What are happening to my Willows?

We've recently bought a lovely barn conversion in Devon & have a very large garden where the previous owners planted Willows - I think they're Weeping, but I'm not sure. There's about 6 & every single on of them is going brown :( It's not a dry meadow & it's certainly not a damp meadow, it's somewhere in between as we did have Cuckoo Flower come up in early Spring (a water meadow flower) - so this is either drought or something else? And what is to be done? The trees are around 10 years old.







It's very upsetting, as they are truly beautiful trees . . . :(

 

Willows are such pretty trees but they're rather prone to diseases. In particular, they suffer from anthracnose which in its later stages, causes the leaves to distort and drop, rather like yours. The traditional treatment was to spray with Bordeaux mixture or a copper fungicide but I don't know if they're still legal. Also spraying is only practical on small trees and reinfection is always likely. Feeding with nitrogen was another ploy to boost the tree's resistance. Sorry, can't help much more. Might be worth getting a professional gardener in to advise?

 

Could also be root disturbance. Has any digging been done around the trees?

 

No digging at all - we've only just bought the house - well at Christmas - so it's been interesting to know what plants & trees we have - I took a twig & leaf to RHS Rosemoor & no they hadn't a clue! Typical!