I have had problems with the "tips" of the branches dying back about 2-3 inches. I have also had problems with leaf spot. I 'm not sure what causes either of these problems, but if these two trees kick the bucket, I won't bother trying anymore.

Any chance that it could be under stress? WV is in it's native range, certainly, so that would not seem to be a problem. Did it sprout up naturally there or did you plant it? Is it in full sun, part sun? Has anything changed?

New Sourwood sprouts seem to have the frost resistance of tomato plants. Mine were blackened by a mere 32F, but have resprouted since.

I don't remember seeing any disease problems as you describe on any of the wild sourwoods in the forest understory when I lived in VA.

Some close-up pics would help.

Thanks for your responses. It's definitely not frost kill. The tree leafed out long, long after the freeze and was not touched by frost. I planted this tree about 9 years ago. It's in full sun, but with very adequate moisture. About 6 years ago, we had three nights of hard freeze in late May, the week before Memorial Day weekend. It lost all its leaves, didn't releaf until deep into July and had considerable dieback. But two years later it had really recovered, put up a strong leader, and last year began to bloom. It leafed out beautifully this year and looked great until the "blight' began. A friend of mine who is a horticulturalist found one reference to twig blight on sourwoods in one of her textbooks on diseases of woody plants.

I would really hate to lose this tree. It's been through so much and was doing so well. And the fall color is a spectacular backdrop to a planting of Aster oblongifolius 'October Skies' and together they make one of the great shows of the fall garden for many weeks.

I don't know how to post pics, but it really looks bad, mostly leafless except for a low branch which still looks good. Now that the leaves are gone, the tips seem to be dying too.