Hard Pruning Texas Ranger When?

Q. Is it too early to begin to hard prune Texas Rangers? We have a lot of them at our condo development. They have been sheared into balls over the years by our landscapers. If we could hard prune them now it would help our landscapers with scheduling other maintenance work.

Texas Ranger pruned with a hedge shears

A. Texas Ranger, or Texas Sage as it is sometimes called, should be pruned before flowers begin forming in early spring. Prune it hard, once in February, and don’t prune it again all season long. Remove as much of this shrub is you want, and it will come back with a little bit of fertilizer and water.

Extremely Hard pruning of Texas Ranger

            Consider pruning it 8 to 10 inches from the ground and don’t prune it anymore for the rest of the season. This should save your landscaping crew quite a bit of work! It will grow back quickly with water and fertilizer. Yes, it’s that easy. Don’t let your landscapers use a hedge shears on it repeatedly through the growing season. All they do is cut off the flowers and charge you for it.

How to Prune Pineapple Guava

Q. Please advise on how to prune pineapple guava.

Flowers of pineapple guava

A. It’s not clear if you are using these shrubs for their fruit or as an ornamental for its flowers. If you are harvesting fruit, then prune just after harvesting the fruit. If you are pruning it as an ornamental, prune after it flowers.

            Don’t use a hedge shears. Instead, remove about one fourth of its entire canopy by reaching deep inside the shrub and cutting a stem with hand pruners just above a side branch. Perhaps 3 or 4 cuts like this is all that is necessary. Your cuts should be hidden, not easily seen, and removal of a stem should not leave a huge, gaping hole.

            This type of pruning opens the shrub to sunlight, reduces its density, and causes more growth to occur throughout the canopy. It is done every 2 to 3 years and cleanup is quick and simple. Besides, it is the proper way to prune shrubs of this type.

            Cutting only on the perimeter of the canopy with a hedge shears causes the shrub to become dense, boxy and not open to sunlight. This dense shading suppresses growth on the inside and, instead, stimulates growth only on the perimeter. The inside of the plant becomes leafless and woody.

How to Grow Gardenias in the Desert

Q. I want to grow gardenias. I live in the desert, and wondering what is the best soil and where I should plant gardenias in the yard? How much son do they need? Do they need to be kept in pots or planted in the ground?

A. There are pluses and minuses when keeping gardenias in pots or containers; in some ways containers make growing gardenias easier and, in some ways, more difficult. But first things first.

            Gardenias are not desert plants. The reality is, if you want to grow gardenias in the desert then they will cost more to maintain and take more time to properly care for them. They are native to tropical and semi tropical parts of the world that are non-desert. This means to grow them successfully, we need to try to emulate their native growing conditions as closely as possible. If you agree with that plan, then let’s get them planted!

Light

They need light for flowering but too much light will damage them because of the intensity of our desert sun. But planting them in too much shade will cause them to grow but not flower much. If it's way too much shade, they won't flower at all!

            Typically, growing them on the east or north sides of a home, so they are shaded from the intense afternoon sunlight, will work.

Soil

The soil where they are planted should be amended so it is close to the soils in parts of Africa and Asia where they are native. This means amend or mix into the soil a good quality compost when planting. Dig the planting hole at least 3 times the diameter of the store-bought container. The hole doesn’t have to be deep, just wide because plant roots grow horizontally where the fertilizer is applied.

            Don’t cover the soil around them with rock. Use a 3-inch depth of woodchips so that it decomposes into the soil and continue to improve it as it decomposes.

A post about problems with woodchips

Potted or not? 

The good thing about containers is they can be moved to a different location if the first location is not the best. They can be moved into the garage if freezing temperatures are extreme. They can take temperatures down to 15° F. They are semi tropical plants so freezing could be a problem some extreme winters!

            Secondly, container soils are isolated from bad landscape soils and can be amended much easier than landscape soils. But container plants require more upkeep. Every couple of years the plant should be removed from the container, the roots cut and the whole plant repotted with fresh soil.

Another post on growing gardenias in pots

Fertilizers

Organic fertilizers such as compost are best but mineral fertilizers could be used if the soil is covered in decomposing woodchips. A single application of compost or a mineral fertilizer in mid-February is enough for general care but if these are your “pride and joy” then lightly fertilize these plants 3 or 4 times a year with a rose fertilizer.

