retains its leaves. Mine have been red for a few weeks and none have dropped. My hope is that they will stay on for some time and then those branches will leaf out again next year. Do you have pictures of the tree? I would be interested to see if it looks the same as mine posted. I hope I can ask one more question: When a tree is stressed and drops leaves early, does that branch also die? For example, on the couple of branches that all the leaves are red, do the leaves just die off or does the branch usually die off and need to be cut out the following year? My thoughts on the landscapers/nurseries that sell the trees are they are much more short sighted that what we believe. I think it is not much about selling you another tree down the road when the one they put in dies. I think it is about the process of putting it in. They came with a 2 Â 2.5" caliber tree with a large root ball and a bag of mulch. They left with nothing. I would think that once they dig this big of a hole, plant the tree and use some to backfill, they would be left over with quite a bit of clay from deep in the hole. Instead of taking it away they just pile it on top of the root ball, cover it with mulch and leave empty handed. If you think about it, and they had to take away just a few buckets of soil from each tree they planted, this would create a problem for them with what to do with it. It is much easier on their part to plant wrong that do what is right. It is too bad because if they would have just left a pile of the soil that was not needed, I could have found a use for it.
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I was way off on my tree size assumption. You certainly could do nothing now and wait. If they were mine, I'd choose a definitive leader for each tree now, then clip the ends off the remaining vertical stems at the top. Working from the top of each stem that you DON'T want to be the leader, find the first downward facing bud and clip just above - you should be able to do this within the first 4-5" of each end. This is sorta like subordinate pruning, but before multiple stems have time to develop codominant characteristics. Choosing a downward facing bud will force the response growth downward, maximizing the chance for these to become branches, not vertical trunks. Once again, not immediately necessary, but may help avoid larger corrective wounds in the future. ETA: Since these have already leafed out, replace where I said "bud" above with "leaf" or "new branch stem."
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weeper_11
12 years ago
If you break one of the dormant buds off, what does it look like? Is it green inside? If not, I think your sprouts are probably what you've got to work with.
blackthumb77
Original Author
12 years ago
Broke one of the dormant buds off and it's not at all green inside. In fact I broke a couple off and they were brittle and dead. So I went ahead and broke off a tiny branch and it snapped right off like a dead limb and was brown inside. I think we can conclude that the tree is dead from the 'waist up'.
So now what? Like I said, the bottom half of the tree is VERY alive. Is there some method by which I can prune it in order to make it look more like a tree? I imagine it would be detrimental to just lop off the trunk right below the crotch, right?
Adam Polak
12 years ago
Considering you have so many sprouts from below the the first branch set, you can select ANY of the sprouts from the trunk and make that into your new tree. I have had two instances with the same tree of a similar but different situation:

I have a red/silver cross (Acer x freemanii) that I dug as a 6" seedling from my grandmother's garden. Planted it into the ground in late October of 2009 to over-winter it safely. A rabbit came during that winter and ate the stem to 1" from the ground.

Determined as I was, I dug it up, potted it up and let it sprout last spring. I nubbed off every sprout but the one closest to the cut end, and let that sprout shoot up for the duration of summer 2010. It grew almost to 3' tall.

In December 2010, after the little tree had turned the most amazing shades of hot red, we had a 4 day unprecedented snow fall (snow squalls, lake effect snow) the likes of which snapped the stem to 6" from the ground (in a new pot, in the ground again for the winter).

As soon as the ground was thawed in March, I lifted the pot and kept it on the deck/patio. Again, the stem was enthusiastic about leafing out, and all the dormant buds were activated. I nubbed them away, only keeping the highest one on the stem.

It has grown nearly 2' in the past 6 weeks. The wound has healed over completely and the stem is growing like a weed.

Moral of the story: I'm determined to grow this silly weed of a hybrid.

Moral 2 of the story: Even when you lose the top of a tree for an uncontrollable reason (weather, animals, etc) you can still succeed.

Pick a vigorous stem and cut away all others. This stem will become the new trunk and will grow a considerable amount this summer. Remove the entire dead top to about half an inch from the shoot you will keep. The removal of all others will force all the root energy into one stem.

It will hopefully prepare for winter and drop its leaves in October. Your one stem will branch profusely in the spring next year. It will look a little funny (well, a lot funny) but you won't have thrown away a perfectly good plant.

'Autumn Blaze' Maple Budding On Trunk, Branches Dormant

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Embothrium

blackthumb77
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'Autumn Blaze' Maple Budding On Trunk, Branches Dormant

Comments (5)

Embothrium

blackthumb77Original Author

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weeper_11

blackthumb77Original Author

Adam Polak

COMPANY

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GET HELP

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blackthumb77
Original Author

blackthumb77
Original Author