Flowers stunt garlic, onion’s growth

: Another gardener told me that I should never let garlic or onions flower or go to seed. He said to cut the flower stems off as soon as they appeared. Is he right?

A: You should remove the flowers from onions and garlic since they will rob nutrients from the developing bulbs.

At the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners Orchard in North Las Vegas, we let the onion and garlic flowering shoots begin to grow and harvest them when they have not yet opened or matured. These are called scapes and are delicious and relished by chefs. I am sure you will find numerous ways to use scapes on the Internet but basically they can be used like chives. Onions can be used the same way but the flower heads are straight.

Q: I seem to have a problem with my apricot tree this year and I was hoping you could tell me what to do. The tree is on the west side of the house and is 10 years old and has given us fruit for the past nine years. I feed the tree three times a year and it has a good drip system. It has done well until now.

This year I noticed the tree had not filled out with many leaves and had only a few flowers. Now the tree has lost 90 percent of the leaves. There is no sap on the tree and I cannot see any bugs on the leaves. The leaves seem to curl up, turn brown and drop. The tree appears to be alive, but some of the longer branches look dead.

A: The answer might not be very good news. The west side is a pretty hot location for an apricot. I am guessing that the tree probably has borers. I would check the limbs and see if some of the bark is peeling off of major limbs. You were lucky to have it there as long as you did.

I am guessing that the hot location has contributed to an early decline in your apricot tree. That kind of heat can be very destructive to stone fruit trees like apricots, peaches and nectarines. You might be able to cut the tree back to major limbs and have it regrow later this summer, if it can hang in there that long.

In about September, try cutting back to major limbs and see if you can get it to regrow some before winter sets in. We have done that with almonds in August with pretty good luck, but they were not in a western exposure. I would not try it now with the hot weather coming. I would wait until it cools off to try it.

You may get some regrowth in the lower limbs if it has borers. If you do, then let the new growth grow about a foot or two and then cut off the dead wood. This next winter you can do some shaping of the tree in preparation for fruit production in the following two to three years.

Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Direct gardening questions to the master gardener hot line at 257-5555 or contact Morris by e-mail at morrisr@unce.unr.edu.