The scorching sun and heat can be very damaging to your beautiful landscape. Here are some tips on how to help protect your landscape:

Watering:

1. Make sure your plants have an adequate supply of water, but not too much. Too much water can be as damaging as too little.  It is wise to wait until the soil feels dry to the touch before turning the irrigation system back on.
2. Check that your irrigation timer is in good working order.
3. Be sure all your plant drip emitters are firmly in place and unclogged.
4. Check for any leaks and plug up any drip lines that are watering a plant that no longer exists.
5. Lawn sprinkler heads should be checked for debris in the heads. Look for broken heads and be sure you have even of coverage of water to the lawn.
6. If we have a heavy wet monsoon season this year, watering of all types of established trees and shrubs can be greatly reduced.
7. It is always best to plant in the fall. If you are replacing any plants this spring, they will need daily watering for the first few weeks or until monsoons rains arrive.
8. Once desert adaptive plants have made it through the first summer, you can cut back on the water dramatically.
9. For high water use, non-native plants, you will still want to cut back the water once established, but not as severely.

Pruning:

1. It is wise to avoid pruning plants in the summer months.
2. Minor pruning on native trees can be done in the month of May, but as a general rule, it is best to leave pruning until the fall.
3. Leaves from the canopy of the plant shade inner branches. Removing leafy growth will expose stems to scorching sun.
4. Consistent sheer and pruning of shrubs makes them more susceptible to sun scald and makes them less water efficient and damages the plant.
5. If your trees must be pruned for safety or access, and they are sun sensitive, consider painting their trunks with watered down latex paint.
6. Whenever you prune, remember to remove only 25% of the plant canopy in one growing season, according to certified arborist standards of practice (ANSI).

Lawn:

1. When mowing the lawn, be sure to remove only 1/3 of the blade of grass at a time.
2. When applying fertilizer to grass, do so in the morning and water soon after the application.