Well, good morning, so good to have you with us this morning.
You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we are here to turn brown thumbs green. We are here to inform your
thumb. That's the secrets. The success with gardening is just understand and a
few things that plants want. Right, you make them happy, they make
you happy at works. Well, there's a lot of ways we can do
that, simple ways. I always talk about the brown stuff before the green
stuff and what that means for those of you who are new to garden Line.
That means that first you create the foundation for success by building soil that
drains well, that holds adequate amount of water, that has good nutrient content,
that has good organic matter content. You set the stage with that,
and then you put the plant in the ground. That is why we say
brown before green. And you can do them both at the same time.
You got today, get out there and do some shopping, get you some
beautiful plants one of our garden centers, and also have a few bags of
the brown stuff, including fertilizer, so that when you put that plant in
the ground, it's going to have success. For example, if you're doing
a houseplant. Maybe you've purchased the houseplins are still so popular. Maybe you
purchase houseplant, you're gonna come home, you're gonna pot it up in a
little bit bigger pot and you're gonna get going on it. Or maybe you
have some that you're gonna repot. You need to grab a hold of some
jungle land. Jungle Land is there's two versions. There's an outdoor version for
vegetables and flowers. There's an indoor version for houseplants. The indoor one has
little crystals in it that swell up with water when you water, and then
as that soil begins to dry out, those crystals hold onto the water a
little longer and roots can access it through those crystals. And as a result,
let's just say, it makes sure soil a little more forgiving, or
it makes your neglect a little less noticeable. I have houseplants that have literally
gotten on the phone and called the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants
to report me before because I had them in some back room, forgot about
them, didn't didn't water them, and so on. But anyway, jungle
land with water saving crystals, that is why they make it and it works
very very well. You can get it places like ace out at Sinco Ranch
on Mason Road. They have it out there. You can get it at
a Tascasita Ace also and Jim's Hardware and Montgomery. All these places carry nitropost
products like the Jungle Land. What we're gonna do. We're gonna run straight
to the phones here this morning, pretty quick. Let's add to Conroe and
talk to Heyl. How you doing this morning? I'm good, I'm good.
What's up? Okay? So I don't know if this is a dumb
question or not, but I was wondering do you treat do you recommend treating
your yardat for weed stuff before or after you mo because because unfortunately I didn't
retreat it before the season started and I have an over thundered so trash in
my yard. Mm hmm. Well that's a good question. Yeah, okay,
So if you're doing a pre emergent herbicide to putting it down to prevent
future weed seeds from coming up, it doesn't matter if you do it before
or after you mow. If you're doing a post margin killing the weeds that
are already there, you want to spray them and give it about a week
if you can to take that in at least a few days to take that
spray in and start to move down into the weed to kill it. If
you mow, you have less weed leaves to get the spray on. So
that's why we would spray a couple of days or a few days if possible,
before we have to mow again. A great all right, I appreciate
it, very helpful. Once again, all right, Cheryl, thank you,
have a good Sunday. That's a that's a good question, you know,
Cheryl said to Hope. It's not a stupid question. And I've said
this before on guard Line. There are any stupid questions. There's only stupid
answers. Now. I know you're thinking, no, I've heard stupid questions
before, but that's not how I look at it. The way I look
at it is if it's your question, it's legit, and we're going to
answer it. Okay, I'll worry about a stupid answer, so the pressure's
on me. Did not give you a stupid answer, Seriously, though,
I asked the questions you have because I guarantee you there are other people that
have that same question. You may think you're the only one listening to guard
line that doesn't know all about plans. And that's not true, and all
of us are dumb at something if you ever thought about that. I think
I was telling somebody this the other day. I can't remember who I was
talking to anyway, it was either Will Rogers or Mark Twain. Probably Will
Rogers. It sounds like like him. But he said, have to Being
smart is knowing what you're dumb at. Don't you wish more people realize that
you're talking to them? Yeah? I said, we're all dumb at something,
and unfortunately, when we're dumb, it's something we often don't know it.
So, oh boy, all right, notoh of the philosophical here.
We're going to talk about gardening today. If you're looking for success with your
lawn, it is important to have a bank account of nutrients in the soil
so that when the lawn needs to draw on them for nutrients, the nutrients
are there. Okay. We think about fertilizing several times a year, right
you have, Well, it's all my schedule, you know, fertilizing the
spring or fertilizing the summer, fertilizing the fall. Well, plants don't eat
only in the spring, summer, and fall. And when I see eat,
I'm anthropomorphizing here, but you know what I'm saying. So, what
they do is they take up nutrients every day, but they don't just take
up the three big numbers on the fertilizer bag. They take up tiny,
microscopic, microscopic, tiny trace elements as well. Did you know your plants
need selenium? Did you know your plants need nickel? Yeah, there's some
processes and some plants where nickel is required, Zinc, iron, molebdenum.
You're not going to see that on a fertilizer bag typically, well maybe iron.
So how do we do that? Well, we put trace mentals in
the soil. Now, you don't need a lot of them, very little
is needed, but they're essential and that's why asumite is here. We put
asmite down. It's a mind product that contains trace elements. And if you
have a soil test, you know exactly what your lawn needs and you can
fertilize accordingly. And that that's the most important way to go, is to
do first to a soil test and then fertilize accordingly. In the absence of
a soil test, we give you general recommendations, and I do that all
the time here on Gardenline. General recommendations, and as mite would be an
example of that. Okay, once a year probably is going to be enough,
but could be less, could be more. As mite down. The
nutrients are in the sole bank account and every day of the year, three
hundred and sixty five days that grass plant's roots have access to the nutrients that
it needs. We don't wait until they're lacking and showing symptoms. We take
care of them ahead of time. That makes sense, all right, Well,
that's how that works. It's a difference between macro nutrients need a lot
of them, micro nutrientss need a little bit of them. Both are essential.
We're going to take a break here and I will be right back.
Our phone number if you'd like to give me a call seven one three two
one two kt RH. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with
us today. I like to say, what do you want to talk about
today? You know, the show is a call in It's for you to
ask questions and we're happy to help and answer them. So feel free to
give us a call seven one three two one two kt r H and I
will do my best to give you an accurate answer and lead you in the
right direction. We're going to head now over to Tomball and talk to Ben.
Hello, Ben, Hey, how are you doing this morning? I'm
good, sir. What's up? Hey? I had a question about Well,
let me start off with the lady that called before. I have a
smart question and I want your dumb answer. Okay, it's funny. I
got plenty of those. I'm just trying to be silly. I don't know.
That's okay, it's a lot. I have these cactuses and deaf and
I was watering them every day, and I keep losing the cactuses and somebody
came by my place and they said, you're not supposed to water them every
day? Is that? Yes? Yes, cacti are built to storm moisture.
You can got in the desert where it rains nine inches a year,
and their cacti very happy out there, and you going over water them absolutely,
yes, yeah, and you'll get a couple of things happen. You
rock the roots, and you also when water stands on the cactus and cactus,
the way the structure is that water can kind of stand on it a
little bit. You get these big blacks sunken rotting areas as well. So
how often should I water you? Once? I would say never, pretty
much? Really, yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean a lot
of it depends on where they're growing. Of course, if they're up high
and dry in a very gritty bed that drains super super well, you could
water them every now and then. But it rains so much here that we
just pretty much don't have to do it. Cacti and succulents in general are
pretty forgiving when it comes to neglect. But they're in pots underneath a porch,
though, so I don't know if they get a lot of rain right
well, and if they're not getting access to any rain, I would probably
say, oh, I don't know, once ever a couple of weeks or
longer apart that would be fun. Wow, yeah, they but they most
cact i need a lot of sun too, so if it's under a porch,
just make sure they are getting adequate sun. Okay, well, answers
my question. Then, so every couple of weeks and maybe set them out
under instead of underneath the porch. Set them out in the sun. Yeah,
I didn't know that, Yeah, because they keep dying on me.
So well. And you know, when you say a word like cactus,
it means a lot of different things. I mean, people call Christmas cactus
cactus, and that does need to be watered more often. But in succulents
are the same way. There are succulents that need more frequent watering. But
in general that's why people love those. It's because you can neglect them and
they still make you look good. Already, Well, I appreciate you,
man, Hi, you take care. Thanks for the call. Ben appreciate
it alrighty. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter. Our phone number here it is, Write this down, keep it
with you. Who knows you may have a question pop up in the middle
of nowhere. One day listening to the show seven to one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We need a little refrigerator magnet with the number on it. That way,
how about a speed doll. Put on speed doll on your phone.
That's another option. I was talking yesterday about the number of things. Of
course, lawns a very big topic of it, and I think I would
I mentioned in fact, I know I did. I mentioned to you some
of the products that airloinm Soils has. Airlom Soils is a premium creator,
blender of a purveyor of quality mixes that your plants will thrive in. So,
if you are looking for a rose soil, a rose soil is good
for roses, it's good for shrubs, it's good. You know, you
grow a lot of things in rose soil. Just ignore the word rose at
the beginning. Sure, it's great for roses. But airling Cels makes an
awesome one. They make a fruit and vegetable type soil. There is a
excuse me, a vegetable and herb. They also have one for fruits and
including citrus that you can do that works really well. They have a leaf
more compost that works really well. Airloom Soils specially designs and creates quality soil
mixes, and that is not something that everybody is able to do. I'll
tell you that I've seen a lot of junk out there on the market.
You go to someplace and you're buying a bunch of cheap bags, You're getting
cheap junk in the bag. That's just how that works. I have opened
up bags that were supposed to be potting soil and there's little wood chips in
there. Come on, man, that's ridiculous. You can try harder than
that. Airloom soils is quality product, and remember how important soil is.
That's the foundation. That's the first step. We'll do the first step right
and use airloom soils. You can buy bags all over the place, are
widely available. You can go out to porter with your little truck or trailer
and say dump some on the back here and take it home with you.
You can call them up and have them deliver it, either dumping it in
the driveway or bringing a supersack to set in the driveways. A lot neat
or cleaner way of going about it. Holds one cubic card to soil.
But however you go about it, give Heirloom Soils a call. First of
all, go check them out online. It's Heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com. They have
an outstanding soil calculator on their website. So if you're thinking about, for
example, we're about to put in some garden beds, actually some vego beds,
and I know how tall they are, how why they are, how
long they are? I can go into that calculator, and I can.
It'll tell me exactly how much soil I need, and even to the point
of like how many one cubic foot or two cubic foot bags do I need
to buy if I'm not buying bulk, or how many five gallon buckets?
Literally, Yes, that's a cool calculator. But Airloom Soals of Texas is
the name, and that's what you want to look for. I'm looking forward
to getting those vego beds planted because there is a there is a whole summer
worth of growing. Someone said the other day, well did I miss my
vegetable garden season? And in fact, this was yesterday. I was out
at the arbor Gate by the way, Thank you appreciate Beverly and Ken and
all the folks out at arbor Gate for hosting us yesterday. We had a
good time. Thank all of you for coming by. That was that was
fun. We had y'all about warm me out with questions. But I love
it. I love it, love it. So anyway, I was out
there and talking with someone. They were saying, hey, is it too
late to plant vegetables? No, it's not here in the Greater Houston area.
We can grow vegetables year round. I mean it's really easy, you
know, to just walk outside on any given day and there is something that
you could plant in a flower bed, in a vegetable garden, and so
on. But in summertime, we think about things like oak grow, We
think about sweet potatoes, black eyed peas. All those take the heat very
very well. Melons do well in hot weather, and we're because it takes
a long long time to grow them. We're growing our winter squashes, our
storage squashes and pumpkins and things, though some of those are like over one
hundred days in the ground before they reach harvests, so have to plant those
in hot weather. And then there are a lot of greens that aren't grown
commonly here by traditional Texas gardening enthusiasts. When you say greens to most when
I say greens to most of you that are listening, you probably think of
lettuce and spinach. You might think of collareds and kale. But it doesn't
go a lot further than that when we say the word greens. And in
fact, there are a lot of really good greens from parts of the world
that are hot and sultry, like Houston. It's like Southeast Texas. So
things like malabar. Malabar is a green. It's a vining green, very
succulent leaves that grow it just laughs the summer heat. Molokhia is another one
that is real popular in Mid Eastern dishes. Not just Mid Eastern, but
it's very popular there. Things where you might make a dish with rice or
lamb or something like that. It's an excellent green. And I could just
go on talking about a lot of different kinds of greens. Amaranth the farmers
call it pigweed, but there are types of amaranth that are very very large
leafed and great for greens in the summer, and they can take the heat.
They do very well. There's a silosious. Some people call that Egyptian
spinach. I don't like calling things words that are not and so I didn't
say Malabar spinach like most people do, because it's not spinach. It's malabar.
Egyptian spinach is a type of soilsia. You can eat that, and
boy does it ever grow in the summertime. So you need to stretch or
I would recommend I'm going to tell you what to do, but I do
recommend stretch your a little bit. There are a lot of cool things out
there that you can grow. New flavors. Oh gosh, I couldn't believe
I forgot this one. Perslaine. Perslane is a weed, Persalane is a
beautiful flowering hanging basket, and perslaine is also a vegetable. There are vegetable
types of personale, larger leaves, more succulent and plump, high in Omega
three, fatty acids, very healthy, nice lemony tang taste, many options
and uses. So there's no reason not to have a very healthy garden all
through the summer. Try some new things. Maybe you don't like them,
maybe you will, who knows, but I would recommend you give them a
try. So, yes, we can garden every day of the year here
in the Greater Houston area. When it comes to growing things, good things
to eat. Chanted gardens that in Richmond is one of those destination garden centers
that people love to go. And you know they're gonna have things like the
vegetables I'm talking about, they're going to have herbs. The herb selection is
outstanding, actually beautiful flowers, lots of things like salvias, and things that
want to grow in the heat here. And when you got to enchant it
and you purchase a plant, you're getting more than just that plant. You're
getting expert advice from the folks that work there. They know what they're talking
about. You're also getting the confidence that if they're selling it to you,
it's going to do well here if you give it the right conditions for whatever
the particular plant is. And that is really important while you're out there.
Grab the fertilizers that I talk about on Guardline, grab the soils I talk
about on Garline. They've got them. Yep. Take the brown stuff home
when you get the green stuff. They have shrubs and trees and all kinds
of things and little fun trends like faery gardens. That's where you create this
little miniature garden with figurines and tiny plants and it just looks like a scene
from Lord of the Rings or something. It's all that's missing is a couple
of hobbits. But they can set you up on that as well. Out
there in Chenny Gardens. Hey, they're on the north side the Katie Fullsher
side of Richmond Highway three point fifty nine. Enchanted gardens Richmond dot com.
Be right back, Welcome back to guard Line. What are we going to
talk about today? You tell me it could be anything related to horticulture.
I was in a conversation yesterday that some men and a woman there, and
the conversation drifted into sort of a bit of a debate about how to do
things around the yard and whatnot. It took me a while to finally realize,
Okay, I'm out of my league here, so I'm backed up.
