Gifted Maple

[BlackHaga]

I was gifted this maple (I don't know it species) today by a friend who was fed of the bad treatment his children gave the tree (mostly playing football near it).
The tree is in bad shape so he decided to dug it up this Sunday and pot it in a substrate composed of clay (from the dig), organic compost, pumice and perlite if I recall correctly.

As the soil where it was planted is mostly composed of clay, he told me that the tree didn't have much roots, but it lived there for more than ten years.

My questions are :

- Should I left the tree alone this year and do some hard pruning next year when it goes in dormancy ?

- Should I put soil on the roots to cover them or is it OK if it stays like that ?

As it is, is not a beautiful tree, but I like the roots, and I'm a sucker for underdogs

Thank you.

 

[Shibui]

Your tree is a Japanese maple - Acer palmatum. Really difficult to accurately ID a cultivar name because so many of them look similar and because any that are grown from seed are technically different from any that have come before.
It will survive with those roots uncovered but a little more soil to cover the smaller roots would be good and may help the roots thicken.
Always better to allow a tree to recover from transplant before doing any further work so I'd see if you can keep it alive until next Spring with minimal styling/pruning.
Priority then will be to get rid of the clay soil and repot into a potting mix that suits pot culture better.
JM can cope with both repot and pruning at the same time so if it is still healthy and growing well when you repot you could also prune at the same time.

 

[BlackHaga]

Thank you for your reply.

Just coming home from work, extra long day...

I'll cover the roots a little more, and wait until next spring, and see how things go.

Priority is to keep it alive, and take it slow, the tree has taken a lot this last tree years.