KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skipp Richter's just watching a good
morning on a good day for gardening. You're listening to the Garden Line and
I am your host, Skip Richter. We are here today to talk to
you about I don't know whatever you want to talk about. You tell me,
don't talk about the lawn. That's usually a popular topic. Maybe we
can talk about some trees or I don't know, maybe the vegetable garden.
I've been working out in my vegetable garden these past few weeks, and oh
my goodness, Uh, things are growing like crazy. I mean, it
is just absolutely exploding. With all this rain we've had and with the mild,
warm temperatures, things look really really good out there in the garden.
You've never planted a garden, I think you ought to consider doing so.
Maybe you don't have room for the big back forty, but I bet you
do have room for some containers on a patio. Maybe you'd drop in a
little raised bed somewhere, like you get something like a vego bed and you
can put that even on your driveway for crying out lout. I mean it
fill it up with some soil, and things really go to town growing.
I was surprised the first time I saw how well plants will do in a
bed sitting just like on concrete or asphalt. Remember years ago master gardeners down
in Galveston County. The old office they had was in a basically sitting in
a parking lot. I mean it was just asphalt almost all the way around
the office, and when you walked out there was a garden there, and
they basically had dropped beds on the ground. I don't know how high.
They were, probably about twenty inches or so something like that is my memory.
Holes. And then in the walkways they'd put wood chip malts, just
ground up wood shavings, chips, you know that sort of thing. And
the beds were full of soil and they were growing like crazy, and those
plants could care less that there was asphalt sitting right underneath the bed. Now,
if you've got soil into the bed, it's even better because the roots
can go on down in the soil. You don't have to build a bed
quite as high. But I'm telling you, I've seen vegetables do really well
in about eighteen inches of soil. Now that's not ideal, but they can
do it if you keep it moist, keep it adequately fertilized, and going
so just dropping a bed on the ground and buying a good quality garden bed
mix to go in it can have you in a garden overnight. I mean,
really, it's an instant garden. Now. I still love going out
in the yard and breaking up some fresh new ground to put in a garden.
That's okay, but that's a lot of work if you want to do
that. That certainly we've been. That's how we've been gardening and farming forever.
But when it comes to the typical residential home garden, just containers on
the patio or really nice quality beds are really the way to go. And
when you get out there and get going, you want to make sure and
provide the nutrition that your garden plants need. By the way, right now,
our cool season vegetables are basically heading out, if not gone already,
basically gone already in my garden. But the warm season things like tomatoes and
peppers and squash and cucumbers, they're all really happy right now. They're going
to get unhappy when it gets really hot and stop their production. The tomatoes,
if it's a little cherry or a grape tomato, it'll keep going.
But I don't know, the skin gets kind of tough and it has tomato
flavor. I'll say that for it into the summertime. But then we switch
over to all those warm season plants. Of course you probably have heard of
okrah. Of course that's a real common Southern plant. But we have a
lot of other good warm season plants that can take your garden on through the
heat. Southern peas, black eyed peas, purple halls, for example,
sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are not difficult to grow as long as you provide
adequate moisture, and they're a good crop for going through the summer. And
then the things we call winter squash. I always think it's funny we call
them winter squash because we probably grow them in the summer more than summer squash.
In other words, the summer squash is gonna harvest in what fifty five
sixty days somewhere in there. The winter squash takes a long time. Some
of them take like pumpkins, can take a few of them over well over
one hundred days, one hundred even one hundred and ten hundred twenty days.
So they have to grow through some warmer weather to reach that point where we're
ready to harvest them. And so when we plant them in this time of
the year, we got to give them some special care. And one of
those things some special care is we want to make sure that the foliage is
protected. In our climate. With the heat and humidity and frequent rainfalls,
a lot of foliage diseases can occur, especially during the summer season, on
these on these winter squashes. Powdery mildie is probably the worst one. And
more than once I've seen a crop that was growing well and wanting to set
its fruit, you know, and and provide you something to eat. The
foliage just taken away by the diseases. And you gotta have foliage to make
carbohydrates which make the squash you want to eat. And what do I mean
by winter squash, by the way, Well, that would be pumpkins,
that would be acorn squash, that would be spaghetti squash, butternuts squash,
cabocha squash, those are all winter squashes, and they're wonderful, very nutritious,
high. Many of them are high end vitamin A and technically made a
carotene. Uh. They're just a really quality kind to grow if you give
them some of that care. Well, you're listening to Garden Line and our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one
three two one two five eight seven four R two one two ktr h.
