Sitting in an English garden / Waiting for the sun

Hello! As I mentioned in my intro post, for the first time in my life I have a garden to call my own and want to do it justice.

Edit: I plan on getting the soil tested and I am not sure what the weather zone is either. Finally, the garden stretches north-south and so gets a lot of sun, all day long.

Grass / Maple tree
The grass is currently patchy with an assortment of weeds growing in it. There are also quite a few bald patches and yellowing grass. I am currently watering at about 8am each day.

The Japanese maple tree was there when we moved in and I do not know what type it is. I am very concerned about the tree - as you can see, the leaves are in a rather odd state. They are very...droopy. They are not dry, scorched or falling off, but seem to droop sadly downwards. I do not think it is related to a fungal infection as it does not have white fibres on it. Also, when pruning some of the branches off the tree, I did not see the signature wood colouring that accompanies fungi.


Flower/Weed bed
The flower bed has 2 x Salix Integra Hakuro Nishiki. From what I gather, it is grafted. Unfortunately, the Salix part of it seems to be totally dead :(


In my defence, when we moved in, the flower beds looked like this. A lot of what I think is green alkanet. I used a glycophosphate weedkiller on it and waiting results. Although I sprayed it very sparingly due to the close proximity to the tree.



Questions:

• Does anyone know what, if anything, is wrong with the maple tree?
• Is the Salix saveable?

Well, thanks for reading and many thanks for any help/advice :D

 

.....and if the sun don’t come you get a tan from standing in the English rain

We could do with some rain just now. The leaves on the Maple do look droopy, lack of water?
Or, could it be a few really cold nights?
The Salix appears to have tiny buds, so isn’t dead.
Somebody more knowledgable will be along shortly hopefully.A long narrow garden is always difficult to plan isn’t it?

 

Hi @nilayshrugged. This is also our first year in our new home and we too have a huge Acer tree in the garden (but no idea which type it is). The neighbours have all commented how beautiful it is, so have been excited to see it spring into life. Only in the last week have tiny leaves began to form, which also looked droopy - the same as your photo. As these infant leaves increased in size, they appear to be getting stronger in appearance. I have read that this is a characteristic of certain varieties and the leaves will lift up to a normal position… fingers crossed.

Last month a tree surgeon visited to look at some other trees. In passing he said our Acer looked healthy, but commented that they don't respond well to too much pruning.

Photo taken today : 27/4/2021


Closeup

 

@DevonPhil thank you for putting my mind at ease. Also, what a beautiful garden you have
@Oakapple long gardens really are a pain. We currently have really high fences which are great for privacy but also block light. I am thinking of removing the concrete around the shed, and reclaiming that land for flowers and maybe a few trees

 

Yes the Salix looks dead, but I'm not sure the glyphosate would have done that.
I think you have other plants, bulbs maybe, under the tree, so really hand weeding would have been better than weedkiller.

 

Hi, that Acer is beautiful! And perfectly healthy. It looks like Acer palmatum Atropurpureum and the new leaves do droop. You should get fantastic autumn colour from it, too