I like to tell people that, hey, gardening advice is free. Marriage
advice is three hundred dollars an hour, but I'm happy to offer it for
what it's worth. You don't want you don't want my advice on things other
than gardening. Really well, I was, well we talk about before we
went to break. Oh gosh, can't you remember? I know, I'm
always talking about the soil and lawns and things like that. Yeah, it's
some o my min. It'll come back to me. I had some questions
yasterday that were related to caterpillars, and I wanted to just kind of give
some general concepts to think about when we're dealing with pests, and I'll kind
of focus on caterpillars in particular. People see a hole in a leaf and
they think my garden is under AsSalt. Something has to die, and so
we grab the stuff to nuke the leaf and kill everything that might have eaten
that hole. It's not worth spraying if it's not a significant problem. Now,
small problems can go bad fast, and you can get a lot of
pests from a small start. But in general, just because there's a hole
here and there, that's called nature. Nature always has holes here and there,
and so it's not worth purchasing a product and you know, spending your
Saturday meling mixing up stinky water to spray on your plants if it's not necessary.
A study a long time ago, I need to hunt this one down.
But they took green bean plants and they pulled leaves off of them,
physically cut them off, and they found that I think they had to remove
like forty percent of the leaves before they saw a significant drop in green bean
production. Now that's not to say green beans don't need their leaves. It's
just to say when you have holes, even quite a few holes here and
there through the little green bean row, it probably doesn't need to be sprayed,
it probably doesn't. Plants are able to they make the carbohydrates to still
get the job done. Now, that is not to say we never need
to spray. Absolutely not, and certain kinds of pests can explode in population.
I wouldn't with the first sinus some spider mites. I would get a
blast of water and blast them off, because you can do that, and
they build up fast. And if you wait until a disease or pest problem
has already destroyed most of the plant, it's a little late to spray then.
And that's usually one And I get the question from folks is like,
Okay, what is this and what do I do? Well back up in
time, do something earlier would have been helpful. But I may be sounding
like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here, like don't spray,
Yes, spray, I'm just saying that, don't be alarmed because there's
a few pass. Another concept to think about is when you have pass you're
gonna attract the beneficial insects that attack those pests, So caterpillars, for example.
Do you know the number one diet of paper wasps, those little things
underneath the eaves of your house. You know that's seeing you. Well,
the number one diet of those is caterpillars by far. So when I'm out
of my garden. Fact that this happened just yesterday, I was out of
a garden and there were wasps flying around some squash plants and some other plants
that were there. And why were they there? Well, they were there.
They're there for two reasons. One, there's a little extra floor nectaries
where they can get some sugary substances on plants. It's not just flowers that
make the nectar that certain kinds of insects, like the plants themselves, have
other structures that can make nectar. That's a separate conversation. They were there
looking for caterpillars to take back home, and they do that. Also,
very important birds are songbirds. One of the best bird food items you can
have are caterpillars. And the oak trees will have a lot of different caterpillars.
You don't even really see them or notice them. They're up there in
the air, but that is an important food of birds and in our gardens
as well, that's an important food. And so just because there's a caterpillar
doesn't mean you have to do something about it right away. When you do
have to do something about it, aim for something that is targeted, like
BT. BT is a bacteria in the soil that's made into a spray.
You spray it on leaves and because of the unique I'm nerding out here,
but hang with me, because of the unique situation and a caterpillar's gut,
it creates toxic crystals that kill the caterpillar. If a grasshopper eats a leaf,
it won't do it. If you eat a leaf, it won't do
it. If what else a grasshoppers, slugs, snails, beetles eat the
leaf, the standard caterpillar BET won't kill them. So that's a very targeted
and that's better than putting something out there that kills everything, and then you
deal with the response. We need to talk about that some other time.
But caterpillars, they serve functions that I think are good generally in nature.
So trying to have a pest free lawn garden, whatever you have a totally
devoid of any pest is not practical. It comes to an environmental cost.
It's not practical, and you know, just to be real honest, it's
not necessary that that is really true. So keep in mind that when you
have a few pests, you are going to keep a population of the thing
that attack those pests. And I think that's a good thing too. And
songbirds to me, that's just the icing on the cake. Is another advantage
of having a few pests around. So let's back away from the idea that
everything has to be perfect and completely pest free and just embrace the fact that
nature doesn't do that, and if we try to create that, it comes
at a cost. I garden because I like to get in the garden,
and I like to grow things, and I like to watch nature in action,
and that is fun. I literally was sitting down in the garden in
a garden yesterday filming a squash vine board laying eggs on a squash plant and
then looking at all the eggs and it's for a little educational video and do
it. But it's fun to get out and do that. My idea of
fun is not mixing up sprays all the time, but when needed, I
will absolutely do that to protect the garden. All right, Well, there
was a little on a log for you. Uh, if you were in
Tomball, your hometown feed store is D and D Feed D and D is
out west on twenty nine to twenty just a few miles out there west of
Tombule, and D and D always has the supplies you need for your gardening.
It's going to have all the fertilizers I talk about. They do carry
bagged soil products. They have plants out there too. By the way,
you need to swing by seasonally. That that changes the things that they bring
in and have. But D and D is going to have quality products.
And if you're feeding animals or pets, they have very high quality feed for
your pets, the and your livestock as well. You know what with D
and D you're going to know when you go in there, if you've got
to get an insect side, fungeside, or herbicide, they're going to have
it. They have an excellent, excellent supply and it's D and D feed
now the phone number two eight one three five one, twenty one forty four.
I uh was talking with someone yesterday about they had a lawn problem,
and it was like they tried all kinds of things, and I was suggesting
that they do, you know, some air raiding on their lawn, and
I think that is really important and if you live in the Magnolia area or
really the northwest quadrant of Houston, green Pro is your provider for deep aeration,
pulling the plugs out of the lawn and also for top dressing with compost.
So what do I mean by Northwest Houston. I mean Spring, Cyprus,
the Woodlands, Conroe, Willis even over in Magnolia, Montgomery down to
Iten Katie, West Houston, Central Houston, North Houston. Give Greenpro a
call. They do about a forty minute drive away from their location up there
in the Magnolia area. Now they'll do a quality job. They absolutely will
help your lawn on because clay soils and especially compacted clays, they don't drain
well and grass struggles. You're watering it, you're giving it fertilizer, but
there's a problem because the roots can't be happy. Air rating really helps.
Compost stop dressing with a quality material that's all they use at green Pro really
helps. Here's the website greenpro dot net. I'm gonna take a little break.
I will be back if you would like to give Evan a call and
get on the board. Seven one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back
to garden Line. Welcome back. We are gonna talk all kinds of things
gardening for the next few hours. Here we go to ten am today.
By the way, you can listen to garden Line via podcasts. Yes,
past shows are available on podcasts, and maybe you heard something and then oh
what was it? He said, Well, just go back and listen to
the podcast. It'll be on there. You can listen live also via like
you have the iHeartMedia app, for example, you can listen live to whatever's
going on KTRH. But you certainly can listen to garden You can listen over
your computer. You know, these days a lot of people don't have the
little radio sitting on the counter anymore like we used to. And maybe you're
not in a car all the time where you do have your radio on.
Just put your telephone, get you the I Heartment Radio app, it's free,
and sign in the garden Line and absolutely listen right there. You can
listen to past shows and live. You have a phone upside down. I
turned my phone upside down in my pocket so the speaker I can hear the
speaker that comes out from where mine is anyway, and I can be out
working in the yard listen to the radio or your buds, whatever you got.
I think that's a good combination. You know, maybe you're out there
digging in the dirt and something occurs to you and you want to give us
a call. Well, let's do that. We can certainly do that.
I was at Moss Nursery this past a Friday on Friday and visiting with Jem
and I'm telling you that place as always looks out standing. They have a
whole bunch of limelight Hydrangea trees. So imagine a long Hydrangea stalk coming straight
up and then on the top is this big green head on the top of
the stalk, so it looks like a little tree. And boy, they're
loaded with blooms, a beautiful, beautiful plants. You know, when it
comes to Moss Nursery, they're going to have everything you need period. I
mean, I can just say name things like elephant ears. They I saw
some of those beautiful level in ears I've ever seen at Moss Nursery on Friday.
They have hanging baskets everywhere, beautiful beautiful hanging baskets. Cactus and succulents,
plenty of those as well. And I always have to go to the
house plant greenhouse because it is always loaded with plants, beautiful plants, and
I guarantee you some that you've never seen before. If you want to attract
butterflies and hummingbirds, just go talk to the folks here by the way.
The staff there are gardeners. They know what they're talking about, and just
say, look, I want to put in a butterfly garden. I want
to put in a hummingbird garden. What are some plants that you would recommend
And they'll take it right to them. They'll they'll get you set up.
Moss Nursery is on Toddville Road in Seabrook. It's real easy to get to
listen that the nursery's been there, family owned. It's a seventy year old
family operated business. Eight acres. To wander around, allow yourself some time
because there's a lot to see and you don't want to miss it. Moss
Nursery dot com, maas Nursery dot com. That's the That is the official
web side address. If you haven't done your slow release fertilizer yet on your
lawn, now is the time to get it done. Now is the time.
Superturf by Nitrofoss that's their silver bag will do the trick for you.
It'll carry you through the summertime by gradually releasing nutrients half of the nitrogen a
slow release, and Superturf gradually releasing nutrients. Those little yellowy areas in the
lawn, I'll say chartruch. You know, it's kind of in between yellow
and green. Maybe it needs a little bit iron. That's commonly a problem
when you have the yellowing areas. Four percent iron in the super turf as
well. So it's just an all around great fertilizer and it's easy to find.
You know, night Foss products are widely available. You go to Fisher's
Hardware down on Southmore, South Houston. You go to Fisher's Hardware on Broadway
Street and Laporte. You're going to find Superturf and other Nitrofoss type products as
well as up in the woodlands, shades of Texas or out it in chanted
gardens. I was talking about them at Richmond Rosenberg, all places where you
can get that super turf by Nitrofoss. I was in the garden yesterday.
I was telling you, I was taking pictures and filming and as I sat
there, mosquitoes were all over at me. I mean they were just going
around and you know that they like to hide in the foliage and come out,
and boy are they ever excited about the rain that we just had.
They are breeding and coming out like crazy. You need to get some mosquito
dunks and just always have them on hand because it rains here a lot,
and when you have standing water, it doesn't take many days for mosquitoes to
lay the egg hatch out into the larva and come out as the adult.
I mean, their life cycle is fast. When you put mosquito dunks in
water, it releases a disease of mosquito larva and you never see the mosquito
as a result. They last about a month. One dunk will cover about
one hundred square feet of water. Just another reminder, too, empty the
little dog dishes or the little bird watering trays because that's where mosquitos can also
breed. Are you can sprinkle some dunk pieces in there as well if you
want to do that, watch your gutters. It's sag and hold water.
That's another place mosquitos breed. Just remember, mosquito dunks aren't going to harm
people, pets, fish, birds, or otherwildlife. It only affects the
larva of the mosquitos that you're going after. Makes pretty good sense. You're
going to find them at nurseries, feed stores, our garden centers, ace
hardware stores. Alf was fertilized, I mean, just on and all easy
to find mosquito dunks. And you do need to have them on hand because
who wants to sit outside and swat all day? That's not my idea of
a fun time outside. Uh. Yeah, if you'd like to give us
call, our number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I at the Arborgate yesterday when I was out at Arburgate, I was
talking, you know, with Kurt from three sixty Tree Stabilizer. By the
way, thanks Kurt for donating the tree stabilizers we gave away yesterday. And
this is a nifty invention that he created it instead of the old days where
you know, you had to get wire and then cut garden hose to put
in the wire so that it didn't cut into your trees, and you had
these three guy wires holding the thing down and you tripping over them. And
it's easy with three sixty Tree Stabilizer just hammer a tepost in the ground and
there's a attachment in there that fits on the teapost and it holds your tree.
It's about probably about foot and a half long and it grabs onto the
tree. You strap it loosely so it allows movement. They work very well
and if you like, if you're putting a crape myrtle with multiple trunks,
you can put a couple of teeposts and two tree stabilizers from right angles coming
into the tree and it holds it. And they're available at Southwest Fertilizer.
They're available that plants for all seasons. And Horges Hidden Gardens down in Alvin
RCW and Buchanans and Arbrogate all carry the Tree three sixty tree stabilizer product.
They work and they last a long time. Once you get one, you
just hang it up in the garage because the next time you plant something you
need to stabilize like that, it's going to do that. If you haven't
been down to a chanted forest and Channet Forest is down in Richmond by the
way, and specifically it's says you're heading to sugar Land off to the right.
What's that FM twenty seven fifty nine out in Richmond. There's always something
going on at the forest. I mean they have events every weekend. It
seems like they are always coming in with new plants, and the place is
always beautiful, and it's another one of those destinations you go to and it's
like you want to take your family in, friends, and by the way,
you should, because even non gardeners can appreciate the beauty. And besides,
we're trying to brainwash them and make them gardeners, right, but even
non gardeners can appreciate the beauty of this place. And there's their gift shop
is wonderful. It's just cool. If you want to do a plant planting
for butterfly attraction, they've got the best selection of flowers that attract butterfly adults
and of the larval food plants that take care of the butterfly babies that end
up becoming butterflies out there at Enchanted Forest. They'll even if they got them
on hand, they'll even give you the caterpillars that fit that plan. If
you need to like take home a golf fritillary caterpillar larvae with your passion vine,
for example, or a pipeline swallowtail with your pipeline. It's just fun.
They know what they're doing. Check them out. Oh, by the
way, I forgot to give you their website. The website for Enchanted for
US is and here we go. Fine, just Enchanted Forest, RICHMONDTX dot
com. All right, Well, time for a little news break here.
I wanted to let you know that next weekend, Saturday, May eighteenth,
eleven thirty to one thirty albeit Langham Creek Ace Hardware Langham Creek Ace Hardware,
and that's kind of northwest direction in Houston. I hope you'll come out and
see me. We're going to be having a good time giving some things away
while we're there and answering your gardening questions. It's a really cool Ice Hardborough.
I'm looking forward to. Last time I went there, I really had
a good time. Well, I'll be right back. Welcome back to guarden
Line. Good to have you today. It is a good sunday. I
hope this afternoon you've got plans to get outside, maybe do a little bit
of garden center shopping. It is spring, folks, and summer is coming.
Good to get those things, get them in so your landscape looks good.
