Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with scarre Rictor It's
smell the Crazy trip, just watching as wos so many tables back taking a
sign. Well, good morning, Welcome to garden Line. Glad to see
up this early in the morning. I'm looking forward to talking to you about
whatever you're interested in regarding gardening, taking care of the lawn, surviving,
helping your plants survive what we just went through this this past brutal, brutal
summer. You know, the one of the most common questions I get is
about what's wrong with my lawn? Because everybody's got a lawn and or I
just about everybody, and people care about their lawns. They want them to
be beautiful, they want them to be green and lush and just you know,
a nice setting for the lawn, for the landscape. Basically, lawns
or one of the two carpets of our landscape the others or our ground covers,
and we like things to be nice. People have a tolerance range in
terms of what they will allow in a lawn. Some people or you know,
if it's not absolutely perfect, if there's a weed anywhere, it might
as well have a neon signs above it flashing on and off, and that
that can't be allowed. And other people are you know, it's green and
I mow it and it looks pretty good and that's good enough for me.
And depending on where you are on that range, you know, we can
help you to achieve the kind of lawn you want to achieve. And that's
what that's what we're here about trying to do that. There's a lot of
ways to go about law and care, a lot of things, a lot
of aspects that are important, the most important or the cultural practices. That's
where we start. It's basically mowater, fertilize and making sure that you make
the lawn have every opportunity or give the lawn every opportunity to be healthy.
And if you mowater and fertilize right, you're still gonna have diseases, You're
still gonna have weeds, still gonna have insects. It doesn't make them all
go away. It just reduces some of the issues you have to deal with
and it helps your lawn look good. You know, you just need to
think about it same way we think about human health. We do what we
need to to take care of our bodies so that we don't get sick as
much, and if we get sick, it's easier to bounce back because we
have good health. And that is also true for plants. I think that's
one place where anthropomorphizing is not a bad idea. There are a lot of
similarities between human health and plant health and understanding that I think gets us on
the way to success. Well. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four if you would like to give us a call.
Josh will get you on the boards and we're going to start out going
out to League City talking to John V this morning. Morning, John,
very good morning, Good morning, Skipp and Guardenline this morning. My question
is on the weather. Now, I am an aerospace research scientist and I
work on Icono Stic Connection weather satellites, so I know a bit about it.
Okay, but you know hurricane season doesn't end from November thirty FS.
We've got complications with weather systems going on in space affecting us and on planet
Earth. So just to manage around what we have to manage with the four
seasonal changes. You know, I'm just trying to bear with it, the
changes well that are going on. So what what's your question? What are
you thinking about? Well, I'm this land that I'm going to be buying
next year, and you know, I'm just you know, I've got these
grand plans for it, and so i just want to make sure that I
do everything right and proper for it. And you know, I just at
fifty three acres and I'm just getting concerned. But I'm doing my blueprints,
I'm doing my research on listening to y'all, and so you know, I
just want to make sure everything gets done properly around the weather systems. Seasonal
changes. Well, it's kind of a step by step. And you know,
weather, as you know, is hard to predict, and long term
weather is somewhat of a challenge too. And even though we may be heading
in one direction, we could have a year that's very much in the other
direction. That doesn't change long term direction. But I think the goal is
to do all the horticultural practices that we should do to have success a period,
like preparing the soil right, taking care of our plants with proper care,
and so on, choosing plants is important. But you know, I
hate to see people in reaction to this summer go out and you know everybody's
going to put in cactus in a gaby everywhere in Houston, because that's not
our that's not where we are now. And landscapes evolve and landscapes have a
lifespan. There are plants that, you know, beautiful Southern live oaks that
live just forever, it seems, and those are long term plants. But
for a lot of the shrubs and plants around our house, there is a
time where we pull them out they get too large, or something better comes
out, more disease resistant or more compact or whatever we're looking for. And
so I wouldn't overthink the long term, but I would consider the resilience of
plants that you choose to put in. I don't know if that helps or
not. So would tremendously. Thank you so much. I hope you all
have a wonderful Sunday. Thank you well, you too. I appreciate that
you as well. All right, thank you for that for that call.
Uh yeah, I uh you know it. I'm not ready to pull everything
up and change the whole landscape, that's for sure. But it is worth
thinking about where you want plants and what plants you want there. And if
you've got a plant that you are fighting to have success with, then maybe
it's the wrong plant for that spot. And I can give a lot of
examples for that. You know, azalea and the full brun of the sun
and you're trying to water it enough to keep it going and putting up with
some you know, leaf burn and whatnot. Well, that's not the spot
for it. There's a place for azalias for example. If you are trying
to cut on your water bill, there are plants that are able to go
without water and bounce back. And that's that's the kind of thinking that we're
trying to do here. Uh, just just keep that in mind. I
know that, you know, when I go to nurseries, I checking out
A and A plants the day and I just look at all the plant options
that they have, and each plant that I look at, I recognize the
beauty of it and the benefits that it can offer. And saying good plant,
bad plant, I don't think is the best way to approach things.
It's like, what do I need for this spot? And that's why you
know, go into a place like an Ana Ana is they've got staff on
hand that know what they're talking about, and they can guide you and you
can say, hey, look what about this plant. If I am not
able to water for a while, how's it going to hold up? Is
that gonna be okay? Or what would you suggest for this area? And
I love that there For those of you who don't know, they're located on
the east side of Montgomery on Highway one oh five. So the whole Lake
Conro region is your A and A's your hometown nursery for that whole region up
there, and they carry a lot of a lot of stuff, a lot
of plants, seven days a week. They'll be open today nine to five
at three acres to wander through. And so I would I would focus on
talking to people at a garden nursery like Ana where you can get that kind
of expertise as you're planning renovations and things to your landscape. Hey, we're
gonna have to take a break here. We will be right back our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And as we
come back, Brian, Ralph and Ken you will be the first step.
Good morning, Welcome to Garden Line. We are looking forward to visiting with
you about all kinds of things. I've got some folks on the line today
if you would like to join the show seven one, three, two and
two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna start by going out to Brian in
Richmond. Good morning, Brian, morning skipped. This is your coovered extension
service loving friend from Richmond. Hey man, how short can I come a
bermuda grass? I've got a chance to get a really really good deal on
a Toro Flex twenty one golf course more. Oh wow, But I don't
think I can mow it to three quarters of an inch, which is as
tall as that moraill go. You know, I have not tried cutting bermuda
that short. The common bermuda. I don't think it's going to perform well
at that height, but I would need I need to take a closer look
at that. That's the first time I've been asked that kind of question.
You know, take taking the common up. If you got a great deal
on it and you want a three quarter inch have you thought about getting rid
of a common and putting something else in because you there's some bermudas that will
be really attractive down at that low cut. Yeah, I'm sure that would
be a huge fight with my h A. So okay, really okay.
I mean I'm owned about an ans in five eights now and it's really sick
and lush. I just was wondering if I could go any shorter, you
know, let me look into that, Brian, if I can find if
I can come up with an answer, I'm more confident in I will say
something in the air this morning. I yeah, I just I'm just hesitant
on three quarter inch on common that that seems all right, sir, that's
sir already. Everybody take advantage of Quaver Extensive Service Agents the big help for
you, you bet. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, we do
ever all two hundred to our counties in Texas. You have a county extension
agent. You can call for help and they can contact specialists and it's a
lifeline to a lot of good information. And Skip didn't play me to say
that either. My dad was forty years an lsu so and plus I'm too
cheap to pay for stuff like that. Hey, thanks for I appreciate the
call to take care. That's good. You know part of part of having
a beautiful lawn is having a lawn that has been taking care of properly.
And taking care of properly is a regular moment that that is important. But
it's also fertilizing properly, dealing with the weeds you have, and when you
have issues with disease, dealing with those as well. The nitrous folks have
put out their Texas three step and it's really so it makes it so easy.
The first is to put a winter riser type fertilizer on there, one
that is designed for going into the cool fall season, and that would be
something called FoST Fall Special. It's got the right numbers, the right blend
designed for the Gulf Coast for ensuring increased winter heartiness. By the way,
it also helps with drought tolerance and vigorous regrowth in the spring, very important.
If you want your lawn to come back strong in the spring, you
have to put on a winter rizer type fertilizer in the fall in order to
provide that potassium to ensure that kind of growth, because everything it has coming
out is based on what it had going in to the winter time. That's
why the fall fertilization is so important. Secondly, with weeds, they have
a barricade product. It's going to control your grassy weeds or broad leaf weeds.
It works a very long time. In fact, you do it this
fall and it's still going to be benefiting you as we get into the springtime
season as well. That's the nitrofoss barricade. Follow the label carefully, imply
it. Apply it at the right rate. Don't think if the label says
a rate that if you double that rate you'll kill the weeds. Debtor.
It doesn't work that way. You always whether it's any kind of pest,
say you follow the labe well, that's important. Second or thirdly, nitrofus
eagle fungicide, that is a systemic protectant. It's also a curative. We're
gonna be dealing with large patch coming up. You got to get this on
ahead of time, ahead of time before you see the circles. So that'd
be I would say it depending on if we get a coal front, that's
the time to put it on. But if not, about the first of
October, I would get it down in most of our area. And I
realize we have people listening as far north as Buffalo and down to Corpus and
on, but try to get it on early October roughly. Just look at
that weather. That one two three is really simple. And where do you
get nitrofos Well plant Fall Seasons carries it, and Channet Gardens and Richmonds carries
it, Lake Hardware and Angleton carries it. I mean you can find it
at Katie Hardware. You can find it rg W Nursery. You can find
it at the arbor Gate and tom Ball. Not hard to find the nitrofus
one two three. I want to go now to see Brook and we're going
to talk to Ken. Hello, Ken, going well sent she's some pictures
of five five tree growth innis fan palm and one died. It's got it's
got bugs on it or I think it's bugs though. All along the trunk
there is places where the sap is running out and the trees died. And
you asked me to call you back. I was about that, all right,
Ken. I am looking for your email and I'm not when did you
send that? Oh that's it has been at least two weeks ago. Oh,
okay, okay, And we'll see if I can find it here.
I may have to she's I do not see it, and that is very
strange. What can you give me a little more like the first two letters
of your last name? W E? No? Okay, okay, sorry
about this? Uh okay, Well, I'm ken I'm gonna have to look
for it. Can I put you on hold for just a minute here while
I take another call and I will find it in the meantime. Hang on,
just all right, sorry about that. Let's now we're gonna pretend on
hold, We're gonna go out to Katie. Hello, Ralph, good morning.
How are your skis? I'm good? How are you this morning?
Great? Okay, the three products that you mentioned, we should wait till
the beginning of October, Uh is that right? Well? Yes, for
fertilizing, I would wait till the year down pretty far south, so winter
comes a little bit, you know, a little bit later than it would
wait up in Conro or north. So I would say probably the first of
October for you would be would be good. As far as the dealing with
brown patch. You know, if we had tomorrow a co front come in
and the highs were in the seventies for the days and we would start to
see on brown patch. But generally, we're not going to have that happen
until we get into October sometime, so I generally wait until October for that.
Okay, okay, same is true with and germination. Got it,
But don't put them all down at the same time. Is that correct?
You could? There's nothing wrong with it. Don't put them all in the
same if they're granular products. Don't don't mix different kinds of products in the
same bass. I mean, I do it, right, I do.
It's separate. Last thing, you put something on Facebook about the Microlife product?
Yes, can you expand on that what that actually does? Well,
we've put more than one thing on Do you know which which product you're talking
about? Say about the ones I'm talking about now, If you'd like to
do that, sure, go ahead. Well with going into fall, Microlife's
brown Patch five one three is a fall fertilizer. It's what we would call
a winner fertilizer, meaning that it's got We've dropped the nitrogen a little,
we got that potassium still up good, and it does everything that I've been
saying that a fall from lizer is gonna do. It's gonna get your lawn
ready to go into winter and to come out of winter. They also have
a brown patch or excuse me that that is the brown patch. They also
have a bio innoculant. The brown patch, by the way, is kind
of in an orange ish bag. The bionoculants kind of in a violet colored
bag. And the bionoculant, you just put a little bit of it out
because what you're doing is you're putting microbes out there that will inhabit the runners,
the surface of soil, the roots right up there at the top,
and help cut down on issues like brown patch and and so you're essentially you're
putting microbes out that are working against the disease, but also microbes that are
competing with the disease just for space on the grass plant. And those two
combinations, the brown patch and the bionoculants, what I would do as a
combo for the microlife. Okay, very good. I appreciate that. All
right, you take care, Ralph, thank you, thanks so much.
Good Bet, thank you very much. You know, if you're if you're
dealing with issues with your roof and it's time to maybe have somebody look at
it or have someone do something about the roof, you're not going to do
better than Brinkman Quality Roofing, Brickman, They've been here for fifty years.
You don't stick around fifty years. If you're not doing people right, you
don't win the twenty twenty two Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award if you're not giving
people a good deal, doing what you say, quality work, and making
sure your work work is warranted. In the case of Brinkman for twenty five
years of service. You can contact Brinkman at Brinkman Quality dot com. You
can give him a call at two eight one four eight ozero seven six six
three two eight one four eight oz seventy six sixty three. I'm let's see
we're go back here to go back? Ken in cibro Ken, I am
still looking for your email. I am sorry, I just am not seeing
an email. Okay, Ken, there there's something. I'm sorry to do,
this kind of bad radio sit there over the air looking for emails.
Can you can you give me the first few letters of the email address and
I'll try it that way because I'd like to help you, and I remember
you talked about this. Yeah, it's okay, I am remember MSc t
al okay, Oh Kim Okay, that was what I was doing wrong.
All right, we're gonna try this one more time. There we go.
No, that's nope, that's boring insects. Oh boy, I'll tell you
what if you don't mind hold a little bit more. It's k I am
first name. That's great. Okay, this is I've never done this before
on the air. Okay, let me mc tl Okay, I got it.
I've got it. All right? Boy? Is that a boring insects
and a fan? Pa? Yes, got you. Let's go with it.
Now. What what's uh? What is your what are you? Is
your question? Well? Whatever that insect is has killed the fan palm Okay,
the one that why I can do the spray the other four that I
have, so they don't get it. You know, I'm not sure.
Are you sure it's a boring insect? I'm seeing sat but I'm not seeing
any signs of boring and they're issues. They're just it's definitely a boring insect.
It goes in and makes a hole in the and the satis runs out
from the brand to wear the frown start. All right, what I would
in that case, what I'm going to recommend is my my first shot would
be to use a systemic like a meadow cloprid or dino tepheron. Those are
two ingredients that will move up in the through the juices of the plant,
and whatever's chewing inside there will be subjected to them. They're not going to
get on the outside of the p land or anything Like ladybug lands on the
palm, it's not going to kill it because it's inside the plumbing. So
only something in there eating the palm is gonna is good. Yes, I
am I D O C l O p R I D the second one d
I N O. Let me just say D I N O T E F.
