LOL I was just out there pruning a lot of my trees - looks like we had a lot of winter damage if that helps. The maples are pretty resilient, but two are coming out this year (they self seed and end up in bad places and then I wait 8 years to take them out *sigh*) My HL is slow, my redbud is slow, my established elder isn't slow, but also had a lot of dead branches this year.....the Elms in the neighbours gardens are all dying off. Maybe we're just not meant to have trees.......LOL

Where are you? It makes it easier to give a correct answer to your problem.
Mike

Of course - my last username had all that info. I'm in Ontario, Canada (just north of Toronto). Zone 5, but some winters I'd consider Zone 4 - this last winter wasn't too bad

If planted with an intact root-ball and/or in an amended planting hole it may be having watering related problems. Or maybe it needs to be fertilized. Also: did you mulch it?

Pamela, you can now add zone and location information to your profile.

Go to Your Houzz in upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone and you can add location as Embothrium has done.

Embothrium - I didn't amend the planting hole. I'm pretty sure we scratched the root ball a bit. I haven't fertilized it yet this year.....we did sort of mulch it, but we didn't mulch it too heavily. The store told us they liked to be close to the surface. Our soil is loam on top of sand with a high water table (we're less than a quarter mile from the lake). The area we planted it in tends to be fairly damp all season - we also have a burning bush, spireas and a japanese maple not too far away that are all flourishing (and I expect to do even better now that they'll have a full season of sun.

Toronado - I've taken a couple of pictures but none of them really tell the story. I've added it, but that last maple is still there. The branches that are on the tree are the same ones that were there when we bought it. Nothing has changed with the overall structure since we bought it. BTW, the tree is about 9' tall. The leaves get about 8" long but they fall off in the fall with the actual little leaves.

NHBabs - that is awesome!!! Thanks, I never would have found it on my own!!

This was from about 5 days ago.....it's more leafed out now, but still the same bunched up leaves, all of which fall off come the autumn.

Being under that other tree probably doesn't help but otherwise it looks sparse and stubby like it is in bad shape. Did it look better when you bought it? Trees and shrubs planted in poor condition don't necessarily bounce back after getting in the ground.

The shade on that HL is excessive -- not going to do well there unless it grows out in the open more.

It will be in more sun shortly.....LOL The tree that's directly over it (and West) will be getting removed. Also, the maple to the south and about 20' away is being removed.......When these houses were built as cottages, trees were used to mark property lines. Sometime in the last 20 years, the owners of my house installed a fence when the trees were young. As a result they are all very crazy shaped, leaning on buildings and fences and or growing up between fence slats. My neighbours have removed 4-7 of the maples along the fenceline and we'll be removing one that is growing up between the fenceboards later this summer.

I actually planted this, a hornbeam, a buckeye (that I'm thinking I"ll be taking out) and a birch to continue to provide shade for my hostas without being a solid wall of shade.

Embothurium - it looked a little better when we bought it. We bought a flowering almost the same year that was cut strangley. it has grown out. This tree though isn't really putting out new branches, so the leaves are just clumping on the branches that were already existing. I'll see if I can get another photo today that shows the whole tree.

That looks like a pretty big tree (~2" trunk diameter?). I'd say it is not unusual for a balled & burlapped tree to stare at you for 2-3 years before getting into gear with substantial new growth. Especially if it was deprived of enough sun for a while. May still be settling in.