I live in Seattle. I have had a Japanese maple for 3 yrs. This is the 3rd. It thrived until this summer. I watered it less because I thought it had established itself. But we had a period of no rain for 10 days and one of them reached 91 degrees. Within a day or two all the leaves shriveled and died.

I've attached two pictures of it. Do you think it is dead? Or dormant? If it is alive but dormant, should I continue watering through the summer? Or stop? Should I prune dead branches or leave them as is? The outer branches are quite brittle and break off easily, which makes me fear the whole tree may be dead

JMs, even after established, need consistent moisture. The brittle branches are dead but do a scratch test on other parts of the tree. Scratch the bark with your fingernail. If the tissue just below is green, that part is alive. If brown or hard, that part is dead.

One of my potted JMs lost its emitter last summer and I was pretty sure it was dead. But the entire tree leafed out this spring! Don't give up on it.