[Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

[Kathy at wescap.com]

Kathleen Preble
85029
Kathy at wescap.com

I have approximately 8 deep yellow lantana planted down my front walkway.  They have thrived for years.  In the past month, however, the one furthest south started losing its bright green leaf color, dried and died. The others were perfectly healthy looking. I dug the dead one out and did not notice any unusual insects crawling around in the dirt.  Then the next one started losing its color, dried up and died.  Now the same thing is happening to the third.  They are dying in sequence - the remaining appear healthy but I am sure as soon as the third one dies completely, the next one will go and so on.  Do you have any idea what can be causing this?  It would seem that something is sucking the life out of one plant at a time.