Question
About three weeks age, after a hot, dry summer, two my thuja trees, about 3 years old and five feet high started turning brown at the bottom. Now it has worked it way to the top and it appears the trees are dying. I am afraid that this will advance to the other thuja in a long hedge which is about 7 feet high. I cannot get help from the local people and am desperate to save these trees. What is the problem and second, what is the solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Dear Robert, There are basically only two things that could be causing your thuja to look like that.  One is spider mites and the other is drought.  Now as far as spider mites go, to detect spider mites, shake a branch over a clean white sheet of paper.  Observe the paper and if you see anything moving, then you have spider mites.  To get rid of them, you could use a product called Ferti-Lome Triple Action Plus.  It is effective against insects, mites, and fungal diseases.  Now, you may actually have spider mites, but even if you do, I suspect that the main problem is the terrible drought we are experiencing.  I am seeing many trees dying here in Texas, and the lack of ground water will cause more to die off. The only thing you can do is to water thoroughly at a medium drip for about an hour a tree or until the ground seems thoroughly saturated.  You would need to do that every week and perhaps water once in between, but you may be under watering restrictions so check with that first.  These trees are fairly hardy so there is a good chance that they will come back out next year, but it will take many months to tell for sure if the trees won't make it.  Good luck, and water as much as you can.  Melissa