            To help prevent yellowing of the leaves during the growing season, add an iron fertilizer to the soil along with your first fertilizer application.

Another post on iron in gardenias

Reviving an Old Grape Vine Nearly Dead

Q. I am trying to revive and old grape vine that has been neglected. It produces plenty of grapes but poor quality. It has been untrimmed and unsupported for years. The trunk is rotted half way through and splitting.

This was the only picture sent to me so there was not much to go on.

 A. This year just get it growing and don’t worry about producing any fruit. This requires pruning, irrigating and an application of fertilizer all done in February. We can discuss this at my grape pruning classes on Fridays and Saturdays offered on Eventbrite.

Great pruning classes offered on Eventbrite on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning..

Sign up for these classes here.


 Remove excessive vine growth from the trunk. Select only 2 “arms” and leave only these attached to the trunk. Remove all the others. Cut these 2 arms back so they are each about 6 feet long. Support them so they are off the ground.

Next, locate smaller branches coming from the “arms”. Prune back these smaller branches coming from the “arms”, so they are 12 inches long. These are called “canes”. Observe where the fruit was produced on these canes.

Build a flat, dirt basin around the vine about 6 feet in diameter and 4 inches tall. Irrigate with about 30 gallons of water around the base of the vine and fill the basin with this water. Grapevine roots can be 30 feet deep or more. It will need this water to repair itself.

There is a flat basin constructed around the trunk of this grapevine that is about 2 foot in diameter. They are being watered with bubblers and a basin. I usually use drip irrigation when they are in production. Here the basin has broken and leaking water so it needs to be fixed.

After the soil has been wetted, apply a high nitrogen fertilizer, manure or compost in the basin and apply it no closer than 12 inches from the trunk. Use about 2 cups of fertilizer, or a 5-gallon bucket of manure or compost. Water this in with 5 to 10 gallons of water. Be sure not to apply this fertilizer, manure or compost near the trunk.

This is granular fertilizer applied around fruit trees but you would do it the same way around a grape plant. Don't get the fertilizer too close to the trunk.

Water once a week in February to push new growth. You may or may not see flowering and berries depending on how much damage was done or how you prune it. Next year the fruit will be produced on growth from the current year. Where the fruit is produced on the cane will tell you if it should be “cane pruned” or “spur pruned”.

When Cane pruning grapes, leave last year's growth with about 10 buds.

Follow good grape pruning practices in 2020. This year just get it growing and observe where the fruit is produced. These efforts may not improve the eating quality of the grapes appreciably. If you still don’t like the grapes, replace the vine.

Note: I will post some information on my blog about how to prune grapes in a couple of weeks. Right now I would hold off pruning them until the weather begins to warm up.

Desert Horticulture Podcast: Fertilizers, Compost and Iron

Desert Horticulture Podcast: How to Prune Fruit Trees

It is not easy to prune fruit trees correctly. If done wrong, the fruit tree can be ruined and you may have to start all over. If it is done poorly, it may result in poor quality fruit and a lot of extra work for yourself. Listen to my podcast and you will get my concepts of pruning fruit trees of many kinds. It wont make you an expert but it may save you from some big mistakes.

Desert Horticulture Podcast: Bosc pear, winter irrigations, water softener and lemon bottlebrush

This episode discusses how to get Bosc pears to produce more fruit when a pollenizer tree is not close by. Bob Morris also talks about knowing when to irrigate fruit trees using the "old farmer technique" and as well as using new technology like soil moisture sensors and a piece of rebar. Everybody knows that water softeners are the bane of landscape plants if you're not careful. Learn some techniques that might save some landscape plants from dreadful water "softenitis". Lastly, lemon bottlebrush sometimes has yellow leaves and it's not because it's a lemon bottlebrush. Learn how to correct this problem and what causes it. All this on Desert Horticulture.

Is Organic Worth It?

Personally, I am beginning to question the value of organic production whether it is done in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia or the Far East. In years past, when organic production was first starting out, I thought it was a great idea and a chance for the small farmer, particularly the local one, to compete in the food marketplace. 

