Xtremehorticulture

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert

Does Newtown Pippin Apple Produce Good Flavor in the Desert?

Leave a Comment / clark county, Fruit tree evaluations, Las Vegas, Mohave Desert, which fruit trees are best for Southern Nevada /

Q. How has the Yellow Newtown Pippin apple performed in our climate. I would love to have one if the quality is good here. A. I published a list of recommended fruit varieties for our climate and made available on my blog. These are fruit tree varieties I have evaluated over a minimum of five years of fruit production. It can be misleading to recommend a variety when it has produced for only one or two seasons. http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2011/10/recommended-fruit-trees-for-southern.html I am not concerned so much whether this variety of apple tree will grow here or not. It will. My main concern is the quality of the fruit it produces in our climate and soils. Just because you like Macintosh apple you purchased from a local grocery store does not mean that a Macintosh apple grown here will taste the same. There are numerous potential problems with a Newtown apple grown in the desert. Only time will tell. Yellow Newtown Pippin has not had a long enough performance history in our climate to recommend it for the general public. It ripens a little bit before Granny Smith and a month or so before Pink Lady and this is a good time for apples to ripen in our climate. However, other influences such as our soils and climate while it was growing will impact its quality. Download a copy of my recommended fruit tree list Extra reading about the Newtown Pippin and Yellow Newtown Pippin apples https://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark-item/newtown-pippin-apple http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/newtown-pippin http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/dining/it-s-crunch-time-for-the-venerable-pippin.html?pagewanted=all

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Apple Variety Testing for the Mojave Desert

Leave a Comment / Mohave Desert, recommended fruit for the mojave desert /

Q. I’ve seen Yellow Newtown Pippin listed as Under Review in your recommended fruit varieties to grow in the desert. How has it done? I would love to have one if the quality is good here. A. Here is a link to the recommended fruit variety list that I completed back in 2010.  http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2015/11/special-fruit-tree-orders-no-longer.html Apple Babe from Dave Wilson Nursery under evaluation in North Las Vegas Nevada Fuji apple grown in North Las Vegas Nevada Anna apple grown in North Las Vegas Nevada When I left the University back in 2011 this program of fruit evaluation for desert environments was no longer continued. Fruit quality is very connected to the terrior or the local environment. This is nothing new and has been noted for many other crops where quality is a desired trait and useful in marketing. I have not had a chance to evaluate this Apple yet. I like about five seasons of production to get a good evaluation. Just because a plant grows does not necessarily mean the fruit quality is high. Sometimes there is little you can do to influence the quality of a fruit if you do not have a suitable terrior it.  Most people think that a good fruit is one that is large, has an appealing color and free from blemishes to be a “good” fruit. How wrong! There are too many variations because of the climate and weather. The chilling requirement is 800 to 1000 hours according to Dave Wilson Nursery. This may be somewhat problematic for production in the warm desert but not necessarily for fruit quality. I will take a look at some of the information the orchard has gathered so far on this variety and let you know. I have not been involved so I hope that the three is still there, there are replications to account for variations and data has been recorded. It ripens a little bit before Granny Smith and a month or so before Pink Lady. It ripens during a time of the year when flavor should be good considering ONLY the time of year.  More information on this and related varieties.

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Creosote Bush for Desert LandscapesIn the Mojave Desert

Leave a Comment / desert landscaping, desert plants, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert /

Don’t overwater this plant! And it doesn’t require much in the way of fertilizers.Like any desert plant, they perform better if there is some organic matter added to the soil at the time of planting. In our Mojave desert soils there is almost 0% organic matter so a little bit will help get them established. An old stand of creosote in the background and creosote which have been cut off with a road grader and re-grew from the base.

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Texas Mountain Laurel a Good Desert Landscape Choice

Leave a Comment / flowers, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, plant selection, purple, small landscape tree, texas mountain laurel, worms /

Texas Mountain Laurel or Mescal Bean Andrea Meckley, Certified Horticulturist [email protected]    Description:  flowering large shrub or small tree Mature size: 15-20 feet tall x 8-10 feet wide Water use:  low to medium Exposure:  all day sun to half day sun Origin: Texas, New Mexico, northern Mexico Caution: red seeds are poisonous Flower:  purple sweet scented blooms early spring Hardy:  0 degrees F Evergreen Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora segundiflora) slowly grows naturally as a shrub or can be trained as multi trunk tree.  The poisonous seeds have a coat that is very hard and difficult to crack limiting risks to humans and pets if swallowed.  Native peoples used the seeds for ceremonial use and ornamental jewelry.  Use this plant as a hedge, screen or accent plant.

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Harvest Garlic When the tops Dieback About 1/3 Where it is a Hot Climate

Leave a Comment / can you grow garlic in las vegas, dyring garlic, how to harvest garlic, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, when to harvest garlic /

Q. I planted garlic back in the fall. It is close to harvest now, fully grown and some tops starting to brown. I pulled one the other day to check them. It seems fine and full of cloves with the papery outer skin, but the stalk above is very thick and dense. I’m wondering do I hang them to dry, and if so, for how long.  A. You harvest garlic when the tops dry down about halfway. No further than this or the paper on the outside of the bulb will disintegrate exposing the cloves. This is the way garlic should look when harvested and dried properly. The papery sheath on the outside is dry and completely encloses the cloves. The tops were cut back to about an inch of the top of the bulb after drying.             You dry them the same way as onions basically. Put them in the shade in open air. Do not wash them first. Chesnok Red garlic hanging outside in the shade after harvest. We chose to harvest and sell garlic this way because it is “different” from buying from the store. Let the buyer take it home and trim it. Its a new experience for some and they like that experience. If they don’t or complain about it, cut it there and weigh it if by the pound.             There are two types of garlic; hardneck and softneck. The softneck you can braid together. The hardneck you cannot. Sounds like you have hardneck. The tops of these Polish White garlics are just starting to brown. Wait until the tops brown down to about 1/3 of its length. No more.             When tops die back, after a week or two, cut the tops back further for storage or future use. I like them the most when they are still fresh from the garden. I think that is when they have the best flavor in my opinion.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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