Another way to look at it. We're gonna take your calls here starting in
the next segment, but if you would like to call and get on the
board as we go to break here in a bit, Josh, we'll get
you ready to go and then we can talk about what you are interested in
talking about. Now, I want to mention today that I will be in
Sugarland home at the Sugarland Home and Garden Show. It's actually at the Stafford
Center in Stafford, Sugarland Homing Outdoor Living Show at the Stafford Center in Stafford.
I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty, and I'm gonna be
giving away some fertilizer free fertilizer a little small jars, and I think you
will be very very interested in seeing the variety that we're gonna have available there.
I'll also be giving a talk. When I first get there, I'll
be giving a talk on some tips for successful gardening. So I hope you
will come out and see me there. Let's let's see you at the talk,
and let's also see you at the table afterwards. I'll be there to
answer your questions. If you want to bring a plant sample and bring it
in in a plastic bag. If you've got some good photos, check them
first, make sure they're in sharp focus on your phone, and I can
take a look at those as well. Maybe it's an identification, maybe it's
a diagnosis, or just like, here's a landscape area, can you give
me some help and ideas on what to do about that? And that'll be
the sugar Land Home and Garden Show. That a home and outdoor living show
today eleven thirty to one thirty at the Stafford Center in Stafford, Texas.
And I hope you can make it out. We're going to go to break.
We'll be right back and if you give Josh a call, we'll be
talking to you next thing. You know. Yeah, I'll go thank you
both, Galla and they broke out. I'll let you gay good morning on
a good morning to be talking about gardening and getting outside and just a little
bit when it lights up and doing some gardening. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number. Write this
down seven one three two one two five eight seven four, and I would
encourage you, if it all possible, to always listen to garden Line with
a pen and a piece of paper handy, because you never know when we're
going to give out some information that you want to jot down. Well,
let's start off and we're gonna start heading to the phones now and going out
to Kingwood to talk to Angelo. Well, Hello, Angelo, Hey,
how are you today, sir? I'm doing well. Thanks good. Hey.
I started some seeds earlier this year and they came out pretty good.
But what I want to know is what's the best type of soil for seating.
It seems like and I bought some six packs of pepper plants. They
had like a peat in there or something real stringy material. But I've tried
different soils and I'm just trying to get the best soil for starting the seeds
and a six pack and something like that. And secondly, if I've gotten
some fruit or not fruits, some vegetables, and I want to take the
seeds out. What is the process of taking them out? How long do
you take them out? Where? What do you do to use them again?
As they're like, you know, three months, you have to eat
or something. But so basically that's my question. What's the best soil start
seeds? And how do you get seeds from like a previous salapino that was
huge, I wanted to save it. Okay, well, let me let
me take them in the reverse order. Okay, you can save seed from
plants you've grown if they're not hybrids. If they're if you see like the
letter F and the number one after the variety name, or if it just
says hybrid on it, but more like they will say one. Those will
not come back true to seed because they're a mix of two parents. And
if you've ever looked at parents and looked at kids, you know that they're
not identical. They are similarities, but they're not identical. And so some
of the nice features of let's say you use the example pepper. Let's say
that there's a halopenio that's mild, or a halopenia that's large with thick walls,
or any of those features, you probably would not have that in the
offspring, at least not in a lot of them. So those basically with
all seeds or vegetables, yeah, vegetables and flowers, you're going to have
the thing of hybrid now not all. You just have to check into the
variety of to see some some aregists find to keep and to us like them,
so that that would be a factor on the saving seed. As far
as how to save seed, you know, each each of the different species
is a little bit different. Like tomatoes, We get all the seeds out
of that jelly material in the middle and put it in water, shake it
in the jar with a lid, real vigorously and let it set and it
will start to You won't take the lid off then, so it's not air
tight in there. It will start to oh, I don't know, ferment
or something inside the jar, and you'll see the seeds dropping down to the
bottom out of that goo that was at the top even after you shook it.
And that's when you pour it out and you get those seats. It
separates them really well. Other seeds are just real simple, you know.
