We live in Richmond, Virginia. In summer of 2007 our neighbor's larger variety of maple tree dropped all of its leaves. We thought sure it was dead, but a few weeks later, it put out a whole new growth of leaves and grew leaves this year as if nothing had happened.
We have an older small-type maple tree (not red maple or Japanese maple) about 15-18 feet tall. It has never shown any distress. This spring 2008 the leaves and seed pods came out. Suddenly in June 2008 when leaves were about 1/4 normal size, they stopped growing. Then they turned brown. There is nothing left on the tree but brown seed pods which have not fallen. Thanks for any help.