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It needs a bigger mulch ring....

Agree with BillMN - I would create a much wider mulch ring, and keep it well watered (hopefully your drainage is good). Its roots won't like competing with the turf. What's your soil pH? If it's at the upper end of sourwood's preferred range, you may also want to use an acidifying agent. Sourwood can be challenging to grow outside its native range. Some references say that mycorrhizae may play an important role in establishment. Apparently it grows reasonably well at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Time to dump all the ash from my fire pit around it or whatever?

==>> your going to kill this thing because of a little leaf damage in sept in the year of planting ..

or am i missing something.. or misreading what the issue is???

ken

Dumping ash around it is the LAST thing you want to do, as sourwood needs acid, and ash is alkaline. To be honest, I wouldn't myself do anything unless your soil is alkaline and then just use alittle of the acid-type fertilizer (like for rhododendrons/azaleas). Check your soil pH to be sure. Also you might go try to purchase some mycorrhizae fungus to spread around the base or spread some oak-forest humus around it (humus would be the blackish stuff under the leaf layer) to get some mycorrhizae. My sourwood is healthy & blooms prolifically but never been able to get it out of a shrub stage.

One thing I know for sure about sourwoods is that they absolutely cannot tolerate late frosts/freezes after they have leafed out. They take weeks--deep into summer--to recover from them and eventually it weakens the tree.