Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor so just
watching a good morning, Good Saturday morning. You're glad you're listening to garden
Line. Looking forward to talking to you about whatever is of interest to you
regarding gardening. Maybe got some questions things we can help with. Well,
that's why we're here. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two kat r H. Give us a call and
let's see what is of interest to you. Well, I guess the news
of the week is it's going to get hot. It is absolutely blazing.
So you know, when it's that hot, it's during the daytime, you
just kind of don't want to be out there in the blazing sun. Right,
So I get that, But that doesn't mean gardening stops. There's a
lot going on. If we are given our plants the water they need to
keep going. There's plenty happening out in the landscape, from the flowers to
the vegetables, to the landscape plants around the beds, the lawn and trees.
Our plants are able if we if we chosen wisely, they're able to
survive in the kind of temperatures and the conditions climate in general that we have
here in the Greater Houston area. That you know, the the choice of
plants is so important, and that that is just we learn, we get
to relearn. I don't know if you're like me, but there's things that
I used to know that I tend to kind of forget and maybe think I
can get away with them. But no, No, When we plant things
that are adapted, they do well and they get better. When we plant
things that are not adapted, we end up having problems and it's a it's
wasted money, it's a disappointment. But that's not necessary. We have so
many great plants that'll do wear here well here Now. I know in the
summer, a lot of Texans galivant off to Colorado to enjoy a vacation.
Well, don't bring those kind of Columbines. Don't bring blue spruce little trees
that they'll sell you and don't bring that back. There ought to be a
you know how that you go through customs and they check all your bags and
everything. They ought to have a custom somewhere up in the Panhandle of Texas.
As people come back from Colorado and they rummage through your car and if
you have any any blue spruce or Colorado columbines, you know, they take
away. Yeah, I've known a lot of people wouldn't like that, but
the plants would love to be sent back to Colorado where they're from or where
they enjoy growing. And you know, we plant the things that want to
be planted here, and I'm gonna talk about some of those plants this morning.
First thing I want to do, though, I want to head out.
We're going to go to Kingwood and talk to Angelo this morning. Good
morning Angelo, How are you today, sir? I'm well, thanks.
Okay, Hey, I got some really really big hilapinos at the store the
other day and I'm saving the seeds to turn around and plant this fall.
I just want to know if you could tell me sort of the way you
go about saving them, how long before you could actually plant them in?
Just basically, what can I do with these plants a sort of seeds to
save them to plant in about August? Okay, I'm happy to go of
that. First. I want to say that when you buy produce from the
store or if you have a quality plant. Like let's say it's a wonderful
variety of peach at the house, a wonderful variety of tomato. Chances are
their hybrids. And hybrids mean it's a mix of genetics. So when you
plant the seed. The analogy I use is it's kind of like kids.
I mean, look at all the kids in a family and then look at
the mom and the dad, and there's not an identical match. Usually,
although when they I found that when they get in big trouble genetically, they're
usually attributed to me. Yeah, yeah, seriously. So you'll have good
you'll have a great alpen you come out of it. But it may not
be as big as the ones you know, the chat in the store.
It may not be as disease resistant or whatever the particular characteristic is. But
saving seeds is fun. So you want to you want to take the seeds
out and dry them, put them on a paper towel or you know it's
a cardboard or whatever, just let them fully dry it. I'd say,
give them probably a couple of weeks, and I often put mine in the
garage, even though it's kind of really hot in the garage. That's okay.
They'll dry. Once they're dry, then you want to package them up
and put them in a airtight container. You can use glass jars. I
often use those locked down rubber sealed food containers like you would put your soup
in when dinner's left over. Correct, right, Yeah, but you don't
want to have air If you have a little packet, one of those dessicate
packets that comes in you know, supplements or come when you buy electronics,
save those little pockets because you can throw those in there and that will also
take moisture out of the air and put them in the refrigerator and they will
store as long as you need them to store. You can put them in
the freezer too, But either way, once they're dry, they can go
either place. So how long would that take? After a couple of weeks
on the paper towel and then put them in say like a baby jar or
a mason jar and here tight, how long before you can actually turn around
and plant those back into the garden? I was opening this August. Now,
once you've stored them whatever, the next day if you want, you
know, I mean, they don't have to store in cold to be planted.
It's cold, is just to hold them at the viability that they are
going into storage until whenever you want to take them out, whether it's tomorrow,
three months from now, two years from now. So you're basically what
you're saying, I'm thinking maybe until August first or something from if I had
started them the other day, just as your Yeah, so you're asking me
when can you plant them? Yeah, for fall and everything? Well I
got you, Okay, Well, if you just want to know when when
should I plant the peppers? You can plant them anytime you want them.
You can plant them in the summer. They're not going to produce until the
weather cools a bit in the fall. But I would I wouldn't delay Angelo,
I would get them in the ground soon. Get get you if you
want to start them as a transplant first and then move them out into the
garden, because the goal is to grow the biggest pepper plant you can.
And so you know, if you waited until July to plant them your plan,
it's not going to be quite as large in fall as it would be
now if you waited until August that that's actually too late to plant from seed
to pepper. So I would want that soon. Yeah, it's just so
hard to keep up with them with this seat. You're like, you don't
want to overwater, but you know you gotta do something. Yeah, yeah,
it is. And I mean, I don't know how big your garden
is, how many plants you want to grow, but you could you could
put them in a container that's maybe in good morning sun, a little bit
late late day shade, especially when we're going through this one hundred degrees.
Okay, Well, thank you, because I've been trying to do a lot
of that saving the pepper season. I've been successful and I've had dud so
I'm just trying to sort of get it down to a science. But I
thank you very much for your information. All Right, thank you, sir.
I apprect you take care of it. Yeah, I want to.
I want to tell you if you've got a if you've got a lawn that
has not been fertilized yet this summer, you need to consider going ahead and
putting down nitro Fist Super Turf nineteen four ten. That is a slow release
fertilizer. It will gradually release, so it doesn't increase the mowing like you
know a quick release fertilizer would. It doesn't lead to disease and insect problems
like like a chinch bugs. Like a fertilizer that just creates a lot of
fast, succulent new growth, but it will feed your lawn for three months.
Are more out going into the summertime. Nitro file superturf nineteen four tens
one of them. Many nitro FoST products. And where do you find nitro
foss, Well, where do you shop? I mean it's pretty much everywhere
you would see specifically. You know, if you're going to the Ace hardware
stores, you're going to find nitro foss. If you're out at Arbogate,
You're going to find nitro foss, Fisher's Hardware. Down in South Houston,
growers out linen Willis. Wherever you find nitro FoST products, look for nineteen
four ten. That is a fertilizer that takes you through summer and keeps your
grass healthy and beautiful at the same time. We're gonna take a break.
Our phone numbers seven one, three, two, one, two, fifty
eight, seventy four, and Bob, you'll be first when we come back.
Well, good morning. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Rictor. We're here to asker your gardening questions were visiting with you
about whatever kinds of things or horticulturally of interest to you. Let's start by
heading out to Bob in clear Lake. Hello, Bob, Yep, I've
got a problem. I've got a situation developing that I'm not exactly sure how
what the outcome might be. Happened a few months ago, we have a
lot of thirty foot pine tree that's got struck by lightning. The lightning started
at the top and kind of worked its way down this side, uh,
and there was a sable palm at the base, and it blew it out.
Um. Now I've noticed that one side of the tree, the limbs
aren't are dying, and I'm wondering if the lightning would just you know,
take part of the pine tree out, but not the whole pine tree if
uh, you know, if I have to remove it, it's probably a
thirty footer, So I mean, it's not going to be a cheap,
you know, a cheap venture to take care of that. I was just
wondering what you might think, should I take it out now? Should I
plan on doing this, or should I wait to see what's if the tree
actually dies? Yeah? That's a good that's a good question. Here's the
here's the challenge of entering. You know, I can't see exactly the extent
of injury. Let me ask you a couple of questions. When you follow
the lightning strike down the trunk, it is it going straight or is it
kind of barber pole spiraling around as it goes down? It was straight straight,
Okay, well, yeah, it was usually pines lightning as kind of
the death sentence, and it may not. It often kills them quickly.
Sometimes they survive. But then you have this large gaping wound that's going down
through bark tissues that aren't designed to callous and heel as fast as if you
cut a limb off on a tree, And so you end up with this
gap and it doesn't close very fast, and the water and decay gets into
the interior wood and pine lumber rots readily, very readily. Yeah, and
so there's a long term Yeah, there's not a future in it. That
one decision about taking it down is once it starts the bark, it dies,
bark starts to fall off. It's hard to climb that tree, and
so people that are taking it down, it's a it's a hazard for them.
So it's better to get done sooner than later if you're going to do
it. But the bark hasn't fallen off anywhere. Was surrounded by azaleas,
so we're feeding the azaleas and watering them. So the pine trees, we
always figured it was pretty healthy. Yeah, well, so you know it's
I can't I don't have the crystal ball to tell you for sure on it.
I can just tell you most of the time, there's the long term
prognosis is not good. The short term may not be not good. But
your pine tree could prove me wrong and it could go on living for years.
But wherever you have exposed in or bark down the line, it's when
rot starts then you got real potential for hazard there. Well yeah, well
when it first happened, it went up there with some seal had a guy
us and he kind of came over and we sprayed it. He had some
kind of celant that he sprayed all as far as we could go up Okay,
so I mean we did do that. Yeah, and all of a
sudden I noticed that there's a couple of the leaves, you know, I
mean, our branches aren't aren't producing any any needles or anything. I mean,
they're dead. Well, I I'd give it a little bit of time
and watch and if you lose a good section of the crown, you know,
I just I know, you hate to take down a tree. I
know it's expense and it's a nice tree you got, But I think just
facing reality if you don't see, if it's a very minor amount that's lost
and you want to hang on a while, that that's fine. But otherwise
I think i'd bite the bullet plan on taking it out. Yeah, Okay,
there are pines out there with minor strikes, but it sounds like when
you started describing it that that wasn't a minor strike. Yeah, it's probably
a thirty foot tree. You know. When it came all the way down,
I mean it was I was standing in the kitchen looking out the window
and saw it happen. Wow, And I mean it was a shocking thing.
You know. I took a step back a whoa. I know,
it literally explode, it explodes. It blew the stagle palm right out of
the ground. Yeah, and this is you know, it's hard to say
this is a fun, cool fact when you're talking about somebody losing a tree.
But you think about popcorn. When you make popcorn, you turn the
moisture in the popcorn kernel instantly into a gas and it explodes. And that's
what lightning does to the moisture in the bark of the cambium and bark of
the tree. It instantly vapors it, and it's basically like popcorn. It
blow literally explodes off it did. Okay, all right, all right,
well thanks for advice. Oh and by the way, can I make one
comment about your previous collar about the peppers? Sure we use that fox farm
beaky ballooms on ours. Okay, I just dig a hole with my hand
and shoved the season and they grow like crazy. Sound like you got a
green thumb. Hey, Bob, Thanks, I appreciate that call very much.
You know, we're talking about the peppers, and it reminded me this
weekend. I saw, well it's been going on for a few weeks,
but Buchanan's has a pepper sale. A little four inch plants one dollar each.
I mean, that is a great deal. And listen, now's the
time to plat peppers. I know it's one hundred degrees. We plan in
the spring but if you'll plant them now, take care of them. When
we get to fall, you will have a much bigger pepper plant than if
you wait till later in the summer to plant. And at a buck apiece,
you can't beat that. And while you're out there, you know it's
Father's Day weekend. They've got gift cards for Dad. That would be an
awesome gift. Dad can go in buy whatever he wants. There's a really
nice tool selection at Buchanans to quality tools, all kinds of options that would
be a good selection too. I mean, Buchanans. You know it's worth
just for the plants to go there, but oh my gosh, there's so
many other reasons now to check out Buchanans this weekend. They're at Eleventh Street
in the Heights. You can go to online to Bucannons Plants dot com.
While you're there, sign up for the newsletter. They tell you all these
kind of things going on, and also there's good educational material on their newsletter
that you can learn from. Let's see, I believe we got a little
bit of time here. I'm going to go out and talk to Sandy in
Cyprus. Hello Sandy, I skip Thanks for taking my call. Good morning.
I have a question. I'm going to start with my Okra. Um.
I talked to you a lot about my Okra. Yeah, it's in
a big pot, and I've got fourth four that are in there. But
my question is, I get these little bitty, tiny, tiny black spots
on the back side of the league, Okay, not so much on the
front side. So I put neme oil on it, on both the front
and the back side. But the next morning they come back. So now
that they're getting bigger, I'm not seeing them as much. But um,
should I once I spray them with nem oil, should I be wiping them
down? No? I don't think so, and I would hold off now
on the neme oil. Any kind of oil when the temperature gets really hot,
can burn plants, even oils that are made to spray on plants.
We don't use those, you know, when it's one hundred degrees and the
sun is baking down, So I would hold off. I don't know what
the spots are based on your description, for sure, but they don't sound
like any major Okra disease that you would worry about. And Okra produces plenty
of leaves, so I mean if you lost if you lost half the leaves
on your okra plant, it would still produce okra very very well. So
some spots here and there on okra I wouldn't worry about. What about the
little bity tiny tiny They look like little ants to me. Yeah, well,
ants go up and down plants all the time, and they have different
reasons. Fire Ants will get up on okra just to kind of chew into
a pod and get the moisture and some of the oils that maybe you're up
in there. Uh so that is not a good thing. I mean,
you don't you don't want them up there, but that would just mean you
want to control fire nts in general around the garden. Really tiny, Yeah,
I wouldn't worry about them. They're probably taking care of aphids, the
ants, certain kinds of ants will Basically they're like dairy farmers and the apids
or the cows, and they protect them and they they use their antennas to
get the aphids to produce some sugary substance for the ants to feed on.
So again, not a real big deal. If afids are bad enough,
which I've never seen on an ochrah them that bad, then you could treat
the apids, but I wouldn't worry about it, okay, okay. And
then I asked you about my weed and I sent pictures, and then you
asked if you could. You responded and said, to you, celsius.
But um, it's like really really hot. Is it okay to use celsius
in this kind of weather? I would hold off. I know I've talked
to turf specialists and they use celsius on through the summer. But when we
get up in the upper nineties, I wouldn't do it. You know,
if you want to when when we get out of this heat dome that we're
in right now and it drops down into what normal temperatures would be, then
I would probably use some you know, real late in the day or maybe
early in the morning where you're staying out of the hottest time of day.
