Let’s Learn About Selecting Trees for Our Area

Saturday’s GROWS Community Workshop on selecting trees in our desert area was well-attended – thank you!

Here are some articles by our El Paso County Master Gardeners to supplement what you learned in the presentation by Oscar Mestas, founder of the West Texas Urban Forestry Council: 

What Tree is for Me?
Fruit Trees for El Paso
Help Your Tree Survive in El Paso (Article will open in PDF format)

Newcomer’s Gardening Snapshot for El Paso County

Many new residents arrive in El Paso each year from climates and growing conditions much different than the Chihuahuan desert. This Newcomer’s Gardening Snapshot highlights some main features of El Paso’s climate and provides links to helpful, informative websites. It also provides links to local gardens exhibiting native and adapted plants for local landscapes. We hope this information assists new gardeners in getting off to a fast start in their new Texas home.

Read more » 

Save the Date!      
We’re planning some new learning opportunities for gardeners in our region. You can also learn from our YouTube video classes. Visit us at our Information Tables to get handouts and ask questions about landscaping or gardening. Here are some upcoming event dates so you can mark your calendar. More information will be available on our Events page when available.

Oct. 7 – UTEP’s FloraFest Native Plant Sale
Oct. 14 – Save Water: Use Colorful Native Plants – A GROWS Community Workshop

Learn, Then Buy Native and Adapted Landscape Plants

Desert Willow (El Paso Master Gardener Facebook)

Have you been thinking about how you might buy new plants to enhance your yard and landscape areas? It helps to learn more about the plants available so you can know their habits, care needs, and expected full size. Here are some of our favorite resources to learn about native and adapted plants which do well in our area:

Ornamental Plants for Far West Texas – Native trees, shrubs, flowering plants, grasses, and succulents with water-use categories.

Chihuahuan Desert Plants – Hundreds of native plants from the Greater Chihuahuan Desert Region, most with photographs and basic information.

El Paso Desert Blooms Water Smart Landscaping Guide – Helpful interactive website by El Paso Water Utilities (EPWU). See “Plants” for plant lists and guided searches with photos. “Gardens” has options for garden photo “tours” and galleries.

Read AgriLife TODAY for Texas Gardening News

Golden Columbine (Photo by CAJC: in the PNW, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Texas A&M AgriLife has a news blog page with several topics like Lawn & Garden, Environment, Life & Health, and Science & Tech called AgriLife TODAY. As gardeners, we’re especially interested the Lawn & Garden category and we want to share these articles with you.

Want to Start a Vegetable Garden?
Celebrity Tomato Latest Texas Superstar (2021)
How to Get a Beautiful Lawn
Don’t Let the Last Weed Standing Reproduce
Looking for a Texas-Tough Petunia? Tidal Wave Series Has You Covered
Get the Most Bang for Your Buck When Choosing Fresh Flowers
The Positive Effects of Gardening on Mental Health

Plant and Gardening Questions

Do you have gardening or landscape questions and don’t know who to ask? The El Paso Master Gardener live online Chat Desk, part of our Help Desk is available to you. The Chat windows are opened by clicking on the blue Chat button on our web pages. When the Chat Desk Master Gardener volunteers are offline, the Chat buttons can still be used to leave questions and photographs. You’ll be asked for your email address, and we’ll reply by email as soon as possible.

Other ways to leave questions for our Help Desk volunteers are through the Ask the Help Desk contact form on our Ask Us page and through the Ask the Help Desk contact form on our Help Desk page. You will receive an answer from a Master Gardener volunteer by phone or email. 

El Paso Master Gardeners provide a free service for the public by answering your gardening questions. We follow Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service guidelines and do not endorse or recommend specific products or places of business.

By the Season – Gardening in El Paso

September Monthly Tips
The Fall  Lawn Fertilizing Deadline is Fast Approaching!

