Hello Everyone,

I have been lurking on these forums for a bit and been trying to grow a few citrus plants in central SC, about 25 miles SE of Columbia.

I have a couple of other plants that seem to be growing ok (Thomasville seedling, Yuzu seedling, and a grafted Satsuma) all in the same area as the kumquat.

I planted the plant around early May. The plant seems to have had some leaf damage over the summer (small amounts of brown, some leaf curling if not watered that my other trees did not seem to have). It seemed to be ok after being watered, but the tree overall had very little growth compared to the others. It gets about 70% sun and I have fertilized it using palm fertilizer.

Now the tree seems to be dying, any ideas on what I can do to save it or will it recover on its own?

Hello fsgpr and welcome to the forum.
From the looks of your tree it has some serious root damage.

A little bit more info would help.

Hello,
do you know what rootstock you have?
Because planting a tree above a big nutritious pack of manure means to confront the sensitiv root tips with high amounts of radical salts....
The result is often a immediate root damage especially if you have a salt sensitive rootstock!

So it's usualy much better, not to add the manure into the plant hole and seting tree at-top and close the hole with soil, because the hard reactions on the manure will direct affect the roots.
So much better it is, to dig a hole, and add no fertilizer at all, set the tree in and close it, for about one week to make the tree settle itself in the ground.
Now you can add manure to the top, and using a rake work the manure into the top inches of the soil. Now water throughly and all benefical nutrients will get right into the soil and can be taken up by the plant on demand....


So I would suggest: Dig the tree out again, remove the manure as good as possible, cover the bottom of the hole with native soil and set the tree atop. Now close the hole, and let the tree settle. If you are not sure to if you can remove all the manure, dig the hole larger and replace the soil, and then plant the tree.
So my two cents

Hi, I'm new to citrus too, but I would follow Steve's advice and also shake the old soil out of the rootball. Only use soil to fill in the hole- no fertilizer or potting soil. I've killed plenty of plants by fertilizing too soon and killing the roots.
Newly planted trees need some extra water for the first year. If it has been as hot and dry in SC as it has been in TN (one-tenth inch rain in the last 6 weeks) and you haven't been watering, that's not good!
Also make sure you have the tree planted at the correct depth.
Check out the tree planting tips here:http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/hometips/treeplanting.html

Fertilizer of any kind should never be placed in the hole where the tree will be planted. This includes barnyard. The original soil that came out of the hole should be used for the fill. The hole should be slightly larger than the root ball. If the plant was container grown the roots should be cut vertically from top to bottom four or five cuts about an inch or so inside the root ball. this will encourge good outward root development. It is desirable to add root stimulator when watering the plant in. Go by the directions on the container. The plant should be planted slightly higher than the origanal earth line as it will settle some.
Good luck on saving your kumquat but from the looks of the picture it looks beyond hope.