Katie r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Richard.
It's so crazy, Trim, just watch him as so many things supt
day. Well, good morning, good Saturday morning. It is good to
be back behind the microphone. I hope you enjoyed the shows that we had
during the holidays. There were some really, really good guests. I actually
was in another place but listened in just to kind of hear here again what
those folks have to say. It's a lot of good, lot of good
information. But it's good to be back live with you again, and we
hope you will join us today with some phone calls as well. We always
like to talk to you because this is about your questions. The Garden Line
is about how can we help you have a more beautiful garden and a more
bountiful landscape, or maybe I should say that vice versa too bountiful garden and
beautiful landscape, or all of the above. Anyway, you can give us
a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven to one
three two one two kt r H and we will get right into it when
you come up with the kind of things that you want to talk about.
I've got some things. I got a lot of things that I'd like to
visit about today, a lot of different topics, things that are timely that
hopefully not only are things to do right now, but things to be thinking
about to get ready because I tell you that the winter is We are here
in winter, or what we call winter in this part of the world,
but spring is coming, and when it comes, it hits like a eighteen
wheeler. I mean, all of a sudden. The days are beautiful,
things are happening. Garden centers just overloaded with all kinds of new plant material
coming in, and we want to be ready for that. There's already some
great opportunities out those visiting some garden centers earlier and just really impressed with the
stock of things that are available out there. We are entering the primetime for
planting bear root plants. So if you were purchasing a bear root, whether
it's a fruit tree or a rosebush or anything bear root, the time we
do that is in January, and try to get that done by early February
if we can, but later it gets You can steal plant a little later
into February, of course, but you know, it's just it's like anything
we've been talking about on garden Line. The sooner we get something in,
the more time we give it to establish, start to grow some new roots.
And with a bear route, that's especially important before that hot weather comes
in the demands are put on the plant, the better off we are.
So bear rood season is upon us. But it's also container season. It's
always container grown plant season because you can plant container plants twelve months out of
a year. Some months more challenging than others, such as July and August,
for example, a little bit more challenging. It's touch and go,
but you can do it. You can do it any month of the year
here and have success, and that's what we want you to have. So
we think of January and February is of course what we call winter. It's
the rose season. You plant roses any month of the year, but we
associate rose planting with Valentine's Day just because, yeah, that makes sense.
The two go together. However, you can plant roses now, go ahead
and get them done. Get your roses, get them planted. Find out
what kind of rows you want, and don't demand that a bush be loaded
with blooms and be gorgeous when you buy it. I know that's what tempts
us. I mean, that's true. You're buying a little, tiny flowering
annual plant for example. You know you want to pick the ones that have
the most blooms on them. Well, that's fine, it is prettier now
sitting there in the garden center. But what you need to have success is
leaves. Because if you were to buy let me just do this, if
we were to pick, let's pick on a fly, let's say a viola,
which is a good cool season of annual flower. If you were to
get a plant that was full of foliage and no blooms, and a plant
that is so many blooms on it you can't see the foliage, and we
put those out, what is going to happen. Well, the one that
doesn't have any blooms on it, that is all in its vegetative state,
that maybe just a few blooms on it, it's going to hit the ground
running, capturing sunlight, making carbohydrates, and it's going to be a bigger,
stronger plant that can have more blooms one that is loaded with blooms will
still be fine. It'll grow and do well. But don't I think the
temptation to try to pick things that already look like we ultimately want them to
look is probably misguided. That's how I look at it. So just think
of those blooms as babies, and now this plant is having to support all
these babies, make new babies, and you know, whether they go to
seed or fruits or whatever, they do well. When it comes to roses,
the same thing is true. Just get you a good, strong,
healthy plant. Know the variety you want going on. Look at the bloom,
this is what it's going to look like. That's good. Then purchase
that plant and take care of it, and you will achieve what you were
hoping to achieve in terms of a beautiful plant. That's kind of my tip
for you. I guess when it comes to buying plants, we have a
lot of natural tendencies that probably lead us not toward failure at all, but
toward maybe away from the top performance that we could have. I used to
talk about this all the time with bear root trees. You know a lot
of people will purchase fruit trees like fruit and pecan things like that bear root
and they get this giant They want the biggest tree they can find, and
it's not an advantage to do that. Get a moderate sized tree, take
care of it, and it'll be just as good as the bigger one.
In fact, when it comes to containers, let's say you have a given
size of container. Maybe I'm just going to use five gallons as an example,
but a five gallons of container, three, ten gallon, whatever you
want. And you look at two trees and one of them is really big
and one of them is medium size, it's probably better to get the medium
size one. And the reason is they both have the same root system,
but one of them has a whole lot of top and it may sit there
for a little bit longer getting its root system established to support that big top
and take off with growth. Now, this isn't a black and white thing
where you know, if you plant a big tree, it won't grow.
In a little tree, it will grow. I'm not saying that, be
real clear about that. I'm just saying that, don't think you're buying trees
by the board foot. When you're comparing trees from one container size to the
same container size, Okay, so twenty five gallon versus a five gallon,
Yes, twenty five gallons ahead. Start there, no question. But when
you go out and purchase things, learn how to take care of your plants
and then get them in the ground properly, and you're going to have success.
That's just the way it works. It's not that difficult. And with
our great mom and pop garden centers, our local garden centers that we have
all over the greater Houston area, they're going to be able to not only
carry the products that really belong here, and not everything for sale in Houston
should be planted in Houston. I'll just say it that way. But when
you go to a dependable place that knows what they're talking about, that takes
care of their customers, where not only quality plants, but also education is
important, you're going to have success because they're going to die. Jean,
help you help you do that. Hey, we're going to take a break
for a little bit. Here our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Gift Josh call. When we come back, you'll
be our first up. Good Saturday morning, Welcome to Garden Line. We're
glad you're listening this morning, and boy, do we have a lot to
talk about today. We I know we're sitting here in the what we would
call the middle of winter, at least what passes for winter in this area.
But it is time to get really busy with a lot of things for
that beautiful garden. We're gonna build the beautiful landscape. We're going to build
and develop, and now's the time to do it. We're going to start
off by going to the phones, our phone number seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. We went out to Tumbaull talk to David.
Hello, David, good morning, sir. Morning. Hey, I've got
a I think I have a mole problem. And I'm getting these little mounds
of dirt on the ground and when I take a little handheld gardening tool and
rake the dirt. Aside, I don't see a tunnel. I don't know
where the dirt's coming from. And I've been told it's a mole, so
I checked. And then the solution for him is they want to give me
this little spot treatment type stuff. Is there a product if it is a
mole that like a twenty five pound bag granule that I can spread through the
whole yard. Take care of the whole problem. No, how big are
the mountains, I would say some of them are probably eight inches in diameter.
Oh so it's just like somebody piled dirt up on top of the ground.
Yeah, it's like I get these little potl likes. Somebody took a
shovel of dirt and just pumped it in there. And I'm going and when
you rake them back, I'm looking for a hole and I can't find a
hole. Well, I think you're talking about pocket gophers. That's that's my
Is your soil a little on the sandy side, Oh yeah, it's very
sandy. Okay, I think you're talking about pock pocket gophers. And I
tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm not a wildlife expert, but if
you will go, I'm gonna give you a Website's real easy. It's Agralife
Learn dot t agra life, learn a g R I l I F E
L e A R n agra life, learn dot t A m U dot
e d U. That's Texas and and University dot ed US for education.
So agrolife, learn dot tammu dot ed U. Type in the word gopher
and there's a free publication on pocket gophers, and it'll talk about them,
what to do about them, how to handle them, and whatnot. But
yeah, putting an insecticide out is not They're not They're eating grubs or things
like. You know. That's a strategy for certain things where we we kill
the thing that we kill the food source for what's bringing the credits in.
But not with pocket gophers. Huh, I'm gonna go caddy shack on it.
Man. You see that movie. I have seen that movie. I
have seen that movie. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dynamite's not the best way
to go on this line. I'm not gonna do that. That just that
just came to mind when you said gopher. Yeah, well anyway, there
you go. But I've never you would think you would be able to see
them, though if it was a gober, it'd be like a squirrel or
something. Yeah, they don't. I never see them. They don't present
themselves much. I mean, you know that if you're in the right place
the right time, you'll see one. But yeah, that's I think that's
what you're doing on check out that publication. Moles do not create mounds of
dirt. They push up told a little bit of a raised tommy. But
yeah, I don't even see a hole or nothing, all right, but
I'll give that try. Thank you, sir, Yes, sir, good
luck with that. Thanks for call David. Appreciate that. 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 have any kind of a winter
garden, I'm talking about vegetables, I'm talking about flowers, you know,
any kind of beds. I want to see about a product that you probably
haven't thought about for using in those areas in the cool season, and that
is Microlife's Ultimate. That's a blue bag. It's a fertilizer. Now when
you see the big bags of fertilizer, you think, okay, I put
that on my lawn. Yeah, you can put it in your lawn,
but you can also use it in your cool season garden. You got broccoli,
lettuce, spinach, things like that, growing Microlife Ultimate is excellent for
that. If you've got flowers like pansies and violas and alyssam and snap dragons
and all the cool season things, it's great for that. And as we
support the roots with good nutrient additions, we can support growth, and when
you support growth, you get more blooms. That's how it works. Light
shines on leaves, The leaves make carbohydrates, the carbohydrates make blooms and fruit
end roots in the case of a vegetable garden like carrots and radishes and turnips
and whatnot, and so good nutrition in the soil is important. And that's
what Microlife Ultimate does. It's an eight four six fertilizer. It's really easy
to use. You're not going to burn your plants with it, but uh,
you know it's gate for lawns. But if I were you, I
do it for me. Put some in your vegetable garden, put some in
your flower beds. It's good for when you're planting trees. Again, you're
not going to burn roots with that. Microlife Ultimate. Consider that you can
find Microlife products all over the place, of course, but you can go
to Microlifefertilizer dot org, dot org, dot com, and when you do
that, you can find the places where you can get your microlife products throughout
the Greater Houston area and beyond. Really really easy to find at Microlifefertilizer dot
Com. I was talking earlier about this is the time when we're planting,
and when you plant things, don't feel like that the plant with the most
blooms or the woody ornamental with the most wood woody growth above ground is necessarily
the best plant to plant. Just pick a good, healthy plant, get
in the ground at the right time. Now, if you're planting trees and
shrubs, when you put them out of the container, it's a round container
almost always, and you're going to have roots going in a circle around the
circle. Cut those roots. I use a box cutter knife myself. Those
are the little utility knives that you push the blade out about an inch and
you can slice through the root vertically from top to bottom, three places,
all the way around the root alter for and so that those roots going in
a circle are cut. Now, don't worry that you're ruining your root system.
You are not. In fact, if you don't do that, the
establishment is delayed. It's really difficult for the plants to get established. But
when you cut it, what you're going to find is within two weeks there
are going to be new roots growing from the end of every root you cut,
and those roots are going to go out and establish, and you're going
to be way way ahead, So don't be afraid to do that. Make
sure you do that right. Also, when you plant a tree or a
shrub, a rosebush, a maybe you want a red oak tree in your
yard, any kind of woody ornamental, set it at the same level it
was growing in the container. Or even better yet, is to say find
the top most root, especially on trees, because sometimes as trees get moved
from one container to another, getting bigger and bigger containers. As that tree
grows, it gets set a little deeper and soil gets piled on top,
so where that soil is may not be where the original soil level was,
and so I usually just dig down when you find the topmost root, put
that right at the soil level and it'll be fine. That works just fine.
You put a little inch below the soil if you want. But the
bottom line is don't plant them too deep, and make sure drainage is good
and if it's not, then build up a bed so excess water drains away.
These kinds of things, you know, taking care of the root system
if it's circling before you plant it, setting them at the right level,
and all the other aspects that go into proper planting for these plants, they
end up giving you the benefits for years and years to come. And one
of the things that I really hate to see is someone who spends a lot
of money on a really quality plant, brings it home and plants it and
doesn't do those things I just said. And then two or three years from
now they're calling me and saying, hey, my tree is just not growing.
And as we get to looking into it, we find out that it
was probably it probably started back at planting time, the problem that they had.
We want you to have success, and we don't want I mean,
because at that point, what am I going to tell you, Well,
dig it up and cut roots and probably not. It just kind of where
it is. So anyway, take take some time to think about it and
make sure that when you do these things, we take those simple small steps.
It's really easy to do, really easy to do. And when you
do that kind of thing, you're going to have much much more success.
And that's the whole reason we're doing these things. We want beauty, we
want shade, we want fruit and production and so on. Say, by
the way, if you want success, another good way to do it is
to purchase plants from a place that knows what they're talking about, and that
is Ana Plants and Produce up there in the Lake Conroe area. If you
live out in Montgomery, they're right on the edge of town on one oh
five. They've been growing year after year after year, and they have every
kind of plant that you can imagine. They always are in good stock.
They make sure that the plants they have are in top quality health. They've
got staff that knows what they're talking about. With A and A Plants and
Produce, you know that you're not going to be led wrong, and that
is very, very important. They carry all the products I talk about on
garden Line, you know, all the fertilizers and whatnot. They have a
wide selection of pest and disease these management products seven days a week, nine
to five, so it's always a good time to head out to A and
A Plants and Produce. I'm going to continue on this morning as we go
talking about some of the different aspects of success at this point in the season.
