w/o a pic.. i dont know...

but i figure you are right on the dormancy issue ... it isnt an evergreen ...

and if so.. what more can you do besides wait and see how it leafs out ...

put it somewhere out of sight.. so you can stop breaking branches off ... lol .. somewhere where the black pot never... never ... is hit by sun ... we want those roots to stay dormant.. as long as the part above is ..

there are many other things i would do with a pot in MI ... but you aint MI ... so i would simply tell you to give it a little water now and then.. just to keep the soil a bit moist during dormancy .. insert finger and find out when that is ... dormant trees do not need all that much water ... but root rots do ... so go easy ...

and try to just forget about it.. until other trees start breaking dormancy.. and that is when we will find out.. what your result is ...

ken

Ernie,

You don't have to cut the trunk off to see if it's alive. Simply take a knife and scratch a small portion of the trunk to see if there is any green tissue under the bark. Do it down low. If there is not green tissue under the bark, the tree is dead.

In peach trees, it's not normal to loose twigs the way you describe unless the twigs are heavily shaded.

If it is dead, the problem was likely water management (too much, or too little). Most of the time it's too much water that does a peach in.

thanks!
I need to check it now, because when it breaks dormancy it is too late to plant it and expect it to thrive. I should have gotten it in the ground in October, but that didn't happen.