Have I lost this Japanese maple? Options?

a_gunslinger

The central portion of this Japanese Maple is dead. Dloes this type of deterioration sugnify particulr illness/usse? Alos, am I basically looking at removing it? Many thanks!

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windthrown

The leaves look too big for a Japanese maple. It looks more like the royal red maples (AKA: Norway Royal Red Maple) that I have on my new property. Looks like the central leader has died out. You can cut it out and maybe the other branches will fill in, but it will look weird with the center open like that. Sort of like an old style vase pruned fruit tree. Some maples will do that and a whole section will die out. Sometimes that leads to a dead tree, and other times it is just one branch that dies. You can prune maples really hard and they will almost always grow back. You can also cut them to the ground and they will almost always also grow back.

Brent Ferris

I agree with Windthrown, that the leaves look too big for Japanese Maple, and it is prob a variety of Norway Maple like (as suggested) Royal Red.

Norway Maples are prone to root strangulation. Have an arborist come in and assess the situation. Quite often root strangulation can be corrected, it is just a really tedious job, and naturally lots of labour, so lots of cost. Not everyone will tackle the job.

a_gunslinger

Thanks gentlemen. Im glad to know they are resilient. I was wondering if it could be cut WAY down and grow back. I had a neighbor who cut every major thick branch on an old tree down way so it looked like a hand after he was done - ho leaes left. We thought he was nuts but it grew back into a perfectly round canopy.

Brent Ferris

Yep, you can do that -- but it also might just die. The dying of the central leader strongly suggests severe root strangulation. Dramatic trimming like this would likely kill the tree.
So if that's what you are thinking of doing, just cut it down and put in something more appropriate.