Many pine (Pinus species) trees in the landscape and along the road may be looking pretty sick this time of year. Their needles are turning brown and, at times, some larger branches are dieing. In a few cases, an entire tree may suddenly turn brown and die in less than a month. What is going on?
Much of the damage is a result of winter weather. Cold, dry winter winds in combination with dry soil will cause pine and other evergreen needles to lose water but they were unable to replenish the moisture from the frozen soil. This will cause needles to turn uniformly brown from top to bottom. Severely affected needles will drop off and some twigs or branches may also die. For the most part, however, trees should survive and will green up again over the coming year or so.