The first is a sugar maple (only one picture) that was planted in the fall of 2009. It's struggled a little bit to establish, though it was fairly large at planting (~12 feet) and got hit pretty hard by cicadas last year. It's leafed out this year without a problem, but I noticed some trunk scarring late last fall. The black on it is some wound dressing I put on to prevent rotting over the winter (may have not been necessary). Can I expect this to heal, or does it indicate something more serious?

The remaining pictures are of a Burgundy Belle red maple. It was also planted in fall 2009 and did very well in its first season. Last season it was slow growing and it may have potentially been affected by root girdling (notice the base of the trunk looks depressed in one pic). I removed an infringing root during dormancy, but it appeared to be a negligible portion of the root mass. It has partially leafed out, but numerous leaves are immediately turning black and crispy. Additionally, I've notice some truck damage similar to what the sugar maple is experiencing. It's not mechanical on either tree.

Both trees are growing in the native red clay for this are, though the red maple is very likely in significantly more compacted soil due to construction activities before the house was built.

Any suggestions as to what's going on would be helpful. These are still relatively young trees, so if I need to replace, I'd like to do it soon.

the second wound.. looks like someone whipped it .. any one have a bullwhip????

and the third looks like damage from a bad staking job ...

were either of these staked and bound??

how about.. you stop loving them up.. and just lets see what happens in the next few years .. sometimes too much love can be worse than benign neglect[but for watering]

i would not care about a few dead leaf tips ... unless it was a vast majority of the buds.. and it looks like a bunch of my stuff that was hit with a hard frost after an extremely early hot week ... any history of a cold snap a week back or so???

ken

Neither tree has been staked since planting, so I don't think that's it. Also, the wound on the red maple is a little deceiving. I peeled back a bit of the bark, so the damage was not as obvious before that. The exposed outer layer was dead and almost felt like cork board. You can tell the tissue surrounding the wound is green though.

I checked to see if the white in the picture could be some sort of insect, but it didn't appear so. I haven't noticed any unusual insects or borer holes.

We had an unusually warm winter this year. I don't even think we got below the low 20s at all. We did have a warm week (70s) followed by a dip into the upper 20s back in early March, but that's not that unusual for spring in north Alabama.

I have had some anthracnose trouble with the red maple in the past, but it usually shows up later in the season and has mainly been a aesthetic problem.

Anyhow, I guess I'm just going to have to see how they do this season. And as Ken alludes to, watch our for roving bands of whip wielding youths.