Do you have deer?

Perhaps you might have somebody come out to take a look. Deer don't usually bother things such as this due to the texture.... yet, if your hungry you'll eat! A place such as Davey Tree if they have it in your area might help. They have ppl that know all about this stuff.

We have many deer around and they typically eat hostas, hydrangea and my flowers in the pots on the front PORCH!

They look like they have been sprayed with herbicide.

We do have deer. I'm pretty sure they haven't been sprayed with herbicide.

So the leaves seem to have been eaten?l or have a burnt look to them?

Look at the roots. You might want to uncover a bit of root to check. Look up root rot and the type of tree they are. If you don't know, try searching on 'identify evergreen'. After identification, look up common diseases. There may be a fungacide that might help, if you have root rot.

I'm not an expert and if I were, I probably couldn't diagnose anything from a pic. But root rot would be my first guess.

There is a moth that likes arborvitae bushes, they end up looking like yours and eventually die. I would contact a local arborist, or some one like chemlawn, u will need to treat them immediately.

At first glance I thought you had posted a picture of our former back yard! Deer are the culprit - at least they were for us.

spray with Natria bayer is good for all diseases and feeds too

I really think it's deer. I have a friend whose yard is lined with arborvitae and the deer have eaten from the bottom up to as far as they can reach. It is so uniform that it looks like he trims them this way!

yes deer!

Are they new? Rot, fungus, deer all seem possible or they were newly planted and got too dry, etc. Check the soil around the trunks, soil should not be mounded over it/around it, you should be able to find the root flare.

http://treeshepherds.net/services/root-flare-exposure/

Deer absolutely LOVE cedars especially in the winter when food is scarce. If you get snow cover, you may find that the lower part of the tree that is covered by snow will be untouched come spring and then the part up to their highest reach will be gone. Yup, cedar is like cocaine for deer.
In addition, it's possible that you have some foliage damage due to sun reflection off of the snow. This could account for the browned areas on your cedars.

Call your local extension center. It is too hard to see what is going on, sun blight if no rain and the limbs are burning. But you have new growth up top which is a good sign. Since there is new growth it may mean in fact an animal has been eating it. Other options are nematodes, rust, fungus, bagworms, etc.

From your picture they look like cedars which deer have been eating.

I was compelled to go back and looked again as we too have many deer and some same plantings. We live in a town that is smaller with so many deer it's nuts. Yet, I do love them as I'm not from the area in which I have resided for a long time (don't be critical) they are hungry and of late will eat most anything. Given the fact they ate my Japanese maple which is really odd got me thinking so I revisited.

I looked at your first picture and the more healthy specimens (3) are starting to show this same thing starting to happen to them and yet it's not as though, "bites" have been taken out. They are starting to show some brown in the more central region where maybe the others may have started.

The three healthier ones: the one closest to the one that is in bad shape is the worst. Then gradually down along the other two they have some brown starting in the central region. I think it's a disease/pest of some sort and you might as mentioned before call a arborist or similar. I think that is really the only answer you're going to get that can help.

Davey Tree is across the US and they do have arborist. I hope you get it figured out... shame this has happened to those lovely trees.

I'm no expert by far, but just looked online at trees eaten by deer. Looks just like it...deer topiary.

Chloebud! Topiary......

Rabbit eaten arborvitae look the same at the bottom, so I think that deer are a good possibility

Porter...that's what someone online called it. ;-)

If u run your hand over them, u may see moths or insects fly out.

teasing you ChloeB

Porter, I knew you were. ;-) I had to chuckle when I saw "deer topiary."

Absolutely deer.

Rabbit snacked mine so deer is highly suspect. They do not want to recover.

Arborvitae leaf miner

Causes the brown coloring on bushes

I have the same issue in my yard. Deer are the problem. We fence our cedars off in winter, unfortunately if the greenery is gone to wood, it doesn't come back. I had one cedar that wasn't too bad and trimmed it to blend in. Yours look like you might be able to save by trimming the upper part to blend in.