I wonder if the pines are sucking 100% of the moisture out of the soil. Are there pine roots everywhere?

I have read that they take 2-3 years to "get going." When I planted mine, I did not understand what this meant. But after watching mine do nothing much for 2 and a half years, I finally understood. During this third year, mine has finally started growing alot. In fact, it produced its very first flower buds this spring.
Even when it wasn't growing, it was still green and held its leaves and put out some new foliage every year. It gets alot of shade, being close to my orange tree. We have hot dry summers here, probably not like Berkeley.

Growing them under established Monterey pines, I would expect exactly the response you are getting. This is not generally considered an understory tree, to be grown in the shade with root competition from established trees. Al