I think that would be fine. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't do it
like right now. Yeah, And just out of curiosity, you had asked
to use my pictures that I think you yes, I'm just curious to see
what you would be using them for. Is it for posting them? Yeah?
I do, well, I don't know. I do educational programs all
the time, and so sometimes I get a picture of a weed and it's
like, oh, that's a good I could use that and maybe what I'm
doing a talk on weeds or something like that. Are putting a post.
I mean, I never use anybody's name on them. It just just yeah,
that's having a good picture. Yeah that's it. Thank you so much,
Ski, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that call very much.
If you'd like to get on the air with me, it's seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Hey, you guys know about ACE Hardware. I talk
about them all the time. If you want to find your ACE locally,
Ace Hardware dot Com, find the store locator button, click on it and
you'll see all thirty nine in the Greater Houston area there is an ACE near
you. They carry the products, the fertilizers we talk about. They've got
folks that know what they're talking about, that are friendly. They help you
everything. When you go into ACE to buy fertilizer or to buy the products
that I'm talking about, check the whole store out. You will be you'll
be a really amazed and impressed. Ace Hardware has everything and especially if you
are a summer griller, check out the largest grilling selection on the market,
Weber Trager, Big Green Egg, and more. Ace Hardware dot Com.
All right, all right, you picked me up going there in the music
I love. I love the music that we come up with here on Guarden.
Obviously its songs. I like songs. Josh likes and expands my musical
tastes as well. I hope we do years too. We kind of have
a little fun with that. You know, if you have a landscape that
is good, but it's not great, it's not what you would like it
to be, you need to give Pierscapes a call because now is a good
time to get with them and to start a process of getting some renovations done.
Maybe it's a new landscape you want to put in, Maybe you want
to renovate an old one. Maybe all you need is some hardscape, or
you gotta drainage problem you need fixed. They can do all the above and
way way more. You can get a hold of them at Piercescapes dot com
to learn more or give him a call. Seven excuse me, two eight,
one three, seven zero five oh six oz two eight one three seven
h five oh six oh pere escapes, peer escapes, landscapes for any kind
of landscape work that you need done. They know what they're doing. They've
got trained tenured employees. I believe that at least ten years. You know,
the longest tenured employees maybe twenty six years. I mean, these folks,
they know what they're talking about, and they do quality work and you
will be amazed at what they can turn your landscape into. I want to
head out to northwest Houston and talk to Ralph this morning. Good morning,
Ralph, Good morning, good man. I have a storm come through my
place here and my big old Pocondrey tall tone and it took one of the
whole big old land off and it was in the side of the main trunk.
And yeah, I don't have some money to look at it, but
it's y'all. I guess I have to do it. But it watched up
my garden too. I have that thing long with my big old garden back
here. But they have a thing. But the plants not doing any good?
Do you have? I guess my pot tomato plants stay this. But
I just think what happens but yeah, I didn't even this whirl Foods storm
really hit him a ard. Well, you know there's gonna have time.
I mean it's hopefully give give the plants good care and you get that,
you get them going again. I don't know, did they you know,
if the light change, like the pecan was shading them part day and now
it's not, or any kind of any kind of change like that. Sometimes
plants aren't real happy with it. But I would just make sure in the
summer heat you keeps us all moist but not saggy wet. A little fertilizer
if you haven't fertilized the walls always a good thing. Gives them some vigor
and boost. But just know that when it's one hundred degrees, a lot
of plants are just gonna kind of sit there, gonna move slow until we
get past this slow. Yeah, but a watering plants, I just just
good terrible this year. Man wanted to give me enough rain, But I've
been watering and I got a new way of watering on holding water. Okay,
I appreciate your program very much. Well, thank you, Ralph.
I appreciate your call very much. If you'd like to be on guarden line
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, do you have a little piece of
land and you would like to have some equipment to help you take care of
it. Well, here's I've got the deal for you. Cauboda tractor and
Landsdown Moody. What a combination. We've got Landsdown Moody locations all through the
area. They have a deal on the Texas edition Cauboda L twenty five oh
one. That's a tractor with hydrostatic transmission. It is tricked out. You
can add whatever you want, a front end loader. Maybe you want a
rotary cutter or a box blade to move some things around. Put it all
together because you've got a deal going on right now until June thirtieth. June
thirtieth's that's when it's over for seven years, eighty four months, zero down,
zero interest. What's better than the combination of Lansdown and Kubota tractors.
Go to LM tractor dot com to find out more about it, or better
yet, find the Lansdown near you and go take a little test drive.
I think you will be very very impressed. You're listening to garden Line.
If you'd like to talk on the radio with me seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. If you're a little shy about talking, you
know, on the radio, Well it's just you and me. No one
else has gotten up yet, so it'll just be you and me. Don't
worry about it. We'll have some fun here. I'll be happy to answer
your questions. There's no such thing as a stupid question. They're just stupid
answers. I know you're thinking, yeah, I've heard stupid questions in my
life. Well, I'll worry about the stupid answers. Don't worry about the
question. Somebody else will have the questions you have. By the way,
I mean really, you may be a brand new gardener and your question is
does a green side go up or down when I planted? There's probably somebody
out there who's wondering the same thing. You know. If you're gonna if
you are gonna plant any anything, anytime, you gotta start with the soil
first. Your success is made are broken by the time the plant goes in
the ground, and that means selecting the sites, making good drainage, selecting
the soil. And if you live down south of Houston, anywhere in that
general Rose Sharon area. We're talking about Iowa Colony, Sandy Point, like
Olympia, Meridian, Manville, you know, anywhere near Brasspin State Park.
Sienna Malch is your go to place. Sienna Malch has all the supplies you
would need. We're talking the fertilizers that we talk about. They carry them
all in stock there. Sienna Malch is going to also have the compost,
it's gonna have the mulches, it's going to have them in bulk, it's
going to have them in bags. And their rock selection is unbelievable. I
don't always talk about their rocks, but oh my gosh, from the all
the different kinds of gravel. I mean we're talking, you know about like
fifteen types of gravel, from decomposed granite to p gravel, to river stones
to volcanic rock marble, all that they've got it, They've got it there.
They have all kinds of stones for you as well. If you're talking
about flagstones, just I didn't know there were so many kinds of flagstones until
I went out to Siena Mulch and checked out the amazing selections that they have,
and it's like, if you would like to do a walkway, maybe
you want to create a patio, create one of those porous patios where you've
got some decomposed granite or something in between the flagstones and moisture can move down
through them into the soil. Siena Mulch is your place. I mean they
just go out and check it out. Go online, Go online to Siena
Mulch dot com and you'll see what I'm talking about. Really really cool products,
nice selection. It's getting really hot in the summer, and we need
to remember when we're taking care of our plants, we need to give them
a good soaking, but then let the soil dry out a little bit.
Don't overwater when it's one hundred degrees you can't overwater or it's deadly to the
plants. They need oxygen in the soil, and so you need to water
the right amount. And when it comes to your lawn, the best way
I know to do that is the water my Yard app. The water my
Yard app is free. You go to water my yard dot org dot com,
water my yard dot org. You can get it on the Apple App
Store, on Google play. Here's how it works. You sign up,
You tell them roughly you know where you live, and they find the weather
station near you and they look at solar radiation, humidity, wind speed,
temperatures, all of that stuff. It crunches it out through no own factors
in a formula and says, Saint Augustine grass has used this much water in
the last what week or two weeks or three days or whatever you want,
And it tells you you'll get an email if you sign up for it,
a free email. It says, hey, your lawn is used a half
inch of water this week, or your loan as used it needs an inch
of water now, And it guides you in hot of water so you don't
waste your money, and most importantly, you don't overdo it because Houston lawns
get way overwatered. They just do. They're miswatered all the time. Water
my Yard app will help avoid that. And I can't think of a better
and being free, Oh my gosh, it's a win win wind. Hey,
we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Give Josh a call, Who'll get you on the board. You'll
be first up good Saturday morning on a great day for gardening. I know
it's hot outside, but not now, it's going to be later. But
even when it's hot outside, there's gardening to do inside. Right, We've
been talking about things this morning that relate to your yard, your garden,
and we're gonna keep doing that. If you'd like to get on the phone,
it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You probably
have heard of Dell Web. Dell Webb has been building communities for active adults
age fifty five and better for over seventy years. I mean the state of
the art type communities. We're talking about inspired designs. And one of the
best things about Dell Webb or the lifestyle programs built around you, Well,
there's a new Dell Web community coming in down near Fulsher in fact, two
less than two miles from downtown fulsher on FM three fifty nine. The thing
I'm excited about about this community is a new community garden, and I'm helping
them with getting that design and set up. So not only do you have
state of the art community, but you've got a community garden where you can
go and enjoy, you know, the fellowship time we have with other gardeners
as we visit where you've got a little piece of land that you're not plowing
up the backyard to put in a garden. If you don't want to do
that, Dellweb Community Garden. If you want to know more about the Dellweb
difference, go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or call to eight one
four or five nine zero six zero nine. Let's head out to East Houston
and we're going to talk to Carol this morning. Good morning, Carol,
Good morning. Hell ye, I'm well, thank you good. It's good.
Listen. I have a real pretty confederate rose plant that I have several
people wanting cuttings from. What's the best way to propagate those? I haven't
ever done it myself. I had people come take cuttings off of it,
but I want to try to do it myself. Well, you can take
cuttings. You can deplement a rooting hormone which you can buy at a garden
center and put them in a moist, very well drained material. I mean
it could be prolide, or it could be a mix of prolide and pete,
you know, potting soil. Type material keep them moist. I would
put a little tint over the cuttings and like a little piece of plastic and
get them out of the direct sun, but in good light, and it'll
take a while, but they'll root. Another option is do something called an
air layer. It's where you take a ring of bark off and you put
soil or potting soil around that covered with plastic and cover the plastic with foil
to reflect out the heat and it'll root in there while it's still attached to
the mother plant. And that gives a higher percentage of rooting because you still
have that flow of water and nutrients go into the cutting. There are other
ways to go about it, but you know the confederate rows. If you
have one that's producing seeds, those seeds can be you can grow them from
seed to Okay, is it just in the flower itself? Yeah, after
that, not all of them, I've noticed, not all of them or
will produce seeds. But if after the blooms, there should be a little
bit more pod there and it should have all seeds that are about the size
of ochra seeds or you know, maybe an inch cross. Yeah, you
want to let them dry. I usually let mine dry on the plant just
out there, and once they're clearly dry, then go ahead and harvest and
maybe spread them out inside, give them a few days just to fully make
sure there are fully dry. They don't have any maybe rain or moisture still
in the pod, but that will be fine. Yeah. There, It's
an easy plant to propagate. Okay, Okay, Well, this one has
been through all kinds of things. It's been through chee free news, it's
been seeing cows getting out, and it just keeps coming back. Yeah.
That's a great, great plant. Have fun. Okay, thank you,
sir, appreciate it all right, thank you, bye bye. Yeah,
Confederate Confederate rose some of you are going Confederate rows your picture of rosebush.
You know it's it's actually in the mallow family. It's in the same family
as okra and cotton and hibiscus, and it's really closely related to hibiscus.
But it's a perennial. It's a perennial plant. It gets quite tall compared
to most of the modern bread, you know, dinner plate sized. Southern
Hibiscus really really easy to grow and it I like it because the blooms,
let's see, they start out. I always get it confused. They start
out, Yeah, they start out whitish, and then they turned toward pink
and almost a burgundy wine color as they age through the course of a of
a day or two. Uh. It's really really nice plant. Famous old
Southern plant, one of those heirloom Southern plants to grow you can. You
can find plants all over the place, but if you live in the Kingwood
area, you are rich with garden centers. You've got Warren Southern Gardens and
you've got Kingwood Garden Center. Warrens is on North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden
Centers on Stonehallow Drive. They're open seven days a week. So here we
are it's Father's day time to find something for Dad. You're going to find
it there. Nice gift shops. They have incredible supply of plants, lots
lots of good options for the plants that you may want to try. I
know right now they've got the warrants. Has some Primark Freedom blackberries that is
a thornless BlackBerry, and Primark Freedom was developed in Arkansas. But it does
better here really than it does up there. It is a plant that,
unlike most blackberries, it can produce on the current years canes growth as well
as after winter when they come back out the second year. Now that's normal
for blackberries to go through the winter and then the second year you get fruit.
Primark freedom. You get fruit this year and you get fruit next year.
Pretty amazing plant. Of course, they have every other kind of plant
you can imagine. They got citrus trees and while you're there, pick up
some of the fruit berry and a trust mix from heirloom that they that they
carry. You're not going to do better than Warren's Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden
Center out in that area. Really fun places to visit. We've been talking
about all kinds of things plant wise this morning, and we hope to talk
about a lot more. The opportunities to have success with plants here are just
unbelievably what what's the word, uh, bountiful. There's a good one.
We've got garden centers in the Greater Houston area like nowhere else in the state.
I mean that that I've been around the stuff. I know the garden
centers around Texas, and I'm telling you that this is the truth. We
really have great options here. We have fertilizer products, here from our area
that do so well. You know. A good example of that is Nelson
Plant Food. Nelson has the Color Star line and the jugs that just absolutely
will set your landscape ablaze with color that a million different options for different blends
of fertilizers in the Color Star line. They also have the Turf Star line.
And that's what we're getting into this summer where we look at slow and
easy twenty two two ten. If you haven't fertilized yet, you need to
put it out for a gradual feed through the rest of the year. Hey,
we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Give Josh a call. We'll be back shortly. By the way,
when if you haven't given us a call yet, I would like some
folks that have never called before to call today. And if you've called before,
of course call back. We love to talk to folks. But if
you never called before, why don't you give us a call today. Let's
talk to you. I'd like to visit with some new gardeners. If you
have any kinds of questions regarding blooms in the summer. That would be a
really good topic today. It's about to be one hundred degrees and well about
to be and we're in it. What do you do for blooms when it's
too blazing hot for most things? To all those things that were happy in
spring, a lot of those are whimps and they're heading out when we get
into the brutal heat of summer, which, by the way, this is
I object. This is way too early to be going through a week one
hundred degree temperatures. But anyway, it is what it is. Let's talk
about some of those things when we come back. Look forward to visiting with
you. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy. KTRH Garden Line
does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just watching a good morning on a
good Saturday morning. Ys, got some light outside, let's be a good
time to be had not get a little bit garden work done while you're hopefully
you carry us with you, got a little portable radio or listen on your
phone. We are going to be talking about more things to do this morning
on gardening. I just enjoy visiting with gardeners, and we're going to start
right off this segment doing just that. Let's head out to Lake Conro and
we're going to visit with jo Anne. Good morning, Joanne. Yes,
for some reason, you're cutting in and out, but I can I can
hear you just slightly. Okay, is that better? Yeah? Good see,
good morning. I have a huge bag of pete moss. I'm not
sure why, but I have it, and I want to disperse it.
