Moving Fruit Trees from Containers to the Ground

Q. I have seven fruit trees, including some citrus, I planted in half whiskey barrels about 3 years ago. They all have had fruit the past two years. I want to transplant them into the ground in order to get more fruit. Is it best to transplant them in the fall or early spring?

A. Fall is always the best time to plant things that are not winter tender. So in the case of fruit trees like apple, pear, peach, nectarine, apricot, etc. it is best from mid-September to about mid-October.

            It is a bit late now for fall planting unless you know the spot is protected from wind and a warm microclimate. These are places with a lot of heat from reflecting walls such as south or west facing.

            In the case of winter tender trees like your citrus, it is best to plant them in the spring, about mid-January through about mid-March. It does not mean you cannot plant them other times but dates outside of these planting “windows” are more stressful to the plants. It then just depends on weather conditions, the microclimate and your skills as a gardener.

Pomegranate: Tree or Bush?

Q. I have a pomegranate plant that I started two years ago.  It is about four feet tall now and looks like it wants to be a bush.  Can I trim all the little branches off except the biggest one and try to make it a tree?

Red Silk pomegranate second year after planting at the UNCE Orchard. Suckers can be removed and trained to a tree form.

A. Pomegranates can be trained as a bush, which they normally want to be anyway, or they can be trained into single or multiple trunked trees. I prefer them as a multitrunked tree myself.

            I usually pick three to five of the largest stems coming from the ground and remove the rest below ground level. Each winter I remove any new sucker growth from the base and just retain these three to five oldest stems.

Fifteen year old pomegranate trained to multi trunk tree form and kept at 7 ft (2.5m) height. Fruits produced are fewer but larger and more marketable.

            It is important to remove these suckers below ground level. Do not just simply cut the suckers off at soil level. Pull soil away from the suckers and remove them from the mother plant. This should not be more than a few inches below the soil level.

            Suckers can be removed anytime of the year but removal during the winter months is most common. If you continue to remove suckers for the next five years they will stop producing suckers or the number of suckers will decrease significantly over this time.  The multi-trunk tree will have little to no sucker removal and you can just prune the tops each winter.

            If you do not remove these suckers at least annually then you will have sucker development for many more years to come.

Plants Resistant to Radio Frequencies

Do you know of any lists of plants that are more resistant to radio frequency and how would I find them? I know this sounds like an odd question but I need to know. I am a former Master Gardener.

A. That is a question I do not know the answer to and have never been asked that before. If you find out, I would love to know. If you are reading this and you know anything about this topic, please make a comment. Let's keep an open mind.....

Blood Oranges Not Best Citrus Choice for Las Vegas

Q. Blood oranges. Why are they not growing? They grow to golf size balls and that is it. Why?

A. I don't know which variety you have and how or where in your landscape you planted it. Blood oranges, in my opinion, are a bit more sensitive to our desert climate than some other citrus. Citrus is one of the fruits that doesn't really respond to thinning very well. Very little difference in fruit size is seen in citrus if it is thinned like you would apples or peaches. So thinning will not make the fruit larger.

            I think you will have to focus on better tree management. Put them in an area that is not quite so hot and has some shade from late afternoon heat. I would try mulching under the tree with wood mulch and make sure you're irrigation is adequate. Keep the mulch at least 6 inches away from the trunk to prevent trunk rot. Have at least two drip emitters irrigating this tree about a foot from the trunk.

Another sign of a problem in water management can be fruit splitting.

           
















 Myers lemon and grapefruit would be a better choice. Even Satsuma orange would probably be a better choice than a blood orange. Blood oranges will freeze back in our climate so you will have to protect them from freezing during the winter. Locate them near a warm wall and protected from winter wind.

            If you are going to try a blood orange see if you can find a variety called 'Tarocco'. If not, a second choice might be 'Moro' but if you are not willing to protect it from freeze damage, then don't plant it.

Effective Rainfall is What is Important to Plants

Q. With all the beautiful rain that we had recently, what should we do regarding future watering? Has it been enough water to just stop watering until after the first of the year?

National Weather Service Wettest Day of 2013 

A. Rains come in all forms. This one was rather unique in that it came down over a nice, long period of time giving it a chance to soak into our landscapes instead of running off the surface and into the streets. 

            Landscapes are supposed to be contoured to force rain off landscapes and into the streets. Once water enters the streets they act as “storm sewers” and help remove water from properties. If landscapes are not contoured correctly it is feared that water might accumulate on the landscape and flood homes causing damage. 

Storm Drain System in the Las Vegas Valley 

            For gardeners who are interested in “harvesting” water on their property, this rule may seem to be counterproductive but it is meant for the “general good”. There are ways to store water and improve the effectiveness of rainfall such as dry stream beds and pools but you must be careful when doing this. I will post some ideas on my blog as examples.

            As a general rule we consider about 40% of our rainfall to be what we call “effective”. This means that 40% of the rain, four tenths to every inch, actually gets into the soil where it is stored rather than running into the streets. This rain event however was more “effective” than most. 

What is Effective Rainfall? 

            Another problem was that the rain was not evenly spread throughout the valley. This makes it hard to make a general statement about how long to turn off irrigation systems throughout the valley. For shallow rooted plants like flowers and turfgrass they will still need a couple of irrigations the rest of this year. Deeper rooted plants, such as trees and large shrubs, can probably get by.

            Unless you know your rainfall amount, I would count this rainfall as a single irrigation event, skip one irrigation and then continue irrigations unless we get more rain. The savings will still be significant.