Weeping Japanese Maple Care
We have Tony in Canton. ‘So I have a small weeping Japanese maple tree that I planted last summer. Is there anything I could do to put on that to make it, you know, look better than it does right now?’
This time of year there’s not a lot that you’re going to want to do to that tree. Make sure it has a good drink of water around the Thanksgiving time frame. Going into winter that’s the best thing you can do for that tree at this time.
However, in the spring you absolutely want to get some of that Rohr’s Nursery all season fertilizer on it. That fertilizer is going to feed that tree for the entire year and cause an abundance of new growth. This time of year the root system is growing. We really don’t want to use that fertilizer right now. We don’t want it to wake up, come out of dormancy.
So just make sure the plant has enough moisture. If you wanted to do something now you could use a product called Triple Super Phosphate. It will encourage just root growth and that’s all we want to develop this time of year.
About April, May, get some nursery fertilizer and put it on there. You can use, depending on the size of the tree, three to five scoops around the base of the tree, and you can do it before you mulch. That way it’s close to the soil, it’s going to make good soil contact and then a release for the entire growing season, helping that tree be the best it can be.
Also, trimming out any dead that time of year is always a good idea, because before it leafs out it’s really kind of easier to see what you’re doing and what you’re trimming. You’ll be able to tell what’s dead and what’s alive just by one the pliability of it when you touch it. It will usually snap.
You can see that the dead stuff has no moisture left, and it kind of turns a grayish color instead of the tan or the brown color. Any branches that grow from one side of the tree back across through the middle of the tree, you definitely want to trim those off too. You want the plant to develop from the center out all the way around.
If you’re not sure that time of year, stop into the nursery and myself or one of the other guys will take you out back and show you exactly what we’re talking about. We can show you how we trim and what we’re looking for in a good healthy tree.
