Hi Debra,

Are there little holes bored into the wood underneath those blobs? If so, you probably have borers in your trunk. Borers are a common pest on some types of fruit trees. OR, are their vertical cracks in the trunk and is the sap oozing out of them? In that case, you tree has may have experienced rapid growth that led to some splitting of the bark accompanied by a little oozing. OR, if it is a fairly young tree, it is not liking the sunlight (young trees have more tender bark and that bark can scald) OR if it used to be more shaded than it is now--say, by a tree that no longer exists or which was heavily pruned--and the trunk is reacting to the new amount of sunlight it has to deal with. Without looking at the tree, I'd automatically guess borers though. Look under the sap for holes or cracks and let me know what you see.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn, I'll do that when I get home this evening. I've never been terribly fond of apricots, but the tree is just beautiful so I'd really like to take care of it. It can't be a very young tree as it has a substantial trunk and is quite tall enough that it's going to need a bit of pruning back later in the year just to get it away from the overhead power lines. I'll go out and get some pictures for you when I get home this evening.

Debra

Okay, Dawn, here are some pictures. I tried to remove a couple of the globs so I could see what's behind them, but they are hard as a rock and wouldn't budge.

This is the whole tree, well, almost. Looks like I missed getting the topmost branch.
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These next several are of various spots with globs. There seem to be more at the base of the trunk than higher up. I apologize for a couple of these being a bit blurry, but I think you can still see the globs in them fairly well.
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This last one is holes in the tree, but I think they might be from woodpeckers
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A friend also believes the problem may be borers (although he's not sure). If that is the case, is there anything I can do for the tree without also harming the birds and squirrels who seem to like the tree even more than I do?

Thanks again for helping!

Debra

Debra,

I do think the holes in the last photo are from woodpeckers or sapsuckers and probably have nothing to do with the sap oozing at other locations on the tree.

I am not a tree expert at all, but I've grown stone fruit trees long enough to know that SOMETIMES oozing sap is a sign of serious problem, but sometimes it is not. So, let's stay calm and not overreact. Not yet.

When you have sap oozing out of the tree, if you see actual holes that were drilled into the tree and the sap is oozing out of them, then it likely is borers. For borers, the chemical treatment would be Dursban or something similar (yikes! Since I don't use chemicals, I am not sure if Dursban is still on the market.) I think the proper time to treat for borers in our climate is August. IF we can determine that it is borers, we'll figure out the treatment regimen. However if that sap or resin or whatever it is has hardened and you can't tell if there are holes under/behind the sap, I don't know how you can know for sure that it is borers. Look around the sap and also on the ground and see it you see any particles that look like sawdust. I think with borers you ought to be able to see some....but your hard dried resin or sap may have "absorbed" the sawdust and made it hard to find. (sigh)

Often, oozing from a trunk that is NOT accompanied by borer holes is a sign of bacterial canker and that could be very serious and a real threat to the tree. I've never seen bacterial canker on a stone fruit tree, though, so I can't look at your pictures and say "Yes, it is canker. I've seen it before and I recognize it", because I haven't seen it in person before--only in photos. For bacterial canker, you spray with an antibacterial agent, but not until fall. And, your tree looks healthy, so if it is canker, you're catching it early.

Apricot trees ooze sap in response to almost anything that injures the bark....like if someone was mowing and hit the tree with the mower and caused a bark injury. So, the sap is not necessarily a sign of borers or canker, but it could be. You need a fruit tree expert and I am not one.

So, you could post your photos at the Fruit Tree Forum and get an answer from someone who knows a lot more than I do about fruit trees. First, though, read the attached link which describes a similar problem to yours.....although the pictures that show oozing near the base of the tree are not identical to yours and definitely show a much sicker tree. Also, it is a peach tree and yours is an apricot, but all the stone trees have pretty similar problems.

Pay special attention to Don Yellman's replies, especially near the very end of the attached thread. He seems to be particularly knowledgeable. There's a part of me that is worried that the peach tree in the photo in the attached link is just further along in the disease process than yours and that they might have the same thing. Of course, I hope I am wrong.

Also, Randy and Scott know trees a lot better than I do,so maybe they'll see this thread and respond.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread On A Similar Problem

Thanks for you suggestion, Dawn. I reposted the pictures over at the Fruit & Orchards forum. So far one guy has responded and suggested I try poking a coathanger into the sap to see if I can find a borer hole. I'm going to locate an old metal coathanger and try finding a hole that way either tonight or early tomorrow. I'll let you know what I find. Thanks again, you're always such a helpful lady!

