QuestionI have a blood good maple that is 8-10 years old. The tree consists of a main trunk with 8 1.5" branches off main trunk. Only 3 of the branches flowered and the other 5 are show buds on the branches but have not bloomed. We live in Cincinnati Ohio area.
Can you please provide any information why this is happening? Many thanks.
Could this still flower this year or in subsequent years? What shoudl I do?
AnswerI am having a problem with terminology--maples do have flowers and produce seed pods from these. The amount of flowers will vary by year depending on the weather, No leaves will bud out in the spring and these should be on all branches unless the branch is dead. The flowering appears first and is sparse followed by the leaves. I would wait a couple of weeks and see if the tree leafs out. I expect it too do this and what you are seeing is the flowers not the leaves. You can check the branches to see if they are still alive by starting near the end of one "that has not bloomed" and scraping a small bit of nark off the stem and if the color under the bark is green the branch is still alive and will leaf out later. If the color under the bark is not green but brown the branch is dead at this point on the branch. You can continue down the branch scraping at intervals until you find green or reach the trunk. OR you can wait and see which Brach will leaf out. Our maples here in Alabama have just fully leafed out so I would expect those there to be about 2-3 weeks behind this location.
