Another photo

where are you ....

why so close to the structure???

get under the tree with a hand trowel.. and dig down 3 to 6 inches.. and find out if you are getting any water into the giant root mass you planted ....

this years flush looks short.. i bet you are severely underwatering it ...

was it potted.. or BBurlap??

whats you native soil type???

if its dry under there.. put the hose on trickle for a few hours.. and dampen the whole root mass...

report back and let us know...

if you have bad clay soil... ask before you trickle the water...

and .. finally.. did you amend the planting hole.. if so.. advise what ...

fert will NOT help ...

ken

Another thing to do is to look for spruce spider mite, too, in addition to what Ken has to say. Get a white piece of paper and hold it under affected branches and tap on the branches and look for tiny bugs moving on the piece of paper. They're visible to the naked eye.

Dax

Hello, Thanks fir the replies. The structure behind the Fir is a fence .the soil is fairly sandy and very compact a few feet down.. I dug about 4 ft deep a back filled for drainage. I did add compost as instructed by the nursery... I also planted another fraser at the same time. And it seems to be doing well, yes the new growth on it is longer... The tree was burlaped ... I t has been quite hot here in Coeur d Alene idaho... I have been watering a couple of times a week as instructed by the Nursery... Thanks...

If no mites, then it's going to be the B&B rootball. Either a) roots that didn't develop enough and are now symptomatic, or b) what Ken said. Or, c) girdled roots.

Dax

I have not had a chance to check for mites, as it has been stormy for the last two days but will as soon as it clears up... The root ball seemed quite large when i planted it. The new growth did wilt one day when the temp got above 100.. One thing I forgot to mention..a few spots of the new growth the tips seemed to dry out and crumble.. I figured it was due to the wilting that occurred.

Thanks,
Dave

It was likely dry, the rootball, that is, that caused the new-growth to shrivel up and die. And you never know about multiple symptoms unless you check. Heavy rain will have washed the mites off, so likely you wouldn't see them until next-summer. I'd check again in three weeks for the heck of it.

A B&B tree is something 99% of us on here avoid, Dave. You cannot see the roots unless you completely bare-root it at planting time. 90% of the time and you can ask anyone on here, B&B roots are junk. The other 10% that may have roots that are semi-OK but still poor, need 'root-pruning' to fix "J" shaped roots and even roots that have already, girdled. Most of the time there aren't enough roots at all to feed the tree. They're nightmares man...

Dax

Yeah Dax, I couldn't say this any better.
It's very important to do the root pruning job before it will get delivered b&b...

Double post...

This post was edited by coniferjoy on Fri, Aug 2, 13 at 19:12

So I think I may have some kind of mite... I found two tiny black shiny bugs just about the size of a pin head... Is that a spider mite?

Thanks...

Thank Ken, I started deep watering after the last rain fall,by deep i mean i have been running the water on a trickle for an extended period of time a few times a week. Im not sure if it has helped.