Xtremehorticulture

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert

Weather Report for UNCE Orchard for February 2014

Leave a Comment / did it freeze, Las Vegas, north las vegas, what were the tempertures /

We had freezing temperatures during the first three days of February in the middle of the night in two instances. There were some peaches and apricots in bloom at the time whose fruit crop might have been affected. Wind gusts during this time did occur on February 1. We did have wind gusts a few days during the month. Certainly on February 2 they were. at night on January 6 and 8th. Winds did not compound the problem. Humidity dropped to single digits twice during the month. No major rainfall events. ET was about 2. 4 inches during the month of January. Generally speaking, irrigation should have added about 2 inches of water in January, 2014. The UNCE Orchard is located at 36 degrees North Latitude and 2000 ft (666 meters) elevation in the Mojave Desert north of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The weather station sensors are located at about 7 feet above ground level in an deciduous orchard setting just above tree canopy. The soil temperature probe was accidentally above the soil surface for a few days but was reset to about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) below the soil surface covered in wood mulch. Reported by Mike Barrett.

Weather Report for UNCE Orchard for February 2014 Read More »

How Much Water for My 1 1/2 inch Diameter Fruit Tree?

Leave a Comment / desert, fruit tree, irrigation, Las Vegas, mohave, mojave, PET /

Q. How many gallons should a fruit tree receive for each watering if it’s trunk is 1.5 inches in diameter 24 inches above the ground? A. Watering amounts are usually related more to the size of the canopy or total height than the trunk. Trunk size is sometimes used more for estimating how much fertilizer to apply.             That tree size would require around 10 to 15 gallons for each watering. If you are using drip emitters, you should be using four (4) emitters in a square pattern 12 to 18 inches from the trunk. So running 3 gallon per hour emitters for one hour would equal 12 gallons. Just to remind readers we follow the PET curve developed for here and is below. Months are January=1 to December=12. Numbers on top of the bars represent inches of water per day. We would change irrigation frequencies in months 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12.The amount applied each time stays relatively constant, just the times per week is changed.

How Much Water for My 1 1/2 inch Diameter Fruit Tree? Read More »

Saguaro Leaning is Usually an Irrigation Problem

Leave a Comment / cactus, giant, irrigation, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, planting /

Q. Our saguaro is about 10 years old.  In the last year or so four arms have popped out mostly on one side.  Now the saguaro is beginning to lean and we have propped it up. What do you suggest we do? Even though this picture is not from the submitter I wanted to post it for my friends who are viewing from other countries or part of the USA. Saguaro is not native to the Mojave Desert but to the Sonoran to our south. Even though they can be a bit sensitive to the Mojave winter cold they have done quite well in the lower elevations of southern Nevada. If people will stop putting burlap coats on it for the winter….. A. I would guess your irrigation is too close to the trunk. This concentrates the roots there and doesn’t allow root development further from the trunk for support.             In the wild, saguaros roots are about 30 inches deep near the trunk and spread a distance equal to its height at depths averaging only about 10 inches.  This matting of shallow roots spreading from the trunk is important in keeping the cactus erect.             I would prop it up as you are doing and immobilize the base so it cannot move. Then I would apply water at increasing distances from the trunk. These should be shallow and infrequent irrigations at distances from the trunk equal to at least half of its height.             You can do this by planting other desert plants that require similar types of irrigations in these areas. Water supplied to these plants will help to irrigate the saguaro. You can also do this by handwatering in these areas once a month with a spray nozzle.

Saguaro Leaning is Usually an Irrigation Problem Read More »

Sneezing Might Be Due to African Sumac

Leave a Comment / African sumac, allergies, ash, Las Vegas, mulberry, pine /

Ash trees are starting to bloom now as well. I have noticed that African Sumac has been flowering and is still flowering now. If you have been sneezing over the past couple of weeks, this could be the problem. Ash trees are starting to bloom now as well. Flowers of African Sumac I know you could say fruit trees, flowering plum, ornamental pear are flowering too but usually plants with brightly colored flowers do not contribute much to allergy problems. Flowers of ash. Coming up very soon are mulberries, pine and canary island date palms for allergy sufferers.