I want to talk a little bit about color in the summer here in
a little bit. But we're gonna we're gonna start off well. First of
all, I just wanted to mention I was at Arburgate Nursery this weekend and
had a really good time out there. Was visiting with folks that came by,
answering questions and things like that. And you know, I just find
that as people are coming up and saying things like, well, I need
a plant that will and then you fill in the blank, you know your
plant to do this, planth to do that, It's just like, Okay,
go over there, go over there, go over there. It's at
Arburgate and take home. The one two three system. That was something we
talked about a lot, because remember brown stuff before green stuff. Arburgate's one
two three is a soil, an organic soil that has in it some expanded
shale, which is important that holds the clape open better than just compost does
because compost rots away. It's very important to have composts, but the addition
of expanded shail is good. It's got a compost that also has an expanded
shaley material in it, and it's got a fertilizer that fertilizes anything with root,
but with roots, it's an organic fertilizer. But when people were coming
out of there, it's like they had their brown stuff also the fertilizers of
course part of the brown stuff, and then they had the green stuff and
they're going to have success. And it is so easy at Arburgate because they
got staff that know what they're talking about. They've got the exact plants that
do the best here, and they always have things that are new, that
are exciting, that are different, that are a new twist on things.
So it's just fun to go out and shop at the Arbrogate. For those
of you who have been living under a rock and don't know where it is,
it is on twenty nine to twenty west of Tombull, just west to
Tombull. Remember take Tresha Road around behind the Arbrogate to the new parking lot
in the back. That is the best, easiest, safest access you can
get to the Arbrogate. It is really nice and really cool. I'm very
impressed and so excited to have it because it opened the door, and boy,
that thing was packed yesterday had a lot of folks coming out getting stuff
for mom and getting stuff with mom too. I want to go ahead and
go to some phone calls here. We're going to start off in West University
and talk to Jonas. Hello, Jonas Mony Skip, thanks for taking my
call. You've met. I have a little pot where I'm growing some mint,
and in that pot has sprouted a little maple sapling. It is now
about fifteen inches tall on the perimeter of the pot as well. And pot's
not a big pots, maybe about eight inches in diameter. So I want
to preserve that little sapping, that little maple. What do I do at
this time? Should I transplant it? Should I keep it there? Should
I remove it? Should I? Well, at the stage it's in,
if you could carefully get it out, you know, with as much of
the route, you're not going to hurt mint. You can drop mint on
this on the the your driveway and run over it for two days and then
pot it up and it'll keep growing. But this sapling, I would get
it into a container where it can grow a little bit bigger if you want
to do that. If you can do a container that has a screen on
the bottom instead of just like a round container where the roots go around and
around. It's better the screen roots go down and they hit the air,
and we say they burn off, and then they branch and then the other
ones burn off and you end up with a really good root system instead of
just that circle of spaghetti going around the pot. And so that would be
one thing that I would consider trying to do. How could I get a
screen containers as there's ways people do a couple of things. They If you
have a little piece of hardware cloth, you can just take a container,
cut the bottom out and set it on that and it'll go down. The
roots will go down, and do that. There are pots that are made
specifically to prune the roots as they grow down. We don't use milk cartons
anymore, but I used to use the square milk cartons. Cut the bottom
of them and just set them on a quarter in chardware cloth. You can
do that otherwise, if you want to go ahead and just put it in
whatever kind of container you have, just remember in the fall, when you
get ready to plant it, you want to cut any circling roots at that
time before you put it in the ground. Okay, but I should consider
placing it in a larger container. Yeah, because it's going to need a
little room to grow. I'm assuming you're giving it its own container. You're
moving it away from the mint, is that right? Absolutely? Yeah?
Okay, all right, yeah that probably take them in along with me.
I don't know, I'll just put the whole thing and auger container. All
right, however you want to go by it, but that that's how you
do it. And then falls the absolute best time. I would say,
November, plan on putting it in the ground. I can, I can
crasplan it into the ground. What's the life expectancy of a grown maple tree?
The life expectancy of most trees just depends on the life they have to
lead. Good soil, good location, good drainage. Probably you're going to
get, you know, forty to fifty years out of a maple tree,
depending on the species of maple that it is. Some are not long lived.
Silver leaf maple is not long lived. Some of the red maples do
a little bit better. Are maples indigenous to this area? There are some
that indigenous to East Texas. Yes, right, right, well, thank
you so much. I really do appreciate there. And all right for the
mother, stay all right, you take care. Thanks for the call.
Jonas your hometown feed store. If you live in League City is League City
feed In fact, I shouldn't say if you live in League City, if
you live anywhere down there. They're on Highway three, just a few blocks
south of Highway ninety six in League City. So it's just a hop,
skip and a jump for clear Lake City folks, Baycliff, Lamark, San
Leone, Webster El, Coming to Reale, Dickinson, Santa Fe, all
that whole region. This is your hometown feed store. The Thunderbergs built this
forty years ago and Wes and sister Madison still run the place out there today.
While you're out there, if you go out on a weekend, typically
you may run into Ruschak the Dalmatian. I love that name for a Dalmatian
Rushack, but say hi to them. Two eight one three three two sixteen
twelve. You know they're open Monday through Saturday nine to six, so you
can swing by there after work close Sundays today, they're closed Monday through Saturday
nine to six. It's the old time service where they carry their the bags
out for you. If you hear me talk about it, a fertilizer on
guard line, they have it. They also have sol blend mixes. That's
some of those I talk about to your on guard line. Premium pet Food.
If you got backyard chickens, they have everything you need for your backyard
chickens as well. If you have a pest disease or weed problem, their
selection of pest control products is outstanding. You're going to find a way to
deal with whatever you're having to deal with. They're at League City feet and
they also hope you have that beautiful, bountiful lawn and landscape as well.
Let's go to Texas City now we're going to talk to Danny. Hello Danny,
good morning, Skip, Thanks for taking my call. Hey, I
got a question. I've got a peach tree that I topped out. It's
about twelve foot tall, and I topped the whole top of the tree out
and it's growing straight up, not to the side, not to the lift,
just going straight up. It's taller than houses. Now I'm probably gonna
end up taking it out because my wife's seventy, I'm sixty. I need
something closer to the ground, okay, to be easy accessible. You have
any suggestions for a peach plumb and pair. Oh, there's a number of
good ones. Out there if you would like, you know, here's what
I would suggest you do, because that's a pretty wide variety of questions in
that one question. If you go online to the Aggie Horticulture website, it's
easy. Just find Aggie Horticulture on the web. There's a fruit section you
front page. Just click on fruits and nuts, I believe is what they
call it. And when you get there, there's a free publication. You
can look at it on your computer or you can download it if you want,
on every fruit you can imagine, I mean, from avocados to I
don't know what's a Z fruit eight Z. But they have a publication on
peaches and plums. They've got a publication on pears, and on citrus and
on and on that will give you a list of some of the varieties.
You're in a very a low chill area, meaning that the winter, the
hours of winter temperatures in the forties are very low compared to further north in
Texas, so you want to select peaches and plums that are going to do
well in that area. And there'll be lists on there as well, and
our Good Garden Center as you go to you know, you're not that terribly
far away from Moss. Over there, Theges Hidden Gardens in Alvin. They
always have fruit and they carry varieties that do well here, so that'd be
another way to go about. Okay, this is a peach or a plum
and it'll do well here. Okay. Yeah, I passed Lake City feet
every day driving too and from Wark, and I want to go down one
forty six. I passed Moss Nursey, so I know where both of those
are at. Yeah, where's that one in Alvin? At It's on Elizabeth
Street in Alvin. It's Orges Hidden Gardens and Elizabeth Street and Alvin. All
right, thanks sir, Yeah, I think the I believe his his.
I don't know if it's a web or social media. Texas Groundkeepers. It's
a different business that he has, and I believe that's the one that you
could go look up to Texas Groundkeepers done in Alvin. But that's that's Forges
Hidden Garden, same same guy. All right, thanks sir, all right,
you take care, Thanks for the for the call. Well let's see
here, looks like I just bumped right through a break. We're gonna go
ahead and stop here and take a quick break. I'll be right back.
Welcome back to guard Line. What are we gonna talk about today? You
tell me by calling seven one three two one two kt r H seven one
three two and two k t rh. RCW Nursery has got some stuff going
on today for Mother's Day. They have a little deal where you can kind
of paint a container, uh, and it comes with the plant and everything's
sort of like a craft top thing that mom can do or you can do
with mom, or something like that. Just go buy and check them out
or give them a call out there. By the way, the website is
RCW Nursries dot com. RCW Nurseries dot com. They are located very easy
to get to Tomball Parkway, which is Highway two forty nine where it comes
into Beltway eight. And while you're there, maybe mom should pick out a
rose bush. That would be a cool one. Now, okay, I'm
going to go out on a limb here. This isn't my business, but
it's a suggestion. Okay. When you give someone a plant, it is
a gift that gives repeated dividends. In the case of roses, blooms here
after year. When you go and plant it with them or for them,
that is a memory also, and you know it's easy to grab a gift
and go here, Happy Mother's Day. It's a whole different thing. And
to take time and to go and just it doesn't take forever, you know,
just sit down and do the planning with them, bring the gift,
you know it. I just think that is a great way to do it.
I walk through gardener's yards all the time and they'll point it a plant
and they say, yeah, my son gave me that. I got that
from a friend over in Timbuktu. That gave and its just its memories and
its connections and that makes it a little more special. And RCW Nursery can
get you fixed up on any kind of plant like that that you want to
do. They can get the products in your hand, like the fertilizers I
talk about here to have success. I think that's that alone right there,
as they say, is worth the price of admission. Let's got to the
woodlands here. We're going to talk to Mike. Oh, Mike, Hey,
good morning, Skip. I have a question. Yeah, I have
a question about I had two btex trees planted yesterday. They're thirty gallons and
I'm just wondering when I should start fertilizing them. Well, they're going to
have to grow a little bit to get some roots before they can even benefit
from the fertilizer. The people that grow the trees are fertilizing the pot,
so that little pot already has nutrients in it that they've been using to grow
it quickly. So I would say probably let's get about at least six weeks
in after planting before we begin to think about fertilizing. But just moderate amounts
will be fine. Okay, then use maybe six two four, Yeah,
that'd be an excellent Yeah. Micro Life sixty four is an outstanding fertilizer.
Does does very very well. Okay, one more question real quick. I
have some crate myrtles small, they're pretty small, but I noticed a couple
of weeks ago that well, the bark is kind of all black, and
I've got little white spots running all up and down the branches. Yes,
that is called Yeah, that's called crate myrtle bark scale, Mike, and
the white is the little cottoney coverings that are over over the scale. The
scale produces sugary water that basically, just to put it blunt, they pee
out the sugary water on your plants, and that mist that they put out
grows city mold. That's how you end up with the black. There's not
a great way this time of year to control the scale at this point.
Systemics will do it, but systemics end up in the blooms and creat myrtle
pollen and nectar are very important to bees in the summer when not a lot
of other things are blooming, and so I tend to avoid that as a
recommendation, although that is one of the options that are out there. People
have tried everything from a soft brush grubbing off the trunk and things to ignoring
it, and it doesn't kill a crepe myrtle. They do have their natural
enemies. There's a specific kind of lady beetle that eats crepe myrtle bark scale,
and if you can kind of ignore the ugly and the black, it
tends to not be an ongoing big deal for the plant. But if you're
trying to get if you absolutely do not want to have that next spring when
the crawler scale crawlers come out, there are some things you can do,
but that's going to be more of a March April time. We're past that
now. Okay, okay, and what would I use? What would I
use on that? Well? Prevent it all right in a nutshell. And
you may not want to go to this trouble, but here here it is.
You don't know when the crawlers are coming out, but it's a temperature
and weather related thing. So I tell people to get some double sided sticky
tape and put it around a branch that has the white things that you described,
and check it every few days. And when the little babies come out,
there'll be a little tiny reddish brown crawlers going around. And when you
see them sticking to the sticky tape, now they're out. Now's the time
when you can use almost any insecticide spraying the branches get good coverage. It
could be an oil, it could be a soap, it could be you
know, something that's more powerful than that, and you you knock them out
because one mama scale. Can you know you got a hundred babies that are
crawling around there, and so knocking them out at that stage is easy.
You do the minimum damage to beneficial insects at that point. Okay, great,
well I'll be looking for him next year. Then all right, all
right, Mike, thanks for the call. Appreciate that I need to put
that on the on the website. When our souls get wet, which guess
what the soul's wet, right, And when they get dry, they shrink
and they swell. And when they shrink and when they swell, it cracks
our slabs, foundations, It cracks driveways, it cracks sidewalks. Fix my
slab foundation, repair Tie Strickland. It's been doing this twenty three years.
Ty is an expert, very knowledgeable. He can come out, he can
take a look. Maybe you saw a crack in the brick outside, maybe
cracking the sheet rock inside. Maybe a door is sticking because it's shifted,
the house is shifted a little bit. Have him come out. Tell him
your guarden line listener. You get free estimates, free estimates if you're tell
them you're guarden I'm listener. The thing I like about Tie and number one
just a very pleasant person to work with. But he is committed to showing
up on time. He is committed to pricing things fairly, and he is
committed to fixing it right. And what more do you ask? You know,
when you have somebody come to your house to do work, you want
them to show up when they say they're going to show up. You want
them to be fair and they're pricing, and you want it when they fix
it for it to really be fixed. That's Tie Strickland Foundation Repair. Fix
myslab dot com as a website two eight one two five five forty nine forty
nine. Let me give you that again. Fix myslab dot com two eight
one two five five forty nine forty nine. Don't put those kind of things
up things off either, because it's better to deal with things early, uh
than to just well next year, I'll get to it and whatever it.
That can lead to other more expensive issues. Let's go to South Houston.
We're going to talk to Jim Now. Hello, Jump, Hey, thanks
for taking my call. Yesterday you mentioned nime oil for powdery mildew on a
crate myrtle. Yes, my prize plant is a burgundy leaf crpe myrtle,
and I noticed yesterday there's the beginning of some pottery mildew on the leave.
My question to you is, and I did some Internet research, there seems
to be a lot of products out there with nim oil in them. I
would love to find something that's in a spray bottle kind of like a Windex
bottle because I don't need gallons of it. But are there some brand names
out there that you'd recommend I look for, Uh, not really. Neme
oil is neme oil, but just be aware of the fact that neime.
When you see a product with NIME on the label, there's two types.
One is the extracted insecticide that is not neme oil, uh, and it
says as a directin on the label instead of nemol. The other is the
oil itself, and it says name oil in the ingredient. So make sure
first of all that you get the right name. But as far as brands,
it doesn't matter a lot. Jim, you're done. You know South
Houstino specifically just right where you are, but I know pretty close to you,
I bet is the Gateway hardware. It's an ACE hardware on telephone road
right there behind the airport. And there's some other very close to that.
Yeah, there's some other ACE they should have ready to use. Spray bottles
of nem oil on the shelf most places. Most of the aces are going
to carry that. Now. I said name oil just because it's an oil.
