Desert ash

[Gregoryg]

Is now a good time to defoliate in Melbourne on a desert ash

[Phil Rabl]

My understanding is that you can safely defoliate a Desert ash in spring and summer but that (at least some) experienced growers prefer to leaf cut rather than defoliate. The compound leaves have ups to a dozen or so sets of leaflets that grow in pairs. I have read that you can reduce the leaf to 2 pairs of leaflets in spring and summer. This lets the sun and you should get some back-budding. Apparently constant leaf-cutting can gradually cause the leaf size to reduce. This is what I am trying on my one and only Desert ash. So far so good.

[Matt S]

Hi Gregory,

As long as your tree is in good health you can safely defoliate now. I've done a couple of mine in the last few weeks and they've all responded well. If you're really keen you can do this a couple of times during the growing season but you have to be confident in your abilities to look after tree and keep it healthy.

Another method is to constantly let each shoot grow to 3 pairs of leaves then cut back to 1 pair, plus trim the remaining pair of leaves by at least half (i.e. trim the compound leaves back to 1 section).

I've found that without defoliating (full or partial) my Desert Ash trees stop producing new shoots by Christmas. With defoliating you can stretch this out by another month or more.

Matt.

[Gregoryg]

Thanks job done see what happens in a new weeks