Question
I have tams that are old, (10 to 15 Years). They were planted on a bank and are approx. 8 feet wide and 30 long. they have been healthy but this year, they are turning yellow. The yellow is in patches. when you touch them, they are not brittle and do not feel any different than the parts that are still green. Please let me know what can be done. My dad also has the same tams on a bank around his driveway and they have turned brown. they look dead. We both live in North Central Oregon. The only change in environment is it has been extremely wet this spring and we are normally very dry as we are the High Desert. Thank you for your time with this. I look forward to hearing from you.

Answer
Dear Holli, There are only two reasons for a Tam juniper to turn yellow in my experience.  One would be spider mites, but the most likely reason and your question confirms this, is the extremely wet weather.  Juniper absolutely hate to be wet and it is the biggest cause of death in these plants.  Hopefully your weather will cooperate and start to dry up - I am in Texas and wish I could send you some heat.  You can try to dig drainage trenches around the plants in an effort to drain water away from them.  If you can find it you can get crystal water; it looks like rock salt and will absorb 100 times its weight in water and will draw the water away from the plants, but you might want to rake it up after it has absorbed the water.  For the yellow areas, I would carefully prune them out.  WEAR GLOVES FOR THIS!  It looks like the weather in Oregon is becoming a bit drier so your bushes should be fine in a few months.  Oh just on the off chance that the stress on the bushes from the rain has given you some spider mites, you can test for them by taking a small piece of plant leaves and tapping them sharply over a white piece of paper.  If you see anything moving on the paper, then you have spider mites and you should also spray the bushes with NEEM.  Unfortunately the brown bushes may end up being dead and need to be replaced.  I hope this information helps and your weather pattern returns to normal.  Good luck, Melissa