Any tree surgeons/ gardners/landscapers about ?

[joinerman]

Back in 1980 i planted a small twig of a tree in our front garden, an Acer Tree, it's grown into a fine tree over the years & admired by the neighbors, however this year we have a problem with it, before the growing season started we had it pruned up a bit as it was getting a bit to big, came into leaf & not long after whole stems were dropping off with shriveled up dying leaves, now the whole tree seems to be dying, it has a yellow fungus on a lot of branches & trunk, a couple of so called tree surgeons have had a look but just got that long suck in of breath & no answer, Any idea's welcome.

 

[greengrass]

The Yellow on the branches is quite normal.
Are there any little beasties in the leaves that are shrivelled up??

 

[joinerman]

Not that i can see.

 

[greengrass]

Is there any signs of something chewing the bark???
Scrape back a small area of bark on the branches that have the bad looking leaves it should be green just under the surface, if its brown ad dead looking try further down the tree.
If its brown under the bark its dead so remove it.

 

[joinerman]

Will try that tomorrow night, dark now, thanks.

 

[yogi]

The yellow is just lichen, totally normal.

I'd second what greengrass says about scraping the bark, but from the pics it seems to have lots of new growth on it from this season? (Its hard to tell in pictures). Have seen that before on acer trees (or sycamores as some people call them). There are a couple here that were pollards at some time in the past and they exhibit a degree of that some years. I know there is an equivilent disease that Horse Chestnut trees (Aesculus Hipp.) get that just looks unsightly, but doesn't affect the health of the tree.

 

[Crispin]

Is there new death? I had a couple of trees which looked similar and put it down to a bought of first we had just after everything was budding. Knock it back a lot and has dead branches. Came back fighting though and looks fine now.

 

[clivehorridge]

It probably just needs an oil and filter change, have you checked the fuel and air filters?

 

[joinerman]

Had a scrape of the bark in a few places tonight & it's green underneath, there is lots of new growth & it's growing quickly but doesn't last long before the leaves seem to die, they look like they have been backed under the sun.

 

[Chris]

That looks like some sort of parasite to me. There are things like leaf curl and fungus but based on stuff I have seen before, that looks like something very small that is in the leaves eating the cells from the inside.

 

[David]

Could be this [h=1]leaf miner Cameraria ohridella[/h]Normally found on Horse Chestnut but can attack Acer

 

[joinerman]

Hmm, just gurgled that & it does look as if it could be.

 

[David]

As far as I know they is no chemical control for it

 

[greengrass]

If it is the horse chestnut thing I believe its a very small moth, hence the earlier question about little beasties.

Not that I think its causing the problem but its a pretty dense tree which would benefit from being thinned out a bit.

As a general rule cut out anything which looks dead or diseased, then branches which are touching/rubbing. This allows diseases to get in. Then any branches that cross as they might rub in the wind or sometime in the near future.