See thread titled (summer heat and small trees) or something just below this...it explains it I think the best that I know of.

What zone are you in? If you are only zone 5 (this is the Northern Gardening forum so it's a possibility) you likely won't have any problem with extra growth because it will be at the edge of it's hardiness zone.

Agree with "Gall" except that because you had so much damage to this planting I wonder about the wisdom of spending more money on additional attempts with any Japanese maples (or other trees prone to bacterial blight). For instance on one property I have been involved with for some years in addition to attempts with grafted Japanese maple cultivars* failing there has even been a problem with a red maple (Acer rubrum) dying back in the past (we eventually removed it) The site receives air from farther uphill so I assume cold damp air sitting over it in the fall just makes it too ideal for bacterial blight. *Also a poster that used to write at length on another site, had some kind of commercial involvement in the past repeatedly asserted that careless production practices were resulting in grafted Japanese maples being sent out to retailers pre-infected internally with bacterial blight. So that although the plants looked clean at time of purchase by end consumers they went on to blight off visibly afterward, as the blight become more developed

Thank you everyone! Very helpful advice. I DO want to attract birds and pollinators...no deer in my area (well rarely...) but lots of voracious rabbits that eat everything I seem to plant. Appreciate the advice on where else to post - new to this. I don't think the photo shows it well, but there is ~2 ft of room in front of the maple (the only things that fall under it are the 2 euonymus on the right hand side), but I think I agree that low and inconspicuous is probably the way to go all the way around. Reading that there are some more sun-tolerant heucheras, maybe a dark purple/silver one would be good for an accent next to the blue star juniper? Any thoughts on the small patch on the right where I was thinking of putting a blue shag pine?