One thing I do want to tell you is when you see plants or
seeds coming in someplace, don't delay, go ahead and get them. Don't
especially with the seeds. You can always let the seed packets sit there for
a little while if you need to. But these things sell out, and
some of the best variety, some of the new stuff that's kind of hard
to find, you may run into a lack a certainly less selection of and
so go ahead and do your shopping early. Let's you know, sometimes I'll
it's a little early to plant tomatoes. But I got to tell you,
sometimes I will get my plants a little bit too early, and I'll just
bring them home and bump them up into a bigger size container, repot them
in a little bit larger container and just keep them growing, give them plenty
of sunlight and whatnot. And by the time it is time to plant them
out and you don't have to worry about the freeze and whatnot. You got
a much stronger, better root system and it's just going to do even better.
So just some food for thought there. Hey, we're going to take
a break. It's time to bring Nikki back in for the news. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well,
I wound up a little early there, I guess Nick. Maybe welcome
back. How is your your New Year's and your holiday, and since I
last saw you, I will never want I stayed out of trouble. Good
to my knowledge. I did not get an I haven't heard anything. No,
no, it's it wasn't on the news or anything like that. I
had a great time. I did a lot of nothing, which is important.
Excellent, excellent. Good to have you. I'm ready. I'm raring
to go, though. There's a lot to go and do in gardens.
So here we go. By the way, what's happened with the news.
I think it's your turn. Yes, we're going to talk about some football.
Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Glad
you are listening and ready to talk gardening. If you're interested and would like
to give us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Give me a call seven one three two one
two kt r H and we will will talk about that. You know,
the folks at Medina have a wide variety of products, a very extensive product
line, and I just appreciate the fact that when you look at some of
the Medina products, the way the way they're designed, if you will,
the way they're created is by looking at what nature does. That is how
they do it, and that's true with for example, their humate humic acid.
What is humus? What is humic acid? When when organic matter decomposes
at some point we call it compost, and as it keeps going and breaking
down to its final state, we refer to it as humus. And humus
is very important in plant soil relationships. It helps with nutrient uptake. It
has an activity in chelating some of the trace minerals as well, making them
available so they don't tie up. Maybe you got a high peach, so
you got some iron problems. Humans can help with that. It improves with
the moisture retention, and it just has a wide variety of things it does
because nature invented humus, but Medina has created hummate humic acid, and it
comes in quart jars gallon jars. I mean, you can buy it much
larger containers. You can use it in transplanting. You can use it when
you're getting your seeds starting. You can use on your vegetables, used on
your flowers, use it on your indoor plants as well. It's just something
that nature came up with and Medina has now made available to you. You
can find Medina products a lot of places around the Greater Houston area talking about
things to be doing this time of the year. It is a prime time
for planting cool seasoned vegetables. Do you want some broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower,
col Robbie collareds? What am I kale? There's another one I didn't
I left out. We be planning carrots. We can be planning even radishes,
you know, if you're ready to cover them up. She we have
a real coal spell. You can plant those this time of year. Cool
season peas. Talking with one of my daughters during the holidays and she was
wanting to grow some sugar snap peas, and I love sugar snap peas.
I very seldom make it to the kitchen with my sugar snap so I think
there I refer to them as gardener snack food. They don't produce super super
heavy, and so you need a pretty good sized row if you want to
get a quantity of those peas at any given point in time. But usually
I'm just walking through and I find a few and they're sweet and good,
and I just snack on them while I'm working out in the garden, and
so not a lot makes it back to the kitchen. But this is a
time to plant those kinds of things. It is also the time to get
your soil ready for the warm seasoned garden, which is coming before too long.
So mixing compost in the soil. Maybe you've got a garden area and
it's just sort of fallow, there's nothing growing in it right now, and
you're not going to plant a cool season crop. Take advantage of that time
to mix some composts into the soil. Build up a raised bed if you
don't already have a raised bed, so that you're able to plant when it's
time to plant. Because here's what's going to happen. We're going to be
looking at that plot, looking at that plot for the weeks and weeks to
come, and all of a sudden it's like I got to go plant tomatoes.
It is time now, and here comes the rain, and for days
on end, I mean, it just turns into a swamp because it rains
and rains and rains. If you'd prepared your soil ahead of time, then
when that day comes rain or shine, you're able to go out there and
put those plants in the ground. You're ready to go. You don't get
delayed. A ninety year old gardener, mister Alden Colston up in Conroe,
Texas. I used to go out to a community garden there, the Friendship
Garden in Conroe, and mister Colston used to say he had several things he
said that I'll never forget, but one of them was you can always add
water, but you can't take it away. And that's a good point.
When soil is soggy wet, Yeah, got a problem. Yeah, there's
long term solutions for drainage and whatnot, but why not get your soil ready
and if a raised bed is needed, which it usually is, build it
up and then you're ready to go. Just a little tip. I said,
there's things we do right now, and there's things we do now to
get ready for things we're going to do later, and soil prep is one
of those things. Anytime you can get in the garden and work the soil
is a good time to get it done. And just remember that when the
soil is super soggy wet, if it's a clay, don't be trying to
rototil and spade and everything else. It destroys soil structure to work it when
it's too wet. Certainly, when it's too dry, it's like with clay,
it's like you know, concrete almost sometimes, but when it's an adequate
moist content, it breaks apart and ice and works well. That's a good
time to do it. I know a lot of gardeners that do their spring
soil prep in the fall so they're ready to go when spring comes. That's
also a good idea. I would highly recommend that as well. If you're
interest in herbs, now is still a great time to plant herbs. And
again, this is another example. You know, you may see an herb
and it's winter time and it's just not growing a whole lot. Maybe it's
in a container to garden center and it looks good, but it's just not
you know, super lush and fast growing. That's okay, plant it,
get those roots going because when the weather warms up enough, it's going to
hit the ground running. It's going to do super super well. Anytime you're
looking for supplies for your garden, for your lawn, for your shrubs,
trees, vegetables, flowers, everything, Ace Hardware stores is going to have
that. You know, we got forty of them now in the Greater Houston
area. So all the way from Beaumont through Houston, we've got Ace Hardware
stores near you. And ACE carries your lawn fertilizers. It carries your fertilizers
for all your plants. It carries the things that you need to kill bugs
and diseases and weeds and all of that. Do you need some tools?
Do you need you know, what do you need for your garden? Ace
is going to have it. Ace is a place for all of that.
Now, it's easy to find your local Ace Hardware store. Just go to
acehardware dot com, go to their store locator, and you can find the
not the the Ace Hardware store, but the Ace Hardware stores near you.
Because there's so many of them. That's really easy to find a good local
Ace Hardware store for whatever you need. You're listening to garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven to one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Hey, just around the corner. January thirteenth, that's a
Saturday that is just around the corner, isn't it? Next Saturday? At
the antiq ros Iporium the Texas gardener folks are putting on the Texas Tomato Lover's
Conference. Now, this is a big shindig. They're going to have a
number of different excellent speakers there. There'll be a program on growing tomatoes for
the young family, mastering container grown tomatoes, the best varieties for twenty twenty
four, eight steps to grafting success, dealing with diseases in tomatoes by the
head of the State Plant Lab. By the way, I'll be giving a
talk on the ten Commandments of Tomatoes Success. Now, the program starts at
eight in the morning and it goes through three point thirty. So how on
earth can I be there while I'm late in the day when I'm giving my
talk. I'll be heading over there right after the show. But I know
these speakers. You will not be disappointed. It is excellent. If you
want more information, here's a phone number and an email two five four eight
four eight ninety three ninety three two four eight four eight nine three nine three
or email Sally at Texas gardener dot com. Registrations one hundred dollars. You
get a light breakfast, you get lunch with that, and you get a
whole lot of speakers and a lot of giveaway goodies. I was talking to
Jay from Texas Gardener the other day and oh my gosh, their goodie package
are giving away. That's worth the price of admission. We're going to take
a break again the phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four, and when we come back, Frank, you will be the first
up. Well, good Saturday morning, Welcome to garden Line. We're glad
you're listening this morning, talking all kinds of things gardening, and boy,
is this ever an important time to be talking about gardening. If you want
to do anything with success this winter and spring season, please keep listening and
hang in there because, in fact, always listen to guard Line with a
piece of paper and a pen or pencil in hand, because we're throwing out
emails and phone numbers and websites and all kinds of tips that you may want
to jot down. If you miss the show, you can always listen to
us on our podcast of the iHeartRadio. It's easy to find garden Line and
listen to past shows that way as well. We're going to head now out
to Deer Park and talk to Frank. Hello, Frank, good morning,
Skip. I I needed to get an email addressed I have a sago that
died because of the freezes over the last couple of years, and my front
yard is mainly mulched. I do have a tree formed crate myrtle, and
kind of one of your ideas about something that I could use to replace that
did Oh well, I mean, you know it's wide open. Uh yeah,
you know. I guess if you wanted to show me a picture of
the area, we could do that. But it really, you know,
Frank, I always compare this to someone handing me their credit card and saying,
go to the mall and buy me some clothes. You know, I
don't know if you're a J Crue guy or Dillard's or what styles you wear,
so it's kind of hard to do. But what you know, do
you want flowers? Do you is it in sun or shade? Do you
want? How big do you want it to be? I thought about something
like, what's it the bird of Paradise? I think the Are you talking
about the what's called redbird of Paradise that's big orange and yellow flowers? Are
you talking about the tropical one? I don't know how to describe the blooms,
but they're very, very unique. Really, well, I need something
to think on a freeze you know, unless we get super cold. Yeah,
both of those can freeze back. But why don't I email you the
photos and you could all right, yeah, let's send me a couple.
But but get take some time, you know, you or any of the
family, gather a little meeting or whatever and decide kind of what do you
what do you want of this area? Because I mean, really, I
could recommend a rose bush or I could recommend another saga, and those are
so two different plants that with a very different effect. So give it as
much, give me as much guidance as you can. I'm gonna put you
on hold and Josh will pick up and give you the email. Thank you,
thank you for great thank you. Hey. By the way, on
that sego, uh, you might just check and make sure there's not a
pupp emerging from the bottom, because sometimes you'll see the top die, but
then some life still comes back out of the base of the plant. Just
make sure unless you already know you don't want the saga. All right,
yeah sir, there's a lot of pubs coming out, but it looks terrible,
Okay, all right, sounds good, Hey, I'm gonna put you
on hold. Thank you very much for that call. H We have a
I will say a new new spongor here, but one that's returning back to
a garden line. It's Landscaper's Pride, you know. Landscaper's Pride has been
around since so I don't know, two thousand and two, so over twenty
years now that they've been around. They're local, uh in the Southeast Texas
region. They are a top quality resource provider. They have twenty seven different
bag products. You can also buy bulk from them. If you want to
find the stores where you can get them, you can just go to a
Landscaperspride dot com Landscaperspride dot com and they have, for example, a forty
pound potting soil. It's a very budget family, fully customizable potting soil.
It's got age, pine bark, sand, blended organics. You can use
it as is or you can amend it and to fit the needs of your
garden. I think it's an excellent product to use for seed starting. And
now's the time to get your tomato plants and your pepper plants and your egg
plant plants transplants started. So if you would like to do some seed starting.
The forty pound potting saw bag from Landscapers Pride is a great product for
doing just that. I'm going to head out now to West Houston and we're
going to talk to Dave. Hello, Dave, Hey, how are you
doing this morning? Well, I'm doing well. What's up. I'm glad
to hear that. Yeah. I just bought some land in Ohio, probably
about three quarters of an acre, okay, And of course I'm going to
be able to get back and forth to maintain the grass and everything. I
was hoping if I could find out what can I get as a good year
round ground covers. Nothing I can do right now, but I can I
can start it in the spring, so I'll be ready for next you know,
for for for the next year. Are you are you talking about to
cover the whole three quarters acre? Yes? Are you planning on building on
the site or no? No, I'm not. I'm not going to do
anything on it. But I know when I was a kid, we had
a neighbor and they had groundcover around around their tree. It almost looked like
holly, like like a Japanese jasmine or something. I wanted to do something
like that where it looks good, but it didn't really take a lot of
maintenance. And I don't know what what this guy had, but it also
had the leaves were kind of sharp, that real pretty deep green, but
they were kind of sharp and point yet they not thorn, but just to
leave themselves right. And I know what's talking about. So Ohio's a little
too far away for me to speak with accuracy and authority on. But the
Ohio State University has the extension service in Ohio, and they have an excellence
there. If you go online, their online materials are excellent, absolutely excellent.
And you have a county extension office in your county up there, and
I would call them and give them what you're wanting to accomplish. You're going
to have a range of options from maybe more of a meadow like grass material
that could cover that. That'd be the least expensive way to cover three quarters
of an acre to going with a groundcover like you're talking about. And they
have a lot of options up there that we don't have. Of course the
opposite, it's also true, but I would rather you go there and get
a better answer than I'm going to be able to give you from down here.
