Plan for fire.
By Cindy Poore
This was a crazy summer! So, so hot. I may be getting old, but I don’t remember so may days of 100 plus heat from past years. Isn’t it usually just a few (3-4) weeks? This heat is just going on and on. And the fires are not making things better.
The fire. Now THAT was scary. And it didn’t even come close to us. The Blue Cut Fire burned so fast, so hot, so unpredictably, that we were under mandatory evacuation orders. After seeing the devastation, I can understand why. They couldn’t take any risks.
We were safe and pretty far from the actual fire. I wish I could say the same for everyone. A dear, dear friend’s property was right in its path. Fires were popping up everywhere on his property. He and his son stayed behind to defend his home and buildings. They fought with tractors and shovels and were on the point of exhaustion around midnight when a group of firefighters came over the ridge and helped them fight the monster off. All his buildings were saved. Tragically, his very near neighbors and many others in his valley were not so fortunate and lost their homes.
So planning for fire in your landscaping and maintenance is essential for nearly any home. Here are some tips from the University of California Cooperative Extension:
DEFENSIBLE SPACE GUIDELINES
Below are general guidelines adapted from CAL FIRE:
1. Create and maintain a defensible space of at least 100 feet or greater from each building or structure.
2. From the home to a distance of 30 feet, keep plants low, and make sure to have irrigation available when needed. Check with your local fire department about the exact distances required in your area.
3. Preserve single specimens or groupings of well-spaced and well-pruned trees or other vegetation.
4. Eliminate ladder fuels within the defensible space zone by disrupting the vertical and/or horizontal continuity of plants.
By Cindy Poore
Our governor has sent out a proclamation throughout the land to conserve water in this drought. While final rules are not yet determined, there are some things we can all do to “make it better” and do our part.
As much as we would like to avoid thinking about it we ARE in a drought. Since this planet is the one place we all have in common, I guess we should really pay attention. There are so many questions about the drought. Why me? How long will it last? What can little ole ME do about it?? What is the first things we can do?
Drought Control for Dummies
Ok having questions doesn’t make you a dummie. We all have questions. Problem is, we often get conflicting answers. Drought has more to do with the snowpack than the rainfall here.
Snowpack is our water storage system. Some of it melts into reservoirs to be piped to Los Angeles area and some of it melts and replenishes the underground aquifers were most of us in the desert get our water.
No or low snow = drought.
How long will it take before we will be out of drought conditions. Tell me when and how much it will snow and I can answer that for you.
For the present, we will have to have an attitude change towards water use in order to keep things going along smoothly.
Here in the high desert, most of us have already been working hard to minimize our water use. Some of us would loose a lot of landscaping if we cut back by 25%. So what are the first steps?
#1 is to review where we are today in water use compared to say… last year or the year before same time. Are we up or down? If down, great!! If we are up, great also!! Why? Because there is always room for fine tuning and that is the next step.
Audit your water use. Of course, your landscape uses the most of your water use and that is the first place to start, especially if you have a lawn. The desert is a great place to live, but it is nicer with a bit of green.
Can you live with less? If so, think about the cash for grass program. 50cents per square foot rebates for converting your lawn to a drought tolerant landscape. You do not have to put rock or gravel down.
There are lots of plants and groundcover that will bring the feeling of cool green that won’t require a ton of water (or labor)
to maintain. Keep dirt wells around your plants so that the water from the system or a random storm stays near their roots. Fertilize with a slow-release fertilizer to keep your lawn green but discourage excessive growth. Cut your lawn with a mulching mower that leaves clippings on your lawn to keep lawn moister and the clippings will decompose and become a mini fertilization each time your lawn is cut.
Some of you have already converted your lawns. What now? Check your water system for leaks. Start with the valves and look for moisture around them BEFORE they have run for the day or week to see if there is any leaks on the main line. Look for emitters or sprinkler heads that are constantly wet even when they are off. This could mean a seeping valve that needs repair. Check your schedule. Could your plants get by with less water and still remain healthy and look good. Most of the time, the answer is yes. Start conservatively and reduce water by 10% and see how your plants look and respond.
