Q. I have a rose bush that did well for years but now it only produces small white roses. What happened? A. The top of your rose bush died but the rootstock survived. Two different plants are combined into one plant through a propagation technique called budding. The top of the plant is desired for its beautiful flowers. The rootstock is selected for a variety of reasons but performs better in soils than the top of the plant if it had roots.             All rose bushes available commercially are grown on rootstocks. These rootstocks are also roses but their flowers are a different color and size than the rose you selected. In your particular case, the rootstock was perhaps Rosa odorata, a rose that produces small white flowers.             If you don’t like the plant then remove it and replace it with a variety that grows well in our hot, desert climate. On the website of Weeks Roses, they publish a list of roses by flower color and rose type that perform well in our hot desert. Or talk to some neighbors who love roses and know what they planted. Roses for the Desert Southwest             Be careful when pruning roses. Prune them in January but do not cut them back too short. Pruning roses short cause the rootstock to grow vigorously and send up suckers that could dominate an overly pruned rose bush. And remove all suckers coming from the rootstock.             I noticed in your picture that your roses were surrounded by rock mulch. No, no, no. Roses do not like rock mulch. Get rid of the rock and lay down some compost and cover the compost with three inches of wood chip mulch instead. They will be much happier. 

Q. Our cape honeysuckle has done well, even bloomed during the past winters. But this time of year it always stops blooming. Is there something I should be doing or not doing to keep it flowering through the summer? Its winter for cryin out loud. Why are you in bloom, ag shame? A. Cape honeysuckle is from South Africa, below the equator, so it’s bloom time is the opposite of ours; blooms in the winter and not during the summer. Another plant from South Africa, African sumac, does the same thing. No flowers now. Must be spring or jost sommer.             Cape honeysuckle is a great plant for the dry desert because it is not as invasive here as it can be in wet climates. The only drawback is it being winter tender at temperatures around 25 degrees F.             Watch for freezing damage during particularly cold winters or in cold landscape microclimates. Much like Bougainvillea, if the base is protected with mulch during the winter it will grow back again from the protected base.

Q. We planted a bare root tree Blenheim apricot earlier this year and it’s put out these pink leaves in the spring. Is that a sign that it will flower or fruit or that we are watering too much?  New growth that is red on some varieties of apricot like Blenheim (Royal) A. No, that’s a typical color of new growth for some apricots. It doesn’t indicate anything except new, juvenile growth.             Fertilize it once a year in January. Compost is best. If you use woodchip mulch on the soil surface beneath the tree, you can get by with using mineral fertilizers. Otherwise, use compost as a combination fertilizer and for soil improvement.             Make sure the tree is getting enough water. Lots of new growth in the spring is a good indicator that it is. A new tree like that should get at least 5 gallons of water every time you irrigate it. Slowly work your way up to 30 gallons by the time it’s is 5 to 6 years old. Blenheim is a good apricot in our climate and I’m sure you will enjoy it if you like apricots.

Q. I have never had a problem with pests on my little leaf Cordia plant before. I found a small round liquid balls on the edge of the leaf. What am I dealing with here?  Guttational water from Cordia. A. Great pictures and they help a lot. It’s nothing to worry about but it’s very interesting so I want to talk about it.             I am taking an educated guess that this is water released from small openings on the leaf edges called hydathodes. The release of excess water from inside the plant is called guttation. Guttation is normal and it happens under certain conditions.             . Basically, small plants can push a lot of water inside them through a mechanism called root pressure. Root pressure takes water from the surrounding soil, if there’s plenty of it, and pushes it inside the plant.             Sometimes the water pressure inside the plant can be so great that it needs to release some of this excess water. Many plants have specialized openings on leaf edges called hydathodes and this is where the water comes out. Technically, the process of taking excess water inside the plant and releasing it through hydathodes is called guttation. Whipping the greens for the US Open. from https://golfcontentnetwork.com/news/u-s-open/u-s-open-theres-nothing-quite-like-oakmont/              It can happen on grasses a lot. Golf course superintendents are concerned about this phenomenon because the water coming from the plant is full of sugars. It can be a rich breeding ground for grass diseases. If this water rich with sugars stays on the leaf surface for several hours, disease problems can be a reality.             Superintendents, years ago, used bamboo poles to “whip the greens” and remove this excess water from the leaf blades. It was thought by doing this the water was removed from the leaves and disease problems were reduced as well. Most now use a quick pulse of irrigation water instead.             So, what does this have to do with you and your little leaf Cordia? If this is guttational water, the plant is telling you not to water so often. The soil is full of water. Make sure you give it a “rest period” without water before the next irrigation. Other than that, nothing to worry about.