You can you just open the fruit and just get the seeds dried out,
and peppers would be an example. You just want to let them go to
full maturity and then allow those seeds to dry, air, dry well and
then do the storage other How long would that take? Maybe three weeks or
to dry? Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally dependent on moisture, humidity,
and air temperature. I would say leave them a couple of weeks in
a good dry spot and they're not going to be fully dry. So when
you store them, it's good to store them with one of those desiccate packets
to take the extra moisture out of the air. That gives you the most
storage. Now, going back to soil, you ask about soil for starting
seeds. There are seed starting mixes that are designed just for that, and
basically they are a regular they would be more like a potting soil, but
ground down to just very very fine texture. And so a soil like that
is excellent for starting seed because when you plant a little tiny seed, you
know a lot of the seeds we plant are you know, not half the
size of a little typed letter. Oh, They're very tiny, and so
in a chunky soil that seed could fall down and end up being either real
shallow or too deep, or it's hard to control and get the soil to
press up against the seed for good. We say seed to soil contact.
That's a key and in germination. So the fine textured, it'll just say
seed starting mix. Now, if you use a soil like the works potting
soil that heirloom has, that's a pretty fine texture mix. I was looking
at the bag the other day. I was like, man, that that
would be a good seed starting mix. So even though it says or potting
soil, that particular one is extremely fine textured and you could use it as
a seed starting if you wish. See that's what I think I made my
mistake because there was some you know, uh pieces of wooden there and everything,
and it just was it says indoor potting, but it just wasn't the
Yeah, it wasn't that fine grind like you said. And the last thing,
basil and oregano, I can start now and grow it right through the
winter, correct, right through the summer. Correct, Yes, basil and
oregano both can go through the summer just fine. Not. In fact,
basil doesn't even want to hear you talk about degrees like fifty degrees they want
to hear. They want to hear seventy eighty ninety even correct that grown basil
before and it was like a bad weed. It just kept going. All
right, thank you very much for the in full of time. I appreciate
it. All right, yeah, you bet you bye bye, So you
know I I appreciate that call. By the way, Angelo, uh,
when when you're talking, I was talking about that the works potting saw that
that Heirloom has and excuse me, I was talking about the indoor potting mix
from Heirloom as being a good one for just seeds starting. But they have
a lot of different blends, and you know he was Angela was talking about
the fact that he found a little pieces of wood in this potting soil.
When you go out and buy cheap potting soil, you're going to find that
and they you know, it's it's put together en mask to just get it
out the door. Not generally composted fully and well. But when you buy
a product like from Heirloom there they're veggie herb mix does good in beds.
It it does very very well in beds. And they also now if you
want a bulk, by the way, they have that supersack, which is
just a giant sack that holds a yard of soil that they can put right
there on your doorstep. I mean, and it's real clean, neat and
easy. It's a good way to get a larger quantity. Maybe you're doing
a vegetable garden and you need more than just a few bags. That would
be another way with heirloom soils. I want to head out now to Spring
and we're going to talk to Mo. Good morning, MOHI, how you
doing well? I'm doing well. How are you doing well? Man've got
me out here. Won Oh, that's an easy one, Mo. You
just you just plant that seed about a half inch three quarters of an inch
deep, press the soil down and give it a good water. And oh,
okay, these the seeds she drive from the last watermelons. Okay,
so they could do the same thing. Well, if it was not a
hybrid, it'll be the same thing. If it was a hybrid and you
plant those seeds, everyone's going to create a little bit different kind of plant.
They made look similar. But you know, maybe you like that watermelon.
I'll just make something up here. Maybe you like watermelons that have that
yellow flash. Well, when you plant the seed, you may have some
that show up with red flesh. And maybe you like watermelons and the small
ice box size, and when you plant the seeds, you may get some
that are a little larger. Hybrids can come out all over the place,
so you just kind of have to look at the variety. Do you remember
what variety it was off him? Oh? No, she got this from
the arbregate people for a nine. She bosked there the last time, and
it going to be signed for a size number four show. Okay, well,
and she says it seeds out of it. Well, give him a
try, you know. I mean, it's not the end of the world
to have a mix of different kinds of things growing. So if you just
want to play around with it and see what you get, who knows,
maybe you'll get a wonderful watermelon and you can name it the mo watermelon.
I'm gonna name it. There you go. No, I appreciate you two,
Thank you for the call. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's
see what are we gonna do. Now We're gonna go to Katie and we're
gonna talk to Katie. Well, that's kind of interesting, Katie. And
Katie, how are you doing this morning? Kat Thank you? How are
you well? Thank you. I have a question about ants. M I
have a lot of potted plants on my patio as well as in my kitchen
window, and I've noticed some of my potted plants outside when I go to
repot, they're filled with ants at the bottom, all in the soil.
