Help! I planted 3 pygmaeas about 15 feet apart [with quite a few other conifers] and one has slowly turned brown all over and is now dead. Number two has just started to turn brown but the third one seems OK. All other plants in the area seem fine. We have drippers under cypress mulch, and although it has has been very hot and very windy, we have kept the ground moist by deep watering twice a week. Any suggestions to save my other plants?
Pull the dead ones up and inspect their root-balls, to see if the irrigation arrangement was not adequate. Intact potting soil or clay-like field soil root-balls may dry out, even become repellent to water when planted in soil of a different texture. The opposite problem may also occur in heavy soils, the planting soil acting like a sump when moisture is abundant.
