Japanese White Pine Turning Brown - October 2021

Things aren't looking good for the Pinus Parviflora 'Glauca Nana' - the dwarf Japanese White Pine tree that I picked up at Home Depot in mid-Summer after it had lingered in the lot for quite some time.  I was really excited about the tree and hopeful that it would put down some roots and establish itself this Summer.  But, unfortunately, it seems that it is fading.  And fast.  Here's what it looks like right now - in the photo below.  It is brown, orange and certainly NOT green.

But, when I inspect the tree closer, I see tips that are *still* green with small needles.  Like the section you see below:

And, using the old 'tree health test' of scraping away some bark with a fingernail to see if the limbs are green underneath reveals (at least *some*) sign(s) of life.  See below for a little spec of green that I revealed under the bark:

Could this be normal behavior?  I'm pretty SURE it is not normal and this tree is in decline and will not be green come Spring.  But...when you put [pine tree turning brown in Fall] in the Google machine, you get answers like this:

This wouldn't be the first conifer that I lost in late Summer/Fall when it turned brown.  Something very similar happened to the Weeping Alaskan Cedar that I bought in 2018.  And a small Fraser Fir I planted in 2019.  Went brown.  Fast.  And, even more recent, the Weeping White Spruce had some trouble this year and lost about half of that tree.  I'll post photos of that tree tomorrow.