But if you see something called horticultural oil. You can use that as
well, horticultural oil. You just don't want to spray it when the sun
is you know, one hundred degrees baking down on the leaves, So do
it elarady in the morning and you can do that. There are other fungicides
that will control powdery mildew. Oil. Is it just basically coats over that
powdery subst and kills it on the surface and it'll come back u So periodically
you may have to do that. Let me ask you one other thing while
I've got you on the line. In my backyard, in the Saint Augustine
grass, I'm beginning to see toaespills for the first time. Is there anything
I can apply to the grass that will be pet safe? You do not
need to apply anything. Just knock them off with your foot. You know,
they're not a disease of the grass. They're they're they're part of nature
turning organic matter back into soil. And when we have weather changes, we
typically get an outbreak of those mushrooms. So yeah, nothing nothing to do
about that. Nothing that will work either. For that matter, one more
time, the knem oil that is for insecticides, what what is that?
What should I look for look for. It does not contain look for.
Just let me give you what to look for. Look for niam oil on
the label. Hey, I'm up against a hard break and I got to
run. But good luck with that, John, Thank you for the call.
Welcome back. Good to have you on garden Line today. We are
talking about lots of different things related to gardening. You know, pollinators are
important and you hear a lot of talk these days about protecting pollinators, attracting
pollinators and whatnot. One of our key pollinators or honey bees. Honey bees
are out there in your garden and they are causing you to have more produce.
Did you know that someone called yesterday about a cucumbers that were misshapen.
That is poor pollination. You got a whole bunch of seeds in a cucumber,
and if you get about half of them pollinated, you're going to have
a weird shaped cucumber. If you get all of them pollinated, you have
a very nice, plump cucumber. Well, how about getting the backyard beehive.
Yes, you can do that. It's allowed if you want to learn
about it. Maybe you're just okay, I'm curious. I'm not committed to
do it yet, but I just want to learn about Call the Bee Supply.
They're in Dayton, Texas, and they have lots of beginning bee keeping
classes. There's a honey extraction class and more come in this fall. By
the way, I'll tell you about later. But they're so good and so
easy to it's fascinating. You sit in the classroom, you learn all of
this amazing stuff. Your mind's going to be blown about bees. Then you
go out and you've got hands on you know, if the weather's permitting,
you get out. You get to suit up and have some hands on experience
handling the hives and going through it's a really really cool experience. Thebesupply dot
com. That's the website, thebsupply dot com. They also have a b
rental program. If you've got five acres to twenty acres somewhere in that range
and you're within fifty miles of Dayton, Texas, they can come out put
bees on your property and care for the bees for you. And it's part
of a b rental. You just need to go ahead and go to the
website find out more about it. The b rental program at vbsupply dot com
here's a phone number nine three six seven seven six zero seven thirty nine seven
seven six zero seven three nine. Buchanan's Native Plants is one of those destination
garden centers. It's just fun to walk through. It just is it's I
don't know, I love I love garden centers. I guess I'm in the
right line of work here, but I just love wandering through really cool garden
centers. And Buchanans is that it's that hideaway in the heights that that's how
I think. It's on Eleventh Street and you're driving long eleventh Street and all
of a sudden, boom, there it is, and you just wander in.
And the things they have there are really really well adapted to here.
For example, they are probably the best single source of native plants that I
know of in this region. They specialize in that they even have tables that
are just like this is just a Houston area native, or this is a
regional native or Texas native, and they keep a good stock of that.
So if you're in into native plants or would like to get into naty plants,
they'll set you up on that. But any kind of plant that you
want to get into their houseplants selection is outstanding. It really is really amazing.
Uh. In fact, you know that wouldn't be a bad thing to
do today is grab mom and take her out to buchanans Plants. Do a
little shopping with her. She will enjoy that. By the way, you
know, we we like gifts, but we also like time spent with those
we love. Buchanansplants dot com that is the website. While you're there,
you can pick up the brown stuff, the fertilizers, the soil blends that
set your plants up for success. They carry everything I'll talk about here on
garden Line and then some and don't forget to go into the little bungalow their
gorgeous gift shop while you're there. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. If you would like to give me a call, happy to visit
with you about the things that are of interest to you. We've had a
number of questions, or at least I have both email questions and on the
air and just people that see me when I'm out and about doing things related
to the pests of the lawn like sod web worms and chinchbugs and things,
and we are too early for that. There's no need to worry about any
of those pests that comes later in the summer. But let me suggest again,
if you have not already gone to my website, please do so and
bookmarket. I periodically will put things up there that are very timely, like
back in the winter I did one on how to protect plants from frosts and
freezes for example. That's just that's what I'm talking about. But up there's
my schedule, my lawn care schedule, and then also my lawn pest disease
and we'd management schedule. And if you look at the latter, it is
it shows you when to treat for chinch bugs and soid web worms. If
they're going to be a problem. You don't just trea because it's that month.
But if you start to see a problem, you can do that.
It tells you when to treat for grubs, and then it tells you when
to treat for older grubs. The second treatment that you can do if you
have a grub problem, So get those. When you look at the schedule's
color coded. You go to the bottom and it tells you the products that
you can use, and if you want to go organic or synthetic, there's
options for both down at the bottom. So print it out so when you
go shopping, just take it with you and kind of all you have to
do then is point you got one of those, and that will help get
you off to a good start. For example, Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer
is going to have everything, everything that's on that schedule, they absolutely have.
I like to say that Bob and Southwest Fertilizer, if they don't have
it, you don't need it. And that's really, really basically true.
Whenever I'm trying to keep up with, Okay, what's the latest products on
the market, those companies don't have a need to notify me that they've got
a new product out there. But I can go to Southwest and I guarantee
you Bob has it, and he and I have conversations often about hey,
here's a new product coming out, and Bob is always willing to stalk the
latest thing that works. They know what they're talking about, and they add
when you go in there with a picture or with a sample, they're gonna
be able to help you find the product you need and then tell you about
the proper way to use it. That is important, just turning people loose
with products and it may not even be the right one. That is I
see that too much, but not itself. Was fertilizer for example, they've
got has to Grow supergrow plus. That's the new has to Grow product by
Medina. Supergrol Plus is a sixteen zero two fertilizer. It is a hose
end applicator. It's a court bottle. You hook it up to your garden
hose and takes about ten minutes to go over your lawn and one bottle will
cover about four thousand square feet. And it's got nitrogen that's immediately available,
which is important good fast green up. But it also has nitrogen that are
more gradually available. About a fifth of the nitrogen is going to take a
little longer to release, which is good. It's got seaweed extract in it.
It's got a keylated form of iron that doesn't tie up so fast to
the soil, but the plant can get a hold of it. So if
you've got yellowing areas and your grass just doesn't now the color you want has
to grow, Supergrow plus sixteen zero two. And yes, Bob has that
too. He's one of the first ones to sign up to get the shipments
in to get the has to grow supergrow plus. By the way, it
also has humic acid in it. It's got a little molasses in it.
I mean, this is a concoction. Your plants will will love you for
it. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two k t r H. We are going
to run out to the phone now and talk to Herta in Spring Branch.
Hello, Herta, good morning, thanks for taking my call. Uh that
kal lily. You know it had the kind of yellow leaf on it,
but now the the blooms have it's just a touch of brown on them.
Okay, but now I put as of mine on them. Okay, half
a teach and that's the mineral stuff. Okay. Yeah, Hurd, I'm
I'm up against the break. Will you hang on? Can I put you
on hold and come right back to you when we're done with this brand?
Yeah? Yeah, let's let's do that so I have time to answer that
question. Our phone number is seven k t r H. If you like
to get on the board, with Evan. I'll be right back. Oh
yeah, homegrown tomatoes can't be home tomat is. Welcome back to Garden Line.
Good to have you with us today. We were in a conversation with
Hurta. Hurta, I understand that even the blooms are getting some brown spots
on them. On your calor lilies, yes, yes, and they're I
don't know if this is part of it or not, but there are some
white dots. Well they're not dots, the little tiny mark, maybe six
of them on a leaf. Okay, but anyway, I don't know what
else to do. Okay, well, uh, you know, as far
as the brown spots, that's going to be some sort of either a disease
or just due to water being too much water not enough. Most likely these
are in the ground, right or are they in a pot? Oh?
No, they're in a pot, A small pot. I think. I
think I'm going to have to put them in a larger pop. Well,
are at least ten stems in this five inch pot? No, it sounds
like it's a beautiful one. So in a pot, yeah, in a
crowded pot, it can get too dry, and when calos get dry,
they are not happy. On the other hand, if the pot doesn't have
good drainage, the holes are clogged or whatever, they can get water logged
and they don't like that either. So I don't know which of those it
is, but I would just continue to make sure you maintain moderate moisture.
Just pick your finger down in the pot a little bit and feel it.
And as far as the spots, there's no spray that I would recommend at
this point in time. All right, all right, okay, all right,
well, thank you very much. You have a good day, you
too, heard it, Thank you very much. I appreciate that if you
have flower beds that tend to not look good at certain times of the year,
and now you don't have to don't raise your hand, you don't have
to admit that. I'm just saying, if, well, how about this,
your neighbor has those kind of flower beds. Well, Jason at Pierscapes,
you know that he has created a team that they pretty much can do
anything you need to have beauty around your house. So I'm talking about when
I say anything, I mean like hardscapes, I mean landscape lighting. I
mean you've got a drainage problem that you need to fix. They can deal
with that. Boy, we found out that the other day when it rained
and rained and rained and rained. Well, Jason at Pierscapes also comes out
and does quarterly maintenance. I say Jason, he doesn't go out and do
the maintenance, but his team does. And they can come out and every
quarter you sign up for the deal that okay, every quarter you're gonna come
out. They're gonna get those beds. They're gonna put new seasonal color in
the beds. They're gonna weed them, they're gonna mulch them, any kind
of trimming that needs to be done in that bed. They check the irrigation,
make sure it's functioning right. And they can do what we call color
changes in the industry. You know, we have the cool season color and
we have warm season color. That's two changes. You can do four changes
a year. I mean, if you really want to, I mean you
can just keep changing out. You know, it gets spring, things start
to get a little struggling in summer. Put things that can take the heat
in. They can do all of that for you. Now, Pierscapes is
a professional company and if you want to see the work they're capable of doing.
You know, you need to go to the website, and that is
Pearscapes dot com. When you go to peerscapes dot com, you will see
amazing things. Now, you don't need to have a taj mahal in order
to have Pearscapes come out and turn your place from to wow. They can
absolutely do. Hey, summertimes coming. We are out on our patios in
the evenings enjoying things. Let them come out and turn that place special.
Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh fifty
sixty. You really need to check out pairscapes dot com the website. Every
time I go, it's like, holy mackerel. That is awesome. It
really is. It's kind of work that they do. I got some let's
see. You got to open lines here if you'd like to give us call
seven one three two one two k t R eight seven one three two one
two k t r H. Out there in Kingwood, Texas, you've got
a couple of garden centers that, uh well, you just need to be
proud and happy you got them there because you don't have to go far to
have beautiful plants, knowledgeable staff. And that's Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Southern
Garden. We're in Southern Garden just looking at some of the things that are
going on there. The color is outstanding and they have everything from like elephant
ears that have deep deep pink center stripe and them you got us see it.
It's just it's gorgeous to Vinka the little Madagascar periwinkle that just goes through
it. Laughs. When summer heat comes, just like this ain't nothing.
You guys are whims and so if you want color, it's dependable. They'll
do that. They got a volvulust which is a beautiful bluish purple flower that
kind of groundcover, stay a little bit lower to the ground. If you
want to have summer color, they have it. And I mean you can
go all the way out and get you know, go go all the way
and get a plumeria, you know, Hawaiian layflower. You can get beautiful
giant hibiscus out there. And they have a good stock right now of all
the heirloom soils products that I talk about and the fertilizers as well. Kingwood
Garden Center worn Southern Gardens in Kingwood, Texas. It's really really easy to
turn your place into a beautiful place with the products and advice. Oh,
by the way, I forgot to say, very knowledgeable staff that can point
you in the right direction. That is very very important. I was answering
some questions yesterday when I was out at the arbor Gate and Nelson plant Food
has one called Slow and Easy. People were asking me some questions about slow
and Easy. Slow and Easy is it's a chemistry that releases nitrogen very slowly
over time. Now, nitrogen comes in many forms. You know, we
talk about nitrogen, but there's a lot of different forms. Some forms it
just dissolves away, like putting water on sugar. I mean the sugar's gone,
it's washers right away. But that's an immediate nitrogen that's important. But
some forms release more slowly, and some forms I don't care how much it
rains, are not going. It's not gonna leach them out of that particle.
It's because of the form of nitrogen that's slow and easy. You can
put it down. Now, your next fertilization is in fall. Get my
schedule on gardening skip dot com. It'll tell you when to fall fertilized.
But when you use slow and Easy, now you're done. You're done.
It's going to feed all through the summer. It's an acidifying fertilizer too,
which is very helpful certain diseases like take all root rot, love high pH
and so anything we do to acidify a little bit, it's helpful and it
just helps those nutrients or it helps the plant to take up the nutrients by
providing them in a gradual form. Nelson Slow and Easy one of the many
Church Star products that Dean and the folks at Nelson's have easy to find,
widely available, Slow and Easy. Remember that we are going to go now
to Northwest Houston and talk to Alexander. Hey, Alexander, how are you
doing this morning? I'm good, sir, Yes, sir, that's great.
I have a question about a row of bush. Alexander. Are you
there? Oh, yes, sir, I'm here. I'm sorry I lost
you there you cut out on men help, I'm sorry. I have a
rose bush. It bloomed last year. Now my gardener, my garden is
great, and my wife with he put fertilis on my roll bush and it
it won't bloom. We have no buds on it. But it bloomed last
year. Real pretty okay, Now it won't bloom this year. Somebody told
me to put some bacon soda on it. Now, should I have done
that? No? No, don't do that. I mean it's one time.
It's not gonna kill the rose bush. But don't don't do that.
Oh so is this a one that just blooms in spring last year and then
didn't bloom in the summer. You know it's blooms in the summer only the
summer only. Okay, yeah, all right. Uh, you don't happen
to know what the name of it is, do you? Oh? No,
ok, not a problem. So, uh, roses need lots of
sunlight to bloom. Well, so that's number one. At least six hours
of sun in order to bloom. Well. There are some roses that blooming
early on and the first thing in the spring, and then they don't keep
blooming. Those you don't want to prune those in winter because you're cutting away
all your bloom buds. The ones that bloom all through the summer and even
in the fall, those you can prune anytime. You're not going to be
cutting off all the bloom buds. I would suggest you get a product for
roses. There are products by Nitrofoss that are designed for roses. You can
buy them in a little plastic jar and sprinkle them around that and watered in
really good. If they have two different products for roses by Nitrofoss. So
you're up in northwest Houston, you go to an ACE hardware store up in
your area and they're going to probably have those on the shelf. But look
for that follow the label watered in really good and we need to get that
rose blooming again, okay, specifically for roses. Yeah, thank you,
sir, I got a run for a break. Appreciate your call. Welcome
back to guard Line. Hey, it's good to have you with us today.
