The amount of roots that you dug up is not enough to provide the whole plant with nurishment. You can either wait and hope it recovers or trim some of the excess stems off. Amazing what we forget. Tree peonies should be treated as any other shrub. The top portion should remain in proportion to the roots.

Sorry to tell you, but your tree is definitely dead - or at least in the process of dying. I see you have a bag of fertilizer there. Did you recently fertilize it? Avocados are very sensitive to salt build up and will experience salt burn when you fertilize them. Too much of it will cause necrosis to travel from the roots, up the stem and out toward the tips of the branches. From the looks of it, your tree is experiencing this as the trunk is dead and the extent of dead tissue is progressing toward the branch tips. This is even an issue here where we grow avocados in the ground. A friend of mine sprinkled fertilizer on the surface of the soil near his 10-foot avocado last summer. With all the rain we've had, the fertilizer dissolved and soaked into the ground, causing the avocado to burn and die - a whole 6 months later. It is best to not fertilize young avocado trees at all.

I've been trying for years to help my parents in Walnut Creek, CA grow avocados bc we see and know of nearby trees, including a friend's tree that survived the all time record freeze of 1990, and they've lost several trees, always during the summer, due to these same issues of leaf browning, blackening and shriveling of stems and trunk, etc. They grow sapote, guava, and macadamia in the same part of the yard, but those darn avos won't make it. With low watering, high summer heatwaves, and clay soil, it sounds like we're getting to the bottom of things. If I can persuade them to try another Mexicola Grande, then with more water and lots of gypsum, maybe theyll have better luck. Thanks for the tips!

The color on the leaves is from spider mites damage ( tiny insects sucking the life out of the leaves), spray the plant and leaves thoroughly, underside of the leaves as well with water and then spray again everything including the soil with horticultural oil spray. The brown spots are from too much water. Remove the stake, let the tree stand on it's own to get stronger.