Japanese Maple 'Viridis'

The bark on two of my Japanese Maples seems to have split or been eaten. The bark on the attacked area is coming away from the tree. :confused: Neither plant had looked very good this year and I assumed that was because we had a warm dry spring. One of the trees was a 30th birthday present so I would really like to keep it ....... even though its quite ancient now

Has anyone any idea what has gone wrong and how I can save my trees

 

Any chance of seeing a pic Marion?
If the damage is not too bad your tree might be OK
Difficult to guess without seeing what the problem is

 

This happened to my 'Viridis', too. I am not sure what it was but the tree has recovered and is fine now. It still looks like a nasty injury though, if you look closely. Since I have a couple of these I noticed it didn't happen to the one that was planted in the shade garden. Not sure what that means other than a general observation.