Those leaves look much less green and healthy in person.

This occurs more or less frequently when a tree is bear rooted.

Since I posted this, about 1/3 of the leaves fell off. How should I care for it until it recovers? Are some trees just more delicate? I'm assuming there's no real way to prevent it. Is this what I have to look forward to every 2-3 years when I need to replace the 511? Poor thing - I feel really bad for my Santa Teresa.

There is a balance between roots and foliage. If some of the roots dried-up or cut than the balance is usely way of and leaves wilt and fall of. Normally what i would do prune some of the branches of, the tree will recover much faster.

Below is a picture of one of my tree's that had a lot of lengthy branches, prune them of and repot the tree. Today i see a lot of new starters coming-up. You would not recognize this tree in a few weeks. Do not fertilize yet.

Silica probably has a better way, check with him before you do anything!

I planned to prune it back, once it had adjusted to the 511. I just didn't expect such a dramatic reaction. The discovered root rot, so there's that on top of barerooting and adjusting to 511. If it's better for the tree to prune it now, I will. Silica?

I would prune first, adjusting will come soon enough. Just leave some feeder leaves.

PAC - did your tree recover? I can’t temember if you told us what ended up happening with it. I know FW wouldn’t replace it.

This is why I'm afraid to do mine. I still have it in its liner and sitting outside sortof under the Shiranui. I am considering not doing a total bare-root and not putting it in 5:1:1 but some other variation with Promix. I know when I had the FW entry Kishu, when I had slid that out of the liner, probably 80% of the root mass, which was sopping wet, ripped away, and it never recovered. Will have to see how it looks when I do slide it out of the liner to see how it is rooted and in what (the top of the material it's in has long stringy bark pieces).

I did not bareroot either of my two trees from Four Winds when I got them in Sept/Oct of last year. They both had severe root rot. The wood bits they pot in turned to sawdust and became a soggy mess. I would say the that the rootball is probably a quarter the original size. They went from 15in and 13in diameter pots to 1 gallon pots now. They may not be adjusting to the 511 very well, but I’m sure they’d be doing much better if they’d had heathly root systems to begin with. I wish I barerooted much earlier. I didn’t have any issues with my trees from anywhere else and none of them were bare rooted when I got them either.

I am surprised to hear of the root rot from Four Winds trees. I hope you contacted the company and made a complaint. From what you have said about the roots, Jenny and Alanna, the new root stock they are using must be very finicky. Did the tag say semi dwarf? I noticed that when I received new trees last year, my tags said semi dwarf and the root balls were really tiny. Two of my trees when I repotted this spring also had some root rot which I have never had before. I am just wondering if this is all related. I will watch my two trees that had the root rot this year and see how they fare compared to previous trees.

Denise - my ST didn't come with their usual large tag, just a plastic tree tag with the name so not sure about the rootstock attributes for it. As an interesting note, when I got it last summer, the entry Kishu's large tag indicated "semi-dwarf" and that one just never recovered from the root issues.

The other FW tree that I still have the tag for (bought in fall 2016) that was listed as "semi-dwarf", is my Eureka (bought as a "choice" size). The root system on that when I had repotted it was pretty good. In fact, over last summer, the rootstock sent up a huge thorny sprout from below the graft that I think confirmed the rootstock was probably Cuban Shaddock, which has been posted here as being used a lot by them (no trifoliate leaves and huge thorns almost 1" long).

But believe it or not, my premium variegated pink lemon (also bought in fall 2016) claims to be "True Dwarf" (although it has been sprawly and somewhat aggressive in growth and I haven't seen anything sprout from the rootstock yet). And the premium Tango that I got last summer with the Kishu also claims to be "True Dwarf", but I have had major struggles with that Tango. It had swaths of branches with yellowing leaves and eventually had major branch die-back through fall/winter, although it did re-sprout from just above the graft, and is sortof holding on at the moment. I had to literally take it almost down to where it re-sprouted, which was a couple inches above the graft (and the graft was about 5" above the soil).

As a sidenote - ST is now back out of stock on FW's site. Took awhile for that to happen! Genoa entry is still listed in stock.

jenny_in_se_pa Monitor the differences in root growth between your trees. If you or anybody else is having negative experiences with the switch to semi dwarf root stock, FW should be informed so they can do something about it. I wasn't happy about the switch and told them so. If it isn't broke, why fix it? lol.

Neither of mine came with a big tag either, just a variety label.

The ST lost all of her leaves, so I pruned the branches back today. What now? Do I keep it out of the sun long term? Partial sun until it starts growing? Cut back on the watering? How does one treat a tree with no leaves?

A lot of my others are looking droopy and dropping leaves too, but not going bald. What did I do wrong? I was careful to keep the roots wet when I barerooted.

Don't worry,when the plant is in new soil, water it ones for the roots to be incased( no air), set it in the sun is ok since there are no leaves and you are good to go. You are in zone 6, sun is not that hot. If you look at my previous picture, you can already see the difference. Good luck. Bob