And I'm wondering where can I put it in my yard where it won't do
too much damage and maybe even do some good. I don't have a lot
of plants. I just have more or less a past your type of yard.
Okay, well, I mean it's not going to do damage anywhere.
You can read it out very a thin layer over your Saint Augustine. It
actually, in some areas has been shown to suppress take all root rot.
When you get a layer of it over the Saint Augustine, maybe about a
half inch thick, and then watered in. Really well, that would be
fine. I'd be used for it. Do you have any plant? Go
ahead, I did put some. I have a tomato plant in a pot.
I did put a layer of it on top, and it makes the
plant look dry all the time. Of course, so I'm watering it.
Maybe I'm watering it too much. I would I would not use it in
the pots. Pete. I don't want to go into details on it,
but Pete moss has some physical characteristics that I just find problematic in containers.
And I know all our blends have always had peat in them, but in
general, just putting straight peat or something like that in there, it's not
not really a good thing. It. Once it gets dry, it's really
hard to wet again. The water just rolls over the top. It's basically
just a top layer. But I can scoop it out, Yeah, scoop
it out, use it somewhere else, or mix it in, uh,
you know, as a small portion of a bigger potting sail blend that you
have. You can do that. But yeah, and I can just spread
it around the lawn without any problem. If you have any planet that likes
acidic, you may not. But if you got blueberries, if you've got
a zo, well I have Lantana. Well, Lantana doesn't care about the
acidic. It'll be fine. But a little Pete moss isn't gonna hurt anything.
Just go ahead and use it wherever you want, right, Okay,
thank you. You're lucky. By the way, you're up in the Lake
Conra area. You got an a plants in your backyard. Oh yeah,
they're really really good. I was just I followed them on social media and
everything. I was noticing they were sponsoring one of the local sports teams up
there, the kids teams, you know they do, and yeah, it's
it's I like it. I like a a garden center that is part of
the community. You know, that's not just here some they've been a long
time. They have pottery, plants, trees, you name it. They
do actually over thirty years. I saw I saw Kathy the other day,
the owner. She took over from her parents, Adam and Alice Ford,
and uh, it just it's just one of those places I love to go
to. But hey, they're crowded. All their parking lot is full every
day. Well it should be. I mean, you know, the one
oh five is a busy street and they're on the side of I know,
I know, I was over there. I don't know, it's a few
weeks ago and it just uh yeah, it's a popular but for good reason.
Once you walk in there and wander through three acres of cool stuff,
you uh understand why the parking lots for Hey, thank you Joanna for the
call. I appreciate that very much. Okay, nice you bet you take
care. If you are looking for a summer fertilizer, if you're looking for
summer pest control, nitro Foss has got you covered there Summer Essentials program.
It includes the you know, nineteen percent nitrogen fertilizer in the silver bag that
I talked about earlier. But it also includes a Bugout Max, which is
a good choice for insect problems. Bugout Max will help avoid whatever kind of
insects or you're dealing with in your soil. It'll work for that. They've
also got the Nitrofoss Fiant Killer, and everybody's got fiance. In fact,
just yesterday I was walking through my yard and there was a mound. Now,
how could fiance be allowed in the mound of the guy that hosts garden
line. Well, I think they get together and go let's just go shame
him. We're gonna land and pop up mounds everywhere. Seriously, Nitrofoss Fiant
Killer works quick and it prevents the queen from escaping. It kills the colony.
Those two products like all nitrofoss. Wherever you find nitro foss sold in
chenned Forest and gardens down in Richmond, Rosenberg Bearings hardware, you know they're
one on West Timer went over on Bissonette. I go up to I'll spash
Ace hardware in the woodlands and a lot of use hardware. Look for the
Nitrofos, Summer Essentials, bug Out Max and Fiant Killer. We're going to
head over and talk to Jerry now in Spring. Hello Jerry high Skip.
First of all, I really really enjoy your show. I think it's just
great. Anyway, I'm made E one. I still do our lawn,
you know, Moine trimming, edging. I use Randy's organic schedule. Our
beds, though, I've kind of gone downhill with freezing problems. We've lost
a number of plans. We have seven beds and I've gotten some bids for
redoing them and it's kind of pricey. My wife and I are thinking,
is this really stupid to be thinking about doing this as we're going into the
hottest time of the year. Well, it is a challenging time to plant
in the summer. But you can do it. You just have to think
of that plant, even though it's in the ground. Think of it as
like you you set the pot down in the ground and dug a home.
Put the pot in the ground. That's where all the roots still are,
and they're going to be there for a while. And there's no problem planting
if you treat that plant just like it would be at the nursery. And
what are they water in it once or twice a day for sure at the
nursery. So in the ground, you got to water that little area once
or twice a day because it just a little bit. You don't want to
drowned it. But it gradually gets roots out. So just like that plant
could live in the nursery all summer, it can live in the ground at
your house all summer. But you just have to realize the roots are all
in a little cylinder for a good while as they slowly venture out a higher
and higher percentage of roots or in your soil now, and so you have
to go from that treating it like it's sitting in a pot on top of
the ground still to recognizing that it's getting established. So you're gradually tapering off
to what we would consider normal watering. But yeah, you can do it
now, or you could spend this time building your soil, building up raised
beds, purchasing a mix, doing the kinds of things to get ready and
plant for a fall planting later in the season. So both both options are
viable. Okay, Given a choice, it would be better to wait.
From strictly how easy it is it to take care of a plant, it's
easier to do a fall planting. Yeah. From a standpoint of hey,
I don't want to wait till fall to get started. I want to start
turning the landscape around. You can do it now, just keeping in mind
what I mentioned. Okay, okay, okay, well that sounds good.
All right, Thank you, Skip. I surely appreciate everything that you do.
Well. I appreciate the call. Thank you, Thank you very very
much. If you'd like to get on with us, our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and Stephen, you'll be
first when we come back. Good morning, you're listening to garden Line on
a good day to talk about gardening. Good day to get out and get
a little work done. This morning, Father's Day weekend. Good time to
get out to some garden centers and find some gifts for Dad as well.
You know, a minute ago I was talking with um let's see who's oh
Jerry about summer planting, and I should have mentioned thus. Then after during
break, I thought, you know, I should have told Jerry about this.
Medina has a product call has to Grow. It's a six twelve six
fertilizer. It's got high in the phosphorus and when you were putting in a
new plant, you mix it in water. I mean you can, you
can do it. There's a hose in version where you can just spray,
you know, as you a large area where you can just buy the court
bottle. It's got a measuring cup in it. And whenever you do transplanting,
you need to use a product like Medina has to Grow six to six.
You drench the plant in when you plant, you come back later a
week later, and do it again a week later, and do it again.
Just just continue to provide that what it's got in it. It's got
the nitrogen and phosphorus potassium, but it also has a Medina soil activator to
stimulate biological activity and humate humic acid and seaweed extracts all combined in one product.
It doesn't have that salt build up issue that you're going to have with
some types of fertilizers. It is excellent to use for transplants, so good
to use all in all kinds of ways and places, but especially when you're
putting a new plant in the ground like that, give it a boost with
has to grow six two six by medinas. Let's head out to We're going
to go to Stephen and let's see Steve in Houston. How are you doing
this morning? Stephen? Doing good? How are you well? Thank you?
So I got a question about preparing the soils for planting trees. I've
got heavy clay soil, and I was just I'm not sure if I needed
doing if I could do something now in preparation for planting these trees next to
all? Yeah, good good, I don't worry about it. Just when,
because we're gonna plant tigny gallant trees. Okay, what kind of uh
just real briefly, what species are you looking at planting? Probably love these
five boats, probably some other data type trees for the area we're going to
planting. Okay, larger trees so I would not Yeah, I would not
bother with the Soil Amendment on that. Uh, definitely. You don't want
to put like a compost in the potting in the hole you dig. For
example, those trees are huge and eventually they're going to have roots that reach
two neighbors down on each side, all over the place. So to amend
a little area really doesn't do any good. And in fact, when you
dig it in a clay soil, that becomes an underground bathtub, you know.
I mean, if you dig a hole in clay, that's what that's
called a farm pond. It's a hole in clay and they and it holds
water, and so you fill it with organic matter, and now you've got
decomposing organic matter anaerobically when you get when it rains too much or whatever,
and that's not good. They've got to live in the soil you have.
So I mean, if you want to take a large area, you know,
ten foot across and amend it a little bit, rototil it in as
deep as you can, you can do that initially, but ultimately it's digging
a hole that's no deeper than the root ball. Because you don't want the
hole to settle after you plant, but wider than the root ball and make
it an ugly hole, not a nice slick round hole like a terra cotta
pot. You want a hole that's that you know your shovel is taking chunks
out of this side and it's kind of irregular. And then use the soil
you dug out to replant to put the plant back in. Check for roots
going around in a circle on that tree when you when it comes out of
the pot, or whoever's planting it for you, anything going in a circle,
you need to cut it here and there and it will. It will
recover. It will send out new roots within just a few weeks, all
right, and its stock. Uh to throw in the break down that way,
No, it lives. Won't do that. If if it's a sodic
gypsum is what you're thinking, Yeah, uh, if it's a sodic clay,
gypsum can help. But for this situation you're looking at, I wouldn't
I wouldn't bother with that. I would just okay. Well, if you
have a high sodium content, gypsum knocks the sodium off the soil molecules and
allows that soil to develop a better structure. Gyp sodium destroys the structure,
so that would be one thing. Gypsum is calcium sulfate, and so that
if you need calcium, well then gypsum could help. No. Expanded shale
is like think of it as kitty litter that's been fired hot hot hot.
Yeah, that's that's more of a think of it as a rock that just
stays like that in the soil, but as porous and it holds moisture nutrients,
and if you put enough of it, it makes the soiled drain internally
better. But again I go back to you mentioned native plants. When you
plant a plant, a plant that wants to be here, they're already growing
out in the wild in this soil and so that yeah, so that yeah,
Okay, appreciate it. Thank you, Stephen. Appreciate that call very
much. Hey, if you have not considered backyard birding, you really need
to. I was out at Wabbirds Unlimited in Kingwood just recently and had a
great time out there. There are wah Birds unlimiteds all over this area.
There's seven of them. You can there's one in Kingwood, there's one in
Katie, there's one in Cyprus, one in pair Land down South and Belair
in West Houston, and there's now one in clear Lake as well. Wilbirds
Unlimited have everything you would need and they have quality products. They have the
kinds of bird seed that birds eat. A lot of cheap bird seed you
see, is a lot of things birds just kick out on the ground.
They're not going to eat it. And with wa Birds Unlimited, when you
get one of their quality feeds, the birds are gonna eat everything you put
in the in the feeder. And the feeders they have are amazing. I
just I'm the happy owner of a new bird feeder. I'll tell you about
that more another time, but that the birdhouses just every kind of supply you
can imagine. Wild Birds Unlimited. I mean, it is really an amazing
place. Go online, check them out itbu dot Com, Forward Slash Houston.
Let's head out to clear Lake and we're gonna visit with Mario. Hello
Will Mario, Hey, Skip, how are you well? Thanks? Thanks
thanks for taking my call. I have some tiny boxwoods in the front of
my house that we're really damaged by the freeze. And it's kind of strange
because what I'm seeing is that sometimes the dead parts are in the middle of
the plant and the outside seem to be fine. And then in other cases
it's the outside has been damaged and parts of other parts of the outside are
okay. So my question is do I replace those things or can I get
them back to fairly close to the shape they originally were in. You probably
can get them back. There's one or two things that's happened, and maybe
the freeze. And if that's the case, when you follow that dead branch
down, look a look at the branch itself as it goes down to wherever
it connects with living branches. You know, branches that have green leaves on
them. Look for splits, vertical splits, and the by vertical, I
mean along the direction of the branch splits in the bark. That would be
a free sign. There's also diseases that can also cause splits, but they're
cankers that are sunken areas, and those can get diseases, and they can
also get physical damage. Boxwood and the little dwarf yopas are very brittle,
both of them. And you know, kids playing basketball and a ball bounces
over there and lands in the shrub can crack a branch and then you get
a dead spot, even though you don't you don't see that, that's what's
happened when it initially happens. So it's gonna be one of those things.
Just follow it back and cut it off just where it connects to living branches
that are bearing leaves and that boxwood will fill back in. Give it a
little bit of fertilizer to you know, to give it a boost, and
it'll it'll be just fine. Great, that's good news. What kind of
fertilizer do you recommend for those thoughts? You know, I would use it's
a foliage plant. Basically a shrub is a foliage plant, and so I
would You could just use a fertilizer that is for like growing your lawn that
would work well. There are some specific tree fertilizers that a number of manufacturers
here that we talk about make, but just a good quality lawn fertilizer would
work just well. So if you know, if you like a Microlife type
fertilizer, that would work well. If you want to get one of the
tree and shrub fertilizer, Microlife does have one like that. I would just
use the six two four the lawn fertilizer put it underneath air, scratch it
into soil watered in. Well, uh and that'll that'll give you a number
of weeks of coverage. It won't burn the plants. I mean, if
you overdid it, it would still not burn the plants. That's one thing
I like about that. Well, and I'm sorry part about the name of
the brand. Well, I said that Microlife was a good example. It's
an organic fertilizer. And the it's the green bag, green bag six two
four, the green bag six two four. With that fertilizer, you're gonna
it's gonna cover a lot of kinds of plants. It's got that you know,
higher nitrogen number, and so that's gonna be just just fine. Well,
thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Great job too,
Thank you. I appreciate that, Mario. Good luck with your plants out
there. Yeah, the micro I was using some some Microlife on the lawn
earlier this year. And by the way, if you're if you're doing it
on your lawn, if you haven't summer fertilized, this is a time to
do the Microlife fertilizer. You can put it down. I would also add
the humates plus that would be like concentrated compost in a bag. So that's
the purple bag by the way, so green bag and then purple bag,
both on your lawn in the summer weeks of good gradual, slow release feeding
and you will watch the improvements in your lawn. But also what you won't
see as improvements in that surface of the soil as that organic materials go down
and break down with biological activity and just make the lawn better and better.
If you can find microlife all over, by the way, if you go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com, Microlife Fertiliser dot com, just check it out.