And then this week I noticed I have a tiny little orchid plant that sits
in my window and I water it and then I always take it out to
kind of drain it, and when I did, there's just tons of ants
in the soil of this orchid plant as well. Okay, So I wanted
to find out are the ants going to kill the plants? And if so,
how do I get that plant? How do I get the ants out
of the soil. Yeah, that's a great question, Katie. Those I'm
assuming these aren't fire ants right based on the way you're talking about them.
No, there there's little ants that they like the ones in the orchid plant.
We're carrying around little things and like they were, they had things in
their mouth. Does that makes sense? Way they were walking, Yeah,
right. So there are little ant baits, ant baits for little tiny household
types of ants and outdoor ants as well, that you can put out and
around them, especially in the house. I would use those baits. They'll
go pick them up and it'll kill the colony. They're just using your pots
as a nice, moist warm place to live, and they're not hurting your
plants at all. It's just it's just nature there. I think there are
more species of ants and just about any kind of insect out there. Okay,
I just want to make sure they weren't hurting the plants at all.
Now, you're good ants. There's only well the essentially none of the plants
that are going to get into your pot like that are going to eat you
eat your plants. Okay, I'm gonna ask you one of the quick questions
why I have you on d what I'm going to have to go to a
break, But if you want hang on, we will bring you back and
you'll be first up right after break. And Sue and Lake Jackson you're right
after her. You're listening to garden Line and our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. Give us a call. Josh
and gets you on the board and we'll talk to you in the next segment.
But now it's Nikki's a good morning, and a good morning for gardening,
and until the sun comes up, a good morning at least till then
for talking on the radio about things that are related to the garden. We're
going to head back out to Katie and complete our conversation about the ants that
are invading all the pots. Katie, I think you had some more question.
The only other question I had, and it wasn't ms. Well,
it's in the same area. So my patio is covered with potted plants,
and as I was watering them yesterday, I noticed that one of my plants
has a lot of like white powder on the leaves. I didn't know one
how to get rid of it. Two, I was afraid it was going
to spread to the other plants, so I removed it from the grouping.
You placed it elsewhere? You need to do that or not, do you,
Katie? Do you remember which plant that was? Offhand? Um?
You know it's funny. I got that plant in November. It was in
full bloom. I thought it was a daisy plant. Okay, it hasn't
bloomed since the fall, and the leaves look like like a mum like you
know, mum plants, mum plant leaves. I think you're talking about a
daisy, one of the daisies. Now, there's some nice new daisies in
the Garvinia series that are pretty resistant to powdery mildew, but the other daisies
can be pretty prone to it, and I think that's what you're seeing.
So what you're going to need to do is use a funger side that proactively,
like once you see it the white all over the leaf. It's a
little late to benefit the plant with a spray much, but if you can,
if you know, if you kind of periodically, if you know you
have a prone plant to that disease, just give it a spray. You
can use something if you're on their gunnack end. Kneeme oil works really well
for that neme oil. You just want to be careful will not to spray
the oil out in the middle of the day when the sun is baking down
on the plant. And then there are some systemic fungicides, a variety of
different ones that will will also control the powdery mildew. Whichever way you choose
to go okay, and we'll not spread to other plants. Do I need
to keep it kind of isolated or now it is ubiquitous in the environment.
So it's like your plant isn't going to make the other plants get sick that
powdery mildew. Spores are already floating around everywhere, and so of course,
you know, the more of it you have in the area, the more
spores are going to be right around it. But I wouldn't so much worry
about that as just to assume when conditions are right, a susceptible species is
going to get powdery mildew. And a lot of the daisies are susceptible.
Should I just kill off the leaves and have it on there if they look
like they're basically at least half of the photo synthesizing area that's hard to say
is gone. In other words, it's like, you know, it's you
don't have the green, it's covered with white or whatever. Yeah, take
those leaves off because they're just producing more spores too. Okay, all right,
all right, thank you so much. A great day, you too,
and I appreciate the call. Yeah, Katie was talking about, you
know, plants and the ants and things on the patio on. One of
the great products that we talk about here on garden Line is jungle Land.
