A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 my trees "die" each year this month

Hi everyone, can you help me? I live South Jersey in a naturally wooded area, pines, swamp maples, pepper bushes- (which are blooming and smell wonderfully),and sassafras, and rhodos. Part of the woods in my backyard are "dying ", happens each year for the past few years. I've seen several gardening experts and called the county agent and get 2 possible problems, water/or lack of it, or anthraxnose a virus which I should treat in the early spring, Here is what happens---around mid July the leaves of these plants begin to dry up at the edges. the maple leaves will curl up and fall off and will push out new leaves in a month or so. My red maple also suffers from this problem as well. The rest of my yard is fine. The plants affected are all I have listed above in a 20x20foot area. The plants affected this year are not all the same as last year, some affected last year, so far are fine. The plants recover, however, it sure feels like fall with all the raking I have to do. I just get done with all the planting and other gardening work and would like to enjoy my yard and my flowers, and all the leaves are falling off! Can anyone help me? Thanks, Nancy

Since you mentioned that the only trees a that are being effected by this are maples it leads me to believe, that they may have a vascular disease which is very common in maples of all varieties, it is called Verticillium wilt.
If you were to take a infected branch and cut it on an angle with a very sharp knife, you would see a dark area running thru the wood.
Unfortunately there is no cure for this, and the best that you can hope for is to keep the trees as healthy as possible with proper fertilization, and not letting them go dry during the summer months.

Hope this helps


Mike

Whooops i forgot, if that is the problem make sure that you prune out any dead branches all the way back to live wood.