Trees

I have two orange trees that were planted 12 years ago. They bore beautiful fruit until four years ago, when my gardener pruned them rather severely. Since that pruning, no more fruit at all. But the trees appear healthy -- very green, with few yellowing leaves. Please advise as to how we can get them to bear fruit again. Frances Berlin Palm Desert For answers on if or how gardeners can revive a badly pruned citrus tree, we turned to Frank McDonough, botanist at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia.

JOSHUA TREE - Annica Kreuter's backyard on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park has been a perfect place to chronicle the adventures of eight bobcats. Over the last decade she has watched a young bobcat chased up a tree by a coyote; an alpha male surveying the landscape from the hood of her car; a kitten sauntering into the yard as she gardens; a matron sniffing the back of Kreuter's neck as she napped on a hammock. Lately, seven of the eight have vanished. "At sunrise, I hear the one that is still here crying for his family," Kreuter said.

MOROCCO Presentation Join Bruce Carter for a look at Morocco through a geologist's eyes. As part of a group with the Natural History Museum, Carter and his wife, Cathy, crossed the High Atlas Mountains to visit major mines, and collected minerals and gemstones. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. RSVP (626) 449-3220. WINTER SPORTS Workshop Experts will introduce and explain where and why avalanches occur.

A former Oregon State University student who had written of the need for jihad to “break the enemy's will” was convicted Thursday of trying to detonate a truck bomb during a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., in 2010. A federal jury deliberated less than a day before reaching a verdict against Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 21, a Somali-American who met for months with undercover FBI agents he thought were Al Qaeda operatives and plotted what he thought would be a spectacularly violent holiday attack.

WASHINGTON -- Rives Grogan was up a tree during President Obama's inauguration. Now he's out on a limb, legally speaking. The Los Angeles man has been barred from the nation's capital pending his trial on misdemeanor charges stemming from the loud antiabortion protest he staged while 40 feet up a tree on Inauguration Day. His case has triggered a free speech debate. "I've never been banned from a city before," he said.  The unusual court order, which bars Grogan from the District of Columbia except for court-related appearances, comes after the antiabortion activist has been arrested, by his count, more than 30 times.

British Invasion singer Eric Burdon, who sang with the Animals and then the funk band War, has listed his retreat in Joshua Tree for sale at $999,000. The Southwestern-style gated house, built in 2007, sits on 2.5 acres surrounded by native plants and encircled by an adobe wall. The 3,200-square-foot-plus courtyard-style home features four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a laundry room and an office. There is a studio with a woodburning stove. Outdoor amenities include a heated saltwater pool, a spa and a rooftop deck.

Faye Resnick of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" has purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills for $1.605 million. The traditional-style house is surrounded by mature landscaping and sits on slightly more than half an acre with fruit trees, patios and a swimming pool. Features include an open floor plan, with hardwood floors, a living room fireplace and a wall of French doors in the dining room that open to a balcony with treetop views. There are three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and 2,567 square feet of living space.

SEATTLE -- The target was busy Pioneer Square in downtown Portland, Ore., when thousands of people gathered for the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. The plan, prosecutors say, was to park a van loaded with explosives and detonate it from a distance. “You know, the streets are packed,” Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a young Beaverton, Ore., man, told his contact, who went by the name of Youssef, according to a prosecutorial memo. The plan was “for them to be attacked in their own element with their families, celebrating the holidays.

DE LUZ - High on a hill overlooking an idyllic vista of citrus, avocados and chaparral, Bill Vogel spied a tree loaded with an unexpected bounty and started to holler. "Holy moly, look at all these starfruit," he said, cradling a cluster of ripening greenish-yellow fruit. "What's going on? I got a second crop and didn't know it. " Such are the occasional delights of pushing the envelope growing exotic fruits, which Vogel, 65, has been doing since 2000, when he started buying property in this pristine agricultural community at the southern end of the Santa Ana Mountains.

When Molly Stanton first looked at the 1,000-square-foot Santa Monica home being sold by actress Noel Neill, best known for playing Lois Lane opposite George Reeves in the 1950s TV series “Adventures of Superman,” Stanton knew the house had some termite damage, some structural steel posts that needed to be repaired and a floor plan with just one bedroom. Stanton, however, instantly fell in love with the hideaway, one of the lesser-known works by noted Case Study designer and builder Rodney Walker.