The bottom picture is woodpecker holes. Woodpeckers peck to get the bugs that they hear under the bark. Seeing their holes is a huge sign that you have pests in the tree. Also the picture of the complete tree appears that the top right side is stunted in growth, but left bottom side looks much better. I would say this is definately an infestation. To kill them, the safe way, without using a bunch of harsh chemicals is to get crushed mothballs or moth-ice and trench around the base of the tree about 1" deep and a few inches wide. Put down a good portion of it all the way around the tree and trench, then cover the crushed mothballs or moth-ice with foil that will funnel all the way up to the base of the tree (6 - 10 inches up base of tree) so that the vapors from the mothballs vent up and into the tree. I usually cover the area of foil on the ground with dirt to keep it down in winds and also keep the vapors under the foil. The vapors will vent up and into the tree. They will not harm the tree, but will kill any critters inside the tree as they vent in. You can also check with your county extension agent to see if they have any newer/better cures, but this is the best (oldtimer) way and also environmentally friendly. I have used this method for many years and have seen it also suggested on many gardening shows. Good luck. Hope you save it!

Jayboybok,

Despite the fact that you have used this method for many years and may have seen it suggested on many gardening shows, it it NOT a good idea to use mothballs anywhere in the home landscape. Mothballs are highly toxic and are a regulated pesticide and it is ILLEGAL (and unwise) to use them in any way other than the way that is listed on their label.

Debra asked if there was a way to treat the tree without harming the squirrels and the birds who love the tree, and recommending that she mis-use a pesticide in a off-label manner is not compatible with her goal of doing no harm.

I mean no disrespect to you, but what you are recommending here is just plain wrong---it is bad for the environment, bad for the wildlife, bad for any humans who hang out in that environment and....once again, illegal. Anyone who follows your recommendation is doing so at their own risk.

Debra,

In case you are not familiar with how dangerous mothballs or moth crystals can be when misused, I've linked an article that says it much better than I could.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Mothballs

Thanks, Dawn. I do know about mothballs. I've always hated the way they smell, and I grew up with parents/grandparents who stored off-season clothing in bags with the stuff. Yuck!

Over on the fruit forum, one guy named Scott suggested I try to poke the sap spots with a coathanger and see if there are any critters in holes under it. Coathanger was worthless - this stuff is just hard as rocks. But I did manage to pop one small spot off with a small flathead screwdriver. I could maybe get more and larger ones off if I want to try a hammer and chisel! Anyway, no hole under the spot I could see.

One other guy over there said that since there are woodpecker holes that must mean the woodpeckers know/knew there were bugs in the tree, but I'm wondering if woodpeckers would go after a tree that had ants climbing on it, in the "valleys" of the bark? I haven't seen a woodpecker on that tree since I moved in last fall, though I did see one late last year on the evergreens (arborvitae, I think) in back. I know I have all kinds of ants around, although I don't worry about them too much unless I find them in the house. So far I haven't seen any aphids anywhere. I have, however, seen some flickers poking around for ants in the yard.

After thinking about it, I do recall my neighbor telling me she lost a couple of trees (no idea what kind) to what she termed "soft-wood" borers. Also, when I stood directly under the tree Saturday I did see some mostly very small branches with no leaves on them, and there were some leaves on the ground. There is also one branch that has a few leaves on it, but for the most part it is leafless and seems to have some sort of scale-like coloring on its underside. I'll try to get a picture of that later this week. Pictures are a real pain to get to the web right now as I have only unpacked the bare essentials until I finish with painting and such. I just hate putting things away only to drag them all back out later! My card reader is lost in the un-unpacked boxes somewhere in the spare bedroom so I have to first take the pictures off with the laptop then transfer them to the web, then pick them up off the web with the desktop to resize then put them back on the web to link to. Whew! I also can't find my image-editting software disk to install to the laptop. Have I told you that my family tells me I am never moving again? They tell me I have to live in this house the rest of my life. I think they might know me too well! LOL

Anyway, I will try to get another picture later in the week and keep you updated with what the nice folks over in the fruit forum tell me. Thanks again for your help and advice!

Debra

Debra,

My DH made the same comment when he saw the woodpecker or sapsucker holes....he said they were there because they "knew" there were insects in the tree. I think they tend to go for boring (as in wood-boring, not dull) insects, so don't think the ants are what they are after.

