Bright, cloudless skies and strong winds equals high water use in our desert climate. It’s time to water during bright windy weather.
Bob Morris
Bob Morris is a horticulture expert living in Las Vegas and professor emeritus for the University of Nevada. Visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. Send questions to Extremehort@aol.com.
Podocarpus or yew pine doesn’t like soil covered in rock. It is not a desert plant.
There is a difference in taste among figs. Much of it is what you prefer.
There is some bad information on the internet saying that pygmy date palm can handle temperatures to 22 degrees. That’s not true. It’s more like about 28 degrees.
Grapevines do best in our desert when planted like fruit trees — planted in amended soil and the soil covered in woodchips.
When making a spot that attracts butterflies, choose a warm location out of the wind. Choose flowers in yellow, orange, red and pinks that bloom in spring or fall when it is cooler, and plant them in large numbers.
Right after a rain is a good time to look for borers feeding in the moist cambium of fruit trees. It’s a good time to get out a sharp knife, sanitize and sharpen it, and remove these borers before they cause more damage.
Gardeners can remove small amounts from trees and shrubs any time during the year, but this is the time of year when you can take large amounts of wood from trees, shrubs and plants.
Wood chip mulch is again available at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension orchard located 100 yards east of Horse Drive and North Decatur Boulevard.
The temperature of compost when it’s cooling is only about 105 degrees. The center of the pile might be hotter, but it’s not hot enough to damage plants.
Phone apps are good for predicting a possible freeze, but nothing replaces verification that an actual freeze happened. Maximum/minimum thermometers are a good bench check against your phone app or the National Weather Service predictions.
It is best to think of plants along a continuum (mesic vs. xeric) regarding whether they grow best in dry or wet soil or the type of mulch covering the surface of a landscape soil. So, instead, we group plants into these two categories for convenience.
Plants are not expecting normal low temperatures early or late in the winter season and are not prepared for them. Having a recording maximum/minimum thermometer and having the weather app prepares you for anticipating winter freezes.
Be careful when buying a soil moisture sensor. Sometimes they don’t always work.
A major key when converting to lower water use is to use as few plants of a larger size as possible. The fewer plants you use and still accomplish your goals, the better.