My boyfriend and I recently moved into a new home in a housing community. They provided us with a maple tree and planted it in our front yard. We removed the mulch around it when we did our landscaping and replaced it with river rocks. It has been very dry in our area this summer so far but we have watered our yard a lot since we just got new sod. We have recently noticed that some of the leaves on the tree are dying. When we planted some Hostas around the tree my boyfriend noticed that the tree is still in the burlap bag that it came in, but we just assumed that it would disintegrate after a while. Now we're wondering if they mistakenly left that on and it's killing the tree. If that's not the problem is there anything else that could be causing it or maybe signs of other problems we could check the tree for? Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

They should have removed any burlap that reached the surface, it wicks moisture from the roots. New maples should be watered for the first year or two, especially if its been dry. Get started now, soap for a hour and you should see results in about a week.

What do you mean any burlap that reached the surface? My boyfriend said the roots were still wrapped in it, like when they would've bought the tree. Do we need to dig it up and remove that?

The burlap under the surface is okay. If there is any burlap above the soil line, that is what needs to be removed.

Also, until well established the mulch, or bark, helps keep the soil most longer after watering. While river rocks are beautiful, barking around a tree until it has a well established root system is a better alternative.

My boyfriend and I recently moved into a new home in a housing community. They provided us with a maple tree and planted it in our front yard. We removed the mulch around it when we did our landscaping and replaced it with river rocks. It has been very dry in our area this summer so far but we have watered our yard a lot since we just got new sod. We have recently noticed that some of the leaves on the tree are dying. When we planted some Hostas around the tree my boyfriend noticed that the tree is still in the burlap bag that it came in, but we just assumed that it would disintegrate after a while. Now we're wondering if they mistakenly left that on and it's killing the tree. If that's not the problem is there anything else that could be causing it or maybe signs of other problems we could check the tree for? Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!
There could still be a metal basket on the ball of the tree that was not removed when it was planted.