I started having my doubts perhaps starting about 5 – 7 years ago for a variety of reasons. However, I still consider myself an advocate for locally produced food and getting to know your farmer as well as Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), beginning with Eurepgap and more recently Globalgap.

Good agricultural Practices focus on a holistic, and in my opinion, a more rational approach toward producing food by small farms. But still, large scale conventional farming will never replace the "local producer". 

I hope you enjoy reading this article from Chemistry World.

Read the article here.

Fertilizer Injectors, Potting soil vs Garden soil, and Santa Rosa Plum Podcast

Join Bob Morris on his podcast talking about why you should or should not use a fertilizer injector, the difference between a potting soil and garden soil and why Santa Rosa plum might be a good fruit tree to have.

Non Myers Lemon and Picking vs Flowering

Q. My lemon is not a Meyers lemon but the tree is starting to flower. I didn’t want to pick them this early because they are still getting sweeter. Does the "remove lemons before the tree flowers" rule apply to this variety as well?

A. Yes it does. It applies to all fruit trees. Try thinking like a lemon tree. The reason the tree produces fruit is to reproduce. When the fruit drops to the ground, the fruit rots and releases nutrients that feed developing seedlings.

Eureka lemon growing in Las Vegas

            The tree “knows” if there is fruit attached to its branches or not. It can’t see anything but there are other types of communication that trees have perfected. When the fruit has been picked, the tree “knows” the fruit is no longer there.

            The reason for picking fruit before the tree begins flowering is to send “signals” back to the tree that it no longer has fruit attached to its branches. When fruit is missing, the reproductive or flowering cycle of the tree is encouraged.

            The beginning of flowering is the beginning of the reproductive cycle. The normal flowering cycle of trees is at certain times of the year. If this time for the normal flowering cycle to begin has passed or is delayed, the tree may not flower at all or flower very lightly.

            You are right. Most citrus are considered non-climacteric, or, in other words the fruit doesn’t increase in sweetness after it is picked. It is best to wait when picking lemons to improve its sweetness, but you don’t want to leave it on the tree long enough to interfere with flowering.

            Other fruit which don’t ripen or ripen little after picking include figs, grapes, pomegranates, cherries and apples. As a consumer this means the sweetness of non-climacteric fruit does not increase much, if at all, after picking.

           If citrus is left too long on the tree fruit quality is reduced because it becomes “pithy”; it starts drying out. Remove all fruit from trees before they begin their next flowering cycle.

Store Bought Lemon Better than Mine

Q. I found a Myers lemon at a store in California that looked much different than my Myers lemon; they were smaller, darker orange and seemed sweeter to me. Is this Myers lemon different from mine? 

A. There are differences between fruit grown in one geographic location versus another geographic location. Sometimes we call these location differences “agroclimatic regions”.

Both were labeled as Myers Lemon. The one on the right was bought in the store.

            Agroclimatic regions include differences in weather but also differences in soils. All these “differences” evoke changes in fruit quality, reflected in the quality attributes of the fruit. How the plant is managed or manipulated also creates changes in fruit quality.

            We see these agroclimatic differences in vegetables and ornamental plants as well. Sometimes these differences are good and sometimes they are not. We don’t know until we grow these plants in different locations.

            Fruit grown in the Mojave Desert does not have the same quality attributes as fruit grown in non-desert areas. There are many reasons for differences in ‘sweetness’, color and sugar content in fruit.

            Sweetness or sugar content can be masked by the amount of acidity the fruit has. Fruit grown in the desert typically has high sugar content and lower acidity, so some desert grown fruit may taste bland compared to fruit grown in non-desert climates. Other fruit might be better.

            Differences in fruit quality can be attributed to plant differences, agroclimatic regions, how the fruit is managed on the tree or after it is picked. Differences in fruit quality can be from the variety or plant selection, graftage, fruit maturity, climate and weather, plant nutrition, age of the tree, how much fruit is grown on the tree, and others.

            Try fertilizing the trees with a good “citrus” fertilizer or compost. Change the amount of water the tree gets and try harvesting the fruit later or earlier. Minimize the length of time the fruit is kept in storage once it is picked and off the tree. Prolonged storage can reduce sugar content.