GARDENING: Bulb and flower show set for Saturday

Mark your calendar for the annual Bulb and Flower Show, Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Nevada Garden Club Center in Lorenzi Park, 3333 W. Washington Boulevard at Twin Lakes. Bring blooms and branches from your own garden for judging, and the best of your container plants from indoors or out. There is a category for vines, ornamental foliage, trees and shrubs, fruited and berried branches, container-grown plants, dish gardens and terrariums. Youth entries are especially welcome. Admission is free. Sponsoring clubs are Las Vegas Flower Arrangers' Guild and Judges' Council of Nevada, as well as members of the Nevada Garden Clubs Inc. For more information, call 451-2269 or 614-3019.

• Things to do in the yard. Apply fertilizer to fescue lawns. Delay fertilizer on Bermuda grass lawns that are still dormant. Now is the time to aerate for water conservation later in the summer. After the rain is done and after fruit trees have bloomed apply horticultural oils. Wait for a warm day to do it and it does not hurt the tree if leaves are present. Avoid sulfur applications on apricots. Buy and get your plants in the ground. Finish your pruning now and get the fertilizer applied to trees and shrubs.

• Whenever there is rain, a common mistake is to turn off the drip irrigation. Water coming from a drip emitter, as soon as it enters the soil, moves both downward and horizontally. The distance the water moves horizontally depends on the type of soil. Water moves horizontally less in a sandy soil than in a silty or clay soil. As this water enters the soil it carries with it salts. Many times you can see these salts as they accumulate on the soil surface as water evaporates.

These salts are pushed by this pulse of water from the emitter to the outer limits of the irrigation zone of wetted soil where they accumulate and concentrate. Picture an upside down half sphere of accumulated salt with the center of the sphere being the emitter or emitters. Salts accumulate on the outer boundary of the sphere.

Rainwater moves accumulated salts on the surface of the soil and on the edge of the sphere back into the root zone. The only way you have of moving these salts back out of the root zone again is to turn on the drip system. So when it rains, particularly in the summer months, be sure the drip system is turned on after the rain stops to push the soil salts back toward the edge of the sphere again.

• The rains coming this spring are an indication that fireblight may be a problem this year. Watch for it in the following few weeks in those plants that are susceptible such as fruit-bearing and ornamental pear, photinia, cotoneaster and others.

Also watch for mushrooms that may appear in lawns and areas mulched with wood. The mushrooms in older lawns may be evidence of a few tree roots that died and are now rotting. In newer construction it may indicate that buried wood from construction debris may be present. In either case, it is usually nothing to get alarmed about. Knock the mushrooms down and dispose of them.

• This is the time of year that weed control chemicals are applied to lawns, shrub areas and flower beds to control crabgrass and spurge. Crabgrass will begin to germinate, as the weather warms, in the next two to three weeks. It is important to apply these weed killers now so that the chemical has a chance to seal the surface and create a barrier to weed germination.

Question: I want to move some plants in the front of my yard to the back yard. Can I do that now?

Answer: Yes, but the fall would have been a better time. If you are going to do it now then do it right away. Larger plants that have been in the ground up to three or four years can be moved quite successfully. Of course the shorter the time they have been left in the ground the more successful the transplanting will be.

Predig the hole that will be the transplants' new home. Dig it deep to make sure you have drainage. Use the proper soil amendments and fertilizer for the backfill and mix it prior to moving the plant. Dig the plant from the ground being careful not to pull on the stems. Lift the plant only by the rootball. Take as much of the soil with the plant as possible. Carry the plant with the rootball to its new location. It is important that the soil ball containing the roots not break apart when the plant is moved.

Carefully lower the plant into its new hole trying to orient the plant in the same direction as it was in its old location. Backfill the planting hole with the amended soil and add water as the soil is added to the hole. This will remove air pockets. Do not step on the soil amendment surrounding the plant. Make sure the plant is planted at the same depth as it was in the old location. It is important to get the plant out of its old hole and into its new hole as quickly as possible.

Prune the top of the plant, removing one third of the top growth. This is to compensate for losses to its root system in transplanting.

Q: Does it hurt a plant to cover it at night and uncover it during the morning?

A: It depends on the cover. Plants don't have any way of keeping themselves warm at night like we do. They don't have any internal chemistry that produces heat like warm-blooded animals do. Plants have to rely on their surroundings to keep them warm. Warmth radiating from buildings, the soil, bodies of water all will capture light energy from the sun and radiate this energy back into the environment as heat.

If there is a wind, the heat radiating from the surroundings will be removed from the area and the temperature will drop quickly. If the purpose is to protect the plant from cold damage, then an insulated covering would be best or one that slows the loss of heat. Clear plastic is not an appropriate covering for trapping heat around the plant at night. It is very good for building heat up under the plastic during the day. The sun warms the soil and the soil radiates heat into the air. The air trapped inside the clear plastic warms faster than it is lost. During the night, clear plastic loses heat very rapidly. At night, the air trapped inside clear plastic can actually be colder than the night air outside the plastic.

Bob Morris is a horticulture specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.


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