Beginner Gardening: HELP EVERGREEN Shrubs Drop Leaves, 1 by texan_blooms

texan_blooms wrote:
Hi- We moved into a new home in Oct. 2011, landscaped front yard had 5 small rounded evergreen shrubs doing fine when we moved in. We are in Texas and under water restrictions so I have been neglecting the watering of the front yard (concentrating on building flower beds in the backyard. Last week all 5 of these evergreen shrubs dropped leaves (all were just brown) as if it were a decidous. No indications of insects, creepy crawlers, blight or anything but lack of water. They did not do this last year eventhough we were having a horrible drought last year. This year we have had little rainfall & I predict Texas will see another below avg rainfall again.
These shrubs are not tender perennials. They are hardy, drought resistant wax leaf commonly used here.
What does everyone think? Is it just lack of water? Leaves on all 5 dropped at the same time and leaves are a solid brown. I have been watering them since last week (every other day or every day). There are some patches of green leaves left on each shrub.
shrubs are in the background/ taken when they were doing well. I can follow up with a current photo tomorrow (I don't know the name of these)
Thanks
Claire