What should I do about my Crimson Sentry Maple?

Question

I just planted a Crimson Sentry Maple late last fall '06; then had a normal winter here in Utah. This spring it grew new shoots at the very bottom, but it appears that the rest of the tree is dead....compared to the other one that I planted at the same time which the leaves are all in now. Should I wait it out a while longer to see if something grows, or should I just dig it up and replace it?

Answer 1

Replace it and the sooner the better. the new one will have a difficult time catching up.
It sounds like the tree is grafted and the graft did not take. The shoots that are coming up are from the graft stock.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Ick, doesn't sound good. Go to the dead part and scratch the bark with your nail or a knife. If the tissue under the bark is brownish, no green stuff, then the tissue is dead. Also you can take the tree's temperature, grasp the suspect part, the north side should be cool while the south side should be a bit cooler than the air temperature. If the trunk is uniformly warm and the tissue scrape reveals brown, then dig up the tree and replant..

Yeah, you could take one of the sprouts from the bottom and train it into a tree, but if Crimson Sentry is a grafted tree (I don't know) the sprouts could be coming from the root stock, not the Crimsom Sentry stock.......and who knows what that might be.