Q. I would like to grow my own rhubarb. Could you tell me where I can find the plant or the bulb, and when would be a good season to start? Not my picture of rhubarb but I figured some readers have never seen it. From Wikipedia By Dieter Weber (User:Uellue) – own work, photo taken in a private garden in Kiel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=743387  A. Rhubarb can be grown in our climate but it is commonly grown in more northerly states including the Midwest, upper Midwest, Pacific Northwest and New England. It is less commonly found in warmer climates. So, it can be tricky to grow here.             It is technically classified as an herbaceous perennial which means it’s large leaves and fleshy petioles comes from underground rhizomes, much like iris, artichokes and asparagus. All the top growth freezes back to the ground with the first hard frost. If it doesn’t freeze back in our climate, cut it to the ground in late winter. Rhubarb rhizome for showing growth from  http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/propagating             Seeds are available but start it from a good-sized rhizome instead. They are a bit pricey. Order them online from a reliable seed company.             Rhubarb will struggle in our heat. There are complaints from people that it doesn’t taste the same when grown in cool climates. Probably true. Grow it on the north or east side of a building and keep it out of late, hot afternoon sunlight. It needs plenty of sunlight in the morning, but not the afternoon.             Amend the soil with quality compost at the time of planting. Mix compost with your existing landscape soil at a rate of 1:1 by volume or use a bagged, commercial soil planting mix amended with compost.             Never cover the soil with rock mulch or plastic but use 2 to 3 inches of wood chips instead. Fertilize it with compost or a lawn fertilizer in late December to mid-January. It comes out of the ground early.             The leaves are toxic so cut off the leaves and compost them. The leaf stems or petioles are what people eat provided it’s cooked with a lot of sugar. 

Q. I have some stick sized trees growing very well. Some are about 12″ to 18″ tall. The leaves are around the bottom of the stick and none at the top. Should I cut the stick off down to the leaves? A. Yes, if you think it’s dead cut it back to the leaves. When new shoots begin to grow taller than 1 foot, remove all but one if you want a single stemmed tree. If you want a multi-trunked tree remove all but three or five, and leave an odd number growing. If you can prune it with a hand shears then prune any time of year.             Lightly fertilize it every couple months to push new growth. If this tree is tender to winter freezing temperatures, don’t fertilize after an August 1.

Q. Is Miracle grow all it’s made to be?  I haven’t seen any results yet after I sprayed it on my plants. A. If your plants are in great shape to begin with you won’t see any results from MiracleGro fertilizer applied to the leaves or any other product for that matter. Applying a liquid fertilizer to the leaves gets fertilizer inside the plant faster so results, if there are any, will be seen sooner than applying a fertilizer to the soil. That’s the primary reason for using it. Peters is an alternative for Miracle Gro. It has an outstanding commercial reputation among greenhouse growers. i don’t know how good the homeowner product is.              I used several types of powdered, fertilizers mixed with water and applied to the leaves because I’m curious about them. These include MiracleGro, Peters, and Grow More. Honestly, I have never seen much difference in any of them. If I were to lean toward a product in that group it would probably be Grow More because it’s the least expensive. Grow More has a very good line of water soluble fertilizers that are not as expensive and have a great reputation particularly among marjuana producers.             There are steps I would recommend when using any of these products to get the best results. Use distilled water. The effectiveness of liquid fertilizers has a lot to do with the quality of the water used. Our tap water is alkaline. Our tap water can cause problems with foliar fertilizers.             Add a spray surfactant to the spray mix before applying it. Spray surfactant is a fancy term telling you to add something to the mix to help the fertilizer get inside the leaf. The leaf is covered with waxes and using a spray surfactant helps the fertilizer get inside. Use distilled water rather than tap water if your tap water has a bad reputation or has some pH problems like it does in Las Vegas. Distilled water has a ph of 7 and wont have problems with micronutrients become unavailable.             You can buy commercial spray surfactants called “wetting agents” or use a high-quality soap such as a liquid Castile type. Use about 1 tablespoon in a gallon of spray mix.             Spray this mixture on the leaves, both front and back, only until the surface of the leaf is moist. No more than this. EZ wet is a very gentle wetting agent/surfactant  that helps fertilizer nutrients move inside the leaves. Liquid Castile soaps are also good. Stay away from dishwashing liquids because they are hard on plants and have personal care products in them now.             Use it all up. Don’t store this spray solution. Make a new batch for the next time you spray. 