If you'll stop right there, that'll get you to the right thing.
I'm having to take a break here. Thanks for being patient and waiting,
but that would be where I would start with those. If a palm is
severely effected already, you probably are not able to turn it around. It
all right. Thank you, appreciate the call, and we are now going
to go to Nikki and find out what is happening with the news. Oh,
good morning. We are listening to little music there on the side.
I love Saturday. In the part that goes back pretty far distance to that
number. Some of you may remember it. You're listening to Guardline and we're
here talking about gardening this morning. I was just check in Kim on the
board thing. I've got us sources that I use in Florida, which they
know a lot about palm trees down there. And I think the only thing
I would add to what I had said for you in the radio is that
number one, keeping your trees in good health is really important. As they
get weakened, the palm borers can become more of a problem. And generally
getting when a tree is affected, just going ahead and getting out of there
is a good idea because it's gonna have boor larva inside, and you know,
just whatever you can do to get them off the site is a good
idea for dealing with that. Well, we are here to answer your gardening
questions and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. You know, if
you if you're looking at your landscape, and let's just say that this summer
has not been kind to it, I think that's an understatement of the year.
The lawn's dying. There's some shrubs that have died, just the nations
of all the weather extremes really we've had the last three years, it may
be time to just get a new do over on it. You know,
you can go out there, you can plant things yourself, you can work
and get it done. But a lot of people are getting discouraged with trying
to deal with all that, and you're not going to do better than given
a call to peerscapes and saying, hey, look at this, take them
some pictures. What can I do? Fall is the time the best time
to get major landscape renovations done, and by right now getting with them,
getting on the schedule of you know, their different projects they got going on.
They can come out and they can do a turnkey renovation and before long
you're looking out there and it's a beautiful landscape. Tell them, hey,
i'd like can you give me some things that are a little more drought tolerant.
What are the best options for this area. I've got a problem with
my irrigation here. I couldn't keep the long life because it's the design,
the way it's applying water is so poor. I need help. I mean,
those are the kind of things Peerscapes can come out and do. You
can find more information if you want about Peerscapes at peerscapes dot com. It's
really easy peerscapes dot com. I'll give him a call to eight one three
seven zero fifty sixty two eight one three seven five zero six zero. It's
been a brutal summer. Peerscapes can transform that landscape you got. They can
get it looking beautiful again, and that can be really an encouraging thing to
get out and to just get a good new start with a design and with
plants that are more likely to survive these kinds of vicissitudes of nature. How
about that we'll use big words on Sunday morning. We're gonna head out to
Bear Creek now and we're gonna talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Hi,
good morning. Let's say I have a lot of problems. I need
resting, sprinkler repair, probably tree trimming, and some help with replacing plants
in my front garden bed and adding a new bed in the yard. So
I'm looking for recommendations. Who do you recommend for sprinkle repair? Well,
I would I was just talking about peer Escapes and they do that. They
will do sprinkle repair. They you know, if you need maybe to change
some irrigation out, maybe you're considering drip irrigation or micros what they call microsprinklers
and some beds. I would talk to them and have them do that.
They know what they're doing there. Okay, okay, Can I ask a
specific question about you want to water? I have a live oaks that are
in need need of water, and one of my neighbors said, you know,
your canopy is pretty wide and that requires more watering. Is there any
relation to the connection between the diameter of the canopy and the need for water
The size of the bigger the tree, the more leaf area it has,
and therefore the more water can use. But as far as how wide or
I know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't think of it that way. I
would just think about the size of the tree. But I don't tall something.
Live oaks are incredibly resilient. You drive around the whole Southeast Texas region
and you look at trees and see the ones that are dying and turning brown,
and it's not live oaks. They are pretty darn tough, and so
I'm not so worried about them as I am some of our other trees.
Yeah, they looked and they're they're finding the roots coming to the surfers too.
That's another problem. They're finding water somewhere. But they look pretty good.
But I know they need a trink and how long can I wait?
I want to do it as soon as possible, but in this hot weather,
I'm not so sure. You talk about the trimming. About the trimming,
yeah, I'm sorry. You could do minor trimming anytime of the year.
If you're gonna do major, we generally aim that for a little bit,
you know, in the cold winter, a little bit late mid to
late winter. But here's here's what I would recommend. Just call call the
folks that affordable tree. They're the ones we trust and we go to and
they will come out. They'll do an assessment. They stay pretty busy.
So if you call them, tell them that you're a guardenline listener, because
you do get to the front of the line when you do that. But
they will come out. They can just do an analysis and they may say,
you know what, Bill, this tree's okay as it is, or
they may say that limb over there is the one that's concerning us. Here's
what we think you need to do that. They'll give you an honest assessment
of what might need to be done. And okay, let me give you.
Can I give you a phone number or web okaye, grab grab a
pen. The website is real easy. It's aff Tree service dot com.
Eight. That's good enough, thank you. Well, let me just give
the phone. Some other people may hear may hear this, and I want
to call them at seven one, three, six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. But but have them come out and look at it. They can.
They can also do the deep root watering if you're still in the middle
of a drought, if you weren't fortunate enough to get any in these last
days. Okay, we sure need a lot of help at my place.
Second, I tell you everybody does. But congratulations on surviving the summer.
Thank you, appreciate it. I appreciate that call. Thank you very much.
Hey, Hey, you know yesterday I was telling you that Kingwood Garden
Center and Warrens was closed down for some inventory work. They've got that done.
They are open up now. You need to get back out there.
It's always a good time to visit Kingwood Garden Center and Warrens Gardens. Remember
when regarding the Kingwood they're going to have their urban fused to fall into prosecco
event on September twenty feet at six pm. September twenty feet at six pm.
You don't want to miss that. Now you can go to Kingwood Garden
Center dot com or just call them and make sure you get signed up.
Tell them that you would like to come to that. What they're going to
teach us how to grow some herbs, but how to also use those and
making herb infused cocktails. They call it their gartending class. I like that
a lot. Hey, those places have lots of good color out there right
now there are. They also have a great supply of the various heirloom soil
products that we brag about here on garden Line. So you know, if
you're looking to get a good rose soil, or if you if you want
some leafmo compost, all the things I talk about it, they're gonna have
a good supply of those as well as well as things like as MTE.
They carry that many many other things. Both Warren's and Kingwood Garden Center.
Well, and it's time for another break. Boy. It seems like those
things sneak up on us really quick. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, Josh, I'm gonna
impress you with us. That's twenty five six to four. I don't know
if you would knew. I would't know that, but I do. I
remember that we played that in stage band back when I was in high school,
so that was kind of it's oh really, oh man, that's cool.
It's live, live, live. Hey, you're listening to Garden Line
and we're having fun with collars with music, just having a good time this
morning, and we're glad you're listening. You know, if you're looking for
a quality fertilizer to get out there on the ground to get ready for the
fall, to get your lawn ready to go, that would be carbo Load
by Nelson Plant Food. Nelson produces a lot of quality products. They were
with the Color Star line, the Nutral Star line, then the Nature Star
line that's our organic fertilizer line, and then they have the Turf Star line.
We've been talking about the slow and easy all this summer that gradually releases
over releases over time, got that high nitrogen content that's important and springing summer,
but now fall, we've got to get that potassium in the plant and
bring that nitrogen down. Over fertilizing with nitrogen and the fall promotes a kind
of growth that is going to be more susceptible to the brown patch disease that
it's attacking the lawns, making the big brown circles. So with carbo load
they drop it's a ten twenty, which is perfect for the fall season.
Now the ten ten twenty is going to help your lawn get ready. It's
going to make the carbohydrates. By the way the potassium in there, that's
like it's a way that the plant helps make anna freeze. In other words,
it's a component that the plant needs to make the carbohydrates to get ready
for winter, to help overcome drought, to deal with drought, also to
be stronger going into winter, because then it's stronger coming out of winter.
It's as simple as that. Nelson Plant Foods. For over twenty years they've
been making commercial grade fertilizers available to homeowners and for this fall, the carbo
load, which also includes something to help fight your weed problems as well.
We're going to go now to West University and talk to Jonas. Good morning,
Jonas, Hi see, good morning to answering my call. I've heard
you referencing a little bit ago about the live oaks. I have on my
property three water oaks. Two of them are about thirty five years old.
And each of these two oaks have their water oaks, but they have different
colored foliage. One is pale and the one is a little bit darker,
and the other one, the third one is the younger tree is about twelve
years old and it has dark foliage. I guess the question that I have
for you is are they as resilient as resistant in this area as the live
oaks, And also why would they have the different shades in the foliage,
different species or what might that be. Yeah, that's a good question.
No, they're not as resilient as the live oaks, but the water oak
is. It's a native tree to the region. It's a decent tree.
Tends to get a little tall, as opposed to the live oak, which
tends to get a little wide, you know, compared to the height proportionally
the water oak. As far as color, new growth is going to come
out lighter. So anytime you're getting a lot of new growth, the tree
is gonna look lighter and then it darkens a little. But there is some
genetic difference between them as well. And then there's always a possibility that you
are dealing with an issue that's more nutrient. Maybe a super high pH soil
is causing the leaves to be a little bit more chlorotic, not getting the
iron that they need up there to the plant. So there's several reasons that
could be for that, but the bottom line is if they're reasonably green,
they should be. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, they're recently green
in there. I'm want to have them looked at and serviced this winter that
they can see. That's that's always a good idea. Yeah, that's true.
Now they're gonna they're gonna drive you dropping some leaves here too, so
but yeah, right now I have an elm tree as well. Is that
considered a good tree as well? Well. There's a lot of kinds of
elms, or the leaves about a size of your thumb or they're about you
know, maybe three or four inches long, they're about about three or four
inches as well. Okay, that could be an American elm. That's that's
one of the elms that has a larger leaf elms are good yard trees.
But every tree has its pros and cons. If I were to, you
know, say the pros of elms is their native in the country. Various
elms are. They are a pretty resilient tree. Sometimes as they get older,
some of the species can get some interior decay a little more so than
certain other plants that are other species of trees that we have out there.
My biggest rap on elms, even the native elms. You know, we
don't talk about natives as being invasive because they're native, but elms cast seed
and you get them in your flower beds and you're you're always dealing with little
volunteer elms. Now that's not a huge rap and it's not a reason not
to plant an elm. But that's the only thing I've when I've had elms
that have been a little bit annoying for me. But it's still still a
good tree to plant. Yeah, well, this is great. Well,
thank you, Skip. I appreciate this a loverly weekend. Yeah you too,
Jonas, thank you for the call. Great great to visit. Our
phone number is we're about out of time for a call this hour, but
if you like to get on the board. Josh will get you up there
for first thing next next hour when we go through our newsbreak at the top
of the hour seven one, three, two, one, two, five
eight seven four. Now, if you're looking for a feed store and you
live up in the Magnolia area, you need to know your hometown feed store
is Spring Creek Feed Center. Spring Creek Feed Center is on FM twenty nine
seventy eight. It's up there in Magnolia. It's just minutes away from Graham
Parkway or Highway two forty nine. They're going to carry the fertilizers who recommend
here. They have a full line of you know, things like turf Star,
Microlife, nitrofists. They've got those there at Spring Creek Feed They've got
lots of supplies for your gardening that would be herbicides, fungicides, pesticides,
other kinds of things that you need to have a beautiful lawn and a beautiful
landscape. Of course, there are a feed store and they carry quality pet
food and products like Victor and Purina. They've got livestock food they have.
They have food for wildlife. You're looking for some deer corn, things like
that. They've got that there a grooming center for your pets. I mean,
there's a lot going on at Spring Creek Feed. They greet you,
they're friendly, they're courteous. You know, you get the service that you
want to get when you go to any kind of a business. FFA for
h military and Senior citizens. Discounts are all available there at Spring Creek Feed.
And if they don't have it, they will probably be able to special
order it and get it in for you. So it's a one stop shop
for what you need. Really easy to go on the Spring Creek Feed.
I always like to go out there. I am, you know, when
I'm when I'm out and about, I like to stop in and visit our
sponsors that just to see what's going on that way. When I'm talking about
him, I going, oh, I didn't know they had that. And
I was at ACE the other day, one of the Ace hardware stores,
and noticed we were in the barbecue section shopping. I think I mentioned this.
I bought one of those little grilling basket to go on the grill and
whatnot. But going out to the Garden Center area, I was really surprised.
It just seems like the sections always growing with more fertilizers, more products
for your lawn, taking care of your plants, just everything you might think
you might need. They're going to have it there. And that's just Ace.
You can go to ACE Hardware dot com. You can find the store
locator thirty nine of them through the area. You'll find them near you.
And believe me, when you go in there. You may go in there
for fertilizer, which is a good thing to do, but you're going to
find a whole lot of other things that are awesome as well. Hey,
I want to tell you coming up next Saturday, get out of pen and
paper. Write this in ink on your calendar. I'm going to be at
the arbor Gate. That is from eleven thirty to one thirty Saturday, September
twenty third of either for two hours now. We are going to be giving
away there one, two, three, completely easy system. The food,
the soil, and the compost that I'm always bragging on here on guard line
two, completely easy system. We're going to be giving those away. I
think Beverly's got some other special surprises she's going to be giving away as we
go through too. Have you ever been to Arborgate, You know how much
fun it is to go there, lots of fun wandering around and learning.
I'm going to be there at the table for two hours. Bring me some
samples. Put them in a little ziplock bag. We don't need to be
bringing bugs and diseases into the garden center. Just put them in a little
ziplock back. Let me look at them, or bring me photos even better
yet in good sharp focus. I hope you'll show up next Saturday from eleven
thirty to one thirty at the Arbor Gate. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH
Guarden Line with Skip rictor just watch him as so many. Well, good
morning, good Sunday morning. It's gonna be a beautiful day out there today.
Some of you got some rain this week, and the last couple of
days have been pretty good to us in the rainfall. If you didn't,
it will come. We are heading into the fall season. I said it
yesterday. Once we broke five degrees south of one hundred, I call that
fall. We're officially in the fall. I know, I know it's gonna
get warm again. That usually happens, but not for long and not so
bad, and at least we're getting a break. Our plants are getting a
break these cooler evenings, cooler days, or even a few degrees makes a
lot of difference. And hopefully continue to get some rain in here for everybody
else. By the way, if you have have trees and lawns that are
struggling in this heat and drought that we've been going through since good night,
what was it June May, I don't know when the thing started. It's
been brutal. I put some information online on my website, gardening with skip
dot com, and there's a sheet on there that you can print if you
want, or just read it online, and it's how trees go through stress,
What stress does, how do we alleviate it, how does it work?