But Ohio State University Extension and if you do Ohio State University Extension and
then horticulture, you'll get it'll get you to what you want. Thank you
very much. All right, thank you. I appreciate that call. Yeah,
it's you know, someone once said, I don't know, it sounds
like something Mark Twain would say, but half of being smart is knowing what
you're dumb at. I'm dumb at the best groundcovers for Ohio. I just
I just am. I'm not going to try to cover that one. But
I appreciate the call very much. That's that's our goal here, is to
put you in touch with the good answers of what you're looking for. Hey,
in Chenny Gardens and in Richmond, Boy, they are still going strong
out there. Just they didn't miss a beat all winter. And it's just
the kind of place if you've never been, you got to go just to
see it. But it's on FM three fifty nine on the Katie Fulsher side
of Richmond, so heading north, it's Highway three fifty nine, FM three
fifty nine in any gardens Richmond dot com. Hey, when you're out there,
I want you to check out some of the unbelievably cool stuff that they
have. For example, they have got some beautiful petunias. You'd ask them
about the supertunias. They are loaded up. They are going to be carrying
all of the proven winner's line this year, and they have been in the
past. But the proven Winners. There's one called Supertunya Vista. I've never
grown it. It's a jazzberry is the name of the variety. I've grown
the bubble garment. Oh my gosh, I've never seen somebody balloons off a
tuna in my life. But Channa guards asking about their Jazsberry petunia when they're
going to be getting those in. They may already have some in, probably
not quite yet, but when they do, you want to get those and
check them out. Also, the pink profusion salvia. Those two are just
they're unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable. You know, we're talking about the Garden Line
all the time about different things you can do to have success, and one
of the important things is to pick plants earth designed to perform super super Well,
Hey, we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. If you'd like to give us. A call kat r
H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip Richt. It's
so crazy, Trim, just watch him as so many supsic well. Good
Saturday morning. There is a glow in the eastern sky. We're about to
get some daylight here, and is this ever going to be a good day
to get outside and get some stuff done. That's a little chilly side,
but hey, it's easy to bundle up. You know. One thing I
always say is I like the cool season because I know how to get warm.
But when it comes to summer and it's eight hundred and fifty two degrees
outside, you know at some point that taking off more clothes does not help.
And you're just out there dealing with it, right, So let's appreciate
the good weather while we got it and enjoy it. And boy, is
this ever a good time? Remember I was talking earlier you on a plant
woody ornamentals. Now is the time to get it done, bear root especially.
We have a little window in January early February where we get bear root
things done. Containers all the time, but now is an excellent time.
I would say, don't delay, get it done. And I realize there's
a thing called spring fever, and I wish I could put it in a
bottle and bottle it up and use it at other times of the year,
because there are other times of the year that are important for doing things.
For example, right now, you go outside and spring fever hasn't quite hit
people yet. It will and when they do there, I don't know.
I think there's some substance, some spore in the air that affects our brains
and we start to lose our minds. That's where you see people that you
know go buy a flat of plants and then they come home and walk around
the yard wondering where to put them. Is like, whoa, well,
wait a minute, we got to prepare our soul first. That's where you
see people buying things that don't belong here and not going to do well here.
Spring fever can cause us to do some crazy things. It can also
be the most fun time of the year. But put that spring fever that
we bottled up and apply a little bit right now. Because to go out
on a day like today and to plant a shrub, a rose maybe you
want to put in a hedge. Maybe you want to put in a tree,
a flowering tree, a small flowering tree, or a shade tree or
anything. Now is a good time we should be having the fever now,
because I would say this, it is better to plant a woody ornamental now,
then it will be in March and April. Now does that mean you
can't plan them. No, of course you can plan them twelve months out
of the year. But the sooner the better. So why not get going
and get that thing rolling right now? And we've got a lot of good
plants. Our garden centers are loading up all kinds of supplies and whatnot.
Oh by the way, I was talking a while ago before we went to
break. We were discussing some of the things going on out at Enchanted Gardens,
and I forgot to tell you they are having a talk next Saturday,
John Penderella, local citrus and fruit tree expert John Penderella is going to be
out there in China Gardens on January thirteenth, everything you need to know about
planting and growing fruit trees with the citrus fruit expert John Penzarella. So that's
at ten o'clock. All they're programs on Saturdays, and Enchanted Gardens is ten
am, and so right when garden Line ends, they're kicking it off there
January thirteenth, So you want you want to hear about that one, especially
if you're interested in growing citrus, which I hope you are, because that's
a fun plant to grow. I was using my kneeling bench, and you
probably heard me brag on them a lot. The kneeling bench. I think
it'll change your gardening life. It's a wonderful old tool allows you to sit
down and also to kneel down and most importantly, to get back up when
you've been kneeling down. It's a really great tool for gardening that they have
out of Southwest Fertilizer. Kneeling benches are just one of those things that needs
to catch on even more. Because for me, if I were to say
someone were to say, okay, I'm taking every tool you have away and
I'm only going to leave you with four, let's say, kneeling bench would
be on that list for sure. But Southwest Fertilizer they don't just have kneeling
benches. They have every kind of tool. You can imagine an eighty foot
wall of tools. They have every product that you would need for your garden,
from fertilizers to herbicides, to insecticides, to fungicides, to soil amendment
products. Yes, they have those two. They have a selection of herbs
and veggies in the spring. All the time, they've got those things coming
in and it's just the kind of place where you go. It's a one
stop shop. You know, Bob's been doing this for a good long time.
I think a Southwest Fertilizer has been around since nineteen fifty five. You
can go to their website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. They're on the corner of
Bissina and Renwick in south west Houston. So as you're getting ready for spring,
as you're getting ready to prepare your soil to plant plants, do all
of that, make sure you include Southwest Fertilizer in your stops because if they
don't have it, you don't need it. That's it's as simple simple as
that. So we're talking about things to be doing now in the garden,
things to be taking care of. I'm actually propagating a bunch of plants that
I have that are houseplants. I've got some vining type, some houseplants that
just kind of got long and lanky, so cutting those stems up, getting
everywhere there's a node, like if you have a pathos, that's the most
one of the most common houseplants there is. Everywhere there's a node that a
node means you got a vine where the leaf coming off. Where the leaf
comes off, that's a node. When you put a node in contact with
the soil surface, it's going to form roots and you can create more plants
from them. And I've been doing that, have plants to give away and
just I don't know, use elsewhere around the house. It's real easy to
do, and it's fun to do too. And if you never tried plant
propagating, I encourage you to try it because it is a lot of fun.
Do you have a fig tree that you want to propagate, it's dormant
right now. You can cut some branches off, you can put them.
I put mine in a plastic ziplock type bag in the frigerator with something to
kind of keep a little bit of moisture in there, just barely moist peat
or sand or even I've even used paper towels and they're just check it.
Don't let it get moldy on you. But you can do that. You
can stick them in the ground and put a cover over them to hold in
moisture. You can put them in a container to start them rooting with a
cover to hold in moisture, and they root so easily. And you can
make extra plants from your fig tree as well as almost any plant there is
out there. There's one way or another that we can be propagated again,
and it's a lot of fun to do, and there's a lot of good
free information online. I need to put some stuff on my website, which,
by the way, I've been saying after the holidays we're going to build
that website out more and we are in the process of doing that. And
one of the things I'm going to be getting up pretty soon is information on
how to start plants from seeds for the spring. So, for example,
now's the time to start tomatoes. What is the best way to do it,
What kind of media do you grow them in, what kind of containers
do you need, bottom heat, what kind of light. I'm going to
go into a lot of information. I'll tell you when that's up. It's
going to be really soon. Right now, I'm gonna take a break.
It's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like
to give us a call, you can be on guard Line. We can
answer the questions that you might have. All Right, I got a little
Bowling for Soup there for you today. Oh wait, this week. Uh,
these holiday seasons, I was, of course hanging out with my kiddos,
and which are all old now they're not kiddos anymore. But okay,
my children, my grown children. We were talking about music, and my
gosh, I learned more about music from my kids than any other way.
But we were discussing the Bowling for Soup and some other groups from a little
while back. Uh, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to talk not just music. We're here to
talk about all things gardening. So if you want to give us a call,
our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, the
December, as we get into holiday seasons. He gives me a chance to
kind of have some folks on the show to interview, to talk about topics.
They're very knowledgeable about and also to talk about some really good causes.
And there are some really good causes out there. I know Randy when he
was host for twenty seven years I believe twenty six twenty seven years here on
Garden Line, he talked about Camp Hope for example, and I had the
folks from Camp Hope on what an important program. It's a PTSD foundation for
combat veterans here in the area and such a good deal. And I noticed
back in no just around the holidays, the folks at Plants for All Seasons
had done a haul out there. They took a whole bunch of things,
like I don't know. They had vegetables and herbs and flowers, you know,
and some mulches and soils and materials like that that helped them have a
more beautiful garden out at Camp Hope. And I appreciate that. You know,
the Plants for All Seasons is a family owned and operated garden center.
It's been around since nineteen seven three. If you need education, they have
that. If you need to get plants that will do well here, they
have that. If you need diagnostics, what's this bug, what's this plant?
What's wrong with this plant? They can do that there too. It's
a professional place, right, I mean, we're talking about not just to
fly by night. We're talking about an established, family operated garden center that
really serves the people, and that's why it's so popular. People love Plants
for All Seasons. It's on Highway two forty nine, just north and Louetta
Road. You can you can go to their website Plants for All Seasons dot
com, or you can just call them two eight one, three five six
sixteen forty six. And I can tell you this, they are already stocking
up, getting ready because spring is coming. They still have plenty of good
cool season things. But any day you go out to Plants for All Seasons,
you're going to find a great supply. And again maybe I will say
most important, knowledgeable staff to help, and I really mean that. I
mean a lot of places can sell you a plant, but is it a
good plant? And do they know what they're talking about and can they help
you have success with it. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
We're going to head out now to Spring and talk to Genie. Hello,
Jeannie, Well, good morning, Skip, good morning. I'm calling to
ask you a question about a green pepper plant that I planted earlier in the
autumn, and it was growing just fine, and then it began to develop
crenulated leaves and some I guess brown areas. The plant continued to live and
even sort of in a tortured way, produce flowers, but no more green
peppers. And I just wondered, what's wrong with that plant? Did you
email me about this? I did, and I sent two pictures of the
plant, the affected plant U And the leaves are there. They when the
new leaves grow in, they're smaller, sort of dwarfed, okay, kind
of, they get little ridges in them. Yeah, I'm trying to find
your email. Oh it was found on December seventeenth. Yeah, can you
give me part of the email address? Genie's not popping up anything. Oh
okay, well I'm on the air. Well, you don't have to give
me the hole. I'll tell you what I do remember seeing a pepper plant
and some of the growth it was like strappy and streaky and not well formed.
Exactly what that was, Genie is broad mites? Broad mites? Yeah,
I think I replied to you telling you it was a type of mite.
If it's the one, I'm thinking about Okay, I didn't get that
answer, only the instructions to phone. Okay, but how would I treat
for that? Well, broad mites are a little bit of a problem.
Number one, peppers are not perennials here, so you're going to plant new
peppers next year, and you may not have broad mites next year. They
may not. They don't just attack peppers, they attack on the plants.
They can cause fruit to be scarred and have a kind of brown, scruffy
surface to them, but they also cause damage to the blooms and damage to
the growth trying to come out. And so things that control mites would be
things like in sex tidal soap. Some horticultural oil sprays can be helpful,
but you don't want to use those in the super hot, hot weather.
But that, yeah, that's it. There's not a real good, you
know, like a poison that you would put out. Those products work more
by coating the mites. And the problem with controlling them is the mites are
tiny and they hide in nooks and crannies, and so it's almost impossible to
get your sprays into the right spot. Right. Yeah, contact, the
contact control does not function well, well, it's hard to get good.
Yea, but oh yeah, that will help. But pull those out,
get them out of there, and next year when you put peppers in,
you may not have the problem. And then again they could come back again.
They may have come with the plants, they may not have they may
come you know, I sort of suspect they're right about that. Yeah,
okay, So the other question I had real quick, if you have a
moment, is I have been loving the results of seating my lawn with rye
grass in October, and I have a beautiful lawn now and the rye grass
actually flourishes far longer and even past the spring into the summer, and I
love the look. I do have a weed issue, though, and I
wanted to know if I apply a pre emergent such as barricade, will I
frustrate or stop the germination of the rye seats, which kind of seems to
go on continuously. No, it won't. Barricade will be broken down by
the time next fall arrives and rye grass would be planted or received or whatever.
One. What do you recommend I applied barricade since I am currently enjoying
a beautiful green lawn. Yeah, so we put our pre emergence out here
sometime between mid January and the end of February. You want to be ahead
of the weed germination. And not all weeds germinated exactly the same time,
so if you wait a little too long, you may control some weeds,
but not all of them because you miss the boat on some. So I
would say probably the end of this month early next month would be primetime to
get those out. You could go a little later into February and it would
be just fine. Those products last for a while before they break down and
no longer are doing what they do. One thing to remember though, about
the rye grass you mentioned. You use the term weed rye grass to Saint
Augustine as a weed. So as the Saint Augustine is trying to wake up
in the spring as the weather warms up, my grass is growing like gangbusters
still, and so it's like you put weeds all through your lawn to compete
with your grass for sunlight, water and nutrients. So that's okay. We
do go through that transitioning to a winter cover lawn and so on. But
I would recommend when you do get ready to mow, and I'd say probably
by the time, oh man around here, sometime in March, late March.
I would go ahead and mow really low, and then do your fertilizing
according to the schedule that I have online, and try to knock that rye
grass back and let the Saint Augustine get some sunlight, because Saint Augustine's good
at growing low and flat rye grass sumants to come straight up. And so
get that light to your Saint Augustine so that you don't stress it. What
good advice. I will do that. Thank you so much. Skip all
right, Jeannie, thank you for the call. You're welcome, Bye bye,
all right. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
was over the holidays. I had a lot of time to putter around the
house and yard and got a few things done, got my garden cleaned up,
my vegetable garden cleaned up. I still had okra stalks left over from
last year for some okra breeding that I was doing out there. I got
that all cleaned up, and uh taking care of the plants that are up
and growing now. I got a nice little set of strawberries coming on already
starting to produce fruit, just beginning the blooms, little tiny fruits had formed
before I uh, by the end last week. But anyway, while I
was outside, I was looking at my bird feeders and just thinking, you
know, it's time to get restocked on my seed because I'm running low on
a couple of things. While Birds Unlimited has the Winter Super and that's the
one I like the most for the winter time. And the reason is it's
really loaded with the fats and proteins that the birds need at this time of
the year. And the Winter Super Blend at Wildbirds is a high quality feed.
