New to zelkovas.

I have never had a zelkova before,but I rescued this poor little guy from a nursery over the winter.It had been cut back to about three feet,from a standard ten gallon size,and had put out a lot of twigs.It was basically a weird looking shrub.I couldn't really tell until it had started leafing out,but about two thirds of the branches were dead.When I went back to this nursery to see what they had for Spring,I found the rest of them they had like this had just as many dead twigs on them.Are zelkovas especially prone to having twigs or branches die?

Hi Bonsainowar
Do you have any photos of said tree please? Then we can take it from there.

Some interesting info on Zelkovas here:

http://www.bonsai4me.com/SpeciesGuide/Zelkova.html

I have zelkovas in my garden, and yes, they do lose some branches.

I have fewer problems with the smaller ones, those in a pot. Since the foliage is very dense, I suspect that some branches die for lack of light, which is less likely to happen on a smaller tree which is regularly trimmed, or even defoliated.