Didn't somebody somewhere mention that sap sometimes oozes from apricot trees when they are under immense sap pressure? If so, your "problem" could be that simple.

If you are seeing damage in the crown of the tree, that's a different borer from the one that damages the trunk.

And I hate moving too. When we built this house and moved into it, I swore this was our "forever" home and we'd never move again. After 10 years here, I cannot imagine every moving anywhere else. Aside from the fact that we love it here, the thought of having to move everything in the attic and garage/barn (not to mention the rest of the house) sends shudders up my spine. I don't know how we've accumulated so much "stuff".

Dawn

Yes, Scott over at Fruits mentioned that. That is a nice thought, that the tree may be perfectly normal with no problem at all. I'll just keep an eye on it and see how things go.

It bloomed beautifully early in the spring and had lots of fruit on it, although it dropped a good bit while still green. But I did read that they are prone to doing that if they are especially heavy with fruit. They then concentrate on ripening what's left. Of course, I suspect some of the birds and squirrels helped with the drop as I saw some up in the tree messing with fruit around that time.

Someone else over at Fruits remarked about the fact that the tree has a lot more growth on one side than the other. I'm not sure how well you can see that in the photo, but the side with less foliage is also shaded a good bit more than the other by the evergreens. The evergreens are getting rather thin now in places, but I think at one time they provided quite heavy shade for parts of the yard, including the north side of the apricot tree.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid most, if not all, of the evergreens will eventually have to come down. They've been badly cut in the past for disease, according to my neighbor, and suffered a good deal in last winter's ice storms. Some large branches in the back are literally running parallel to the ground, they are so far bent over. What worries me about those is that if next winter has storms like last winter, not only will that likely take some very large branches down, but some of those branches are in a position to possibly take out a couple of crepe myrtles when they go. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about the evergreens, but I'd sure like to keep the crepe myrtles.

I will end up losing 10 large pines and 3 large junipers because of the ice storm. Some have already been cut down and provided a nice bonfire to drink coffee by before daylight on a still morning.

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randy

Debra,

Unfortunately the ice storms seem to be taking out huge numbers of trees in your part of Oklahoma the last few years. [We don't get much rain here in southern OK, but the good thing about that is that our ice storms are very, very rare (only 2 minor ones in 9 winters here) and not nearly as heavy or severe as the ones up thre.]

Even if the trees fall right on the crepe myrtles and crush them, they should come back just fine. One common way to rejuvenate crepe myrtles that have been over-pruned into unnatural shapes is to cut them off at the ground and let them start over from scratch. (Recommended, I believe, by none other than Neil Sperry, my favorite Texas horticulturalist and gardening guru.) So, if it works to rejuvenate badly pruned crepe myrtles, it should work to reclaim crushed crepe myrtles, should your pine trees ever collapse in an ice storm.

Randy,

I hope you are enjoying your bonfires. We can't do that here--too hot and too dry, so we pile up wood in huge brushpiles in out-of-the-way places and let it slowly decompose. (It takes 7 to 10 years, depending on the thickness of the branches.) I know the brushpiles are a fire hazard, but they are several hundred feet away from any buildings, and if a wildfire makes it to our place, I guess the brushpiles would be the least of our worries.

Have you finished cleaning up the damaged trees, or it is a never-ending chore?

Dawn

Dawn,

I'm waiting to get my small trim saw back. That stupid ethanol crap gas ruined the carburetor. Glad they have to put signs on the pumps now.

I have 4 piles of down trees to clean up and then I'll wait until winter to take down the rest of the damage.

randy

Randy,

Oops! Sorry to hear about the saw. All the stupid fuel formulations are ALSO complicating firefighting. Some of the newer cars now have little signs on them that say "Flex Fuel" which is a clue to our firefighters that they may be dealing with something other than regular gasoline.

My DH is so sure I'll mess up and put the wrong gas/oil mixture in the tank of one piece of power equipment or the other that he has the different red gas cans labeled. It is all too complicated any more. Every time I pick up the red gas can that says STIHL in black marks-a-lot, I call him and say "Is this Stihl can for the weedeater or the chainsaw....." (Better to call first and be sure than to find out that I should have called and didn't!)

Watch the piles of downed trees.....our brush piles are a haven for snakes....and lots of them.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn, it's a relief to know that the crepe myrtles will survive even if the evergreens fall.

