Susan Hogarth wrote in message .com...
Te japanese maple in the front yard is getting little tufts of red leaves at
the top! Is this common? Somehow this year we managed to fend off the
beetles. The lower leaves are green, there has been some munching but not
too bad.

Is it all the nice rain?

Susan-

Related to your question, I relocated to N. FLA back in April. Along
with my socks, silverware and coffee maker (and all the rest) came
along my plants. "They'll be happy in Florida", or so I thought.

Everything died when summer set in EXCEPT my little Japanese Maple.
Last summer in NC, it lost all its leaves as well but came back spunky
as could be this past spring. It just keeps growing and growing and
growing.

(To make matters worse, I'm torturing the poor thing by attaching
fishing weights to various branches to shape in a kewl form. The
plant seems to enjoy the challenge.)

I may have mentioned this before but I had a good sized Japanese Maple
in my front yard back in Greenville. The tree was probably 20-30
years old and was looking a little poorly. The county extension guy
came out and looked at it, poked at it, pulled out his chalk and
explained what branches should go and what should stay, where to
fertilize, and that, under no circumstances should I use Roundup
anywhere near the drip line of the tree.

I looked at him unbelieving.

"This tree will be here long after you and I are (...) passed away. I
did like he said and within 12 months, he was obviously correct.

Japanese Maples are remarkably hearty trees - not that they don't like
a little attention now and then. If you follow my drift, they are a
very significant in vestment but the pay off is well worth it (you buy
10 Bradford Pear seedlings and in 10 years, what do you have?)

Cheers and good luck. Sometimes doing nothing is EXACTLY the right
thing to do.