Follow-Up Questions on Peach and Citrus

Q. A few months ago you told me how to help my grapes and other fruit trees (thanks for featuring my yard on the blog)! My citrus is turning black and dropping. The main issue I am having now is my peaches are turning a dull yellow, almost like a brown but not really. The photos don't really catch it. I dug about 1 foot away from the plant to see if the soil was too damp and found that it was moist about 3-4 inches below. With the last watering cycle happening about 3 days prior. The plants get 5 gallons in the morning and 5 at night.  2 times a week. I did put some of "stress tonic" and a little iron just in case, but far less than the recommended amount.

Readers peach tree

As far as my tomatoes go, most of them are done or dying but produced heavily so I am pleased. I had a few watermelon which were quite tasty and they may reproduce again. My citrus are having a bit of a rough time most of the fruit turned black and fell off (in containers and get a few hours of partial sun.) although the plants are shooting new growth and even flowered again. Although this time not fruiting.

Any advice or thoughts? Also should I prune them back any?

A. Fruit dropping can be a sign that your citrus may be going through excessively dry periods before they are irrigated again. It can also be a sign that your trees are just too young to support fruit development yet and so the fruit was aborted. Citrus leaves can discolor, turn kind of a bronzy yellow, due to damage from the sun. You won't see as much of this if they are growing in the ground and the surface of the soil covered in wood chip mulch. You can use an inexpensive houseplant moisture meter to get a very general idea what the moisture level of your soil is. Stick it in several locations so you get an idea of how the water is distributed.

All fruit trees need at least six hours of full sun each day to produce an adequate amount of fruit. Roots of fruit trees growing in containers have the largest percentage of the roots that take up water and nutrients in the boundary area between the root ball and the container. This is also where the drying of the root ball occurs first. And containers exposed to direct sunlight will overheat the root ball on any side that is in full sun unless it is protected. You could lose as much as 50% of your root system if that root ball overheats from direct sunlight on the container.

I looked at all of your pictures. All of the growth that I saw looked good for this time of the year. There was a lot of leaf cupping on your peach which can be due to heat. It was showing some signs of some water stress. This can be the scorching on the edges of leaves. 

I did not see wood mulch on the soil beneath the trees. Your fruit trees would benefit 1000% if you can apply a layer of wood chip mulch, not bark mulch, on the soil surrounding the tree in a circle about 6 foot in diameter. The mulch should be 3 to 4 inches deep.

This was an unusually good year for tomatoes. Don't expect this type of production every year. When the spring months jump from cool to hot very quickly, tomatoes will not produce as well. Tomatoes produce much better if they are protected from excessive wind. You can do this by deflecting the wind away from the garden or putting up windbreaks.

Fruit trees do quite nicely with one or two applications of fertilizer year. This is usually in the late winter and perhaps a second application after harvesting. I tell people to fertilize their vegetables and herbs monthly.

Substitute Tree for Mesquite Without Pods

Q. I have two large Mesquite trees In my front yard...the kind that produce hundreds and hundreds of pods each year and then lose their tiny leaves in the fall as the wind whistles.  Quite messy to say the least.  However, they do provide considerable shade in the summer months.

Response from Andrea Meckley:

A. Bob Morris forwarded your question to me.  It's hard to beat the shade mature Mesquite trees give, but as you say they do have pods drop.  The shade tress listed below will take full sun, are green all year so not much leaf drop, produce no flowers and are available locally in the Las Vegas area.   I suggest: 

1.  Bay Laurel, standard tree form (mature size 12' x 12')

2.  Xylosma,standard tree form (mature size 15'h x 12'w

3.  Holly Oak (mature size 30' x 30') (produces acorns)

The internet can give you more pics and characteristics about the trees listed.  Also SNWA.com has a plant search section that is very good with pictures and information.

I hope this helps.  Please contact me with any further  questions.

Andrea Meckley, Certified Horticulturist

imn2plants@aol.com

Call for Gardeners, Not Blow N' Goers

Q. I am so hoping you will be able to help me:-))  I need an actual gardener and landscape company... we planted a wonderful organic garden that cost a fortune to have done, results have been minimal. I need someone to maintain and help us. We would like to hire someone with actual knowledge about yard care, not just someone who comes with a leaf blower and a pair of shears:-)) We just discovered we have wood bores!!!  Any recommendations you would have, would be so appreciated.

