Several people have asked me where the questions come from and if I respond to all of them. The answer is they come from you, the readers, and I try to respond to all of them as quickly as I can. Sometimes I can get to them right away, while other times it may take longer.
The questions are frequently left just the way they are sent to me, with some minor editing for the paper. But they are the readers' words, not mine. It makes sense that you will understand what they are talking about if I leave the questions in their own native tongue rather than if I get fancy and put a proper horticulture twist to them.
I do get lots of questions, so if there is a particular emergency to a question, let me know and I will try to prioritize it.
The "crazy cat lady," and I don't think she is the only one in town, wrote to tell me how to humanely shoo cats from the garden. "Sprinkle the area with mothballs. They will not harm plants, even container plants. I have had cats my whole life -- this works! The moth balls do melt and evaporate. They should be put down for at least three weeks straight. The smell will keep them away and the consistency will break their habit. Remember they will go other places, just not there. I just sprinkled moth balls in my rose garden, so far so good!"
Her name has been withheld to protect her and her cats' identities.
I have been told this before, so I hope some of you with cat visitors will give it a try and let me know how it works for you. In this case, the cat is not a pest, but simply an uninvited guest.
Question: My lawn died on me and I'm trying to bring it back. A while back something went wrong with my sprinkler system and my little lawn didn't get any water. The whole thing started to go brown on me. I didn't realize it until it was too late. It now grows in patches. I have been waiting for the weather to get a little warmer to start doing work on it. How can I bring it back?
Answer: I assume it is tall fescue or some other type of cool season grass that can be started from seed. This does not apply to the warm season grasses like bermudagrass. If you were to do this with some of the improved seeded types of bermudas, then you would do it in June. Check with local ordinances to make sure seeded bermudagrass is OK to plant.
Now can still be a good time to seed new grass, but it is getting late. I would mow the area short, less than an inch tall, dethatch it or power rake it, remove the debris, and seed the same type of grass back into the lawn area. You can rent dethatchers or use a dethatching rake and do it by hand if the area is small enough. There are services in town that will do it as well.
The secret to a successful seeding is good seed contact with the soil. You should see bare soil after dethatching. Seed the area with a drop spreader or broadcast spreaders (also called rotary spreaders). Handheld, crank-operated spreaders are less expensive to buy, but you will need more seed because they are not as accurate in applying seed as a drop spreader.
Apply a starter fertilizer high in phosphorus like 16-20-0. Cover the seed lightly with some sort of topdressing, using a topdressing or mulch roller. This is a hollow drum with topdressing inside, which applies it by pushing it across the seeded area. It can be dangerous to spread it by hand. Too much topdressing covering the seed will suffocate it.
Usually, only one pass is needed to cover the seed. More than this can be too deep for seed and cause poor germination. Water lightly three times a day until germination. Cut back to once a day after the seed germinates.
After the first mowing, reduce watering to every other day while temperatures are cool. After four or five mowings, aerate the lawn, fertilize again and move to a normal irrigation watering schedule.
Q: Is there any way to predict which direction vegetable vines like zucchini, squash and cucumbers will grow? They want to grow in a direction where they have less room and fall over the side of my raised bed when there is more room available in the direction I had planned for them.
A: They will typically grow downhill. That does not help you much if they are in a level bed.
I don't know of a way to predict which direction they will grow, but you can direct the growth of most plants by mechanical manipulation. This can be done by pinching new growth going in the wrong direction or simply moving the vine to a new location.
Pinching out the growing tips after the six- or seven-leaf stage will encourage fruit set and keep the plant smaller once it begins setting fruit. You should pinch growth that is growing in the wrong direction and leave growth alone that is growing in the right direction.
Once pinched, that growth will slow due to having multiple places for the plant energy to be channeled, instead of just one growing point. Plants will grow into areas that are not so crowded by other plants.
Plants have a tendency to fill gaps where they can get light, water and nutrients. They tend to stay away from shade and other plants due to competition and chemicals called allelochemicals given off by many plants to preserve their own space.
Q: I wanted a multi-trunk African sumac tree, but the nurseries didn't have one so I bought a naturalized sumac. They told me I could prune it to be multi-trunk. When is the best time to prune and what should I be looking for in shaping the tree? I'm assuming that it is too late to prune this year, and I'll need to wait for the dormant season.
A: At the time you wrote this e-mail, it was still an OK time to prune. It is very iffy now.
I am guessing what you mean is that your sumac has a single trunk and you are going to make it into a multi-trunk tree. Let the roots get established in your tree this first year. The tree will rebound faster after pruning if it has an established root system at the time of pruning.
Nurseries used to make multi-trunked trees by pruning a single trunk tree close to the ground and letting it re-grow. Many no longer do that. They found it more economical to put several small plants together in the same container rather than lose time by pruning it down.
You should be able to cut the tree back nearly to the ground and get it to re-grow from the base. I would cut about 6 or 8 inches above ground early in the spring next year. This will result in a multi-stemmed tree from a single trunk.
The other option is to plant two more trees right next to it.
Q: I really enjoyed and learned a lot from your classes held at the orchard recently. I came home and began to prune my fruit trees. Sunday my son and I came by again to pick up some mulch. In my yard I have a medium apple and pomegranate tree that are on the south side of the yard. Their branches reach out and create a nice shaded area. Would that be a good place to plant a strawberry patch or maybe tomatoes?
A: This is probably not a good place for strawberries or tomatoes if you have to do some work around the tree and have to spray for pests. All of the stuff you apply to your fruit trees will fall in on your edibles underneath and that's not good, particularly since you would be constantly picking under there.
You will need at least six to eight hours of sunlight for strawberries or tomatoes and that might not make it there. You could put some things under there that can get by with less light and that you would just harvest once so you could time your spraying to coincide with harvest. More than likely, you would be best off just mulching under fruit trees and concentrating on the fruit.
Don't forget your walls. You can trellis lots of things against walls.
Bob Morris is a horticulture specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
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