It's not too late to fertilize plants and do last-minute pruning
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You are starting to see now where winter has damaged cold-sensitive plants. We had some late freezes in parts of the valley and they are always the most damaging.
Cut damaged wood from just above where you see new growth, leaving maybe one quarter of an inch remaining above the new growth. If your lawn is looking a bit off color, give it a light application of good turfgrass fertilizer, one high in nitrogen, low in phosphorus and moderate in potassium. An organic source of nitrogen would be best if possible.
Dandelions are now very susceptible to weed killers if you choose to use them. Remember that these are poisons and should be treated as such. It is always best if you can apply the herbicide directly to the dandelions rather than over the entire lawn, whether dandelions are growing there or not. This can be done effectively with a spray bottle. Leave the poison on the dandelion for 24 hours before watering, unless the directions specifically state otherwise.
Lawn aeration and deep but infrequent watering is the key to getting a deep and healthy root system on your lawn. Now is the time of year to do that. I would wait until fall if you are going to dethatch. There are fewer weeds that can become problems after dethatching in the fall.
Now is the second best time to seed in some new lawn grass seed if your lawn is thin and bare in spots. Do not skimp on spending some money on good grass seed. This is a time when the price of seed is directly related to the quality of the future lawn.
If you are putting in summer color now (bedding plants), then do it quick because you are late. You will need to get the ground prepared to a depth of 12 inches with 50 percent organic matter to help the soil to warm up faster. This will stimulate quicker rooting and establishment. Fertilize once a month lightly.
It is not too late to fertilize plants, but you need to do it very soon. You can still do some pruning, but the seasonal window for removing larger limbs is closing fast.
Those of you who just signed up for my electronic newsletter will be getting two copies e-mailed this week as our office is just finishing up its move to a new location. Electronic newsletter requests can be sent to Extremehort@aol.com
Question: Is it possible to induce a tree to grow branches where none presently exist?
Answer: It is possible, but it depends on a couple of different things. First is the plant itself. Woody plants generally produce three different kinds of leaf or stem buds.
One is the terminal bud, which is located at the end of the branch, the very last bud produced at the end of the growing season. One of its functions is to control the side buds or lateral buds. Terminal buds are only present on branches produced last year and produce the current season terminal growth.
The lateral buds are the visible buds growing along the side of the stem. They grow at locations on the stem called we call nodes. The spaces between the buds or between the nodes are the internodes, and generally they will not produce any buds at all.
One of the purposes of the internodes is to create space or distance between the other nodes or lateral buds. This space is important so that leaves produced by the buds are spaced far enough apart for sunlight to penetrate inside the plant and to other leaves.
The third type of bud is called adventitious buds, or buds that are not visible but arise from the plant when it is damaged and other buds are not present. Lateral buds on the sides of the branches are regulated by the terminal bud.
When the terminal bud is present and has not been removed by pruning or damage, the terminal bud only allows a few of the side buds to grow, if any at all. It depends on how much control the terminal bud has, which is dependent on the type of plant.
If the terminal bud is removed, then many more of the side buds will grow with lots of vigor and compete for the terminal bud position since the regulating bud has been removed.
As the tree gets older, the only buds left that could grow from the older wood are the adventitious buds. Some trees like mulberry and elm can form adventitious buds for many years on very old wood.
This is the reason they sprout profusely when they are unprofessionally "topped" by tree butchers. And that is being unkind to meat butchers. At least they know what they are doing. Trees, like most ashes, cannot recover from the same kind of butchering that mulberries and elms undergo.
Once they are cut like that, their major limbs will dieback to the trunk or the tree will die. There are some trees like chir pine that can have its limbs removed to the trunk during winter and it will regrow limbs from the trunk.
This was demonstrated on these pines in locations in town during the 1990 freeze. The reason is because it has evolved in locations where fires have burned the limbs but the trunks have survived and the trees were successful in recovering by regrowing limbs from the trunk. So it depends on the tree.
Q: Thanks for the information on branches you e-mailed me. My tree is a fig.
A: That makes it easy. They have lots of adventitious buds along the branches. They can be cut back severely and they will resprout, or make new branches below the cuts.
You will lose your early crop of figs because they are produced on last year's wood, but you will get a good crop of main crop figs during the summer.
Q: My house has wooden floors over a concrete foundation with a crawl space. I recently redid my 30-year-old plumbing, spending a lot of time under the house. I was wondering if I should treat to prevent termites. I have no termite damage and no evidence of them.
A: I am not a pest control operator, but I would not treat unless I saw an obvious threat to the house. I would inspect for termite "tubes" up the cement foundation annually, any place that concrete touches the ground.
Q: I had my house painted last summer, and when the guys used the blower to get the scraped paint cleaned up, I think they blew all the weed spores into the grass. Is there a safe way to kill the weeds in the grass without killing the grass? Also, is there a humane way to keep the neighboring cats from urinating on my bushes?
A: If you keep your lawn thick by mowing around 2 1/2 to 3 inches tall on tall fescue and fertilize it at least three times a year -- Labor Day, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving -- with a good lawn fertilizer and maintain a good irrigation system, you will have few problems with the weeds. The lawn will outcompete the weeds for space if it is maintained in a healthy manner.
As far as the cats, I cant help you there.
Bob Morris is a horticulture specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
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