A little clouds in the sky today, but I'm not really worried about
that. The temperature is wonderful. It's just a good day. Good day
to be out, good day to go visit a garden center too. By
the way, get some time out this afternoon, get around, Maybe take
your mom with you. You know, I've been telling you this morning that
that is a that is a really great idea because you can go out.
You can go shopping with a mom, Let her pick the plants out she's
interested in today and go home. And help her get that in the ground,
just a little extra twist to make memories. And that's a lot.
You know, a lot about gardening is making the memories, the enjoyable things
that we just we love doing, and the beautiful plantings and just watching the
place get better and better year after year. If you haven't forlized your yet
this summer, you need a slow release fertilizer nitrofoss silver bag that makes it
easy. The silver bag Superturf nineteen four ten, nineteen four ten. Half
the nineteen percent nitrogen half of that is going to be slow release. It's
going to release very gradually over time. It also has iron. Iron helps
make grass green. Your Saint Augustine lawns often will get kind of shark trissy
yellowy in some areas, and if you pick up grass blade and hold it
up the light, you're going to see streaks of yellow and green. That's
iron deficiency. Super Turf has four percent iron and helps with that helps keep
the lawn greener. So it's not just nitrogen that's needed to have a green
on it's also having adequate access to iron for that grass plant. Superturf is
one of the products by nitrofoss that is going to be available in so many
different places. Katie Hardware out on Penoak. It's an ACE hard store out
there in Katie they have nitrofoss products. Ace Hardware and Memorial they have nitrofoss
products. Maybe you're down in alvin Stanton Shopping Center carries nitrofoss products as well.
You're listening to garden Line and the phone number if you would like to
give us a call. We actually have some open spots here if you'd like
to give us a call. Seven one three two one two kt r H
seven one three two one two k t r H Plantrall Seasons is that garden
center at Luetta and Highway two forty nine Tombol Parkway. So if you're going
north for a Tombol, you exit Luetta, cross over Luetta and it's right
there on the right hand side. Uh. It has been around for a
long time, been around since nineteen seventy three. The Flowerty family, UH
just has decade after decade, it just gets better and better and better.
Very very knowledgeable staff people. You bring them a leaf, you bring them
a picture, you bring them a bug. I mean they're going to be
able to help identify it and tell you what to do about it if anything
needs to be done about it. If you have a brown thumb in your
own opinion, well go to Plants for All Seasons. They turn bron thumbsgreen
there because they have that information that really helps you do that. Now,
if you want to give them a call set two eight, one, three,
seven six, sixteen forty six. If you just like to go to
the website Plants for All Seasons dot com. Plants for All Seasons dot com.
It is, by the way, it's not just go there and buy
your plants. I mean they actually can help you with delivery. They even
do some planting services and things. Just give them a call and tell them,
ask them about what you need, and if they can't do it,
they'll direct you to someone who will do a very good job. They are
true lawn and garden experts at Plants for All Seasons dot com. I was
driving down the road and just thinking about the kind of weather that we get
when it comes summertime. The thing that made me think about it is June
is the official launch of hurricane season, and it goes all the way into
November. And what happens when those storms hit and you lose power. I
remember more than one time being out of power for a long time. I'm
talking about days and what happens to the food in the freezer. What happens
to the food and the refrigerator. If you work from home, Hey,
you got to make a living. You need power to be able to do
that. The air conditioning boy June, July and August do not have power
for a few days. That isn't a good thing. Quality Home products can
get you fixed up with a generat generator. Generatic generators are a leader in
the industry. They're outstanding generators. They are. They come in many different
sizes too. The thing I like about Quality Home, well, one of
many things that I like about Quality Home is that they are with you every
step of the way, from you calling them and them coming out and determining
what size generator do you really need? You know, they don't need to
sell you something that you don't need. They want to get you fit to
the right one, working with your HOA or whatever. The regulations are for
putting a generator outside, putting a slab down for the generator, and then
after you, after they're done, everything's sucked up they're not gone. It's
twenty four to seven, three sixty five customer support. That's why they have
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of their customers and that is important. You can buy generators a lot of
places, but you can't get quality service and dependability, and it's just they
stand apart. For example, in twenty twenty three, Houston Chronicles best of
the best in the home service category. I can just go on and on.
I really really like companies that I can put my name behind and know
they're gonna treat you right and you're gonna have good results with them. That
is important. Generaic generators and quality home products of Texas very very important.
Generators that purchased before May thirty first, you're gonna get five hundred dollars off,
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So you got this month May May thirty first, when it's all over five
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go there Quality TX dot com or you can McAll seven to one to three
Quality that makes it easy. Quality Products, Quality Service, Quality Life.
I'm going to go out now to League City and talk to Suzanne. Hello,
Suzanne Bye. I have a patch of crab grass. I guess that's
what you call it. But it's set stick heavy and it throws up tall
okay, branches, and Randy said the only way to get rid of him
is is dig them out. Well, I did dug out a few,
and they're really hard to dig out, and I just wonder, is there
anything else I can do? I mean, I poisoned them with round up,
okay, and they're all they're all yellow now, so what can I
do? The roundup didn't kill them, is what you're saying. Yes,
yeah, I think it did, but I think they'll come right back.
Okay. All right, Well i'll tell you what I am hitting a heartbreak,
Susanne. I'm gonna put your on hold, and when we come back,
we're going to tackle this question. Thank you very much, Phone number
seven one three two one two kt RH. Welcome back to guarden line.
Hey, good to have you with us today. Landscaper's Pride has whether they're
they're like hometown, they're east the eastern region of Texas and down in the
Houston area is just like that's their turf here, and they they have a
wide variety of product. I have twenty seven different products that are made and
it's basically products that are going to give your lawn under your lawn, give
your flower beds and your vegetable beds or whatever you're growing. It's going to
give them a boost so that they do better. So, for example,
Gardener's Magic Soil. Okay, Gardener's Magic Soil is an organic pine based blend
and it's got humus and it's got screen pines, got some composted rice holes
in it as well. And they even have a chicken pellet fertilizer lasts up
the three months releasing in there. So this is a soil that plants.
It's ready to go, ready for the plants, and ready to have excess
that works. Well. Now they're multous. Oh gosh, well, let
me give you three. Just as an example, pine Bark molts that's the
most popular locally sourced pine bark molts slow decomposition rate. That pine bark malt.
It takes it a wild to decompose, so you get the mulching effect
for a long time. They have hardwood based malts. This isn't ground up
pallets. This is truly hardwood based mult that sits on the surface. I
like it because it locks in really well as a molt, so if you
get a whole lot of rain, it's not gonna wash away. It's going
to hold on pretty good there. And then they have the black velvet.
Now, the black velvet is not dyed mults. I can't stand dyed malts.
I think it's ridiculously artificial and unnecessary. Black velvet is naturally dark,
it's velvety, it's dense. It keeps your plants in good shape because it's
moderating soil temperatures. And also it is helping prevent the weeds from coming in.
And we always should keep the soil covered, whether it's covered with turf,
covered with mulch. When sunlight hits a soil, nature plants a weed.
These three mulches from Landscaper's Pride prevent sunlight from hitting the soil in your
garden beds. You can go to Landscaperspride dot com find out where to get
them. They're widely available, very economical choice that you can get all through
the Greater Houston area. I'm going to go now back to Suzanne in League
City and Suzanne, we were talking about a grass. I'm not sure which
one you have, It doesn't really matter though. There's crabgrass and then which
is an annual, there's Dallas grass, which is a perennial. The first
step in getting ahead of these things of them coming back, as you were
saying, is getting a good, dense, healthy lawn. When your lawn
is dense and healthy, you are not going to have crabgrass sprouting up in
it wherever sunlight hits the soil. Yes, you will have weed seeds coming
up. Dallas grass being a perennial, you just fa have to kill it
because those plants don't go away. They come back here after year. And
you had used the glycysate herbicide to kill it. That will kill it.
It will create a dead spot in the lawn and then your long grass can
come crawl back over on it. But we don't have a product that just
kills these weedy grasses and doesn't hurt your lawn grass. Are you with me?
Okay, yes, I am so so. I guess I should weed
eat the weeds the yellow they've died. Weed eat some low to the ground.
Yeah, yeah, you can do that, just take them back,
depending on how thick this area is. You know, some people just have
a grassy weed here and then one there and then one there. Some people
have a whole passage. I dig those up. Okay when that happens.
Okay, so this is a bigger area then, right, it's about ten
by ten Okay, yeah, just just remember you can get rid of weeds,
but when you leave the soil bear they will be back. And so
that's where you have to step in pretty quick and get some sod on those
spots. I see him coming and just pig it out. Yeah yeah,
okay, you so much. Yeah, all right, Suzanne, thanks for
the call. I appreciate that. A lot out at the Nelson's Water Garden
and Nursery out there in Katie, they have they've created a spot that is
just I don't know how do I say it. It's a destination, that's
one way to put it. Uh, it is just fun to go and
shop. I love walking through, and I'll tell you this. When you
walk out there, you know the the nursery itself is loaded with all kinds
of plants. They they're always updating and the plants that need to go out
that season, they're going to have them there. And that includes things like
herbs and flowers and whatnot. But the water garden part, that's what the
that's what made them nationally famous really and they are. They really are a
leader in that industry. Uh. They created that fountain that disappears that comes
out of a pottery piece. So imagine this big, tall, upright glazed
pottery that has water coming out of the top. It goes to the bottom
and that water disappears into rock and then is recirculated through. That's great for
birds. The sound of water is always welcome in a garden. When you
add the sound of water, it is so relaxing. And when you go
to this place, when you go to Nelson Water Garden and you see they're
set up there, you're going to see one hundred different ways that you could
bring water into your landscape and they'll go out to your house and do it.
They do the work. They create waterfalls, they create the Discippring Fountain.
I was talking about, they'll do all that, or they'll advise yous
you want to do it, but they know what they're doing. Then Nelson's
have been doing this for a long long time and their garden center is really
outstanding. Think of it as your West Houston garden center. That's kind of
what it amounts to out there in Katie. You just turn north on Katie
FORTMN Road and it's a rocks throw up there on the right hand side.
Take some friends with you and go is it because really this is a place
that is inspirational. I'm going to go to Parland now and talk to Archie.
Hello, Archie Martin skipped, Yeah, I just thought I just thought
i'd call you and tell you that I had, uh Martin come out and
taking down a couple of trees from me this uh this week, and they
did a marvel job. And you know, so affordable trees is a good
place to go when you want something done well. And these two trees were
in the corner of my lot and it was and some of the branches were
up in the power lines and everything. Boy, and he really took care
not to you know, endanger any of my other uh you know, plants
and stuff too. Well. I appreciate you saying that it's always good to
hear good reports. It does not surprise me at all. You know,
when we take on a sponsor here, it's not you know, they've got
to be people that we believe are going to give the service you just described.
So h thank you, thank you. I've used him for a long
time, even when Randy was you know, for in fact, two of
my neighbors came over and got bids. You go, that's the way to
do it. That's right, all right. Well, were you just calling
for that to talk about? Yeah? They basically that's what I was calling
for. Because my roses and everything right now are doing great. Yeah.
Uh, you know, as long as I keep praying and feed them stuff,
I think I'll be all right. Name. I just got a new
neighbor that that bought the house next to me, and she's just you know,
she's a single mom and she was she had this house has these oh,
planter boxes that were made out of the bricks in the front of the
house. So I went ahead and pulled all the old dirt out of that
for her and put some fresh dirt. But I told her, since the
front of the house faces the east, she needs something that will grow that
doesn't take her a lot of sun because it's not going to get a lot
of sun there because by noon, you know, it'll be in the shadows.
So could you suggest something that's colorful that takes just a little bit of
Are we thinking about like annual flowers or what specifically kind of plant or I
don't know. She just wanted something to make it look brighter. Well,
that's an easy area for color because it gets enough sun to have good blooms
and yet it doesn't have to deal with the full brunt of that blazing hottest
time of the day, so she can grow a lot of kind of things.
They're a good heat tolerant plant for summer is venka or Madagascar periwinkle.
Those are typically going to be white, red and pink. There is a
coral version to sort of coral version the angelonias, which is called summer snap
dragon. That's another option. Lentanna's would do well in that particular area,
and they'll give you a repeat bloom. And then of course if it's a
little bigger plant, there's some wonderful Salvia's that just bloom and bloom. They're
gonna get taller. There's many species of salvia, so some are about oh,
I don't know, twelve inches to knee high. Some some of them
are going to be about waist high or so. And there's something that you
could put in there would be more permanent, if she wouldn't have to change
out all the time. Yeah, So the salvius would be a perennial,
the lantana would be a perennial. Those those would be two options that of
the things right now, probably two. Well they might they yeah, they
probably be okay, they can't take too much sun, but you know,
New Guinea impatience there. They're colorful, but they're annuals, so you're gonna
have to replan them. Yeah, okay, all right, well, thank
you so much. Yeah, Archie, I appreciate that. Thank you very
much. Yeah, and for those of you who've been hearing me talk about
Martin spoon more an affordable tree if you'd like to get a hold of them,
it's a f F tree service dot com, aff Tree Service dot com
and a phone number. So I'm giving a second to grab a pen there
seven one three six nine nine, twenty six sixty three, seven one three
six nine nine twenty six sixty three are talking earlier about hurricane season is just
about here. Get those trees properly cleaned out, selectively pruned, all the
dead limbs out, and so on, because after the fact it's a mess.
You need to have Martin come in and get those trees as ready as
they can be for the storm season. We're going to go to Bill in
Sugarland. Now, Hey, Bill, good morning Skip. We have two
sago palms that are about twenty five or thirty years old. They're about six
feet tall, and I have noticed that there are little white, yellowish hand
spots on all of the individual leaves. And I'm wondering, is that a
disease process or is it a deficiency that I need to supplement the soil?
What do I need to do about that? Okay, in your color descriptions
there, I just have to is this like a tan spot you see on
top of the leaf or is this the white stuff you're seeing just under the
leaf? Now, it's a tan spot on top of the leaf, and
it's one or two millimeters in diameter. They're not large. There's a little
bitty spot. Different things you know, can cause that that kind of thing.
I would just say general care is what's within your power. There is
no sprays that you need to do to a sego palm. Those are resilience,
they're tough, they're good. You know, if it's some lower limbs
that are primarily doing that, you can prin those out and you still have
the top of the plant looking good. That if it's that way, that
would be one option. But just make sure and leave plenty of foliage.
All right, Well, yeah, it's on every individual little leaf. And
I noticed last year that some of those individual leaves were turning yellow, and
I supplemented them with magnesium selfate. I think it was. So I've got
a commercial right here. Let me get you do this. I'm gonna put
you on hold. Evan is going to give you my email address, and
I want you to send me pictures of the tops and bottoms of those leaves
up close, in good sharp focus. Will you do that? Yes,
sir, I think I can give you a better answer that way than trying
to picture what you're trying to describe. All right, just hang on hold
and Evan will pick it up. All right here, we are time for
the news. Seven one three two one two k t RH is a number
if you'd like to get on the board. Welcome back to garden Line.
