Was a weed and feed product applied to the lawn or possibly salt or deicing chemicals to the driveway?
No, we don't salt the driveway. However, we do have someone come and treat our lawn. I am not sure that the area where the tree is would be part of where they apply their products. Could they have something to do with this sudden change?
So, if it is an application, is there anything I can do to remedy the situation. I will call the company today and find out what they have used and as if that applied in that area.
Without knowing what may have caused the symptoms there's nothing you should do at this point. It may have nothing to do with the lawncare. You may have an excess of certain elements such as Copper or Zinc in your soil that may be remedied by an application of lime, but until you know what caused it it's better to wait.
Is this hardy there? I see there are dead branch tips left from a previous year, as though it froze back. That far north it may need to be trained against a sunny wall, in a sheltered nook to come through the cold in good shape. Like other small tree specimens planted into lawns it should have the grass pulled back away from it, given a patch of turf-free ground to establish in.
You might consider digging it up if it doesn't get any better after a few weeks or months and putting it in a mound that is slightly raised with no grass and some sort of bricking or barrier to keep the grass from crowding it and stealing the nutrients from the soil around its core root area. Also for the first couple years after you plant a tree, it will need time to get used to its location and the climate. The magnolia bush (well, it's supposed to be a bush but it is more than 10' tall) that we planted took several years of crossed fingers and pulling any grass that grew through a very very thin layer of wood chips to actually start doing well, but we purposely planted it a little above the line of the rest of the soil where the bottom roots were just barely into the actual ground level because we have mostly heavy clay soil where we are. If you want to check for zincs and copper in your soil, take a soil sample and find someone with some sort of soil testing device. A local college or high school that happens to have a botanical or maybe even a geology study program might be able to help you with that.
Magnolia can grow quite happily in a swamp. http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/magnolia/grandiflora.htm
