Each year, thousands of Arizona residents email or call Rosie Romero’s radio show with questions about everything from preventing fires in their chimneys to getting rid of tree roots invading their sewer system. His goal is to provide answers that suit the specific lifestyle wherever someone lives in Arizona. Here are questions about home maintenance and improvement from the Southern Arizona area.
Q: I’d like to start an indoor herb garden. Can you recommend some plants that would work easily?
A: Growing herbs indoors means that you need a lot of light. But you don’t want to use a west-facing window that can get really hot in summer months. It’s best to start with seedlings, rather than seeds, as it’s easier to get strong plants quickly. Among the plant possibilities are: mint, basil, cilantro and chives. Stay away from rosemary and similar herbs that grow into woody shrubs.
Q: I have a Meyer lemon in my yard that’s growing pretty well. My friend wants me to graft a sprig of this plant onto her lemon tree because she likes the taste of Meyers better than her lemons. How do I do this?
A: It’s possible but somewhat difficult to graft onto a mature tree. You probably need to look online to find a diagram of how-to
instructions on grafting, so you’ll have some illustrations to look at. You need to try this in the springtime when it’s easier to slice buds on tiny slivers of bark from the parent lemon tree. Then you insert those budded slivers, measuring about 8 inches long — hopefully — under a cut you make in the rootstock of your friend’s lemon tree. You wrap the graft with budding tape and leave it on there for a while before removing the tape. You also want to try to do this with several of these because only one or two may take. If the bud continues to look green, you know you are succeeding. However, it can take a long time for the bud to grow out into a branch.
Q: The deer have been attacking my nectarine, peach and apricot trees. Someone told me to lay fencing around the ground that they wouldn’t want to step on. But that didn’t work. They ate all the fruit that they could reach, and then they started eating the lower branches. I want to know if I can trim those damaged lower branches at this time or year, and what I can do in future to stop the deer?
A: Yes, you can prune them right now in the winter and raise up the lower level of the branches. But then you need to wrap the trunks or paint them in the new bare areas in order to prevent sunburn on the trunks. Wrapping the trunk will also probably keep the deer from eating the bark which could kill your trees. You will also want to put strong fencing around the trees or maybe an electric fence to stop the deer in future. It won’t be pretty, but it’s your only alternative. Deer are very habitual. Once they find food, they will continue to visit your yard. Protecting against animal damage is one of the most frustrating factors in having a garden.
