rager ... I got quite excited and emailed that company. Here is their extremely thorough response: "we Dillo dirt only. we only level st Augustine grass ". lovely. Seems like there is money to be made in the area as no one either A - knows how to do it or B - wants to do it. Out of curiosity do you remember who you used and what they charged? The picture looks like they did a great job. I'm leaning towards doing it myself and renting some equipment. I've convinced a neighbor to do it with me and rent a bobcat for loading the dirt into the back of a dump trailer pulled by a riding mower than drag it using a homemade drag. Can anyone comment on time of year and if I can do it soon with my backyard already greening up? It would be great to do it at the same time I scalp the yard at the beginning of the season.

My guess would be to water them plenty. At nurseries they water their stuff ALL the time so everything looks healthy and lush for customers to see. After plants get bought from these stores they still should get lots of water for a while. I've bought I don't know how many potted plants that died after I brought them home for seemingly no reason. Then I got a part-time job at a nursery where my biggest task was watering all their plants for like 3 or 4 hours a day. They'd even tell me "now water the big ones till water comes out the bottom". Yeah, the transplant shock could also have something to do with it. I always thot that the planting hole should be like 3 times the size as the root ball part.

I finally figured this one out. It was just a late-season Phyla nodiflora. I've never seen one without flowers before, so it looked like something that could be unusual - dead common, instead.

you amended soil in water retaining clay ... with water retaining amendments ... please review link on proper planting also the part on proper watering... for the love of God.. contrary to above.. water when the tree needs water.. insert finger or use a hand trowel to find out ... also peruse the part on timing.. if your tree was leafed out on planting ... it would not be surprising.. that a large transplant.. moved to your house.. and planted.. would go thru a lot of stress ... and that stress dates back to that event... but in tree time.. its just showing now .. it APPEARS to have lost under half its leaf mass.. and that isnt all that bad ... if you can now perfect proper watering.. then you should do ok ... i would also pull back the soil at the trunks.. and see if you can find the root flare ... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=root+flare&t=ffcm&iax=1&ia=images and you might want to perk your clay soil .. to see if you can understand the drainage of your clay .. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=perk+garden+soil&t=ffcm&ia=web its stressed.. not hungry .. fert is not a good idea ... its not about where it can grow naturally .... its all about the transplant .. and how you deal with it.. until it settles down and can deal with whatever its new habitat is ... of which, another version of that is.. try not to love it to death ... ken https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub