Ok thanks Mr./Ms. Pugetopolis. I did some reading and it looks like I need some phosphite and move to a raised bed and there is one right near it. So I guess I'll do that now. Al

If it has a water mold infestation - as seems very likely - I don't know how a phosphate application will clear that up. And you never want to apply unneeded P as it produces a toxicity of its own when too much is present. If you do not have evidence such as a report from a soils lab that your soil in significantly low in P you probably shouldn't be adding much of that.

Also if you move the plant the water molds infestation will move with it, resulting in a spreading of the infestation on your site. (Assuming the adjacent area is not already infested). Instead I would recommend reading information about dealing with phytophthora provided by your state office of the USDA Cooperative Extension Service, and following that advice.

If the plant looked fine before the digging there might be a relationship between the work and the infestation. Such as maybe the amendment product being infested. Or the plant might have been doomed to start failing anyway, it having become infested through other means. At any rate if it were mine I would dig or pull it out and put it in my yard waste tote, not plant anything else in the same spot. Being sure not to spill soil coming off it elsewhere. I would also remove soil from any tools used.

If you have a heavy soil and have been mixing amendments into planting hole back-fill or other small planting areas you may have been creating collection points for water around your plants. This is because when the soil within a planting hole dug out of fine textured soil is made more coarse via the incorporation of amendments then water may be attracted from the fine area to the coarser one. It is the same kind of physics as when a gravel filled sump is used to collect water.

Plants not adapted to poorly drained or puddling soils are prone to water molds when placed within them. Also some parts of the South are so hot and wet that kinds already vulnerable to them cannot be grown even where soils are quite well drained.

Yes I'm starting to think that the soil was the problem. Although it made it for a year it has lost the remaining leaves. I did add amendments originally. I've been reading Rainer's book, "Planting in a Post Wild World...." and have been learning on what your talking about. We back up to a forest and I'm trying to do what he says in that book.

I have horrible problems in my yard with small rodents tunneling under plants. Often it resembles this, with some leaves looking fine, but whole branches dying off. I can often press a thin stick into the ground near the plant and it sinks in too deep and too easily. Sometimes I can even stick my fingers into the soil and feel the tunneling underneath. This year I have lost 2 camellia to the tunneling, I had no idea they would like those! One of the camellias was already in challenged condition, caused by me relocating it when it was too large for that, but the other was 4 years old and growing well! Earlier this year half the branches died on a 4 year old blueberry bush and a 3 year old fig tree, however, once I discouraged the rodents those have both rallied and are not gonna die. Last summer they killed a young fig that was girdled by some digging rodent that ate off the bark. If I were you I would investigate for tunneling before, or at least during the digging up process.

I don't see any evidence of tunneling and we've not had moles etc. I did move the plant this weekend and it looks worse now. Wondering what I can do to save it. It looked just fine it's first year but we had a lot of rain in early spring and none now. Thanks for the thought.

If it is being destroyed by water molds the extent of damage you have already makes me think it is a lost cause. And if you moved it you may have now spread the infestation to another section of soil, so that you will now have two spots that you may not be able to put replacement plants in - without risking that they will be lost later as well.

Ok. Understood.