Might want to take a closer look but it looks like he also planted it too deeply...

"Sad plants" should be carefully inspected for diseases or pests before being brought home and installed on one's own property. Including rotting of rots caused by pathogenic water molds picked up from infested puddles in inadequately prepared and managed retail sales yards - one warehouse store here actually displays potted stock on tables that get splashed by passing cars.

Also many specimens that have lingered to the point of dereliction at retailers have severe nutrient deficiencies due to them not having received the continued benefit of diligent fertilization programs at the production facilities from which they came. Such examples won't necessarily bounce back readily even when given improved conditions by end consumers.

Bummer comments aside...FREE PLANTS...may live..can only hope

ron

If a pernicious problem ever comes with a sad plant then that is what would be the bummer. And the plant having been free would quickly fade into insignificance. Just the water mold problem alone has cost the U.S. nursery crops production industry many millions of dollars.

I've seen the dead trees that were in the dumpster at that store being neglected for years now. They were displayed out front in place where the couldn't get rain water and obviously no one watered them themselves. They were always dry when I went there. I emailed the main office about them months ago. Thanks for the advice.

It will never regrow the lower branches...but on the bright side, in a white pine those brown needled branches were probably dead anyway. When the tree is 20 feet tall no one will notice the lower problem...mature white pine tend to lose lower branches anyway.