And what can you do to help your trees? And then secondly,
when you're dealing with the lawn and it's still dry, maybe you didn't get
rain. I was talking to folks out at the home show yesterday and had
a show of hands like who didn't get rain? And a few hands went
up on that as well. If you didn't, well, how do you
get the most out of your water when you water the lawn. You know
the the waters purveyor says, our supplier says, you know what, you
can only water this much on these days? Well, what do you do
with that water to get the most out of it? And that's what that
sheet talks about there. So I encourage you to go to gardening with Skip
dot com and check that out. When it comes to taking care of our
trees, making sure trees have what they need. The nitrofus folks have set
up the Texas three step system. In Texas three Step, it's a great
idea. It's taking care of the three things we are most concerned about when
we go into the fall season. Number one, are we are our lawns
rather, are they getting the nutrients they need in the right ratio for going
into fall, because that really matters and fall we want more of the potassium.
We want to drop that nitrogen down so that we don't promote things like
brown patch which we also call large patch and nitrofust Fall Special Winterizer is exactly
that. It's going to provide the ratio of nutrients you need to do just
that. It's designed for the Gulf Coast, it's designed for the fall season.
Potassium is very important, and they put plenty of it in their nitrofust
Fall Special because it helps with drought resilience. It also helps with winter heartiness.
And when you put this combination that they've got in a fertilizer, you're
grass is going to go into winter stronger and therefore come out of winter stronger.
And people think, well, you know, in the spring, if
I throw fertilizer down, it's gonna make the lawn all happy and grow.
Well, at some point it is when it warms up and the grass can
grow. But that early growth on your grass is dependent on going into winter
strong. It's using stored energy in early spring to get going. Fall fertilization
is what enables us to do that. Don't wait too long, go ahead
and get it down, and I'd get it down early October because you want
to give your grass time to take it up and to build that hardiness to
store those carbohydrates that it needs. Secondly, barricade is their pre emergent.
If you have grassy weeds and broadly weed problems, those are going to be
sprouting in October, depending on our weather. Typically the month of October is
when we get a lot of weed sprouting, and by getting the barricade down
ahead of time, you can do it late into September. Early october's fine
too. I tend to lean toward early October for most of the area watered
in really well, and it's going to keep you out of the weed problems
all the way into the spring. It will last, and it will work.
It locks up in the soil at the surface and when we try to
when weeds try to sprout, they can't get through it. And then finally,
the step three is the nitrofuss eagle turf fungicide. You want to get
that down pretty soon. I would say the first part of October, maybe
the end of September if you're living a little further north. We get one
of those cold fronts in where the daytime tempts are now in the seventies as
opposed up in the nineties. Boy, you definitely need to have that fungicide
down the eagle turf ahead of time. For the large pats that's going to
hit after the circles appear. It's a little late to apply these kinds of
things for large pats, so we want to get them down ahead of time.
One two three Texas three step really easy, Nitrofus Fall Special, Nitrofuss
Barricade, Nitrofuss Eagle. Where do you get it? Well, you get
Nitrofuss in a lot of places such as cypers Ace, Fisher's Hardware and report
Our Plantation Ace Hardware. Well, we're gonna go now out to the phones.
By the way, our number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We're going to visit with Allen. Hello Allen. Yea
sir, how are you doing this morning? How can we help I'm doing
bod We got an inch and aphrain and Wallace yesterday. Oh man, that's
a way to go. It's not yes, it is, yes, it
is. So how can I help you today? All Right? We had
I've got coun trees that are probably a couple hundred years old, and this
year is the first year I've had what they called black walnut caterpillars. Yes,
if they just eat the durned things up, they do, and I
don't know what to do with them when they form to keep for next year.
Yeah, well, there's no pre treating. But what you need to
look for is you need to look for them when they first hatch out.
They're gonna be a little herd on the trunk typically, and then they move
up into the tree. They may be on the limbs, but if you
catch him early, when you first see them, just start watching for them.
Because some years they're bad as they were this year for you. Some
years they're not so bad at all. But I would expect if you had
a bad year this year, we probably will have one next year. And
then you want to use a product on the foliage that kills caterpillars and so
on. The organic end of it, you got BT which is only going
to last about two days after you spray it, and it's not working anymore.
So that's the negative of it. The good news is it doesn't hurt
all the beneficials that are helping you with your other pests. Sipicons, Spinosaid
sprays is probably what I would go to, is my best bet. Spi
No Sad, spin No Sad. A lot of brands of it out there,
but Spinosaid soaks into the leaf tissue. It's also an organic, by
the way, and when the cap can barely hear, your fading out so
bad. Okay, I don't know, Josh, Is there something we can
do? Here, I'm right on my mic spinosaid is the one I would
probably go to for an organic and it soaks in the tissue, it lasts
a little longer in the leaf, and it will kill anything that eats a
leaf, including caterpillars. And then there are plenty of other insecticides that are
you just have to watch are they label from my pecan trees and if they
are, most any insecticide is going to kill that walnut caterpillar. You put
this around the base of a tree are red where they go down and once
they're done in their business for the year, they go down and they nest
around the base of a tree and that's where they come back from to next
year. Well, I don't know that there's any treatment down there that's going
to be as effective. If you see caterpillars down around the base, See
what they're doing is they're eating the leaves, and then it's just like a
butterfly. They go into their little pupil case and they typically will overwinter or
either as pupa or as eggs and then come out the next year. Hey,
Alan, I'm going to need to take it. Take a break here.
If you want to hang on and keep talking, or if that took
care of it, and I appreciate your call very much. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right,
now, that is right. Hey, if you have not put any micronutrients
on your lawn this year, you need to get a hold of some asmite
and get that put out. Azamite provides all those trace elements that are only
needed in tiny supplies but are absolutely essential to the health and life of your
lawn. They have to have those nutrients things like manganese. For example.
You know you don't see manganese and a fertilizer typically well, plants have to
have manganese, and azemite provides that sort of thing. You can go to
azemite Texas dot com find out lots more about it. It's easy to find
sold all over the place. Whenever you're going to put your fall fertilizer out,
just when you get done with that, drop some azemite in there.
Doesn't take a whole lot of it, About forty four pounds will go six
to twelve thousand square feet lawn. So but get it out there and make
sure that your lawn has the nutrients it needs when it needs them. We're
gonna go out now to Cyprus and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed,
good morning, Good morning. I sent you some photos of some roses that
we talked about yesterday. Yes, sir, I saw those. That is
Rose rosette, and I just sent you an email reply just a second here
a Goo. There are some great webs references for that. Texas A and
M at the agrilife Learn website has a couple of free PDF publications on rose
rosette. It is a virus. It's in the plants. You can't get
rid of it, and there's a little tiny mite so tiny it can literally
float on the air to other rose bushes down wind or nearby, and that's
how it gets spread. When you have it, all the roses right in
that area need to come out. And i'd watch your other roses really carefully
for that super thorniness, that reddish like scrunched up growth habit and the thorniness.
When you see these publicans, it's going to show you what to do.
I recommend people slip a trash bag over the rose, go down to
the bottom and pull it, because what's going to happen is you're gonna pull
it up. But in jerking it and pulling it up, you don't want
to shake all the mites loose and have them floating around everywhere. So you
trash bag it and then you get those out of there. Just watch and
if your neighbors have roses, you might kind of look at those talk to
them about this, because if you can get them out of that area,
if you get all those roses out, pull the roots that you can out
of the ground, just because they're the virus is in the plant all through
the plant, and so you want to get those roots out of there and
then you can replant. I'd give it a little time, maybe quait and
plant in February. Just give it a little bit of time. But rose
rose, that's a bad one. And we have major research projects across the
country, including A and M, going on about breeding roses that don't get
it, because a lot of roses get it. Can I replace a meeting
color are in those beds? And I'm not I mean, I don't have
to have roses, but I'd like to have something that comes back, you
know, every year, that don't have to replant. These are about a
foot and a half tall and then they spread out, yeah, foot,
and that's what I need for these beds. Well, yeah, I understand.
First of all, I would say, just because you had roses,
that doesn't mean you're gonna replant and have it again. Now, if your
neighbor has roses and the mites are coming in from there and they've got rosas
at yes, your new roses will get it. But it's not like the
mits hang around for two months and waiting for a rose to be planted,
to crawl up on it and attack it. So there is a you know,
I wouldn't give up on roses. If you like roses, there's a
lot of good ones out there. As far as other plants, you know,
there's a wide variety of things that bloom, and so I wouldn't even
know where to begin on what esthetically you're looking or and what you like,
but I wouldn't give up on roses on that one. I did send you
those the link to where you can get the tea called locations, And if
you will read through that carefully, it goes into great detail, more than
I can on the air, about the disease, what you do about it,
how you deal with it, and so on. Well, this prompted
me to look elsewhere in the yard, and it's all over. Oh on
all your roses. Not all of them, but I've bet on thirty percent
of them. Okay, the front and the back here, Well, you
can watch the others for now. Just because you have a rose nearby doesn't
mean it has it yet. But watch them very closely, and if they're
if they're in a grouping, like all in the same bed, I would
just clean them out and go in with a new planting. But you know,
you can have it on one end of the bed and it's not infected
the plants on the other end yet. And so our goal is just this
huge, super careful sanitary measure of getting it all out of there as fast
as we can to prevent further spitch bab Like being a room with somebody that's
sick and they're coughing and you're just hanging around breathing in the air. That's
not going to go well, thank you? All right, all right,
you bet sorry to be the bear of bad news on that one, for
sure. If you are looking for a way to get supplies for anything you
need for your garden and landscape, I'll get two words Southwest Fertilizer. If
Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have something, you don't need it because they have everything you
need. They have all the fertilizers we talk about, insecticides, fungicides,
herbicides. You say, but I'm an organic gardener. They have organic products
in those categories as well. They have everything that you need. It's really
as simple as that. If you have problems, you want to bring a
sample out there, let them put a pair of eyes on it and see
what it is. If you want to bring them a picture, they can
diagnose it and then take you to the product you need. Southwest Fertilizer is
in Southwest Euston as you'd expect, a corner of Bissonette and Renwick, and
you can go to their website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. But walk in there
and see that what I'm telling you is absolutely the truth. Eighty foot wall
of garden tools. I mean, there is no place that carries as much
stuff as Southwest Fertilizer. I'm going to head out to the Woodlands now.
I'm going to talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, High Skip. I
have a couple of questions for you this morning. I live in a patio
home out here that has a wrought iron fence that divides my yard to the
preserve, and I have several bucks woods along the fence line. I'm looking
for a perennial to put between these shrubs, but the grass has grown in
between there and these big tufts of which I've sprayed with weed killer, and
now I'm concerned that I've kind of ruined to soil. What do you think?
What should I do something about this? And what do you suggest for
plants? You? Yeah, Sandy, do you remember what weed killer you
used on it? Yeah? I can look at it right now. So
as far as plants, now, what what? What do you What kind
of plant are you looking for? Do you want a shrub? Do you
want little flowers? Or I think i'd like little flowers or a perennial of
some sort. Okay, but the weed, yeah, the weed killer is
a specter called weed and grass killer that I got at HP. Can you
can you read me the ingredient on there? Please? If you can find
that in the fine room, that's kind of what I need to know.
Oh, okay, it's just kill the root, hoot active ingredients. While
you're hut while you're hunting that down. Uh that perennials have their season and
as some bloom a long time, like the gold Star Esperanza, they bloom
all summer long. That you know, there's a number of plants that will
blom a long time. Some have a very short season, some of the
bulbs, for example, just a few weeks and then there's nothing else.
So you may want to if you use perennials, fill in with annuals,
so you can trade some of the annuals out and have color all through the
year. That's what i'd recommend you find. Did you find that ingredient?
I get it says uh die quot uh dibri mine okay. And then there
then there's but let's just zolt. I can't really read this. Spell it
for me. That's l u a z okay. I got that one.
Is there another one dike tamba okay, all right? And then it just
says other ingredients. Okay. So if you can replant that area, it's
not going to be one of these things at lasts for months and months and
months. But with the die camba, you're not gonna want to put seeds
in for a while. It's going to prevent it could have an effect on
that. But okay, you know the die camba, I wouldn't worry about
it a lotty on the seeds. But anyway, that's just in fact,
you know what I'm I'm crossing that with another one. It's fine to go
ahead and plant. You're gonna be okay, don't worry about it. Okay,
okay, good? And is there anything I can do to prevent that
grass from coming over? Uh? Just some sort of a border that prevents
it from crawling in on periodically, a little edging or something like that.
Okay, if you want to send me a picture of the grass, I
could see if you know, some grasses go underground and then come up in
the bed. Those are harder to fight, yea. Others just crawling in
over the top, so it's kind of hard to give a gene. Yeah,
this comes from underground. Okay, that's going to record. Are the
flu a z that you were spelling me? Look for just that product and
you spray it on grass and it doesn't kill your flowers, it kills grass.
Oh okay, But we don't go re buy what you bought. Just
buy the flu a z ingredient. Okay, okay, that's fine, all
right. My second question redbuds. We replaced two live oak trees in our
backyard and I had a hard time finding redbuds. So I ordered them online
from a place in North Carolina. Okay, they came. They were pretty
sparse looking. We planted them, they both died. Okay. The company
replaced them. They sent me two more. We planted them again and they
died. Okay. Then they sent me go ahead. Okay, they sent
me two more, and we decided we'd just put them in five gallon buckets
okay, and put them under cover under my Pa Patila rope so that,
you know, because the sun was so bad this summuning. Okay, that's
where they are now. Okay, this fall, late October and November.
Get those on the ground at the same depth that they were growing. That's
the best time to plan them and gives you the best shot. And just
remember all through next year when it's hot. They still have a limited root
system. They're getting established, and so you need to water them with a
good soaking to keep those things moist but not continually soggy wet. All right,
Hey, I appreciate it. I appreciate your call. Very much.
Thank you for calling. If you live in the Richmond area and you haven't
been out to Enchanted Forest yet, you need to go see this place,
Enchanted Forest. If you're in Richmond, you're going up toward let's say Sugarland.
It's off to the right south of fifty nine. Enchanted Forest is one
of those enchanting places. I mean if you go in, the beautiful trees,
the buildings, they just built a new area for their vegetables and their
herbs. It's just really cool. Enchanted Forest is so fun to go around
and see things. Danny and Clay are on staff there on staff. They
own the place. They absolutely will help you. Their staff helps you.
They walk around, they direct you to things, they answer your questions.
They are just about to get in a bunch of pumpkins coming up soon.
The mums are there, the cool seasoned vegetables are in shrubs, trees,
flowers. Perfect time to go out and see Enchanted Forest. Just an absolute
great time to go out to that place. And always like it, always
see something new when I go out there as well. We're gonna be taking
a break here in just a moment. I want to remind you that on
next Saturday, September sixteenth, I will be at the Montgomery County Home and
Garden Show. Excuse me, I'm reading the wrong line. I'll be at
Arburgrate for Grind Out Loud. I just set it a minute ago, two
hour appearance I did at Arburgrate. We're going to give away the one two
three completely easy system and a lot of other things that Beverly is coming up.
She's gonna be there. Of course she's gonna be there. And when
she says she's pulling out some surprises, it's all Beverly, all right,
Nikki, it's all yours. Well, good morning. You are listening to
Guarden Line on a nice Sunday morning. It's gonna be a beautiful Sunday.
