Stone fruit trees like apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, plum, and prune are a staple of many backyard gardens and landscapes. Unfortunately, there are a variety of pests that can weaken trees and spoil fruit. Caring for trees correctly and monitoring for pests can help ensure a harvest of healthy, delicious fruit. Watch out for some of these pests and diseases:

Apricot trees need to be pruned in summer instead of fall to avoid a disease called Eutypa dieback. It causes limbs and twigs to wilt suddenly and die.

Pests have popularity contests too. We recently looked at how many visits our popular Pest Notes publication series received in 2017.

If you aren't familiar, the UC IPM Pest Notes series are science-based publications written and reviewed by experts on specific pest or management topics for California. UC IPM has 169 Pest Notes with some being more popular than others.

Here are the 20 most visited titles in 2017:

1- Carpet Beetles
For the third year in a row, carpet beetles was the most viewed of the UC IPM Pest Notes series on our website! This commonly occurring indoor pest can be accidentally brought into your home on cut flowers or through open doors...

Winter slows down many garden pest problems, but it's also a key time for gardeners to take actions to prevent certain pest problems that occur in the spring. One of the most important of these preventive practices is application of dormant treatments for peach leaf curl.

Caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans, peach leaf curl is a very serious disease, which affects only peach and nectarine trees. Its most distinctive symptom is distortion, thickening, and reddening of foliage as trees leaf out in the spring. Damaged leaves often die and fall off trees but will be replaced with new, usually healthy leaves once the weather turns dry and warmer. A leaf curl infection that continues untreated over several years will...

Winter is a key time for gardeners to take preventive actions against peach leaf curl in some areas in California. Caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans, peach leaf curl causes distortion, thickening, and reddening of foliage as peach and nectarine trees leaf out in the spring. Damaged leaves often die and drop, but they will be replaced with new, healthier leaves once the weather turns dry and warm. An untreated leaf curl infection will contribute to a tree's decline over several years.

To prevent peach leaf curl in areas where the disease occurs, treat susceptible trees with preventive fungicides during the dormant season, ideally in late November or December. A second application should...