Good to have you with us. What's your question today? If you like
to give me a call seven one three two one two KTRH, we'll be
happy to visit with you about that. Uh. You know the best time
to plan tree forty years ago, second best time today. And if you're
looking for a quality tree, Verdant Tree Farm. Verden Tree Farm is the
largest independently owned tree farm here in Houston now Verdant Tree Farm. Let me
give you the website because you're going to want to go there. There's great
resources there Verdant v E R d A n T Verdant Treefarm dot com.
You can go on there and for your standard decisions, decid you west types
of trees. They're going to have information on all of the different ones.
Like what's the difference between a regular cypress and amna zuma cypress. You can
go on there and read about that. The palm's same thing. What is
a good hearty palm? Well, I guarantee you Verdant Tree Farm can tell
you exactly the hardiest types of palms that they have. They can they have
the right palm for any budget. They can make things look good. Take
pictures, go in, sit down with them, walk out there. Tag
pick your tree. They'll tag it, they'll bring it, they'll plant it,
they'll do it right. And that's the way to have success. And
Verdant Tree Farm specializes in that. Whether you're down in Pearland on Broadway Street
at Verdant, whether you're at the Verdant up at let's say Yale Street and
I tent up in the heights or out in West Houston Parker Cypress. Verdant
Tree Farm love love going by and visiting with them and just seeing what's what's
the latest thing there, because they do a heck of a good job and
grow in their trees. Let's head to Livingston. We're going to talk to
Bill. Hello, Bill, good morning morning. I have a newly installed
orient pair of Prus Communists. Yeah, and it's developed a whole bunch of
brown spots all over the leaves. All right, Uh, soil we have
our here is very heavy clay. Yeah, top six or twelve inches as
black and the rest are down below is brown. Yeah. Well, pears
are it's in a swimming pool. Pairs are resilient. They don't want to
be completely sub submerged. They can take some temporary wet conditions, but they're
very tough. You see abandoned paars and homesteads all the time driving driving or
abandoned homesteads with living pear trees still there. As you drive through the countryside,
you probably have a disease called fabrea leaf spot. Fabrea leaf spot it's
a fungal leaf spot. Right. Usually it's not bad enough to warrant spraying.
When you look at it and it's like, man, I've lost about
a third of the leaf area on my tree, it probably would be helpful
to spray. But most years you don't have to worry about that. But
when we have these wet years, it can be a little bit of a
problem. I've never sprayed a tree for for brea leaf spot, but I
could see a reason why someone may want to. Okay, so I dug
a hole for a fence pole slightly upslope from it. When I hit two
two feet, I had a stream running through the underground. Oh my,
okay, that's direction. Well, if you've got two feet of decently aerated
soil. Even if you have a foot and a half, that pair is
going to be able to survive and do it. Okay, so we did
to a heavy amendment of the soil. Yeah, okay, so it would
be lighter, so hopefully it'll hang in there. Yeah, how do you
spell that for brea F Let's see f A b R A e A but
f A b R A e A. Yeah, kind of interesting spelling.
You can look it up find out more information on it. But it's a
leaf spot, so number of fungicides will work on it. Things. Well,
I'm not going to list of all the names of fungicides, but you
can find more information on that online. And wherever you go, you know,
your local garden center should have some something for disease on FRU one other
things. I'm new to your area, so I don't know your nurseries and
searching here, I'm looking for a pink pamelo, a pink pamelo citrus.
Yes, what part of town are you in? North east side of Livingston,
Oh, Livingstone? Oooh boy, I just don't know up there down
in the Houston area with the garden centers we talk about here on Guardenline,
they're going to carry citrus, but with a with that unique I was going
to say, with that unique of a ctrus, you really need to call
and because they're probably gonna have to order it in for you. They probably
are not going to just have it sitting there and stock. Okay, any
major nursery in the area then yeah, well you know, as we go
north, you've got Arburgate Nursery and Tombaal. They keep citrus and fruit trees
year round, so it doesn't matter what month of the year. It's not
a seasonal thing for them. They keep them year round, So that would
be one option. Plus it's a fun place to go. You could also,
let's see, you would be coming down. I'm sorry, I don't
have the map in my head. Are you coming down forty five or fifty
fifty nine? So when you get to Kingwood, I would call Warren's Gardens
Center. But this is definitely gonna be one they're going to probably order and
bring in, so make sure and get the call in. Yeah, that
that might be a little closer for you. Okay, they're not swimming anymore,
No good, They're doing good out there, all right. Well,
thanks for the call, appreciate that very much. If you want to have
success, if you want color on your patio, and I hope you do,
you need to consider containers. Containers provide versatile color. I love planting
in containers. Jungle land potting soil is a very good mix for containers because
it holds water, but the particles whole water, so you don't have the
water every day, but it drains the excess away. It's made of four
different sources of aged composted organic matter. It's got micro rustl fungi in it,
and it's easy to find. You know, nitrofash products are all over
the place, and no matter where you live, you're going to find some.
For example, Kingwood Ace hardware. I was just talking about Kingwood.
The Arborgate up in Tomball's going to have these products. Southeastern shades of Texas
is a place where you're going to find nitrofoss products. And let's I'll give
you another one. Growers outletting willis there's another place readily available. But go
ahead and get those things planted, get the color in. Do some things
that can take heat, like the periwinkle, madagascar prairiewinkle, or the angelonia
for example. Those are all very summer, tall, tough, and you
want that color so you have beautiful color all through the summer. Let's see,
I've talked about ACE Hardware before, but you know, ACE has a
slogan ACE is the Place, and I like that because it really is the
place. It's the place for all the things you needed when things flooded and
you needed all the supplies to clean up and deal with that. It's the
place for your lawn. It's a place for your landscape. It's a place
for fertilizers and soils and tools that you might need out there. ACE is
a place for all kinds of things. ACE has. Often the ACE Hardware's
which are independently owned, have individual gift shops that again, each place is
going to be a little bit different than the others, but you will find
amazing things for inside your home as well as things to make that outdoor patio
just a really special place you want to hang out. And then, by
the way, when you're at ACE, go ahead and grab those mosquito dunks,
because you want that outside in order to have a place that we can
enjoy hanging out. Nobody likes mosquitos. That's no fun at all. I
always enjoy going to ace. By the way, I'm going to be at
Langham Creek Ace Hardware next Saturday from eleven thirty to one thirty. Langham Creek
Ace Hardware is over on Barker Cyprus in northwest Houston. It's south of the
Berry Center. It's really easy to get to near Highway to our FM five
point twenty nine one. It's a copperfield area. How about that. Maybe
that makes it a little easier. I'll be there answering your questions. I'll
be there looking at samples, looking the photos on the phone to help you
have a more beautiful garden and bountiful garden as well. I'm gonna take a
little break. We'll be right back with your calls. Well, welcome back
to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We are talking about
all kinds of things gardening, including your gardening questions. I was talking yesterday
about the microlife humates plus the con concentrated I can't talk concentrated compost in a
bag. What is a humus? What is the substance humans? Well,
it's think of this. Take grass, cuppings and leaves and then decompose them
until they are compost and then let the compost keep decomposing until it reaches its
final state that is humous. Microlife humates plus has all the benefits of humus
in your soil. And what does humus do well? Humus helps build soul
structure. Humus has a couple of types of naturally occurring acids in it,
like humic acid and fulvic acid that help with releasing nutrients from the soil.
Is a wonderful addition as far as if you were to interview your your full
microhizal fungi and your microbes, they would say, yeah, we like it
too. Microlife has a wide variety of products humus. This is one the
microlife humts plus. Excuse me, hum mates plus. So when you're doing
your fertilizing, maybe using the green bag the six two four, well also
do the purple bag when you do it this way. Here's here's how this
works. The natural system is it's all about the soil. You keep making
the soil better and better and better. And that's what microlife products do.
That's why people like them so much. And as you do that, it's
not like you're rushing in for some quick fix. Yeah, they release nutrients
and they're helpful and they grow your plants and stuff. But you're looking at
the long term and you're continuing to make things better and better and better.
And you know what, if you'll glance down every now and then, your
thumb will start looking a lot greener in the process. That's microlife fertile life.
For more information, you're gonna find them pretty much everywhere I talk about
here on Guardline. I'm going to head out now to Miguel and Harlingen.
Hey Miguel, good morning, Good morning. How are you doing well?
Termed? So have a question. We've been having this increased heat wave and
it's gonna get work. My wife wants to plant some flowers outside in the
next to the mailbox. So I wanted to get your opinion and what will
be the best thing to do, especially for us down here. So you
have a little flower bed out there. We have two little concrete flower beds.
We just bought some ponting toil. We're working on it. So they
want to they want to grow something there. They wanted something pretty and want
to find out what your best opinion will do for that. Okay, uh,
well. Angelonia is one of my favorite summer flowers, and it's very
heat tolerant if you can provide it water. It does need to have water,
not soggy, but just you know, it's not a succulent or cactus.
You gotta water it. But Angelonia is beautiful, comes in a lot
of different colors and it and it does really well for you out in an
area like that. Periwinkle, uh, Madagascar prairiewinkle is sometimes called vincau.
It is a flower that comes in pink, it comes in white and red,
and there's even a coral type color. Those things just laugh at the
summer heat. And so that would be another good one that you could put
out there that would be pretty dependable for you. I'm looking at it all
right, Michael, Thanks for the call. Appreciate that very much. Definitely
do hey up in Montgomery. What is your hometown garden center? Quick quiz
ding ding ding Ana plants and produce. That's it. They're on one oh
five. They're on the east side of Montgomery, so it's really easy to
get to them. When you go to A and A. Of course it's
a garden center, you're gonna get playing, yes, but they have a
lot of cool blaying too. I mean all kinds of things that you would
put in your yard for interest, put on the patio, you know,
like a chimneya for example, out on the patio. They've got all kinds
of stuff like that. But they have one of the best selections of fertilizers
and fertilizers soil products that I've ever seen. And I really mean that.
You hear me talk about nitrofoss They got them at A and A, all
of them. Nelson plant food, yes, they've got that, including the
turf Star line, and like the Slow and Easy we were talking about yep.
A and A's got that. All the micro life products good night.
I mean you see what I'm saying. All the heirloom soil products, Nature's
ways, leaf mold, composts is there, asamite. Is there anything you
need to get the brown stuff right so that you can have success with the
green stuff. A and A plants and produce. They have a landscape crew
that serves the area around Lake Conro. You need to call them for that
too. You generally keep my schedules there on the checkout counter. If you
like to just swing by there for one, they can give you one and
you can use that if you didn't bring your own when you're out and about
shopping ana plant and produce. That was a fun time to go out there.
Let's see here. I'm going to go now to if I can get
the button to work to Humble Texas. And am I talking talking to GOPI?
Yes, sir, all right, perfect pronunciation. I'm a first time
caller. My knowledge in the whole area you're talking about it very limited.
Okay. The first question is relating to any kind of a root killer.
I have a sewer line and it's about five feet from the tree. And
this property is built in nineteen fifties. Probably it has we don't know because
it's five feet inside where it's a cash iron or our concrete all those,
but probably has developed cracks. So what we do is we have to go
and you stew machine or road ruder to basically them off as it gets worse,
clucks up the plumbing. Yes, I was looking at video of some
that are total root kullars. They say they do kill their few. Put
that in, but you won't kill the tree. Yes, oftentimes thoughts about
that, Well, oftentimes those are copper based. Copper kills the roots and
it just burns them basically, and they run those through the sewer lines.
But there are some other substances. But I'm not a route control chemist sewer
line expert, but I can tell you that yes, those are done.
But getting that rotor ruter through there is important because even if you kill the
roots, you got a bunch of dead roots composing very slowly in that wet
environment. So it's good to get him out of there. Well, we
use one of these balloons at expand that actually thrushes it out, so flushing
it out is not a problem. Let me tell you about this four that
I saw. You probably mentioned one of them. It's the first one is
called FTC Store Pure Copper sulfate. Yeah, they say pentahydrate. Okay,
crystal that one. That's it. Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt you go,
but I'm going to run short here on time. But I've kind of
told you what I know about the tree roots and the sewer. I think
you had another question you wanted to ask about. Yeah, the second question
is with all the dry weather we had, uh last summer, some of
the shrubs they're kind of we had to trim a bunch of limbs off it's
it's almost looking bareh know. One of the few of their modelugas from and
one. It looks like for tia type family. Maybe it's got red leaves
coming up and the last one would and what's your what's your question about them?
Yeah? What do you put in for a fertilizer? For the fertilizer,
I would use your lawn fertilizer, all the ones I talk about.
If you go to gardening with Skip dot com, gardening with Skip dot com,
there's a fertilizer schedule. Any of those work really well for trees.
So go up to the tree, take your thumb and how many thumb wits
across the shrub or tree or whatever is it. That's how you give it.
Two cups for every thumb with across the trunk, spread out even land
watered in. Hey, I'm sorry to have to go, but I am
out of time here, but thank you very much for your call. If
you're down south and you need the brown stuff to make your garden happy,
that is Cienamulch. Cienamulch has all the fertilizers I talk about. They have
quality things like leaf mo compost, like the veggie HERBNX like rose sooil,
like mulches, like decorative rock. It's all there. When you go to
Sienna and you go home with their products. And by the way, they
deliver within about twenty miles of the location. You've got success set up for
your plants. They're gonna do well. They're on FM five twenty one.
Here's the website. Go there, Sienna Mulch dot com, Siena multch dot
com. They can deliver within twenty miles. You can go pick it up.
They have stuff by the bag. They have stuff that's bulk. You
get to pick what you want. We want to set you up for success.
That is true. Absolutely. I'm gonna be next Saturday at Langham Creek
Ace Hardware. That's in the Copperfield area over there in northwest Houston. It's
on Barker Cypress. If you'd like to come see me, I hope you
will. Eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll be taking questions. You can
bring me samples, you can bring me photos, and I just like to
meet the listeners to Garden Line. So come on out there. We're gonna
have a little shindo out there. We'll be giving away some really cool stuff.
Including some nitroposs products out at Langham Creek Ace Hardware. So come on
out. It's always fun to go out to an ace. I love to
love to get to meet the folks that are coming in that listen to Garden
Line. We just always have a good time. Those of you who were
at arbrogating yesterday, you know we have a good time. We were cutting
up. All right, Well, we're putting this one in the books.
We'll see you next weekend. Right down Langham Creek Ace. Welcome back to
the garden Line. Good to have you with us. We've got one more
hour to put in the books. Here. It's nine oh five right now,
be here for about another hour. I think a while ago I was
talking like heading out the door, candor not time yet. I want to
talk a little bit before we go to calls about Nelson's Slow and Easy Plant
Food. It is a gradual release product for your long a slow release product.
