I have a Kwanzan cherry in the middle of my front yard in Birmingham, AL, that I need some help with. We made a number of mistakes with this tree. I bought this tree 6 weeks ago and had it transplanted into my yard. It was a healthy 24" B&B that was about 12 feet tall. After it was first transplanted, it did great. There were obvious signs of new growth all over the tree and she showed no signs of shock. Then Tropical Storm Cindy came through.

Right after the tropical storm, she started wilting. Then her leaves started showing signs of scorching. I got the landscape people back out to look at her (the people that originally planted her) and they found a number of problems their people had made. One, she was planted too deep and the root ball was fully submerged. Two, the soil around her was hard clay and all the rain had basically turned her hole into a mud pit.

So, they went to work. They excavated all the dirt around her--a stinky, muddy mess--and replaced it with high quality topsoil and compost. They made sure she was planted at the proper depth. We sprayed wilt-pruf all over what was left of her leaves and that seemed to stop the scorching. Still almost all of hear leaves are deeply scorched. We've also given her water with seasol in it.

That was two weeks ago and we're not seeing any sign of improvement. The leaves with wilt-pruf haven't degraded much, but they are falling off. There is good stiffness in all her extremities when you try and bend her limbs, so there's life left in her, but we can't tell if she's on the mend or not.

I've heard that cherry trees are particularly susceptible to too much water and aren't very forgiving when it comes to mistakes like this. The water, mud and transplant shock--and planting her in June--all have her up against the wall. Is there anything you'd recommend we do to try and save her. When do you think we'll know whether she can recover? I have a lot of money in her--but the emotional attachment is greater.