It's a nitro FoST product. Basically, there's an outdoor version for using in
your potted plants outside on the patio, and then there's there's an indoor version
that has the water saving crystals in it. Jungle Land provides the excellent drainage
but also holds moisture that makes it that that container of soil able to whole
water and nutrients better but still drain well. Includes four sources of aged organic
matter micro riizal fungi, which is especially important. And by the way,
jungle Land, you know where where do you find nitro FoST pretty much?
Or you know everywhere? Uh, we could talk about a tascaseda Lake Hardware
and Angleton, Jim's Hardware, Montgomery, There's there's a lot of places,
but the jungle Land soil would be a good one for your containers out on
the patio. Well. Our phone number seven one three two one two five
eight seven four, And now we're gonna go to Lake Jackson and talk to
Sue. Good morning, Sue, good morning, how are you. I'm
well? Thank you. Yes, I want you to call and talk to
you about my fig tree. It's about seven years old. It's gotten huge.
It's about fifteen feet tall and it's spread is about twenty feet wide.
My figs are about the size of a fifty cent piece. They're not great
big figs. I want you to do, I trink. Can I trim
that tree back? Or do I just let it keep growing and let the
birds get the figs, you know, like in the top and all I
can't reach, or you could trim it back now. I think I would
go ahead and try to get whatever crop you can out of it right now,
and then do the trimming, because when the new growth comes out,
you may get a second crop on it, depending on what variety of fakes.
Some of them can do that better than others. Oh okay, I
just I didn't want to kill it because I've had it, you know,
like seven years, and it's beautiful. This made a beautiful plant, you
know, in my backyard. But it sounds like you're doing something right if
it's if it's happy and getting that big Yes, okay, Well, thank
you very much, appreciate you taking my call. You have a great day,
you two. Thank you for the call our phone number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. You know, I was talking earlier about everybody can garden just
by using a container on the patio or or dropping a bed on the ground.
And when I when I say dropping a bed on the ground, there's
a lot of ways we make beds. You know, people just treated lumber
of people, just cender blocks. People. I don't know landscape stones and
stuff, but I think the best way to do a bed and this is
a it's a pretty new product, but it's veg Vego garden beds. Vego
garden beds are made out of a metal that has been treated to prevent rust
and corrosion, and then it's been painted with the USDA approved paint Safe for
food and their quality beds. They're modulars. So if you want to make
a long, skinny bed, if you want to make a big, fat
square bed, if you want to make a C shaped bed, I mean,
you can design them anyway you want and put them together and they last.
They last a lot longer than the other materials we talk about. But
they also have one thing I like about Vego beds is it's a narrow side.
You know, if you use a center block every that's two sides to
the bedtimes that's sixteen inches of garden area that you've lost with each bed that
you put on the ground with Vego not so put a good quality saw mix
in one and they're going to do very well. You can go to vegogarden
dot com to find out more information. Some of our independent garden centers carry
Vego as well, and I think you will not be disappointed. Some great
pictures online of what I'm talking about, and you you really to check those
out. I think I think it's a really cool way to create a garden
bed on a night, well, good morning, on a good day for
gardening and a good day for talking about gardening. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our number write this down seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four were I was talking about our vegetable garden a little bit
earlier. I want to talk a little bit about lawns too. This is
this is a season where your lawn is really happy. I mean that our
southern turf grass is Soysia, Bermuda, Saint Augustine. Those are the three
big ones. They can take the heat if you give them adequate water.
And it's warming up now and their growth rate is just going to increase.
And as the weather warms, you want to make sure that they have the
nutrients that they need when you're when you're taking care of your law, because
the adequate nutrition provides good sustainable growth, and plants need more than just you
know, three numbers. I mean, they need a number of different things
on the back that aren't on a fertilizer bag. You can do this with
some supplements and things, but the gradual release is the best. And when
you're mowing, always return your clippings. Your clippings have the perfect lawn fertilizer
in them. Now you know the fate of those nutrients. Nitrogen can wash
away, it can volatilize, and so just because you return the clipping doesn't
mean you get all your nitrogen back. But all those micronutrients that plants still
need, they're essential, but they're not part of the big three on the
fertilizer bag. Clippings provide those and it just makes sense to return them.
You can back off a little bit on fertilizing if you're returning your clippings,
or the other way to look about it. Look at it as if you
bag your clippings, put them out at the curb and pay somebody to haul
them away, you're gonna have to fertilize more because what you've done is you've
just taken the fertilizer you applied earlier that grew you grass clippings, and now
you're taking those nutrients and the perfect blend for turf with all the micros in
a grass clipping, and you're putting them at the curb for somebody to haul
away. I call that renting fertilizer. So it just makes sense to recycle.