As a matter of fact. Out there, you know we were hitting that
season. That is my favorite gardening season of the year. Now. I
know most people get spring fever for gardening. I get fall fever two because
fall has its advantages even over Spring falls a great time to plant perennials,
to plant perennial herbs, to plant woody ornamentals like trees and shrubs and woody
vines. He gives the plants the longest period of time you can give them
before the blazing heat and demands of another summer arrives. That's important. Maybe
you're thinking about putting a tree in this fall. If you are, I
would recommend you give a call to Verdant Tree Farm Verdant Tree Farm, Varda,
nt treefarm dot com. They have a wide variety of trees and they
car there are the kinds of trees that do well here. They also grow
them right, so they do well here, and they plant them right,
so they do well here. We're talking turnkey service. You go there,
you pick out your tree, they tag it, they bring it, they
install it, and it's done right. It's as simple as that. And
if you need instant tree, they have large and beautiful palms as well.
They have large and beautiful other types of trees up to seven hundred gallons.
Even it's amazing the kind of plant material they have on site. And when
I say on site, I mean both out in West Houston on Barker Cypress,
I mean down in Parland on Broadway Street, and also up in the
Heights where Yale Street comes into I Ten, there's a Verdant there as well.
And so whether you're needing a large shrub like or one of the big
beautiful kinds of hollies that we have. Whether you're wanting a tree, Verdant's
place to call Verdant Tree farm dot com. Good time to get that done
too. For sure. I was. I'm taking a look at some of
the trees in my yard and I was able to get them through the drought
this summer without a lot of problems, just by doing that deep and frequent
watering just to rescue treatment here and there. And they're doing okay even in
areas where the lawn didn't do is good. And going into the fall season.
You know our trees, this has been a tough summer on them,
and we want to make sure that they don't lack for moisture. Hopefully we're
going to get plenty now as we go forward, and as the temperature drops
down, the demands dropped down, so we're not having to water them all
the time. We want to water them properly, but we don't have to
water them all the time. And one of the one of the important things
to remember is trees need moist soil. Plants need moist soil, but they
don't have to have soggy soil, and in fact, soggy soil can be
deadly. So when you water water wisely, apply that, apply that wisely.
If your lawn's not looking so great this fall, don't forget the most
important fertilizing season of the year is here, and that is the fall season.
And a product like Nelson's carbo Load will set your plants up for success.
Your plants, meaning your yard, your grass plants, your lawn.
Your lawn right now is recovering from what it just went through. It's been
drought stressed, and it's about to have some cold weather come in as well.
It's in a week in state and it needs to be strengthened and carbohydrates
are need to be produced to go into winter. And how do you do
that You put on a fall fertilizer like Nelson's carbo Load. Carbo Load is
a ten ten twenty fertilizer and it provides exactly what the plant needs. It
gets the carbohydrates produced so that it strengthens the plant to fight the diseases and
the issues that our lawn grass plants have to deal with to take it into
fall to come out into spring with strength, so that then when it's time
to spring fertilize. You've got a lawn that has hit the ground running and
it's ready to go and it's able to take up those nutrients for the spring
fertilize. Carbo Load is available in many places. Nelson Plant Food has been
providing these kind of quality products for a very very long time. I believe
over twenty years ago that Dean started Nelson Plant Food. Carbo Load is what
you need to know for this fall, for your lawn and after the summer
we've been through, your lawn would like you to get it some carbo load
to help it get its feedback under it. Again, very important. You're
listening to garden Line our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I went
out on the patio this past week and was just, you know, outside,
dreaming of the days when it's so pleasant to go back out on the
patio again, which, by the way, they are getting here. We
are, we are at that point. And I was out there and all
summer long. One benefit of the drought is we don't even mosquitoes this summer,
hardly at my house I just hadn't gotten the rain to do it.
And I'm always real careful to watch for leaving bowls and basin and things that
breed mosquitoes. I always you know, mosquito dunks and mosquito granules are so
important to you. Well, now it's rained again, so here we go.
We're back in the mosquito season. I was swatting a few this past
week on the patio, and mosquito dunks are so simple. It's a disease
of mosquitoes. You put it out there and that's all it hurts is mosquitoes.
One dunk will cover a hundred square feet. It'll last thirty days.
You can get their granules, or you can break a dunk up if you
want to put a little crumbles here in the bottom of your catch basins where
you're not dumping them out, or in a bird bath. It doesn't hurt
birds, doesn't hurt insects, doesn't hurt fish, doesn't hurt people, doesn't
hurt pets that drink out of the water. Can't get better than mosquito dunks,
and they are so easy to find. All of our sponsors are going
to carry the retail garden centers the hardware stores of each art they're going to
carry the mosquito dunks. Makes it really easy to find them and to do
that, So don't delay, get ahead of the deal. Don't don't be
a squito breeder. You want to get ahead of that because you know,
here's football season. Time to get out there and grill and do some cooking
and things like that. You don't want to be swatting mosquitoes out there on
the patio. And it's so easy to get ahead of them. If you
got neighbors. They got a little I don't know, a pond or something.
They're not taking care of the water on I don't know, Maybe toss
a mosquito dunk over the fence or ask them permission. But don't let your
neighbors be skita breeders either, because it's so easy to manage with a product
like that. Talking about barbecueing, we my ocra patch is producing some really
good ocre and I am ready to get out there and do some more grilling
on the okre. We havell throw some okra on two minutes on each side.
It's so wonderful. If you don't like oak or slime, olive oil,
brush it over the ochre pod, sprinkle salt two minutes on each side,
and you have got tasty ocre without the slime, but also the meats
that go on the grill and the vegetables. You know, I just said
the other day, I bought those baskets for fish grilling from Ace Hardware.
Ace Hardware has all kinds of things like that to make your outdoor patio just
a wonderful haven during the football season. Now, while you're there, of
course, you need to go pick up the fertilizers for your lawns. I'm
talking about him yesterday and today, and I'll keep talking about him because fall
fertilization is important and ACE carries them all. Ace Hardware dot Com find the
store locator. There's thirty nine near you. Easy to find. Hey,
we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give Josh a call and you will be first up when we come back.
Well, good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. If you looked outside,
this is one heck of a day. It is gorgeous outside and pleasant
a temperature. It's pleasant. You don't break a sweat walk into your car
like we were doing. All summertime long. Oh man, hey, you're
listening to the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're
here to talk to you about whatever is of interest to you regarding gardening.
So give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. As a matter of
fact, just a little tip on the side here, this would be a
great time to call. We had a little lull in the calls, so
if you want to you don't want to have to wait or get in now
now that would be a good time to do that. We were discussing things
about our plants and care of our plants, you know, our lawns,
getting our lawns through. I'm putting together something to go on the website that's
also along the lines of our lawns and what do we do now? You
know, the thing I just put up was like, okay, here's the
drought. How do you get the most out of ever drop you have to
keep your lawn alive. The next one is going to be that I'm putting
together now is what do we do for our lawns? This fault? You
know what, let's look at the things that have happened, and what do
we do now to get them ready? And of course I've been talking about
the importance of putting the right kind of fertilizer down in the fall. Maybe
you had chinch bugs that you're dealing with, and where do we go from
here? Maybe you have to take all root rot that you're dealing with.
Maybe you're worried about large patch coming up in the lawn and creating those brown
patch, creating those big circles. I wish they wouldn't change the name of
diseases and things and plants. That drives me crazy because everybody knows what brown
patches, but actually it's called large patch now, So which name do I
use? I guess I should just say brown patch because that's what everybody knows.
But anyway, how do you do all that? How do we get
our lawns ready? What about the weeds that are coming up? Maybe your
lawn is thin? How do we manage that? That's what the next one's
going to be about. It's kind of like tips for going into fall and
what do we do? And I want to tell you we are on the
doorstep of some very important things. We need to be doing to have a
dense, healthy, beautiful lawn going into next year, and we have to
be doing it now. October is like a traffic jam of things that need
to happen in the lawn for good success. It's when the cool season weed
sprout. October is when large patch or brown patch starts to appear. It's
when take all root rot also will reinfect. It likes cooler, milder temperatures,
even though you see die back often in the summer because the plan is
losing roots and it's getting hotter and needing more water and it can't get it
falls the time when it can attack a lot. What about the weeds?
What are the weeds we're dealing with now? How do we manage those?
What is our long term and short term strategies? Do you see what I'm
talking about? It's October's a big important, a very important time out there
in the lawns. And so I'm going to write something. I'll get it
up on the website. I'll probably hopefully be able to talk about next weekend
when we're back here again. But always check the website. Something else about
that, you know, my lawn care schedules up there the website, by
the way, is gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com.
Always check back because I'm constantly updating things. There's a couple more tweaks
that I'm going to be putting on for our lawn care guide, a couple
of a little small things that I want to do to it, improve on
it a little bit, and so just always be willing to look back up
there, check on it and things. Don't just assume it's a one and
done, because it's it's a work in progress. Let's say, we're always
learning new things, we're always getting new experiences, We're always thinking of other
ways that we can improve it. And that's important if you are interested in
a quality, a quality organic compost mix. Nature's creation organic compost is just
that nature's creation is a compost. Of course, it's got the micro rhizal
fungi added in there. That is what's a micro rhiza. It lives with
the root. There are micro hizer that go around the root and protect it.
There are microizer they go in the rout and then they reach out in
the soil and bring nutrients back to the root. Is that cool? Eleven
different strains of microhiza in Nature's Creation made from recycled trees and shrubs one organic.
It has those microiyes in it. It does not use Canadian Sphagnum peat
moss. It does not compact. It's just a quality product Nature's Creation organic
compost. Where do you get it? Well, they have it. It
grows Outlet and Willet's. They have it at Moss Nursery. They have an
RCW on two forty nine Wabash feet down in north central Houston and Houston Garden
Centers all carry the Nature's Creation organic composts. Not hard to find at all.
I'm doing some planting and this coming week I've got some things I need
to get out there. You know, they say the Cobbers kids go barefoot,
and I haven't had time to get out in the garden and do some
of the stuff I need to do in my own garden. But I'm gonna
be getting some of that done. The cool season vegetables, it's time to
get those in and that I love broccoli, I love kale, you know,
cabbage, cauliflower, those are all the blue leaf vegetables that we know
have so many compounds in them that are good for your health. And boy,
I love growing them in the cool season because when when we get a
little frosty weather, those things are just sweeter and better. That's that's their
best that they're ever gonna be. Getting some of that stuff done. I'm
still finishing up with some of my ocra trial plantings. This summer. I
did a lot of ocra breeding and trying out the new trials, new seed
lines that I've produced and getting the final touch done on those because that time
is coming upon us too, so I can't wait to get back out there
in the yard. We've got a herb planner we're working. I got a
one of the Vego garden planners, you know Vego garden beds there. They
are really quality quality garden beds. I brag on them all the time because
they work, they're they're excellent. I've got one of those rollers above ground
that above ground beds. It's self watering and things, so that's kind of
cool fun to work with. Also, Uh, you know, now that
it's cooled off a little bit and it's worth being outside, you ought to
consider running out to the Antique Rosen Poor him. I don't know if you've
been there. It's out just north of Brenham and Independence, Texas. Their
website is Antique Rose Emporium dot com and as the name implies, they've got
antique roses, all of those great old time roses that have been saved over
the years and just have so many great qualities about them. That's Antique Rosemporium.
You can go to Antique Roseemporium dot com and you can find out more.
You can give m a call. Nine seven nine eight three six fifty
five forty eight nine seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight. They've
got their Fall Festival of Roses coming up. Go to the website find out
more about that. Lots of speakers on both a Saturday and a Sunday.
They're gonna have food trucks and snacks and it's all free. Oh my gosh,
that is a great deal. Antique Rose Emporium is well worth a visit.
And I tell you fall is a great time because roses have their rebound
and it's just beautiful, beautiful out there at the Rose Emporium. I'm going
to head out to clear Lake now and talk to Lane. Hey, Lane,
I got about a minute and a half or so. Let's see if
we can get it done. Yeah, this is a quick question, thank
you, because we're still on water restriction from uh fly them. How long
shall we water the grass to proving brown plat patch if we have a sprinkle
system. Okay, you want to water enough to put at least a half
inch in the ground, and you can use straight sided containers like a cap
food can, a tuna fish can. Is your little rain gage as you
put out there, that'll tell you how long your system lane is needs to
run. Now, as far as the brown patch, the thing that makes
it worse is when you water too often. So even right now with the
temperatures, once a week, a good, good soaking is all you're going
to need to do. Don't wet it frequently or you'll make the brown patch
worse. Okay, great, thank you you bad, Thank you for the
call. Good luck with your line out there in the clear Lake area.
Appreciate your call. You are listening to Garden Line and we are here to
answer your gardening questions. We don't have enough time for an another call right
now, but Kathleen out there in Missouri City, you will be the first
up when we come back. I want to remind you that on next Saturday,
I will be at the arbor Gate in Tomball, Texas from eleven thirty
to one thirty. Be there for two hours at a table answering your gardening
questions. Bring me some samples of problems you're having, plants you want identified.
It's great if you can take pictures and check them, make sure they're
in good sharp focus. I can't diagnose or identify fuzzy, but I will
be out there. We're going to be giving away the one two three completely
Easy system several times during that appearance, and Beverly storing in a few extra
surprises. Is giveaways out there. It's always fun to visit the arbor Gate,
and so I hope that you'll put next Saturday, the twenty third on
your calendar and come out and see me. I look forward to seeing you,
and by the way, I look forward to going out there. It's
been several weeks it's have been out to the arbor. I need to get
back out there and check out what's new, because there's always something new.
I mean that that is the fun thing about going to visit. We appreciate
you being a garden Line listener. We are looking forward to coming back here.
For our next hour and visiting with Kathleen and whoever else would like to
give Josh a call at seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
We'll be right back. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to k t r
H Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's a small crazy just watching as so
many crazy. Well, good morning, good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning.
Sun is shining out there, and it is going to be a gorgeous
day. And I don't know if you feel like I do, but like
I said the other day, when we drop five degrees below one hundred,
I'm calling it as fall. I already feel like it's fall here. And
that's okay because fall is coming. We're on the doorstep of fall, and
it's good to get excited to renew our hope in gardening. That's one of
the things about gardening is every year's a new year, every season's a new
season. We go through things. I mean, it's the vicissitudes of nature.
As I referred to earlier. It's okay, we'll make it through it,
and we know how to get through it and right now is it time
to get back in full swing, get excited about things again. There's things
to plant, there's things to do, there's preparing your soil, doing a
lot of good stuff, very very important. And when you're talking about preparing
your soil, Heirloom Soils has been making a quality product and making sure that
wherever you are in Houston you can get a hold of it. And I'm
talking about their veggiean herb mix for example, new batch of that going out
to retailers and the probably already out there, but it definitely, if not
in these next few days, they're gonna have a whole new batch out so
you can go load up because that veggiean herb mix can be used in a
lot of different things, not just veggies and herbs, but it's especially good
for that. They've got in bulk, their rose soil, their leafmol composts.
