Planting trees

[lewdog]

I am a tree and plant lover as well. You can do a lot with things here in the desert. We re-did our backyard when we moved in with a variety of plant/tress. I love doing landscape stuff. Only so much room for trees on smaller Phoenix lots so lots of flowering plants and palms too.

1 lime tree
1 orange tree
1 lemon tree
Various hibiscus plants
Mediterranean palm tree
Pygmy palm tree
Green cloud sage
Fire sticks
fish hook and barrel cactus
Agave plants

I think my next project this fall is to plant some grape vines along our pool fence and work on getting them to trellis across the entire fence for some coverage over it's ugly white color.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I am a tree and plant lover as well. You can do a lot with things here in the desert. We re-did our backyard when we moved in with a variety of plant/tress. I love doing landscape stuff. Only so much room for trees on smaller Phoenix lots so lots of flowering plants and palms too.

1 lime tree
1 orange tree
1 lemon tree
Various hibiscus plants
Mediterranean palm tree
Pygmy palm tree
Green cloud sage
Fire sticks
fish hook and barrel cactus
Agave plants

I think my next project this fall is to plant some grape vines along our pool fence and work on getting them to trellis across the entire fence for some coverage over it's ugly white color.

Have your citrus trees provided any usable citrus yet? How old are they?

I have a friend in Az that is growing some cactus that has very short lived blossoms.

The deer love to clean all the leaves off of our hibiscus plants. I am going to have to move them inside the fence.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Have your citrus trees provided any usable citrus yet? How old are they?

I have a friend in Az that is growing some cactus that has very short lived blossoms.

The deer love to clean all the leaves off of our hibiscus plants. I am going to have to move them inside the fence.

Hibiscus down there? Mine are even frost sensitive here for a few weeks in the winter and need covering to make it through. Even had one die one winter.

Mine bloom from February to November....continuous. Love them.

I'll get some pictures.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Hibiscus down there? Mine are even frost sensitive here for a few weeks in the winter and need covering to make it through. Even had one die one winter.

Mine bloom from February to November....continuous. Love them.

I'll get some pictures.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures!

Yep. One of our neighbors has done real well with them, leaving them out all winter.

Last year I planted one and it flourished, beautiful. Then the deer literally cleaned it of any leaves in the fall.

So, this spring I planted two, and the deer cleaned them night before last. I am hoping they pull out of it with the few leaves that are left. I put gallon jugs with water and moth balls vented near them hoping it will keep the deer away.

Here is a picture of four of the fruit trees, plum, apple, peach and pear. The pear and peach are loaded right now with fruit. The plums have all fallen off prematurely.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Looking forward to seeing your pictures!

Yep. One of our neighbors has done real well with them, leaving them out all winter.

Last year I planted one and it flourished, beautiful. Then the deer literally cleaned it of any leaves in the fall.

So, this spring I planted two, and the deer cleaned them night before last. I am hoping they pull out of it with the few leaves that are left. I put gallon jugs with water and moth balls vented near them hoping it will keep the deer away.

Here is a picture of four of the fruit trees, plum, apple, peach and pear. The pear and peach are loaded right now with fruit. The plums have all fallen off prematurely.

How cold are your winters? I get frost damage, even with covering, on our hibiscus. I wait until it's warmer and then remove the damaged parts. They come back nicely but many people here don't cover theirs and lose them during the winters here. Anything under 35 at night and they don't do so well.

Fruit trees are awesome. I am finding that lime trees here are pretty sensitive and need quite a bit of baby sitting/work. Mine has had some leaf curling recently that I can't figure out. Love the variety of fruit trees you have. Do you have the deer and birds eating them constantly?

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by lewdog

How cold are your winters? I get frost damage, even with covering, on our hibiscus. I wait until it's warmer and then remove the damaged parts. They come back nicely but many people here don't cover theirs and lose them during the winters here. Anything under 35 at night and they don't do so well.

Fruit trees are awesome. I am finding that lime trees here are pretty sensitive and need quite a bit of baby sitting/work. Mine has had some leaf curling recently that I can't figure out. Love the variety of fruit trees you have. Do you have the deer and birds eating them constantly?

I had some of those pest issues last year, couldn't find a single spray that would touch a black beatle that was feasting on all of the fruit tree leaves. I ended up smashing them with my fingers, only thing I could come up with. The leaves were full of holes.

It got as low as 9 this winter, but we really only had two cold weeks. Maybe I should pot them and bring them in for the winter, but so far the winter hasn't been the issue.

Deer are the main problem, they cleaned some of the rose bushes on a regular basis last year so I moved them on the inside of the fence in the back yard. They haven't bothered the roses along the front of the house for some reason.

Deer killed a beautiful peach tree this winter, ate the bark all the way around it.

The guy from the extension service told me to hang fishing line down off of a few of the branches. He said when they touched it, it would spook them and they would run off. So far it has worked, I guess. I don't see how that would work on the Hibiscus though.

I also have a gross method, saving urine in a gallon jug and pouring it around the base of the trees.

Our blueberry bush is on it's second year and now has some blueberries on it. I imagine the birds will remove them for us.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Deer killed a beautiful peach tree this winter, ate the bark all the way around it.

Have you tried painting the trunk with white paint? We do that here to avoid sunburn but we used to do it in Montana as a deterrent from the deer eating the bark.