here are some pics of the brown spots

Not enough info to tell. Can you add a photo?

When planted, did you amend the soil or add a surface layer of mulch?

What is your soil like - clay or well-drained or somewhere in between?

How do you water and for how long? Do you stick your finger down into the soil at the base of the plant?

there are pics of browning in comments above. i cut off some of the wilting but there will be more today I am sure. I have clay soil that we amended with top soil and compost. I water every other day with soaker hose for 20 min.

and yes I have mulch on them. thanks

Sorry - cross posting - I was typing while you were adding photos. I guess my question would be then - what does the soil feel like right next to the shrubs, in the root ball? Usually with shrubs it's recommended that you either don't amend at all or amend the whole bed. That's because with texture changes, the water has a tough time moving from one texture to the other, and sometimes roots do also. In clay soil, sometimes this creates a "bathtub" effect where the water stays in the amended soil and doesn't move into the clay, and sometimes the roots will circle. Or if it's dry, it's difficult to rewet. So it could be a water issue, especially where tips or edges are browning. Rather than water on a schedule, I'd stick my finger into the area where the root ball is and see if it still feels damp. I don't know how much water your soaker hose puts out, but I'd also check a few inches down after 20 minutes to see how far it's progressed. In my veggie garden (not clay, more highly organic loam), I would run my soaker hose for several hours, but not as often as every other day, more like once a week if we didn't get rain. That would give me a deep soaking that really reached deep roots rather than keeping the moisture near the surface and encouraging surface roots over deeper roots.

You could do a percolation test to see how well the soil is draining. If it drains well, it may well be that you need to water more. If it drains poorly, and since the plants seem to be struggling more this year, it may mean that the roots are staying in the amended soil and not reaching out into the surrounding soil. If that's the case you may want to amend the bed as a whole.

thanks everyone. the shrub feels damp at the roots, but not overly so, it is very strange. we had rain last night so I did not water. it wilted along the same side as the previous damage today and did not return to normal. So far all of the damage is on the left side of the plant.

Anything different to the left of the plant? Sun bouncing off window glass, heat absorbing brick or anything else that may intensify the sun or heat near it? I've seen even a gazing ball, metal wind chimes & glossy flowerpots do this. One clematis had this problem in one spot when it matured to height. Couldn't figure out what was going on till I happened to be standing in just the right place late one morning to notice the sun hit a second story window 30' away that reflected a beam directly to the clem with the blinding strength of a magnifying glass...