It's not going to have a lot of waste, and you're just you're
going to get the most bang for your buck to buy cheap bird seed that's
full of those little red bebes. Just know this, the birds kick the
red bebes on the ground. They don't like to eat them. They would
rather not eat that. And so when you buy a quality blend from Wildbirds,
well you see what I'm talking about. Also, bluebirds are going to
start looking now for their nest boxes. So if you want to have bluebirds,
or if you have bluebirds and you want to keep them going. Get
a box up now, and if you go buy wild Birds you can find
out more about bird houses, bird feeders, bird seeds. They've got it
all. Purple Martins are going to start returning in February. So would you
love to have purple Martins. Pick out a spot, get a nice Purple
Martin pole up there in the sky and if you build it, they will
come. And that's how it works. And Wildbirds folks can help you find
exactly the products and give you the advice on how to use them that you
need. Got six wild Birds stores around the greater Houston area. Just go
to WBU dot com forward slash Houston find the stores near you. Well,
here we are again, time for another nicky break. Nicky is you know
news is happening all the time, and it is We can rest and that
your finger is on the pulse of everything that's happening news wise that we need
to know. And most importantly we have to thank Joe because he's on top
of the traffic and we keep having problems. So we'll update that. How
can we have traffic problems? This is Houston, I know, yes,
on a weekend. All right, folks will be right back seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to the Garden Line.
Glad to have you listening today. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Having won three eight seventy four, Let's
head out to the phones now and we're going to go to Cypress and talk
to Joe. Good morning, Joe, Yes, sir, how are you.
I'm well, Thanks, got a question, a few questions for you.
I'm a new homeowner buyer in the Cypress area and the whole area.
The subdivision I'm in is Permuta grass. I have been I've hired a company
to come out to do all the fertilizing for me every month of things that
need if to put down. Okay, the grass has been doing better this
year, this past year than the past two years. But my question is
I did have it top dressed and aerate it last year. I'm getting some
areas that it just still doesn't look right. It looks it's like thinned out.
I've asked the company and me and they, you know, they told
me, hey, you just got to give it some time. Give it
some time, it'll it'll fill in. It's not doing that. Is there
another company that you could recommend it can give me a second opinion. I
don't know if I'm I'm not sure if I'm have larger expectations and like what
what what I'm trying to achieve. I'd like a more tighter like a golf
course. Look, I am moaning with a real mower, with the McClain
mower, so I can go as low as I need to go. I'm
backed that off because I thought maybe I was going too low. So it's
just, uh, it's not filling in in certain areas the way that I
would like it to. I guess, Okay, do you have any information
that you could, you know, provide me or someone else. Well,
let's let's let's talk about a little bit. As far as companies. I
don't keep up with all the lawn care companies that serve whatever particular areas I
would. One thing I'd recommend you do is go online to my website where
I have a free online lawn care schedule. Post it, and that at
least will get you and the idea of when things ought to be happening now.
Some companies know what they're doing and they do a good job. Some
of them say they know what they're doing, but they don't. And that's
just how it is with any business, right. So if you go to
that schedule, it's at gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot
com, you can find the lawn care schedule. There's also a past disease
and weed management schedule that tells you when you need to have a pre emerging
out in that lawn if you're going to do that, for example, And
it gives you lists of products. And I know the companies they are probably
going to have the own. They're already kind of sold out to one product.
That's what they're going to use, that's what they like, and that
that's fine. But anyway, those those lists at least will kind of help
you. It would be helpful to know what variety of bermuda grass you have.
It's probably a semi dwarf. That would be the kind that's used on
golf fairways and football fields. Not the kind of God. Not to interrupt
you, is it zeusha? Is that the way you pronounce it is that
a type Zuysia is a different species. So we're here in the south,
in this area, we have Saint Augustine Zusia and Bermuda grass. Those are
the three primary long grasses that we bermuda. Yeah, I'm not even sure
what it is. Is it Zeusha or is it the Bermuda? Well,
you know, I can't tell you. What I could do is I can
put you on hold uh and if you'll take a picture of it up close,
put your fingers or a tensil or something in the picture so I can
get a good view of it. Let me see the lawn and then get
real close with something that shows me exactly how big the grass blades are in
terms of width and whatnot. I can tell you whether it's always your Bermuda
grass if you can get up real close and show them kind of partly part
the grass bag. It kind of doesn't matter though in relation to your question,
because both of them are going to benefit from a real type mower.
The shorter the shorter you mow, the more often you have to mow.
Because our goal and cutting the lawn is to cut one third of the grass
blade off when we mow. So if you to use an extreme, if
you were letting it be at three inches, you would cut it to two
inches. That's one third. But if you said it at one inch,
you're going to cut it to two thirds of an inch, you know what
I'm saying. And so how long does it take to only grow two thirds
of an inch? Not very long, And so so you mow more often,
and bozoisia and bermuda look best when they're mode right. In fact,
the three most important lawn care practices are are mowing, watering, and fertilizing,
And I would say of those three as important. Water and fertilizer,
those are very very important. But I think mowing is where most people don't
do a good job, and a sharp mowing regularly will do more for making
a dense, beautiful lawn than just about anything you can do, Yes,
sir, Okay, yeah, I'm doing that. I'm one to two times
a week. I'm hitting it. You know, it's a very small yard.
Yeah, so I don't have an issue doing that. It's just I
wanted to fill in a little bit more. Yeah, it has at times,
and then it gets it looks like it gets stressed or weak around like
the sidewalk areas. So I've heard of like heat from the concrete that possibly
does that. So yeah, you know these unfortunately we're kind of dealing with
a lot of generalities, and so it's hard to be real accurate and specific.
I would say, let's focus on number one, let's figure out what
kind of grass you have. Number three, Let's make sure you're you're taking
care of it according to the schedule that is designed to coincide with the grasses
development through the year, and we development through the year. Uh. And
then if you run into issues, you can take pictures, send them to
me, and then call in the guarden line them. Because of volume and
time constraints, I'm not able to type out answers to questions people say.
I mean, I'm out numbered here six million to one in the house scenario.
But if you if you send me a picture and then call in,
that gives me a better chance of giving you an accurate answer because I've seen
it. Okay, and then you want me to send it to the email
address. Yeah, I'll put you well, I'm gonna put you on hold,
and Josh will give you an email to send it to. Okay,
Okay, all right, all right, and I do appreciate your Yeah,
do that and we'll take it from there. Just know that both of those
grasses Bermuda and Zoezia. In fact, all the three of the grasses are
there's one half asleep right now, So no matter what you do, you're
not going to see immediate results. Right. One last question as far as
top dressing or ariating. If I top dressed last year, is it okay
to do it again this year an area? And if I use it like
a compost last year, can I just use sand this year to get it
totally levels while I'm trying to achieve Yes, sand would be better. A
sand or a very quality loamy soil would be best for leveling because the top
dress, the quality compost top dress, which is good, it decopius a
way, so it doesn't really stay as a long term leveling agent. But
the sand or, I would say, a quality loamy soil if you can
find it, would okay, Okay, Hey, I got to run right,
run for I'll put you on hold, Joe. Just hang on and
Josh will pick up our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I'll be right back. Welcome back to garden line. Boy,
is it a beautiful day? Look outside right now, don't quite listen
to the radio, just just look out the window. It is gorgeous,
absolutely perfect day to get outside and do some of the things we're talking about
right now. In fact, if you don't want to go outside, there's
things you can do inside. Now's the time to start tomato plants and pepper
plants and eggplant plants. You can grow them out. I grow mine.
I actually start pretty early on them because I'll grow them out and when you
know, most people would put them out in the little six pack size or
maybe a four inch pot size, I'll grow mine up to even a bigger
pot than that. Just keep bumping them up into a bigger container and they
may have fruit on them by the time they get planted out, when it's
safe to go outside and plant them. It gives you a head start.
Why is that important? Well, number one, Most importantly, it gives
you're bragging rights. It's all your gardening friends to have the fresh, first
fresh tomato of the season. Okay, maybe that's not number one, but
that's one of them. But more importantly, we have a short season here
now we have a long growing season twelve months out of the year. We're
growing stuff in the Southeast Texas region. But when it comes to tomatoes,
there is the last average frost date, and that's about when we try to
plant, just to be on the average a good time to plant. But
then summer comes and once temperatures in the daytime are in the nineties and the
night times are up above seventy two or so, even as you get up
there, it begins then to not set fruit. The tomato plant does not
set fruit as well, especially the large slicer types. So when that kind
of thing happens, you are that's the end of your large slice or tomato
season. So there's a start and to finish, and those aren't that far
apart. And if you grow varieties take a long long time, like brandywine,
for example, it's hard to get them in with a good crop before
they stop producing. By starting with a larger plant and getting as early of
a start as you can, even with some coal protection, you increase the
productive time that your tomato patch can have, or your tomato plant can have.
And so that's one reason why we like I like to start early and
even have a little bit bigger plant as we go. And if you don't
grow your own just you can buy tomato plants. Typically they're for sale too
early to take them out and plant them. But you know, unless you're
a gambler, but buy them, bump them up, put them in a
bigger pot, keep growing, keep going until it is time to get them
out there. Just something something to think about, you know. I was
looking at some landscape jobs that were done around the Houston area and some of
the materials that just really transform a landscape. And I'm talking about hard scapes
and drainways, like a rock riverbed to drain away excess water. You can
turn that into a beautiful landscape feature by planting plants that like to grow in
areas that tend to stay a little wet at times. How about flagstone for
a pathway. One of the changes I'm going to make in my landscape this
year is putting out kind of a flagstone patio area with some decomposed granite.
Probably use decomposed granite in between the stones. There's other things you can use.
And Ciena Moltch has that now I know. The name is Ciena Maultch
and Body. They ever have molts. In fact, they had a lot
of stuff you probably didn't know they have. They have ever fertilizer I talk
about on Guardline. They've got gardening tools, They've got gardening supplies, they
have molts, they do have compost. Of course, they deliver within about
twenty miles of their area. They're on FM five twenty one north of Roch.
Sharon Ciena. Multch dot com is a website. But boy, they
have rock. They have flagstone, all kinds of rock for decoration and for
creating those beautiful outdoor hardscape. They've got it all at Siena Mulch. Just
go to Siena Mulch dot com, find out more about them, and start
planning that beautiful upgrade to your landscape. We're going to head out now to
Marty and Fairfield. Hello Marty, morning skit, Happy new year, welcome
back. We've missed you. I missed be in here. How are you
doing? Oh I'm fine. Hey, I have my dollar weed. I've
been doing all the barricade and everything, and it has come back this winter
at in a vengeance. And I I've read online what you you know,
what you recommended and stuff like that. But should I just leave it?
Love is stay green and dissipate on its own. I guess I'm tired of
fighting it. Well, everybody has a different tolerance for weeds. Some people
don't care. They mow and ignore them and they still have green weeds.
Are green lawns green, so hey, I'm not worried about that, right,
So that's one approach. The other person on the end of the spectrum.
Rather they've got to have like no weed anywhere inside in my lawn.
Well, that comes at a cost of doing some weed control. There are
things that will control dollar weed. You just have to stay with it.
But first step if you're wanting to reduce your dollar weed is to reduce the
amount of excess soul moisture. If the area stays wet, dollar weed proliferates.
If it gets a little on the dry side, your grass is still
okay, but the dollar weed won't proliferate, and it's easier to fight it.
Okay, Well I'm back, I've yeah, Okay, I understand that
part of it, and I am going to be very diligent about cutting back
on the watering because I had a lot of that other grass that grows in
the wet area. But I didn't know if I thought. I had used
image last year and it did really well, but it has come back just
I mean, I don't even see the grass. Yeah, wow, okay,
well that's serious. Well there's a couple of products that I think you
might want to consider. There's actually three different ones. I'll just throw them
out there. One is Celsius. That's a little harder to find, but
it does work pretty well. Celsius like the temperature. Bonnight has one called
weed Beater Ultra. Weed Beater Ultra that works well on post emergent control of
weeds, including dollar weed. And then Fertilum has their weed Free Zone.
Those are three examples. Now, you're up in the Fairfield area, so
you're a little bit of a distance to go down to Southwest Fertilizer. But
if you're ever gonna head down that way, Bob is going to have every
one of these and more, and he can he can provide provide those for
you. But you're gonna be able to find those in a number of different
areas and up in the up in your area. You know, you're not
that far away from some great nurseries that will carry those as well. Yeah,
and I know the arbor Gate has several of them. So okay,
all right, Well, I just I didn't know why it just the barricade,
nothing seems to be working. The image did work on it, and
it didn't ruin the ground. Yeah, the grass it looked really pretty this
summer, but it's now it's just really for a little bit. Well,
apparently you knocked it back but didn't kill it. And so you just have
to do the cultural things first. Let it dry out, and then the
more you can do to dollar weed before it gets hot, the better your
options are. Okay, so as it begins to warm up, but before
the temperatures get above eighty five degree and the upper upper eighties, for example,
try to get most of your dollar weed controlled done by then, and
then you can do the image and whatnot. But yeah, I think that'd
be the key to success. Okay, oh okay, all right, great,
thank you so much. All right, thank you. I appreciate appreciate
your very much very much. So let's see here we are. We're going
to have to take a break here pretty quick. Sandy and Cyprus and Hurta.
