I don't have a good picture of those little creature and i remove some of them thinking they will soon develop into something scary. I might made a mistake by removing them as i can't have enough proof of how bad it infected the plant to the nursery i brought. It is a local nursery not the franchise one so i ain't sure if they gonna accept return. I already suspect something on the juniper as i saw lots of "new insects" flying and creeping around but am too busy to notice that. Learn my mistake this time as i should check it throughly when i brought them. i special order them from a nursery which it took me little bit more than an hour to go. Urgh. It made me feel itchy even look at that right now. Thank you for all the replies, Mercurius, Ken and Dan!!

HI All For a Manhattan large roofgarden-we have large pots & wanted skyrocket junipers for their color & column shape. We get plenty of sun. Blue arrow is another candidate. But now I am reading about all the browning & dieback problems with these. This is a co-op & we don't have the budget to keep replacing these. We need 8 total. We like the blue color and the tall narrow shape. Any specific juniper recommendations for the NYC area? OR should we stay away from junpier altogether? TY so much- very infomrative community !

the blueness in conifers is a waxy coating above the normal green ... wax wears off ... for various reasons ... extreme heat follows by hard rain repeated overhead watering in heat especially hard winters ... and simply 'time' i suppose we can rule out winter for you .. lol ... and from what i hear... you dont have all that much rain in CA .... soooooo ... do they overhead water in the nursery you bought it from??? that said .... i cant say the conifer industry is overly anal about proper labeling.. especially in the mass produced varieties .... i have even heard of peeps switching tags with prices.. to cheat the sellers.. which is good for them.. but leaves behind a mis-labeled plant ... if it is properly labeled... the new flush should be blue like it is supposed to be ... all conifers eventually shed needles... usually in 1 to 3 years ... and as the time passes... the blue wears off .. and the interior needles tend toward the underlying green .. but i am repeating myself.. short of a picture... i have no further guesses ... good luck ken

Blue forms of Rocky Mountain juniper soon become unattractive (gaps in foliage with algae making older leaves look dirty) here - stick with Thuja. The 'Smaragd' is probably so popular because it is hard to beat. There is nothing that will race up but stay short like bamboo, which actually produces stems which reach their full height the first year and then never grow taller. Otherwise if you want something narrow and short (20' is nothing for a tree) without annual shearing you are pretty much stuck with having to plant more restrained growers that do not explode out of control at any point in their development. Apart from bamboo the oft desired instant living wall of fixed height does not really exist.