Michael Djernes

Hi Gilbert:

We had the same unpredictable late frost issues when in the SW Idaho area (high desert like Colorado). Since we couldn't ever do anything about the frost weather and wanted a few particular early varieties in our home orchard that were sensitive to blossom freeze, we used Christmas lights. We had a huge box of the old style big colored glass lights for exterior use, like you would string on the outside of your house. Each spring we would wrap the sensitive trees in strings of lights and plug them in on those nights that had a frost warning. The heat from the large glass bulbs strung around the trees seemed to be enough to keep most of the blooms from freezing. We still lost some fruit on very cold nights but not the entire crop. This wouldn't be practical if you had a lot of trees to protect I suppose but for our handful of trees it worked great. Besides, it's festive looking to boot. Easter lights instead of Christmas lights!

John Saltveit wrote:THe first thing that I would do is to cut a ring a round each tree to make sure that the ivy does not grow up the tree. It will die eventually. It does regrow from roots, but I think there has to be a better way than to pay. The ivy is full of nutrients and I believe allelopathic chemicals. Goats might eat it. Little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you? (Song)

We have bad ivy here too.

Rent or borrow a goat!
John S
PDX OR

Exactly! One of our properties south of Seattle had multiple trees overgrown with ivy to the point that the trees were dying. We hired a "goat guy" to deal with the ivy. His crew came in and cut the ivy vines in a ring around each tree to kill growth above that point. They then put up temporary fencing and sectioned off portions of the lot. Next he brought in a few dozen goats and let them happily eat the ivy. Within a week or two all but the ivy stalks near the ground were gone. These were then easily mowed. During this time we became popular with the school buses as they would stop for a few minutes on their routes to let the kids watch the goats eat.