If yours is the lowest zone rated, then the plant will always be considered marginal. That's because the hardiness zones are based on an average minimum winter low temp, not an absolute minimum low. So there is always a possibility for colder than "normal" winter weather to occur - at least a 50% chance :-)) If you want a plant to be of assured hardiness in your zone, then you need to pick one that is hardy to at least a full zone lower than yours. And even that is not always a 100% guarantee. FWIW, most better sources list the hardiness of all JMs at (5)6 - that parenthesis around the 5 indicates borderline or marginal hardiness.

This is a size transplant I can relate to! Below is my method. Go get a tan colored lady's nylon and it in about a six inch circle around the trunk where there is room for all your fingers to fit between the nylon and the trunk. Put 3 stakes (preferably green metal so they blend in) in the ground making a triangle about 18 inches from the trunk. The stakes need to stick up from the ground about 18 inches themselves. Use 20lb ish fishing line to tie the nylon to the stakes a foot to eighteen inches up. This should accomplish holding the tree upright using the gentlest material I can think of to contact the trunk. Also the tree should habe room to sway. In a year or so when the sun is getting tne best of the fishing line it is probably time to consider removing the stakes.

It's true that months ago I was wondering about whether I should remove my own beautiful white bark birch tree. And now the city birch tree has rotted and is in the process of being removed. So why would that upset me? That's one less tree and that's good! I am upset because I don't want a replacement tree planted on my front yard! I have enough tree canopy and tree roots on my property. The tree bylaw has made it very difficult for property owners with trees to remove any tree (even if it poses difficulties for the homeowner and damages their property). Most of all, I ask myself, why it is that homeowners with trees have so many restrictions in regards to what they can do with their trees and are even penalized by having to pay for permits to ask for a tree to be removed; require replacement trees---sometimes one, but mostly 3, or 5 or more to plant on their property if one tree is removed etc. Whereas those homeowners with no trees can remain treeless and suffer no ill effects if that is what they choose. The property right across the road from me has no trees on their property. I say, why not have the city plant "my" replacement tree on the city portion of their property? The homeowners with trees support the tree canopy, but the city only makes things difficult for us by enforcing a lot of rules about how we manage our trees, what happens to our trees, how many replacement trees we would have to plant, where we can plant them and a very restricted list of trees we can choose from. Not a good picture, but might give you an idea of my tree canopy: The red marks the only grass you can see from this aerial view. Trees are living things. They grow. Things change. I don't hate trees. I think they are wonderful. BUT they need to be planted in the right place! It just may be that my Japanese Maple will be happier without the one birch tree. We will have to see what happens. I like your idea Bill of removing the 2nd birch tree and adding an accent tree or something of interest in the yard. This season we will just wait and see what the difference is now that one tree is gone. We had planned to remove at least one of the 4 trunks of our own birch tree to allow more sunlight to reach the garden. We will decide on that later too.

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?