Q. I am on our landscape committee for A Henderson HOA.
We are going to remove many dead and diseases trees in our small community.
Mostly privets that through the years have died after we converted to desert
landscape from grass. Others are mainly ash trees that are diseased and or have
dead limbs and with pruning look terrible. Most of our yards face either East
or West. We have been advised to replace the trees with fruitless olives or living
oak. All yards are small and have rock mulch. As many other communities we are
cash poor and need to make a wise decision because it will be expensive. We are
looking for evergreen, shade trees if possible.
I forwarded this question to Andrea Meckley, a Certified
Horticulturist working in the Las Vegas area since 1992.
A. I understand
your situation with the privet trees doing poorly. Since you are going through the expense of
replacement I realize you want to make good choices. Below are a few thoughts:
1. Fruitless Olives:
Pros: evergreen, little leave drop
Cons:
slow grower, sometimes they will fruit even though they are not supposed
to. If this happens you can apply a
solution to stop them from fruiting if it concerns you
2. Southern Live
Oak:
Pros: evergreen
Cons: slow grower, debris from leaves and acorns
Between the two above I would choose the Olive.
 |
| Young European olive |
 |
| Young Live Oak |
Since you have existing sycamore and desert willow trees
that are deciduous, I would also consider the following medium size evergreen
and semi-evergreen trees: Xylosma tree (Xylosma congestum), Holly Oak (Quertcus
ilex), Blue Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida), Desert Museum Palo Verde (Parkinsonia 'Desert Museum'), Bay Laurel
standard trunk tree (Laurus nobilis),
and Shoestring Acacia (Acacia stenophylla)
which may be a little messy.
 |
| Palo Verde in Bloom |
 |
| Young shoestring Acacia |
Andrea Meckley
Certified Horticulturist
American Society for Horticultural Science
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