newly planted cedar trees are dying!

I just had 15 cedar trees planted. They were planted 3 weeks ago and they are already turning brown. I expected a little trouble because of the shock of being transplanted, but they are looking pretty bad. We have had almost no rain in these three weeks. I have been care full to water them every day but discovered the other day that the top of the root balls were very dry and very hard. I bought a soaker and let it run for 24 hours, now the root balls are soft and wet. Should I work on keeping the root balls muddy wet, firm wet etc? During this hot and dry weather how much do I need to worry about over watering them? And, do cedar trees recover well? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!