They're veggiean herb mix. Also, you can go pick it up out
at porter. You can have them deliver it and dump it in your driveway.
You can go have them bring a supersac one cubic yard super psych set
it in your driveway. They're open Monday through Saturday, from seven am to
five pm out at the Porter location. Just go check out Heirloom Soils see
the wide variety. Go to Heirloom Soils of Texas dot com. We're gonna
go out now to a Missouri city and talk to Bob. Hello, Bob
good Loring. Sure, how are you? I'm doing well? Well?
How are you doing well? I'm doing okay. But my magnolia tree looks
like the leaves turn around and it's a dead or what. I'm worried about
that being dead. Magnolias generally don't turn brown and then green back up again.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying that you've got a
tree that was using water and ran out of water on the roots to the
point where it had to drop every leaf on the tree and or turn it
brown, and so the chances of it coming back are slim. I wouldn't
give up on it just yet. Let's give it a little time to make
sure I'm not wrong about that. Go ahead and water it. Oh yeah,
yeah, good, deep, soaking good deep, soirker. I'd apply
stick a sprinkle under there and something to catch sketch the sprinkle that has straight
sides, could be a rain gage, could be a tuna fish can.
But but water until you've caught an inch. You're probably got have to water
a while, let it soak for about forty minutes, water a while,
let it soak for about forty minutes, or really better yet, just get
you hear me talk about tree huggers all the time, and it's for exactly
this reason. You put a tree hugger around that sprinkler, hook it to
your hose, and you can turn it up a little, or you can
turn it up a lot. If this is a little magnolia, you can
water a four foot circle. If it's a big one, you can water
a probably a twenty five or more, actually more thirty foot circle with a
good tree hugger sprinkler. And that way you water all underneath the branch spread
of that tree, or even just a little beyond that, and that is
where you need to concentrate that water. Okay, thank you very much,
ki zore your show. Yes, sir, and thank you for the call.
Good luck with that tree. I hope, I hope I'm wrong about
it. Yeah, the tree hugger sprinkler. You can go to treehucker Sprinkler
dot com. You can find a retailer, do you. But I can
tell you this, every time I go into our our sponsors, our hardware
stores, or feed stores, our gardens, and I see treehars all the
time, all over the place. So they're not hard to hard to find,
not hard at all. You just need to make sure your trees are
getting a good, good deep soaking. Well, let's go out now to
Missouri City and we're gonna talk to Kathleen. Hello, Kathleen, good morning.
How are you. I'm well, how are you doing today? I'm
doing great. Temperatures are down, so it's a lot nice are to walk
in the morning, isn't that nice? Yes? I have a question about
organic and synthetic products. Is it okay to mix the two? Is it
harmful or should you just go straight organic or straight synthetic. Well, that's
up to you, you know, if you want to go one or the
other. It depends on what products you're mixing. So, if it was
a fertilizer, you used the synthetic, Now use an organic or something.
That's fine. I wouldn't put them in the same hopper of the fertilizers,
for example, because the particle size is different, and your fertilizer spreader setting
is going to be different. Now, on the other hand, if you're
talking about using a fungicide and then using a bioinoculant, I wouldn't put that
together because the fungicide. Talking more about using maybe an organic fertilizer and then
synthetics for weed killers, and there's not a problem with doing both of those.
It will not affect the effectiveness of weed killing nor the effectiveness of the
fertilizer going out. Okay, And then I have another question. I'm having
someone put some composts in my beds about half inch or so it should I
mix it with the soil and then put malt on top. And how thick
should the malt be? What's growing in these beds? It's mostly just shrubs?
Okay, Yeah, so sunshine like gust rum. Yeah, shrubs.
That's that's all I need to know. So I would just throw it in
there, and then even if you want to throw a little malt over the
top of it, yes, that's a good idea. I mean, if
you want to scratch it in a little the surface, that's fine, but
it's not necessary. Think about nature. Nature drops leaves on the ground in
the forest, and those leaves start to rot where they touch the soil,
and then their more leaves fall on top, and more leaves all on top.
So you have this transition of the dry leaves up on top, which
would be in your case adding a mulch or wood chips or whatever you got
shredded hardwood would be a good one. Uh. And then you've got the
composting material, and then you got your soil, and that that's a very
natural forest. I generally keep mine, depending on the mult material, I
keep mine about three inches to four inches thick if it's something loose and open,
maybe a little thicker if it's something that's condensed particle size. Yeah,
some people use compost as mult which is fine, but that's really dense,
and it does you don't need three inches a compost to be a malt,
right, it's denser, So just the courser your mulch. Maybe the thicker,
but in the three inch to four inch range is pretty good. And
don't ever take the old mulch away, just to add fresh mulch on top
as needed, because you're recreating the forest floor and that's what trees and shrubs
were made to grow in all right, all right, well, thank you,
Kathleen. I appreciate that very much. You know, it's interesting.
I had a call one time from someone that said, hey, can I
mulch with oak leaves? And I thought about it. I thought, well,
I'm pretty sure God mulches with oak leave down the forest. I mean,
how long is how long has our natural system been going? And tree
leaves are falling on the ground and rotting and feeding the plants the same thing
in a meadow. Grassroots they live and they die and they build the soil
and grass leaves fall down. It's really easy to do. Hey, we're
gonna come back. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more in a
minute, but right now seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
we'll be right back there you go. Have you heard from Elvis in
a while? Boy? That guy turned around music? That is for sure.
Hey, you're listening to garden Line. We are here to answer gardening
questions. So here is the number if you'd like to call. Seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one to fifty
eight seventy four. You know that with this new hope that we have springing
eternal from the gardener's chests. We are absolutely just ready to go for fall
and it is time. It is time to get going. RCW Nurseries is
that I like to call them. They get it got at nursery they probably
have it, but if they don't have it, they'll get it for you.
They specialize in that fall is the time for woody ornamentals for sure,
and they have their own tree farm. I mean they grow everything from fifteen
gallons up to two hundred gallons, all kinds of trees. They pick species
that will succeed here and that's what they sell you. They grow them right
and they provide them for you there. I mean, I'm come out and
plant them for it, but you can also just take them planting yourself.
If they're small. I wouldn't attempt that for very large and only if you
know what you're doing, because planting a tree properly is critical for success.
And I don't have time to go into how to plant a tree right now,
but just know that when you are them to do it, it's going
to get done right too. They've got a rose selection like you've never seen,
pages and pages of all kinds of hybrid teas and other roses that just
outstanding, outstanding selection. They're going to carry all the fertilizers I'll talk about
as well. Where are they there on Tomball Parkway Highway two forty nine where
it hits Beltway eight. You can go to RCW Nurseries dot com. RCW
nurseries dot com and find out more. But it's time to get out there.
They're getting their supplies in for fall. The just outstanding outstanding selection,
you know. The I was talking about tree leaves and things like that,
and I want to come back to that in just a moment. But before
I do that, I want to go out here and we're going to talk
to Maryland and Hockley. Hello Maryland. Oh hi, it's Marianne and I
have a question. Oh no, no, it's fine. I have a
question about malagranite. I wanted to find out. I had a friend who
told me it's really good for nourishment for your shrubs and your lawn, and
I wanted to find out is it safe to use after the drought right now,
and will it indeed feed it instead of maybe using a synthetic fertilizer or
some other type of fertilizer. One of your thoughts on that mill organize is
one of the products out there that's made out of sewage sludge. This one
is made comes from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's where the mill and the name
comes from. I don't recommend them. I don't recommend a sewage sledge based
product. I just I just would rather not go there. If you want
an organic product, we are a lot of great organic fertilizers are good options.
If you want a synthetic, they're synthetics. But I'm not a fan.
Now. I know people are that used one golf courses a lot in
things, but I don't know, just my own personal preferences, I'd rather
stay away from the sewage sewage sludge products. By the way, I think
they misnamed it. They should have called it Yankee doodle, because that's really
what it is. Okay about that, I know, I appreciate it.
Thank you, you bet, you bet? All right, okay, all
right, you take care, take care for sure. It is all about
the soil. You know, we talk about fertilizing and things, and the
soil is critical. And if you're down south of Houston, you have got
an outstanding soil yard out there, CNA Mulch. It's just north of Rochcheron.
It's on five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight. The
folks at Sienna Mulch they carry it. All they have. If I'm talking
about fertilizers, it's all there. They have outstanding selection. If you want
bagged material like compost or malts, they've got it. If you want bulk
material like compost or mult you've got it. They've got rock. They have
all kinds of quality things, first rate. So anyone in Siena Plantation,
Quell Valley, Rocheron like Olympia, sun Creek Estates and out toward you know,
Brazispin State Park. They're your place. They're your place to go.
They deliver within twenty miles for small charge. SNA Mulch dot com CNA mulch
dot com. You go check them out. I'm gonna be out there with
this fall by the way coming up. Well, let's head out now to
Fairfield and we're gonna talk to Marty. Hello, Marty, Hi, Skip
Yankee Doodle is not Vanity, No, that's a I just thought that was
a funny thing. I told a guy from a largery that one time they
ought to get out of those orange and brown or green bags and make it
in red, white and blue bags and call it Yankee dood. He did
not think that was funny, but I did. Oh goodness, Well,
gotta have a sense of humor sometimes, yes, we do. Hey,
I had some BOOKUNBILLI as they're blooming, and they're okay, but a couple
of them have faded, the bracts have faded, and I was just wondering,
is there anything I can do to perk it up. I've given it
Fox Farm fertilizer. I've given it, oh gosh, throughout the drought.
I guess because it was water too much or too much sun. But I
just wondered if you knew of anything or had had that no perience, you
know, periodic fertilizing, adequate watering. You know they're not real picky on
water, but keeping them adequately watered if you want vigor and new growth,
which is what you need to have new blooms, is good. You know,
we're getting towards the end of our season here, and so I don't
know that I would push a bogun v with any more fertilizer as you push
late season growth, things that are marginally hardy become even less hardy. So
I don't know if you're able to bring it in or not. But uh,
anything that's kind of marginal, I say, always, you know,
sometime in August, for sure, you need to stop fertilizing them. Well,
okay, that's that's fine. What about I mean, it's full of
brack, so I'm watering fine, Okay, the brack, the brack are
faded, they're it was the one that I had was kind of just a
regular pink one. I have some variegated ones that have got it. They're
more rosy, pink red, okay, but this one was a pink one.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Did you happen to move?
It is a sun exposure different than it was, but I don't know that.
Yeah, I would just let's let's keep going and see. Who knows.
Maybe it got a little on the dry side or I don't know,
just that fading a little bit. I don't know that there's something you can
do other than good care, which sounds like what you've been providing. It.
Okay, not a problem. The novelist, Wait, thank you so
much. Have a good one. All right, Marty, thank you very
much. You know, this hot weather and drought has got people thinking,
you know what, maybe I need to consider native plants because native plants live
here, they're from here, they know how to grow here. And Buchanan's
Native Plants in the Heights is a great place to do just that. Buchanans
outstanding selection any plants, by the way. They're on Eleventh Street, they're
in the Heights. They carry all kinds of things, not just natives.
I mean Buchanans as pretty much ever kind of plant you can imagine, even
a wonderful house plants selection too, by the way, so you know that's
what we do in the wintertime. We go inside and take it to our
house plants a lot, go buy and check them out. By the way,
if you're interested in natives. On September thirtieth, from nine to twelve
in the morning, nine to twelve, they're going to have the Native Plants
Society out there for a meet and greet. Those people chat with you,
visit with you, talk to you about native plants, and learn a lot
more. While you're out there. You can pick up other things too.
Some color plants. They got a lot of cool season color out of Buchanans.
Good time to visit, and you know we got that gardening fever back.
Now, time to head out and check out Buchana's native plants. You'll
see what I'm talking about. If you haven't never been there before, you
gotta go. You gotta check it out. I love, always love when
I visit there. We're gonna head out now to Dave and Cypress. Hello,
Dave, Skip, how you doing. I'm good, Thank you.
This is a This is a good segue native plants to my question about high
dranges. Okay, yeah, they're they're natives somewhere. Well, they're natives
somewhere, and it looks like I think they call them lime light as the
most best opportunity to try to grow down here. But I want to see
if I can't be successful with the ones that give you the pink and the
blue and the deep maroons. Okay, I just don't know if the heat
down here is too oppressive for hydrange is to make it to the summer,
and if it is possible to grow them, should I leave them in containers
so I can move them around or can I put them in the ground.
That's the question. Alrighty, hydrangees will grow in the ground here. Give
them a forest floor soil, which means lots of organic matter and good mulch.
Give them bright light, but not direct sun, especially after the first
part of the day. Don't give them afternoon blazing sun. Keep them moist,
keep the soil a little bit. On the acidic side. The color
between pink and blue is with the acidity of a soil, and you can
go on line and learn more about that. But as you move things towards
alkaline, or as you move them toward a sidic, the color is going
to change from the blue and the pink or yeah, blue to pink and
back and forth like that. So depending on the color you want, you
can move the pH a little bit and that's how you achieve that. But
you've got to keep them moist. They are not a drought resilient plant at
all. Okay. I would put them in the ground, Dave, because
I tell you, in a container. I don't know if you're like me,
but I forget the water for a day or two and hydrans will get
in a big amount of trouble on hot, hot weather in that kind of
situation. Okay, Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Thank you, sir. Appreciate the call very much. About the tours that
they have out there at the Texas b Supply out in the really the b
Supply. Think of it this way. If you're a beekeeper, it's a
place to go because you get all the supplies in the training you need.
If you are just a person who is interested in bees, they're the place
to go because you get a really cool tour. You head out to Dayton.
I know it's a little distance out there, but it is well worth
the trip. They just got their new indoor beehive set up and it is
unbelievable. Trust me, just I'm not going to try to describe it,
but just know this. It's a big plexiglass area that you can watch bees
working in fascinating. The tours are offered out there about once a month.
They're free. You'll get to taste kinds of honey. It's good for a
group, it's good for individuals to go out the Bee Supply dot com.
It's really simple, not not hard to remember. And you may think,
well, I'm not into honeybees. I promise you if you go, you
will come back going. I had no earthly idea how cool honey bees are,
what they do, the interactions of the colony. It is just a
fascinating thing. If you got kiddos, if you've got a garden club group,
if you're a homeschooler and want to add it to your science that you're
teaching your kids, it is really really well aren't that Have you ever been
around bees? I'm not, Oh, well, it's it is fascinating.
I know some people are like definitely afraid of honey When you go on the
tour, you're not gonna get honey bees all over your name. It is
really really cool. The thing that one of the simple things I was fascinated
about honeybees is they do everything in the dark in the hive. And when
you look at honeycomb, every cell is the same size, it's all six
sided, and it's all in a straight row there. I couldn't do that
in the daylight. That's less the dark, but honeybees can't. What's happening
in the news, Well, you're listening to garden Line and we are here
to answer gardening questions, which which is what we are about to do.