And for all you water-saving nerds out there, you can see the proper water needs for many plants at this link from the University of California at Riverside: http://ucanr.edu/sites/WUCOLS/
Don’t forget the inside of the house. Leaks and drips use a lot of water. Look for this. Don’t run the water unnecessarily while rinsing dishes, brushing your teeth or waiting for the hot water to come out the tap. Capture the water you are not using while waiting for it to come to temperature in a bucket or bowl and use it to water your trees, fill the dog bowl or scrub the car.
Call Us if You Need Help. We Are Here to Help You With All Your Landscape Needs
(760) 868-6104
By Cindy Poore
I can feel it. I can taste it. Spring. Yes, it is still cold and occasionally wet. But just enough sunny days out there to warm up the earth for optimum growth potential.
And the weeds have heard as well. They have taken over in droves in so many of the places that lay fallow all winter long. We are systematically knocking them down, yard by yard. If you need help with your weed issues, give us a call. We have been busy with weed control, but will be glad to help you.
The best news is that it is finally warm enough to venture outside and survey the damage from winter. Time to tidy up the yard. You have been patiently waiting to cut back the dead leaves and stems of your perennial plants. Iris, daylilies, sages and the like need their dead foliage removed now to allow the new green growth to pop up and get growing. Rake up the drifts of wind-blown leaves to clean up the yard.
How do you know how much to cut back? When you are not certain how a plant will respond to cutting back, lightly prune back in the fall. In the spring if it is mainly sprouting near the base, then you can safely cut it back to the sprouts. If it is leafing out all over the plant then leave it alone and only cut it back to control size.
If you have not yet pruned your fruit and deciduous trees, there is still time, so go ahead and get that done before they are completely leafed out. Much easier to prune the trees when you can see the branch structure without the leaves.
Next up? FERTILIZE. Especially for lawns, now is the time to give them a feeding to green them up and help them recover from the winter cold. Fertilize your trees, shrubs and perennials as well.
You should see spring annuals in the stores now. Still time for some nice color from some pansies or Iceland poppies which could last until June with tons of color. Put them in large pots in select places around your garden. Plant the pot with a landscape shrub with room for the annuals on the side. Or spend your money on some perennials. Perennials are a good investment as they come back year after year but they will be a bit scarce for a few more weeks.
We Are Here to Help You With
All Your Landscape Needs
(760) 868-6104
March Checklist
Watch your plants carefully for small aphids. They will appear in droves this time of year. The best way to deal with them is to wash off the plant initially a couple of days in a row. If that is not possible or if that does not work, apply a systemic insecticide and that will give a longer term control. Aphids normally will not kill your plants, but will make a sticky mess and attract ants as well.
If you have weeds, hoe them out or kill them before they produce seeds. Seeds beget more weeds and you will prevent thousands potential plants by removing weeds and their carcasses off site early before they bloom.
Time to plant! March is a great time to start planting in the ground the standard landscape plants. March is really time to start your seeds. There is still a possibility for some snow in the high desert and the mountain areas and killing frosts in the inland valley this month and into April. Sowing seeds but starting them indoors or in a cold frame outdoors during this month is a smart move. You can transplant them into the ground in April, early or late depending on your location.
I like to start the seeds in cardboard egg cartons that have a hole poked in the bottom and filled with some starter soil. Plant the seeds, a few per eggs space. Place the egg carton on a rimmed cookie sheet and water the whole thing. Put plastic wrap over the top to keep the moisture in and check on every few days to see that it doesn’t dry out. When the seedlings begin to pop up, remove the plastic wrap and allow the tiny plants to grow up keeping them moist. Transplant the seedlings, egg cup and all in the ground or a much larger pot. The cardboard will decompose and allow the plant roots to expand. Keep transplanted seedlings protected until May.
Winds have been horrible this past week especially down the hill. Trees have gotten knocked over all over the place. I get lots of calls from people asking me about cutting their trees shorter so they won’t blow down in the wind. Really??
So people would like their trees to look like this?? Let me tell you that is NOT the way to keep a tree from getting blown over in the wind. You may not be aware of this, but it all comes from the two most important things, proper planning in the first place and proper care and maintenance. Simple. Selecting the correct tree for the location is key. If you only have room for a tree to grow so tall, or so wide, then just plant one that will reach it’s mature size in the range you want. Also stay with the type of tree that will do well in the location, soil, weather you have. I find that a lot of people not only do not know what the optimal growing conditions of their trees are, they do not even know the type of tree they have. Knowledge is power.
