This burns me too

Yesterday I posted about the burn damage that the heat and drought are inflicting on many of my plants. Today there are more photos of crispy leaves, but it wasn't the weather that did this.

No, this damage was man-made, and it gets me a bit angry thinking about it (both with myself and with those that caused it).

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First, the damage:

This potted Japanese maple which I detached from the ground two months ago (it had rooted into the cracks between the patio flagstones) and moved here next to the driveway.

Also, this potted bamboo (Bashania fargesii) which I only moved a week or so ago.

Interesting burn pattern, isn't it?

You can see the line between unburned lower on the plant and burned at the top.

In the case of the bamboo, the very top of the plant is unburned too. What could have caused this? Some strange insect attack?

Nope. My neighbor is having extensive work done to his garage, and this was caused by burning fuel.

Not directly mind you -- there weren't orange clouds belching from a flamethrower or Molotov cocktails flying -- but that fuel was burning inside an engine.

It was the hot exhaust gasses of a small excavator that caused this damage. The exhaust pipe configuration and the slope of the ground combined in just the "right" way to blast these plants with blistering air for a while.

The bamboo I'm not concerned about, as its damage will be visible for a year at most until it sends up new shoots, but the maple...

I sure hope that it's just the leaves that got blasted, and that the top part of the plant is still alive. If so, the secondary leaf buds may still fire off this year and the tree may replace the desiccated leaves. If the top part of the tree has been fried, I'm not sure what I'll do.

Now I'm getting upset about it again. I'll just think positive thoughts and hope for the best.

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