Yes and yes. Redbuds react well to being multi-stemmed trees. With some work you can get a single stem tree out of it. My neighbor with almost a dozen stems. One of his dogs kept chewing it down to the ground back in the day.

Obviously the roots were doing well but something went wrong in the trunk of your tree after transplant. Curious, how large a transplant was it? Any sign of physical damage to the old main trunk of your tree?

It was a small tree from our local box store, looked fine and went well as I mentioned for 2 years.
It was very strange the leaves changed color so early in the season tho.
I saw no apparent problems with the main trunk.
Your reply has brought back hope, I think I'll support the growth this winter and protect it a bit for the elements.
Thnaks Toranado

Our New Leaf Society, a group formed to beautify the city, planted a lot of redbuds this spring. A number of them that I pass by everyday had the leaves turn bright yellow soon after planting, but the leaves never fell off. Now the trees look healthier except for a few that died and were removed. Maybe this species experiences shock when transplanted?

In North Carolina, redbuds grow wild in the woods, especially along the interstate highways. They bloom early in the spring and are really lovely as you travel around the state.

Teresa

I used to have several red bud trees in a house I moved from a few years ago. My trees looked so bad that I thought they needed to be cut down, but I hired an arborist who said they might come back if they were severely pruned. He said red buds are susceptible to some sort of disease (canker?), and that pruning them back by a third or more would help them recover. He pruned the trees within an inch of their lives and we assumed they would die, but they all came back beautifully.

jap.. you dont tell us where you are in z5 ....

my 10 year established RBs in adrian MI .. took winter damage.. due to a z4 winter ...

unless some foo foo version... your plain old RB is not grafted ... its a species... and seed grown ...

so whatever returns is a RB ...

you can reduce the new leaders to one ..... if you dont want it to look like a bush ...

pix if you want further info ....

ken

Redbuds are also susceptible to verticillium wilt. Here's a link to a reference that shows what to look for.

Here is a link that might be useful: Verticillium wilt

My zone 5 is in western Pennsylvania, this 1st picture is the tree's leaves changing color in August, 2nd picture is the bush that developed after cutting off the main trunk.

2nd image..Red Bud bush after tree cut down, 2014

I think you do need to be concerned about the possibility that your tree is infected with verticillium wilt. The leaves wilting and dying midsummer, followed by a spring season of poor leaf growth, are typical symptoms of VW. You should look for evidence of infection by cutting a branch and looking for brown discoloration around the sapwood (center of branch). The link I posted above shows an example. If you see brown streaks, your tree probably has VW.

VW doesn't have a cure, but you might be able to mitigate the damage it causes by making sure your tree is well irrigated during dry weather. The VW fungus in effect clogs the tree's vascular system and prevents it from taking up water. Also, pruning out infected branches can also help maintain the tree.

Thanks Cercis I'll look into this.
Maybe I should remove everything since it cannot be cured ?
or might the new growth be salvaged ?
I printed the link you suggested and will read it carefully, thanks again

This post was edited by japus on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 10:21

First and very important, I would confirm the diagnosis by looking at the inside of a branch before making a decision. Then if you do see the evidence of vw you can decide whether you want to make the effort of nurturing the tree, knowing that it may succumb to the disease despite your efforts.

Redbuds are lovely trees - don't know if you noticed but my GW name is the botanical name for redbud! I chose the name because I have a redbud that was given to me as a special gift. Mine is doing very well despite some stresses from construction on my house, and I've seen no signs of vw, which I think I would have seen by now. But if I did find it had vw, I personally would remove it because it's right in front of my house standing alone as a specimen and I feel it would be too unsightly to leave it there. However, if it were part of a mixed planting, where damage to it could be masked by other plants, I would try to keep it going.

If you do decide to remove it, remember that vw is a soil-borne disease, so you should not plant a redbud or any of the other plants known to be suseptible to vw, but choose something that's vw resistant.

The remnants of this red bud have about 10 pieces coming up and even now Oct 10th, they are gorgeous.
Very full, vibrant green, etc. My wife and I decided we are going to try to let it grow into a bush if it does get back.
I'm planning on encircling the bush with a wire cage, wrapping the cage with burlap leaving the top open.
We have many deer using our plants for winter survival.
The area it's been planted in has been dug up twice in the past 15 years, a few inches of top soil, then nothing but hard clay, a horrible growing medium that we tried to add some good material when planted.
A couple of rhododendrons have been there for much longer, they come and go, but still have good years.
I've been blaming everything in that area that has problems on this clay, maybe yes, maybe no.
We have 2 red buds in the back, 1 went bad in 1 year, the other appears to be ok, however some very strange things are happening to it.
Last Sept, when everything was starting to color, this red bud, about 10 feet hi got red buds on portions of the tree.
I have a pic here of a few, this year leaves came on very straggly and finally came on very strong leaving a couple of branches at the top bare.
I'll try to keep info posted here on it's progress

VW isn't usually fatal, but dogs the plant off and on all its life. I planted a catalpa ~1973 (long since moved away) & it's been dogged by VW ever since, but still an acceptable tree w/occasional dead branches.

There is considerable variation in redbud hardiness depending on the provenance of the seed, if indeed seed was the method of propagation. The so-called Minnesota strain is generally regarded as the hardiest. Redbuds propagated from seed derived from more southern sources will be a good deal less hardy. It's entirely possible that the redbud in question is not suffering from canker, wilt or any other disease. The top growth may well have been killed by cold Z5 winter temperatures. The roots seem to be resprouting, but you may find that this redbud is just not suited to your climate and will die back in all but unusually mild winters.

I'm assuming that the blue collar-looking material around the front of japus's tree at ground level is something intended to keep a mower from hitting the trunk and that the plant isn't in a pot or something else confining the roots.

I think the remnant tree/bush is still too close to the house. These are relatively wide-spreading short trees and if it grows back into something of relatively normal dimensions for a redbud it'll probably wind up with branches scraping against the facade.