Throughout the cold winter months, critters will be on the hunt for food. With snow making foraging difficult, they may resort to nibbling things other than fallen seeds and nuts- namely the bark on your Japanese maple trees. On top of that, squirrels have a nasty habit of snapping off small branches to mark their territory—which can be quite devastating to young maples under 5 years old.

Once critters have munched on your Japanese maple’s bark—or ripped off branches—nothing can be done cosmetically to hide the scar.  As time goes on, the tree will heal itself if the damage isn’t too severe, and once your maple reaches maturity, it will hardly be noticeable.

If you don’t want your newly planted Japanese maple trees to get a serious pruning by your furry neighbors, remember to use a combination of granular animal repellents and sprays. I like using Bobbex which lasts about 3 months (even through heavy rains), or Ortho® Animal B Gon® every 30 days from October thru December, and then again from March thru May. It’s a good idea to change up brands once in a while so animals don’t get used to the same ones.

Most people mistakenly blame critter damage on mice, but they aren’t the culprits. The real offenders are voles.  They are a stronger critter than a mouse and very destructive. Voles have a shorter body, shorter tail, coarse hair, and small eyes.  Rather cute!  Bait for mice or rats won’t work on voles. You need a bait that is specific for voles or includes them on the list.   I use Kaput mouse and vole bait.

Also, try to keep leaves and weeds away from the base of your Japanese maples so animals can’t tunnel or hide while eating your trees.  Use tree guards to keep woodchucks, squirrels or other bark-eating critters from doing damage. You can even wrap burlap around the trunk of your Japanese maples to keep critters away.

It’s an unfortunate fact of nature that Japanese maples are made of wood, and therefore it’s possible that your prized specimen could break a branch at some point. This may happen under the weight of a heavy snow—especially if the tree still has most of its leaves. A branch could also be snapped during a storm with high winds, so neither the North nor the South is immune to such damage. Even when Japanese maples are young and supple (only a few years old), you might wake to discover several thin branches inexplicably torn off and the bark stripped away from the trunk by critters- but that’s another post…

To Prune or Repair a Broken Japanese Maple Branch

Its a good idea to check your Japanese maples after a storm with high winds or heavy snow. Mending broken branches is fine if they are not too far gone, so getting to them quickly is essential when trying to save a damaged branch. As long as the cambium layer is intact, it can mend itself with a little help.  But as the tree ages and the branch becomes larger and heavier, there is still a chance it could completely break off since it’s not as strong as it once was. If the tree is young, there is plenty of time for it to grow out and still have a nice shape, so I would recommend cutting the branch off now rather than risk another break when the tree is mature. If the tree looks misshapen with the branch gone, you will have to prune it and reshape it, and it may take a few years before it looks nice again. New branches will begin to grow from the broken area, and you’ll have to pick one that will give the tree the best sense of balance. This would be the same technique for squirrel damage on young Japanese maples.

If your branch is split, but still attached and freshly broken, there’s a chance you could save it by bolting, tying, or taping it back in place. While having to prune off a major branch can be heartbreaking at the time, it could result in a uniquely shaped Japanese maple that one day is prized for it’s individuality.

The photo on the left is of Acer Palmatum Bloodgood that lost one of it’s two major limbs (literally cutting the tree in half).  It was devastating, but the tree is thriving at 30 years old, and with the careful addition of other specimens, rocks and water features, this tree has become a centerpiece of the garden. The odd shape and leaning habit makes it look much older than it actually is, and brings a lot of movement into the garden.

The photo on the right is of Acer Palmatum Dissectum Baldsmith that split, but was able to be repaired. It lives in a pot, and is thriving as well. While it’s healthy now, the break may one day invite disease, insects, or simply split again as the tree ages and endures another nasty battle with inclement weather. But, then again, it could do fine. It’s a gamble worth taking. If I did prune the branch off, half the tree would be gone. With weeping Japanese Maples, it’s more of a challenge to find a balanced shape after a major break. Therefore, something that is one sided would be used beside a rock, arching over a stream, or tucked in with some other bushes hiding the bad part. So, there would always be a place for a damaged Japanese maples somewhere in the garden. No need to throw them away. Just be creative, and use their new shape to your advantage.