You'll find out all the places that you can purchase it pretty much all
the garden centers, the feed stores, the ace hardware stores that we talk
about here, they're gonna they're gonna carry that. So we're visiting about,
you know, different things this morning. And something I was thinking about the
other day is there is a magazine here in Texas that are right for You
may have heard a commercial for it on the on the station. It's Texas
Gardener, and Texas Gardner is a unique magazine and I'm biased. I've written
for him for decades it's an awesome magazine. It's the only magazine that is
for texas As gardeners. In fact, across the country, state gardening magazines
have gone by the wayside, and Texas Gardener stands almost alone in that regard.
It has the local information that you need for here in Texas. It's
it's written for Texas gardeners. Buy Texas Gardeners. I know almost all the
writers of it, and they are people that know what they're talking about,
and so it's good and local information. Now you know those pretty tabletop magazines
of you know that go across the country, they're fine, But when you
want to know about Texas, you need you need to read a place like
Texas Gardner. By the way, if you locally, our garden centers Arbigate
Plants for All Seasons in Channed Gardens in Channed Forest, Ana, CNA Maltz,
and Warren's Garden Center all have copies of Texas Gardner Magazine. You can
pick up right from the garden center. Buy one, check it out and
see what I'm talking about. To be well in the sunside a good Saturday
morning on the day before Father's Day. Nice stay, nice time right now.
To be outside, get a little work done for the day, heats
up a little bit, and after that it'd be a good time to visit
a garden center, gets some supplies and planters and gifts for dads. By
the way, maybe working indoors on some of the plantings. There's a lot
of a lot of gardening things we can do. I mean, that's a
nice thing about gardening. You know you'd think it's weather related. Well,
not necessarily. I mean, what do we do in the middle of winter.
We plant siege for growing out in the spring, garden and so on.
Lots of things to do. Hey, you know I've you've heard me.
I'm a broken record about soil. When you plan a plant, you
are either sentenced to failure already or you are set up for success. Eighty
percent of the way to success right there. And it's because you've picked to
site that drains well. You've picticites at sunny or shady plants. You're gonna
have an opinion about that. And you've prepared the soil. You have raised
beds for drainage, you have organic matter for expanding the root zone area and
making it a much more efficient area for roots to take up water. And
nutrients. And I can't think of a better way to do that than with
the heirloom soils. Now, Heirloom Soils of Texas. Write that down.
Airloom Soils of Texas dot com. Check out the different products that they have
to offer. They've got a veggiean herb mix excellent for containerized growing if you
want to make large raised beds, if you want to just improve the soil
that you have in your garden, veggiean herb mix. There is a leafmo
compost. There's an expanded shale and compost blend that's good for in a large
area, deeply amending your clay with to improve the drainage on that clay soil.
And I could just go on and on with all the different kinds of
things from indoor the works, indoor potting soil, cactus succulent soil, on
and on airloom soils. Hey, if you need to know how much soil
you need for a project, go to Airloom Soils of Texas dot com and
look at their compost calculator. It will amaze you. You will be able
to nail down exactly how many qubic yards you need, how many wheelbarrows.
You need? How many five gallon buckets are in a qubic yard. That's
a quiz question. Well, if you go to airlom soils dot com calculator,
you'll be able to answer that question. We would have a prize or
give it away anybody who goes there and first one to call with the answer.
That'd be a good idea. We're gonna try that sometime when you're listening
to garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Give us a call seven one three two one to fifty
eight seventy four. I love I love getting out and visiting garden centers and
one of the my favorite garden centers to go to is RCW Nurseries. RCW
is the garden center that's where Tumba Parkway Haby two forty nine comes into Belt
eight and rw has got pretty much everything you need. And if they don't
have it, they can get it. Just ask them. They'll do their
best to find it and bring it in. So if you need herbs,
perennials, annual shrubs, native trees that their tree selection is outstanding fifteen gallons
up to two hundred gallons and they can come out and plant them for you
and do it right. They also have a great selection of roses. But
right now the summer color is a blaze. I mean, the plants that
can take the weather we're having right now. You're going to find them at
RCW Nurseries again RCW Nurseries dot Com. Check it out. And while you're
there again Father's Day, good time to buy something for Dad. I know
you can find a plant that Dad will love there at the RCW Nurseries.
Before we went to break, I was talking about Texas Gardner Magazine and I
love that magazine because I can think of no other well around the country.
There's not a commercial magazine for a state that really covers it, and that
as people that know about that state writing and doing that kind of thing.
And j Jay White and Sally they're friends of mine and I've known them a
long time. They're just good folks and you're going to find Jay. Jay
and I are both speaking at an Obapalooza event coming up. I'll tell you
more about that as a good little bit closer to it, but we crossed
paths a lot. I'm going to be speaking at a Tomato conference Jay is
going to be doing later this summer. But it just a wealth of information,
good information and so and this this isn't an ad for for a Texas
gardener. It's just something I really believe in. I mean, if you
want good quality information, you need to seek that out and that's what we
try to have here on garden Line. There's a lot of gardening misinformation out
there. There's a lot of self proclaimed experts, just like when it comes
to your health, there's a lot of people telling you everything you need to
do and they don't necessarily know what they're talking about. When you find good
quality information, it gets you off to a good start. You're not wasting
your time and your money because somebody who was self proclaimed expert said that it'll
work, when in many cases it does. In fact, I cringe every
time I look on social media. Let's head out to the phones. We're
gonna go to Katie now and we're gonna talk to John. Hello, John,
very good morning morning. So one thing me and my kids have been
doing for the last few years is get off the screens and get on the
garden. We started planning a whole bunch of cucumbers, different types, straight
aids, purpless little bush varieties. And for first three or so years everything
worked out great, beautiful sweet cucumbers. And then last year, I don't
know what it was, but all the cucumbers just started tasting bitter and nasty.
It didn't matter if they're small or big. Thoughts on that that's a
heat related thing. They do get better also as they get old. You
know, if you go past that real tender, succulent stage and they start
to the skin toughens a little bit, you may get some bitterness there.
But it's especially related to heat, and varieties aren't all the same. Some
are a little more prone to it than others, but in general that's why
we don't see cucumber harvests through the heat of summer. It's a spring and
a fall crop for us. Gotcha, we started playing of corn completely gay
up on the cucumbers because they were gross. Okay, any words on how
many different types of varieties to put into garden beds. With corn, you
don't need more than one variety. It pollinates itself, and in fact,
if you do it, there there's groups of corn. Well, first of
all, I'll just real quickly, there's there's a kind of corn that we
grind up for corn meal. Then there's the kind of corn we use for
popcorn. Then there's a kind of corn we call sweetcorn that we eat,
and sweet corn there's different groups. They're super sweet, there's sugar enhanced versions,
the EH versions, and then there's just regular sweetcorn. And you don't
want those to pollinate each other. So you wouldn't put a super sweet with
a regular type of sweetcorn. But when you plan them, plant one variety
and make it at least four rows wide. Because it's wind pollinated. The
pollen falls from the tassels and falls onto the silks of the ears, and
that's what makes a full ear full of kernels. And so if you just
have one skinny row and the wind's blowing sideways, you're not going to get
the pollination you need. So plant them in blocks as best you can.
Yeah, we have garden beds with some of them have four different varieties.
Because first you're trying it already starting to get some ears pop up. Yeah,
I just want to get some additional tips for next year. Yeah,
that's what I would do, absolutely. And you can go online to Aggy
Horticulture website and go to the vegetable section. There's a whole free PDF page
you can look at it on the screen or print it out on on how
to grow corn. I would recommend that, Hey, John, thank you
for the call. We're gonna have to head to break. Kevin, you'll
be first up, but if you'd like to be up, dial seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four and Josh will get shown the board
the gold to show you never did ten. They furnished off an apartment with
a two room, a robust The cooler reader was crammed with TV dinners than
jin j. Good morning. If you're listening to garden Line and we are
talking about all kinds of things gardening this morning, if you'd like to give
us a call, the number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Let's head out now to Katie and talk to Kevin. Good
morning, Kevin, good morning. What's up? I have a large a
country in my backyard. A couple of weeks ago I noticed this white I
wouldn't say residue, but the bark is turned white in areas and it seems
like the bark is maybe pulling away from the tree. A bit okay,
Yeah, I just kind of wondering what would be the first step. Can
you get to the area a ladder or whatever. Can you reach where the
area is um? Yes, it actually starts close to the base. It
runs up about eight foot and then some of the larger branches I've noticed not
as much, but yes, I can reach the areas most of them.
Well, it could be it could be a couple of things, but it
may be that the bark is dead underneath there. And but if you can
reach the area, kind of pull away the outer loose bark and just see
is the whole the whole thick bark coming off and so there's like inner pecan
wood underneath it exposed now or is it is it just the outer bark flaking
off? That something is growing on the outer bark, Because there are some
different things from lichens to fungia to you name it that can grow on bark,
the outer dead bark, But that's of no concern. If if it's
a sign that the cambium and the living tissues there were killed and now you've
just got a thick dead bark all the way down to the wood of the
interior, then you want to clean all that away and give make sure the
tree has adequate water as we go into the heat of summer, and do
a little fertilization for it to get a little bit of vigor going, because
you want it to be able to form that callous that that closes its way
across and covers over that interior wood. So I would say that the bark,
the whole piece pulls off and it's just like somebody painted it like a
lightning Okay, underneath it's dark, but I've only pulled light one or two
pieces away, so I don't I don't know pulling the hole all of that
off. Are you saying pull it off or yeah, I am if it's
dead. If it's dead, you know pecauns, they typically kind of flake
the bark a little bit, uh, depending on the edge of the tree.
But if you do not have living bark that's covering over that wood,
you want to get the dead bark off so that that wood can dry out
after it rains. You're not holding moisture back there because that just increases the
incidence of interior decay, which eventually u creates a hazard tree over a long
time. So you are go ahead. It does look damn like the people
when I pulled a couple of pieces I pulled off it, it looks very
dark. And yeah, so as you as you pull that off, you
know, as you look to the left and the right on that area,
uh, somewhere you should see callis starting to come in like a little lava
flow. If you will, you know it is. It's moving in a
raised callus. That tissue will keep creeping across until the left side and the
right side come together. And now the bark has the interior wood has been
covered up. And so that that's what you want to happen. Um.
Now, one area is probably fifteen inches wide, bob six feet tall.
Okay, so that's okamp, pull that whole area off like that. Yeah,
I mean, if it's dead, it's not going to come back to
life. And all that barks by is increasing decay. So I don't care
how big it is. What it is is uh. And so you're not
going to hurt anything by taking dead bark off, just like clipping your fingernails
doesn't hurt anything. Right, So the dead bark is just dead tissue that's
no longer part of helping the plant. In fact, is now hurting it
by holding that moisture behind it. Okay, all right, sounds good.
Thank you you, Bet Kevin, thank you for the call. I appreciate
that. You know, speaking of trees, if you need a quality tree,
you need to call Verdant Tree Farm Verdant Tree Farm dot com. Maybe
I should say Verdant. I don't know Verdon. I always say Verdant,
but Verdon means green. Well, they have green trees. You're gonna get
trees all the way up to seven hundred gallons. If you want palm trees,
they specialize in those, but they have all kinds of other types of
trees. Verdant Tree Farm is now in three locations, which is nice.
They've got the location the original out there on bark or Cypress on the west
side. Down in parallel on West Broadway they have a location. And now
in the Heights where Yale Street and I ten come together, another location of
Verdant. You can go in, you can sit down, you can get
a consultation. Here's a picture in my yard. What will go here?
What's a good choice? All that kind of stuff. They'll come out,
they'll plant it, they'll plant it right, and you'll set yourself up for
long term success. What do they say? The best time to plant a
tree was fifty years ago. The next best time is today. Don't delay.
The sooner you get a quality tree in the ground and you take care
of it. The sooner you're going to be able to hang a hammock in
it and enjoy it for years and years to come. You plant the right
kind of tree and you enjoy it for a very very long time. You
know. Pulty's has been building homes for seniors, for people fifty five and
better active adults for over seventy years. Now, two miles from downtown full
Shore on FM three fifty nine is the newest pulty community and this one has
a community garden that I'm helping them set up. So if you're a gardener,
I mean it's a win win, right, Pulti's inspired designs that air
lifestyle programs and now a place to garden. Go to dellweb dot com slash
Houston for more information or give m a call to eight one four five nine
zero six zero nine Pulty. I can't wait to see that fully developed now
community garden out there that is going to really really cool and fun. I
was communicating with the folks out at the B Supply which is out in Dayton,
and I've talked about them before. That is a place that is if
you're if you're wanting to be a beekeeper, If you are a beekeeper,
you need to go there to get your supplies. Their storefront is absolutely amazing
the amount of supplies they have. But most importantly, they will walk you
through how to get into beekeeping or they'll help you deal with issues you might
have. They have hives on site. They can take you out and show
you things hands on. They have classes now once a month, the beginner
classes at the B Supplier once a month out in Dayton. Go to the
B Supply dot com the B Supply dot com to find out more. If
you'd like a tour, I highly recommend any group go out for a tour.
It is just fascinating. They'll give you a short presentation about bees and
the different bees in the hive and how that work. You'll get to walk
out and see a frame of bees taken from one of the hives, weather
permitting, You'll get to taste like six different kinds of honey. If you
have a homeschool group, a church group, Pacific organization, a garden club,
any group of kids, Scouts for example, be supply dot com.
Those classes are those honey tours are free. I mean that's a win win.
When you go ask to see what, you don't have to ask.
It's the biggest thing in the room, the second largest indoor b observation hive
in the world. Okay, we are going to head out to a break,
Josh, we'll get you on board seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two ktrh go ahead and give them
a call so you can be first up. After we had to break.
We've got a lot more things to talk about, a lot more your calls
to get to today. Looking outside, I just you know of what we
got two more hours of gardenline this morning, and I have got a lot
of garden type stuff I'm going to get active with today, especially stopping in
to visit some garden centers. Remember it's Father's Day. Great time to buy
again if you've got a dad that is a gardener. Oh my goodness,
go to some of our garden centers. Check out the things they have for
Father's Day. So I'm gonna have discounts you can buy a coupon for dad,
you can buy tools for dad, all kinds of cool stuff. If
you're dad in a gardener, but he's a lawn ranger, you know,
the guy that has to have the best lawn on the block. Go visit
for Father's Day. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor
just watching Good Morning on a good Morning the Gardening for talking about gardening.
For're asking questions about gardening. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are
here to answer your gardening questions on garden Line. Thanks for listening our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. We've got a lot of different topics we
can talk about today. And earlier I mentioned talking about some summer color flowers,
and there are so many good flowers that do well in summer. You
know, the biggest and gaudiest things in the box may well be the hibiscus.
