Hello,

Please provide some direction. We hired a very reputable landscape design and install company in 2002. They did an entire landscape plan for corner portion of our front yard(property is almost 2 acres so it was still a nice sz project) There were 23 new Seagreen Juniper shrubs installed. 10 yrs later virtually all are in a state of decline. The ones that are in the best shape are closest to the front of the home. The landscaping is on the Northeast side of the home. (home is diagonal on property.) There is a sprinkler system. It is on during the summer 2 x week during the night for 15 minutes in the plant beds. The beds are fine drainage wise. The junipers are in three different areas. 1. The first area is about 21 feet in length and is close to the foundation/ front wall of the home. There is a 2 foot roof overhand. So the plants are partially protected from rain. But they are sprinkled. The part of the shrub that is closest to the home is still green and healthy looking. But as it spreads there is signs of thinning and brown portions. 2. About 30 feet away is a bed with junipers, burning bushes and red maple trees. The 4-5 junipers are in various stages of bad shape with one almost dead. 3. The third area is down by the end of the long driveway . There are two beds of juniper and some ground cover and iris. The juniper are brown and the lower portion of the plants are brown and look dead. In some but not all areas it looks like the landscapers trimmed the shrubs vertically to keep them from getting too large and bushy. This trimmed area is all brown. The light is varied but in no place is it total shade. some morning light, then filtered sun for most areas. The plant that is dead in area #2 probably gets a fair amount of sunshine in the afternoon even though there is a maple tree directly above. I noticed about 2 winters ago that there were very brown almost rust like portions of the junipers. I thought it might be a hard winter. I also had a tree company look at it and they said might be rust or some blight, not much could be done. I have pictures if you want to look. Not sure if I can save these plants. It was an expensive landscape installation and I am losing a large piece of it if the juniper's die. I am not sure what to replace them with since I do not understand what happened. Any help is appreciated. Also --probably unrelated to this juniper issue but in the same 2002 landscape plan, I had 15 japanese kerria planted in a bed about 15 feet from area #2 (referenced above)Glorious for 5 plus years. Then they developed a rust looking disease and died around 2009. Arborist thought it was stress. Thanks for any help you can provide. B Fenton

Hi, While you give a rather detailed description of the situation I think the only way anyone could offer any real help is to actuallly look at the site and try to see what is going on as a whole. There are so many things that could be happening and to try and outline them in a letter format would be very difficult and may not even get to what is really going on. Some of the issues may be due to the fact that this is an older landscape and some of the material may be such that it is showing decline due to its age and years of maintenance practices that may not have been the best. Junipers are especially hard to keep looking fresh and new for long periods in the landscape especially if they are pruned to keep them to a certain size or keep them within the confines of a certain landscape bed. Again I canonly guess and really can't offer much in the way of concrete things to do. Yo may need to have a trusted reputable landscaper come and offer and opinion as to the condition of the existing plants and what might be done to either save them or maybe even replace based upon condition.