Ohhhhhh. Gee, I wish I'd known they were bareroot when you started this thread. My take on planting bareroot fruit trees is that if they are absolutely first-rate quality *and* were picked up personally within a few days of being dug, as opposed to mail-ordered, then it is ok to plant them directly into the ground... but (I don't know your situation of course) if they are somewhat more average specimens and/or have been out of the ground longer or thru the postal service, personally I think there's a lot to be said for potting them up for a year (pot sunk in ground, in good well-drained garden soil).
I still wonder about your soil though. Across the street isn't necessarily the same as YOUR property... drainage can be greatly different just 50 feet away on the *same* property. And if your heavy clay should perchance to also be *damp*, then that is just not really fruit-tree growing conditions. And apples are somewhat more tolerant of soggy soils than some other fruits.
I guess, putting all the bits of information together, if the potted-up ones are ABOVEGROUND (rather than pots sunk up to rims in soil) then I would strongly suspect the problem is at least in large part poor drainage. If so, this is probably a permanent problem (even tho this IS a wet year, there will be wet years on a fairly regular basis in the future, and you may need to find elsewhere to plant fruit trees). It is also possible that barerootness may be a contributor too, especially if these were not going to have gotten absolutely an A+ for quality and minimal-stress-in-transit.
Not sure what to say about what to DO with the trees you've got, other than think long and hard about where to plant the three potted ones and I suppose just see if you can coddle the in-ground ones along by some chance.
Good luck, have fun,
Pat
