A new year means it’s time to start gardening chores all over again. And, while it is only the end of January, clean up chores and pruning have begun. After the huge wind storm a couple of weeks ago, where a gust of 96 mph was measured here in Washoe Valley, we had a lot of downed tree debris. Fortunately, there were no big branches or trees down, just hours of work picking up smaller materials. It looked like someone tore hundreds of small branches and needle clusters off the poplar and pine trees and threw them on the ground. We filled one large flatbed trailer to take to the landfill. I’m starting to prune the watersprouts out of the crabapple and apple trees. They are now obvious with the leaves off the trees. My husband gave me five-foot extension loppers for Christmas, so I’m looking forward to using my new tool. Two of the trees have the bacterial disease fireblight, so they need to be pruned before sap starts flowing to avoid disease spread. I will also have to disinfect my tools after each cut so I don’t spread it around within the same tree or to other trees. I keep a spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol on my tool bucket. Any disease-infected material will have to either be burned or go to the landfill. I don’t want it around the property to spread more disease to other fruit trees, roses, pyracantha, sand cherries, mountain ash or any other rose family member. My husband got his chain saw up and running before Christmas and we limbed up pine, cedar and spruce trees providing lots of cut greens for decorating the house. However, there were far more limbs and branches than I could use, so lots ended up on the trailer for the landfill. I faced another problem as the snow melted: vole damage and ground squirrel mounds. Those dang voles left two-inch wide tracks of brown dead grass all over the yard. When I rake these areas, all the dead material comes right up, leaving long naked paths in the lawn. These tracks will last until late spring, when the grass usually grows back in the blank spots on its own. The ground squirrels have caused areas of the yard to sink a bit with their digging and tunneling. I don’t know what to do about that! Oh, the joys of living in the country. Happy new gardening year! JoAnne Skelly is associate professor and extension educator emerita of the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Email skellyj@unr.edu
