Hi all, I am a new member. I recently purchased a Japanese Maple Katsura from my local nursery... it is roughly 6.5' tall and was planted in a 16" wood square planter. When removing from planter, the roots were all growing straight down the sides, which I assume is better than encircling roots. The bottom of the container was rotted and the roots were pushing through. I tried loosening the roots a bit before planting, but the root ball was pretty firm. The tree is planted on a bit of a slope... I have the back of the root ball about 1.5" above the grade and then had to build up a berm of about 3.5" in the front. I used all existing soil, and a bit of local topsoil/compost when re-planting. I dug the hole about 15 inches deep and nearly 32" wide. Drainage test showed that the hole emptied between 1 and 1.5" per hour. The issue I am seeing is that the top of the crown and some internal branching seems to be suffering a bit. Early color on the leaves, some dead leaves and also some twig dieback. Some of these symptoms were evident when planting, but they have progressed further in the last few days. Basically the top of the tree just looks a bit sickly compared to the rest of the tree. Should I be concerned? Transplant shock? I believe Katsura is a dense branching variety, maybe the internal branching issues are from crowding? I watered the tree in pretty well at planting and have watered consistently every day since then (though not to the same degree). I am in Zone 6a, St. Louis MO. The tree is planted on north facing wall of house... direct sun most of day, dappled shade for 3-4 hours at least. Sorry for the photo quality... morning sunlight was not helping. Thanks!