We're going to come to you first when we come back. If you'd
like to be on guardline, ask a question. The phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's see, oh I
got a couple of seconds left that I can talk here. I do want
to mention if you haven't gone online and found my lawn care schedule and my
lawn pest disease and WEAD management schedule, you should do that. Here's the
website gardening with Skip that's me gardeningwiskip dot com. On that site you're going
to find both lawn schedules. The lawn care schedule which is mowing, watering,
and fertilizing. So if you're wondering when do I fertilize and what do
I use, it's on the schedule. If you're wondering about any kind of
information on better mowinger, I said, mow, water, fertilized is the
three most important things you do to your lawn, and I would say mowing
may be the single most important thing you do to your lawn if you want
to have a dense, beautiful, healthy lawn. It's always good to water
when we need it. Of course, it's essential when you have to have
it. Fertilizing helps promote growth and density. Mowing though, that's where most
people they get off on their mowing schedule. And what about diseases and insects
and weeds. Well, that's on the other schedule, and the products you
need both organic and synthetic for both of these schedules. Katie r H Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter. It's so crazy
just watch him as the things to Welcome back to garden Line. We're glad
you're listening today talking to all kinds of things gardening. I was talking earlier
about the importance of getting your woody ornamentals planted soon. I know roses are
for Valentine's Day, right, Well, you can plan them now. It
e can be better to plant them now than to wait until Valentine's Day.
Both are okay. You can plan a rose twelve months out of the year.
Why do I get it done? When it comes to trees, for
example, RCW Nursery up there, they're the nursery where about Way eight comes
into Highway two forty nine tom Ball Parkway. Rcw's got fifteen percent off select
trees this January through the January season, and boy do they ever have a
good selection. When you're there, ask them to tell you about their white
oak that has unbelievable fall color. Fall color is hard to come by in
the Greater Houston area, but they've got to treat they'll do it. They
also have beautiful camellias and for those of you have never tried growing camellias,
oh my gosh, they are just gorgeous. The Japonicas and the Sanquas both
are just excellent, excellent plants. And RCW can get you set up on
that as well as tell you how to plant it or come plant it for
you. They will do that at RCW Nursery. Again. They're Tombaw Parkway
and Beltway eight RCW Nurseries dot com. Just go to the website and check
it out and then make plans to stop buy. This would be a good
weekend to plant a woody ornamental from RCW Nursery. We're going to head now
back to the phones. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. We're going to go to Cyprus and talk to Sandy.
Hello, Sandy, good morning, Good good morning. I had I
had a question about for our area if I wanted to glint tomatoes from feed
on what you recommend and I want to do and determine it tomydays, Okayer,
Okay, that's fine. As far as recommending, I would do it
at start them as soon as you can. There are a lot of good
tomato varieties. A lot one that just has always done well for me is
called celebrity. Now, celebrity is not fully indeterminate. It is a called
semi determinant, but it's very productive and it does really well. If you
want a tomato that's a smaller fruited type, I like the grape tomatoes.
They basically are like cherry tomatoes, but they're shaped like an oblong, like
a shape like a watermelon, a normal type of watermelon, kind of oblong.
And grapes are very productive and they tend to be tend to be more
indeterminate as well. Both of those are good. And you know, there's
so many varieties. I mean, I could name names, but then you'd
have to go try to find the seed for that one. And there's just
a lot of good ones. Sandy, if you're looking at tomatoes trying to
decide should you give it a try, and you don't know the variety.
If the days to harvest is let's say seventy two days, or less.
That's probably a good one for planting here. Okay, okay, And then
about what about egg cllant in a container? What do you recommit? What
kind of you talking about varieties again? Now? Yeah, okay. Whether
the standard eggplants are the big, giant fruited ones like black Beauty, you
know, would be that type of eggplant. A lot of people are interested
these days in ones that are shaped more like a cucumber and ones that are
even more narrow than that. And there are a number of good varieties out
there if you're going to grow them from seed, if you can find one
called oh my gosh, I just went blank. It's a kind of a
handsol Gretel story time names. Oh my gosh, there's two varieties. I'll
have to hunt them down and think of them. But when you see the
name and it sort of reminds you of, you know, one of those
fairy tale type in fact, fairy tale maybe the name of one. I've
had really good success with those. They stay somewhat compact, so in a
container you can still have really good production with them. So I need to
find I can't believe I can't think of a name of them. But anyway,
those two would do good. I'll say it on the air here.
When we have another break, I go hunt that down. Okay, there
was one more thing that you said to plant from seed right now? Tomatoes,
egg plant, and something else. Peppers peppers would be good for now.
And you can plant a lot of things from seed now, it's just
that tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. To get a decent sized transplant,
you need about six weeks. Eight weeks is better. And then if you're
going to do like I said and bump them up to bigger containers, you
can even grow for longer than eight weeks. But if we can get them
at least six weeks, that's good. Other things you can grow for transplant
tend to be things. Most of them tend to be things that are not
best grown as transplants, but are often direct seated, so we can't leave
them in a transplant cell as long. For example, a cucumber or a
yellow squash or a zucchini squash. You wouldn't want to try to grow those
for six weeks waiting for the time to put them out when frost is passed,
so we give those about three or four weeks at the most. Okay,
thank you very much. All right, thank you appreciate that. All
right, bye bye, appreciate that call. Let's see here, we were
going to go to Hurda. I think we lost herd of their so let
me go back in to talking about some of the things that we would be
doing this time of the year. Soil prep is always in order. It's
always in order. If you've not had your soil tested, whether it's a
lawn or a vegetable garden or a flower bed or whatever, get it done.
The sooner you get it done, the better. You can go online
to Soil Testing dot t A, m U, dot e ed U.
Now, if you go to my lawn care schedule, at the bottom is
a hyperlink. You click on it and it takes you right to the form
at Soil Testing dot TIMU dot edu that you want to use. You want
to use the Urban soil test form for your lawn, for your flower beds,
for your vegetable gardens, for your herb gardens, for your trees and
shrubs. Use the one called urban because it's designed for horticulture, not agronomy,
you know, farm fields, and so that's that's the one you want
to use. Get it done now, because that allows you when the results
to come in to rototil or spade in any amendment you might need. Maybe
your phosphorus is way low, maybe it's too high, maybe you need potassium
or magnesium or whatever. This soul test will tell you that and you can
get it right before you plant, and then after that you pick up with
fertilizing is needed to supply the plants. So that's just a little tip on
getting ahead on the season. There, we're gonna head now out. Let's
see. I'll tell you what I'm gonna have to hold on one second on
that. I'm gonna have to go to a break here. But Hurda,
when we come back, you will be first, and Doug you'll be second,
and then I uh, if you'd like to call us seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, welcome back to garden Line. Who
can tell me what movie that song was from? Anybody? If you think
about it, give me a call. Let me know that one of my
one of my favorite movies. We're gonna head now out to Spring Branch and
talk to Herda. Hello, Herda, good morning, happy, you're much
more lately, all right, we'll take it. What can we do for
you today? I have a Christmas cactus. I guess the pots like three
or four inches in diameter at the top. But is it okay to bring
it in the house. It's blooming now? Oh yeah, sure it is.
Now Okay, I'll try to put it in a west window where it
gets a little more sunlight. Now do I have to put that in a
larger pot? Well, if you want it to grow, it's better to
give it a little more space. That three to four inch pot's pretty small.
I don't know how the plant is, but let's look at let's look
at it this way. If you look at the plant, and if you
look at the pot and the pot is about a third the size of the
plant or less, then you definitely need to repot it and bump it up.
Okay, Okay, there's not a black and white line there. You
have to repot it at a certain time. I'm just saying, if you've
got a plant that's you know, bigger, that much bigger than pot,
you definitely need to pot it up, okay now. And almost any plant
takes ultraviolet light, correct, Yes, uh huh. If I use an
ultraviolet light, you know one of those. Now, are you talking about
ultra violet? Are you talking about a black light or are you talking about
fluorescent light? Yeah, black light's not going to help the plant mote.
That's I wouldn't bother with that, all right. It would look pretty funky
and you could turn your living room into a disco or something if you want
to know. Okay, I've got too much to do anyway, Thank you
so much. All I had heard it. Thank you for the call.
I appreciate it, appreciate that lot. You know, earlier I was talking
about my long care schedule and the different things that are on there. That's
at gardening with skip dot com UH and the lawn fertilizer applications are basically based
on the nitrogen and the product and the growth rate of the grass. That's
how that's part of how we set that up. But there's also a trace
mineral supplement on there, and you can do trace minerals. Those are like
micronutrients, they're essential to the plant, they're just not needed in large,
large quantities, and azemite is an example of that. Now, the trace
mineral supplements on my schedule, it's kind of like I pretty much have them
on there from I don't know, March to the end of October. You
can do it anytime of the year. I mean, really, if you
wanted to do it now. It's not like they're going to evaporate away or
volatilize into the air, you know, or wash away or anything. You
can get them down at any time you want to do them, so now
would be a fine time. I probably ought to just make that bar year
round because those things don't boost plant growth. They supply plants with the nutrients
needed for growth. Your other fertilizers, the nitrogen's going to push them along
to grow anyway. Azimit dot com or azmite Texas dot com asmite Texas dot
com find out more about it. It's widely available in a lot of places,
and it's a good mix of those trace elements that we need. We're
going to now head out to Katie and talk to Doug. Hello, Doug,
good morning. I've got a strange condition I've never experienced before. I've
been at this location since the early nineties, but over the last couple of
weeks, I've noticed not large numbers, but maybe four or five six at
a time, worms crawling across the patio. I've never seen them in the
yard or on any of the plants I have. They're about inch and a
quarter long, kind of a brownish dark gray, maybe three sixteenths to a
quarter inch in diameter. They don't have feet, and they're definitely not earthworms.
I got no idea what is caused of this. And I should also
say I've noticed over oh past maybe month and a half, two months or
so there the backyard has been I don't even know how to say this.
There's holes in the ground that are it looks like somebody took a steak and
just rammed it into the ground at about a thirty to forty five degree angle
from the horizontal. It doesn't look like there's been any evidence of really digging,
but there's you know, a lot of these holes in the back in
the backyard only, and unfortunately the backyard grasses didn't do too well over the
summer, so it needs to be taken care of. Let's take those in
reverse order. The holes are some varmint and it might be you know,
there are a number of varmints that will kind of stick their nose down in
the ground and look for something. You'll skunkl dig down a little bit and
do that. Armadillas are one that really will root with their nose down to
the ground. They're looking for grubs or earthworms or any kind of little soft
food like that they can find. It's going to be one of those.
I don't know that there's anything you can do about it other than you know,
trapping and relocating critters like that, but that's probably not worth it.
I think I wouldn't worry as far as the caterpillars are concerned that you're seeing.
I wouldn't worry about those. They're not one of the pests of your
lawn. That that is is not a sodweb worm that you're describing, right,
It is not an army It could be a fall army worm, but
I yeah, I guess it could be that one. But there is seven
bazillion caterpillar species out there crawling all over the place, and they tend to
come and go, and you know, we'll go through years and not see
something, and all of a sudden, then it's like an infestation of them.
And that's just part of that fluctuation of nature that occurs over the years.
But I wouldn't worry. You don't need to treat. Let me just
put it that way. You do not need to treat for those That's easy.
You know what, though, let me just make a point with your
question. Our wild birds, our songbirds, they need caterpillars, especially when
we get into spring and they're they're creating nests and feeding their young. The
little bird seed we put out is good, but they need that high protein
of caterpillars that are out there, and they're in your oak trees. They're
all over the place. You just don't notice them. So when a caterpillar
isn't causing you trouble, it's probably helping with the songbirds, which you know
oftentimes in our landscapes they struggle because we we we don't have good food supplies
like they need. Well that that's uh, maybe maybe they're I'm helping the
bird population. That's it. Tell everybody who who you talk to that that
I have those caterpillars here on purpose. So okay, we'll do sir,
very much. Appreciate your guidance, Doug, thank you. I appreciate appreciate
the call very much. H I said, now is the time to be
getting ready for spring. Earlier several times today when it comes to success with
plants, if you were to say you can only give me one thing,
I'm only going to do one thing, and I want to have a beautiful
garden and a bountiful garden. I want to have a beautiful landscape. I
want to have success with plants. What is one thing. Don't tell me
water, don't tell me fertilize, don't tell me all the things. I
just want one. That one would be fix your soil, build your soil,
improve your soil and Nature's way resources. That's what they're all about.
When you get your soil right, with composted organic matter, with the kinds
of nutrients the soil needs, with the balance of nutrients and everything, your
plants are just gonna grow. And yes we fertilize, yes we water,
Yes we have a lot of things we do, but number one, absolutely
number number one in time. In other words, you do this first.
Can't You can't rototill the soil, go to plant in the ground right,
So get it right Nature's way nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety.
They have bagged products, they have bulk products, they have rose,
soil, leaf compost, They've got everything you can imagine everything you can imagine
you need to create good soil. At Nature's Way Resources, they're up on
Interstate forty five, up toward Conro, just about where fourteen eighty eight comes
in. Just cross over the railroad tracks to the right if you're heading north,
and Nature's Way Resources is right there and they can get you fixed up
nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety. Soil is the most important
thing that we do in our garden. And you know I I talk about
it all the time, and it's easy. If I were to tell you,
here's a plant that's got a red bloom the size of the steering wheel
on your car on it, you gotta have it. Everybody want to go
buy one. If I say I want you to go buy a bag of
brown dirt, people would not get excited. And I know dirt is not
the word we use for soil dirts, the stuff you sweep up off the
kitchen floor. Soil is what plants grow in. But it may be hard
for you to get excited about the soil, but you should because that is
the single most important thing that you do. And I just I'm going to
leave that with a little dead airspace because I want that to sink in.
