Hello... We had a beautiful 40 year old Japanese Maple tree that seemingly died suddenly over the course of what we believe to be 2 years. It started with half of the tree dying. (no leaves) We couldn't bare to cut that portion of the tree off, so we just waited for Spring hoping that it would recover. This year the other half died. It never leafed out. I have read as much as I can online, but, I'm mostly left confused and without any real resolution. We had to cut it down today. We dug down as far as we could and the big 2"-3" diameter roots had all died and were rotten. We cut those roots and tried to pull the stump out but could not, without likely damaging the rock raised bed that it resides (resided) in. I have read about verticillium wilt, and, although the tree seemed to die in a way which is visually consistant with verticillium wilt, the cross section of the tree did not appear to have the dark ring indicative to verticillium wilt. The tree was nearly 12 tall and again that wide. It was the focal point of the entry of the house. It was located on the North side of the house, and, didn't get much sun. We didn't really do anything with it, i.e., water, fertilizer, compost. It always thrived on it's own. We have purchased another Japanese Maple which is currently still at the nursery. We plan to plant it in the same location when we are consistently getting more rain. We live approximately 2 miles (as the crow flies) from the ocean in a secluded forested and marsh setting. I am attaching a couple of pictures of the cross section of the tree trunk, and the site where the tree was planted. We are also wondering, if the first tree had verticillium wilt, if we should actually plant another tree inn the same location.