A co-worker who's been to the house says they are arborvitae. According to my neighbor to the north, they were once tall shrubs (i.e., foliage all the way to the ground) that provided a privacy hedge. She says the previous owner told her they only had a life expectancy of 10-15 years, although that was 19 years ago, and she says they were already well-established, mature plants at that time. She also says they have been trimmed over the years due to disease, though she didn't say what disease.

You can see some of them in the first picture above. I've counted at least 4 stumps in various spots where they've been completely cut down. In the picture you can see some brown foliage on some. You can also see how a few of them are badly bent. Most of them in this picture bend over the back fence toward the easement, but elsewhere in the yard there are some that are bent over into the yard. All that evergreen foliage sure held a lot of ice last winter! There are at least two large branches on two different ones that broke on the underside from the weight of the ice, but they have still both put out new foliage and fruit this year.

Toward the left (in that picture) is a flower bed; you can just see the hardy hibiscus that's on the north end of it. South of that the evergreens bend over so far I have to duck to walk under them (I'm 5'5"), and it shades the area so well no grass will grow there. That doesn't help the soil erosion problem the yard has. Most of the backyards on the block slope down toward the easement in back. My neighbor to the north has a level yard as a previous owner had it leveled years ago. At the back corner, her yard is probably close to two feet higher than mine. They had to add some fencing to the top of the chain link there since it dips so low their dog can easily jump over it. Because of the slope, and it's on both sides of the block, the tall foliage on the evergreens blocks my view of the back neighbors' houses and most of their yards. That means it also blocks their view of mine. That's nice, but the shade provides a real challenge to the problem of soil erosion. If they're already unhealthy then they will likely have to come down at some point anyway. Shame really, another feature that the birds and squirrels seem to really like!

Debra,

Healthy arborvitae are gorgeous trees but they really like the cooler summers of the northern and northeastern parts of the USA much more than what we have here. I grew one in Texas in zone 8 and it did really well there in alkaline, black clay soil as long as it got lots and lots and lots of water. When we sold that house, it was 15 years old and gorgeous, but I don't know if it is still there. I was a younger and less-experienced gardener then, and I wouldn't plant one now, though, knowing what I know about them.

I think zone 7 is about as far south as they ought to be grown, and I am thinking more of Oregon's or Washington's cooler and wetter zone 7 than Oklahoma's much hotter zone 7.

On mine in Texas, the only problem we ever had were bagworms, but we never had an really bad ice storm there like we often see here in many parts of Oklahoma. Ice storms can do massive damage to trees here....even the ones that survive, so I am not surprised yours are leaning over. Whenever any sleet or snow starts accumulating on my evergreen shrubs (some of which are about 15' to 20' tall), I am out in the yard as often as possible with a rake, knocking the stuff off to the extent that I can. You can't completely prevent all the damage, but it helps. But then, our sleet here usually falls as pellets of sleet and not as freezing rain, so it is possible to knock it off. With freezing rain, you can't do much to keep it from sticking.

I mostly plant oaks and a few other native trees.....I figure if they survive wild in our acres and acres of woods, then they will survive in our landscape area closer to the house. And I am sure that even hardwood trees like oaks suffered damage/death in last year's Oklahoma ice storms.

It certainly is a challenge to keep a landscape looking good in Oklahoma.....how many other areas can have severe ice storms, extremely high winds, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, flooding, drought, and wildfire.....all in one calendar year? Sometimes I am amazed at how well plants do grow here considering all they have to put up with.

Dawn

Since they are already not in good shape, I would love to just cut them down and replace them. Unfortunately, bonfires aren't allowed in the city so I can't enjoy them that way like Randy.

The trouble is, I don't know what I could plant to replace them that would provide the same sort of benefits - shade and privacy - they give in any sort of reasonable time frame. I'm already over 50 so anything that needs a decade or more to reach reasonable size and maturity would mean I may not be around to enjoy it.

While the heavy shade in the back won't allow grass to grow, I have been considering landscaping ideas that could take advantage of that shade to create a sort of deep-forest type area.

After reading that they use poles to gently shake the branches of the Survivor Tree downtown during ice storms, I did go out and try that after work last winter. Problem was they were already heavily coated, and, especially in the back, the slope of the yard combined with a layer of ice made it very difficult to even stay standing still let alone while trying to shake ice off the trees.

If the crepe myrtles are unlikely to be damaged to the point that they can't recover, I may just leave the trees for now.

i finally found this information Dawn and will read it. My fruit trees look like these photos.

Jessaka,

Uh-oh. Your trees are having a rough year!

