Mesquite Trees take it on the chin when summer monsoons swoop in. The storms display unflinching fondness for tearing down mesquite trees.
Summer monsoons thrash heavy top growth, snap branches, bend slender trunks and yank out flimsy roots.
The root systems usually don’t run deep enough. The way most drip irrigation systems are set, water doesn’t have much of a chance to sink in deep.
So neither do the roots, which crawl through shallow ground in search of water.
That’s how it goes with a lot of those delicate trees, sunk by the thousands into fast growing suburbs such as Goodyear, Arizona.