Q. Do brown branches denote “deadness” on a tree in the spring or can they be brought back somehow? Dead branch in purple leaf Plum that will not come back because it is truly dead. Italian cypress with brown branches that appeared dad but are still alive. Nothing will grow from these brown branches anymore even though they are alive. A. Brown does not always mean a branch is dead. Some tree branches are more brittle than others. For instance, fig, persimmon and pomegranate branches can be quite brittle compared to apple and peach.             The usual method I use to see if a branch is dead is to bend it. Many branches of trees may look brown and dead but are quite supple when bent. Supple and bending denotes it’s still alive. Other trees have branches which are alive but can snap easily when bent. In cases like this I scrape the bark with my thumbnail or a knife to see if the wood is green under its “brownness”.             Remember, some plants are slow to leaf out in the spring. Wait for new growth and prune out whatever might be dead. I sometimes get confused as well when winter or early spring pruning.

Q. I have a 6-8 yr. old ash that has this white powdery looking substance on the newer growth. Can you tell me what it is and how to eliminate it. Photo attached. Unknown white cottony insect at base of new ash growth. Another image of white cottony insect at base of new growth on ash A. I have to admit I put this on a back burner because I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I have seen this on vegetables and herbs but never on the new growth of ornamental trees. It is most likely an insect problem. These insects are feeding on the soft, succulent new growth. If you touch this white fluffy substance on these shoots I think you will see these insects beneath it. The problem I had was what to call these insects. At first I thought it was woolly Apple aphid which makes a lot of sense in the cool time of the year when there is new growth. But what troubled me was that I have never seen woolly Apple aphid in Las Vegas before. I have seen it in other cooler climates. See some pictures of Wally apple aphid Secondly, the pattern that they are feeding in does not typically fit woolly Apple aphid. They don’t usually feed all along the new growth. They are typically clustered at the bottom of the new growth. Until you tell me differently, I am going to stick with woolly Apple aphid or another kind of insect that feeds on the sap of newer, soft, succulent growth. They are easy to control or even ignore. You could take a hose and a nozzle and knock them off with a powerful, directed spray on the foliage. If you want to be more aggressive, you could use a soap and water mixture and do the same thing with a hose and applicator. If they really bother you, you could nuke them by applying the Bayer insecticide for trees and shrubs and apply it to the soil surrounding the roots. In my opinion that is overkill. See if they continued to be a problem or not. Aphids typically become less of a problem as temperatures get hotter.

Q. How do you stop Gambel’s quail from eating apricot tree leaves? They never touched my 3-year-old tree until near the end of the last growing season then they swarmed the tree and chewed at everything that was green. These little fish poops ate all melon plant sprouts yesterday as well. I tried hanging CD’s, strips of tin foil to no avail. Bird pecked peaches at the Orchard A. About the only thing I can suggest is giving them an alternative to munch on or cage them out using bird netting. I am sure there are lots of suggestions from people like spraying garlic, hanging pie tins or DVD’s to scare them but in my experience these tricks do not work for very long or not at all. Electronic bird scaring device used at the Orchard. It would work for about two weeks. After that, the birds got used to it.             Birds in general can be a real problem, particularly to the fruit. The other option is to let them eat the leaves and let the tree replace what is lost. Once you get past spring, hopefully, they will move on to other more tender leaves at your neighbors.