DAMAGED JAPANESE MAPLE? WHAT TO DO

The snow is finally melting – hooray! – but revealing many seriously damaged Japanese maples. The long lasting and heavy snow cover was just too much for their weeping branches to support without giving way. What can you do about the damage?

For important specimen trees, calling an arborist may be the best plan. If you’re not sure about how to proceed, you might want to bring in photos to the Garden Center so that we can help you assess the damage.

If your tree’s branches are still trapped in the snow, before you can do anything you’ll have to wait until melting frees them.

Minor breaks in smaller branches should just be pruned away. Use sharp pruners and make cuts at the nearest lateral branch, bud or main stem so that you don’t leave stubs. The tree will fill in these gaps over a season or two.

Breaks in thicker branches are more problematic. Any portion of a branch that is broken through more than ½ of its diameter is unlikely to survive and should be pruned away, again to a logical intersection. If a branch is broken less than halfway through, you may be able to bind the break with twine and seal over the crack with grafting wax. There’s a 50/50, well, maybe 40/60 (against) chance that the branch can knit. Normally the cambium layers of bark have to be perfectly aligned and this has to happen almost immediately, before the edges begin to seal. Because your tree may still be dormant for a week or so, there’s an outside chance for success. Keep in mind that eventually your tree can fill in the loss of even major branches and still display beautiful form with some judicious pruning.

NOTE: Whenever you’re tying up a broken branch to support it, be sure not to transfer stress to other branches that may in turn give way. Use soft materials as ties – old pantyhose work well. And you may want to prune off a little weight from the outboard side of a break to reduce movement and stress.

Breaks in the largest diameter branches and crotch splits in the main trunk can sometimes be mended and given a chance to heal by bolting the split sides together. This video by Merrifield Garden Center  does a better job of showing you how to go about bolting such a split than I can possibly do of telling you.  

There’s no guarantee your Japanese maple will mend, but you can be certain it will try. Yet again, growing plants is all about patience. And remember that your damaged tree will need key resources to heal in the seasons ahead. So, some fertilizer in the spring and regular water throughout the growing season (especially during hot weather) will help.

And feel free to share information about snow damage with us here on our blog. We’ll do our best to help!