If you go buy a plant, put it in the ground and you're not
having success and you call, I'll try to help you. But you wouldn't
have had to call if you had first created the soil for that plant to
thrive in. It's as simple as that. All Right, we're going to
go out now to Kingwood and we're going to talk to Martha. Hello Martha,
and thanks for hanging on. Well, you're welcome and enjoying your program.
I have a question I have. I planted two tomato plants in the
fall, and I put one of them in a grow bag and the other
one's in the pot. I've got about ten fifteen tomatoes on them, and
I want to know because it takes longer for the tomatoes, of course this
time of the year to turn. Yes, do you think it would be
worth me trimming some of the limbs around them because I put them out?
Well, I have like a little shed that I put them in at night
if it if it gets too low, but if it's in the forties,
I go ahead and leave them out. Okay, Martha, I've got about
forty seconds and I'm going to try to answer you. If we need to
carry this over break, I'm more than willing to do that. Trim in
a few branches so that you can get the plant through the door and where
it needs to go, is okay if you don't have to trim, I
wouldn't trim, but no, tomatoes do move slow. But remember you can
pick a tomato when it's reach full size and mature. I but it just
hadn't turned red yet, and you can pick it and bring it in and
put her on the counter and it'll ripen and taste just great. So that's
another option. Okay, Well, I won't trim because I don't have to
trim it to get it in, so I will just go ahead and let
it go as it is. Sound like you're doing something right out there in
Kingwood. But hey, thanks for calling. I appreciate appreciate that very much.
We're going to take a break. It's time for news with Nikki and
my phone number if you want to get on the board with Josh seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
If you'd like to give me a call. It is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two Kati rh
is the way that we get to talk. You know. The the spring
gardening season is right around the corner, and the there's so many things we
can be doing right now. We can be building our soul. Now.
We can be planting seeds to start, transplants to go out in the garden
later. That would include flowers, that would include vegetables. You can start
some seeds, some herbs from seed. Basil as an example, don't start
basil just yet. It likes warm weather and we are a long way from
the temperatures that basil wants to have. I would hold off on that one.
But you can also do all of these things from transplants. You purchase
transplants from local garden center and get started. And there's nothing wrong with purchasing
something, bumping it up, getting it growing for when it is safe to
put it outside. You know it's going to get it's gonna get cold again.
That just the way it goes. We've had kind of a mild winter,
but it's gonna get cold again, and when it does, we don't
want to have plants like a tomato out there that's being subjected to frosty conditions,
they just don't do well. There are some things you can do to
protect plants from the cold, and I'll probably talk about this more, but
on my website Gardening with Skip dot com, there is a publication, nine
page publication that I wrote with one of the Texas A and M horticulture specialists
on protecting plants from frosts and freezes, and it has a lot of good
advice for those of you who want to put out tomatoes a little bit early,
for example, or for those of you who may have a plant that's
kind of marginal. You know it's hardy here, but it can get killed
to the ground some years and you're trying to protect it, or things like
citrus, Oh my gosh, you know, citrus is wonderful to have and
you don't want to have die back on it because of a freeze. So
that publication is for free to download or look at online, and that is
at gardeningwith Skip dot com. I would go ahead and take a look at
it, kind of get your head set straight on what you're going to do,
what you need to do, what kind of supplies you might need to
protect your plants. I'm going to be putting some things out extra early this
season. I'm just kind of playing around trying some different things, and in
my vegetable garden, I'm going to use PVC hoops going down the row.
So imagine all these beds, you know, long skinny bed mine are about
three feet three and a half feet wide. I will take a section of
PVC and bend it and stick it in the ground on each end and create
that hoop. I like to use a rebar, you know, the little
sections of rebar that are used in concrete. For example, if you take
about a three eights inch rebar half inch rebar and you get a PBC pipe,
you just need to kind of match the two make sure that the pipe
will go over the rebar. But I use the half inch PVC pipe interior
diameter three eighths inch rebar and you stick. You can buy these rebar sections
that are about a foot long, and that's usually adequate, and you hammer
it into the ground, leave about three inches sticking up, and you slide
the PVC over that rebar and then you bend it and same thing on the
other side of the bed, and so you create this little qunct hut,
these little sections of rebar I mean of PVC hoops. I will tie a
long straight PVC to those. You can use zip ties, I've used jute,
twine whatever. I'll put maybe two of those on and that helps hold
the plastic up between the hoop sections, one at the top, maybe one
on each side, just off the top. And when you put plastic over
that and seal the edges. And by seal it, I mean I've used
soil. If you have soil access there where you can put the plastic in
a little trench and cover it with some soil. I've used bricks and rocks.
I've used water, you know, jugs of water, anything to hold
it down, sandbags, anything to hold it down so that when the wind
blows, the air can't blow up underneath there. And I remember one year
I was in Lockhart, Texas, halfway across state, and I had a
garden and planted tomatoes out really early and we had a good hard freeze.
It was going to be like twenty nine twenty eight degrees or something come through,
and I knew those tomatoes were in trouble. We put that cover over
them. Before I put the plastic on, I took jugs of water,
think of a milk jug filled with water, and I set one on each
side of the plant, right up against the plant. And water loses heat
more slowly than air. It cools off more slowly. And typically in our
freezes that we have here in the spring, it's not like it gets it
freezes for five days, right it Typically it dips down and then by the
morning when the sun comes up, it comes back above freezing again. So
it's not like you have to protect for a long long time. But in
this case, I put the water right up against them, I put the
cover over them, and I completely sealed it. I mean air could not
come out of there. By the way. Pull the multch back too.
You want the sun to shine through, and this is clear plastic, by
the way, clear plastic. You want the sun to shine through and warm
the soil. Think about your car. You go out today at about two
o'clock and get in your car, and it's going to be significantly warm in
there compared to the outside air temperature because the sun shines through the windshield and
heats up the interior of the car. That's how this plastic covered tunnel works.
Now, it heats up so well that you actually have to open the
ends during the day to allow the extra heat to escape, because it'll literally
cook them in there. If we get a good, fairly warm sunny day.
But you build up that heat and the soil, you close it down
maybe about four four or five o'clock or so, just go ahead and close
it down, and then it'll go through the evening time and I'm telling you
it can be a pretty significant freeze and that'll get your plants through. Now,
you can also add heat underneath the cover, that's possible, but without
even getting into all that, just covering them and creating dead air space very
important. You don't want the warmth of the soil rising up and just being
displaced by a slight breeze moving across the bit. You want to create dead
air space and you want to have warm soil. And that's how you do
it. It's really simple, easy to do. Have you been out to
Enchanted Forest and Richmond. Enchanted Forest is the Garden Center. It's on FM
twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're in Richmond and you're going to head
up fifty nine toward Sugarland, direction. It's off to the right down that
way. FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond. Enchanted Forest. Their website
is awesome. You need to go check it out, very very good,
very up to date. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX. Don't forget the
TX dot com and Chentedforest Richmond, TX dot com. They've got all kinds
of things coming along in the greenhouse, just a load of plants and now
they have every kind of plant you can match, any kind of plant you
would want, vegetables and herbs, unbelievable selection, flowers, perennials. I
like their their selection of butterfly attracting plants. They really do specialize in that
as well. And if you're looking for anything to attract butterflies to your landscape,
either the adults or to feed the larvas so you can have adult butterflies,
Intended Forest is going to have it, and so so much more.
Why there, pick up a copy of Texas Gardener Magazine. They've got those
on the shelf right now. I had an article in this issue on let's
see the movies called Ten Commandments of Tomato success or something along along those lines.
But you can get that at Chended Forest Richmond. Also, we're going
to take a break right now. My phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line. We are
glad you're listening and joining us today on the air. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're to answer your gardening questions. If you'd like to
give us a call seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
That is our number seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Let's go now to West Houston and we're gonna talk to Jimmy. Hello,
Jimmy, Hey, good morning, Skip. How are you doing today?
I'm well, thank you. I do need some help. We bought
a house over in West Houston and we're remodeling and behind our house is the
Barker Attics Reservoir. So it's got this big blue storage tank in an operational
building there, and I need to figure out what I can plant that'll become
a screen that can grow say twenty five to thirty feet tall. But the
trick to it is also that there's a easement back there ten foot there's power
lines that's actually on our property. So between the fence and these power lines,
I have to plant something that would grow tall and narrow. And I'm
just looking or some ideas that what you might think could work in this zone
I'd looked at I don't quite pronounce it American or borvite or something like that,
but it says aubraviting and it says zone eight is where it ends.
So I don't know if that would be a problem for us here. Yeah,
I wouldn't do that one here. One option would be a Japanese u
yew is how that's spelled Japanese. You it gets very upright, and as
you trim it, you make it denser, like any shrub. That's the
case with any shrub. But you can make a nice wall out of that
that is not excessively wide with some trimming. The challenge is getting plants that
are evergreen so that they screen all year, that are tall enough but are
not too wide. That's always the challenge we run into, especially the smaller
the property is, the less you can afford to give up in a wide
fat plant back there screen of the view. But that would be a good
one. There are some other options, you know, for for something that
goes a little fast. I think those would be the ones. One thing
I would encourage you, though, Jimmy, to think about is how tall
does it really need to be? And what I mean is like, think
about where you are going to see what you don't want to see. Are
you standing up in your yard, are you sitting down at a patio,
are you looking out the window of the house. And if you do a
sight line from your eye to the top of what you don't want to see,
that's how tall that plant is going to need to be. So,
for example, if I was sitting ten feet away from this shrub wall,
a six foot shrub might be more than enough to block a view. But
as you get further away, or maybe the neighbor's two story houses ten feet
from the property line, then you need a really big shrub, you know,
to be able to hide it. So think about that, and because
as you don't need as tall of a shrub, your options are a little
bit better in most cases. Yeah, that is that's our challenge because this
property behind us, they have there's cameras and there's a light they have on
all the time, and I'm trying to block it and it actually I kind
of measured that out and it's probably got to be I'd say a minimum of
between twenty and twenty five feet to actually block all that, and if I
wanted to block the whole tower, to have to be thirty five feet tall
to not be able to see it, because that's a really big big it's
actually a storage tank and it's it's probably forty five feet tall or something like
that. Yeah, boy, I tell you, And this is something that
size is not going to be in the way of the power line because you
don't want the company for Internet for you. That's that's why I want to
keep it narrow because the power line, yeah, you know up you know
how a telephone pole, you have power lines that are running straight across.
Those are about ten foot off the fence line, but then up top they
branch out, you know where things run across, So we can't get We
couldn't get up in that thirty five to forty foot range. It would definitely
be a problem, but we could probably stay between twenty and twenty five if
it didn't grow too wide and be okay. Yeah, yeah, that's that's
a challenge. All the needle type scaly needled and needle type evergreens, they
can run into some problems there are some very narrow arbor vidy slash juniper type
plants, but most of those just don't do that well here, or they
won't reach the size that you need to be able to do well. A
Japanese you is probably gonna have trouble getting getting as tall as you want it
to be. I'd have to go look at what its maximum can be.
Yeah, that's it. You've got a bit of a challenge in your hand.
There's things like the there's a oh gosh, sweet gums. There's a
sweet gum variety you see it around town down in Houston area called slender silhouette
that is very narrow, but it's desciduous, so in the winter time you've
got you've got no leaves to hide it. There are some clumping bamboos that
don't run, they don't invade like that, and they can get very tall
as well, but that takes a long time to achieve the high I actually
removed bamboo, which is what was back there. It was lined with bamboo,
and it looks so messy because it would die out and it yeah,
fall over, and it just wasn't a really good look. Do you think
the Italian cypress would work in our area. I don't like them. They
will work for a while, and then you'll get a foliage disease due to
our rainy weather, or you'll get bagworms, or you'll get spider mites on
them, and they'll kill a section of that beautiful, tall, skinny Italian
cypress and that section will never be green again. They're not good at re
sprouting where they lost foliage, and so I just find long term they're a
disappointment. But ideally structurally, yes, that's a perfect plant for that.
Uh, it's just going to end up not holding up in my opinion.
Okay, yeah, we don't want to do that. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, you got You've got a challenge. I may have to do a
little researching on it and see if I can find something else. There's probably
a plan. I'm just not thinking that's out there. But that tall and
skinny, that's the that's the challenge. A little too tall for some of
our upright yo ponds. Uh, And so I have to think about that
one. I'll check my phone sometimes our garden centers that will listen in on
the show, will we'll text me, Hey, here's an idea if I
do get one I'll say it on the air. Well skip if you do.
I do appreciate it, and I'll love your show. All right,
thank you. I appreciate appreciate that a lot, Jimmy, thank you,
thank you very much for the call. Well, we're gonna be going to
a break here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. When we come back, Ken, you will be first
up, and after that, whoever would like to call in see here.
We've got a little bit of time for me to just tell you about a
couple of things I did want to mention. I've talked about the website and
the lawn care schedules that are on there. Please go ahead and get those
printed out. There's no charger free, beautiful multicolored schedules, very easy to
read. If you're an organic gardener and you want organic lawn care, if
you're synthetic, you don't care whether it's organic or synthetic, there's those options
as well, and it just makes it really really easy for you and it
directs you that information. I will be adding some information on seed starting success.
