The other pawpaws you mentioned that are ok, were they also bareroot and planted at the same time?
The pics look about like the only 2 bareroot pawpaws I ever ordered. They died in a couple months.
I always tell folks never to order bareroot pawpaws. Not saying it’s impossible but it’s not a good investment.
I know that does little good for you now. I tried everything to save mine - shade, water, but nothing helped.
I would not fertilize any new tree the first year, so don’t add any more ferts.
I would shade it and actually try to avoid watering it. My guess is the roots are stressed and cannot take up the water they normally would. More water may then lead to root rot.
Again, sorry.
No need to apologize or pity me, my own ignorance caused this problem. All of my pawpaws were barefoot, but the one doing the best came from a different seller, so maybe it's a different variety that does better bare root?
Where would you recommend I go to purchase non bare root pawpaws? I was shopping on ebay and etsy at the time, and a great majority of them were bare root.
the one from the other seller thats doing better, may be the fact that the seller took care better for the unrooted plant. Here bareroot garden trees/fruit plants get uprooted, packed and tied together ,then planted like that in the soil to wait for the byer.
Thats my theory that the plants in the center of the "sheafs" often do not make a good contact with the soil and moisture around, thus the roots die off.
It really depends on the seller , most of them are like the situation above, but some of them bareroot the plant in the day you order it ,and I think if u find a seller that has this practice ,this is the best bet.
U really need to be at the place when u buy such plants, as I said to check the condition of the plant.
Once I bought two bareroot persimmons , thats before I found out the basics; they had not left them a great amount of roots to begin with, and when I got home and started to freshen the cuts, all of the roots,thick ones were dead back to the stump. I would NEVER sell a plant in such condition , yet its easy enough to fool people ,especially if they do not know what to look for.
Then I bought two more ,from another seller, checked roots, all were good with the scratch test, including the feeder roots which I think are the key to a successfully transplanted plant. Those two took and are now nice looking potted trees.
Sorry for the long post ,just sharing my all cents haha ☺