A. I wish I could direct you to a solid landscape company. Most people are price driven in their selections and so our valley is dominated by blow-and-go companies, not professional gardeners.

I was hired in the past to work with local companies to do that but for a variety of reasons this arrangement has failed to gain a foothold. I have also worked with a couple of “landscape consultants” who claim to do this and, to be quite frank, I was very disappointed in their level of knowledge and do not have a lot of faith in their abilities.

We used to have a couple of very good “gardeners” in town in past years but they are no longer with us (deceased) and no one has replaced them.

If you find something I would certainly like to know about it.

Attention Bay Area Transplants: Plant and Care for Fruit Trees Differently in the Desert

Q. We just moved from the Bay Area in California to Las Vegas and we brought some small trees with us and they are having a rough time. We'd like to know what to do to help them; Granny Smith apple, a 5 variety grafted apple, a 5 variety grafted pear, a calamansi, a Meyer lemon, a Valencia orange and a cherry tree. I'm pretty sure the cherry is dead and the 5 grafted apple has lost all of its foliage and all of the leaves on the Granny Smith are turning brown and drying up. The pear has actually produced new leaves, but most of the leaves have some brown on them. The trees were in pots but we worked hard digging in the clay and we put some gypsum in the bottom of the hole to try to break up the clay. Any recommendations on more things to do?

A. I am sorry for this much delayed answer to your questions. I have been working outside of the country and I reserved your question for a bit later response because it needed to be more detailed. I needed to respond to you about the time of year for planting, preparation of native desert soil at the time of planting, irrigation and the use of mulch here.

Bare root fruit trees arriving in Las Vegas from Dave Wilson Nursery. Best time to plant fruit trees is late winter and very early spring.

Fruit trees are always going to struggle if they are planted during the summer months or just before the summer months. Summer is absolutely the worst time to plant fruit trees in our desert climate. It may work in San Francisco but I avoid summer planting like the plague. The optimum times are mid to late winter, early spring and the fall months of September and October.
Our desert soils here are horrendous so you must use soil amendments at the time of planting. I use straight compost and mix this 50-50 with the native soil that I removed from the planting hole. I dig the hole very wide but only deep enough to accommodate the roots of the tree or root ball from the container. I dig a hole that is about 3 feet in diameter or about three times the diameter of the roots.

The surface of our desert soil here in Las Vegas

At the time of planting I make sure that the hole and the contents of the hole is sopping wet. Never put dry soil or dry amendments in direct contact with plant roots or plants will suffer a setback. If the plants have been in containers, I "fluff out" the roots from the edges of the root ball at the time of planting. If there are large roots present at this edge, I cut them off.

Once planted in this slurry of soil and water, I make sure the tree is staked so that the roots no longer move during strong winds. One of the least expensive ways of staking the trees is to use a 3 foot length of 3/8 inch rebar pounded through the backfilled hole and into solid ground beneath the hole immediately next to the plant. I use green nursery tape, which is soft and flexible, to tie the trunk of the tree tightly to the rebar. This rebar is removed after one complete growing season.

 

Rebar driven into the planting hole next to a newly planted tree BUT IT WAS NEVER REMOVED!!! C'mon, it has to be removed at the end of the growing season or this kind of damage is done. Use a hammer, whack it a few times and pull it out. It is not that difficult.

I apply surface mulch around the tree a distance of at least 6 feet in diameter and 4 inches deep. Wood mulch, not bark mulch, greatly improves the growth of the trees during the first couple of years. Keep this surface mulch away from the trunk of young trees a distance of at least 6 inches to a foot until they have been growing about four or five years.

 

I have put this picture of mine in this blog several times to demonstrate the value of applying wood surface mulch to early fruit tree development. If you want good fruit tree development in the desert, USE surface mulch!!!

