Red Maple Tree wilting

Q: My Red Maple is looking like its dieing, the leaves are yellow in color and some are dark brown and wilted. The trunk and bark look fine, it was looking very healthy up until a few weeks ago.

I have been watering lawn three times a week, to much water, not enough. HELP!!!

Rose

A: Not to be facetious, whether or not you are applying too much or too little water depends on how much you're putting down.

If you are watering for 5-10 minutes a day, this is insufficient for a tree but may be adequate for the lawn. If you are watering for hours a day, then you are probably putting down too much water for the tree. You want something more in the middle.

On average, trees like to get 1-2" of water every 7-10 days. This translates to about 1 to 2 gallons of water for every square foot of area to be watered.

This is a lot of water, equaling 100-200 gallons for just a 10' x 10' area.

However, it may not be a matter of too much or too little water, there may be something else happening, such as root problems, but without more information I cannot make any further opinion as to what might be going on.