It's so late in the season, I would expect some leaf drop. Also those poor plants have probably been in pots sitting around at Lowes for many months and a few weeks for you. That in itself would cause some stress and more leaf drop. Unless the plants look like they're croaking completely, I doubt you have anything to worry about. Get them in the ground so they have some time to establish themselves before winter - assuming you are in a colder climate. You don't give any info about where you're at. Kevin

@woohooman Drain holes are in the bottom. The good news is the plant hasn't completely died off. It's still producing very tiny peppers, but it does have some new growth at the very top (see pics). Anyone have other ideas? I've been watering regularly, keeping the soil damp 2inches down.

Was your tree in pot when you bought it? Potted trees often are root bound and hold tightly to the medium they were planted in. Did you spread out the roots before you planted. That could be why the roots cannot fully function. Like others say, over or under watering could kill a tree. I feel that your issue is the roots not functioning properly.

Hi everyone. Kamereone - Regarding the treatment of de-hydrated plants using the sugar and water method. I soak the whole plant (or as much of it as possible). As plants absorb moisture through their roots and leaves alike, it stands to reason the more of the plant that can be soaked the quicker the fluid will be absorbed. Usually I soak the whole plant, but with tall plants where they whole plant won’t fit in the bucket, I place as much of the lower half as possible in the mixture and fill the centre well of the plant with the mixture as well as occasionally taking the plant out and inverting it so that I can dunk the upper foliage as well. The ratio quantities of sugar to water aren’t critical nor is the amount of time immersed, but I like to keep them soaking for at least 2 -24 hours (or even up to a couple of days) depending on how severely dehydrated they are. Usually the plants I’ve treated were plants that came in the post and they had been wrapped in newspaper and packed in a box for several days; in one case, a little over two weeks when the parcel went astray, and even those plants after a couple of days of this treatment responded well and after a week or two you would never have known they had been severely dehydrated. When the plants first arrive and were unwrapped, they look a bit like a butterfly when it first comes out of its cocoon; all squashed up and wrinkled. After an hour or two in the mixture the wrinkles seem to gradually disappear as the leaves straighten themselves out again and return to their normal shape; again the comparison with the butterfly fresh out of its cocoon is a good example. You mention those, "spikes that supposedly are just stick-and-forget and claim to address Mealy Bugs”, I’ve never seen or heard of them here. But I did read where as an alternative to toxic chemicals, you can sprinkle “Fossil Flour” (Diatomaceous earth) on the top of your potting mix and water it in and it will kill Root Mealy Bug. I did a trial with this last year when I found a plant with Root Mealy Bug after knocking it out of the pot in preparation for dividing and re-potting. I cleaned off as much of the potting mix that I could and removed about half of the roots that were covered in the root Mealy Bugs and re-potted in fresh potting mix and new potI sprinkled about ½ teaspoon of Fossil Flour over the top of the potting mix (it was a five inch pot and as the fossil flour is very fine you don’t need very much, just a dusting) and then added a topping of fresh mix and watered in well. When the plant was knocked out of the pot again after six months, there was no sign of any active root Mealy Bug (even under a microscope) and I was so pleased to have found a natural insecticide that didn’t harm other insects, It’s now become part of my normal re-potting routine and I use it on every plant I re-pot as a preventative. To read more about this natural product, go to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth CAUTION: As it’s a very fine powder you should take the same precautions you would when using any other dusty products and wear a dust mask with an appropriate filter to prevent inhaling this powder. All the best, Nev.