Is my tree ill?

Ok so I know little to nothing about plants and my mom (whom I normally ask is 2 hours away). I have this tree that I found just as it sprouted from a helicopter seed this spring. I don't know exactly what it is (assuming maple?), but I'm worried my little guy is ill.

The tree is kept indoors in a pot to prevent it freezing outside. Inside the pot has of course soil and some hay/grassy stuff my mom put in to help me in case I over water it. I keep the tree in a south facing window, and it has been inside since September or early October at least.

Today I noticed some discoloration in a couple of the leaves and I'm wondering if I should be concerned. I have a couple photos. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for the help.

Well it looks like you have a nice little Red Maple or (Acer Rubrum). Not sure how well it will perform as a house plant considering they are deciduous trees and have to lose their leaves and go dormant for fall and winter. Overall it looks fine, but the discoloring could just be the tree trying to shed its leaves for fall?

The only trouble that I've run into when growing maple seedlings such as this, is spider mites. However they are pretty easy to recognize since they make webs on the plant, and you will see tiny tan colored specks slowly moving around on the leaves and in the webs.

My last bit of advice would be to fertilize it if you aren't already doing so. These trees are often found in moist woodlands and even somewhat swampy places, so I would also advice to keep the soil consistently moist. Trees like nitrogen rich fertilizers. Garden centers can help you with that. I even bought my tree fertilizer on amazon.

Thank you mylitletrees!

The "hay/grassy stuff your mom put in to help me in case you over water" can present issues, more specifically, collapse of the soil's structure and the potential for ammonium toxicity as material very high in N breaks down. Either of those issues would cause symptoms like you're seeing. Mylittletrees is right about thinking it might be the tree getting nudged toward dormancy by the decreasing day length (technically, it's the increasing night length), during which time the plant will try to salvage whatever mobile nutrients or biocompounds are present in the leaves. Too, there is the change in humidity from outdoors to indoors that can drastically affect trees that can't easily adapt to indoor conditions.

Keep in mind that trees that NEED a dormant rest and are deprived of same, often perform very poorly and very often collapse completely in the subsequent growth period. IOW, your tree would appreciate being put back outdoors with protection or being over-wintered in an unheated/attached garage. All that's needed is for you to toss a little snow on the soil from time to time to keep the soil from drying completely.

Al

@tapla

I don't have have attached garage, I have separate non-insulated buildings and a couple of non-insulated porches (only the porches have windows, but the have windows with a lot of sun). I would love to have it outside so it can be used to the conditions when I go to plant it outside (It needs to be a little bigger to stand up to deer and rabbits). Right now it's in a 5" to 6" pot can I have it outside in a pot without it freezing too much? How do I move it to a colder area without shocking it too much (when I moved the tree from inside to outside and back again I did it slowly to help it adapt)?

I didn't know about the grassy/hay stuff, would it be safe to transplant it right now?

tapla made a very good point about the humidity levels. That could cause a little change in leaves. If I were you, I would try tempering it in with one of your non-insulated porches. I don't know how your current weather is, but here in Ohio the temps aren't too severe yet. I don't think we've had any serious freezes. The problem with leaving them potted and outside is the soil in the pots will freeze like solid blocks of ice. Actually a better idea might even be to go ahead and plant it outside somewhere, and then just put wire or something around it to protect it from rabbits, mice, and deer. The tree does not appear to have soft new growth, so it is "hardened" off and should be safe to lose the leaves. In my area, there are trees outside that still have leaves, so putting your baby outside might be the best idea.

Ok, so I'm going to re-pot it to get the sphagnum moss out of the pot. And for the winter it'll be in my porch. And then next spring sometime (asap) I'll plant it outside.. I wont be able to do so until next spring, should I wait for leaves to grow? Or can it be planted while still dormant?

I enourage you to go ahead and plant now in the ground if possible. However if you're set on keeping it on the porch, I would suggest periodically checking the moisture of the soil. Trees that are dormant still need some moisture but not as much as it would if it were during the growing season.

As for spring planting, it really doesn't matter if the tree is dormant or just leafing out. Either way would be fine just so the ground is workable and not frozen. That would be my recommendation.

I hope it lives, and you get to enjoy it. Red Maples are really nice trees and they grow pretty fast.

First, I wouldn't repot now.

Next for consideration - plants are guided into a dormant state primarily by photo-period (night length), and the deal is sealed by exposure to increasingly lower temps. Over-wintering on the porch is a decidedly bad idea - not quite as bad as overwintering indoors, but not far behind, either. You'll end up with a plant putting on a flush of growth in Jan or Feb and being totally absent of resistance to subsequent chill. If you're going to keep the plant containerized, I'd keep it in a fairly dim and quite cool location for a week or two so it can build-up it's resistance to chill and ease it's way into a dormant state. Then, over-winter outdoors by burying the plant, pot and all, against the north side of a heated building.

I'd probably follow the same strategy if you're going to plant out in the spring. If that's the case, I'd dig up the pot after the frost is out of the ground, bare-root it, and correct the problem roots it's sure to have and which are sure to be limiting if not corrected before planting out - then put the plant at an appropriate ht in a planting hole & backfill with the soil that came out of the hole - especially if your soil is heavy toward the clay side.

Al