How long was it from the time the trees were pulled until you got them in the ground?
I lost 1 plum (Methly) to rabbit damage, but put up cages around the rest when I started having problems.
I have 3 pear trees that failed to put out but suckered out from below the graft (2 of those suckered out from below the ground). The 4th pear tree, a Le Conte is doing fine.
The 4 fig trees finally put out but were very very late doing so.
Lost 3 peach trees that tried to green up, but tops dried out and are sticks now. One apricot was simply never showed any signs of life from start.
I have 2 Fugi apple trees that greened up and put out leaves twice and each time the leaves turned brown. Now the graft wood looks darker, is no longer a bright green. I suspect sun exposure killed them. It was probably too late, but this week I put cardboard boxes (supported by a T-post) around the tree as a shelter and watered them heavily.
About 1 month ago I put in a drip irrigation system to help with the watering. It was installed for 22 of the trees. That has worked pretty well, but I still have had to flood water occasionally. The issue there is the surrounding soil that was not dug up with the 2’ auger I used when we planted them.
This is a year for the record books. My 85 year old father says he cannot remember a year this bad, even 1952 had some rain. My great-grandfather settled here in 1886 but in 1895 they had an extreme drought and he left for 3 years, from stories that drought was similar.