Q: My Japanese maple needs help. A tree service miscalculated when dropping a pine tree in my front yard. They dropped the tree correctly into an open area, but when it hit the earth it bounced. And unfortunately it bounced up and into my little tree, taking out all the branches on the back side. What should I do?

A: Ooooooo…sorry for the loss!

I think the best you can do is to clip any stubs back to their origination point.

Use a razor knife to carefully slice off any loose bark. Then be patient for this growing season to see what happens. It may not grow new limbs on the bare side but the tree certainly will have character!