Proper irrigation is critical. It is best if the trees are planted so there is a basin about 4 inches tall and surrounding the tree that can be filled with water from a hose. After watering with the hose three or four times you can switch to drip irrigation or any other form but the first few irrigations should be done with the hose to settle the soil around the roots. 

 

Irrigation basin surrounding fruit tree

Drip irrigation for new trees should have at least two drip emitters located about a foot away from the trunk. In later years, two more emitters can be added to the trees as they become larger and move the emitters to a distance of about 18 inches from the trunk. As trees become larger they will require more water. It is easier to add more emitters than it is to add more minutes to that station which forces all of the plants on that station to receive more water and will most likely result in water wasted.

In midsummer, if you have mulch on the surface of the soil, water deeply twice a week to a depth of 2 feet. It is impossible to tell you how much water this is in minutes. Generally speaking, a 5 gallon tree will require 5 gallons of water at each irrigation. One, 5 gallon per hour emitter running for one hour is enough water. But, if the water needs to be distributed over a larger area than use two, 3 gallon per hour emitters and run it for 50 minutes. If you must use four emitters for better water distribution, use 2 gallon per hour emitters and run it for 40 minutes. A 10 gallon tree requires 10 gallons of water each irrigation. You would use the same logic for sizing the emitters.

Full-sized fruit trees like peach may require as much as 30 gallons at each watering. Six, 5 gallon per hour emitters that are run for one hour would give the tree enough water. But on larger trees I like to use bubbler and basin irrigation.

 Be careful not to irrigate too frequently. When you do irrigate, irrigate more deeply but less often. You should never have to irrigate every day if you are irrigating correctly.

Fertilize the fruit trees once a year in January. You can fertilize more than this but it's not necessary.

 

Here a 5 gallon bucket of compost is applied to the irrigation basin of fruit trees during late winter

The fruit trees you mention, citrus will be tender here during the winter months when temperatures dropped to the low 20s or even the teens at times. The most tender of your citrus are the calamansi and the orange. They should be planted in areas where there is a lot of reflected heat from walls and away from strong winds. The other fruit trees should withstand our winter weather with no problems.

Fruit trees should have no problem in full sun. Those trees that are planted close to very hot walls or in areas of reflected heat may have leaf scorch. Applying 3 to 4 inches of surface mulch to the soil beneath them will help a lot.

Eliminating Mesquite Pods

Q. I s there a spray for mesquites like there is for olive trees so I wouldn’t get the pods?

A. There is no chemical that is specifically labeled for Mesquite trees and keeping the pods off. There are a couple of chemicals that might work. Here is a good link from the Morton Arboretum on reducing fruit, and this would include pods, produced by ornamental trees.

http://www.mortonarb.org/trees-plants/tree-and-plant-advice/horticulture-care/preventing-or-reducing-fruit-ornamental-trees

The problem is we don't know the right concentration or the correct timing. I will post this on my blog and also on the Yahoo discussion group desert horticulture and see if we can get some discussion on this.

I have Sweet acacia on my property and it drops pods all the time but I have a rock mulch that is multicolored and my landscape is not formal so it blends into the mulch. But these pods are much smaller than Mesquite.

Cutting off Desert Willow Suckers Good or Bad?

Q. Is it a good or a bad thing to trim the "suckers" off a Desert Willow?  We have a number around here that came up on their own.  We rather like them. Have been of the theory that cutting off the "suckers" will allow the trees to grow taller and be healthy.

A. It is not good or bad. How you manage them, cutting off suckers or not, will determine what they look like and how they perform. 

 

Common desert willow flowers

Desert willow pruned to a single trunk

Desert willow winter form and left pretty much unpruned

If these suckers are coming from one tree then removing them allows the remaining tree to grow in height faster and become larger. Leaving them on will cause the tree to grow more slowly in height and stay smaller. It is a management decision and what you want them to do and look like.

Desert Willow is a small tree native to the deserts of the southwestern United States and North and Central Mexico. Flowers are quite showy and can vary in color from white to purples and blues to deep reds. It can be found growing along perennial waterways in the desert which means it probably is classified as a phreatophyte. 

