Overcrowding usually takes bloom out of lavender

: I have English, Spanish and French lavenders that stopped flowering. My English and French lavenders had lots of flowers in their first year but haven't had any for 21/2 years now. A batch of volunteer French lavenders, not too far from the parent plant, had flowers this spring but stopped flowering since summer. They are less than one year old. I planted some Spanish lavenders last spring. They had flowers during that season but none since summer.

All these varieties of lavenders are planted on the east side of our home and get partial shade in the afternoon. I love lavenders. How can I encourage them to bloom again?

A: Lavenders are very confusing. The French and Spanish lavenders are frequently confused but they all have some similar traits. The usual reasons for lavender not flowering is overgrowth, a lack in harvesting of the flowers and not thinning out the plants as they get dense. This is why the newer or younger plants are flowering.

Go in and cut out the woody portions of the plants. Remove about one third of the older growth as close to the ground as possible.

Try to harvest the flowers as they come on and remove spent flowers from the plants.

They do not need much fertilizer. They do well on poor, gravelly soils and do not like enriched soils very much.

Q: Do pears ripen earlier in this climate?

A: Earlier than what? They ripen about the same time as they do in the central valley in California. Hood pears ripened about one month ago. Asian pears are just finishing now. European pears like Bartlett should be ready any time now.

Pick most pears before they get yellow or soft. They should just turn from solid green to light green. Let them finish ripening at room temperature for two to three days. This helps to minimize their grainy texture.

Q: You helped me about a year ago with a decision to try to grow a lemon tree. The tree is doing very well and had lots of blooms this spring. It even produced a few baby buds, but they fell off and so it produced no fruit. The tree is in a protected spot where automatic lights turn on every night (part of the homeowners association). Would exposure to nighttime light negatively affect the tree's ability to produce fruit?

A: The first couple of years lemon trees need to get established and they focus on growth rather than reproduction. It is better that they did not produce any fruit the first year anyway. They will bear better in the future if they are not exposed to lots of wind.

Concerning the lights, this has been an ongoing debate for decades among horticulturists at the academic level. Thirty years ago it was a great concern but not so much any more. Most feel that the light levels are not intense enough to cause significant problems to most plants.

For plants sensitive to low light levels, such as chrysanthemums, poinsettias, Christmas cactus and other herbaceous flowering plants, it may be of some concern.

Also, I would try to surround the plant with wood mulch rather than rock mulch if you have not done that already. Hopefully you amended the soil well at the time of planting.

Fertilize the tree next January with a complete fertilizer. If you are not attached to organics, use something like Miracle-Gro plus add some Organo's KeRex for iron at the same time. If you want to go organic, then use a manure-based fertilizer, such as a compost. This can be any of the manure products, just not fresh manure. You would still need to add the KeRex for iron on an annual basis.

Let the plant grow and don't prune it at all. Let it get established the way it wants to get established for the time being. Hopefully the young limbs are not too high off of the ground. It is best if the lowest limbs are somewhere around 30 inches high to no more than about 36 inches off of the ground; the lower the better. If they are higher than this, you might have to do some severe pruning in late winter to re-establish the branching.

You might want to paint the trunk and lower limbs with diluted white latex paint. Make sure it is latex paint and not acrylic or oil-based paint. Dilute the paint mixture so that at least 50 percent is water.

Q: I recently had my yard changed to desert landscaping; it includes golden barrel cactus, yucca, agave and lantana plants. My questions are about water. How much water do they need? How often should they be watered (every day, once a week, once a month, never)? And then what about during winter time? I have asked several people, to which they reply, "They don't need much water." Well, how much is much?

A: The barrel cactus, yucca and agave will need less frequent watering than the lantana, so for this reason they can be watered separately.

During the summer time you can water the cactus and the agave about every two weeks or less. If you want to push new growth, water every two weeks. If you want to hold them back a bit, then water less often, like once a month.

The lantanas will appreciate water about twice a week during the summer once they are established. During establishment, it is probably best to water them daily until you see new growth. Once you see new growth, go to every other day and work it slowly to twice a week.

As temperatures cool in the fall, go to once a week starting about mid-September or the first of October. Gradually lessen the watering frequency (not the amount or number of minutes) until it gets to be about every 10 days during the winter (mid-December to the end of January).

When you water these plants, I would give them about 5 gallons at each watering (you will have to figure out how many minutes since I don't know how much water your drip emitters put out in an hour). Many emitters vary from 1 liter to 4 gallons per hour. Some less-precise emitters vary depending on how much you open the emitter.

I like the fixed-flow types best (set amount of water per hour) rather than variable-type emitters. Then I know exactly how much they are getting. I usually recommend running drip emitters for at least one hour because of this.

Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Direct gardening questions to the master gardener hot line at 257-5555 or contact Morris by e-mail at morrisr@unce.unr.edu.