Sneezing Might Be Due to African Sumac Read More »

Clover-Looking Weed with Yellow Flowers is Very Difficult to Control

Leave a Comment / herbicides, iris, Las Vegas, lawn, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, oxalis, shrubs, weed control /

Q. I have oxalis clover look-alike as a weed. How can I control it? I am ready to use chemicals at this point having tried to rid it by digging and pulling with no success. Having it in my grass is bad enough but now that it is in my iris beds I want to kill the dang stuff! Oxalis looks like clover but has yellow flowers that resemble a daisy with only five petals. A. Oxalis is very difficult to kill. It may require repeat applications but one of the keys is to try to kill it when it is “happy” and is ready to grow and multiply. This is usually spring and fall. Go to your favorite nursery or garden center (you may have to look at several such as Lowes, Home Depot, Star and Plant World). Go to their weed killer section. Look at the active ingredients. Look for the following in the active ingredients list. The important chemicals to find on the label are either Dimethylamine salt of dicamba: 3,6-dichloro-o-anisic acid (it may be just called dicamba or Banvel) somewhere on the label. The alternative would be an ingredient called triclopyr, (chemically called 3,5,6-Trichloro-2-pyridinyloxyacetic acid) These chemicals are usually combined with other weed killers for better synergism (efficacy or improved performance). In cases of herbicide synergism 1+1 = 3 times more effective. So you may see 2.4-D listed as the first chemical (Dimethylamine salt of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) or you may see 2,4-DP (mecoprop or Dimethylamine salt of (+)-(R)-2-(2 methyl-4-chlorophenoxy) propionic acid) listed as well on the label but the names in RED are the most important for oxalis control. I am sorry for the detailed technical response but this is really technical stuff to get you the right chemical. There are so many different manufacturers and labels with the same stuff in it, it is impossible to list them all so giving you the ingredients to look for is much easier. Next is the method of application. These chemicals will not damage a lawn if you apply at the right concentration but they WILL damage other plants. So you must spray them directly to the weeds and not overspray onto other plants!  Make sure you wear waterproof gloves when mixing and applying and wash thoroughly after an application. They are not THAT toxic but it is always a good precaution. Never spray on a windy day. Spray when weather is warm but not hot because the plants are better able to “absorb” the spray.  Mix about 1 tsp of ivory liquid detergent per gallon of spray to the finished mix and thoroughly stir it. Do not add it before you add water or it will just give you a lot of weed killer bubbles. This detergent helps the week killer enter the leaves.

Clover-Looking Weed with Yellow Flowers is Very Difficult to Control Read More »

Thanks to Hunter for Advanced Irrigation Control at the Orchard

Leave a Comment / hunter irrigation clock, irrigation, Las Vegas, Mojave Desert, nevada, north las vegas, watering at the orchard /

A really big thanks goes out to Hunter Industry and in particular Nate Gould out of Phoenix, Arizona. Nate offered to provide the UNCE orchard in North Las Vegas with a state-of-the-art Hunter ACC Irrigation Clock. This definitely brings the UNCE Orchard into the 21st Century! Hunter Irrigation’s ACC Irrigation clock. Top of the line for all of the UNCE Orchard’s irrigation needs. Nate helped us install it so we that really cut our installation time down. (Advanced Commercial Controller) to help us better manage our irrigations for the fruit trees and vegetable plots. Our volunteers can communicate with the clock remotely so if we have an irrigation problem we don’t have to keep running back to the clock.

Thanks to Hunter for Advanced Irrigation Control at the Orchard Read More »

Italian Cypress Will Work as a Windbreak on 1 Acre But….

Leave a Comment / designing a windbreak, establishing a windbreak in the desert, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, planting a windbreak /

