Sorry about the damage to your son's tree. Not fun. I have to say, I am not a big fan of 'Desert Museum' palo verde trees. I know they are the "in" and trendy tree right now and are being planted everywhere, in commercial settings especially, but I think they are awfully lanky and gangly and subject to a lot of wind damage. They're popular because they grow very quickly, and low litter and generally thornless, but that quick growth makes their branches shoot up and look boring and weak (to me). I know, I know, a ton of people have them and love them, and I think the best ones are ones that get regular pruning and not too much water. I'm not saying I'd never try one if I ever moved to a new garden, but I would expect to have to prune it a lot to keep it looking nice and to keep it from getting storm damage and honestly, I just don't think a lot of plant sellers are telling people that part. Your son can prune his to try to create a shape he likes and that's a decent approach. I've seen some very nice ones around town, but again, they're getting regular pruning to thin them out and to make interesting branches. If he replaces it, I'd suggest getting a non-hybrid native Palo Verde if possible. In any case, he can defitely give it a good haircut and see how it progresses. Thinning out and removing a lot of the thin branches will help its appearance for sure. Good luck to him. Let's see what our other members say too. Take care, Grant

Please advise how to prune a Mesquite Tree and what time of the year is the right time. Can you trim the branches on the ends as they are growing really wild? Is there a certain time of the year to do this? Do they require a certain fertilizer to use?

If the whole front garden was densely planted with junipers, there may not be any weed problem to deal with, and you could suggest that she simply have the entire front area mulched with ground up tree trimmings, and skip the newspaper. You can often get such tree trimmings delivered for free by contacting local arborists in the area, they would be happy to skip having to haul it away to landfill and pay for the privilege. The concern I would have is to determine if there are any noxious perennial weeds such as Himalayan Blackberry, Algerian or English Ivy, or other persistant weeds such as Bermuda Grass or similar that could take over any future plantings. If there are, then some weed treatment will be necessary to give your sis a clean slate. I'd also have your sister send you lots of good digital photos of the cleaned up yard, so you can help her with the redesign. It certainly would help you have a better feel for the possibilities if you could come out and visit before you helped with the design, but if you are doing this without the benefit of seeing the site, I would also recommend that you look into some good general purpose books that address landscape design for SF Bay Area gardens from a water conserving viewpoint, as it looks likely we may be going into water rationing next spring if we have another dry winter with less than average rainfall. I can't seem to locate my copy of the most recent Landscaping book published by the EBMUD(East Bay Municipal Utility District), which is the local water supply agency for the east bay, nor remember the exact title, but this has some excellent pointers on setting up a new garden in a more rational, energy and water conserving way, without being overly preachy about it. Sunset Magazine and the Sunset Western Garden Encyclopedia with its planting information and plant lists is also a great general purpose reference. Sunset's regional headquarters and demonstration gardens are right nearby in Menlo Park, and open to the general public for tours, your sister,(and/or both of you), might get some good ideas from a visit. Palo Alto is a very nice place to garden, and has some beautiful, (if also incredibly expensive), neighborhoods, and is generally very full of large mature shade trees and dedicated gardeners. It also gets just enough winter chill to say that many common subtropicals are a bit too tender to be reliable choices, such as bougainvillea, as it regularly gets freezes each winter. Has your sister gardened already in California, or does she have any ideas of what they want to do? Lots of choices, almost too many plants to choose from, and no real traditions out here for the most part, so the choice of style and types of plantings is pretty wide open. If they are looking to plant under ideal conditions, it actually makes sense to get things started in the late fall here, to take advantage of the rains and cooler weather. Late October into February can be prime planting season, if the soil isn't too wet to be worked.

OK guys, so it looks like for some reason my soil (despite being clay) soaks up water quickly or maybe not quick enough, not sure but after the trees having been watered for an hour, they were somewhat flooded. Not sure how that happens if I only have 2GPH emitters....one tree has 3 emitters and the other has 4 emitters. So I think that's why the one tree just dropped all leaves and hasnt responded. I had looked at the WaterWise document because may people had recommended it as a guide for establishing watering times/schedules etc. They recommended like many of you a very deep soak once every 7-21 days depending on soil drainage. They also recommended using the amount of emitters I have as a minimum and again doing a soak of at least 2 hours at a time. So like lazy_gardens recommended, I decided to split the watering into 1 hour early morning and then another hour later in the morning to allow deeper penetration. Thank God I did because I checked it immediately after the one hour and it was pooling water above the rocks :( What would you guys recommend? Maybe changing the emitters to 1GPH and try running again 1 hour/1hour watering? I did take a thin pointy stake and was able to stab it into the ground at least 18+ inches to let the water seep in quicker. The dirt was definitely moist down there.