hi hard to tell.. but it looks telephone poled.. probably planted too deep .... unless the mulch is hiding such ... strike one ... and you are right.. probably dont here that often enough .... the hated willow is probably sucking the water you should be giving to the conifer ... i dont know if you can save it.. but increase water to that plant.. but insure you do it properly.. water deeply thru its root zone .... and check with your finger repeatedly on that plant... to insure it gets enough to start competing ... whether or not that one can be saved.. i dont know .... i had a willow at the old house.. about 8 feet DIAMETER ... nothing under the canopy .. could compete.. in fact it was near impossible to get a shovel in the soil ... ken

Depends on the architecture of the house. Geometric facade with a uniform design all the way across = formal planting, at least in that part of the garden. Otherwise, no, you don't want matching pairs etc. as they won't match the house - apart from the problem of trying to get and keep sets of living plants identical to one another (see below). When successful the typical non-dwarf type of Italian cypress produces a tall tree, too big for foundation planting of all but the largest of dwellings. If yours are leaning over they may be root-bound, this is a too frequent problem resulting from nothing being done to prevent it in container-grown plant production facilities. Since this is so prevalent all you can do about it is either only buy bare-rooted deciduous stock and herbaceous plants or pull roots open at planting time. Rather often there are tight knots of roots right at the bases of the trunks, in which case the specimens are more or less hopeless. These can act as fulcrums upon which the incompletely anchored, doomed trees or shrubs pivot over perhaps many years after planting in their final positions (resting places, in these instances), once the tops get big and heavy enough. 2. SKIP THE FORMALITY Not all formal effects create work; crisp areas of paving, simple water features, decorative walls, sheets of neat groundcovers are about as carefree as anything. But tightly sheared hedges, topiary shrubs, long soldier courses of identically shaped trees demand regular attention. Also, when any of your matching plant sculptures dies, it may be impossible to replace. A garden in a softer, more natural style will forgive lapses in maintenance Here is a link that might be useful: The Easy Garden This post was edited by bboy on Fri, Mar 7, 14 at 12:23

Check soil at base to see if it is too wet. Otherwise as it happens I was just looking closely at some similarly structured, one gallon Tiny Tower ('Monshell') in a nursery yesterday, noticing that they were all peppered with dead bits on the outermost foliage. Whereas 3 other, more vigorous Italian cypress selections arranged right around them did not have this condition. I couldn't tell if they had been lightly sheared by the grower, with the cut ends having browned or if it was something else. You might try searching things like "italian cypress disease", "cypress blight" etc. to see if anything fits.

Just a guess but it sounds like they were over watered. Check this site link. I'd also suggest posting this question in the conifer section.