Q. I have used Italian cypress in moderate climates with very good success but now I will be moving to the desert in Pahrump on one acre and want to put in about 30-50 of these for windbreak. Is there anything special I need to consider planting these in a desert climate? Italian cypress if planted close enough can provide good wind protection…but at a cost. Living wind barriers use water. Balance the benefit you get from a living windbreak vs. its cost. Windbreaks are effective up to about five times their height. Place windbreaks close to where you need them. Too far away is a waste of time, water and money. A. Pahrump gets colder than Las Vegas and will dip down to 10°F. They have trouble growing plants which have less cold tolerance than Las Vegas. The relative humidity can drop to as low as about 10% at times but regularly is between 20 to 30%. Much like the rest of lower elevations southern Nevada, some light intensities can be about 20% higher than in other parts of the United States. Italian Cypress will work but I also am going to attach a document I wrote on windbreaks for southern Nevada. People in Pahrump love to plant these windbreaks along the edge of their properties but, in my opinion, if windbreaks are not planted in the right locations and the correct distances from the areas to be protected, you are just wasting your money and water. They make a nice wall and perhaps a visual barrier and that’s it. I hope you are young man because by the time they get large enough to be of any value as a windbreak at those distances it will be many years. Watering them on drip irrigation will work. Be sure your size your drip irrigation mainline, sub lines and laterals large enough to handle the irrigation you will expect in the next 20 years. Adding emitters to existing lines to deliver more water as plants get larger will not be a problem. But if you under size your irrigation water delivery lines by not planning for the future now and they are too small to accommodate the increased water use as these plants get larger, then you will be redoing it in a few years. Drip irrigation requires maintenance. This includes flushing lines on a regular basis and using appropriate filtration or you will have nothing but problems. You can inject fertilizer into drip lines. Expect about 12 inches of growth each year. Windbreaks modify the wind to a distance equal to about five times their height. Pahrump was a major southern Nevada farming community in the past and has good soils in many locations. Be sure to amend your soil surrounding these plants at the time of planting. I usually recommend about a 50-50 addition of soil amendment to raw desert soil at the time of planting. Our desert soils are extremely low in organic material. They will also perform better and have fewer problems if you can surround them with several inches of wood mulch. Keep the mulch away from the trunks about 12 inches for the first five years. Rabbits do not like Italian Cypress but if they are hungry enough and the population explodes due to recent fires, they will be damaged or destroyed by rabbits. I want to gently remind you that we do live in the desert. And even though there may be only the cost of pumping the water in your mind there are other “costs” as well. I like to call these social and environmental costs. Pahrump’s water basin is already overdrawn (more water is used than is replenished to the aquifer) and we need to consider this when we are designing our landscapes and gardens. We need to find a fine balance between our quality of life and respect for where we live. Living Windbreaks for Desert Dwellers

Italian Cypress Will Work as a Windbreak on 1 Acre But…. Read More »

Should a License Be Required to Carry a Hedge Shears?

2 Comments / bad pruning, butchering, hedges, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, pruning, pruning shrubs, topping /