The tropical types of hibiscus. They've got the darker green, smaller,
shinier leaves and the flowers that just they have the colors that are just all
over the place, I mean really beautiful. They're not cold hearty, but
they are gorgeous, and they fine here in the summer heat. And then
we got the perennial hibiscus, the southern mallows that have the big dinner plate
sized blooms almost always in a like a red, a pink, white,
or some swirly mixture of the above. Specaly, sometimes those just take our
heat just fine. Too. We got our native, the Texas star hibiscus.
It's native to the Gulf Coast. Fun fact, it's called Texas star.
It's native to the Gulf Coast, but it's not native to Texas.
I don't know how that happened, but anyway, we'll take it. Beautiful,
beautiful little hibiscus plant we considered a regional native. It's certainly, what
do they say, not from Texas, but I got here as fast as
I could. We'll count it that way. Texas wants you anyway, as
Randy Travis would put it. So, the hibiscus are just some of those
plants that you need them in your landscape. Give them good sun you can
put especially the tropical types people grow them in large can tainers because then you
can roll them into the garage when winter finally comes and bring them back out
again, keep them going year after year, or I don't know, if
we don't have too cool of weather, you can just cover them upon and
get by that way. But a good time to be picking those out and
getting those out, because just because it's summer doesn't mean our landscapes have to
turn into a sea of green. And you know what I'm talking about.
You know, go through late June, July, in August, and you
look into landscapes and it's like green grass, green ground cover, green shrubs,
green trees, and where's the color. There's not a lot compared to
spring. But there's no need for it to be a sea of green.
We have a lot of great color plants that we can grow here in this
area that do superbly well through the heat of the summer. Well, I'm
gonna quit talking a minute. We're going to go out to the woodlands and
we're gonna start off talking with Andy. Hello. Andy, Yes, sir,
thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir, I've got a burr
oak tree. It's maybe fifteen years old, so it's not huge, maybe
thirty feet tall, And the leaves this spring are like dying from the inside
out and like they're really dried out. And you know that it's been getting
plenty of water, So I don't think it's because it's you know, been
too hot. But I don't know if this is a fungus or a virus
or oak wilt. I don't know if you have any ideas what it might
be. Well, let me ask you a couple of diagnostic questions. When
you say from the inside out, do you mean the leaves on the inside
of the tree are dying and gradually working their way to the leaves on the
outside, or do you mean in the leaf itself the browning starts interior?
Which way? Yeah, in them in the leaf itself. Okay. And
it doesn't really seem how do I say, it's not like to a specific
area. It seems like it's like all over the tree, and some leaves
look really healthy and there's a lot of new green growth. Yeah, so
I think the tree is healthy. It's just a lot of the leaves are
starting to die. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you an answer,
and then if you would like, I'll put you on hold when we're
done here, and you can tell get with Josh and let him help you
get a photo to me. If you can go up and take some photos
of leaves up close and sharp focus, show me the top sides and the
bottom sides as close as you can get, you know, the whole leaf
in the picture, if possible. I'll be glad to take a look,
because it could be more than one thing. Is are the veins dying or
is the area between the veins dying? Yeah, the whole center of the
leaf, okay, and it's like like dry as paper. I mean it's
like parched. Okay. There are some scorch type diseases. There are bacteria
that can plug the plumbing of the leaf. There are just with the heat
and everything, the demands are high, and so if the flow of water
through that leaf is not adequate, it starts you start to see that kind
of browning and collapse. So different things can cause that. There's also some
some insects on little caterpillars and soft lives and things that can chew on the
leaves and create the brown areas in them. So let's let's take a look
at a picture. Andy number one, I'm not worried about it. Based
on what you've said, I think your tree is gonna be fine. I
don't think a treatment is needed, but just to be sure, I'm gonna
put you on hold and let Josh help you with getting some photos to me,
and that way I can give you a real accurate, for sure diagnosis.
Okay, okay, thank you very much for that call. I appreciate
that. Hey, if you've not been to plants for all seasons, you've
gotta go. If you've been, you know what I'm talking about. Green
thumbs that take pride in their lawn and garden. They know about plants for
all seasons, and they love to visit plants for all seasons. But if
you're a brown thumb and you want to turn that thumb green, you need
to visit plants for all seasons. They've got educated folks that know what they're
talking about, experienced. When you bring a problem in, they take a
look at it, they tell you what's wrong. If anything's wrong, I
mean it may be that now it's fine, you don't need anything, or
if you need a product, they know which one to take you to to
solve the problem. They have education, they have awesome selection of plants.
I mean Father's Day weekend, from the gift shop to the plants outside.
Plants for all seasons is the true lawn and garden experts. They can help
you with the planting, with custom potting. Bring them a picture in if
you want to. You know your neighbor's got a flower, take a picture
of it and go into plants say what is is? I gotta have one.
Plants for all seasons dot com. Plants for all Seasons dot com.
They're at Highway two forty nine, Tumball Parkway and Louetta, right there in
the corner. That's the place two eight one three seven six one six four
six. I love going into that place. Just a couple of weeks ago,
I was in there, just amazed at the different things that they have.
Let's heart out to Baytown and we're gonna talk now to Glenn. Hello,
Glenn, good morning, Good morning. I have a simple question.
It's not about plants. I have an outside patio that's uncovered. I have
a thin layer of Burt mulch that's already on the top of landscape fabric.
It's deteriorating, and I want to replace it with cedar mulch to cut back
on the mosquitos here in Baytown. And I want to know if I could
put that over the top of that the thin layer that's already there, or
do I need to move all that off. You don't need to remove it.
You can just put it on top if you want. I'm not a
big landscape fabric fan. Initially it works pretty good and looks good, and
then you start to get dirt and decomposing things on top, and weed seeds
start to come up on top of it, and then you just gotta this
check now. So this might be a good time to pull the fabric out,
put that mult that was on the fabric back because it'll decompose and build
your soil and then throw the new malts on top of that. Okay,
I did it, and the other I have a yard of George of flower
bits and I did put landscape fabric down before. And I don't like it,
okay, because, like you say, it decomposes in the weeds grew
anyway. Yeah, yeah, they do. I was told that the cedar
molts would last much longer than the bark mault. Yeah, and it would
help with insects. It will especially for a while. You know, as
it ages to a point, you're not going to have that as much of
that benefit. But initially, yeah, and it's very true that it does
last longer. Cedar decomposes flour. That's why they put cedar fence posts down
in the farm. It's a lot more expensive, but it's I'm pretty rich
worth it. Yeah, I get it. That's that's true. All right.
Well, okay, so I did go ahead put it over the Yeah,
yeah, that's right. That's right over the top, and you're good
to go. Hey, I got to take a break. Give us a
call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Josh gets
you on the board. We'll talk to you right away when we come back
from break. Good morning, A little sunshine coming out now, see it
across the tree tops outside. That's it. You know, I sat the
city. We got some beautiful trees and I'm looking at pine trees. I'm
looking at oak trees and maple trees, all kinds of trees blowing in the
little bit of a breeze going on out there. And you know, when
I see that this morning, I was looking thinking about that we live in
a place where there's these things called hurricanes that come from summer into fall,
and they can take their toll on our trees. I mean, if you've
been here very long, you know what I'm of course what I'm talking about.
This is a good time to have somebody come out and look at your
trees and any kind of work that needs to be done, you need to
get that done. So if you've got broken limbs, if you've got limbs
that have died, or limbs that are split, or any kind of stuff
that needs to be pruned and taken care of, and you need to hire
someone that knows what they're talking about. The guys that put their business card
in your door, just throw those away. Call Affordable Tree. Now why
do we talk about affordable Tree, Well, because they know what they're talking
about. Martin and Joe. The family has been in this business for a
long time. I mean they absolutely know what's going on. Like fifty two
years I think the family has been doing this. You can go to aff
Tree Service dot com or give him a call seven one three six ninety nine
twenty six sixty three. Martin Spoon Moore his wife Joe are going to answer
the phones. If they don't, you call the wrong place of Affordable in
the name, hang up, find the number, call back again. If
you need power lines clean cleared out, if maybe a tree's hanging a branch
over your roof or over your neighbor's fence, or some other thing like that,
they'll tell you if it needs to be done. They're not going to
sell you service as they don't. They're not the two jerks under chainsaw tree
service that drives down the street and turns your trees into hat racks and ruins
them for the rest of their life. This is the most valuable parts of
your landscape. Plants. There's the trees on your property. Don't let anybody
touch those trees. It doesn't know what they're doing. An Affordable Tree Service
or people that know what they're doing. I'm telling you very beautiful, valuable
trees. They can take care of them. Everything you need, deep roof
feeding, on and on and on down the line they do it. Tell
them you're a gardenline customer because they stay busy, but gardenline customers grow the
front of the line. So tell them you hurt on guardline and they will
make sure that you get taken care of. At Affordable Tree service. We
want to go out to north Shore and we're gonna talk to Donnie. Good
morning, Donnie, Hey, good morning, Josh. I picked up something
that I think I've pronounced it right, Ferty Loan men shelated multi nutrient liquid
irons. You purchased a liquid iron? Yeah to Uh did you get the
first names I pronounced? If I pronounced them, say it again, Bertie
Loan Me, okay, yeah, okay, Uh. To help stimulate my
petunias root because they seem like they're suffering in this heat along with not maybe
getting enough water in a timely manner. So I've just wanted to go with
you on how to apply that, uh well in the soil. Any kind
of an iron supplement is fine if you have iron deficiency. If your new
growth is yellow, it's pale, it's not green, the new growth the
ends of the shoots, then the iron would help. But if you're trying
to stimulate the root system on those plants, I would get something called has
to Grow six twelve six that has got a lot of phosphorus in it,
which helps with the root stimulation. It's got the nitrogen phosphorus and potassium,
and it's got medinas will activator with the biological activity and humate humic acid.
It's got sea seaweed seaweed extract in it too, So that concoction you mix
it up, put in a watering can drench over your new plants that you
put in. That's going to be the thing that better sets them up.
Now, the iron is fine to treat just iron deficiency. But for the
getting a new plant going, the medina has to grow six twelve six is
the one I would look for. That's what I would recommend for you,
Donnie. Okay, what about the transplant. And I got a couple of
new pocon tree that popped up in my flower beds. Okay, I want
to transplant them from Harit's counting down in the Missouri county, all right,
So what you want to do is wait till fall. When the leaves fall
off those trees or turning yellow, you know they're about to turn loose.
That's a good time. So let's just say November. Then dig them up.
You want to go down. They've got a tap root. If they're
a seedling that popped up in your bed, they have a tap root,
and you want to go down and get that root and dig it up.
You can shake the soil off of it, you know, if it's too
hard to get the soil and the roots all down there. But you just
want to wet it and then pack it with anything that will hold the moisture.
I mean it could be sawdust that's wet. Anything just to kind of
hold the moisture around them. Put a plastic around it, maybe a trash
bag. And then get them down to where you're going to plant them and
put them in the ground right away and water them in really well. Put
them at the same level they were growing. You can see the soil lion
on the trunk where it was going into the soil and the flower bed.
That's how planted in the new spot, watered in really well. Don't put
potting soil in, don't put fertilizer in. Just use the soil you dug
out of the hole, put it back in and settle it in with a
good watering and they'll take right off growing for you. Oh okay, and
you know that hastergro just mentioned. I would water them in with that.
I would use that as the solution to water them in, so that won't
hurt. But it's not the best solution. No, it's it's adding iron
and if iron is needed that that's helpful. But if iron is not needed
and you've already got let's say high iron levels, then adding more iron is
not not helpful. Okay, okay, alrighty, all right, Donny,
Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two and two fifty eight
seventy four. Hey, if you live up in Magnolia on FM twenty nine
seventy eight that area, Okay, that Spring Creek Feed is your neighborhood feed
store. They're just minutes from Grand Parkway and Highway to forty nine. When
you drive up, I mean it is. The place just looks impressive driving
up. You walk in the door, and friendly courtious staff greet you there.
That's what you'd expect from a feed store. They're gonna have all the
things that feed stores have, livestock feed, wildlife feed, and so on.
They also have a grooming center for your pets and then pet food quality
pet foods Victor prena. They have a frequent buyer program, so if you
continually buy pet foods there, you're going to be able to save some money
on the pet foods as well. They carry the products we talk about,
all the fertilizer products. You here. If you need lawn and garden and
pond supply, if you need herbicides, fungicides, pets sides, they've got
it all. They're on in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight. That's
Spring Creek Feed. Check it out. You will be very impressed. Hey,
if you're into backyard chickens too, they got all the supplies you need
for that as well. Spring Creek Feed. Last time I went in there,
I was just kind of perusing the store. I was like, to
do that, and you walk through a store, see what they have,
what do they carry, what's missing and stuff those kind of things. That's
how I go into a store, just kind of checking out what they have.
And I just really really enjoyed and I was impressed. You know,
every time I turned a corner, it's like, oh, they have that
too, they have that too. That's kind of cool stuff. Enjoyed doing
that. If you are thinking about purchasing a new home, maybe it's kind
of hitting retirement age or getting close to that, you need to consider a
Dell Web community. And we have a Dell Web community here, a new
one going in in full shuret less than two miles from FM three fifty nine.
Now, all Doe Web communities are just amazing places. They're designed for
adults age fifty five and better. They've got the lifestyle programs that are designed
around you. So it's not just a house, it's not just a piece
of property. You're part of a community. And speaking of community, this
one out in fullsher They're going to have a community garden and I'm helping them
with the design and creation of that. So if you want to find out
about this Dellweb difference, go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or call
to eight one four to five nine zero six zero nine and find out about
Dellweb. And if you're a gardener, I mean, I mean this is
like this is like Mecca, right, I mean you get all the Dellweb
offers plus a community garden so you're not plowing up the back forty plus you
have a place where you can gather with other gardeners and visit and just have
a good time. Well, let's head out to Orange and we're going to
talk to Kenneth this morning. Hello, Kenneth, good morning. I've had
a question. I've got some potted avocado trees and they're in a big pod.
They're about twenty gallon pods, and I'm wondering later on in the fall,
is it okay to trine the tops of those a little bit so they
don't grow quite as tall Kenneth about five foot Now, yeah, you can
trim them however you want, but i'd do that now so they regrow.
I wouldn't trim them, certainly, not after about the first of August.
And here's why it. Trimming stimulates new growth and tender new growth going into
fall. When we have a good early hard freeze, that's a problem for
avocados. So get that trimming done asap so that you can put the prunters
away for now, and then they'll they'll harden off and be ready for fall.
