Hello! We have two boxwood hedges, and one in particular is looking terrible. We are getting a lot of orange/brown leaves. They don't strike us as dry. Here are a few things that have changed for the hedge in recent months, so perhaps someone has thoughts? Not sure if any of these factors may have any meaning:

-We had a pool construction project going on that required us to turn off the irrigation during the hot summer months (ZIP code 92131). We watered manually, and they seemed to come through pretty well.

-After irrigation was allowed to come back on, we watered 2 x a week on a very very slow drip for 30 minutes per session.

-Until recently, a lot of heavy clay soil had been mounded on top of the soil under the hedge, so the soil was not really getting any circulation at all. Strangely enough, when we recently removed all that soil, we found that branches that had been buried under that clay soil looked much better, nice and green, as if they had been preserved.

-After the pool's tile had been installed, we noticed that with the low angle of the sun this time of year, there is a lot of sunlight reflecting like a mirror from the glass tile onto the hedge. I thought perhaps it was burning the leaves, but the sun doesn't seem that strong right now, so I'm finding that hard to believe.

I know boxwood is prone to a bunch of different diseases... Any thoughts on what might be ailing us? Hoping for some help. Thank you!

Tom