What was not forseen in the advent of desert landscaping was the dramatic change in pruning techniques brought in by the landscape industry. Hand pruners and loppers were gone. Hedge shears were in. I was heavily involved in bringing good desert landscaping into Las Vegas in the 1980’s.  It was part of my job. One of the big advantages touted for desert landscaping was the reduction in maintenance by about 30% because lawns were either removed or shrunken in size. Lawns represented the most maintenance in a landscape. What was not forseen was the dramatic change in pruning techniques brought in by the landscape industry. Hand pruners and loppers were gone. Hedge shears were in. Nice looking, formal hedge. This is where the hedge shears should be used. The top of the hedge should be slightly narrower than the bottom. This gives the larger diameter wood at the base a chance to maintain leaf cover for a longer period of time and allows for better light reception at the base. Hedgeshears Logic. I have never understood the logic of using a hedge shears to prune anything but a hedge. But they are. Commercially it fits the “blow and go” logic of the current landscape industry. Manually operated hedge shears by Corona. I like Corona shears of most types, and even their hedge shears, but it is over-used in commercial and home landscapes. Even Corona would not endorse the extent to which it is used. You carry a hedge shears around and you use it to make everything look like a ball. The “trimmings” from the shrubs are picked up and hauled off to the landfill (at least in Las Vegas). Landscape shrubs about three years into hedge shearing. They have started to become “twiggy” and their multiple trunks are becoming exposed. If there is anything to “blow”, the guy carrying the gas engine-driven, cacophonous blower comes in some time later and finishes the cleanup. Landscape workers will start “blowing” on commercial properties where noise problems are not much of a problem, in the dark with headlamps, at 5 am or earlier. Some used have “night vision” capability. Arguably, these are the “Rambo” landscaper types (aka like the camos). One headlamp preferred by landscape workers Landscape in the early stages of hedge shearing. Some of these can still be corrected. The big advantages for landscape service companies using hedge shears is that it requires carrying only one piece of equipment, very little training required so almost anyone can do it, the results of hedge shearing are immediately seen by the customer and it requires numerous repeat shearings during the season. Disadvantages. The disadvantages to the customer are not seen at first and sometimes not cared about. Plants that produce flowers on new season growth, like Texas Ranger and oleander, have their potential new flowers removed. The plants are neatly “hedged” but flower production is later in the season than normal and usually very sparse because new growth is continuously removed. Second, most plants pruned with hedge shears are pruned into an unnatural shape. This means more work is needed to keep them in this shape (repeat shearing during the season). Third, the aesthetics of these plants are ruined in about five years. Shearing makes them “leggy” so that you see alot of bare, thick stems at the base and they lose their leaf cover. Basically they get ugly. At this point most plants cannot be “corrected” and they must be replaced. If replacing plants every five years is in your business plan then hedge shearing is for you! This is what eventually begins to happen to shrubs that are continuously hedge sheared. Large stems at the base get larger and larger and lose their “ability” to produce shoots that can carry leaves. Fourth, bare wood on the stems at the base is open to damage from sunburn and infestation by borers (if they are susceptible to borers). Correct pruning of shrubs that are not to be used as a formal hedge is near the ground, removing 1 to 3 of the oldest stems if there are only a few of them. More than this may be removed if there oodles of these stems. Plants will show you where to cut them if you just look. This is oleander for example. At the base of oleander there are some “suckers” aka watersprouts, emerging from some short stubs that were left from last year’s pruning. This is a very good sign that if you were to prune oleander stems low to the ground that they will sucker and send up all new shoots. This is a closeup of the base of the very same shrub. Notice the cut stub left from last years pruning cut. This person had the right idea but cut the wrong stem!. Leave the young ones. Cut the oldest ones the same way and let them sucker up to fill in the bottom. Do this on one or two of the oldest stems every other year and you will fill the shrub with blooms top to bottom and you will not see any of the base of the plant. Two cuts = ten seconds. Pickup time = ten seconds. Do not use the hedge shears on this plant. If there are alot of stems then follow the 1/4 rule. Remove about 1/4 of the oldest stems every 1 to 3 years depending on how juvenile you want your shrub to be and how tall you want it. This type of pruning is needed from 1 to 3 years depending on how vigorously the shrub grows. level and pruning is every two to three years. If you are not sure what will happen to the plant cut just one stem back near to the ground and see what happens. If it suckers up, do a couple more. It will not be too late. You could do this easily until about March or even April. Cleanup is easy. You collect

Should a License Be Required to Carry a Hedge Shears? Read More »

Still Afraid to Prune Your Lantana?

Leave a Comment / lantana, lantana camara, lantana montevidensis, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, pruning /

You may have either the purple lantana or the multi-colored lantana. Most of it died back during the winter. But where to cut? What if I cut it back too far. Will I kill it? Even in February you still have time. This is lantana that has been cut back. Notice how the new growth (late January or early February just after a warm spell) is growing now. It is growing from “joints” along the stems we prefer to call “nodes”. These are places which can have alot of plant tissue that can regrow after the plant has been damaged. In this case it is “damage” either by winter cold or by pruning. Cut lantana back close to the ground so that you leave at least  two “joints” left sticking up out of the ground. Lantana is now starting to regrow from the base now in early February. It is not obvious. If you look closely at yours you will see some new growth emerging very close to the ground. The plant will “tell you” where to cut. Cut 1/4 to 3/8 inch above a node. If you are in a cold and windy part of town you will experience winter dieback of the plant closer to the ground so you will have to prune it with fewer “joints” left.

Still Afraid to Prune Your Lantana? Read More »

Nevada’s First Bottle of Olive Oil All Produced in Nevada

Leave a Comment / amargosa valley, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada, nevada olive oil, roger gehring /

Last year produced the first bottle of Nevada olive oil. The olives were harvested in the fall of 2012 and bottled later that year. The olive oil is produced by Roger Gehring at his vineyard, School Lane Vineyard, in Amargosa, Nevada. For more information on where to get this exceptional olive oil contact Roger Gehring at [email protected]

Nevada’s First Bottle of Olive Oil All Produced in Nevada Read More »