All right, okay, Well, would it be okay to trim them
in the spring, then yes, you could also do that. That's fine.
So I'm worried about they're going to get too tall for me to store
over the winter. Well, yeah, that's that's perfectly okay. You can
do that, absolutely just avocados aren't a deciduous plant, so we don't have
to prune them in the winter time. But I would I would follow that
so you don't set them up. And I'm gonna have to take a break.
It's time to go to break seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you want to get get with Josh and get on the
boards, Jesse up in college station. You'll be the first we come to
when we come back. Nikki, or what kind of exciting news do you
have today? It's kind of gotten weird a little bit too, that has
gotten a little bit weird. But what I'm wondering is if we should move
Christmas to July. How about we do it in Christmas and in July.
I like that we can do both of them. But yeah, it's holidays
when the weather is better. That's a theme that we're going to talk about.
All right, good morning, good Saturday morning, on a good day,
to talk about gardening, to go out and garden, to visit a
garden center, all that kind of stuff. I have an idea for you
if you Nick. He was talking about Father's Day and the news about lots
of expenditures there's lots of money flowing the stand Father's Day. What are you
gonna do for dad? You got any ideas well? I do? I
have an idea. Does your dad a griller? Does he like to get
out? Is he you know, the flip the burgers on the grill,
or maybe go all the way, you know, just to get a big
green egg and do this slow roast on something whatever. Wherever in there,
Ace Hardware can get you fixed up. I cannot think of a better place
to get a Father's Day give than ACE Hardware. And it's because, I
mean, what does he need? Does he need tools? They've got him
there. Does he need a grill, a webber grill, a brig green
egg grill, trager grill. Does he need the supplies for the gri?
I mean there's a basil, maybe a meat thermometer, you know, to
get that just right outdoor patio, furniture, cooler's disc, lawn equipment,
everything plus with ACE. While you're there, I mean, you can get
the fertilizers that you need that we talk about. They've got them there.
The selection of pest and disease and insect management weed management products wide variety of
those wide variety of all that stuff. It. ACE is just the place.
Now, Where's ACE Everywhere? It's everywhere thirty nine in the greater Houston
area. Ace hard Go to ACE Hardware dot com. Ace Hardware dot Com
find the nearest ACE near you and go. If you haven't been in an
ACE in a long time, you don't know ACE because it is an amazing
everything you need place. So check out an ACE Hardware near you. Go
to ACE hardware dot com. Find one of those thirty nine ACE Hardware's you're
in the Houston area, and I promise there is a long list of things
that your dad would love from ACE Hardware. Well, let's head up to
College Station, Texas and we're going to talk to Jesse. Hello, Jesse,
Hey, skip listen. I bought about five of the plants called sun
patients or clusters of them. Yeah, planted them all the same soil and
all in pots, and they're all the same environment, and all of a
sudden, overnight one of them just died. Okay, so I separated out
of from the rest of them. But what do I need to be cautious
about? So whatever it is doesn't go to all of them. Yeah,
something's wrong in the roots system. Typically we would associate that with overwatering a
soggy, wet root system. It could also be caused by underwatering, but
you would have noticed, you know, it's kind of wilty one day and
you water it and it perks back up, and so for it to have
died, something shut down the system. And when you lose roots, that's
what happened. So I would consider a root rot. Maybe if you've got
one that looks like it's about to do that, you may want to sacrifice
that one and go ahead and dig it up and look at the roots.
And if the roots look a lot worse than the top does, that that's
a root, right, that's where it's starting. So if you know it
after it's kind of all died, it's like the top looks bad and the
roots look bad, and it's kind of hard to tell what came first,
right, But I think that's what you're looking at, is some big problem
in the root system. Okay, because these are out in the sun,
and so i've been this hot weather, I've been careful of the water them,
and I actually have I guess I may have overwatered that one, and
I'll be cautious about that, you know it. I don't need to be
to dig it out in there and looking for some kind of disease or quitter
that I did Forbiden. Okay, no, I think. I mean,
there are things that you on the roots, but you're describing a complete collapse
of the plant very quickly, and that sounds more like a root rot of
some kind. Now, maybe that one didn't get over what Maybe it's just
the spot, the way the soil is right there. Who knows. Some
patients, you know, in patients are for the shade, but some patients
take a lot of sun. We're putting them to the test. I mean,
you guys, college station, what do you got a week of over
a week of over one hundred degrees or right at it? Uh? And
we'll find out how sun patient they are. They could, they could,
they can take it. But that'd be my suggestion, doesn't he? Thank
you? All right? That's a great plant, by the way, good
choice. Let's head to Jersey Village now we are going to talk to Bob.
Hello, Bob, Hello, what's up? How do you keep squirrels
from stealing your tomatoes? Well? Um, you know you you live in
Jersey Village and I have a feeling they frown on ballistic measures in Jersey Village.
But squirrels are just their marauders and they, you know, they do
all kinds of mischief like that. That the I don't know if it would
work to use them the little bags, the Organza bags on tomatoes, if
you don't have many plants and you slip the bags over and has a drawstring.
I've never tried those on squirrels. It might work. That would be
something worth trying. If anyone's tried them and knows, I'd appreciate a call
about that. The only other thing is just to literally cage them out of
there, which is that's a lot of trouble. That's a lot of hassle.
The there are hot pepper oil sprays that you can use. They use
them on bird's seed to keep the squirrels out of them. Maybe if you
sprayed a few tomatoes with those, and the squirrels got a taste of that,
they would decide this isn't for me, although they've already gotten to taste
of not having that. But let them let them get their little lips burned
on a few tomatoes, and then when you harvest those yourself, take them
inside, use a little dish, you know, dish soap at the at
the sink to wash that oil off so that you know, you don't have
hot tomatoes. But that would be the only other thing I can think of
as an attempt on keeping those little marauders out of there. Okay, I
was thinking, you know, live traps and on them way away, but
you can, you can, Yeah, you can relocate. It's kind of
hard to get They're smart. Squirrels are smart. And uh if if you
got them into a live trap and could catch them number one, that would
be the most freaked out squirrel you've ever seen in your life when you try
to put that in the back of the truck and take it somewhere. But
I don't think it's going to be efficient enough. They're just too darn many
of them. You just can't trap them all out of there. I will
try to hot a little spray and uh, yeah, and see what we
come up with. Yeah, some some other kind of covering. You know
that if I were to describe trying to fence the squirrels out of your tomatoes,
you know, your eyes would droll back in your head, thinking I'm
gonna do all that, but somehow we got it. We gotta that's right,
we gotta. You know, if you've got a good maybe a jack
Russell terrier that you could hire to sit out in the gardens and terrorize the
squirrels, I think that would be an option, but I doubt you're going
to come up with that. Yeah, my world dog is team twelve years
old or chase squirrels? All right, Well, mine still have illusions of
grandeur. When opened the door, they bust out and go in all directions.
Two dogs go in all directions looking for squirrels because that's their most exciting
thing. They have no chance of ever catching one for the rest of their
lives, but they still love the sport of it. Bob, thank you
for that call. All right, thank you. I appreciate that. I
appreciate that. If you're planting any kind of tree or shrub, If you
planted any kind of tree or shrub in the last six months and you don't
have a tree harder sprinkler, get one. Put it around the tree because
it allows you to water where the roots are. This first summer is the
maker break summer for a brand new woody ornamental. Trying to get roots in
the ground where it can tolerate this weather. Tree Hugger Sprinklers dot com.
You can find a retailer closer to you. But I can tell you this.
The garden centers we talk about, the feed stores, we talk about,
the ace hardware stores. We talk about they're gonna have tree hugger sprinklers.
Tree hugger sprinklers. Save that tree and make it not only live but
grow fast. Hey, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Give Josh a call. You'll be first when we come
back from break. Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and you are listening to a gardening show that's all
about what you care about. I mean, you got a question, let's
talk about it. Maybe it's a suggestions for planting an area, identifying a
disease or in act, or coming up with advice on how to have success
with a particular kind of plant. That's what we're here for. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we talk about gardening, I
am a broken record. Proudly so by the way, about soil. Get
the soil right, you get the plants right. You want beauty, you
want bounty. It begins with soil. Spend money on the brown stuff before
spend money on the green stuff. You get what I'm saying. I can
say it a hundred different ways. But for you to have success, you
got to have the soil right, and you got to add the nutrients that
the plants need, and you got of course water. You gotta have a
good drainage and all of that. But before the seed or the plant goes
in, you've already determined you've sentenced that plant to failure or you've set it
up for success when you take care of the soil and Nature's Way, which
is Nature's Way. If you haven't been out there, it's on Highway Interstate
forty five north up just south of Conrow where fourteen eighty eight comes in.
Okay, Nature's Way. You can buy the bulk product there, but you
can also buy their bags. They bag their materials and they sell them there.
They sell them in other places as well. Nature's Way is open Monday
through Friday eight to five and Saturdays from eight to two. That would be
today closed on Sundays, but they have one of the largest selections in native
plants. So not only have quality soils, but you can buy native plants
and their two acre garden center and nursery. Not just natives, they have
fruit trees and houseplants, seasonal vegetables, and on and on every Friday,
they have Fungal Friday, ten percent off bag products, twenty percent off bulk.
Now they're rose soil. They they're the originator of rose soil and leaf
mold compost and they have a great stock on hand right now. So if
you're wanting to improve your soiled if you're wanting to improve your lawn with a
top dressing, a leafmo compost, Nature's Way is al you need to go.
They know what they're doing, They've always knows what they're doing. They're
a leader in this whole area. Success in the soil means success with your
plants. Let's go out to Friendswood. We're going to talk to Sue this
morning. Good morning, Sue, good morning, how are you well.
Thanks. I'm want to clarify I think I heard you say last weekend that
when your tomato plants stop producing fruit, if you just take care of and
tend those plants that later in the year they will start producing again. I
just want to make sure I didn't miss here. I probably didn't say that
about tomatoes, but that's true. If you can get the vines through summer
and have some good health to them, they can start again in the fall.
But when I said that, I was probably talking about peppers and eggplants.
That's possible. One My best pepper crops every year are in the fall
because I have a bigger pepper bush to hang more peppers on. So but
tomatoes that can be the case too. There's some other tips for renovating your
tomato patch to get it ready for fall. But okay, well, I'm
going to try that because my plants are about to give up the ghosts.
It's been wonderful, but I'm thinking, you know, if I can just
baby these a little bit longer and have more tomatoes later on, I'm going
to do that. And I listen to you on the weekends when I have
to work, so I may have just caught the tail end of what you
were saying, but I thought it was worth a try to see if maybe
maybe I could just hang on to them and get more tomatoes later. Well,
here's what I would do. Some people cut theirs bike and get fresh
new growth on them. I think the best way on your tomatoes is let
them go a little longer, make sure, you know, blast them with
some water. If there's any spider mites that are giving them trouble and stuff.
But by time we get maybe into July, take those INDs. You
can either cut the ends off, bring them inside, put them in a
jar of water and get it roots on them. Or you can put the
tomato down to the soil, cover the maybe oh eight ten inches back from
the end of the shoote cover it with well and keep it wet and it
will root there. And then well, I have I have them in containers.
I have them in large containers. Okay, so I could move them
about if I need to. Well, and you could also, you know,
do what I'm saying too on that because typically by the end of the
summer, the early blight, the spider mites, you know, all the
issues that affect tomatoes are they're kind of a mess when we get into the
heat of summer, and so I like I'll cut the ends off of some
and take them and slash them real vigorously in some warm water that kind of
washes off mites and things, and then we hurt them and then when we
get to July, put them in a gallu pot, get them going,
and then plant them in your containers again for a fall crop and you save
your same tomatoes over you get away from the disease and away from the mites
and things that way. So that's that's just a timp Okay, I'm gonna
try that, all right. Good luck, Okay, Thank you and someone
I appreciate so much that the work that you do, the job you do
for us, because it's really great to listen to everybody bring their their comments
and things that they've tried or their questions. I really love your show.
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. It's a lot of
fun for me too. It's a little scary when you're taking phone calls in
a large metropolitan urban area not knowing what the next question is going to be.
But that's that's a lot of fun. Thank you, see for the
call. Let's head out now to tom Ball and we're gonna talk to John.
Hello, John, good morning to Skip. How you doing. I'm
good, Thanks good, I've got a question. I'm a I'm a rookie
here with roses, So my question is what's the best way to feed them
and how often? And are you do you like Encore Azelius? I'm not
a big fan of Encore. There are people who love them here, Um,
they you know that. I will say, don't buy an Encore Azalia.
I just there's a lot of good Azalias out there, and uh,
while the Encore gives you the potential of reblooming, I find a lot of
times people they don't realize that effect. You know, they get some,
but it's not not maybe not what they hope. But I'm not saying don't
buy an Encore. I'm just saying I like Azalea's period and there's a lot
of other great azaleas out there, So that looks us something to think about.
As far as you said, what kind of food were you talking about
feeding, I'm just trying to figure out what to about some roses at Arburgate.
I'm trying to figure out what I should feed them with. Yeah,
yeah, very good. By the way, I love Arburgate. Uh yeah,
I would. Well, they have they have an organic food complete Uh,
it's the four four. I think it's a four four three. I
believe that's an organic food four fourth a L plus calcium I believe it has
in it. That would be a good choice. But there are a number
of you can buy things that are just rose food, you know from some
of the people we talk about are on Garden Line that just have like a
rose food, like they would have a Best Us Food or something else.
But I would I would consider their four four three. But thank you very
much. I'm gonna have to take a break here. We're about to head
to another break. But thank you so much John for the call. Yeah,
Arburgate, you go to Arbourgate dot com to find more about them.
There the Gardener's Garden Center up there in Tomball West on two forty west of
two forty nine on twenty nine twenty. They've got that food that I just
talked about. They've got an organic soil for all your soul needs. And
then they have a compost as well. It's part of their one two three
system. I can't think of a better place to get a Father's Day gift
as well. While you're out there shopping beautiful gift shops, beautiful plants,
a gaudy color they have fruit trees all the time, so you can get
a fruit tree right now at ARGU three, we've been listening to Guardenline.
