Hi! I have a young maple tree that I planted in my backyard probably around 1.5 years ago. Before that it spent a good deal of time in a bag in our garage and then in a terracotta pot on our porch. I'm very attached to it as it is the last surviving tree we have from our wedding - we gave them out as favors. Its roots must have really gotten established over this past winter cause it has seemed very, very healthy this year. It has put on about 5 feet of growth and has full size leaves instead of the little baby ones it always put out before. We live in Virginia and we have gotten A LOT of rain over the past couple of weeks. We also have a sort of clay based soil in our yard. So anyway, all of the sudden the new growth at the ends of the branches is crinkly, crispy, and brown. I would assume that's a water issue but could that really be the case with as much rain as we've been having? Another thing I noticed when I was checking out the leaves was several small white dots on the trunk near the base. They seem slightly fuzzy and they come right off if I touch them gently. I actually called a local nursery and they suggested it might be crape myrtle bark scale. I looked it up and it does look pretty much just like that but can a maple get that? Any help is very appreciated. Like I said I am very attached to this tree and I want to make sure this isn't something that might kill it. Sorry for the one enormous paragraph. The entry form is being really glitchy and wouldn't let me start new paragraphs.