About 10 days ago I bought an Acer palmatum var. dissectum Crimson Queen. I'm not sure how old it is but it was about 4 feet tall and gorgeously red. When I was planting it I used some root grower and then watered throroughly. About 2 days later I noticed that the leaves on the top were not only losing their brightness but turning brown to grey. Since then it's seemed to get worse.
I know these are supposed to get partial sun to shade, preferably afternoon shade. The best I can do is shade almost all morning long, until about noon. I'm in Alabama where it is normally rather hot but in the past 2 weeks it hasn't been too bad, 80 max. A couple of days ago it rained a lot here, pretty heavily, and a lot of the leaves ended up just falling off totally.
Yesterday I started misting it before I went to work in the morning, I'll try doing it every day before work - I've read this can help. But I really want to know if there's anything else I can do, if it's likely it won't make it, or if it should come back next year after it gets its roots set in deeper. I'm willing to try anything.
Thanks, Ryan