It is time to do that, and maybe if we have some time
in our last hour, which is coming up. I will go into a
little bit of information on that as well on the air. But if you
continue to watch that website, we're changing constantly, and every time I see
a need for some information for gardeners up there, I just go put it
on up and finally now have a little bit time where I can get some
of that kind of thing done. So really really looking forward to that.
Hey, we appreciate you being a garden Line listener. Uh, you know,
this is a this is an area where you can grow all kinds of
things if you just have the information. I like to say, there's no
such thing as a brown thumb. There's uninformed thumbs, and we're here to
inform your thumb so that when you know how to do things and you choose
the right plants and take care of them right, everyone says, oh my
gosh, you have a thing of thought. We'll be right back. Katie
r. H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with
Scape Ricter. It's crazy Trim. Just watch him as world god Man.
Welcome back to garden Line on a gorgeous Saturday Oh my gosh, this is
this is a day to be outside doing some gardening. And if you don'tant
to go outside, well at least get close to a window so you can
enjoy it from there. You do some indoor gardening. There's things we can
be doing now to inside. But you know, they say he who hesitates
is lost, and that's true when it comes to gardening practices. And so
don't delay, don't wait, don't wait until it's too late. Go ahead
and get out there, get the soil ready, get the plants, start
planting things, start your seedlings. Let's get going. It is time to
do that. We're going to start now by heading out to Katie and talking
to Ken. Hello, Ken, how are you doing? Can you hear
me? Okay, yes, there I can. I'm well, thank you.
Okay. Well you helped me out a lot last September to identify those
little chinch bugs and they were killing the grass out there, okay, and
we got them stopped, but not before they took out about a thirty by
thirty you know, thousand square foot spot. And I'm planning here about the
first week of March to sad that area up. But in the time between
then and now you can guess that the weeds have kind of made an invasion,
right, What can I spray or hit them with now that won't impede
the sod when I put it on later. I'm just not thinking that the
pre emergents are going to do the job, because you know, the dollar
weating, everything's all up already. Yeah, And you and everybody listening hear
me carefully, do not put the pre emergence out and then lay sod on
top of it. Pre Emergents are made to stop roots of seeds from growing
little seedling roots. That's how they work. It's one of the ways they
work. And so to put a real strong dose of pre emergent and lay
your side on top of it, you're gonna have trouble for the grass to
get roots down into the soil below. So definitely not a pre emergent now.
Once the grass is established and has a root system, applying pre emergence
at the right rate at the right time, that's okay, But don't do
that ahead of time. So the post emergent is what you're going to want
to use. There's a couple of kinds of categories of weeds you're dealing with
out there. One is the annual weed that's going to go away anyway on
its own. That would be things like chickweed and HND bed and clover and
whatnot. And then there are perennial weeds that come back and just exist in
your lawn, and those are latter category. That's the ones that are most
important to get rid of before you put the lawn down. So just an
example, it's not bermuda grass season, but if you had bermuda grass as
a weed and you throw Saint Augustine on top of that, it's going to
come right through. And now you've got a mixed lawn and there's really not
a practical way to separate the two out. So controlling those ahead of time
is important, and you would do that with either a post emergent grass only
killer there's things that just kill grass, or something that's going to cover more
than one kind of weed, you know, a broad leaf and grass type
post emergent weed killer, and that would be things like the one everybody's heard
of and knows about and has its controversies is round Up that kills both grasses
and broad leaves ahead of time. Now, when you choose one of those.
If you choose something like the glaphyse eate, it's gonna it's going to
tie up in the soil and within a couple of weeks you can go ahead
and lay that grass on it and it'll be just fine, it won't hurt
it. But you don't want to use something that's like a vegetation. Clear
is part of the name of it something. In fact, if you have
any doubts and you see an ingredient out there, call me on it and
I can tell you yes or no on on using it, whether because some
things are just very persistent and they will continue to work and cause damage.
Well, some of the Roundup products advertise, you know this three month and
six month protection, right, And that's kind of concerned me because, yeah,
here's the problem with us. Companies are naming things in ways I really
wish they wouldn't name them. Roundup used to be one ingredient, glaphys eate,
and it did what it did. We know it did, we know
how it works, you know what goes on with it, the glay.
Now you can buy round Up for lawns and it is not there's no glaphysyate
in it at all, it just has the name round up on it,
but it's different ingredients. The same thing has happened with Image, which is
a nutgrass killer, the original one. Uh. And so you have to
look at the ingredient. That's the key, because if it says round up
for three months, there's something other than glaphysate in that. Okay. So
if if we're talking about that regular white bottle round up, you know,
check in of course and make sure they haven't snuck something into the white bottles.
Yeah, Now, where I want to apply that just directly onto the
weeds that are there, or would I be able to broadcast it a little
bit more over the weeds in the area that may have weeds popping up in
it later. It won't do anything to later. It only kills when you
get it on something green. Think of it that way and so, and
it doesn't help to drench it. Do not do that. Just barely wet
it if you use that. Now there we were you. I'm gonna get
us away from the word round up. That is a brand, and there
are there are many types of life essay that are not that brand. And
so you're not limited to just that particular thing. You're not too far away
from Southwest Fertilizer abob down there, Abyssinett and Renwick. They're going to have
a wide variety of weed control options and they might could suggest some other things.
Like I said, if it's primarily grassy weeds, there's two different ingredients
that are in different products, but those both killed just grasses and not broad
leaves. So that's another one, right. Hear what you're saying. Hear
what you're saying here. Yeah, and Ken, let me just let me
let me loop back. Excuse me, let me look back one time to
what I was saying earlier, and that is, if you're dealing with annual
weeds, you don't you don't need to do that. I mean you could,
you know, a light rototelling and leveling the ground so it's it's right
for laying grass. You get your little holes filled in and things. Randy
used to call it the kill till and phil. I believe I said that
in the right order, kill till Phil. Anyway, Uh, you can
do that too. You can physically just when you chop them off, they're
they're done. If it's an annual weed, so there's no need to worry
about those, but you do want to get any substantial amount of living plant
tissue off the surface so that you can get the new sod to touch dirt.
Okay, very good. That helps out a bunch. I appreciate it
all right, Ken, thank you for the call. Appreciate your call very
very much. In all you know, all these all these kinds of things,
there's always more than one way to skin a cat. And I know
everybody has different tolerances when it comes to what kind of products you want to
use and so on. But we try to guide you in a way that
that helps as best we can to just avoid avoid an ongoing problem that you
might have, and I try to try to answer the best I can in
that way for folks. Well, it's time for another quick break. Here
our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. When
we come back, Christy and David, you will be the first two up.
Welcome back to guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we're here to answer your gardening questions at seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. If
you have not been to buchanis plants in a while, you really need to
go Buchanans. It's one of those garden centers where you can just pretty much
go every every month of the year and there's always something new. There's always
something interesting. They specialize in natives, that's there, you know, that's
what they are most known for, but every kind of plant you can imagine,
it's going to be at Buchanans Plants, fruit trees for example, in
herbs and vegetables and houseplants. My gosh, they've got a great selection of
houseplants right now. They've got a good stock of seeds from Native American seeds
of all kinds of annual flowering plants. If you want things that attract butterflies
and whatnot that are beautiful, milkweeds and Indian blankets, just on and on,
nice mixes for the region. Buchanans Plants has got those seeds available.
Of course, they got the plants as well. There's always something going on
out at Buchanan's Plants. Your cool season color you can still get it there,
and it's a good time to plant cool season color right now. Stop
in when you're there. You'll find the fertilizers that I recommend you'll find soil
amendments products to improve your soil. Yeah, they know how important that is
too. But Buchanan's Plants in the Heights on Eleventh Street, Buchanansplants dot Com
this place you need to go visit. We're going to now head out to
Keema and talk to Christy. Hello Christy, Hi, good morning morning.
So I have live on about a half an acre and like most people,
my lawn was my Saint Augustine lawn was pretty much decimated in the drought,
okay, and I'm interested in replacing with something, especially because I have two
dogs. It's really muddy out there, and I'm interested in this new native
seed mix for the Houston area. I don't know if that's realistic. What
would you recommend to get some grass going and control the mud. That's a
good question. The native seed mixes when you start from seed, you start
off with little spinlely seedlings, and if you can keep the dog off of
something like that for a while and give those little tiny plants a chance to
establish well and grow into sturdy plants with a root system, that might work
out for you. It depends on how much shade you have, how much
sun you have and the drainage and everything, so that the mix would be
appropriate for your area. As far as wear in tear tolerance, Bermuda and
Zoysia are the two most wear in tear tolerant grasses for the lawn in this
area. Now, when it comes to dogs, there's almost no grass that
can really stand up to at least losing certain areas. I know dogs like
to follow trails, you know, along the fence or whatever, and they'll
wear a rut there and the grass just it keeps trying to recover, but
you know the dogs don't let it. And so in saying Bermuda and zoysia,
I just want to say that in certain situations they won't. I prefer
the zeusia because it'll do pretty well in shade as well as sun. Bermuna
needs sun to do well, but you got to mow it regularly in order
to keep a nice dense cover over the soil. Okay, And do I
need you remove the Saint Austine or can I seed over that? You don't
seed Zoysia. It's a sod And with any sod, you want the sod
pieces that come in for the soil on the bottom of that side piece to
touch the soil in your yard. And so if you have Saint Augustine or
weeds or mulch laying on the surface, you're not going to get good sod
soil to sod contact and that's important for establishing. So you would need to
get that Saint Augustine out of there if you're going to try to do that.
The alternative is to stick with the Saint Augustine, do the best you
can, kind of redirect the pity pattern of little or maybe big feet that's
going over it, and give it a chance to recover a little bit.
Okay, and are you familiar with the new native grass seed I have.
I've never tried it. I've never tried growing it. But where did you
get it or where did you see it it? I'm a Texas Master Naturalist
and I was just sent an email about this new native grass seed mix that
they've come out with, you know, to try it. It's supposed to
have a really deep root system and therefore be good for our area as far
as drought and flooding, both yes, more water and also helping with drought
following. So if I were to seed, can I seed over Saint Augustine,
you could, but you're going to have a you're going to have a
blend that are going to be competing Saint Augustine initially, is going to make
it hard for those low grass seedlings to get started. But that that mix
that was found for down here, it's it's got a number of grasses,
but they're more of a pasture kind of grass. So you may not it
may not be as lawn acceptable for most people. Uh, but if you're
if you can tolerate a little bit of a mini meadow rather than a tight,
neatly neatly mode lawn, I think that it will do pretty well.
There's more than one seed mix out there like that. I think one of
them. Oh gosh, what was the name of that group, the oh
Houston Wilderness had a Yeah, that's the one I'm referring to. Okay,
yeah, that makes sense. So anyway, it's it's got it's got a
mix. I mean, I don't know. I think there's almost a dozen
different things that are going in there. But it's not just grasses. They've
got a wild sunflower or two that's in there, and they got some I
can't remember what else, but some other things. But just know that we're
talking about think more of like a meadow than a lawn, so that when
you go after this you make sure you're you know what you're getting. It's
a good mix. Yeah, I mean it lives here native, so it's
you know, it can grow here. It's going to need I don't have
an I don't have an a tru a okay, and I lived more in
a rural area on half an acre or so that would be okay, yeah,
well okay. Uh so, And if you've been associated with the master
Naturalists, you're familiar with these things, and so you can kind of look
into them yourself and see see what they look like. All right, all
right, thank you, all right, thank you. I appreciate your call
very much. Let's see here. We are now going to go to David.
David, it says San Francisco. Is that right? It is here?
I want to happy New yek. Yeah. It's funny. I used
to live in Colorado and I took the Master Gardner course, and is a
master naturalist something different in Texas? It is we have a thing called master
naturalist and as the name implies, rather than being interested and manicured gardens,
and vegetables and all those kinds of things and lawns. They're more interested in
the natural areas, the wall plants, the meadows, the regions, the
various regions of the state and what grows well there and how to protect species
that might be endangered or on the Yeah, it sounds like a great idea.
Yeah, I wonder if Colorado has gotten into that yet. Yeah the
yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah, and it kind of leads
up. You had a previous caller, the guy that was talking about round
Up in gly fossate did He made a weird little comment about people that are
adding things to it in a white bottle. Are there bootleg round Up or
no bootleg life fossates going around? Now? The round Up name was so
well known that they decided, well, let's just make it round up.
I use the example round Up for lawns. It's a product produced by that
company, but it's not glify. Say, it's what you would look at
as a broadly weed control product for your lawn. It doesn't kill grass,
I mean it kills broadly for you. Well, yeah, that gets into
when I was out in Colorado, and this is going on thirty years ago,
you had to be trained. You know, I was out in Mason
County Grand Junction, which is a huge fruit growing area of the state.
And the idea that people would go out untrained in the use of round up.
You couldn't even buy it unless you had a permit, and you had
to be trained in order to get a permit, and it was extremely poisonous.
And the idea that somebody has taken that name and been able to basically
cheapen it and you know, come up with various versions of it when it
used to be an extremely I mean it was touched non agent orange, the
original version of it. And the idea that people would be able to cheapen
it and then market it is I'm not sure what that original that you're referring
to is, but I won't get into the glacate discussion today that there's nowhere
to go on that really, But yeah, there are a lot of products.
There are a lot of products out there, and a lot of parts
of the country that limit certain products. If you go to the East Coast,
Chesapeake Bay, those areas where they're very concerned about runoff, you do
have to have a prescription for certain kinds of products. To use in the
lawn because even a fertilizer can wash off and cause damage to water bodies when
it's misused, over applied, you know, so on sure, Yeah,
I was just reading about the yellow legged frogs in California and they're almost extinct
because of runoff of you know, people going swimming and they're in a mountain
pond and they have too much skin, you know, the lotion on their
body, especially the sunburned creams are killing the frogs. And it's hey,
David, ready to cut in. I'm on a run, short on time.
