There's not much I can add, but this description by Aldo Leopold has stuck with me: "Pines have earned the reputation of being 'evergreen' by the same device that governments use to achieve the appearance of perpetuity: overlapping terms of office. By taking on new needles on the new growth of each year, and discarding old needles at longer intervals, they have led the casual onlooker to believe that needles remain forever green."

Take that back! Comparing a conifer to government is blasphemy of the highest order!

How about interior browning? My Japanese umbrella pine I potted up like 2 months ago has some needles turning brown and dropping and its all in the inside. The outer growth is all green and fine. Although I realized today that one of the branches died..

They turn yellow before they turn brown.

tj

time to bump this up ... i feel the posts coming.. lol...

ken

I had to remind my wife who asked if our Ponderosa Pine is dying that she asked the same thing last year. It's just needle drop and is normal.

@Ken_Adrian and others here - Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I’m a new owner of a Hoopsi Blue Spruce and came home from a two-week vacation mid October to find yellow interior needles on it. After babying it through a wicked summer (near Boulder, CO), I was pretty concerned but then saw your post and breathed a sigh of relief. I’m learning a lot from you all

@ginatay124 I live in Denver actually. I would just give it a nice bif drink and it’ll likely be just fine. Its probably time anyways if youve been gone 2 weeks.