Q. I live in northern New Mexico (summer highs ~90 and winter lows as cold as -10).  I have had this tree for three years. I mulch it heavily in he fall and so far it produces beautiful flowers in the early spring.  Now this….. A. I received both emails. At -10 you are right at the edge of USDA 6 and Western Redbud is recommended for zones 6 to 9. Verticillium wilt is possible. However, this tree is fairly young and it is not common on young trees. It is more common on older trees and less vigorous older growth or very vigorous growth due to over fertilization. Cytospora may be a problem if the tree was damaged during winter cold weather. Regardless the treatment is the same and that is prune out damaged wood. A good idea anyway. Make sure your pruners are cleaned and sterilized with alcohol, Pine Sol or 5% bleach solution. Oil them afterwards if you use bleach. With Verticillium wilt the pruned limb should be cut off 12 inches below any signs of wilting. If this is not possible then remove what you can and hope for the best. I am not sure on Redbud but VW can usually be identified on most trees by what is called vascular streaking in the wood where the wilting is occurring. Dead wood you wont see any streaking..it is dead. On some trees like olive the streaking is not visible. This is a disease found in soils. You should not plant any trees susceptible to VW in that hole. That includes most trees. Ornamental grasses are okay to plant there. Also pines, firs, juniper and spruce. http://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/redbud-cercis-spp-verticillium-wilt

Q. My apricots were doing very well as they have for the last several years.  After thinning a large crop this year, they were growing very well and appeared to be getting ready to pick when I opened the cots, I found the insides to be rotting.  I’ve tried to do a little research without success.  A. This may be ripe fruit rot, sometimes called Brown fruit rot. It can happen if there is rain near the time of harvest. We get other diseases on fruit as well if there are rainy periods at different stages of fruit development.             There is not much you can do except hope that rain does not occur at that time. Here is some information from the University of California. See if this description matches your problem. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r5100211.html They recommend fungicide applications earlier in the season to present it but we get such a little chance of rain here to me it doesn’t make any sense to make these applications. Just figure this year you had some losses that come along very infrequently.

Q. Could you tell me what these little buggars are and how to eliminate them? A.  This is not a common pest of fruit. It is an insect that just happened to be in the area and found something it could eat, had more of its own and decided you had a place it could set up residence.  I am not an entomologist but know enough that I could identify it if it was a common pest. It is not. At first I thought it was a sap beetle but it is not.  Regardless, the control is the same. Pick up and dispose of all damaged fruit on fruit trees and the ground. Compost them or get rid of them. Once you get rid of their food supply (damaged fruit) they will begin to disappear.  From the look of them they do not have the ability to damage fruit themselves (their mouths cannot chew things) they look for already damaged fruit so they can feed and multiply.  

Q. I noticed numerous several small bees swarming around one of my brick planters.  The bees were not aggressive and small … about ½ to ¾ inches long.  There wasn’t a hive of any type, but I did notice a small hole (about ¼ in diameter) in the dirt where the bees would enter and exit.   I did some quick internet research and these appear to be type of Solitary Bee.  Attached are two pics of one that I caught with my pool net…sorry the pictures aren’t very good, but I was hoping that you could confirm that these are Solitary Bees.  They have a black/gray body and the underside is yellow. If they are Solitary Bees, the research I did indicates that they aren’t aggressive, rarely sting, and are great pollinators.  However, they are a nuisance where they are located.  Do you have any suggestions on how I can get them to move ground nest to another location without killing them? One of the solitary bees we frequently see signs of in the garden include the leaf cutter bee.   You can build bee boxes or homes for these bees to use for egg laying by drilling one 2:45 eighths inch holes deeply in large blocks of wood. A. Joe yes these are solitary bees. I am no be expert but my understanding is that solitary bees do not make be colonies, they do not make sizable amounts of honey, they are not aggressive and they cannot sting. However, I think they get a late start in the season and so early crops such as tree fruits may not be the best for them to pollinate. They are better for pollinating plants that bloom later in the season like summer vegetables and flowers.  An example of a solitary bee are the leaf cutter bees. You can attract more bees by putting out clean water. They need water to keep cool, honeybees in particular to cool their hives. Honeybees are constantly carrying water back to the hive during hot weather. But the water has to be changed regularly.  As far as moving them, I don’t know any way to move them. I think many of them lay their eggs in these holes and the young bees emerge from them later. That is the way with leaf cutter bees so I’m guessing these guys are similar.

Q. I appear to have a massive infestation of Cottony Cochineal Scale on my prickly pear cactus. I can usually get most of it off by hosing, but much is hard to reach. Beyond hosing, what insecticide or other kind of solutions do you recommend? Permanent, if possible! A. Yes, scale is quite common on cacti in general and prickly pear in particular. This one in particular is most likely cochineal scale rather than cottony cushion scale. This cochineal scale is a close relative of the cochineal scale that was used by the Spaniards in Mexico centuries ago and die making. This scale leaves a purple color on your finger when you rub it.They can be hosed off the pads with a strong stream of water as you are doing but they reinfest the pads very quickly and in full force again in a week or two.             When I am growing prickly pear as a food I am more concerned with insecticides and getting them into the food we eat but if they are grown just as an ornamental plant and not used for food then I feel better about using something stronger than water, soap and water sprays.             The problem with a strong stream of water is that the force from this water is not enough to knock the insect off of the pad, only the white, fluffy coating surrounding the insect. So it is a short time before it regrows this protective cover and the unsightly mass of cotton is back again.             Knocking the fluffy covering off first with a strong stream of water will make these insects more susceptible to an insecticide spray. Most of the common insecticides will work after that; malathion, pyrethrins, Sevin, just about any common insecticide will work after the fluffy covering has been removed. This does not mean they won’t be back. They will. But it will take longer for them to get established on the plant again.

Q. My grapevine had grapes for the first of four years but this and last year it had none. What is wrong with my grape vine? By all appearances it looks perfectly healthy but it didn’t produce grapes for the last two years. A. The fruit or berries of grapevines are produced only on the wood which grew the previous year. Growth this season and three-year-old wood and older will not produce any fruit. Two-year-old wood is the only place that can produce flowers and fruit. If all of the two-year-old wood is removed or dies, there will be no flowers or fruit. If the vine is left to grow without any pruning it will produce lots of fruit. But over the years this tangle of growth will create problems from crowding, fruit rots, disease, and it will be difficult to harvest the fruit. Next spring do not prune. Let the vine grow. At least this way you will get some fruit from it. Your other option is to learn how to prune grapes correctly.