moving acer trees

hi! im new to this forum.....and new to gardening. i have just bought a house with my boyfriend with about 2 acres of garden; that has once been loved and amazing but has been left for years and is in a sorry state. :o(

we moved 3 acer trees (6ft, 5ft and 3ft) and a magnolia at the weekend as they will be in the way of a new building. we are both new to gardening (my boyfriends usual way of gardening involves a chainsaw or a digger unfortunatly!)
we took advice; kept a big rootball,filled the holes with compost, watered holes and filled with compost and topsoil & put a stake in the ground for the biggest acer.

we've been to look at them today and they are looking rather sorry for themselves. what do we need to do in terms of aftercare if anything?

thanks in advance for your help! :o)

 

All you can do for now is keep watering, unless you get a lot of rain.
They are probably struggling to take up enough moisture at the moment after having their roots disturbed and the recent strong winds will not have helped as this increases evaporation (or transpiration to use the correct term) from the leaves.
Even if all the leaves drop off, don't despair. It may just mean the plants have shed their leaves early as a response to the stress of being dug up and moved.
If this does happen, simply wait until next spring and see what new growth emerges. It may be the case that the outermost tips of the branches die off over winter and the new spring growth will be lower down the plant. If this is the case, simply prune off the bits which have died over winter and the plant should recover in time.

 

I have the exact same problem ... I moved an acer (not sure which type of Japanese Maple) .... the tree is approx 4 foot high with a good crown

I moved it approx 2 months ago .... leaves now are brown on the outsides and wilting and some leaves are starting to fall off

hopefully, it will recover in spring ... I have watered it weekly (a deep water), so am waiting in 'anticipation' ... I'd be gutted if it dies

 

Your main problem is that these trees should not have been moved until dormant ... later in the autumn at the earliest
The only thing you can do now is hope

 

hi guys, thanks for your replies. i guess we will juST have to wait and hope. do you think i should prune them now? id read somewhere to move them in september but now i have done more resaerch i maybe should have waited until later autumn/winter.thanks again for your replies :o)

 

You can usually check if they are OK by just scratching a little area of the tree bark exposing the bare stem which, if alive shold be green. It's a good way of checking any dormant deciduous shrubs and trees.

 

Personally I would be inclined to prune now in order to give the root system rather less work to do whilst the tree tries to re-establish itself

 

does one need to prune them? ... I only cut off the few dead branches (if there are any) in late spring after the new leaves have formed

 

If you move a plant you should give the root system as little to do as possible
It is quite normal to prune any plant in such circumstances
Normally I seldom prune Japanese maples as they (to me anyway) take on some terrific shapes by themselves
At the end of the day whether to prune or not is a matter of personal preference
EXCEPT when they have just been moved at the wrong time of year