When the leaves first emerge they will look droppy. They do "dangle" when the first bud out. Give it more time to see if it doesn't start to harden off. Don't spray with the fungicide. Good luck.

1. Yes, this is true. It is also true that some red leaved cultivars will 'bronze' out in too much sun. Ideally, you will want to site just about any Japanese maple with morning sun/afternoon shade or filtered or dapped all day shade. All red leaved JM's will develop the best leaf color if they get at least a few hours of direct sunlight. 2. I would trust ONLY plants from known reputable growers and retailers of Japanese maples. And even then, there can be tagging or ID errors. Box stores buy in bulk from whatever vendor offers them the best deals. These are not always the most scrupulous of growers and have been known to sell seedling JM's by cultivar names - a HUGE no-no! Box stores also tend to have only the most common cultivars whereas independent garden centers that specialize in JM's will offer a very wide and high quality selection. It is a bit of a case of you get what you pay for :-)) 3. No. Trunk color has little to nothing to do with foliage color. btw, 'Tamukeyama' IS a cultivar. There is just one with that name and ALL Tamukeyama's should look the same.

I'd suspect you are simply looking at transplant shock. June is not a great time of year to plant a JM in the midwest and some negative reaction from the tree is to be expected. Just keep it properly (but not overly) watered and it should produce some replacement foliage. If you could contrive some sort of midafternoon shade until the tree becomes established, that would probably help a lot. Red Select is quite sun tolerant once established.

I'm in your shoes, miketann. I'm so sorry about that "walking stick! They did the same procedure to about a 10 year old Inazuma. I did, however, put a Vitifolium, Aconitifolium, Attaryi, Kinran, and two others that escape me right now, in the ground. They're 6-8 years old and have withstood full sun, so... That said, I'm going to cage them, simply because of the deer ravages. They've eaten anything that was supposed to have some winter life, so that's gone. I have deer hoof prints in my raised garden beds. I used something this year, which made a big difference. You have to stay on it and spray every new leaf of something, but why not? I have a huge investment in my gardens and trees. I bought Deer Stop. Not Deer Stopper, just STOP. It is pretty icky going on, but once dry you can't smell it , unlike other products. You also don't smell it walking by a tree, either. It seemed to work, because anything I sprayed, they didn't eat. Miss a leaf? SNIP. I currently have bow hunters on the back 6 acres. It is their assignment to kill (and eat) as many as they can. Strangely, the deer seem to only reside in my FRONT yard. But I do stand by the Deer Stopper. Next warm day I'm going to put some on some things I want to protect. 100 days of protection isn't bad.