"Don Phillipson" wrote in message
.. .
Living here for 24 years, I am familiar
with white pine blister rust (endemic so
I sacrificed a favoured 20 ft. white pine a year
ago). Is there a similar disease of spruces
or other fir-type evergreens? The brown
coloration on my 5 ft spruces certainly
looks like rust. Advice welcome.
--

As has been mentioned, it could be spruce needle cast disease. I just lost
a blue spruce standard that was part of a pair flanking my garage. I
noticed that some of the needles were turning a strange pink-purple color
about two years ago. There was some die-off last spring and then the
problem became much worse. This year I had to remove the infected one and
discard it. I did a search on the disease and found that it is becoming
very common. From what I read treatment isn't all the effective and it won't
reverse the damage that has been done. As one site said, "it won't kill the
tree but you will wish it had."