The Secret to Growing Tomatoes in El Paso
Tomato Problem Solver
Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide
Vegetable Planting Calendar for El Paso County
Vegetable Varieties for El Paso County
Vegetables – Easy Gardening Series (scroll down for Spanish)

Propagation – A Variety of Techniques
Propagating Foliage and Flowering Plants
Fertilizing Foliage and Flowering Plants
Pests of Foliage and Flowering Plants
Bug Book-Insect ID and Control

Coming Up Roses: 12 Classic Beauties that Thrive in the Desert Southwest (with photos)
Best Roses for Arizona: Roses That Love Our Heat
Growing Roses (includes plant types and winter pruning)

Constructing Your Flower Bed
Wildflowers in Bloom – Growing Info

Easy Steps for Drip Irrigation 
Ornamental Plants for Far West Texas (including trees)
El Paso Desert Blooms Water Smart Landscaping Guide
Gardening with Perennials (including dividing; sections in Spanish)

Pruning Shrubs in the Low and Mid-Elevation Deserts in Arizona
Low Desert Pruning Guide for Commonly Used Shrubs (includes Tips and Schedule)

What Tree is for Me?
Help Your Tree Survive in El Paso (PDF)
Regional Recommended Tree List (TPG List)
Trees for High Desert Communities
Fruit Trees for El Paso
Training and Pruning Newly Planted Deciduous Fruit Trees
Texas Tree Planning, Planting, Pruning, and Care Guide (text and video; Spanish version at page bottom of selected pages)

Lawn Water Management
Efficient Use of Water in the Garden and Landscape
Watering Trees and Shrubs: Simple Techniques for Efficient Landscape Watering
Watering Tips for Lawns, Vegetable Gardens and Trees – Gardening in El Paso

Videos:
Soil Testing by Skip Richter, Horticulturist—Agrilife.org
Why Test the Soil? by Ignacio Munoz, El Paso Master Gardener
Grow Your Own Transplants by Skip Richter, Horticulturist—Agrilife.org
How to Start Spring Plants by Seeds and Transplants  by Southwest Yard & Garden (nmsuaces)

Find other helpful articles at Gardening in El Paso – Articles and Gardening Topics – Links. Find more videos at Videos and More.

Improve Your Skills with Our
Informative El Paso Gardening Handbook

El Paso County Master Gardeners created a one-of-a-kind illustrated gardening handbook for our area. The El Paso Gardening Handbook addresses El Paso specific gardening concerns and best practices.

Read more » 

Good to Grow Radio Shows
 (Current and Archived)

Gardening in the Fall
Pollinators and Wildlife
Heat-Related Issues with Vegetable Gardens and Ornamental Plants
The Efficiency of Irrigation with Trees and Turfgrass
Maintaining Desert and Adapted Trees
Fall Gardening: Getting Prepared for the Harvest
Hot, Hot, Hot: Heat and Sun Exposure Safety
Watering Your Plants
Planting Your Flowers During the Summertime
Summer Weather Gardening Tips and Tricks

Garden Design Tips
Garden Design Trends
Seed Planting

Vegetable Container Gardening
Container Gardening, Pt. 1
Container Gardening, Pt. 2

Indoor Plants and Gardening
Evergreen Gardening (caring for houseplants)
All About Tomatoes
Composting
Native Plants

Irrigation, Part 1 of 2
Irrigation, Part 2 of 2
Watering Your Landscape

Weeds

Tree Selection and Planting
Trees-What to Know Before You Buy
Tree Pruning
Proper Pruning Tips

Listen live on Saturdays at 11:15 a.m. on 88.5 FM or stream from the archives at KTEP Good to Grow.
Read more about our Good to Grow Radio Show, here.

Texans Ask About Gardening–Vegetables, Herbs and More

Vegetables Grown at Ascarate Demonstration & Teaching Garden        (El Paso Master Gardeners Facebook)

From Asparagus to Swiss Chard plus “Non-Crop” plants and Herbs, you’ll find many of your questions answered in Everything Texans Ask About Gardening, an informative 67-page publication by Joseph Masabni and Patrick Lillard. Organized largely by vegetable name, the questions and answers cover general issues, diseases, and insects. Since this is a digital document produced by Texas A&M AgriLife, you can easily search for a topic or keyword by using the “Find” command if on a PC. Otherwise, here are some page numbers by section:

Vegetable Q&A – pages 1-54
Minor Crops – pages 54-61
Herbs – pages 61-63
Non-Crop Q&A – pages 64-67

Who We Are

The El Paso County Master Gardeners Association, as a member of the Texas Master Gardeners Association, is a non-profit educational and charitable organization supporting the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in providing quality, relevant outreach and continuing education programs and services to the people of El Paso County. Our local volunteers receive extensive training and experience in a wide range of subjects before certification as Texas Master Gardeners.

In collaboration with the County A&M AgriLife Horticultural Agent, Eduardo Rascon, we educate the community through various events, workshops, and demonstration gardens. Our Master Gardeners volunteer through our Outreach programs and community Projects to provide information and recommendations on horticultural topics to all residents of El Paso County.

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Content Editor: Marlene Stalker