Hi - Our two autumn blaze maples have developed a wilt issue this year with some significant bark spliting in the last year or two that seemed worse than normal.  Trees are about 6 years old in our yard and maybe 2 years older than that from the nursery. After reading up, suspect Verticillium Wilt.  If so, sounds like our trees are screwed.  Any thoughts would be great.  If this is the issue and we need to replace the trees once they die, any suggestions on an alternative similar shaped, etc. tree that can handle this fungus issue would be useful.

Steve & Karyn