Dawn

you are so right. my dogwood lost all its leaves, and after being in the ground for a year i was able to pull it out by my hands, and the roots were rotten. i don't know how often to water even my fruit trees and so every four days or so i allow the water to run on each for an hour unless it has rained. i hope i am not killing everything with kindness.

Let my friend read this thread, and this is what she said: Those holes in a line on the tree are Yellow Bellied Sap Suckers and our area really has a problem with them. They migrate through. They are NOT woodpeckers. The do NOT peck the tree to get insects, they peck the holes (which actually will kill the tree) to DRAW bugs to the sap running out. The lady who saw the Flickers?, were probably sap suckers. They look like flickers or woodpeckers but are so distructive.

I'm the one who saw flickers earlier in the year, and they were most definitely northern flickers. They were running around the yard poking into the dirt. Apparently, one of their favorite foods is ants, and they are more likely to ground feed than tree feed.

I may have seen the sapsuckers last fall when I bought the house. Unfortunately, I didn't buy binoculars until last spring so while I did see a woodpecker that definitely looked as though it had some black & white on it, I couldn't get a good enough look to positively identify it. I had the binoculars when I saw the flickers so I am sure of them.

Here are Cornell's pages on the two birds.

Northern Flicker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

I'll keep an eye on that tree for woodpeckers poking at it. Doesn't take much to scare birds out of the yard - I only have to walk outside! They even all leave and stay gone a good while when all I go out for is to put out more food or clean out and refill the bird bath for them!

Debra

http://www.ent.uga.edu/peach/peachhbk/fungal/fungal.pdf

Called the ag guy here in town, and he said that I had gummoisis. and it can be nothing much to worry about, but if it is bacteria canker, then it could die. He said to just leave it be for now. Now I understand that cutting off limbs a year ago caused it. Why? What could one do to prevent it. He said he would cut it down if it were his, but he knows someone that refused to, and his tree lived.

I am sure you are right about the flickers. I shouldn't have posted that part of the message. Sorry. Hope it didn't bother you.

Dead wood should be removed during winter pruning, and pruned wood should be taken from the orchard or destroyed
mechanically (e.g., with a flail mower) to reduce inoculum from these sources. Summer pruning encourages fungal
gummosis, because available inoculum can germinate and colonize wounds rapidly during this time. Abstaining from
summer pruning and alleviating water and nutrient stress can reduce disease incidence and severity. Fungicides such as
captan, applied to bark thoroughly and repeatedly (e.g., biweekly) during the key infection period (May through July),
can be effective, but this may not be economically feasible. Use of this intensive fungal gummosis program for the first
three years after planting trees generally prevents the non-wound invasion of the trunk and major scaffold branches.
Peach varieties vary in their resistance or susceptibility to fungal gummosis. For instance, Summergold is highly
susceptible, whereas Harbrite has a relatively low susceptibility. In the long term, the best solution to this disease is the
development of host resistance. Peach trees are evaluated for resistance to fungal gummosis within the breeding
program at the USDA-ARS, Southeastern Fruit and Tree Nut Research Laboratory, Byron, Georgia.
REFERENCES
Okie, W.

Didn't bother me in the least, Jessaka. I realize you weren't there to see the flickers so I just described how I knew that's what they were. As I said, there were other woodpeckers in the far back late last fall when I bought the house. Since I didn't have binoculars then to get a really good look, I only know they were woodpeckers - and were actually pecking at a tree (different tree at the time though) because I heard it before I saw it.

Since I only bought the house last fall I have no information on any possible pruning previously done to the tree, but I suspect, since the former owner was an elderly lady, that either no pruning was done or she hired a professional. More likely the former.

All of the spots I found were extremely hard; none were soft or squishy at all so I'm thinking it's possible they've been there a while. I'm going to just keep an eye on the tree and see how it does. Although I think I will do some research on gummosis. Thanks for the information.

Debra

Jess,

We have yellow-bellied sapsuckers here but they don't really seem to harm the trees.....they come back to the same trees year after year, but the trees don't get sickly and die. And, by the way, it is my understanding that yellow-bellied sapsuckers and woodpeckers are members of the same family! I have a neighbor who is seeing lots and lots of both woodpeckers and sapsuckers. He told me he's had a lot of "rare birds" from the woodpecker family this year and that you hardly ever see them here, and he's lived here his whole life. Different strokes for different folks!

