Desert Blooms

Southwest Yard & Garden by Dr. Marisa Thompson Question: Is it okay to prune landscape trees now? Should we wait until it cools off a bit? Wait till fall? -           -   Submitted via Lynda Garvin, Sandoval County Extension Agriculture Agent Answer: It’s totally fine to prune in summer, but we’re getting to the end of the safe season. Depending on your goals, summer actually might be a better time to prune. We tend to teach about pruning in late winter and early spring because 1) it’s easier to see the branching pattern on deciduous trees and therefore easier to teach proper pruning techniques, 2) we may be pruning for increased fruit tree crop load, and 3) disease transmission from unclean pruning blades is expected to be lower when temperatures are cooler. Pruning just before the start of the growing season, when buds are still mostly dormant, also encourages a flush of new growth, so you can imagine why many consider late winter and early spring to be a great time for pru

Southwest Yard & Garden by Dr. Marisa Thompson just scroll down for the details 😉 Stretch marks on tomatoes are hard to prevent, so go ahead and harvest as soon as you notice them.  Photo credit J. Kern.   Question: What’s wrong with these tomatoes? We’re seeing marks developing on some fruit in rings. The insides of the larger splits have white fuzz in them, but when the splits are first observed they do not have this fuzz. -           J. Kern, Artesia, NM , submitted via Extension Agronomist Dr. Robert Flynn Answer: Tomatoes across the state (and beyond) are exhibiting two main types of splitting: radial side splitting and concentric cracking . Both tend to be up higher on the fruit shoulder. Radial side splitting looks like someone took a knife and started cutting out a vertical wedge, but then got distracted and stopped a quarter inch or so in. Concentric cracking results in circular or semi-circular lines that start out looking like stretch marks that can break open a

Southwest Yard & Garden by Dr. Marisa Thompson Cicada Killer Wasps Are Cooler Than They Are Scary  (but I still screamed!) In this still image from a wild video taken at the NMSU Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas, a cicada killer wasp is starting to haul away a cicada it just poisoned. Photo credit M. Thompson. Question: What is this HUGE insect in my yard? I hope it’s not a murder hornet! -           Concerned New Mexicans All Over the State Answer: I saw versions of this question pop up again and again on Facebook pages for local gardening groups—usually accompanied by a blurry photo of an admittedly scary-looking creature with wings. When I saw one in my own yard and tried to get a photo, I learned why so many of the pictures were blurry. In case you haven’t already heard, these busybodies are not a dreaded new hornet. They are cicada killer wasps, and they are not new at all. In the parking lot at work a few weeks ago, I was lucky to catch one on film after hear

Southwest Yard & Garden by guest writer  Dr. Bernd Leinauer, NMSU Extension Turfgrass Specialist Twitter  @NuMex_Turf Clickable links for related columns on irrigating turf  and selecting the right turf for your yard ! This week, the question comes from yours truly (i.e., Dr. Marisa Thompson, regular writer of this column). I’ve heard about subsurface drip as an improved way to irrigate turfgrass, so I invited NMSU Extension Turfgrass Specialist Dr. Bernd Leinauer to bring us up to speed: Figure 1. Bermudagrass plots irrigated for 6 months with 70% less water than deemed necessary for perfect grass. Subsurface drip irrigated bermudagrass is shown on the left and sprinkler irrigated bermudagrass on the right. (Photo courtesy of Matteo Serena.) Subsurface Drip Irrigation for Lawns Despite their proven inefficiencies, pop-up sprinklers are still the most common systems for irrigating lawns or other turf areas. Sprinkler overspr