Everyone loves sand dunes. They seem exotic, and we associate them with romance and adventure. Some of the tallest in North America, Eureka Dunes, are in Death Valley National Park.
Q: Look what my husband did? He cut my saguaro below the seams before consulting with me. I know it looked kind of sick (the tree, not my husband), but he cut it. I am going to cut those chunks all the way down.
Q: You have converted me to the doctrine of using wood chip mulch. Is there any reason why I couldn’t use wood chips in my strawberry bed? My wife used to put strawberries in pots, and they never did well.
Three years ago, almost to the day, this column featured a purebred English bulldog named George who, at the canine ageof 2, was drawing rave notices for his skateboarding exploits from many of his Summerlin neighbors.
Q: I planted three yellow Lady Banks roses on my south wall when I moved here 10 years ago. Two years ago, my neighbor planted a white Lady Banks rose nearby. This year I noticed white roses growing on my yellow Lady Banks rose. I thought these flowers might be from their plant, but I traced it back to the base of my vine. Will my yellow roses eventually all be transformed to white? How do you explain this botanically?
Q: I can never find Cercis occidentalis, western redbud, at local nurseries. Any idea where I can locate it?
If you plan on a spring outing to Southern Utah, especially along Scenic Byway 12 to Bryce Canyon National Park or the Escalante area, an easy yet rewarding side trip is Kodachrome Basin State Park.
Feb. 23 was a noteworthy date for Summerlin. It was the day when lots of dignitaries gathered on a windblown plain opposite City National Arena in Downtown Summerlin to witness the groundbreaking for Las Vegas Ballpark.
This cool, wet spring was perfect for some early insect and disease problems to appear, namely aphids and powdery mildew. Roses and plants in the rose family, like many of our fruit trees, were rapidly hard hit because of cool, wet spring weather. This will get worse.
Q: Is it too late to prune? We have artificial turf around the tree, but the borders are open for applying fertilizer. Is this good, or should we use fertilizer stakes too?