But the way that the Nelson Fogdean and the Nelson team have designed this
is that it's going to give you some fertilizing nutrients out now, and then
it's going to gradually release, especially the nitrogen over time for a very long
time. I mean it'll go four months out or more. So when we're
doing it right now, you're thinking your next fertilization is in the fall.
So get it taken care of. Let the chemistries in there do what they
do. There's things that you know, some fertilizer, you get it wet
and it dissolves and the nutrients are there, and they're not going to be
there forever because they wash away and other things happen. Plants take them up,
microbes take them up. But this also has one that you I mean,
you can sid in wet soil and it will still be releasing later on,
and that provides a really good benefit by stretching out the growth, grass
actually has a less root system when you overdo the nitrogen. I will say
that again. If you to take and I've seen pictures of this, like
they took three crocks of nutrient water and one of them had almost no nitrogen,
and one of them had a medium amount, and one of them had
a lot. The one that had a lot was very green on top.
It was the biggest greenest. So you get to mow a lot when you
do that. But when they picked them up and showed the root system.
The high nitrogen had less than half the root system of just regular fertilizing,
So we don't want to do that. We don't want to overdo it.
So you want the nitrogen gradually fed to your grass. And that's why Dean
designed this slow and easy to be, slow and easy to do, and
it makes lawn care very easy. It's part of the turf Star line that
Nelson's has. It's widely available. You're going to find it in a lot
of different places, and I think you're going to be pleased with the success.
And I'm excited about the fact that that slow growth rate is really important
going through the summer season. I'm going to go here to humble a go
pie. I think we still have your round, Is that right? Yeah?
I'm still here. Okay, Uh well, let's we're on the other
side of the news out here. Let's uh see you were you were going
to ask about shrubs and I talked to you about fertilizing them. Did you
have a follow up on that? No, that's all. Uh Okay.
What's the name of the fertilizer you're talked about? Okay, Well, there
there are a number of ones. I just was talking about Nelson's plant food,
slow and easy. If you're going to fertilize shrubs, though, you
might want to consider one called Bruce's Brew Bruce's uh b r u ce apostrophe
s b r e W. That's from Nelson, but it's going to release
more of it a little earlier, and I think that would give you,
probably for your shrubs trying to get a little boost in them. That might
might be a little bit better for you for that particular application. All right,
okay, all right, well, thanks for getting no to investigate further
on the root killer. Use someone to call to explore you know, I
would talk to plumbers, I guess, but I'm telling you, Gop,
you have overstretched my brain on the roots. I could make stuff up if
you like, but I don't. I don't know anymore, do you mentioned?
All Right? Well, anyway, thank you for your time, thank
you for the call. Appreciate that you take care of Good luck getting those
roots out of that system. I've I've had to deal with that myself,
so I know what you're talking about. Uh. Today's Mother's Day. Surprise,
Happy Mom, Happy Mother's Day. All the moms out there. If
you, let's say, you haven't gotten. Okay, Mom's close your ears.
I want you this, uh, sons and daughters, If you have
not gotten a Mother's Day gift yet, I've got I've got what you need
to do. Run over to Wildbird's Unlimited and get one of the really cool
products that they have, like they're eco tough. It's made from recycled plastic
milk jugs. It is. It really is very pretty and it lasts and
lasts and last. The hyper hummingbird feeder. That's another one, the Eliminator
scrollproof feeder. There's a book on the joy feeding birds that in that book,
the actually the founder of Wilbird's Unlimited answers common questions about birding and having
birds around the yard as a hobby. They have many others. You know,
it would be even better than you running by and grabbing one of those.
Take Mom with you and let her shop, let her pick out whatever
she wants in there, And how about that for a Mother's Day gift.
Warbird's Unlimited six stores all over the Houston area. WBU dot com, forward
slash Houston. We're going to go now to Meadows Place and talk to Jim.
Hello Jim Hello Skip I've got a thirty forty foot pecan tree in the
backyard. Early in the year February time frame, trimmed off some of the
low branches. Now I'm getting continued growth at the cutoffs. Other than trimming
those cutoffs off. Is there anything I can do to keep to prevent them
from regrowing there? Tell me one more time, what was the type of
tree you said you have? Pecan? You could trim them off again.
At the base of those pecan shoots, even if you don't see it,
they're little tiny buds, lots of them all around the all around the shoot
that can develop. And that's why when you cut it off and maybe you
leave a little half inch stub, you're going to get a lot of re
sprouting because those buds of they're waiting and you just stimulated them to grow.
So cutting back as close as you can on those little ones would be helpful
in cutting that down. There are some products that will stop that kind of
growth. One it's called sucker stopper. Now I have never told somebody with
a pecan tree to go buy sucker stopper, but if you want to suppress
that sucker type of growth, whether it's coming in the bottom of a tree
or a pruning pruning wound area, sucker stopp or something you could spray on
it. Just have to follow the label on it when you do it.
Okay, that's what I need to know. Thank you all right, Jim,
thanks a lot, appreciate the call. You know you're gonna I would,
I would say you're probably gonna find a sucker stopper at Ace Hardware stores.
ACE carries a lot of different things. I have not gone into all
the Aces to see if they have that product, but that's where I would
definitely start there and just call them and see No matter where you live in
the Greater Houston area, you know you got forty Houston area ACE Hardware stores
that are part of the Houston Group and so that makes it easy, and
just go to the website acehardware dot com and find the store locator. In
fact, what when I go there is something pops up and says can we
use your location? I say yes, because then you get a map that
has Ace Hardware's all over the place. I mean it just red dots all
creation. By the way, this works not just here in Houston, but
you know you're in other cities around Texas, and I guess even further you
can do that the map and makes it easy to find the ones that you
need. ACE Hardware is going to have the fertilizers I talk about. For
example, I talk about the Super Turf by Nitrofoss, that is the silver
bag, that's the nineteen four to ten nineteen four to ten. It also
has four percent iron in it for green up. Half the nitrogen is in
a slow release form, so you get an immediate feed, but you also
have a gradual release out there over time. And they also you know,
there are a number of Nitrofoss products, but a while back, I was
talking a lot about the Sweet Green, the eleven zero four natural type fertilizer
that they have. Well at this point in time, unless you just want
to fertilize in small amounts with a quick release, then I would suggest just
get you a good slow release like Super Turf Silver Bag nineteen four ten,
apply it and let it do the gradual release for you. You're going to
find Nitrofoss products in many, many different places, including a bazillion ACE hardware
stores that are out there, as well as the Encented Forest and Enchented gardens
down in Richmond. They both carry nitrofoss products down there, and the plantation
ace by the way up there in a Richmond Rosenberg. Also. I mean,
it's easy to find nitrofoss products all over this region. I was in
an ace the other day, and again, like I said, each one
is a little bit different, so you know, it's not just a cookie
cutter going from one to the other, although there are many, many similarities.
But I was in one the other day and they had a machine that
sharpens knives and you can bring your knives, lock them in there and it
just does the sharpening forus. Like I'd never seen one of those. That's
pretty cool. Well, let's take a little break. I'll come back in
just a bit. Seven one three two one two kt RH Slaying on a
Sunday morning here on the garden Linet's sleep at the Way of Die. We
are going to go straight out to the phones right now and talk to mel
In Carmine. Hello, mel Well, good morning. Really appreciates taking my
call and love your show. It's that you helped me. I have a
question about a magnolia. I can give you the official name, but they
call it a saucer magnolia plant. We butter at a home depot about six
months ago and it just won't grow. Now, followed your directions about putting
it in the ground with some rose mix and watering it, but it just
won't kick off, and it's got, you know, scattered leaves. I
sent a note over to the website, and I don't know, I didn't
see a place to attach a photo, but anyway, I was wondering what
can I do to get that thing to kick off and start growing. It's
been in the ground long enough, should be doubling in size. How long?
When did you plant it again? About four months ago? Yeah,
well, it can be a little slow. They do need good drainage in
the soil, so if it happens to be a clay and low lying and
certainly been a wet year, that can be a problem for them. Did
you happen to notice when you pulled it out of the container did it have
roots wrapped around in circles inside the gar Yeah, a little bit. And
again I followed your advice. I broke them up and made sure that I
didn't let them stay rooted down. Okay, good, good, that's important.
I generally tell people to cut those. I think you've done what you
need to do. Moist soil, good sunlight, and adequate nutrition. A
lawn fertilizer is going to be a higher nitrogen fertilizer and that's going to be
good for supporting new growth on plants. Generally with saucer magnolias, tulip magnolias,
all the different decisions smagnollia types, we don't have to worry about pushing
them all the time. They do pretty good growing at a little bit slower
rate. And especially the other thing to remind you is it's gonna set buds
for next springs bloom in late summer and fall, so make sure you're not
pushing them with too much nitrogen. Then make sure you're not pruning them.
Definitely after about June or well maybe July. After that, it's got to
settle in and set those buds. So that's looking forward on it. As
far as why it didn't bloom this spring, you got me on that one.
I don't know why it wouldn't have if it's healthy. Yeah, because
it looks like it's got some little pods like it wants to have some blooms,
but nothing came out. Yeah, I don't know, you know,
without being there and seeing it, and maybe something would become visible. But
hopefully it'll settle in and do well for you. Did you buy it?
I don't need to know where, but did you buy it somewhere local?
Yes? I did, and I've been using you know, as usual.
Listen up the micro Life product there around it. Encourage it. Yeah,
that's a good one. The six two four. Now, while ago you
may have heard me say, for every thumb with give it two cups of
fertilizer. If you're going to use the Microlife the concentration of nitrogen is lower
in that, so I would double or triple that that rate. For every
inch of truck, every inch of trunk diameter, I would give it probably
five cups of the Microlife fertilizer sprinkled evenly all around the branch spread of the
tree. If you can rake it into the soil, it's even better.
Or rake it into the mulch and then water it in, well, that's
even better. All right, all right, Well, thank you very much.
Well, good luck with it. I hope it straightens up. You
know. One one last tip is if you go out with a chainsaw and
fire it up and start walking toward the plant. And then you turn off
the chainsaw and say I'm coming back and I'm gonna do it next spring.
If there are no blooms on it. I find that helps them. They
tend to bloom better that way. All right, again, great advice,
Thank you so much. Sorry, all right, thank you appreciate the call.
Let's see here we are gonna go. Who's been waiting on this?
Tim? And Massachusetts? Tim? This is a long distance call. Good
morning, good morning, Skip, A great show. Thank you. So.
I had a rose bush that was inevertently cut down last year and it
overwintered. The roots overwintered pretty well, and I noticed the start to sprout.
What should I do for fertilizer? There? A quality rose type fertilizer
would be good. Do you just have one rose bush? Yes? Okay.
Nitrofoss makes a couple of quality fertilizers that can be used on roses.
And it's a little jars. Are you are you actually living in massu sits
now? Yes? Okay. You probably don't have nighter FoST products up there.
And I looked around. I can't find them up this way, you
can both organic and synthetic fertilizers are gonna be available in your area, and
I would just I would, I would find one that is kind of it.
Let me back up just a minute. Is the rose overall its growth
has been good for you looking backwards and previous yes, and previous years it
has. I never really trimmed it back, but it always sprouted new sprouts.
Yeah, and and booms. Okay, well you know this one's this
one's probably I'm guessing fifty two, one hundred years old. Holy moly.
Okay, well, obviously it's been doing really well. If it's lived that
long, I don't know your soils up there, and and so it's hard
for me to advise you specifically on well you need this three nutrients on the
bag and this numbers, you know, but in general with roses, nitrogen
is important in moderation. We don't overdo it, but nitrogen supports bigger and
every rose bloom is occurring at the end of a shoot, and so every
time you trim them back, every time that you stimulate new growth, you're
going to have rose, good rose production, but again don't overdo it on
that. And good sunlight too, you know, over time, trees get
bigger and what used to be fully sunny becomes more and more and more shady,
and your rose blooms are going to go downhill as a result of that
as well. So that's another minor factor that might be at play as well
in this. Okay, okay, great, And then one another question.
I have an old pear tree also that half of it is kind of died
off, but half of it has flowers and buds. Now, what fertilizer
should I use for something like that? I almost never fertilize pears pears.
Pears are very vigorous and they want to grow straight up, and we don't
want them to grow straight up. We would like them to open up like
a normal tree. So if it truly is just no vigor, then you
could use like a little bit of a lawn fertilizer on the pair, just
not one that has weed control in it. If most pears, at least
my experience with them has been that they have really good vigor, And so
what we end up doing rather than pruning them to try to make them branch
out, because they just you prune them and they just send up more shootes
straight up. You lean those branches out with a cord and then maybe use
the steak or something to kind of hold them down at about a forty five
degree angle and they'll after a couple months of being set like that, they'll
tend to stay like that. But as far as fertilizing, other than seeing
nutrients symptoms on the leaves, like different kinds of yellowing or something on the
leaves, I would go easy on it because it just exacerbates the tendency to
be too vigorous and upright. Okay, and then last question, rule Barb.
My root Barber is sprouted quite well and it's starting to flower or seed.
Can I cut and I'm going to transplant? So can I do I
cut down that seed pod? Yeah? You can let it go. Well.
Either way is fine, but if you if you cut it earlier,
the energy that goes into the blooming and producing seeds could be directed elsewhere in
the plant. But it's not a night and day thing. Ruber will be
fine with you as you transplant either way. Okay, great, thank you
very much for the information. All right, So, I just I don't
know if you listen to guardline much, but I always say that when we
give advice We don't charge, but we do ask you to send us half
of the produce that you're growing. So I'll be looking for a rhubarb pie
here at the station next next. What is it special up here? Yeah,
I know it is. Hey, thanks a lot, good to thank
you very much, good to talk to you. You bet, you bet,
bye bye. Yes. The antigros Iporium out there in Independence, Texas
is a show place. It's always a good time to go because there's always
interesting things going on out there at the Anti Rosmporium U. For example,
they have a lot of native plants. You know, they're roses, I
mean, for crying out loud, they are nationally known for their antique roses.
But there's so much more, like a really good selection of natives,
a lot of different salvias and color plants and whatnot. Every Friday and Saturday.
Out there by the way is their Tinker Garden Workshop. It's for kids.
It's an outdoor play based educational curriculum for kids that are two to eight
years old. Just go to the website. Here's the website. We are
excuse me, Antique Rose Emporium dot com. I was giving you the email
address Antique Roseemporium dot com. Go to the website the upcoming events. You
can sign up for things there. All of their roses at Anti Grosemporium are
in two gallon containers, so they're a really good, strong, robust plant,
twenty nine to ninety five each across the board. Now, when you
go out to Anti Roseenporium, take your friends because it is fun. It's
fun to walk through. It's beautiful. It's like you enter another place and
time. And if you've got a group that would like to go out there,
give them a call or go to the website and where you can get
information to email them. They can accommodate garden tours and presentations like a lunch
and marn or something like that, and they'll give you the details about it.
