Trees

From sunny days and warm temperatures to anticipated overnight freezing ahead, fall weather will arrive over the next few days around the Carson City region, prompting a freeze watch by the National Weather Service and a warning for gardeners to bring in the tomato plants and other fall vegetables that haven't been harvested.

I'm just itching to start pruning our evergreens, but my arborist self knows it’s a bit soon. I will wait until we have a hard freeze, to ensure my pruning cuts won’t attract any bark beetles. When a tree is pruned, we actually are wounding it.

Carson City, Dayton area youth conservation organization River Wranglers will meet Friday, October 23, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. for a work and education event designed to help protect cottonwoods from beaver damage.

Fall has arrived in the Sierra Nevada bringing the steady change of turning leaves and a noticeable chill in the air. The fall season also means bears are actively searching for food, even down into the lower valleys.

Hello fellow anglers, Fall is definitely here. Renee and I took a trip through Alpine County last week to enjoy the fall colors. Many trees have turned, while others are just starting to get their true colors.

To get a good look at the viewing, venture up through Highway 88 from Woodfords to Caples Lake. Another good area of fall color viewing is from Woodfords on Highway 89 up to Kinney reservoir on Highway 4 .

This spring I told myself I would remember to fertilize the lawn in the fall, because I forgot in 2019. I noticed the grass didn’t seem as strong this year and I had a lot more weeds such as clover and black medic infesting the lawn. Now fall is here and I’m ready to fertilize!

The 2020 pine nut harvest season kicks off on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Both agencies are working together to ensure the public is safely harvesting pine nuts and aware of the regulations.

An orange sunset against a silhouette of trees on Monday night.

Over the years I have seen or heard some big herbicide bloopers. A man came with samples of damaged leaves and I told him it was herbicide damage. He insisted it couldn’t be because where he used herbicide wasn’t anywhere near these plants.

Heading into the weekend, there’s a bevy of activities around the Carson City region. Western Nevada College will host a memorial exhibit and informational presentation on the 9-11 attacks on Friday. Partnership Carson City will team up for a statewide suicide prevention virtual walk this Saturday. Along with live music and a 5K run/walk at Bob McFadden Plaza, there is plenty of excitement buzzing around the state capitol! Read on for more information.


I found photos last week of our landscape when we bought the house in 1988. There were trees lined up like soldiers along the borders of the property and lawn everywhere else. No flowers, no shrubs. Everything was flat. Although this was boring, it certainly was easy to maintain. Thirty-two years later, I look back at that landscape and think, why did I plant so much?

Often called the “jewel of the Sierra,” Lake Tahoe offered warm solace for Nevadans this summer amid the crushing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed people outside in greater numbers as the virus spreads more easily in indoor spaces.

Nevada’s open roads are beckoning travelers who have been home-bound since mid-March. At a time when 18 states currently won’t accept Nevadans unless they quarantine for two weeks, it’s tempting to hop in the family car and explore Nevada history and nature giving you the opportunity to escape the tedium caused by the pandemic and to temper your wanderlust.

Carson Now reader John Gerding captured in photos these five large bucks roaming Carson City on Saturday morning between College Parkway near the rear entrance to Save Mart parking lot. John writes: "No does or fawns in sight. All appeared to be six or eight point."

In the pleasantly warm evening air under the trees this past Wednesday, Maurice White, candidate for Carson City supervisor for Ward 2, held a meet and greet at Glen Eagles Restaurant on North Carson Street, and talked to an attentive and respectful audience of about 35-40 people.



LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – As a reminder, backcountry visitors should practice proper food and garbage storage and behave appropriately when hiking and backpacking in Bear Country.

This summer, wilderness rangers report bears are successfully taking down food-hangs in Desolation Wilderness. Once bears become habituated to human food and garbage they will return and seek it out. Agencies highly recommend using bear resistant canisters when visiting the backcountry.

I can’t believe what I’ve been doing this past week. All gardeners realize there are a lot of repetitive, often tedious, tasks involved in gardening successfully. But seriously! I have been snipping off hundreds, no thousands, of crabapples. Most people let the crabapples stay on the tree for fall color. Believe me, I would like to do that, but ...

The Brewery Arts Center normally provides the Levitt-Amp concert series throughout the summer, but due to COVID-19 the festivities were cancelled this year. The BAC, however, along with several Carson City community partners, stepped up to bring safe family fun to the capital city, including the Flatbed Concert Series and drive-in movie nights.

Watching the news on the Numbers Fire south of Gardnerville reminds us how important it is to create and maintain defensible space around your home. The fire burned 18,380 acres in the week it took to get it contained. Have you taken responsibility to make your home/landscape defensible and survivable?

Thunderstorms arriving into the region Wednesday have brought a number of calls for downed trees, power lines, outages and a fire reported in the Silver Springs area of Lyon County.

Summit Lake in remote northwest Nevada is home to the only self-sustaining, robust, lake population of Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, North America’s largest freshwater native trout species.

There’s nothing better than fresh air to restore the mind, body and soul, and in these troublesome days when we must wear masks just about everywhere, it is nice to be able to breathe in fresh air as we exercise our bodies and clear our troubled minds.

The Chamber's Leadership class graduated yesterday afternoon. It's been quite the year for this Class of 2020, but they were able to complete two projects in the midst of all this uncertainty.

Yesterday's graduation was held at the trailhead of the Foothill Trail.

Fire behavior was minimal on the Numbers Fire on Thursday. No additional growth was reported on the fire, and containment increased from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Hello fellow anglers. It is the fourth of July weekend and many areas have opened up for camping and fishing in our area. Due to extreme fire danger, campfires are only allowed in a designated camp area. This does not mean a nice place on the side of the road under the trees or next to a lake or river. If you are caught with an illegal campfire, you may have to make a donation (fine or ticket ) to your local government agency.

Look under your fruit trees. You might see dozens of tiny fruit on the ground. Don’t worry; it’s the June drop. Since trees often set more fruit than they can support, each June they shed an abundance of underdeveloped fruit.

Beginning Friday, June 26, the Carson City Fire Department will implement fire restrictions on City and privately-owned lands within Carson City. Vegetation in western Nevada has dried out significantly. A large crop of dry grass and brush is evident at lower elevations, and trees and other forest vegetation at higher elevations are quickly drying out.


Our landscape is fairly wild, partly because we like it that way for the birds, but also because it simply gets away from me. We love the space of our two and half acres, but sometimes I get discouraged that our yard will never be pristinely groomed. I have to stop and remind myself how much we do accomplish.

UPDATE 11:14AM: The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning from noon to 8 p.m. Friday for the following areas: Southern Mono County, Southern Sierra Front including Alpine, Northern Mono, Southern Lyon, and Western Mineral Counties, West Humboldt Basin in Pershing County and Lahontan Basin including Churchill and Eastern Mineral counties. The Weather Service has issued a Wind Advisory for Mono County, Mineral and Southern Lyon counties, Hawthorne, Yerington, Smith Valley, Mina, Schurz, Fernley, Fallon, Lovelock, Silver Springs, Nixon, and Imlay. Carson City, and Carson Valley are not in the Wind Advisory area.
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Strong winds expected Friday has prompted the National Weather Service to issue high wind and fire weather watches for portions of Northern Nevada.

After a windy Saturday knocked out power and downed a few trees around Carson City, unseasonable cold air will continue to move into the Carson City region Sunday, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a Freeze Warning from Sunday night through Monday morning.