Same here, beng. They look good for a time, and then it starts with the needlecasts.

don't you know ... these are tooth pick farms

Ugly scene. Lots of peole plant blue spruce out here on the barren prairie and either try to irrigate them with terribly insufficient drip irrigation or no irrigation. Ends up looking a lot like that.

One of the top 5 horticultural mistakes in this country. Even the row I know of in the suburbs of Philly, planted on a ridge near a calcareous outcropping, are starting to look bad after 20 years - they'd been outliers.

In recent years, they look even more hideous when a bunch of Celastrus orbiculatus starts winding through them! I especially see this in the hedges, also sometimes made with leyland cypress, that surround McMansions in Harford and Baltimore counties.