But it really really is worth the trump out to Independence, Texas.
It's time for a news break. We'll be right back, all right,
Welcome back to Gardline. Good to have you with us today. What are
we going to talk about in this last half hour of the show today?
You tell me We're gonna find out right now from Roger up in Deer Park.
Hey Roger, Hey, good afternoon or morning's to it? Yeah,
it still is. I got a BlackBerry push in my backyard and I'm trying
to transplant it, move it to the front because of the neighborhood a wood
fence up, so it's only gets one side. So I'm trying to figure
out one the road direction northeast west, so forth, so on, and
then the spacing between the plants, spacing between the roads, and what kind
of what size hole would I be digging up the armacane? Okay, are
you talking about thornless or thorny blackberries? No, this is the thorn variety.
They call it the saw tooth. Say that last word one more time.
What kind of what variety saw tooth? See? Okay, that's a
new one to me. Well, in general, you're going to put your
blackberries out about three feet apart. They can go four feet apart. They
can go a little wider if you want. They a lot of the older
types come underground and send shoots up, so they form a hedgerow a solid
row in time. But some of the newer, the thorn this especially,
they tend to be individual plants more more so than the thorny. Uh.
As far as the width between rows, you're going to want to keep your
rose pruned and narrowed and thinned out properly so that you don't give blood every
time you try to pick blackberries. Uh. As far as the distance between
them, how many roads are you talking about here? Oh? Just two
or three? Okay? Yeah? Are you going to are you going to
need to take any equipment down the road, like maybe you know you got
to spray around a lawn mower or you know. Okay, yeah, you
just need plenty of room for you. So that's gonna take about ten feet
probably because they're those those shoots are gonna come up, You're gonna tip them.
They're gonna make side branches that are out and down. Uh, And
you want to be able to walk down the middle of that row without being
grabbed on both sides by some long black BlackBerry shoot out there. So I
would say ten is fine. You might get away with eight and be okay
if you're trying to crowd things in a little bit. But you can also
prune to help keep things clear in the walkway. Okay, what kind of
root deps? I mean? These do send out shoot or you know twit?
Those are not Yeah, those rhizomes are not very far unto the ground
going horizontal there and from them come the shoots that help create that thicket or
hedge of blackberries. So you're going to be trimming those out. You're going
to decide how why do you want this row? I would suggest two feet
wide? Uh, and then anything growing out from that just gets you know,
rotortail, dug up whatever. But uh, it'll end up making the
whole thing a solid BlackBerry briar patch if you if you don't keep them in
the rows. Oh yeah, I've seen that happen. Kind of root dipped?
Are they? When I'm asking this? Is that if I wanted to
put a wall up on the in the ground. Oh uh yeah, plus
uh dig up the prima change to transplant them from the back to the front.
Yeah. Uh, that's good. That's a good question. I've when
I've dug down, they've all been in about the top six s eight inches
for sure. Uh in that range, probably eight being a little bit lower
than you're going to have them go. I don't if you wanted to put
a vertical wall in, I would. I would uh uh just think that
if you could get down eight ten inches that ought to be adequate. But
I've never tried that before on them. That is a good idea though.
Yeah. Plus that's what I was wondering about digging them up too, you
know, kind of when I shovel around it when they're small and little ursus.
When they you know, the pym McCain's come up, sometimes they're worse
than in any kind of weed. Quick. Yeah that's right. Well,
good luck with those blackberries out there in Deer Park. Look forward to hearing
success from them. Thank you Roger for that call. I was talking to
Ian out of Nature's Way Resources yesterday and we were just talking about some different
things. But they are really stocked up on all the different quality products that
they make. You know, they make fine leaf, more compost that is
just Cadillac stuff. I mean, they really know how to make a good
fine screen. So if you want a top dresser lun they can provide that.
They also have a fungal based compost and they have a screen version of
that too, which is also good for top dressing your lawn out there.
Remember that on Fridays Fungal Fridays, ten percent off their bagged fungal based products
twenty percent off their bulk. So whether you go out there with a trailer
and pick it up, take it home, or whether you have them deliver
it. They got plenty of that on hand, and that is super high
quality stuff. Of course, they've got the rose soil that originated at Nature's
Way Resources, the leaf mold, composts and so on. Nature's Way Resources
also has native plants. They got a light, nice little nursery right there
on site. If you've never been out there, you head up forty five
and where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia. You just turn right and
it's just right there. Here's a phone number you're want to write this down
nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine three six three two one
sixty nine to ninety or you can just go to Nature's Way Resources dot com
Nature's Way Resources dot com. Let's go now to round Rock. Talk to
Marianne. Hello. Marianne, Hello, I wanted to ask about my daughter's
plum tree. She lives here in round Rock and that tree is a beautiful
tree and it is loaded with plums. But they are just full of worms
and it's like the worms are inside of the fruit. Is there something they
can do about that? Not after the fact, but next year when the
plant's blooms have almost all fallen. When there's very few blooms left on the
tree, you begin to have to spray for an insect called the plum creeculio.
Now, since they've got those, every plum that falls to the ground
or has a worm in it needs to leave the property. Throw it in
the trash, get it off the property because the peculio larva that when it
falls on the ground, they're going to come out and pupate, and then
they're right back next year. You're just raising a new crop of those.
Don't get rid of all of them to get those plums out of there,
but it really helps. So all the all the fallen fruit out and then
spraying. There are insecticides labeled for fruit trees. You want to wait until
most of the blooms are done so you don't kill your bees. But starting
then all the way up, as the plums begin to grow, you're going
to do some thinning. Plums tend to set too much. And if you
look when you're thinning and you see the little baby green plums that have a
little slit cut in them, a little crescent shaped slit very small that indicates
that a plum curculio has already laid an egg in there. Thin those out
and leave the ones that you know that aren't already have eggs in them.
That's kind of the package on plumb curculio to get her back in better shape
there. Okay, okay. Is there a particular product that I should look
for? No, not any particular when there's a number of different products out
on the market that are but it just needs to be labeled for fruit trees
that that is important. So whether you you know, you get a Bonneye
or a fertile home or a Monterey product, whatever the high yield. There's
a lot of brands out there, but find one label for fruit trees that's
an insecticide. That's important, exactly, all right, Mariann, all right,
appreciate it, thank you, Thank you very much. We're going to
take a break here. When we come back, Lee and Tom Ball you'll
be the first up a little body Eagles to close things down. Our last
segment for today here on Garden Line. We appreciate the fact that you listen
to Garden Line, and I hope that you will tell your family and friends
about it as well. You might have noticed that we get calls from pretty
far away Houston. Folks move away and they keep listening, or go visit
their family and friends. You know, anybody can listen to us anywhere they
are. You can go to the podcasts and listen to past shows. You
can listen on some of those some of those podcast apps like the IHEARTMEDIAPP you
can listen actually live to the show. There, you got your phone with
you out in the garden. You're good to go. And we are always
happy to help people have a more beautiful and landscape, a more bountiful garden.
That is kind of why we're here. I had some let's see,
we're gonna go Tombo. When I talk to Lee first, Hey Lee,
how are you doing today? Great? Thank you? Got three fig trees
my backyard, about two are about two years old, ones about one year
old. Two of them have holes in the leaves. Maybe I've counted fifteen
twenty leaves and then it looks like who splotches, It looks like rust on
the other side. That was all right, Google symptoms, there's just too
many answers come back. That makes sense. Hm, Well, the holes
in the leaves, I wouldn't worry about I've never seen insect told that that
are too much. As far as the rust, when you it looks like
yellow spots on the top, is that it Now, no, just look
like rust, like redish oine rust. Okay, there's no yellow. And
then the leaves are starting to wrinkle up like a prom or something. Now
that's very interesting. It's lee, I tell you. Well, go ahead,
I'm sorry. A lot of the things I read mentioned it could be
a blight of some sort, but there was no treatment. Yeah. The
only the only problem I see on figs though, is rust. The disease
rust. It's a fungal disease, and it's difficult to control because you got
to find something that will control rust and something that's labeled for figs, and
that combo is difficult. Sometimes people will use sulfur based sprays. Sulfur is
a weak fungicide. If you stay on it, you can keep the fungus
at bay. But once you got the spots, then those spots are producing
spores. Typically out of the bottom of the leaf. You'll see some spores
coming out. But that's the main thing. When the weather is like it's
been, you know it's going to be a bad year. Raking up the
leaves and getting rid of them helps. It doesn't eradicate it because rust floats
through the air on its spores, so it can come in from a lot
of places. Okay, I can search for something to spray on it,
but it doesn't have so is it like a commonal situation? No, no,
not at all. It weakens the tree, and I've seen trees.
I've seen figs almost completely defoliated by rust disease in a very bad year.
The tree survives it, just when you take all that carbohydrate production out,
its ability to make a nice sweet fig is not there. And it also
weakens the tree too, So we try. You know, you don't always
have to spray, But sulfur is probably the one I know you probably find
with a with a label like that. There may be another one out there.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a fun just
side labeled for figs that's effective against rust. I can do a quick search
and yeah or not, Yeah, you might, you might be able to
do that. That's not a bad idea. In fact, I'll if I
can, if I come up with anything in the next what do we got
here? About five minutes, six minutes of the show. I'll say it
on the air. Just keep listening. I guess maybe the the local gnursery
might have some some of the Yeah, yeah, yeah, RCW. Might
you know you're what is you just down street? You're in Tamboul area.
You you're real close to plants for all seasons and Arborgate plans row seasons has
a pretty good list. I'm trying to remember if I've saw the spray aable
uh in there on that. But anyway, just here's the thing. Call
them, call them before you drive and ask them, tell them what you're
looking for, and yeah, I'll get them a call. Pushing on one.
All right, sounds good, Thank you, Thank you, appreciate your
call. Yeah, that's an interesting disease. You know, we've had a
lot of questions about fruit and stuff today and Arburgate uh and being a store
that sells fruit trees year round. I mean that that's kind of cool.
You can always go and get something there. But I talked about Microlife earlier
and I didn't mention that a Microlife has a product that is called citrus and
Fruit. It's a six two four, just like the green bag that for
Elijah. This one is in an orange bag. Yeah, orange like ut
that's right. University of Tennessee Orange Citrus and fruit six two four. It's
another good product by Microlife if you'd like to get something for your fruit trees
that works really well. They also have some liquid products. They have got
one it's also the same color of orange, and it's called Microlife Biomatrix seven
to one three. You might have heard me talk about it before. It
is a liquid. You mix it in water and you put it on plants.
It's got a good dose of nitrogen in it. It's loaded with microbes.
So when you're planting things and you want to water them in, you
can use Microlife Biomatrix. It works very well for that. And like all
Microlife products, widely widely available. Just go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com.
Or if you hear me talk about ACE Hardware and Southwest Fertilizer and this or
that nursery or this or that feed store, you're probably gonna find Microlife in
all of those places. Makes it super super easy to do. I want
to remind you that on next Saturday, I'm going to be at Langham Creek,
Ace Hardware, Langham Creek Ace Hardware is in Northwestson. It's in the
Copperfield area. It's actually on Barker Cypress. Some of you familiar with the
center where you got to go south on Barker Cyprus and you'll get to Langham
Creek Ace Hardware. Uh. And we're going to be doing all kinds of
things. I know we're giving away some nitrofost products. I'm sure there's some
other stuff we're going to be given away then, uh, and I'll be
there to answer your questions. So come on out, grab those leaves with
spots on them and things like that, and you know, let's uh,
let's make sure that we help you have success. That is important. If
you have photos and things that you want to bring out that is that's fine,
don't don't worry about it. We'll be taking looks at those will help
you make sure we get them diagnosed right. That is important. Diagnose it
right, and then send you to the product that's going to be effective.
If indeed a product is needed, and in many cases you just don't have
to need. You just don't have to spray for things. You heard me
talk about that a little bit earlier today. It's it's not a really big
deal. When you just get a hole in a lead here and there and
whatnot. It's really easy to do. Yep, that is the case.
I try to minimize spring by the way. I just do you know,
we've got to get organic products, We've got synthetic products. You can go
either way on those. Sometimes with particular plants and diseases, you do not
have the option to you know, have maybe an organic product for that particular
situation. But in general, just focus on taking care of your plants.
Get your plants as healthy as you can. That's good fertilizing, it is
good, watering as needed, not too much. Avoid wedding foliage anytime you
can. So that's the deal. When you take care of your plants,
you're going to minimize the problems, not eliminate all of them, but minimize
them and you're much more likely to have success. And so that's what we
focus on when we're trying to help you. Along with those kinds of things,
I want to mention what other thing and there are a couple of websites
that I think will be real helpful for you. Number One, I hope
you go to gardening with SKIP. That's my website. I'm slowly building it
out as I can, putting news flashes up as we see those kind of
things come along. But it's got my two schedules, the long care schedule
and the long Pest Disease and Weed management schedule. Please download those, have
them handy so that when you're looking for the right product or the right time
or whatever, there you go. I mean, you've already got it in
your hand. Another is the Aggie Horticulture website. It's Aggy Dash Horticulture dot
TAMU dot edu, Aggie hyphen or Dash Horticulture dot timo did du. There
is a section on vegetables that has a bazillion free vegetable publications. You can
look at them on the screen or download them. There's a section on fruit
that is very very helpful there as well. If you need to do soil
testing, soil testing dot ta Mu dot edu. Soil Testing t AMU dot
edu is another place where you can get good help. And whenever you do
need to send a plant in to have it diagnosed, there's a plant clinic
up at n M. The State plant Clinic is Plant Clinic dot TAMU dot
edu. You might want to bookmark those because when you need them, they're
going to be very very helpful for you in finding the kind of information that
you need. When when I get out of here, I've got some planting
to do. I'm trying to get home today. In fact, I've got
the first thing I do is get some mowing done. I have planted four
different kinds of grass. Yeah, I know who does that? Fort different
kinds of grass around the house to Saint Augustine's two Zoysius one two in the
front in the back. I gotta get those things mode. You know,
the more often you mow, the better it looks. And here I am
sitting on the radio instead of taking care of my lawn. For crying out
loud, I can't let that happen. Listen, we appreciate you being a
garden Line listener. It's been a fun weekend. Really enjoy to look forward
to talking to you again next weekend. Remember pass shows are available by podcasts,
and please remember I'll be at Langham Creek Ace Hardware next Saturday, eleven
thirty to one thirty. Come out and see me. Let's get some product
drawings. I'll even have some free samples to give away. Of products out
there, So come out and see us. Have a good time. In
the meantime, get out in your garden and have fun. Listen, Gardening
is not rocket science. If things go wrong, it's like playing with an
etch of sketch. You know how, you turn it upside down and shake
it. With gardening, you just get a Rota tiller and you get a
fresh new start in life. Don't be afraid to fail. You've got to
kill a lot of plants to be a good gardener.