No, when it rains for several days and you can't get out to
mow and it gets real tall, Okay, you can make a case to
me for we're gonna go ahead and bag this one. But I still would
say use those clippings in flower beds as mulch, put them in a compost
pile, use them in your vegetable garden down the walkaways. Just don't put
them too deep. About an inch deep is enough in any one application because
you want them to dry out really well, but don't give away the nutrients
that you paid to put down. That applies to tree leaves in the fall
too, but we'll wait to talk about that more, I think in the
fall season, but it does make sense to recycle those clippings. Keep your
lawn mower blade sharp. It'll make your lawn look better. It'll be easier
in your lawn mower. With each cutting, it makes a nice clean slice.
It doesn't just essentially rip the ends of the grass blades off like a
dull mower wood. So you want to make sure and keep your lawn More
blade sharp. I posted something to Facebook a while back showing the difference between
a sharp more blade and a dull mower blade and the size of the brown
tip on the from the dull mower blade. And if you take a brown
tip from a grass blade and multiply at times ever grass blade in your lawn,
I don't know how many bazilion that is, but it's like putting brown
pixels in a green picture. Maybe that makes sense because we're kind of into
high density and high quality TVs and things. Imagine a whole bunch of little
brown pixels. It doesn't look as green when you step back and look at
the picture. So that's what I'm talking about. Keep that blade sharp.
Well, we're gonna go to the phones now, the number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna head out to Briar Grove
and talk to Charles. Good morning, Charles. Yes, I have a
tomato plants. I plant them on the west side of my house and there's
a two story house next Tommy and I got big plants, a lot of
balloons, but no fruit is it doesn't get a lot of sunshine. Maybe
in the afternoon it gets maybe an hour show. Okay, Charles, I
hate to be the bear of bad news, but that's a little bit significantly
too low of light. Your tomato really would like to talk about six hours.
And I realized you probably have a problem then finding a space that gets
that where you can put a tomato. But on that super low level,
it's having trouble making enough energy to support a fruit. Now, there are
other things that can cause the blooms to abort. Excessive nitrogen causing a lot
of vine growth at the expense of slowing down and setting that would be a
factor. It could be if the area is so still that no wind moves
the plant there. Tomatoes need wind to kind of shake the blooms and cause
pollination to be successful. But if you're just down to one hour, I
would say, that's that's the elephant in the room. Okay, that's what
I was wondering. Yeah, you might try a big container on a patio
or something next round, and I think you'll have better success because you can
put that wherever the sunshines. Okay, thank you, all right, thank
you, Charles. I appreciate appreciate that call. Let's see Julia and South
Houston. We're going to hold off just a moment. I got to take
a break here, but I will get to you first when we come back
after the break. If anyone else would like to be on the air answers
or ask some questions, it's seven one three two one fifty eight seventy four
two one two fifty eight seventy four. We have just put our first hour
in the books. We're going to be here until ten o'clock this morning,
and after that I'm jumping in a car and heading out to the Stafford Center
and Stafford for the Sugarland Home and Outdoor Living Show. I'll be there from
eleven thirty to one thirty. Start off, I'll be given a talk on
tips for gardening success, and I hope you can come out there and come
hear me. We're gonna be given away some fertilizer samples for people that are
coming to the program. And then I'll be out at a table answering gardening
question. So bring me plants in a bag, bring me pictures on your
phone. We'll identifiable, diagnose, or we'll just talk about ideas for improving
your landscape or making a certain area a little bit prettier than it is now.
But that's the sugar Line Home and Garden Show, Stafford Center in Stafford
from eleven thirty to one thirty today. I hope I can see you there.
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor. So just
watching as good morning. It's a good day for gardening and a good day
for talking about gardening. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and our phone number seven one three two, one, two,
five eight seven four, And let's just head right out to South Houston
and we're gonna talk to Julia. Hi, Julia, how are you this
morning? Good morning, I'm doing well. And how about yourself? And
well, thanks. I really appreciate the job you're doing. I get a
lot of information from you. What I have is that I was given a
guava plant, and I have honestly never eaten guava except in the tropical of
fruit canes, you know, fropical fruits in the can Okay, My question
is it's it came in a six inch pot and we already planted it and
it's maybe a foot high, but it already has like three little baby guavas
on there. I leave folk on there or do I pick them off?
