Hinoki Cypress Foliage Diagnosis

[under_the_hill]

I have a customer who showed me his two Hinoki Cypresses growing on either side of his front door. One has quite a bit of brown foliage, dry to the touch, and is getting bare. The other has some, but not so bad. 3 images show the bad one, 1 image shows the other one.
There is a drip irrigation system that runs 3 times a week from March to October(?). I dug up a Camellia that was dying and found, like other homes in the area, what is basically a pool of water about 12 inches down. It had rained lightly the previous two days, but not much before that and the irrigation has been off for the winter. I think there is a hard clay layer where the soil was removed during construction and then they put back some top soil. There are lawn drainage issues all over the neighborhood, for example.

What do you think is going on? I'm leaning to overwatering. The entrance also faces North, so about mid-afternoon the trees are shaded. Perhaps the better one is getting a bit more light. My current recommendation is that the irrigation to the trees be adjusted to water once per week at most.

I did not dig around to see how deep the tree was planted.

 

[Del_]

Maybe nothing.

https://awaytogarden.com/when-inner-conifer-needles-turn-yellow-or-brown/

 

[under_the_hill]

Thank you. The green foliage does look healthy.

Another reference here: http://www.maine.gov/dacf/php/gotpests/diseases/factsheets/fall-con-needle-loss.pdf

More shade leads to less energy for the old leaves leads to a greater amount of winter leaf loss on the one. Becoming a case of the wrong tree in the wrong place.

 

[Jason Douglas]

There's always some dead growth on Hinokis coming out of winter.

They can dessicate and aren't fans of poor drainage however.

Monitor.