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.
Q: How close do I need to plant a pollinator tree? I want to plant more fruit trees and was curious how close it needs to be? My neighbors have various fruit trees, and I am about a half mile from Gilcrease Orchard. Is this close enough to be effective, or should I plant my own?
Aphids are on fruit trees, roses, winter vegetables and other landscape plants. They love cool nights but warm daytime temperatures for feeding and breeding. Their feeding causes new leaves to curl on the edges and glistening, sugary sap on leaves.
Q: My husband and I just moved to Summerlin, and I am seeing pink and white blooms on trees in this area. Do you know what kind of trees these are?
Q: Is it too late to fertilize my nectarine tree with buds starting to form? Fertilizer instructions advise to apply it in early February before buds appear.
Q: All the large pines on my property have branches that are turning brown in some form or another.
Right now is the time to prune grapes. Prune citrus now if there has been damage from cold weather. If your citrus is young, prune it to tree form, removing side shoots to about the height of your knees. I delay pruning citrus and grapes until I am sure most of the cold weather has passed, which is mid- to late February.
Q: Recently you recommended applying compost to lawns. I am confused if you mean steer manure. How often do you recommend doing this? When should I do my first application? My lawn is approximately 1,000 square feet. How much compost should I buy?
Q: We have seven large olive trees on our property. In the past, we used two different local tree services to spray our trees to minimize the amount of olive production. One company told us we needed two applications in early spring, and the other said we only needed one. Both came at a very high cost, and the results left much to be desired. Every day we had to sweep up hundreds of olives. Do you have any suggestions as to what might work and the timing of when the trees should be sprayed?
Q: I have a lawn that did not do well this last summer. It browned and had a few patches that had some sort of infection and die-off. We added compost in early fall, and the lawn perked up quite a bit, but it browned again considerably even though it is a fescue blend that should remain green through our winter. I think it probably needs another application of compost at some point. When should I add compost again?
Q: Do you prefer neem oil or horticultural oil when spraying fruit trees?
Q: I am putting in 30 more wine grapevines. I was thinking of using chat, crushed rock, for mulch rather than wood chips. What do you think?
Q: How long after planting Mexican fan palms should you wait before feeding? I’ve heard that feeding too soon could stress palms. Is steer manure any good?
The most frequently asked question asked in 2016 concerned fig trees. Readers wanted to know why their fig trees did not produce good fruit. Either the fruit dropped from the tree when it was small, or the fruit clung to the tree and never became large but remained small, hard and dry.
I am giving a class on pruning fruit trees at the Master Gardener Orchard, 4600 Horse Drive in North Las Vegas, from 9 a.m. until noon Saturday. The class is free and open to the public. For more information call the master gardener help desk at 702-257-5555. More classes will be offered at the orchard on pruning fruit trees every Saturday during the month of January.