I will have to work a little bit from memory but I believe there was a breeding program in Texas regarding flower color. And there was a big push to use this plant for erosion and streambank control because the branches would be buried after a heavy rain, root and create new plants. There is a very large range in flower color and it is a shame we don't have more colors to pick from in the trade. It is messy.

Somewhat closely related to desert willow is Catalpa since it is in the same family and of course the over planted Catalpa/Desert Willow cross, Chitalpa..

More Problems Growing Japanese Blueberry in the Desert

Q. We planted two Japanese blueberry trees in March of 2011 and have fertilized and watered them according to instructions. This summer they both are losing leaves and have white tips on the edge of the leaves. Another name beside Japanese Blueberry is Elaeocarpus Decipiens. Do you have any information or advise on these trees?

A. Questions about Japanese blueberry have been popular because people have not had much luck with them in desert landscapes. They are not really intended for desert landscapes even though they will grow in the desert if planted and managed with care. So I have linked you with a few of my responses regarding this tree from my blog.

http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2014/05/japanese-blueberry-tops-are-dying.html

http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2014/05/japanese-blueberry-top-dieback-followup.html

http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-blueberry-orange-leaves.html

http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2015/01/pruning-japanese-blueberry-to-encourage.html

http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2012/08/japanese-blueberry-leaves-falling-and.html

I hope this helps.

Can I Plant Snap Peas From Seed?

Q. I have a small raised garden with good dirt. Can I plant snap peas, if so  when?  I bought a bag at the grocery store. I love them raw and opened  about 20 pods the peas. They were very small. Can I plant them and how deep? Do they grow in a bush or on a pole As you can tell I have  never  grown  any before.

A. No, I would not plant these peas. They are immature and will not grow but only rot. When seeds are collected from plants, the plant parts where the seeds are located must be mature. We harvest peas and beans in an immature stage. This is because they are tender at this stage.

Snow peas harvested at the immature stage for export to Europe by small-scale commercial farmers in Kenya.

There are vegetables such as tomatoes that we harvest fully mature and we can save seed from these fruits.

In the case of peas and beans, we would wait until the pods have fully matured and no longer tender if we want to save seeds for planting. At this stage the seeds have become hard. We see this stage in beans and peas in the store when we buy them bulk or plastic bags. We will buy kidney beans, navy beans, pinto beans and sometimes peas this way. They have been dried so they do not mold or rot but they are fully alive, just sleeping and waiting for moisture and warm temperatures to germinate.

Snow peas under commercial production by small-scale farmers in Kenya

The only way to eat  beans when they are fully mature would be to soak and cook or boil them. Could you do this? Of course you could but conventionally we eat green beans and sugar snap peas when they are tender and immature. 

Snow peas at the perfect edible immature stage of development

Most commercial types of snap peas or sugar snaps are bush types since they are easier to harvest.  Purchase snap pea seeds for planting and harvest them when they are immature for fresh eating and allow some of them to remain on the plant for drying and proceed the next year. However, there can be problems when you save seed from varieties that are F1 hybrids. Unless you are willing to read up and study on how to save seed I would recommend buying the seed from a reliable source..

Brown Scarring on Cactus Due to Surface Damage

Damage to cow's tongue, Opuntia

Cochineal scale on cows tongue

Q. Not sure what happened to my plant I sent you a picture of this plant the other day and the next day I see these spots. All I did was remove a chicken wire fence from around the plant.

A. I would not be overly concerned about it from a plant health perspective. Yes, it does distract from its aesthetics. This type of injury can because by something damaging the surface of the pads at those locations.
 

A frequent problem can be cochineal scale which appears like wet cotton on the surface of the pads in groupings. Once the scale is removed either with a high pressure sweep nozzle on a hose or chemicals the damage can still remain from their feeding. But anything that damages the "skin" of the pad will cause this type of scarring.

Make sure that you are not irrigating this type of cactus too often or they can develop root rot and die. 

Also, if you are using drip emitters and they are all located very close to the plant and there are no other sources of water than the roots may develop only in this tiny location and when it gets tall it can fall over because of its own weight, it's top-heavy. So hopefully there are other sources of water within a foot or two of this plant so the roots will spread out and hold the plant upright.