Poaky,
I can only answer your first question, yes, your shrub Pieris Japonica is dead.
Don't buy another one. They are very picky about their soil.
Mabey someone else grows the Willowleaf Cottoneaster.

i doubt that it is grafted ...

so i would at least give it until bud burst in spring .... ya never know ...

unless it will just drive you insane all winter long, worrying about it.. if so.. get rid of it now ...

ken

It won't drive me insane all winter, I only get that way about trees!I guess it will be a wait and see thing. If the shrub is dead and is fussy about soil there isn,t much chance that mountain laurel will like it either, I,m trying to grow one of those from seed.I,ve been told they are hard to get going.I need to get a soil test done, some acid lovers are fine and others not, those test things from lowes say my soil is neutral PH. If it's right I may need to add something to push it over to acid but there are articles that say that stuff is bad for the soil.

Soil sulfur with acidify soil if you're not sitting on limestone. It certainly isn't bad for the soil and is regularly used for blueberries.

The local pH around here is about 7.2. Pieris is an absolute no go. Very few of them last a year. However, there are some incredibly ancient Rhododendrons (catawbiese, I think) and the microscopic mountain laurel I planted a few years ago is still doing fine. Mountain laurel grows wild in almost straight limestone around New Paltz and West Point.

I did a search to see about the supposed problem with sulfer and it said that sulfer destroys soil fungi,which is a bad thing.That it changes to sulfuric acid.That is a subject on one of the garden web sites.I use compost so if some die I can reintroduce more, if the whole thing is fact that is.Also my soil is nowhere near any limestone so I,m fine there, and sulfer should work. Mountain Laurel is abundant in the Mountains near us 8 to 9 miles east of us. I've always heard they are acid lovers. The one I,m starting (hopefully I get germination) is in a half barrel of ammended wal mart topsoil with seeds sown on top of moss, I was told to sow them on moss on the Rhodie forum, Mad Gallica how much sun does your Mt Laurel get?Or anyone else who has one, all the wild one's are in all shade so I guess that is what is their choice. poaky1

It's hard to tell how much sun anything in my backyard gets because of the number of spread out tall trees. It probably gets at least part sun.

Around here, the wild ones tend to be on limestone outcrops that are too shallow in topsoil to grow trees.