I love to getting to visit with gardeners and talk about all kinds of things
gardening, and it just says I think it's the best hobby in the world.
I hope you agree with that. You could be into just succulents,
or just houseplants, or just orchids, or just vegetables, or just having
a beautiful lawn and landscape. There's a lot of room and the whole world
of horticulture to have a whole lot of fun and to enjoy the things that
I think make our health better in number of ways, mental health, physical
health, and so on. It's just a great, great hobby to be
into. We are going to head out now to Spring and doctor Rich.
Hello Rich, good morning, skip morning. Question regarding plant growth regulators and
the use on Saint Augustine, because I've done a lot, i'll say a
lot of research and it seems like there's a lot more benefits than cons and
I don't know anybody that's ever used it, so looking for your input.
Yeah. PGRs are something that's very popular in commercial horticulture, people growing plants,
for example, and for various reasons. I have seen them used in
lawns. At number one, they're hard to come by for the home garden
retail market. I mean, you can find them, but that's not a
normal thing. The things with plant growth regulators is when they're not used properly,
you can cause a lot of damage to a plant overdosing, using them
during stress conditions and other things. So in general I don't recommend them for
people with home lawns. That's not to say that if someone was using them
a quarter according to professional specifications that they couldn't have a place, But as
far as the economics of it and the benefits of it, I just don't
quite see it. Got it. Appreciate your input. SKIP, Thank you
all right, Rich, good, thank you. I appreciate that call.
Yeah, that's an interesting call. I have not had a person call about
PGRs on lawns before. That's interesting. Well for those of you who are
wondering what that is. For example, when you go buy a plant from
a garden center and it's all compact and it's full of flowers and things,
that plant might normally be real lanky. It's still the same quality plant,
but it might at the at the shelf in the garden center not look so
attractive. So certain plants they will use plant growth regulators on to just keep
them from getting all stretchy, for example, or to cause a better bloom
a cycle or something along those lines. And that's how they're used in the
industry. Some of our some great plants don't make it because they're ugly in
a pot in a garden center. And that's just the bottom line. And
when you walk in, you know, the typical let's say home garden purchaser
walks in and they want a little plant that's in a little tiny pot and
it's got a flower as big as a biscus on top. You know right
away, and that is that is not the best way to purchase a plant.
But if that same plant just had leaves and it had a picture of
the flower, you'd be a little less likely to buy it. You should
buy it if it's a good plant in a good pretty plant does well here.
But people just don't chop that way. And it's unfortunate because we do
have some good plants. They just don't look good at that level, and
people can't believe that. Okay, that's going to be anybody that does their
research on plants and knows about plants, or you go to a good garden
center where they steer you right. They'll tell you, yes, here's what
this will do, and here's what you know all that. They'll tell you
that, and you can believe them and take it to the bank and it'll
work. But for a lot of folks, you know, you got to
have the big, shiny, flashy no bugs, no holes, no nothing
on it. And that comes at a cost, you know. It's it's
important when you're growing anything in your yard to do it in a way that
produces health and your plants. And the number one way we create healthy plants
is by starting with quality soil. I was out at the Home and Garden
show up there in Conro yesterday and visiting with Ian from Nature's Way, John
Ferguson and End from Nature's Way about their products and stuff. By the way,
I'm going to be out at Nature's Way on September thirtieth. They're going
to have their Fall Garden Festival, quite Ation indeg going on up there.
I'll be there answering gardening questions. Are going to have food and music and
vendors and adult beverages and a kids scavenger hunt, lots and lots of stuff.
So anyway, that's September thirty. I'll talk about it more. But
they make quality soil and they have a good supply of a quality fungal compost
and that is top not soil, and I would go out there and buy
a bulk. I'll go out and have them deliver it. You can get
it in bags. But fungal compost is a super quality product. They make
a lot of stuff at Nature's way. It's all done, it's all done
properly, so the product is quality coming out. They don't rush it out
the door. But check out their fungal compost especially, that is really an
important product that does wonders for your plans. We're gonna head out two months
Mery now and talk to Brett. Good morning, Hey, good morning.
What's up? Quick question? We skipped the fertilizer in June because of the
rain and that yes, eat But anyway, we're getting ready to think we
need to start fertilizing. So should we put that high nitrogen on or should
we go with the high phosphorus? No, no, no, high phosphorus.
No, you don't need high phosphorus. You need don't put the high
nitrogen on. Now, get a fertilizer's got nitrogen. It can have phosphorus
in it, but especially the potassium. That's the one that matters. Now,
if you push a plant, grass plant with nitrogen, now, brown
patch is going to be even worse than the fall if it hits your lawn.
And so you don't want to create the succuments that brown patch loves.
Okay, that's that's perfect. That's what I needed. All right. We
are up there in Montgomery, Texas. So you you're lucky to have a
right on your back doorstep there. That's a good right. That's right,
all right. Will you take care. We appreciate it, yes, sir,
bye bye, Yeah, don't push them now. The fertilizers we talk
about from spring through summer are different than fall and fall. We change the
blend a little bit, and I keep talking about it. I'll keep talking
about it. It is an important fertilization and our goal is not to make
the grass grow fast, and our goal is to stock that plant with the
carbohydrates needed to go into winter, to recover from what they've been through,
and to come out strong in the spring. Because in the spring, what
it's using to take off is what it had from the fall, and if
you don't stock it up in the fall, you're not going to have it
in the plant in the spring. It's already weak. Let's not leave it
weak, or let's make it stronger. That's the bottom line when it comes
to our fertilizations. And you know, it's really it's really kind of simple
when you think about it. There, it's just a matter of good nutrition,
just like with us. Hey, let's take a break. It's seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to give
us a call, we'll be right back. I think just got a sock
hop going on today or something here. I love that kind of music.
Though. Hey, you're listening to guard Line and we are talking all kinds
of things gardening. That is very important. I was just visiting just a
moment ago with Brett up in Montgomery about the proper kinds of fertilizer for fall,
and that is really important to get those numbers right and to put on
the kinds of things that help us go into fall. And micro Life has
put together I think it's a dynamic duo. Really. It's the brown Patch
five one three fertilizer which has got that dropped the nitrogen into a little bit
and make sure that potassium is still in a good level up there. And
then their micro life or excuse me, micro grow the bio innoculant that's kind
of the violet colored bags. You just put a little bit of it out
about ten pounds per thousand square feet, and what that does is it inoculates
your soil and your grass surface with microbes that help fight disease, but that
also help just to out compete diseases. The surface of anything, including our
hands, it's full of microbes, right, and as you get good microbes
in there that are populating the surface, it's more difficult for a bad microbe
to get started. So there's a number of ways microbes can work and help
us. But that combination the brown patch five one three and the bi inoculant,
that combination for this fall is going to be especially important for our lawns
coming out of one heck of a rough summer and going into a season where
large patch is going to be an issue. Even take all root rot,
it is going to be an issue infecting in that season, and that combo
with microlife will do it. If you want to learn more, about those.
Just go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. They have a lot more information
there online. We're gonna go now to pair Land and talk to Beda.
Hello, Bida, Hi, Skip, love your show. Thank you.
I think have a question. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the pream
products. I mean, what do you think of them? Because I'll get
my flower beds and weed everything, and then you buy the granular and sprinkle
that on, and then you go and buy the prem mulch. Right,
do you think that's a waste or is there maybe something better you could use?
Yeah, it's not what I would do. A prene has a pre
emergent herbicide in it. There's a lot of versions of pren, like with
a lot of products that different things. But the regular PREN weed preventer is
going to be a pre emergent herbicide that you're sprinkling out there. Used at
the right rate and the right way and stuff, it will prevent some of
the weeds that you're dealing with. But I would say, let's talk about
what is going on in the flower bed and whether you need even need that
or not, because mulches will also prevent weed seeds. Prints not going to
kill a weed that's already in your in your flower beds, not gonna kill
bermuda grass you in your flower bed. But if it's something coming from seed,
that's what it's designed for. But you've got to use it right.
And the problem of flower bed is when we put a pre emergent down,
it gets into the soil surface and it locks up there and prevents the seeds
from coming through. The weed seeds and other seeds you want to plant,
like flower seeds. It'll prevent those two. But when in flower beds,
we're constantly mixing the soil, we're pulling out plants and planting, we're mixing
in composts, and you're breaking that barrier and you're not going to get anything
from that product. If if that's what's happening in the soil in the bed,
yeah, I'm just tired of slaving and pulling those weeds. Yeah,
I understand that. Well, Again, if your weeds are like bermuda grass
and things, that's one approach we talk. If it's if it's weed seeds,
which is what the prene would have done for you, then just keep
a kip a two three inch laru mulch on in your flower beds and block
the sunlight from the soil. Then what kind of mults do you recommend.
They've heard you say it before, I forgot where. Well, you're saying
a flower bed. You're talking about annual flowers, right, not shrubs and
perennials, big tallerble. Actually it does have a few shrubs and there as
well, like maybe boxwoods, there are a lot of quality products. I
like a shredded hardwood mulch. I think that's a very good one to use.
That's a wood chippy kind of kind of mulch. But it's not like
wood chips. I shouldn't even use that term. It is a hardwood bark
that's been ground up and shredded and decomposed, and it partially and it works
very well. Compost makes a decent mulch over the top of the soil,
put about an inch deep. Shredded tree leaves make a decent I mean a
lot of organic materials do it. And our quality soil providers will sell you
a variety of mulches that have been designed for the best use in those beds.
Okay, okay, I was going to do that today, So I
thought, let me call to make sure I'm not wasting money or time on
well good. I hope we saved you a little bit there, but that
those are the facts. Those are the facts on it. Okay, thank
you very much, appreciate that call. Uh. You know, if you've
if you've not been back out to Enchanted Gardens recently, you really ought to
check them out. They've got a lot of new stuff that's come in out
there, but they always do. I mean, I mean that I could
say that every time I talk about in Chanted Guards. They're always bringing new
things in. You know, your decorations for fall, new shipments of plants
coming in all the time, a lot of good information. They carry all
the everything I've been talking about today. Product wise, you're gonna find it
out there and Enchanted Gardens Richmond And that's our website. By the way,
Enchanted Gardens Richmond. If you're in Richmond, you go north toward Katie.
They're on three fifty nine up toward Katie direction from Richmond. Really easy to
find Monday through Saturday eight am to five pm. On today, they're open
one pm to four PMS. Such a great thing to do. Get out
this afternoon and go buy and visit and pick up those products that we've been
talking about so you can head things off. They've got some really good got
a little posts they put up on their on their social media post Drought a
lawn Recovery A Plan. It's a really good one. It's good information on
They're very very helpful, and I encourage you to go check that out.
We're going to head back now, let's see, we're gonna go to Spring,
Texas and talk to Jerry. Hello, Jerry high Skip. I sure
love for your show. Anyway, I'll get right to it. I know
time short. I have some dwarf Beauford Holly said they're twenty five years old
that I've not had any problems with them. But I see now I have
one big brown area in just one of them, brown leaves and bears stamps
in about towards the top, and I just want to keep it from spreading,
and wonder what to do. I've been deep watering per year suggestion twice
a week, okay, good, good, Yeah, that if it's just
a branch or two up in there, then it's probably not like the overall
drought that tends to kind of hit the whole bush pretty much, or it
could be half the bush or something. I would follow that dead area back
and and wherever it connects to another branch that leads out to living leaves,
I would prune the dead one out and it'll go back in in time.
I think that's going to be enough if you're doing your due diligence and keeping
the soul moist, not soggy, but but adequately moist. I think,
Okay, it's probably not an organism or anything. I don't think so.
I mean, there's a possibility that it could be a physical injury in there.
It could be a little canker on the branch from a wound. Hollies
are not prone to big borer problems, but boors can do that kind of
thing. Yeah. Oh, I love these. They're they're carefree and they
look good. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, another quick question. I switched
from Randy's chemic goal to its organic schedule a few years ago and it just
didn't seem quite as nice. I didn't like. So this year, for
the first time ever, I put humates down the spring and I just think
they're great. Yeah, they're great, But go ahead. Well, my
question is where does that fit into the schedule. Well, the humates are
not a nutrient. Well, I mean they have nutrients in them, but
you're not putting them out as a fertilizer. You're putting them out because humates
help open up the soil. They have a lot of compounds in them.
It's it's organic matter that's reached its final stage of decomposition, and they're very
good for soil structure and for improving even the microbial content in the soil.
But the humates is good right now. If you're wanting to go with a
microlife product like that, I would do that double wemmy that I mentioned before,
and that is the brown Patch, which is their fall special. They're
winterizer, it's brown Patch five one three. But I would use them bio
andnoculent. That's Microlife bioinnoculent. It's used at a low rate. It's in
kind of a violet colored bag. And what that does is it puts a
lot of microbes out there on the grass plant and on the soul surface.
And when diseases try to come in, if you've got a nice population of
good, healthy microbes, it's difficult for the disease to get. Microlife purplish
bag, bilet bag. It's bio andnoculent. To look for bio andnoculent.
That's the one there, and then the other one. It's the it's just
called brown patch, but it's it's the fall fertilizer. Okay, it's the
Okay, So what you would use in the fall? Okay, I've been
using green bag. I guess that's not for a fall. No, it
isn't. And hey, I'm about to hit a commercial. Thank you get
a heartbreak? Yes, sir, thank you, Jerry, I app you
bet very very much. Well, you've been listening to Guardline. If you
want to get on the board for our upcoming last segment of the weekend,
last hour of the weekend, that would be seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, get your pen and paper out. Mark your calendar.
Next Saturday, September twenty third, arbor Gate Nursery and Tomball. I'll
be there from eleven thirty till one thirty answering your gardening questions, doing plan
IDs, doing diagnosis, whatever kind of questions you have. Bring me samples
in a bag. Please bring them in a bag and bring some photos if
you want to look at those we're gonna be given away arbour gates one two
three, completely easy system, A food, a soil, a compost,
give me a voy several times and Beverly's got some surprises she's going to give
away as well. You don't want to miss this one. KTRH Garden Line
does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Guarden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy just watching well,
good Sunday morning on a gorgeous Sunday to be out and about. Oh my
gosh, this afternoon is going to be great. Hey, while ago,
I accidentally said the wrong time for in Channa Gardens. Channa Gardens is open
Monday through Saturday from eight am to five pm, but the correction is Sunday
from ten am to four PMS. You get you get more time to go
out there and shop today, and it'd be a good day for doing that
ten am to four pm on Sundays out it in China guards are on the
k Pulsher side of Richmond. I don't know where I came up with those
times, but at least we'll get that, get that right, you know,
If you have a little piece of property and you are looking for a
use of equipment to help you get the work done, you're not going to
do better than a Caboda tractor from Lansdown Moody. You know, there's a
number of Lansdown Moodies around the area. I was just driving out forty five
passing one the other day on my way up to the Home and Garden show
in Conro. There's it's not hard to finding Lansdowne Moody. And when you're
at Lansdowne Moody it is a great spot for Cabodas. They've got the Caboda
L twenty five zero one that is a really sweet ride and they've got a
deal on it that you just can't beat, and that is zero down,
zero interests for eighty four months, seven years. If I want to save
you doing the math, that's a long time. Now. You can go
to LM tractor dot com. LM tractor dot com. You can find out
more about it there, find out where to get one. If you've got
any kind of work you need do out on the piece of property. It
is just a heck of a sweet ride and I would highly recommend you go
by it. Just go by and sit on one and you'll see what I'm
talking about. Lansdown Moody LM tractor dot Com. We're gonna head up now
to Grimes County and we're going to talk to carry. Hello, Carrie,
how are you today? Great? Thank you. I have two miniature boxwood
plants trees whatever they are, and my wife picked them out and we put
them in a watering trough about three feet by two feet with mulch and all
the good nutrients she could find. And one of them, it is really
in dire straps, losing leaves and some limbs or browns. Some of thembs
are green, but it probably has ten percent of the leaves the spring.
