What's wrong with my Acer?

[Foreverexhausted1]

Hello everyone,

I've had this Acer tree for 4 summers now and every year it's done really well, bushy with lots of healthy green leaves. This year it seems to be struggling and I'm not sure why. The leaves it has are green but very small. We did have some building work done in the spring and it was neglected for a couple of weeks as we couldn't access the garden - would that be the problem? Will it recover now or do I need to wait until next year? Could it be pot bound? Any advice appreciated. Photos attached, one from today and one from May 2023 for comparison. Please help!

Probably run out of nutrients. Repot it and give it a general feed once a month.

Was it during the very dry period that you neglected it? In which case it probably wasn't happy about the lack of water.

Presume you're watering regularly now. Since you've had it, have you ever fed it or topped up/replaced the compost? If not it's probably run out of nutrients.

A bigger pot? Now that it’s getting bigger, it might be pot bound

Thanks all, I will re-pot and feed it. It's my favourite tree. Can anyone recommend a feed please? Thanks

i feed mine weekly with feed specifically for Acers and have them in large pots. It’ll come back even better next year.

Another vote for repot and feed.

Is that a Katsura? Mine hates the summer sun. I have a SF garden and have just moved it to an east facing border under a tree to see if I can stop the leaf scorch and loss. In my case it's planted in the ground, so no nutrient issues and I water regularly when it's dry.

I also have a red leaved acer parked in the sunshime getting along swimmingly. But the lighter leaved varieties, not so tolerant.

If you are in a hard water area, give it some ericaceous feed once a year, and any old general purpose fertiliser the rest of the time. It will probably do better in partial shade as well.

re pot in a larger pot, use good quality compost, water well, the acer should perk up quite quickly. Good luck.