Hi ak - What you have is called leaf mold rather than compost and it is quite ph acidic and if used alone, has low nutrient values - likely at least part of the cause for the bitter taste. Excess heat and inconsistent watering also contribute to bitterness. While compost that is made up of several different and well-balanced components can be a great growing medium, leaf mold is great for mulch and an excellent "brown" to add to a compost pile but isn't an ideal growing medium. If you want to explore it in detail, check out the Soil, Compost, & Mulch forum as leaf mold is a common topic there. Hope this helps. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf Mold

It was suggested "Exact diagnosis can be made by taking a sample to your local extension office but if it is Phytophthora (or another root invading fungus), there is little you can do now." If such a sample is brought to the Extension Service office, please call ahead so that the Master Gardeners have time to locate information as to how to sample the soil & the affected root tips. Also know that a fee is charged, the precise amount depending upon the test to be done -- fees for the OSU Plant Disease Clinic begin at $40.00. Beyond that, I doubt this will be an easy diagnosis. I'd consider multiple factors potentially contributing to the problem: 1. Because OP said s/he "paid quite a bit of money" I suspect it is a sizable specimen. If so, post-plant irrigation is a critical factor in survival. All transplants should go into evenly moist soil, then the rootball should be supplied with more water than the surrounding area during the following months. Failures of recent transplants typically are due to water -- either too much or too little. 2. The sudden very cold weather in December, without snow cover, damaged & even killed many plants hereabouts, including those which survived 10 years or more. 3. The tree is a recent transplant. As such it is more likely to be damaged by cold than an established tree of the same kind. 4. Dormant roots are less susceptible to water damage than are actively growing roots. 5. In general -- and yes, exceptions exist -- root rot results in entire tree failure. 6. It's nigh to impossible to diagnose root rot by looking at dead branches and/or browning leaves. 7. And perhaps most critical, multiple nearby specimen maples are in potential jeopardy if the problem is indeed soil-borne, such as Phytophthora root rot or verticillium wilt. So, I suggest pinkswine consider having a certified arborist or two come for an on-site evaluation. To locate a certified arborist, look in the Yellow Pages under the heading of Trees or something similar. Ads for companies with a certified aroborist will either have a statement or small rectangular logo stating such.

Here is a follow-up development: While I suspected the tree suffered from chlorosis from the alkaline heavy clay, I bought a can of iron-chelate and experimented it on one of the branches. I dissolve a few grams of iron-chelate powder into about 2L of water. Then I dipped all leaves in the "experiment branch" in this diluted iron-chelate solution. I then dumped the iron solution right onto the root ball. After 3 days of the treatment, I noticed that the dipped leaves appeared much greener than the rest of the tree, which hasn't improved (or got worse). So I still suspect cholorsis in play with the red maple tree. I am going to dip more leaves to see if there is any good improvement. By the way - against all wise advises we still decided to replant the tree in order to: (1) Raise the tree bed to improve drainage (2) Cut the circling roots (3) Most importantly, remove the sod that I, due to lack of experience, burried at the bottom of the planting hole. At the time of exvacation, the root ball was swimming in a large pit due to poor drainage (not visible from the surface). The smell was awful (guess this is what CSI calls "decomp"). We removed all of the decomp mud, washed the tree's roots, and cut off the roots that have been affected by the rot. We also cut off the encircling roots. We then widened the planting hole from 2.5' to 3.5', filled it with fresh black earth & clay (30-70 mix). We elevated the root ball to be about ~6" above the ground surface. We compacted the mound to make sure there wasn't large air pockets. Then we covered it with ~4" of red cedar mulch, leaving about 6" of space around the trunk. It looks like a large red donut circling the tree. Hopefully the tree will recover from the surgery.

We planted a Winter Flame Japanese maple in Fall 2009, and it's doing very well in our yard near Green Lake. Here's a photo of it right after we planted it. It's in a protected patio area that's about 20' wide between our house and our neighbors', so it only gets morning sun for 6-8 hours then it's in the shade the rest of the day. It was about 3.5' tall when we planted it in fairly rich soil with lots of organic matter and worms. Even though last summer was relatively cool, we had to water it every few days, or its leaves started to wilt. it's now about 4-4.5' tall, and the new growth this summer is about 6-9" long. During summer it has small healthy green leaves with yellowish-red new growth, so it looks like every other green Japanese maple. BUT In winter it's BEAUTIFUL! Most of its trunk and stems get bright red, both old and new wood, unlike the 'Sango kaku' on which only the newer wood is red and the older wood stays greyish-brown. Our Winter Flame had several black stems tips the first spring after we planted it, which may have been Pseudomonas syringae. Now I don't prune it and our other Japanese maple until after they start leafing out, and there were much fewer black stem tips this spring. It's definitely slow growing, but otherwise, it's a great little tree.