Gummosis? I've never seen it and never heard of it, but I've always lived in a drier and less humid area where fungal diseases on trees are not very common or at least not extremely serious when they do appear.

That poor little apricot tree has really had a tough time, hasn't it?

Dawn

Yes, my little tree has had a rought time. And now the peach and necterine. I will wait and see what happens.

Gummosis was a new term to me too. what isn't? I looked it up. It can be as minor and nothing or as severe as bacterial canker. Although it only seemed minor when the ag guy was talking about it, and now when i googled it. Ha.

Jessaka,

I guess I should have said that I'd never heard of gummosis being a problem here--I knew it existed, but thought it was mostly a problem in California.

Your poor fruit trees. I can't help thinking most of their problems go back to last year's incredible rainfall and the fact that your soil stayed wet for so long. Too much water is as hard on plants as too little water. I bet if you had a couple of "drier than average" years, your trees would do a total turnaround. Fruit trees can get very cranky if their soil doesn't drain really, really well.

Dawn

sounds right to me. and maybe i am watering them too much now. i need to let them be on their own for a week or so and only water them when lawn is being watered.

Jessaka,

More people "love their fruit trees to death" by overwatering and overfeeding them than kill them by neglecting them.

I hardly ever water my yard or trees, and I never fertilize them, because all that does is push them into unnaturally fast growth. I want them to grow at the natural rate that corresponds to the actual rain that falls (or doesn't fall) from the sky. I know that, if all our native trees can survive, grow and produce fruit based on nothing but rainfall (we have lots of native fruit trees in our acres of woodland and semi-woodland), then so can the fruit trees I've planted near the house.

That's just my own personal philosophy, though, but it is based on a lifetime of growing fruit trees and observing two things: (1) in rainier years, fruit trees have more insect problems and more disease issues, and (2) in rainier years, the fruit are larger but the flavor is watered down. Also, trees that get more moisture (whether rainfall or irrigation) carry heavier loads of fruit AND foliage, and limb breakage is more common. In a rainier year, it seems like limb breakage (even on properly pruned trees) is much worse than it is in drier years.

So, my trees get only rainfall or perhaps an inch or two of rain per month in drought periods when there is no rain at all and they never give me trouble.

I read somewhere once that peach and apricot trees grow best in a couple of feet of sandy soil on top of clay. In that type of soil conditions, they have the good drainage provided by the sandy soil and they have good deep soil moisture in the clay beneath the sand. I choose the planting location for our trees based on that....they are in the sandiest soil I have and that band of sandy soil lies on top of thick, red Oklahoma clay, and so far it has worked out really well. It has worked out so well, in fact, that I wish our band of sandier soil were wider so I could plant more fruit trees there.

We have some neighbors a couple of miles up the road who have about 6 or 8 fruit trees (judging from their size, they are semi-dwarfs) planted by the previous homeowners. These trees are so far from the house and water faucet, that I don't think you COULD water them, unless you have a couple of hundred feet of water hose, or carry water to them in buckets. They only get natural rainfall, therefore, and have been covered in fruit this year, having somehow survived the late freezes and heavy winds. (They are in a pretty sheltered low-lying area with lots of trees and buildings around.) These are trees that get no special attention and still produce a crop that surprised even me, because the trees weren't looking good at all when I saw them in mid-July, but they had plenty of peaches, including some very yummy white-fleshed ones.

So, sometimes I think that the less we interfere with Mother Nature, the better.

The first year or two that we lived here, there was a drought and I watered WAY too much, trying to make up for the drought and for the fact that I hadn't improved the soil "enough" yet. (And I KNEW I was watering too much, but was afraid everything would die if I stopped.) I did have greener, lusher foliage but also had every disease and pest issue in the book, so I completely stopped fertilizing and cut the watering back to no more than 1" of water per week, and all the disease and pest issues vanished. So, less water and only natural compost/mulch as fertilizer gives me a less perfect-looking landscape but also less diseases and few pests.

I don't know if watering less would solve all the problems you've had with your fruit trees or not, but it did for me. And, of course, you cannot control the amount of rainfall your plants receive.

When I lived in Fort Worth, I probably overfertilized and overwatered our landscape too much, but I had lovely, lush St. Augustine grass and I liked keeping it thick and gorgeous. Here, though, I've learned that less is more, and in the times we live in with lots of water rationing, it is probably better to underwater than to overwater.

That's just me and my experiences, though, and no one else has to become a "minimalist" at watering just because I prefer it, but it works here for me in our soil and our climate.

Dawn