The Extension Botanic Gardens feature more than 1,500 species of plants, including many found nowhere else in the Las Vegas Valley.
Bob Morris
Gardening columnist
Email: Extremehort@aol.com
Bob Morris is a horticulture expert and professor emeritus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com.
In our Mojave Desert environment, most artificial grasses get over 165 degrees any time when in full sunlight and air temperatures are over 100 degrees.
Tree roots are lazy. They grow best where water is easiest to get. And tree roots absolutely love fertilizer.
In the hot desert, loss of shade from an irrigation problem leads to attacks by borers.
Q: I planted a sweet lavender plant last year and it grew great until this August and then suddenly died. It was getting about 2 gallons per watering via two emitters. I would like to replace it with another lavender. It gets morning sun and afternoon shade. What variety of lavender would you recommend we try?
This is the Mojave Desert. Las Vegas and the high or middle deserts can have cold winters, unexpected early spring frosts and winds. Depending on the type of citrus, fruit trees can survive cold temperatures ranging from the mid to low 20s all the way to no freeze at all.
Selecting a fruit tree that gives you improved tolerance to freezing winter temperatures may be a better idea in the long run
One way to find out if an unnamed plant is xeric is to water it less often during the cooler months. If it starts looking bad to your eyes or dies, then it is most likely not xeric.
Native plants have a very wide and established root system. Big native plants look beautiful but are exceedingly difficult to move from the wild primarily because of their established root system.
Smaller plants do the same job as larger plants and use less water. If you already have large trees and shrubs, prune them smaller.
Fire blight is a serious disease that is highly contagious for many apples. It’s more damaging to some apples like Pink Lady than others such as Gala. It’s particularly damaging to all Asian pears.
In Clark County, a fruiting olive is not permitted by county regulation. If you live outside of Clark County, then growing fruiting olives is acceptable by regulation.
Q: Our sweet bay laurel trees face east and are watered by a drip irrigation system on a separate line for trees only. Obviously, these trees are not doing well. They were originally 24-inch boxed trees planted in 2013. Our HOA contends they are close to the end of their lives, and they will be removed. Any ideas?
Nematodes are a rare occurrence in young plants. It is normally not something that happens to recently planted trees unless you have nematode-infested soil.
The three most common problems for lawns are irrigation, disease and insects. The easiest to diagnose are insect problems.