where are you

can you post pix ..

have you contacted the city?

ken

I agree with Ken - there is not nearly enough information provided for us to help you. Photos, your location and what kind of soils you are working with are necessary to generate anything more than guesses :-)

A couple of thoughts - very few, if any, diseases will affect such a wide range of plants.

It is unlikely the utility pole has brought some problem into your garden. Most are treated with preservatives, which is probably the source of the odor you noticed. But the same preservatives also repel insects, so unlikely any beetle, termite or other harmful creature was transported in.

Moss - actually lichen - growing on trees is very common in much of the country and is harmless.

And finally, the weather this past winter and spring has been atypical across much of the country - colder, wetter, more storms and winds, etc. I know in my own area, the bizarre weather over the last 6 months can be attributed as the cause of a lot of plant-related problems and certainly is the reason many plants are well behind their 'normal' schedule.

I live in Seattle and this has been the coldest wettest April recorded in over a 100 years. I thought I could reason that may have too much for the pine. But then I noticed the Plum tree and the Japenese maple. I am not sure how to post a photo.
The branches have a LOT of moldy like moss on them.

As Gardengal has already said, this is almost certainly not a bug or disease problem. When widely varying species of plants all show damage of some type, environmental factors, ranging from weather-related to air pollution-can be suspected.

Mosses and lichens on tree trunks are a sign of clean air. They die out when an area starts to have lots of industrial air pollution, for example.

We're just plain going to need more information to do any good here.

+oM

Living in the PNW as well, I'd suspect our weather is playing a large role :-) Even very well-draining soils have just become too saturated with moisture over the past few months and all the plants you list will not be tolerant of overly wet conditions in winter. And our very early and fast cold snap at Thanksgiving (combined with just too much rain for months on end!) have spelled out the demise of any number of typically perfectly hardy plants in area gardens.

Be a little more patient with those that are still hanging in and replace whatever has obviously died. I am not about to predict what future weather conditions may be but I am not sure this past winter and spring can be considered anywhere close to 'normal'. Look at it as an opportunity to try out something new and revamp the appearance of your garden :-)

And if you can post any photos, that will only help to confirm assumptions that your issues are cultural or weeather-related.

One of the easiest ways to post your photos are to upload them onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up.

Then all you have to do is link to tag lines they assign to each photo OR link to your personal site on the hosting site to access your entire album.