[Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

[teryu at frontiernet.net]

Pat Pillsbury
86426
teryu at frontiernet.net

We lost one Alderica Pine to high, hot winds blowing from the east (!) this year, and another, which was in distress before the one we lost, has loads of brown needles all over it with green ones among the brown.  This tree is about 10' tall.  Another pine (also alderica) about 10' from the small one, is roughly 20 feet tall, and was in good shape until a couple of weeks ago when it, too, started getting brown needles.  

I have looked for red spider mites, but haven't come up with anything.  The only other thing I've done is put cedar bark chips around the bases of the trees for landscaping, but have since pulled the bark chips away from the base of the trees thinking that these may be causing problems.  We have another 20' tree about 40 feet away from the two in distress that has no problems with brown needles.  

Any thoughts about what could be causing this?