I have had problems like that, and lost one, for the simple reason that I planted them before I learned about how to do it properly: not too deep in the ground, and to take the plant out of the pot, soak it and get the roots untangled and stake them out before planting so they're not stuck in the original pot shape.
Last weekend I helped my next door neighbor replant a weeping yaupon planted by a nursery last year. The guy was so proud of his compost tea (dismissing the bottled stuff as not good enough because it isn't biologically active) that I thought he had the sense to know how to plant a tree! But my neighbor's lawn guy and I took a look at it, wondering why it wasn't thriving, and found it still wobbled in the tiny hole they had poked into when they planted it. And it was way too deep.
I've had to dig away the top few inches of soil around my trees, leaving them sitting in a kind of shallow dish shape, but it helped considerably. And once the foliage falls, I'm going to work on one by digging away the dirt from half of it and see if I can't straighten some roots. I'll have to work on the other side next year--it's too big now to try to dig up the entire thing at once.
They respond well to foliar feeding, though it won't bring back those leaves that have turned brown now.
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File comment: Howard Garrett demonstrating how wound up roots get in pots and why you need to soak and unwrap the roots before planting.
HowardGarrett-PrairieFest-Apr25-2009--09b.jpg [ 143.09 KiB | Viewed 5113 times ]
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File comment: This root is circling what has the pot shape even after a year in the ground.
Betty-yaupon-replanting-soak-1c.JPG [ 150.05 KiB | Viewed 5108 times ]
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_________________ Northwesterner
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