But I think you called about a different question, right, Yeah.
Yeah, if say somebody had had a I heard two previous collars, one
had a half acre and the other guy had five acres, and if they
wanted to go from a lawn to a garden, you know, food garden.
I mean I can smell another. The drought continues right in Texas,
and if you grow a garden, you're going to likely save one thousand dollars,
if not more. If somebody was to turn part of the yard into
a garden, is there something that they would like, For example, if
they used a lot of pesticides for roses in one part of the garden.
They were going to rip them out and put in, you know, tomatoes
or something. Should they prepare the soil in a different way to make sure
they don't. So I've got about thirty seconds, and I'm going to give
you a thirty second answer here. The bottom line is all those products that
we use on our plants labeled for roses and vegetables and whatnot, when you
mix up the soil and give it some time, that stuff breaks down and
we don't worry about it. There are products that are more persistent, but
they would be used more in right of ways where they want to kill everything
and never let it grow back again. But we don't have to worry about
that so much. However, if you want to put a garden in the
yard, I would say, just just dig up the grass, or if
it's Saint Augustine, you just you just throw soil on top of it and
it kills it. You don't even have to kill it or anything like that.
I'm sorry, I got a run. We're on a hard break.
Thank you for your call. Appreciate it, you bet. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to
the garden line. We are glad you are listening in today, and what
a day it is outside, gorgeous day to be getting ready for gardening.
So let's move that spring fever up. Don't wait until March for spring fever.
It's time to catch the fever now, because now is when we do
the things that make sure when spring comes we have a beautiful place, a
bountiful garden, and all the things that we want to achieve outside. We're
going to head now out to the woodlands and talk to Chris. Hello,
Chris, good morning, Rick, are rich? I'll call anything for dinner.
How can I help? Well, I'm using frost sheets on some of
my plants the last couple of weeks, for not all day, but anyways,
and then I see we're going to be getting some colder weather next week.
How much of a temperature will the frost sheets help? And when do
I need to cover with extra If it's truly sold as a frost cover,
it ought to give you about four degrees three or four degrees of protection,
depending on the situation that you're using it in and how how you apply it.
But they're not you know, they're not like a blanket, but they
do hold some warmth thin to the soil by preventing it from escaping, but
they are porous, so there can be some loss of heat through there.
Okay, I've got a camellia that's in full bud and I lost all of
them my camellia's buds last year with the freeze that came at Christmas. Gotcha,
and I don't want I covered it with the frost for a couple of
days, and now, you know, seeing what's going to happen next week
with the thirty degrees, they're saying, Okay, I just didn't know if
that's frost cloth is enough or if I need to put a blanket on it.
Well, if it's a very very light frost, it doesn't get very
cold and it's very brief. Just having the cover over it slows the loss
of heat from the buds, which is whether it's a leaf or whatever.
When you see frost forming on a plant, what that tells you is that
plant lost the heat and its tissues to a point where ice formed on the
surface. And so if you slow the cooling down and by the time it
you know, would start to get too cold, the sun's coming up and
you know the danger of frost has passed. Those can work. Otherwise you
have to put some sort of heat underneath the cover. It doesn't take a
lot of heat. It just takes enough to prevent the temperature from dropping down
to freezing. Okay, you know what I'm saying about. I mean,
it could be a couple of one hundred and fifty watt light bulbs underneath the
cover, And yeah, that's not going to make the whole thing warm,
but it'll keep it from If you keep it above thirty five degrees, you've
accomplished what you're trying to do, right, Okay, okay, all right,
thank you so much. All right, thank you. I appreciate I
appreciate it allight. Bye bye, you bet take care. The uh I
was talking earlier about ACE hardware is having kind of everything that you need,
and just you know, visiting with Chris about the frost sheet reminded me Ace
hardware it goes beyond fertilizers. Yes, they have ever fertilizer I recommend.
Yes, they have all the products you need for weeds, diseases and SCTs,
pests, all that kind of thing. They've got all that. Of
course, that's hands down. They've got the tools, they've got the garden
hoses, they've got everything you can imagine needing, including things like you know,
I need I need coal protection. I need to be able to do
some things to help out the plant. Here. They're going to have supplies
of all sorts of things in an ACE Hardware. You just need to go
check them out. And it's easy to find one ACE Hardware dot com and
you can even do a forward slash and do store dash locator if you want
to go all the way there, or just go there and find their store
locator. There's an ACE Hardware near you, and they're stocked up and they're
ready for spring. They've got the things that you need, and that would
be a good place to start your shopping for those types of things. We're
going to go now out to Ruth in Spring. Hello, Ruth, good
morning. I thank you for taking a call. Last week. You mentioned
something about a bug that doesn't fly very far, and I am thinking we
have that. This bug is kind of a thick bodied that three eighths of
an inch darky stray and I took a picture of it and en marchment,
I can see little spots on its wings on the edges of the wings,
and I it was mentioned something about maybe it was a moth, And well,
I tell you, Ruth, I'm not going to even be able to
come close to imagining what you're seeing. We got a couple of options.
First of all, last i've been here for this is I was off the
last two weekends, so that would have been a recording from previously record.
Yeah, I'm not remembering that conversation. But I can put you on hold
and if you can you get one to find one of the bugs and take
a picture of it. Oh, yes, I do have a photo.
Uh huh, Okay, if you've got a good close up and in very
sharp focus, because I'm going to have to zoom in really good to be
able to identify it. If you can send me a photo two of that.
If the bug won't hold still for you to get close, just put
it in a jar, put it in the freezer, leave it there for
about fifteen minutes, and then pull it out and before it starts warming up
and moving again, you have some time to take a photo. Okay,
Well, I do have a fairly good photo. Even when I enlarge it,
it stays and it stays in okay, focus, Okay, well,
that's fine. Just know that sometimes it comes down to me looking at the
antenna on a bug and counting the segments to get it identified. Sometimes it's
being able to look underneath at the mouth parts or you know, from the
top side, from the sides, and so extra photos don't hurt. But
I'm going to put you on hold. Josh will come on and get you
an email so you can send me a picture and I'll see what I can
do and trying to identify that for you. All right, all right,
very much. I appreciate it. By the way, it may just be
slow moving because it's cold. I'm slow moving out there right there. When
it's when it flies, it kind of flies no more than than eighteen inches.
Okay, it comes all again. It's very yeh uh it. Let
me get pretty close, okay to take the picture. Okay, Well,
I'm going to make a yeah, I'm going to make a guess up up
front that it's not gonna be something to worry about. You know, we
only have a handful of insects on any given plant that we have to be
concerned about, and that what you're describing doesn't sound to me like a problem.
But I will sure take a look at it, and then I won't
be guessed. I'll be saying what I know. All right, Well we
always see yeah, we always see one about everything. Okay, Well I
got a hold. I'm sorry, I got to interrupt you. We got
to go to a break here. I'm hard pressed against it. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back
to garden Line. We are glad you're listening today. I'm your host,
Skip Richter. We are going to make sure and try to provide you with
the information you need to turn a brown thumb green. How about that?
That's the goal. At least, I'm here to answer your gardening questions and
try to guide you to success. You know, gardening is a wonderful hobby.
There's a ton of research. I had doctor Charlie hall Uh as a
guest a while back, and just talking about all the research of the soothing
effect of being in nature, being around plants, et cetera, et cetera.
Not to mention the physical. I get up, I walk around,
I plant, I do things. I breathe fresh air, I kept some
sunshine. You know, all the garden package is a healthy one, and
when you learn how to do it right, it is so pleasing. It
is such a sense of accomplishment. And everybody's different. You may want the
Louis the fourteenth type, perfectly clipped lawn, square hedges, everything at a
right angle. You know that kind of engineer, look like an engineer lives
their landscape. Or you may want to get all topiary and doctor Seuss with
how you bring things, or you may want to let it grow wild.
I was just talking about some native grass mixes a little bit earlier on.
You may be into native plants or a more natural look. You may be
all about herbs and vegetables, or you couldn't care less. You just want
to grow flowers. You see what I'm saying. Gardening is for everybody,
even people that are cooped up in the house and just have house plants.
Gardening is for them too, And that's what we're here for, is to
try to help you find success and more enjoyment. There are other benefits to
take care of your plants, and successful gardening, for example, makes your
property more valuable. It absolutely does. There is a significant increase in the
value of a property and not just the dollars that your house sells for,
but how long it's on the market. When you have a beautiful, really
sharp looking, let's say, well designed landscape plan, people drive up and
there's an instant first impression impact and that any realtor can tell you that's important.
That's very important in success with your plant. So that's what we're here,
what we're doing about. Hey, Nelson plant Food has a product called
turf Star Weedonator. It is a blend of nutrients that will feed for about
six months, up to six months at least. It'll carry you a good
while and it has mixed with it something to kill the broad leaf weeds in
your lawn. Now, when you apply it, and you need to think
about this, you got to get it on the leaves of the weeds,
right. So the way we do that is we watered just a little bit,
just enough to dampen the lawn and the weeds and then make the application
so the little granules you're putting out stick to the weeds. That's where they
go to work. And they do that. And we have products that kill
broad leaf weeds and when you use them when the weather's too hot, you
can have some problems for your lawn. So those weeds that went over winter,
maybe you didn't pre emergent prevent them back in the fall when we were
talking about that. And now hindbit and chickweed and dandelion and all those cool
season broad leafs are in your lawn. Don't wait until they have until they've
become large and they've got blooms and seed. It's very difficult to kill them
then. But the turf Star Weed needer will help you do that ahead of
time, and just follow the instructions on it very closely, as with any
time you're using any kind of product. But it's just another one of the
many quality products that Nelson Plant Food produces to help you have a more beautiful,
verdant lawn and have success with that. If you would like to give
us a call, we got a little bit of time here left before the
end of the show today our phone number seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two k t R H. I
will be back by the way tomorrow morning six am to ten am. So
tell your friends and family, Tell the guy next door who won't take care
of his place about garden line. I don't know. Maybe he'll listen in
and who knows, we'll hope for the best. Right, that's true.
That is absolutely true. You know, I talk about Ace Hardware a lot,
and it's because Ace Hardware has everything. I mean, I'm a home
and garden show, right, that's I mean, a gardening show, that's
what we're about. But Ace Hardware has things for your home. They have
They have all kinds of really cool thing you know, barbecue pits, just
everything you can imagine that a hardware store has plus one thousand things more.
But when it comes to having a beautiful lawn, when it comes to having
a bountiful guard, a beautiful landscape, Ace Hardware has the products that you
need to achieve that. When you hear me recommend a fertilizer, it's going
to be in Ace Hardware stores. That's just the way it is. There's
forty stores, so there's going to be one near you. Go to Acehardware
dot Com you can find your local Ace Hardware stores and while you're in there,
you're going to find the tools that you need and all the kinds of
supplies that you may need to have success and a bountiful, beautiful and most
importantly of all, an enjoyable time out there, enjoying your garden and in
your landscape. And it's all available from your local ace hardware store. That
makes it kind of simple, one stop shopping, easy to go, easy
to do. I'm going to be doing. I had to leave for a
while. I was away from my house plants for a couple of weeks,
and I came back and they were still alive. I was impressed with that.
But what I did for a left was I watered them really well and
even put a little water in the basins underneath so some would wake up.
Because it was going to I knew it's going to be about a week longer
than they should go without having another watering. So we were able to pull
it off, and they look they look pretty good at that. In that
case, I need to go clean some stuff out I'm going to be doing.
I like Mexican hats. Do you all know Mexican hats? A little
flowers. I'm may to be planning some of those in my flower garden and
be able to Uh, I'll talk about that more later. We're right right
now. We're going to go to Johnny and Orange. Hello, Johnny,
how's it going guy, it's going good. I'm sorry, bo if you've
caught me at the end of the show, but I'll see if I can
help. I'd appreciate it. How can I help? Oh, I'm sorry.
Uh yeah, I live down in Panama most of the time, and
i want to do a backyard garden, and I've had great luck with some
stuff like watermelons and cantloads and stuff. Can you what do you think I
could grow down there? Range of seventy to ninety degrees more or less.
Yeah, and you got a dry season and then you got the riding season.
Well, you can grow anything you want to grow down there. You
pretty much. You just plan it during the right season for what you're going
to grow. You know, when it's gonna be in the nineties. I
wouldn't try to grow broccoli at that time, for example. But you can
grow a lot of things. And we have a lot of heat tolerant vegetables
too, a lot of greens that do well. And then there's there are
greens from the whole Latin American area that are popular in cuisine down in that
region that also do real well here that aren't common for our Texas gardens.
For example, a few people growing by. Yeah they have throw yes they
have thilantro, but you can actually find the cilantro to look. You can
you grow Aztec sweet herbs. It's a it's a sweetening kind of herb that
does really well. Malabar spinach will do well. The okra course will do
great down there and do well. You can grow tomatoes. You can grow
pretty much anything you want to grow. You just have to deal with whatever.
The My complex is my watermelons and cantle. I was about the time
they're getting ready. We had the raining season and got too much rain and
the plants died. Only a few of those. The rest of them rotted.
You know, keep working on it and call me back if we can
help with particular problems. Take pictures of it, and you can always email
them in and we can talk about it on the air. After that,
Hey, I got a guy. Thank you so much for colling. Sorry
we ran out of time today. Hey guys, we'll be back next tomorrow
morning at six am.