Bob Morris is a horticulture expert living in Las Vegas and professor emeritus for the University of Nevada. Visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. Send questions to Extremehort@aol.com.
Q: The leaves on my fig tree appear burned after this rain. I foliar sprayed it with neem oil and soap and fish protein isolate. These trees were planted last fall and mulched with 1 foot of woodchips and looked amazing until now. They are watered three times each week in the summer.
Q: We’ve noticed leaf damage this year on our rose bushes and apple and pear trees. More than previous years. But, peach, apricot and pomegranate seem unaffected. Some of our roses were decimated. Any idea what pest causes this and how to control it?
Early Saturday morning, I spotted two green beetles on a young apple tree. These are close relatives of what we called in the Midwest “June beetles.”
Q: I have some large dead areas in my lawn. I don’t think it’s an insect problem. Watering is at 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. This was my first lawn problem in 16 years.
Q: We installed a lawn 18 months ago, but it has a difficult time during summer months. I aerate it and fertilize it, and I know the drainage is good because the landscaper installed the system to our HOA requirements. I water twice daily, six days a week around 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. There is a decent amount of shade, and the yard faces south. Even the heavily shaded areas have problems. What can I do differently?
Q: My Mexican bird of paradise grows well but it looks too thin. Or is that its natural way? I would like it to fill in and be healthy looking.
Thank you for your support of my landscape design class beginning in July. The class size is limited, and the eight-week class I offered filled quickly.
Q: I want to do something with my yard. I am sick of it being so ugly, but I’m not sure where to start. I had some landscapers who quoted me some prices for doing everything, but they are very expensive. How do I get started?
Q: Wondering if you have any recommendations for varieties of pineapple guava that will fruit in the Las Vegas Valley. Thanks for putting that list of fruit trees that grow well in the Las Vegas area.
Q: Is Ironite safe to use in a vegetable garden? I have read somewhere that it’s not, but the label says you can use it.
Q: Are eggshells good for your garden and should they be added to your compost? Conventional garden wisdom says yes, but I believe that we have too much calcium already in the soils here in Southern Nevada, so adding eggshells is not a good idea. What do you think?
Q: Eleven of my 50 young pomegranate trees have leaves yellowing and dropping off. I water this area once a week by flooding. I sprayed a weed killer, 2, 4-D, near the pomegranates, but I protected each one with plastic to avoid damaging the trees. Where did I go wrong here? If the weed killer is the problem, is there any way to save them?
Q: Look what my husband did? He cut my saguaro below the seams before consulting with me. I know it looked kind of sick (the tree, not my husband), but he cut it. I am going to cut those chunks all the way down.
Q: You have converted me to the doctrine of using wood chip mulch. Is there any reason why I couldn’t use wood chips in my strawberry bed? My wife used to put strawberries in pots, and they never did well.
Q: I planted three yellow Lady Banks roses on my south wall when I moved here 10 years ago. Two years ago, my neighbor planted a white Lady Banks rose nearby. This year I noticed white roses growing on my yellow Lady Banks rose. I thought these flowers might be from their plant, but I traced it back to the base of my vine. Will my yellow roses eventually all be transformed to white? How do you explain this botanically?