As I was watering plants a few weeks ago, I was startled by movement under the bark in one of the container boxed maples. I didn’t want to move in too quick unless it was something that would jump out at me like a rat. As I moved closer, I noticed the fur looked like rabbit fur and sure enough, there under the bark were five little baby bunnies. They were so cute. I try to keep bunnies out of the maples because they just love to chew them. My mother wants them out of the gardens because they chew everything they find especially her favorite, oriental and asiatic lilies, in which she anticipates seeing them every year. This year, she had quite a time keeping the rabbits away from them. Anyways, I couldn’t kill the bunnies, how could I. I can’t even kill a spider that lives in the house. I have to move it outside.

The bunnies are adorable. I’ll let them grow up. Now, they are bouncing around through the containers and in the gardens. I probably will regret it later but I can’t help myself when it comes to animals or insects. They have their own life just like humans. It is just a different life than ours. Humans keep pushing the animals away…….They have to live somewhere………So, if they come here, they are very welcome.

Spring is fast approaching and most of the snow has melted.  That gave me a great opportunity to walk around the fields in the nursery to see how the plants weathered during the winter months.Ugh! Much to my amazement, I was devastated by what I had seen.  This has never happened to anything in the nursery for the 19 yrs that I have been growing in the fields.   Voles have devoured the Japanese maple trees along with some Grand firs.  There are about 50 trees that have to be taken out.  These maples have been growing in the field since 2000. There is nothing that can be done. I have to just grin and bear it and continue to make more. Just that it will be years before they get to that size again.

The other situation I came across was the damage to the newly planted maples in the Aceratum that I am creating on 3 acres.   There is one spot through the area that has very sandy soil.  The maples through this vein of soil have had their trunks burned by the wind.  You will note on the photo about 8-10 inches up from the base a black color.  That is the burned cambium layer of the trunk.  The energy will not be able to go to the top of the tree because of this.  There are about 6 trees that have completely died and about 10 that look iffy.   This occurred at the end of February when the snow had melted and the winds were blowing at 45 mph with a temperature of 20 degrees.  Making the windchill below 0.  This lasted for 3 days.  If it was for one day, the maples would have had a chance but it was too cold for too long.  Another bummer, luckily I do have copies of these maples that have died in containers in the cold storage buildings.  They are not as large but at least I still have the variety.

Which brings me to my last brush with mother nature.   I have 4 storage buildings and the maples are stacked in on top of each other.  Every year, I have to put a rodenticide down to keep the mice from chewing and eating the trees during the winter months.  Back in late February, I noticed that the rodenticide was gone.  In three buildings I put some more down and the last building, I decided to put it down on the next day.  I went in the next day and damage was already done.  The mice had breakfast that morning on the new 2008 grafts that were to be put on the online store.   They had made stubs out of about 25 plants and chewed the understock on some of the high grafted dissectums scarring them.  I will have to watch the scarred maples grow and heal in the maple hospital for a year or two.  It never fails that the maples that the critters like to chew on are ones that are very rare and that I don’t have a lot of.  You can see the path they make to get to the rarest maples there are.  I think the various varieties must smell or taste different to them.   Now, I just have to make more but it will take another year or two to get numbers up again on some of the varieties.   I don’t blame the critters for eating.  They were hungry and I neglected to put out the rodenticide.

I also have deer damage in the fields.  That doesn’t seem to bother me.  I have a couple fields of yews that they love to browse on.  I leave that for the deer.   Since I let them browse on the yews, they don’t seem to bother the maples or other plants that are growing in the nursery.   If they do browse on other items,  I just consider it as selective pruning.

I have a lot of work to do this spring in the nursery.  Remove dead trees from the Aceratum, take out damaged trees from the field and make more grafted maples.  I planned on doing about 2000 grafts this year.  Maybe now, I should do more.  It is always a live-and-learn experience when mother nature is involved.   You can’t get upset when something happens to your plants because of nature.  It is a part of working with it.  You never know what might happen.