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Is It Fertilizing Season—or Does the Store Just Say It Is? Walk into almost any garden center when the weather starts warming up and you’ll see it. Bags of fertilizer stacked near the entrance. Displays promising greener lawns, healthier plants, and bigger blooms. Everything seems to be saying the same thing: It’s time to fertilize. But step outside and look around your own yard. Your Bermudagrass may just be waking up. Your citrus may already be growing. Your flowering shrubs could be pushing new leaves, while some of your desert-adapted plants may not need fertilizer at all. They’re all growing...

One Yard Doesn't Mean One Fertilizer Program Take a walk around your yard. You may have a Bermudagrass lawn, a couple of citrus trees, flowering shrubs, shade trees, and desert plants—all growing within a few feet of each other.It's all one landscape, so it might seem reasonable to fertilize everything at the same time with the same product.But those plants have very different needs.Think about Bermudagrass. During its active growing season, it may benefit from nitrogen to help maintain healthy green growth. Walk a few feet over to your citrus tree, and you're dealing with a plant that has its...

Before You Reach for the Fertilizer Bag You walk outside and notice your favorite shrub doesn't look right. The leaves are a little yellow and it hasn't grown much lately.Your first thought might be, “It probably needs fertilizer.”Maybe it does. But before you open the fertilizer bag, take a closer look.What appears to be a fertilizer problem could actually be caused by too much water, too little water, poor drainage, a broken emitter, insects, heat stress, or another problem entirely.Fertilizer can help when nutrients are needed; however, It can't fix the wrong problem. Four Things to Check First Before you...

One Irrigation Schedule Doesn't Fit Every Landscape Throughout this series, we've looked at several reasons your irrigation timer shouldn't simply be programmed once and forgotten. Smart watering comes down to understanding four things: The SeasonYour landscape generally needs more water during Arizona's hot summer months and less during cooler weather. Your PlantsLawns, trees, shrubs, and desert-adapted plants have different watering needs. Whenever possible, plants with similar needs should be grouped on the same irrigation zone. Your SoilSome soils absorb water quickly. Others absorb it slowly. Your watering schedule needs to give water enough time to soak into the root zone...

Why Does Your Landscape Dry Out So Much Faster in Summer? During an Arizona summer, your landscape can lose moisture much faster than it does during the cooler winter months. Why? Intense heat, strong sunlight, dry air, and wind all increase how quickly moisture leaves your landscape. Some water evaporates from the soil. Plants also take up water through their roots and release moisture through their leaves. Together, these two types of water loss are called evapotranspiration. It’s a big word for a simple idea: Evapotranspiration is how quickly water moves from your landscape back into the atmosphere. How Much...