I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice. I trimmed the branches as directed and I moved them to shade. I had a neighboring landscaper replant the trees under the shaded area this morning. They did a great job and finished off the job with mulch and placed burlap over the trees to help protect them from burning. This landscaper had driven by property over the weekend and saw that I had these trees in the drums and thought to himselfÂ"Those trees are going to die, if not already dead." However, he informed me this morning that he was happier with the condition of the trees and root system, then what he anticipated. The next several days are vital and I need to spray the leaves often throughout the day, but he feels that these trees are going to make it. He charged me a $100 bucks and was here with 2 other workers for almost 2 hours. What a great price and he now has a customer that will by future trees from him. He stated that the trees were worth $500 - $600 a piece. I told him about this forum and he was glad that I took the advice to plant them in the ground. He will move them again for me next March. Thanks again!!

The sunken area at the base appears to be to be canker. Had to remove a Ukigumo JM earlier in the season for this very reason. I have seen allot of this over the last few years. Have seen allot of it on crabapples, Japanese Maples, and other maples. Plants sometimes beat the pathogen, sometimes not. If they are going to beat it, then expect to see callus to form around the edges of the sunken area. Even if the callus forms, it is far from certain. Once the tree goes dormant for the winter, the canker will often gain the upper hand again. However if the callus does not form by end of summer, then from what I have seen, it's almost certainly a matter of time before the tree is killed. As for how your plant became infected, I suspect that a number of low cost and/or large scale producers have gotten very careless over the last 5-10 years. There has been allot of apparent disease increase in allot of other plant groups as well over the same period (Aster Yellows seems to be everywhere anymore, to the point it's getting rather difficult to get disease free coneflowers, saw this Saturday at the largest local nursery). I'm sure part of it is due to producers having a difficult time the last several years, therefore cutting corners, poor training, poor enforcement, less responsible labor, etc. But also Big Box Store has little incentive, as they know Q Public is unlikely to know anything about disease and will be back again next year to buy another one. Arktrees

Responded to your duplicate post in the Trees forum. Everything I said there still applies :-))

The info you got before is correct an old now healed wound probably from the winter or the freeze or the move.....keep an eye on it if black areas appear in spring it may be Pseudonomous and should be treated with fungicide... it comes out in cool damp weather and as the summer progresses often just sort of disappears and the wound heals ...then in the sping it starts again.Its mostly on the root stock which is good so if it is more than just winter damage you should try to KEEP it there !!! and not let it spread up the tree. In addition as long as it stays on one side the tree will live if it encircles it it's toast above that point...but as i said that is a worst case scenareo of disease and you should know next spring for sure ...as far as I'm concerned for now do nothing and wait... if you want to loosly put a plastic tree guard around it i guess that wouldn't hurt but that would be it for now..David