We have a row of Western Red Cedars across my balcony - for the past 5 years. We were away for 2 months this past May and June. Last year we were away 6 weeks at the same time and our cedars were fine without watering, just relying on our usual cool wet May and June. They looked great before we left this year. They are now, sadly, uniformly brown at the tips but not in the center. I'm going to assume they are under drought stress since although we had rain during this month it fell mostly during a day. The moss and grasses on top of the pots were fried brown too so drought is the problem? They've always been healthy over the years, even in the confined pots since we give lots of water when here and fertilize. We also have some newer smaller cedars which look fine, but perhaps because they got enough moisture at the roots whereas the larger ones prevented that? White Rock, BC
Re: Dessicated Western Red Cedars? Looks like a columnar Thuja occidentalis cultivar to me. Pots may finally have become inadequate or they have picked up a pathogenic blight.
Ditto to Ron, they're Arborvitae Thuja occidentalis not Western Redcedar Thuja plicata, nor cedars Cedrus. They should have been planted in the ground years ago. To be retained in pots, the pots need to be much larger to give adequate water holding ability for more than a day or two of dry weather.