Maintenance is key to a healthy tree and healthy trees do not blow over in the wind. If you are lucky to plant the tree yourself or inherit a smallish tree, then the proper pruning when the tree is young is critical in developing healthy branches with strong connections to the main trunk. If you inherit an older or large tree, have a professional inspect the tree for issues that were not addressed earlier. Some things are obvious like crossing and dead branches. Some other things are not so obvious like compaction or destruction of root area due to construction or grade changes, disease and pest issues. Maintain your trees in a healthy state with proper watering and fertilizing and you will maximize the life of your trees and the benefit to you.
Bark beetles. They are a big problem here in the Inland Empire and the High Desert for our pines and conifers There are bark beetles that attack pines, arborvitae, cypress, false cypress, junipers, and redwoods and many others). California has over 20 varieties of bark beetles. In years past, our mountain communities of Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead and Wrightwood have been hit hard. There has been a big push in the last few years to cut down the stricken trees to minimize the spread to other trees and the fire potential.
We thought we had crossed the safety mark a few years back and had turned the tide towards getting a handle on them after mass removals of the dead trees. The current drought conditions are making us rethink that as the bark beetles are back with a vengeance due to insufficient water to our trees.
The bark beetle adults are small, hard-bodied insects about the size of a grain of rice and most are dark red, brown, or black. Look for a pattern like buckshot on the bark surface of infested branches or trunks where the new adults have emerged. The adults tunnel through the bark and lay eggs under the bark. The eggs hatch and become larvae that tunnel through the inner bark, where they overwinter, creating large galleries of tunnels where they disrupt the flow of water and nutrients to the tree resulting in dead or dying branches and eventually the entire tree.
The larvae then emerge from the tree as flying adults and they look for new trees to infest resulting in a ruthless cycle of death. Their favored target is a tree that is stressed by drought, improper planting, improper pruning or other conditions.
Because the beetles live in the protected space under the bark, it is very difficult or sometimes impossible to obtain control once the tree is infested. Timing is all important when making applications to prevent infestation.
Prevention is the best way to combat these beetles with proper maintenance and watering. Most people do not water their trees well. They start with one or two little emitters that put out a gallon of water each when ran for an hour, and then they cut down the watering schedule to 10 or 15 minutes a day thinking the trees should be watered the same as a spray system for your lawn. (Hey that’s not right for your lawn either, but that’s another article). 15 minutes with a 1 gallon per hour emitter is 32 ounces. Not very much except for the tiniest of trees.
As the tree grows, it will require a lot more water. A typical tree with a 15 -20 foot spread can use as much as 50 gallons of water a day. BUT you should not water every day either. The best way to water trees is to water infrequently, perhaps 2-3 times a week in summer. Water deeply when you do water so that the soil is wet down at least 12 -14 inches. Depth and frequency will depend on tree type. soil type and weather.
A key component of prevention is to provide proper maintenance and have a licensed pest applicator apply a systemic insecticide to prevent the beetles from getting established. Systemic insecticides are taken in by the tree’s vascular system and distributed throughout the tree so that when a beetle bores into the tree trunk to lay it’s eggs, it is killed by the insecticide, thus preventing it from laying eggs that will hatch into the larvae that will kill the tree. There are many methods of application for the insecticides.
Give us a call. We are licensed pest control applicators and we are experienced to help you with your tree pest issues.
(760) 868-6104
- Staying Home May 31, 2020Staying home has new meaning since the tragic and crazy world of COVID-19. While most are keeping a low profile at home, Perfection Landscape knows that we are essential for helping our clients care for their home environments. We continue to do maintenance for our regular and new clients keeping with social distancing guidelines for […]
- Weeds are Back! March 10, 2018Is your yard Exploding with weeds ? You may think a few weeds here or there aren’t much to worry about, but did you know most weeds are capable of producing over a thousand seeds each? Rain and the warmer weather that will follow will make conditions just right for hose little land mines […]