About a year ago, my husband and I planted 8 dwarf yaupon hollies in one of our front yard flowerbeds. These hollies have done well. We've had leaves turn yellow and fall of due to over-watering, but they bounce back quickly.

About 2 weeks ago, we decided to complete our largest front yard bed and planted 16 more dwarf yaupons. We live in an area that is full of Yazoo clay and unfortunately, it is very close to the surface (hit it at about 2 inches down) on our property. If you aren't familiar with Yazoo clay, 1) be very thankful and 2) know that it is very nasty, sticky, thick, heavy gray clay that does not drain quickly to say the least. My husband spent HOURS digging the clay out to make large enough holes to fill in with good potting soil. This has been successful everywhere else in our yard with all types of plants, including the area with the yaupons that are doing well. In the last couple of days, we've had 3 of the new plants go from healthy green to dark green to black. One is completely dead, and the other two will be shortly. We figure it's only a matter of time before the others meet the same fate. We've had an inch and a half of rain in the last two days, so our first thought was too much water. Since the roots really haven't had time to grow much, we pulled one of the dying plants up to see if there was standing water in the hole. We were surprised to find that it was actually quite dry.

I believe we have healthy plants, as I am unable to find any description of a disease that might cause this. I'm pretty sure we are dealing with a moisture problem. If anyone has any words of wisdom, they would be much appreciated.