Landscapers girdled young Japanese maple - hope?

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Barbara 8

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Hello,
I found my young red maple took girdling impact sometime this spring from a new landscaping company, most likely aggressive edge trimming which I did not catch.
I am so sad to learn about girdling and how destructive it is. Do you think there is any hope for this tree? Tree reaches about 6’5” and is over 5 years old (moved here 5 years ago). I discovered it after the stripped bark had broken down, so I was not able to attempt to reapply bark. Thank you very much for your thoughts
(and possible Sympathies). : /

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Thank you. They aggressively hacked through the circumference.

:(

I am trying to determine if it happened with last years lawn care company and I didn’t notice, or if it happened this spring with a new company. (I noticed cuts to wood beams, another larger tree and wood furniture.)

Would you, or anyone have any thoughts on, based on the decline of the tree, it looks like this would have happened ?
 
Sorry to see that. It looks like that was a very nice tree. When I was in Oregon I had some Japanese red maples of which I was especially fond.

You could call the owner of the landscaping company and ask what he will do to make this right. The correct answer would be to replace the tree with a red maple of comparable size, but I would be surprized if the typical landscaper is willing to spend the money for that.

I found that my Japanese maples responded well to agressive pruning, although I kept pruning during summer to a minimum. With the loss of leaves that tree is clearly struggling to get nourishment up the branches. It probably will continue to lose leaves with those at the tips the last to go leaving just dead wood. If it is to survive, which is doubtful, early removal of doomed branches could help, but from the photos I cannot identify any particular branches which might survive if they do not need to compete for nourishment.
 
Thank you so much for your thoughts and insights - I really appreciate them.

The previous owner of my home loved his yard and filled it with Beautiful plantings and trees - am sad about the impact on this lovely Japanese maple as it has a very special presence and I wish I could have protected it.

Since I have changed landscape companies, I’m unsure of when and how this happened ....

do caring arborists let such impacted trees just die a natural death ?
 
The tree is history and is suffering either weed eater or lawn mower blight.

Probably best to just move on and not try to place blame.

Read up on the internet about good tree care practices.

You will find that you should have had mulch around the tree which serves several purposes, one of which is to keep machines away.

A remote chance that it is a rodent of some type but my money says it is machine damage. Animals usually do much smoother damage that we are seeing.
 
Thank you for all the insights and information - I really appreciate your responsiveness and help.

Your community has an air of perspective, as well as rootedness that is apropos to the glorious nature of trees.
 
To me the tree loks like it has been hit a couple of times. My first guess was rodents because its so high off the grass. But looking at the bark zoomed in, it is too ragged for a rodent.

I would call the landscaper and show it to him and find out if he will make amends. Dont expect a tree the same size, at least around here a jap maple of that size is a couple of thousand bucks.
 
That's just about how high my walk behind would hit. Not likely weed eater unless using blades instead of string. The gap is wide. Like the side of a big mower. Not much hope from what I see.
 
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