Raspberries not a good choice for this climate

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Q uestion: I bought some raspberry bare root bushes. I questioned whether they would grow here but was assured they would. The stalks haven't grown anything but we keep getting plenty of suckers coming from beneath. At first I kept pulling these off but after a while I realized that this is all I was going to get. Will these ever mature as a normal bush would? For that matter, will they even really grow here?

Answer: Raspberries are not a good choice for our area. We do not get enough winter cold for them here. You have planted them so why not give them a chance? However, those canes you were pulling are what you want to encourage, not eliminate. They were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.

Raspberries produce canes the first year and these canes produce fruit the second year. Then the two year old canes are removed after they fruit. You are always picking fruit from two year old canes while letting new canes grow so they can produce the next year. It is a two year cycle to produce fruit. Prior to fruiting, your stand of raspberries should be a mixture of one year old canes and two year old canes. After harvest, two year old canes are eliminated and you should have a stand of only one year old canes ready to produce fruit the next year.

Q: We've wondered why trees need to be staked for so long in the landscape. We've heard that within a few years the smaller trees will catch up to the larger ones so not to buy the larger trees. Is this true? We're looking for some varieties that will give good shade, not take an enormous amount of water and have interesting color throughout the season.

A: Larger trees give you more visual impact in the landscape. If you want this immediate impact after you plant, then buy larger plants. However, smaller plants will always catch up in size to larger plants. The reason for this is that larger plants take longer to establish in the landscape than the smaller plants.

The staking of trees in landscapes is a big problem for the nursery and landscape industry. When you are buying a larger tree, ideally, you want to buy a tree that has a trunk which is tapered from top to bottom; the trunk should be wider at the bottom and a narrower toward the top. The tapering of the trunk gives a tree enough structural strength to stand without the need for staking.

Tree trunk taper is developed by allowing the trunk to move in the wind and allowing small stems to grow from the trunk. These stems should have leaves and these leaves help to contribute to tree trunk girth and vertical taper.

The primary purpose for staking should not necessarily be to hold the plant upright. Staking is supposed to immobilize the root system in the soil until it gets established while still allowing the tree's trunk some movement in the wind.

Let me just present this from a different point of view. If you take a small tree and remove all of the small shoots from the trunk, leaving only a canopy, and stake it tightly so the trunk cannot move, you will develop a tree trunk with no taper. A tree trunk with no taper can not stand upright by itself and is subject to snapping off in high winds.

If you cannot find a large tree with good trunk taper, buy the smallest tree possible with the most vigorous and healthy looking growth. If it does not need to be staked, don't stake it.

I don't make specific recommendations on plant selection as tastes in plants differ vastly. But if you want lower water use, then select trees with a small mature height. Big trees use more water than little trees and size is more important in keeping water use low than the type of tree.

Q: Last year I had problems with birds eating my fruit. I have a small orchard of figs, apricot, and peaches I was thinking of putting up an owl. Do you think this would help? I do not want to hurt any birds.

A: We have the same problem at the Orchard. Nothing works very well except bird netting and protecting the fruit by excluding the birds. The netting must reach all the way to the ground and not allow them to go under the netting. The other option is to pick fruit early, before they are mature, and let them ripen off of the tree. This will work for peaches and apricots but not figs.

Q: We have a large yard and a large family with lots of friends and family. We need a decent amount of lawn for them to play on but we don't want to add unduly to the drought situation. We are going to put artificial lawn in the front yard where there won't be as much activity but for the backyard we would like real grass. We have been reading about some drought resistant varieties that don't require as much water. Can you recommend any that would do well in our area?

A: Lawn selection has a lot to do with what is available. I can make some suggestions but if you can't get it then it won't do you much good for me to recommend it. We live in what turfgrass people call a transition zone: we can grow both the warm season grasses and the cool season grasses. Just like some of those combination tools I have purchased in the past, both cool season and warm season grasses have their problems here. The warm season grasses will turn brown in the wintertime here. But cool season grasses struggle during our heat of the summer.

There are four, lower water use warm season grasses I would recommend. These would include the hybrid bermuda grasses, some of the newer buffalo grasses and seashore paspalums and El Toro zoysiagrass. I am more specific about the zoysiagrass because there are some mail order zoysias I would not recommend.

The only one in this group you can overseed for a green winter lawn is hybrid bermuda grass.

The others will have to remain brown through the winter months.

On the cool season side of the grasses you are typically looking at a higher water use than the warm season grasses.

However, many of the cool season grasses will stay green through the winter if fertilized late into the fall. These cool season grasses are usually lower and maintenance then the warm season types. The most commonly available cool season grasses for this area are blends of tall fescue.

Q: I am looking for evergreen shrubs or trees to plant in a planter along our swimming pool. The planter is 30 feet long, raised to about 2 feet high and 20 inches wide. I want them no taller than about eight to 10 feet, noninvasive roots, not messy, won't attract bees or other insects, use minimal amounts of water, no thorns and survive the cold and harsh winds at 3200 feet elevation.

A: That is a very complex list of requirements and I am not sure there is anything that will fill all those. You cannot plant trees or shrubs of any size in these areas. They will not work in such a narrow area. If these plants are to be 8 - 10 feet tall then they will need about the same amount of room to grow in the planting area.

If this area is narrow, as you state, you might need to look at trellising and vines. If you go in the direction of trellised vines then you would be looking for nonflowering vines which can be trellised if you do not want bees.

Tolerance to temperatures at 3200 feet should not be a problem for many plants available at nurseries here.

Just stay away from the winter tender ones.

I do not have any specific plant suggestions that fit all those requirements.

Q: I have an abundance of pomegranates setting on my tree and wonder about thinning. Should I thin and to what extent?

A: If size of the fruit or blemishes are not a concern, then don't thin. If you do thin, the only fruit I would thin are those that are coming from the same cluster of flowers. I thin when the fruit has set and is about the size of a small lime or golf ball. No larger. If you wait too long to thin it will accomplish nothing. You can minimize blemishes by keeping fruit a distance apart so they don't bruise each other and remove growth near the fruit that may damage it during winds.

Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.