On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

...t dry summers, which dry out local streams and rivers, and abundant citrus trees, make inland Southern California an especially bad place to try to grow grapes. Why nurseries continue to sell vines suseptable to Pierce’s here is a mystery to me. In the 1990s Pierce’s disease wiped out 40% of the vines in Temecula’s vineyards. Northern California’s vineyards have experienced what Turney described as an “edge effect”, with Pierce’s claiming the vine...

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Saturday Linkages: Don’t seek the truth – just drop your opinions

...6.story … Gardening Garden planter turns out to be Roman antique: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/12/garden-planter-turns-out-to-be.html … Best Reporting on the Space Shuttle Tree Debacle Science Center Given Approval to Remove Nearly 400 Trees to Make Way for Shuttle http://la.streetsblog.org/2012/09/18/science-center-given-approval-to-remove-nearly-400-trees-to-make-way-for-shuttle/#.UHkCZyjj5iQ.twitter … For these links and more, follow Root Simp...

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069 Understanding Roots with Robert Kourik

...’s new book Understanding Roots. From there we touch on how to plant fruit trees and the intricacies of how to water trees, vegetables and native plants. Then we delve deep into drip irrigation, dynamic accumulators and phytoremediation. If you’d like to pick up a copy of one of Robert’s books visit robertkourik.com. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You...

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The Africanized Bee Myth

...ees is just that, hysteria. I have helped move many hives here from walls, trees and kitchen vents to people who have wanted to have bees. Most likely, all of the hives I have moved have been Africanized. I have yet to encounter a feral hive that I would consider aggressive. Africanized bees should not be used as an excuse to ban beekeeping in Los Angeles or anywhere else that has Africanized bee populations. The people fanning the Africanized bee...

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Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer and Avocados

...noticed in 2003 here in Southern California, the PSHB seems to damage some trees more than others. Concerned about losing my avocado tree I wrote Akif Eskalen, a plant pathologist at the University of California, Riverside. Dr/ Eskalen’s lab has done a lot of work on the PSHB and what to do about it. I asked him specifically about avocados and here’s what he had to say in an email, My lab has been conducting a continuous survey on PSHB on infested...

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