We're here to answer your gardening questions, and I hope you give us a
call. We'll I take our little top of the hour break and go into
our last hour. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two unto fifty seventy four R two unto ktr
H. If that makes it a little simpler, we are going to come
back and enter your gardening question. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about
summer color when I come back. Just because it's getting hot doesn't mean we
quit gardening. We have plants that are ablaze. I was talking about the
big Green Egg at Ace Hardware Store. I think we got plants. It
could probably sit on the green big green Egg for five minutes and still come
out blooming. We'll talk about those in a minute. KTRH Garden Line does
not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to ktr H Garden Line with scip Rictord. Just watching a good born in
It's a great day to be talking about gardening. A good day to be
gardening. We'll get our work done. By the way, when summer comes,
we shift to working in the garden in the morning hours and in the
late day hours and stay away from those blazing hot midday hours. Take care
of our plants, get them set Upright now's a good time to get things
mulched. If you have not mulched, you need to. Here's why.
Mulch protects the soil surface from crusting and erosion. Right there is enough reason
to mulch. Mult slowly breaks down to feed the soil over time. Right
there, it's a good reason to mulch. Mulch moderates soil temperatures. It
gets blazing hot when the sun shines down on dark soil and during the daytime,
and roots can't survive up there. When you mulch, you've got roots
all the way up to the top in that nice moist area under the mult
there's a reason to mulch in and of itself. Do I need to go
on? I can. Wherever sunlight hits the soil nature plants of weed malts
blocks the light and prevents weed seeds from germinating. There's a good reason and
do you want to be pulling weeds or hoeing weeds, fighting fire ants and
so on when it's a hundred degrees outside and the weeds are choking out your
plants. Of course, not malts ahead of time, and you can avoid
most of those, the ones that are coming from seed at least another good
reason to malts. Those are free tips, just one of the many services
we offer. You're listening to garden line seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We're going to head out now to Fairfield and talk to
Marty. Hello, Marty high Skip. Sorry for redundancy here, but you
I was right in the middle of cutting my tomato plants back and that lady
called and I was like, oh, I hope I haven't done damage anyway,
I have two whole sides. I okay, they were too heavy.
We had a wonderful, wonderful crop this year with lots and lots of tomatoes,
and so I was cutting off the tops because they were falling over the
cages and the steaks and everything. So you said I could take those tops,
peel off the back. I'm thinking, peel off the bottom leaves,
stick them in some water and keep them for the summer. No, you
cut the tips of the shoots out the you know, the tomato grows and
the old leaves have spider mites and they got diseases on them, they're turning
yellow, whatever's going on. You take the growing shoot, cut about eight
inches out of the end of it and just our six inches and just put
it in some water inside or in a bright area, not in direct some
but a brighter it'll form roots and then you can repot it and go back
out pull the old plant out and replant its and this is going to be
you know, a period of time where he gets roots and all that.
But we're typically planting. If you want to try to have faultimate as you
need to get them in in midsummer so that they have time to grow and
then when the temperatures cool off and they can set fruit, they can do
that. Now. Just something I didn't mention earlier is our fall tomato season
is kind of a brief one because by the time it cools off enough to
where we're not having you know, almost eighty at night and the way up
in the nineties in the daytime where they can set better fruit. Well,
then the day links getting shorter the night. You're getting cooler, you know
it, and we still have a long season there. But that can be
done. The other thing that could be done, and I do this,
is you take a vine from the tomato and you just bring it down and
put it in a little pot beside your container, just like, let it
go under the soil and pin it down in the ground. Oh you're in
the ground. Light all in the ground. Then get you get your gallon
bucket or a gallon container and fill it almost full of soil. Have that
vine go down in the soil and then come back up. You can use
a bent coat hanger to hold it down, you can set a brick on
it, whatever you want. Keep it moist. It will root quickly down
there. A couple of weeks later, cut it off from mamma and take
care of that plant. Get rid of mom with all the spider mites and
diseases and all that. Just get it out of there. And so that'll
get us, you know, into sometime in June when you're doing this,
but you can replant it and get a fresh new start for fall. You
can wait a while to do that because you don't need to get it planted
right away. But there's more than one way to skin that cat. It's
just if you want to carry it tomato into fall. You'd like to get
rid of the old plant with all its problems and tomato so easily that it
makes it. It's an easy way to do that. Oh okay. So,
like the ones that I've already cut, they were about like five feet
long and they were hanging down and all of the grass. So I could
just cut the tips of those off that I've already cut, Oh yeah,
you could. And then on the ones that I haven't on the other side
that I haven't cut, I could just use do those vines and stick them
in the soil. Okay to do that. And if you do cut the
tips, out them in some water in the sink and just slash them real
vigorously because they're gonna have some spider mites and things on them, and I'll
just wash them off and that way you get a fresh, clean start.
Do I need to like strip the leaves at the bottom like I do with
my regular plants. I usually do, just because I'm gonna put it in
the ground or put it in water, you know. But I mean,
if you don't they're just gonna rot and die underground anyway, So it really
doesn't matter right now. Is there a special soil or amendment or anything else
that I need to know about to put in Okay, all right, great,
thank you. Any good quality growing soil. I mean you can root
them in water, you can put them in soil. They'll root in soil,
it's amazing. Oh that's fantastic. Yeah, don't let them be in
the full sun when you're trying to root them, because that's too much of
a demand before they have a root system to support it. I'll keep them,
yeah, I'll keep them on the porch. Okay, that's great,
Thank you so much. All right, Marty, take care. I wanna
I want to talk about a little bit mc graph past control. I was
visiting with Scott not too long ago about pest control. By the way,
I feeling if you want to get a hold of them McGrath McGr a T
eight McGrath pest control dot com. This business has been going on over forty
eight years. I mean still family run. It's run the old time way,
you know, where you didn't have to schedule some five hour window when
a service person was going to come out. They set the time that they're
going to be there, so you don't have to wait all day. You
don't have to shut your day down waiting on somebody to show up. Very
highly rated McGrath pest Control. They serve the entire Houston area. Are you
dealing with rodents? I mean that is an issue they deal with that.
Is it cockroaches? Is it indoor plants? Is it you know, stuff
in the pantry that's after your plants, silverfish, you know, getting into
your papers and things. McGrath covers it all they do at all. You
can give m a call two eight one four six nine eighty two forty two
eight one four sixty nine eighty two forty. The owner still is involved day
to day operations, accessible to the customers. They call Scott McGraph has They
have sustained a quality business and you don't do that over forty eight years without
taking care of your customers. That's the kind of company we talk about on
garden Line, and that is what McGraph pest Control amounts to. I'm talking
about summer color while ago and some of the talking about two kinds of hibiscus
that do real well. Another plant that can take the blazing heat and just
grins and enjoys. It is the Pride of Barbados. It's also called red
Bird of Paradise. It's different than the thing when we say bird of Paradise.
We're talking about pride to Barbados. I'll tell you a little bit more
about that after break. Right now, give us a call seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Josh, you'll get you on the
board and you'll be first up. Yeah, yeah, good morning. You're
listening to Garden Line on a beautiful Saturday morning. We're here to talk about
gardening. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
and we're going to head out to clover Leaf and talk to garden.
Hello, Garden, how are things way out east? It's hot? Well,
don't go west, it's hot there too. You know, you just
mentioned the prid of Barbados, and that was on my mind. That's my
question. I have a private Barbados and I have desert rose plants, and
I was wondering if I could use the same fertilizer on boath Yes you can,
you absolutely can, and you don't need a lot. Okay, you
don't need a whole lot, you know, with pridate Barbados, but just
a moderate a man out of you know, whatever kind of fertilizer you're going
to use on your desert roads, you can use them with probad of Barbados.
Okay, they're blooming right now. They're beautiful plants. Yes, they
are. Another question you a while back. I had bermuda grass in my
lawn and you told me I got to kill it. So I did,
and I put some side down, but I did it in staggered events.
They didn't all go down at the same time. Yes, And I have
the Medina has to grow lawng food. Okay, Can I use that right
now? Yes? You can. You want to get that grass growing so
that it fills in the gaps because weeds are going to come up where that
soil is bear and so you want to you want to do that. That
would probably be something that with that particular food, I would probably do it
now, and I probably do it again in about six weeks again next more
weeks, okay, because I had this other stuff too. It's a turf
builder lawn food. It's twenty nitrogen in like three on a third number zero
in the middle. Okay, does that have yeah, I know it's talking
about does that have a herbicide in it? Or is it just a fertilizer.
No, no, it's just a hose EN's prayer. Oh okay,
well, I mean you can use that. You got it already, go
ahead and use it up. I would in the future, you know,
purchase a little different kinds of things. But if you got it, go
ahead and use it. And because you want to get that grass growing,
if you give it plenty of moisture, adequate moisture, not water and three
times a week, but just adequate moisture and do that fertilizing, you're going
to get fast growth and get that thing to fill back in again. Kay,
that's good. I got a gallon of the medina has to grow.
So I just there, you gore, you mix it and that's gonna ask
me for a while, will And it's it's not a slow release. But
so what you do is you feed gradually in small amounts over time. You
know, you don't try to feed for the rest of the summer with one
application. You just do small amount we're using that temperature is not an issue,
is it. Nope, it's not it's not gonna burn, cycle burn,
follow the label. All right, that's good advice I got rid of.
But you to grass with the round up. And now I'm trying to
my home association says it has to grow there. Yeah, I know how
hias. Don't get me started on that, all right. Gordon, Hey,
thank you for the call. I appreciate your help man. Thank you
you bet, I appreciate that very much. Thank you. Thank you a
lot. You know that when we're talking about fertilizers and things. Anytime I'm
thinking about products, you know, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and secticides,
fun just all that kind of stuff, Southwest Fertilizer it's the mecca. It's
the place to go where you're gonna find it all. If they don't have
it at Southwest Fertilizer, you don't need it. In other words, they
have everything you need. And then so they've got all the fertilizers we recommend
and talk about. They got their own Southwest Premium Gold fifteen five ten slower
lease. They have lots of good tools, multi composts, soil amendments.
If you need to get your you know, your power equipment, maybe you're
more blade sharpened or a little bit of repair done. They've got a shop
that can do that as well. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com
to find out more about them. They're down in Southwest Houston at the corner
of Bissonette and Renwick. Bissonette and Renwick Southwest Fertilizer dot com. When you
walk in there, it is the one stop that has every kind of product
that you're gonna need. They also have expertise. They don't say stuff you
don't need. If you bring in a problem, they'll take a look at
it, diagnose it, and then they'll take you to the product that works
well for that particular problem. That's the kind of place that's worth going to.
Let's head out to Chapel Hill and we're gonna talk to Todd. Hello,
Todd, Hey, thanks for taking my call. I have up here
in Chapel Hill. We have a you know, pretty pretty black clay limestone
clay, just nasty soil, and I've been trying to grow some trees in
a few particular spots and they keep dying. I have bubble irrigation on them,
and I've just bought a soil pH meter and I'm getting ready to go
out and use it, but I'm really not sure what I'm looking for and
what ranges I'm looking for, and then when I do find my range,
to pick what type of trees that might go there. I know there's some
natives like cedar realms and pat berries and sycamore. I have a sycamore that's
growing real well. But I got planning some apple trees four or five years
ago, and they just, you know, they look a little bit better
than when I plan at them, and they're just not growing. And I
have a burrow. It's just not growing. Okay. You know, do
you think it's like a black clay, you say, or what kind of
soil are you? Well, they call it black clay, but I dig
in it and it's kind of yellow looking. Okay. Well, yeah,
having a sad berries across the property, yeah, you don't have a salt
test done, see what's in there already. But I would say on smaller
statured plants like an apple tree you're talking about, I would amend a very
large area with a quality mix, you know, an organic mix blend for
beds, for making beds, and not just a small area. But you
know, ten feet wide and plant that tree in there and give it a
little bit better soil, and if drainage is at all in question, make
sure it's a raise mounds so the surface drains away from the plant a little
bit. Didn't have to be a star steep slope, but just a little
bit of drainage. I would do that kind of thing, you know.
And then there's a lot of good native trees. I mean, I could
list you a hundred, but one you didn't mention is the Texas red oak.
There is a native Texas red oak common in the hill country that would
do very well out in Chapel Hill. That's another good one. Cedar elm
is a good one that that is one tough tree. But there's there's many
other options that you have out there. Okay, Well, I'm just trying
to go. I tried black walnuts and they died. And I tried to
a live oak in one of the area it died. Okay, It's like
everything's against me with this stupid soil. Yeah, the live oak. I
don't know why it died because they should grow there too. That's that's another
good one that you could try. But do it. So let's start with
a soil test. When you get the results, uh, you know,
let's talk about them and we can figure out where to go from here.
Okay, well, thank you very much. Yes, sir Todd, thank
you. I appreciate that call. Hey, if you're looking for another good
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I want to head out to Mark in par We're going to talk and see
what's happening in Parland. Mark. Yes, good morning. Hey, I
want to put some groundcover. I don't eat A really shaded area in Miley
in my backyard just I can't. I can't get nothing to grow there.
So I thought about maybe it's an Asian jazz or something like that, and
I was curious at what might be a good place to go pick it up
if that's close to meet here at Pareland. Yeah, Parland, you got
you got some nurseries down that direction. I mean, we have so many
nurses run down here that you're gonna find a lot of places that you can
get something like in Asian jasmine. I think kind of the closest to you
probably down there is over a moss nursery that's not too terribly far away,
but you're gonna find those kind of ground of Asian jasmine's really easy to find.
You just want to get good, okay planted. I would water it
in with you know, we were talking about the has to grow six twelve
six fertilizer. Yes, mix it and water. I'd water them in to
get those roots going, get them a good head start, and then continue
to feed it gradually with the nitrogen because the goal is to get vegetative growth
to fill in. It takes a while for Asian jasmine to fill in nicely
and so you want to boost a little in small amounts over time'll be good.
I'll do it all right, Mark, Thank you very much, Thank
you. I appreciate that call very much. If you live way up in
the Navasota direction, we're talking Carlos, Texas, they call it God's Country
up there, Rones, Prairie, Shirow, beat Eyes, Iola. Even
a college station in Brian area is close to Grimes County feed and farm.
Grimes County has the fertilizers you talk about, the nitrophiles, the turf star
line, the microlives, and the high yield products. It's just they have
all kinds of stuff there. They carry Medina, they carry Nelson's. They
also have those tree hugger sprinklers I was talking about a little bit earlier.
If you live in perhaps king Oaks or Murewood, wonderful nice neighborhoods up in
that area, Grimes County is your local supplier. Now. They have dog
and cat food. Of course, they've gout in livestock food. They have
pond supply lies. By the way. They do fish food and a fish
stocking twice the quarter out there, so you have a little pond. Call
the folks at Grimes County, asked Chris, Hey, when are the fish
coming in again? How do I get in on that? Everything? You
need Grimes County feed and farm, to take care of your property, take
care of your animals, and just really have a good time, good old
fashioned service as well. Well, let's see, we're gonna head out to
Spring Branch and tukta Hurta. Now, hello, Hurta, good morning.
