New Red Maple turning red

[kdrymer]

Hello, we planted a new Sunset Red Maple tree about a week and a half ago. We are noticing the leafs are somewhat turning red, as if the tree may not be doing very well. It also seems to have these small Black circles on the leaves. We are not sure if we are watering the tree too much or not enough. The tree was planted in a gravely base soil and with clay at the bottom of the hole.

I initially planted the tree a little low, relative to where the root flare is with the surrounding soil grade so a day after planting we started digging it up in hopes of raising the tree up a little. This seemed to disturb the root ball and it broke apart in a section so we decided to leave it as is instead of disturbing more. We did purchase a moisture probe at Lowe's and it is showing that the tree is moist, even though we haven't watered it a lot the past few days. I'm looking for any feedback as to what could be happening here. I attached a couple pictures of the tree.

 

[ATH]

A) June is pretty late to plant a tree. It is normal for some leaf color change as part of transplant stress...that is going to be worse transplanted this late.
B) The black spots are Tar Spot of maple. They will get worse as the season goes on, but not kill the tree.
C) You need more than a gallon jug. A 2" tree should get about 20 gallons twice per week. Skip one of those waterings for each 1/2" of rain within a week.
D) If it is planted deep, that needs fixed. It looks like the flare may be at ground level? If it is not, raise it this fall, rather than causing more stress now. It doesn't matter if the soil ball breaks up...it is just soil. As long as you aren't breaking roots (doesn't happen often when the soil breaks up, but it can), what does it matter if the tree is bare-rooted or has 1000 cubic feet of soil attached? You are planting it into new soil...the roots will grow in that.

 

[kdrymer]

A) June is pretty late to plant a tree. It is normal for some leaf color change as part of transplant stress...that is going to be worse transplanted this late.
B) The black spots are Tar Spot of maple. They will get worse as the season goes on, but not kill the tree.
C) You need more than a gallon jug. A 2" tree should get about 20 gallons twice per week. Skip one of those waterings for each 1/2" of rain within a week.
D) If it is planted deep, that needs fixed. It looks like the flare may be at ground level? If it is not, raise it this fall, rather than causing more stress now. It doesn't matter if the soil ball breaks up...it is just soil. As long as you aren't breaking roots (doesn't happen often when the soil breaks up, but it can), what does it matter if the tree is bare-rooted or has 1000 cubic feet of soil attached? You are planting it into new soil...the roots will grow in that

A) June is pretty late to plant a tree. It is normal for some leaf color change as part of transplant stress...that is going to be worse transplanted this late.
B) The black spots are Tar Spot of maple. They will get worse as the season goes on, but not kill the tree.
C) You need more than a gallon jug. A 2" tree should get about 20 gallons twice per week. Skip one of those waterings for each 1/2" of rain within a week.
D) If it is planted deep, that needs fixed. It looks like the flare may be at ground level? If it is not, raise it this fall, rather than causing more stress now. It doesn't matter if the soil ball breaks up...it is just soil. As long as you aren't breaking roots (doesn't happen often when the soil breaks up, but it can), what does it matter if the tree is bare-rooted or has 1000 cubic feet of soil attached? You are planting it into new soil...the roots will grow in that?

Thanks for the feedback. So we should ignore the moisture meter and just water approximately 20 gallons twice a week, unless we get 1/2" of rain. One if our concerns was that we were watering it too much before and causing the discoloration. The flare is at ground level.