And the other box with the other plant is doing okay. It's got some
brown leaves, but it doesn't look nearly stressed out. And I was wondering,
I've got a little moisture meter in the ground, and it's like,
I'm it shows moisture, but it didn't show a lot. So yeah,
I don't think I'm overwatering it, okay, but you don't think you're underwatering
it that I don't know meter is showing it. Yeah, I could probably
water more you get the meter up. But well, let me, let
me, let me mention carry tell me again, when did you say you
planted them last spring. They've been in there a while. They should have
a good root system all through that. Bad meters can be kind of iffy.
If the materials were chunky, the meter's not going to show it to
be as wet as it is. If the materials will find textured, and
you know, clings all around the sides of the little meter probe you put
in so they're a guide. But I always dig down with my hands about
three or four inches down and feel the soil, and that I'll tell you
right there. Are you sure that that trough has good drainage underneath? The
good drain holes Back when the timbers are triple agents had water at least every
other day, if not every day, and then I would see water slowing
al from underneath it. It's on two boards. Okay, good, That
was my next question. We're we're gonna assume that it rains well, We're
gonna assume that you're probably keeping it moist in that kind of bed and the
you know, you put a special mix in there. You didn't just dig
up sand from around the house or anything to get it. Okay, we're
gonna assume that we're gonna take nematodes out of this equation. We're gonna take
versul and wilt out of the equation. I think it's going to be a
soarm moisture combined with just the heat and temperatures that we had Somewhere along the
way in there, things got a little stressed. Uh does it? Does
it look like it essentially it's dead and it just hadn't finished drying out yet
or is it just not getting quite the color you wanted to have Now it's
it's probably has ten percent of the lead we planted. There's a lot of
bare lambs. Okay, And I just take my fring with the ground moist
the soil, I mean yeah, and it feels moist okay, you know,
okay, somebody it might be heat stresses as well. Yeah, why
wouldn't he stripped both of them? Yeah, that's true. Well, there
are other factors that can affect two plants side by side, don't always behave
the same But I'm going to go back now to kind of wondering about maybe
the possibility of some cold injury that happened to hit that one backless last December
when we had a good hard cold, you know up in Grimes you probably
got down in the mid teens in December. A lot of our plants weren't
ready for that, and that's why you see a lot of crepe myrtle damage
as you drive around Grimes County. Crepe myrtles are hardy, but they weren't
ready for the coal when it hit. And boxwoods are that way too now,
depending on you know, east west, north south. Who knows why
this one? Go down in the branches the trunk, the branches and look
for splits. And if you see that, that's old coal damage and the
plant just has not been able to hold on. If you don't see that,
you would have to dig it up and send it to a state plant
disease lab to figure out what else might be going in there. I can't
just tell you over the air, right, all right, all right,
we'll just wait it out and see if it lives. Yeah, thanks for
the call. Hey, y'all are lucky to have Grimes County feed up there
in Carlos direction. That's a great, great place, it is. It's
an awesome place. They got everything you need out there, all right,
Well, thank you for your call. I appreciate that. Thank you,
you bet you bet hey. Have you noticed hummingbirds coming through? I was
out on my patio the other day and a couple of them came by.
They're fussing at me because I wasn't keeping up the hummingbird feeders as I should.
But my favorite feeder is the one Wallbirds has by the way. That's
the high perch feeder. And I have several hummingbird feeders, but that's the
best. One. Comes in four different sizes. If you haven't been taking
care of you hummingbirds, you need to make sure and keep fresh nectar out.
You need to change it every couple of days really in this hot weather.
Four parts water, one part white table sugar. I'll heat the water
up and the microwave get it good and hot, so that's sugar dissolves fully
and then it's ready to go. Do not put red food dye in it.
Do not do that. Don't need to do that. Not good to
do that. They if you go to wildbirds, they carry nectar defender.
It's a little put a few drops in your hummingbird water and it will make
instead of one to two days it going bad, it'll ten days. It'll
last ten days, and that's that makes it a little easier. They'll sell
you a little brush for cleaning notch feeders if you want. You know,
we get microbial content in that sugary water, and that's not good for the
hummingbirds, so take care of them. Check out the Wallbird websites and their
social media pages. We got seven Wildbirds stores around town and they have everything
you need for birds and right now hummingbirds or the bird or the hour.
They also have information on hummingbird festivals around town or other kinds of things that
you need to know. Great source of information, great folks, and really
good supplies at Wilbird's Unlimited. We're gonna take a break seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be right back. Little John My
Chael Montgomery lead us into our next segment. Here, you're listening to Garden
Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricter, and we are in a long
term discussion today about all kinds of things important getting ready for fall. One
of the things you need to know is, first of all, fall us
here it is here. We're calling it I'm done with summer. It is
now fall. Okay, we got a break in the temperature gardening excitement is
flowing through our veins again, and we're ready to get out and do things.
And trust me, you don't want to wait until it feels like a
certain temperature outside. You gotta do things when the calendar says to do them.
We fertilize when the calendar says to do it. We do certain kinds
of other activities for a successful lawn, garden and landscape when the calendar says
to do it. Especially when it comes to things like planting vegetables for example.
Well, right now you need to know about getting out to arbigate and
grabbing you some of the one two three completely easy system, because you're gonna
be planting. It's time to get that done, whether it's a container,
whether it's a garden bed. The one two three system gives you a food
that feeds anything with roots, a soil for any application, and a compost
that improves any and all really soil. It's a completely organic, completely easy
one two three. The food has a four four three organic fertilizer plus calcium
loaded with microbial life. The soil not only is it a quality soil that
drains well and is made for beds in our soils that we deal with here.
We have a lot of problem soils in this area. But it'll help
fix that. It also has the expanded shale which helps a clay. Always
good to add a little expanded shale to a clay. Just keep building it
up. You need a lot in there, keep going. And the compost
complete has two different kinds of compost and expanded shale in it as well.
And that's all at the Arbourgate. Arbourgate is about a mile and a half
west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty out there in Tumball. It
is really one of the true gardener's garden centers. You talk to anybody through
the region that nose garden centers, it's into gardening. They're gonna know about
Arburgate. They can tell you that Arburgate dot COM's the website if you want
to go check it out. By the way, don't forget I'm gonna be
out there next Saturday from eleven thirty to one thirty. I hope you will
come out to see me. We're gonna give away some samples of that or
some sets of that one two three completely easy system, as well as some
other cool stuff out at the Arburgate. I'm gonna head now to the phone
and we're gonna talk to Jerry in Hempstead. Hello, Jerry, good morning.
How are you today? Well? Thank you? So you were talking
about hummingbirds. I've got a couple of feeders in my backyard and I've got
at least sixty to seventy hummingbirds out there right now. Oh my gosh.
Your hummingbirds called earlier Jerry. I don't know if you've heard this, but
they said you need five more feeders. Are getting tired of waiting online.
Well, I'm going through six cups of sugar water a day. Holy so
yeah, So, I mean I've filled it it every single day with six
cups of sugar water to make sure that they've got enough energy wood. It's
great having it around it. It is a go ahead. No, what
I was calling about it is, I wait. I killed Tilden filled my
yard this year in June, just before I got crazy hot, and I've
been pouring water on it of course, but I'm questioning whether or not I
should errate right now and compost top dress it, well, how deep did
you till it? So backstory is I bought this house seven years ago,
and in the seven years since I've owned it, I've put down about one
hundred and twenty yards a compost good over the yard. Okay, I actually
went out and bought a compost top dresser, a pull behind. Do you
do anything before? Do you do anything halfway? Jerry, No, you
can't. I've got I've got about an acre I'm doing Okay. So when
when I bought this, I had told Randy about it or posted in on
Facebook, and I was having problems getting my yard to come in. It
just wasn't doing it right. And he was actually supposed to come out this
year and look at it. Unfortunately, you know what happened happened. So
I killed, tilled and filled it. I put down forty five palettes of
snooze sade. I would say I tilled it to probably eight inches deep,
maybe ten inches deep, okay. I let it set for about a week,
water in it to get it to firm up and get pact up a
little bit before I put the sad down. And so the sad has now
been down for ten to eleven weeks twelve weeks and it's been very well watered.
I mean I walked every single day. Well, let me let me
cut to the answer to your question. Then, Uh, Normally I would
say it's always a good time to do some you know, some aerating on
the lawn because a lot of lawns do have compaction. But if you put
that much organic matter until that deep, you should not have a compaction issue.
So I don't think you're going to see a big benefit from the air
rating. But that probably the first time I've ever said no, aeration is
not going to help you, because it almost always helps with the lawn.
But for crying out loud, you after that description, I think you're good
to go. Okay, what about the compost top dress A little, a
little, Yeah, A quality compost leafmo compost, some kind of a finely
screen put at a light rate is always a good idea. It gets over
the soil if the lawn is at all thin in any areas, it just
is like a little mini thin mulch over the surface. It helps a little
bit with the weed seed germination issues that we have in things. So there's
no problem with doing that, Okay, all right, all right, then
that's what I'll be doing next weekend. All right, thanks a lot,
you take care. You have a great thing. Yeah, all right,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hang up with you so you can run over to wildbirds
and gets seven more feeders for those poor hum birds that are starving to death
at your plants. You know, Quality Home Products of Texas. They are
the source of Generac automatic stand by generators. Our grid is not reliable,
you know how the kind of thing goes. The nice thing about a Generac
automatic standby generator is that it comes on when you're gone, when you run
out of power, it pops on. It's got its own fuel set up.
It's got natural gas or propune hooked up that is fueling it. It
sits outside just like your central air unit does. But Quality Home Products is
where you need to get them. And here's why. Quality Home Products they
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generator. Quality Home Products is a great supplier that provides service after the sale.
So seven one three quality, simple as that, seven one three quality
or quality tx dot com. Let's head out now to Sharon in West Houston.
Hello Sharon hig in morning skips. So I have a quick question about
my rose bush. Okay, it's stressed out because of the summer heat.
I tried to keep it watered underwater restrictions, but it's really stressed. So
is it safe to go ahead and trim it now? Or should I wait?
It's all straggling and very stressed. In fact, it's lost most of
its sleeves. You know, Normally I would do a late summer printing,
like an end of August pruning, early September pruning on roses. Remember you
said that, Yeah, yeah, that's to stimulate a flush or growth.
If your plan is so weak that it's it's not going to respond to that,
You're probably not get much benefit from it. But I would go ahead
and do a little bit of a pruning, maybe a third of the way
back, make sure and put some good quality fertilizer on the ground, scratch
it into the soil, watered in real well, and try to get some
fresh new growth on that plant. I think that's going to be important before
it goes into winter, to get some leaves out there to catch sunlight,
make carbohydrates and strengthen those bushes. Hopefully you'll get some bloom out of it
as well. But the main thing right now is let's get that. Let's
get that internal storage back up in that rosebush. So it's it's more rest
it's really weak. It's no blooms all summer, and it's just so yeah,
okay, so it third of the way back about about what variety is
it? Do you know? Off hand knock out, knock out, Yeah,
they definitely do that absolutely. Okay, great, thank you, good
luck with it. You take care. Yeah, I appreciate your call if
you are wanting to get your lawn in the best shape it can be.
This fall, nitrofost has put together other a really cool thing. It's a
Texas three step. What does that mean. It means a proper fertilizer for
our soils for this time of the year, and that's a Nitrofoss Fall special.
The Nitrofoss Fall special. Not only it's got the potassium levels up in
it. That's gonna First of all, potassium is important in drought resilience.
It's also important in winter heartiness, and it'll provide that. Secondly, they
have the barricade in there for weeds the cool season, weeds start to germinate
in October. You need to get that out early October because it's like playing
baseball. You don't swing after the ball's gone over the plate. You swing
when the ball's there. And in this case for weed control, don't wait
until you see them. You've got to get the pre emerging out before they
appear, and it'll ast you all the way into spring. And then they've
got the nitrofoss eagle turfungicide that's step three. Now, step three is a
protectant and a curity fungicide because when large patch shows up, if you've had
a problem with it year after year, it's probably coming back again when we
get cool weather and rains. When that happens, you want to have put
down some of the protective that's the eagle that prevents it from coming back.
That's why they put those three together. You can find nitrofoss at Cypersace Hardware.
You can find Nitrofoss at the Gem's Hardware down up in Montgomery. You
can find it in City and Hardware in Memorial and also done include at Lake
Hardware. They've got Nitrofoss down there. Nitrofoss products, the one two three
easy system. It makes it easy and it works. Let's see we are
running here. We got a little bit of time here. I think took
care of John already. Good good. You know, when when it comes
to the seasons, when we get storms and things, roofs or roof problems
are often an issue and the thing that drives me nuts. And I've had
this happen. You get a hailstorm comes to an area and eBoy runs along,
driving down the road, putting their business cards in your door because they
just flew in from Florida because this is the latest hailstorm in the country.
Don't get the fly by nights. Get someone who's been here for years,
and we're talking Brinkman fifty years of service in this area. They're a Better
Business Bureau Pinnacle Award winner. And you don't get that by not treating your
customers really well. You do a quality work, you use a quality product.
That's Brinkman. Hey. By the way, they've got their Timberline solar
shingle. That is really cool. Now you've seen solar panels on the roof.
