Question
Hi I live in El Paso, Tx and have 15 italian cypress that are drying out from the inside out, have drooping branches(some are yellow) and three of them have lost there bottom branches. We started watering them for 15 minutes daily and the ground felt extremely moist so we turned off the drip system and treeted them with neem oil to see if that would help. One of them had an open wound on the bark that was black but it has improved dramatically since we stopped watering them. Is there anything else we can do? i dont want to loose them, was it too much watering or should we give them some other type of treatment. Also we had a severe freeze 2 years ago that killed many palm trees here in el paso and after that freeze the smallest cypress tree dried out and died. i dont want that to happen to the rest of our cypress i can send you pictures of the trees if you need them. Hope to hear back thank you

Answer
Entirely too much water. Too little water and too much water have similar signs--yellowing, drooping growth lower needles browning. I would not water until the soil around the tree gets dry. The mulch will hold moisture around the root. When the soil under the mulch is dry down to about 4-6 inches then water with 1 inch of water per week IF it does not rain . Place a pan under the tree and turn the sprinkler on and when the pan has 1 inch of water in it stop. Only water if it does not rain for a week.