Skip. My question is about my magnolia tree. My goodness, is at
least twenty five feet tall. I've had it topped two times by one third,
but my guesses it's the dryness. But under the bottom of the leaves
when I look up at it, they're beginning to turn yellow. Okay,
it's not all the tree, but still I'm getting concerned about it. Would
the team I get it. Yeah, Magnolias will cast their older leaves when
they get in a little bit of stress, or as the leaves just get
older. I mean, any leaf on an evergreen doesn't live forever. It
has a lifespan in and so while that's an evergreen tree, the older foliage
will drop. Now, Magnolias would love to be in the Southeastern United States
and parts of southeast Texas included, where they have acidic soil, lots of
organic matter, regular rainfall. They like all that. So to get them
to be happy where you are, you need to make sure the soil is
mulched, that it's adequately moist with the water, and a lot and just
a moderate amount of nutrition. You kind of want to make them feel at
home. So if we go through a period where it's really hot and it
hadn't rain for let's say two weeks, give that magnolia a good thorough deep
soaking all underneath the branch spread and a little bit beyond that. Okay,
okay, I have a second question, just real quick. I have a
little scort of an oak tree coming up in my yard. He's maybe seven
or eight inches tall. Now I have full grown oak and pine in my
front and backyard, but I want to save this little oak. I don't
want to mow him down. We'll be okay to put him in a gallon
can, yes, but I'm gonna I'm heading to break here, Hurda.
If you'll hang on, I'll answer that when we come back from break.
Okay, but joan hold, we are about to head to break the number
seven one, three, two, one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
Josh a call. You'll be first stop. Yeah, all right, good
morning, folks. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we are entering or the last half of the last hour for
today. By the way, we'll be back tomorrow from six am to ten
am. Tell your family, your friends, it might have gardens. If
you got a neighbor that we'll take care of his yard, you might just
kind of drop a subtle hint that there's this thing called garden Line six am
to ten am every Friday, excuse me, Saturday and Sunday. Every Saturday
and Sunday, we're gonna head back out to Spring Branch and finish up here
with hurta, hurta. Here's what you need to do with that little oak
seedling. You need to wait until November when it's cooled off. There's no
stresses on the planet. All dig it up, get get whatever roots you
can, and if you want to plant it in a certain spot just right
away before the ridge dry out, planted in that spot at the same level
that it was growing before, watered in real good use a soil from the
whole that you dug to plant it. If you want to put it in
a container to hold onto it for a while, to give away or to
plant somewhere later, then put it in a container. Don't wrap the roots
around and the container. Just cut them off to fit the container and water
it in real well, and that'll give it the best head start on getting
ready for the next summertime when things you're going to be at a little tough
for a brand new plant. Thank you very much. I want to give
it away, you know, so I think, well I'll wait till November.
Thank you so much, Skip you bet, thank you. I appreciate
that call. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Yeah.
Talks a lot today about different kinds of fertilizer providing those nutrients that's your plant
need, you know. Typically on a furlizer bag, you got the three
big numbers, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Always those three, always
in that order. If there's a fourth n it's going to be something like
solfur maybe or magnesium could be on there, but generally it's the big three.
Now with some fertilizers, they come with a lot of micronutrients as well,
because they maybe are from a plant base, an organic base, and
so that would provide the things that were already in that organic matter. But
for a lot of fertilizers, you're going for the big three. Why are
there only three on a label? Well, those are the three that plants
need the most of quantity. That's why they're on the label. So when
you want to add fertilizer, add nutrients, those are the three that we
need them most of. But they're not the only ones that are essential.
Fertilizers that plants only need a tiny, tiny, tiny little amount of can
be essential. So that if if you could go into your soil. Just
think about this a minute, if you could go in your soil and remove
every molecule of zinc from your soil, plants could not grow. They're essential.
They don't need much zink. We don't have zinc and every fertilizer,
but they have to have it to live. If you were to take manganese
and remove every bit from the soil, number when it's impossible to do remove
it like that, but if you did, plants could not grow. That's
why we call it an essential nutrient. It's essential. It's not a macro
nutrient we need a lot of, but it's an essential nutrient. You get
the idea. That's why we talk about azamite on this show. Azamite is
a mind product. It's mind out of the ground and it contains a lot
of different kinds of trace elements. So when we fertilize our lawns in the
spring, that's a good time to put out the azamite that you don't need
a lot of it, but you need it. You need that kind of
nutrient in the soil, especially, you know, when we're talking about soil
that maybe missing in one of the micros. The azamite ensures that you got
to supply there, you know, and to overdo it. You don't need
a ton of it, but you need it. Okay, azamite Texas dot
com. You can learn more information about it if you haven't done that,
you know. Wild lawns are a big place that asomite is used. I
use it my vegetable gardens because I need nutrients for my body sealth and I
want my produce to be packed with all the nutrients I need. Maybe the
plant doesn't need that particular nutrient, but maybe I do. Okay, you
get the idea. So I put it in the gardens ten pounds per thousand
square feet in the gardens for the same exact reason. But azamite is that's
the reason for azamite. That is what it does, that's why we need
it. And I think it helps to understand that. Sometimes I get a
little nerdy on horticultural stuff, telling you more than you need to know,
but beyond just hey, go buy this because Skip said go buy it.
Well, now you know why Skip said go by it and why you might
need that. Let's head out to League City and we're going to talk to
Suzanne. Hello, Susanne. Hi, I don't want to more you,
but I don't get to listen very often because I work on the weekend.
But what do I do about Virginia button weed? Well, first thing I
would do is call a realtor and tell them you need to move. They
need to find your new house. Side right there you go. I'm I'm
kidding, I'm kidding, but I'm kind of not. No. Really,
button weed is don't don't bother pulling it off. That's not going to help
button button wheat is very persistent. So when I talk about weed problems,
I like to start with cultural. So if you overwater, if the spot
is low and stays wet long time after a rain, button weed will love
it and we'll proliferate. So where it's in your control, don't over water.
A good soaking and let the ground dry out. Well, that's grass
is happy with that once a week, once you get your grass healthy and
weaned off the gardening hose. Once a week is enough. So don't encourage
the button weed. That's number one. Number two is you're gonna have to
spray it with a broad leaf post emergent weed control product. And now that
it's hot, I would use something called celsius, like fahrenheit and celsius.
The temperatures celsius, it won't damage the grass when it's when it's the temperatures
are in the let's say lower to mid nineties. Okay, I wouldn't do
it in a hundred degrees. I don't know that it hurt it, but
I just think that's asking a little too much of anything. But Celsius works
pretty well. But nothing kills buttonweed on one application. So typically next spring
you want to start earlier. And when you see the buttonweed, then go
ahead and spray it, and then it's going to be you know, four
weeks or so later. You may have to hit it again. But I'll
get those two or three applications if needed done before we get to the hot,
hot, hot weather. Oh my gosh, yes, yeah, ACE
is going to have it. They carry that. Let's see where are you.
You're in League City out You got you at ACES right right in your
back door, right there, right right, and you do there's the the
League City ACE hardware that it's real quick to you. That's where I'm not
too far down the road is Killgore's Clear Lake Lumber. They've got that's an
ACE that's going to have that kind of product. Good good, okay,
good product for that. Just remember button weed. You're it's not a one
and done. You got to stay with it, okay, alrighty well,
yes, I two years ago, I had a very serious infection and I
spent several hours pulling every single piece out by hand. And I didn't I
didn't do anything else about it except encouraged my lawn, okay. And it
didn't come back there, well, came back in another play. It just
It typically breaks off when you try to pull button weed though, But hey,
I hope that helps. I'm gonna have to head toward a break,
but thank you very much for that call. Hey, if you are an
active adult age fifty five and better and you are looking to buy in a
new neighborhood, the new house, you need to consider Dellweb done in Fulsher.
There is a Dell Weeb less than two miles from downtown Fulsher on FM
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Houston. You can find out more information there or just call them two eight
one four to five nine zero six zero nine. I'm going to take a
break now. If you want to give Josh a call seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four, you will be the second when we come
up. Deb I see out there, you'll be first. Nothing walking,
good morning. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor
in our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
As we enter the last segment here for the day, we're going to head
out to the woodlands and talk to Deb. Hello, Deb, Hi,
scap how are you. I'm well? Thank you good? Hey. Listen,
I have son spider lilies. These giant spider lilies, or the leaves
get about three and a half four feet tall, and they are just looking
horrible. Really, and yes there is. The leaves are coming out yellow,
they're coming out shredded, They're coming out with holes in them. I
haven't been two different sections of sections in my backyard, and both sections are
looking the same. I don't believe that we've done anything different. These are
bulbs from someone who was sitting out their beds maybe fifteen to twenty years ago,
and they have been in the ground since I got them, and they
have always been fine. I've had beautiful rooms on them almost every year,
and in the last ten months they are looking pretty pathetic. So I've pulled
a couple of the bulbs out. They look to me like they have been
eaten and I can see little insects down inside there what looked like to be
black, kind of centipede looking little things, and I just don't know what
to do with them other than start all over again. Well, they've done
well for you in the past, though, right they have? Yes,
so, and I'm sorry my neighbors getting ready to fire up this blower,
so I'm going to walk a different part of the yard. That's fine.
So I just want to be sure. This is the white blooming spider low.
Ye, the white the very fine, yeah, delicate looking flower.
Yeah. That it blooms for like a day or so and then it's it's
kind of done. Those are tough as nails. That is a good place
they are. And yeah they have So you were saying the foliage though it
had been eaten, right, did I understand that? Yes, That's what
I noticed first, was the foliage. And it was like in the fall
where they were getting holes in them. They were still coming up, so
the foliage was coming up, but they have holes in them. Okay,
Well, you know that spider lilies are tough. I mean, they can
take a lot of foliage chewing and things like that. They're not they're They're
just I wouldn't generally worry about that. I guess you could have so much
foliage gone that you'd want to spray, But in general I wouldn't. I
wouldn't even bother without Look well here and there are a lot of those things
come and go too. Well they do yeah, well they need to go.
Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, if you want to treat
any kind of insecticide, probably is going to work pretty good. I say,
any kind any general purpose type insecticide would work, but I don't know,
It'd have to be a lot of damage where I'd worry about doing them.
They do want moist, They like moist. I mean they're growing a
swampy, growing a bar ditch and so yeah, while nobody taking care of
them, they just they just grow. So they're really they're real easy.
You know, if something's chewing on the bulbs. There are some soil born
insects and other arthropods wireworms or in the soil. They sort of look like
a centipede. I guess, uh, there are other things in the soil
that will chew on the bulb itself, but those spider lilies are so tough
it generally just doesn't bother them. So h. I guess you know,
if you're when you pull the bullb up, you're seeing the critters. They're
seeing chunks taken out of the bulb. Is that what you do? Right?
Yes, there's like little holes where they've you know, dug in deck
tunnels through the bulb and yeah, you know, and I'm thinking they're kind
of destroyed at that point. That's a time when I probably would get some
type of an insect side and just drench it around the plants, having god
in the soil and just knock those things all out. Just a general A
general purpose would be good. Uh, you know, a product with the
metal cloper and in it would actually soak in and do some good. We
generally avoid that whenever we have a bloom that some pollinator is going to go
to, because you know, it doesn't move through the plant. But there
are other things that you can drench down into the soil, just general again,
general purpose insecticides that are labeled for use in the garden. That typically
synthetic perrethroids would be used in that kind of thing. But if you feel
like you're getting enough damage where hey, I gotta do something, then that's
what I would do. Yeah, a few most I would say that I
pulled out. Look that way, they look pretty chewed up. Okay,
well, so the other question I have about them is do they do well
in pots? They can? And in fact, I've got some big old
iron kettles, you know, the old time cast iron things, giant,
and they don't have a drainage hole in those kind of pots, and you
can put spider lilies in there, and if if you overwater them, it
doesn't matter. I mean, they're they'll grow it standing water. So I
would, you know, consider a container like that. It doesn't have to
be a cast iron pot, just anything big. And if it drains,
well that's fine. You just have to worry about water them a little more
often. Okay, I might give that a shot with some of these I
pulled out that don't look so shoot up. But okay, well, I
you know, like I said, I've had them for years. They've been
sturdy as heck, and all of a sudden it's just like night and day.
So yeah, I get it. Yeah, all right, well,
good, okay, good luck with them, And thank you for the call,
DAB. I appreciate that. Appreciate that very much. Hey, if
you live anywhere southwest of the Houston area you need to know about enchanted gardens'd
in Richmond. If you're at in Richmond, you're head up toward Katie Way.
That's in Chenned gardens. They have got some amazing things going on right
now. They have the Cuma gingers, that's the hidden ginger. It's called
hidden because the bloom's kind of down inside the foliage a little bit unbelievably beautiful
blooms. I mean, they have the ben ray red, the green chocolate
majo express. I think that's how you pronounce it, new ruby, just
gorgeous. So if you have a shady area with bright shade that they will
tolerate heat as well as anything we've been talking about today. Kirkuma gingers,
they got a good selection of them out there and enchanted gardens. If you
own a plant melons, they got a little melon plants, so things like
let's see muskmelon or cantlope or watermelon, those kinds of things. They have
a type of hibiscus, it's a perennial hibiscus. It's called starry night hibiscus
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pink blooms. That is a few of brazilion, wonderful plants, a good
selection, a good father's day shopping. Go to Enchanted Gardens out there going
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com and you'll find out more. Well you've been listening
to Gardens Success Today we are here a garden line. Excuse me, where
did I get that garden Line. We're here to talk about all kinds of
things. We're here every Saturday morning, sixth to town, every Sunday morning,
sixth to town. So I'll be back in the morning. If you
got neighbors that don't know about garden Line, tell them about it. Friends
and family, gosh, we have people from all over the country that listen
to this show. So no matter where your friends and family live, they
can call into Gardenline. Maybe they can't shop at our garden centers. Just
get jealous, But the next time they come visit you, that's what they're
going to want to do, is hey, take me to that place I
heard about on garden Line. Then you'll be able to have a fun time
out there with them. We love answering gardening questions, talking to gardeners.
In the meantime, I hope you will have a wonderful Father's Day if I
don't hear from you tomorrow. Father's Day is a good day to buy a
great gift for Dad. We only gave you eight hundred ideas today to be
out there. Take advantage of this afternoon and get out there and get some
of that shopping done