These solar shingles are the roof they roof with the solar shingles. Is
that cool or what? Go to Brinkman Quality dot com and ask them about
that. Make a little bit of you know, a summer like this where
it's blazing sun all summer, why not make money off the roof. Well
you can do that with Brinkman Quality shing I say, make money, you
know, save money on your electric bills. Two eight one four eight zero
seventy six sixty three two eight one four eight seventy six sixty three real simple
and easy. All right, Nikki, we're going to turn it over to
you because we know that you have your finger on the pulse of everything happening,
and so we're sitting on the edge of our seats. Well, let
me just tell you if you you've heard about the construction that's going on at
six ten in the Southwest Freeway, Yes, I have. Oh, I
got bad news. No con Oh boy, here we go. Hey,
you're listening to Garden line. We are glad you are listening, and we're
looking forward to talking about whatever you're interested in. Seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. We are going to go to John out in
Cyprus. Now, Hello, John, Hey, good morning. How are
you doing. I'm well, thank you good. The question I have is
in our backyard, we have ligustrium plants that we have primarily for privacy,
Yes, and so we put out on the back part of it. We've
got one that's about ten feet tall, and I'm wanting to trim that back
a couple of feet, saying about eight feet or less. Okay, So
when would be the best time to do that. Pruning is a stimulating process,
especially for an evergreen like that, So I would not do that now.
You don't want to encourage secondent growth going into winter. Some of our
logustriums I don't know if years took a hit, but especially even a little
further north in Cyprus when we did, yes, when we went through the
February twenty one, I mean, they were really hammered by that. And
so we're gonna stay away from that. I would wait until kind of when
winter's over, when we feel like we're in spring, and I mean maybe
there's a frost coming, but basically we're past all the freezes. I would
do the trimming. Then I would trim it below where you want it to
be, because what's gonna happen. You're gonna cut it back. It's gonna
look bad from that cutback, and then it's going to resprout. And as
the sprouts begin to grow, after they get about a foot on them,
then you're going to trim them back and cause them to get bushier and you're
gonna rebuild a good dense hedge. So if you want it to be eight
feet and you cut it to eight feet, well it's gonna end up above
eight feet. You see what I'm saying. Oh okay, yeah, okay.
So you just want to do that kind of trimming and once you hit
that season, it'll be fine. It probably is going to have plenty of
vigor anyway. But if you want to throw a little fertilizer underneath it watered
in really good at that time, then you can get that good, good
vigor. Just kind of watch it. Lagustrum, the waxley fugustrum is susceptible
to a leaf spot called circospera and it causes big old brown spots on the
leaves. Looks horrible seeing it. They're surrounded by yellow and a lot of
seculent growth. It's gonna even be a little more prone to that, and
so you may have to follow up with some protective sprays of a fungicide to
prevent those spores from infecting the leaves, especially if we go through a rainy
period. That's one of the negatives of that plant. It's a well used
and why used shrub for a privacy screen does a good job of that,
but that that's one of the drawbacks of it, is that disease. Okay,
okay, And they had one other question on the other fence line.
We have a lagustrum, but it's not growing to the heights that we would
like for it too, And so I'm considering or wondering about replacing that with
some sort of a tree okay, might grow to a height. And I
was wondering if you had a suggestion on that. We want a little bit
more privacy along that fence line. Okay. So okay, this is how
tall do you need it to be? I'd be thinking maybe no more than
fifteen twenty feet a little higher, but not much. Well, hollies make
a good one. There are some good, old, dependable hollies. Nelly
are Stevens and there's a bunch of other good hollies that they're evergreen. That's
one thing you want out of a screen so you don't see through it in
the winter. The hollies make a good one. With hollies, you need
to water them in well, uh the first year, make sure they never
hit drought because hollies don't warn you that we're thirsty and we may be about
to die. They just flashed our turning brown and you don't get them back.
The first two years with a holly is important to keep it watered.
After that they've become pretty resilient. But they're relatively fast growing to relatively fast
growing. Yeah, a lot of these new hollies out there. You know
you're up e're rope in the Cypress area. You're gonna you are really close
to our CW nursery, you are. You know, they they're going to
have a lot of pardon and arbourgate and arburgate absolutely and plants frost seasons.
They're all up there, and all those places are going to have the kinds
of plants we're talking about here. Uh that that that whole, that whole
area up there is just you're fortunate to have a lot of good sources of
plants like that. Holly would be a good one. There are some other
ones that you could consider. The problem with our hedges is that they get
bigger, they get wider, and so you don't want to give up half
your law onto big fat heads trying to get it up to the height you
want. So yeah, well, yeah, I spend a lot of time
controlling those lugustiums. I like the hype that we get out. I like
there are you know, there's some yopons that do pretty good. They tend
to get a little some of those get a little too tall, and then
they get kind of lanky and start flopping apart and everything. I'm trying to
think. I was talking to Beverly. You mentioned arbigate. I was talking
to Beverly about a plant that, oh my gosh, not thinking of the
name. But you just have to call him and ask him, say,
you heard that some of the hollies that yopons start to open up and fall
apart. What's the one they're recommending now? And the name of it is
escaping me at this very moment. Okay, but it's is it is going
to be a little bit better about keeping a decent shape to it. Okay.
Well, we heard you're going to be there next weekends. We may
show up. I hope you do. I hope you do. Yeah,
bring me a picture of that area. I'd like to see it. Well,
take a look at it and see if I have any other thoughts when
I'm looking at it. Great, you're catching me. You know what about
twenty minutes before the end of two days or radio. And I've got one
and a half brain cells left. One of them is keeping my lungs and
heart going, and so you know, my ability to think of plants right
now somewhat limited. So I understand. Well, thanks for the call.
Look forward to seeing you up there at Arborgate when you okay, sir,
all right, thank you, all right? You take care, bye bye.
Oh my goodness. You're gonna be planning this fall, I hope,
because fall is for planting, and I don't care if you're putting in a
vegetable transplant. An herb, a perennial, a shrub, a tree has
to grow is an awesome product to water those things in with Medina has to
grow it just it just has the qualities that you need. You know,
it's got the nutrients that you need. It's also got the Medina soil activator
in it, and it's got the humates in it. It's got all the
things. And when you put a plant in the ground, you have got
this little plant with a watered upset of roots that you're sticking on the ground
and saying, hey, take off, do good. We want you to
make things beautiful for us. Well, you need some help on that and
has to grow. That's their six twelve six that I'm talking about. By
the way, it's got that. I will put it in a watering can.
I will water in a plant on a planet, about a week later,
watered in again, about a week later, watered in again. So
there's three applications to help get those roots established. Because you really do want
it to hit the ground running. That's the goal. You want success.
You don't want it to just thrive survive. You want it to thrive and
that has to go. Will do that for you. Hey, it's time
to take a break. Terry out there in base City. You are the
first up, when we come back our number seven, one, three,
two and two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good Sunday morning. On
look outside, this is a gorgeous day this afternoon. Be a good time
to get out. Go visit some garden center, get you visit some of
our suppliers and get you the products you need to get out there, and
let's get going. It is fall. It is finally, we're finally out
of this mess of incredible, miserable temperatures. We're ready to go as gardeners.
Right, all right, Well, let's go out to Bay City and
we're gonna talk to Terry. Hello, Terry, Hello, good morning.
It's lovely in Bay City. Oh thanks, thanks for the report. I
know it is okay, Well, okay, Now I'm pretty much on the
fence about whether I'm going to plant my little fruit trees. I already talked
to you one time about containers, so I've got that down, but I
have questions about if I keep them. If I keep things in containers,
do I fertilize them now? Because when it gets cold, I'm going to
bring him in the seashed And I remember I did that one year and they
all bloomed. And when you opened up the door, it smells the smell
that just knocked you out because it was so gorgeous. It smells so great,
so bloom, and they'll they'll think it's spring inside the seashed. So
should I go ahead and fertilize the things that I'm going to keep in containers?
What kind of fruit tree? What kind of fruit trees are you're planning?
Well, I don't know if I'm going to plant them on I'm on
the fence because I don't exactly know where I'm going to plan them, Okay,
And I know I'm always going to I'm always going to keep my lime
tree in a container because it froze down and now it's done great and it's
up about five feet tall. Yeah. And then I have a I have
two great fruit. I have a quum quat. I have a Hamilton seet
orange, and I have a Washington Naval orange. I see okay, yeah,
Citrus, citrus types of trees in lemon tree, I have a I
have a Mira lemon. Yeah. Well, though that you can grow those
in containers. The bigger the citrus a little bit more of a challenge because
you need more container because the you know, as the roots get so confined,
it limits the size of the plant. Now, if you're talking about
something's really small, like your your limes, for example, that's not a
huge plant that does really well on a container. You get all the way
up to some of them, like something like a grapefruit, that's gonna take
quite a container to be able to grow that. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm
gonna put my two grapefruit in the ground. But I think if I put
them in the ground now, will they have enough time for the roots to
get happy before winter? They should? They should normally. You know,
I think about planning citrus a lot when we get into spring and we get
through that last freeze, because you never know what if this was one of
those doozy winters that just went historically cold. Well, you know, if
it was in a container, you put it inside and protect it. If
it's in the ground, it's gonna be a little more challenging. But in
general it's okay to plan them. Now, just be ready if you need
to to get a cover to go over them and to get a little bit
of a heat source underneath them. If we have that miserable weather, you're
far enough south where I don't think it's going to be a problem. I
wouldn't worry about it. If you want to get them in the ground,
do it, just do it sooner rather than later. But don't fertilize them
just yet. Just water them in. Well, don't don't fertilize anything,
not not at this time. And here's why. Fertilizer in this mild weather
that we're going to have for the next month and more and more, it
stimulates growth, and succulent growth is even more coal tender. And so you
would like them to settle in and do okay, get established, but you
don't want to push them to be growing a lot right now, right right,
okay, okay, Well that's answered my question. Thank you very much.
All right, Well, good luck with them. And all we ask
when we help you with plants is that you bring half the produce to the
KTRH studio and drop it off. That sounds good. That's a fair trade,
right, sure enough. I wish I was there instead of Bay City.
We don't have all the garden places like you talked about on the radio,
and I like every time I listen to you, I'm thinking I wish
I was closer. So I could go visit those places. But because we're
about an hour and a half from Houston, I know, I know how
that is. But I want to tell you something. I can tell you
this for a fact. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to
people that drive from Austin, Texas to come all the way down to Houston
some of our gardens enters, or they come from way up in Central Texas
somewhere, or the people drive a long way to go to the kind of
places we have here, and that that is a testimony, and it reminds
me and I keep telling you guys this. We're fortunate in the Houston area
to have the best set of garden centers I've seen anywhere in the state.
And I've been to other states too and seen some of the cities. You
know, there's a lot of garden centers all around, all places, but
nothing like this, nothing like Houston, North, South, East, West,
Central. You have got unbelievable places. You've got destination places. We
talk about them here on Garden Line. And you know there are a lot
of places I don't talk about on garden Line. There's a reason for that.
You're not going to hear me promoting a big box store or something like
that, big chains and and all that stuff. Our garden centers their mom
and pop and I'm just saying that you need to know how fortunate you are.
You go in there, and the staff at these places, the owners,
the staff, everybody that they know what they're talking about and they can
guide you. They've got experience. They've lived here, they've gardened here,
they know this area, and they hire people and they train people to know
what they're talking about. I bragged down garden centers all day to day,
do it every time, and they're all that way. I really mean that.
It really is amazing. And you know, as you go around Texas,
if you're gonna take a trip to some other city, I can tell
you good garden centers to go visit over there. Because I love doing horticultural
touring around around the state and botanical gardens and garden centers. It's just fun.
But one day, there's no place like Houston when it comes to these
garden centers and the kind of advice you get. And I guess I'm gonna
go a little soap box here, if you'll forgive me. We're getting towards
the end of the day. Here it is a pet peeve of mine for
people to talk about. You know, where can I find a sale on
this or that, or save a nickel and this or that kind of thing.
I understand the importance of economy, but I'm concerned about that my budget
and things like that. But you need to think about what you get for
what you pay for anytime you're buying anything. And quality is important, advice
is important, and service is important. And you can go buy something from
a place that they haven't taken care of it since it got off the truck.
It may look okay today, but by the time you get at home
you start to see the problems happening. It's something that probably shouldn't have been
planted here, but it was sold here because some company ordered it for all
their stores all over the country. That's not saving money. I don't care
what the deal is on it. That's wasting money. And if you go
and you talk to somebody and they don't know what they're talking about, and
they steer you to the wrong plant and the wrong products, that's not saving
money. That's way eating money. Or if you buy it and you bring
it home and you plan it and you have problems and you want to go
back and bring them pictures. You're going to get that kind of help from
a good independent garden center, somebody that knows what they're talking about. And
so you know, think about you get what you pay for, and it's
just it. Yes, it's good to be economical, and yet you know
it's wise and stuff and how we spend. But just realize this, you
cannot pay for the kind of expertise that is in a lot of the places
I talk about here, not just garden centers. I mean bragging on Southwes
fertilizer, bragging on our ace hardwarees, bragging on others that you can't That
kind of expertise is important. You need that kind of expertise to have success,
because look, you don't want to go out and spend money and time
and work and just get disappointed and throw it up in the air and say
I've got a brown thumb. No, we want you to have success.
Wants your place to be beautiful and bountiful. That's why we talk about all
this stuff one garden line, and I hope you will do that. And
also, if you're listening to this, especially those of you outside this area.
You've got the Agerlife Extension Office in two hundred fifty four counties in Texas
that can help you connect to your experts, connect to local people. And
that is important too, and I encourage you to take advantage of that.
That is a great resource. I try to steer you that way when we
get the chance to do that. But that's another important resource. Hey,
before we run out of time today, I just want to remind you one
more time that, speaking of a great garden center, I'm going to be
at the Arbor Gate on next Saturday. I will be there, that's Saturday
to twenty third, from eleven thirty to one thirty, eleven thirty to one
thirty. I will be answering your gardening questions. If you want to bring
me some samples, put them in a plastic bag, seal them up,
bring them in. We can identify a plant, we can look at a
problem and suggest a good remedies for that problem. If you want to bring
me pictures like I was talking about earlier, you know with I think it
was John and Cypers. You know you got an area you want to put
a shrub in there. Let me take a look at it with a good
fresh set of eyes and mind on it and come up with some suggestions.
We can do that too as well. We're gonna be given away there are
one, two, three, completely easy system several times during the time I'm
there, so we're gonna give several sets of that. And that is a
quality set of products right there. You are about to get into fall gardening
and you need to have good quality products like that, fix the soil,
get the right plants, and put them in. Beverly's going to be coming
up with some surprises too to give way. I'm always excited about that because,
oh my gosh, the products and some things they have there are just
out of stand We've been listening to garden Line and we've been doing what we
love to do, and let's talk to you help you to have a beautiful
garden and a bountiful landscape. We're gonna be gone for the rest of the
week. We'll be back next Saturday and Sunday. You know, if you
ever miss a garden Line and or maybe you heard me say some product and
you didn't get it written down, go to your iHeart media app, or
if you have a different podcast app, go to that, Listen to the
garden Line podcast and you can catch up on things that we've talked about before.
In the meantime, go to my Gardening with Skip website. There you'll
find the lawncare schedule. It gives you the organic and the synthetic options for
lawncare from the fall. I've also put up some good information and I'm about
to put something up on how to recover your lawn from what it just went through.