On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:30:14 GMT, "Bob" in
rec.gardens wrote:

Last fall, we had 20 or so 5' arborvitae planted by our gardening guy. They
browned up some during the winter, but pretty much came back over the
summer. Now they are all browning out from the center. It looks pretty
widespread and there is a lot of browning going on. Are we going to lose
them? I hope not - it was a lot of $$$ to plant them in the first place. The
gardening guy says we need to water them - which we are doing, but it looks
pretty bad. Any advice or anything? We live on Long Island, NY.

We planted arborvitaes because we thought they were fairly hardy and easy to
care for. It seems to me they are awfully finicky. We should have gone with
hemlocks.


I apologize if i am misreading you, but you say "browning out from the
center". What is the exterior layer of foliage like? Healthy green or
brown? Inside of that exterior foliage towards the center is normal to be
brown when you have thick exterior foliage. All of mine are brown towards
the center and lush green on the exterior and they are growing like bonzos
-- to the extent that arbor vitae can. ;-)


FACE