You're not gonna like what I'm gonna tell you on all our fruit. When
they try to, as you said, have babies and they're too young,
it's better to take them off. And here's why. They will put a
lot of energy into those fruit. And they're a little tiny plant without a
lot out The leaves are going to have someday the quantity if you can spend
the first year or two just growing the biggest, strongest plant you can.
You're going to be able to hang a whole lot of guava on it,
and in the long run, you will end up with more production than if
you let that little plant try to raise fruit before it's ready. Yeah.
I kind of figured that because I've heard that on some of the other fruit
trees that you're supposed to do that. Yeah, But so the first two
years, oh year or two, just see how it's growing, and maybe
maybe the second year you could leave a just a few, you know,
not too many, but you're gonna have your your hands full in the winter
time, you know, getting that that guava through but through the winter when
we if we do have the kind of freezes we seem to be fond of
having them lately. But it's a fun fruit to grow, really tasty too.
Okay, I appreciate your information. Thank you very much. All right,
Julie, thank you. Yeah. They you know, we've got a
lot of different kinds of fruit that we can grow here in the Houston area,
and the tropicals, you know, they they're challenge. But I know
people that are growing a lot of these different kind of tropicals just having to
give them the condition that they want to do well the options for fruit.
It's amazing what all you can do here. Hey our phone number seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Just want to remind you. I'm going to be at
the sugar Land Home and Garden Show today from eleven thirty to one thirty,
and that is at the Stafford Center and Stafford Stafford Center and Stafford eleven thirty
one. There. I'll start off and I'll have a look seminar on tips
for having a beautiful landscape a successful landscape, especially through the summer season.
And then I'll be at a table answering your gardening questions. Bring us some
samples, bring us some pictures of the things that you want identified or diagnosed
or whatever. I'll just come in and visit. I always like to meet
listeners to the show. It's kind of fun to be able to do that.
And it's from y'all y'all's, and it's a it's an opportunity just to
sit down. And you know, I only do a few calls over the
course of a show, but there it's kind of like I one on one.
You got some time to kind of pick my brain or try to try
to get something diagnosed, and we'll be we'll be really happy to do it.
By the way, during the seminar, I'm going to be giving away
fertilizers and uh these Nelson Fertilizer has provided some samples for us to give away
in there, so I'm looking forward to to doing that. And it's a
nice little, nice little containers, so you will you will love that if
you come by and grab you one at the seminar. By the way,
just to mention this next week, I don't want to confuse the weeks,
but I want to give you a heads up. Next week, I'm going
to be at the wild Birds Unlimited in clear Lake and I'll be there for
two hours again, eleven thirty to one thirty wild Birds Unlimited in clear Lake.
That's our I believe that's our newest store here in the Houston area,
and I hope you will come out, So put that down on your calendar.
We you know, there's a lot to be doing right now with birds
and enhancing your landscape to open the door up for birds as well. Yeah,
we tend to think of, Okay, what flowers can I put in
my landscape. But we forget about things like butterflies, which are flying flowers
the way I look at it. We forget about things like the birds,
the sounds they bring, the beauty that they bring as well. So I'm
gonna let's see, we're gonna go to the phones now and we're gonna talk
to Sandy and Cypress. How are you doing, Sandy, hither skip m
Good morning. I have a couple of questions for you. One is about
my lawn. I spoke to you last weekend and told you that I put
that weed eater on there and if I could do it again, you told
me, no, wait six to eight weeks, but I haven't. Um
can I put the medina plus spray that on it? Or yeah you can?
Uh. You're going to be using it as a liquid plant food that
you spray on. That's how it has to grow twelve for eight works.
You attach it to a garden hose and it just takes about ten minutes to
treat an average lawn. And it's got the nutrients in it for sure,
but it also has medina sail activator, human liquid humus and everything. It's
really convenient to be able to apply it. Uh, it's it's one that
you it's it's not an overdose of the nutrients to do that, and just
just follow the label carefully because you want to do it, you want to
do it properly. Okay. Also, um, well, I have a
question of my Roman tomato. But first on this night of Falls nineteen four
ten, if my husband puts that out today, should I wait like a
couple of weeks and then do the medina plus or is it okay to do
it? Well, if you're gonna do, if you're gonna do the nitrofoss
today, that's going to give you a gradual release all through the next coming
months. And so I would I would not I would not follow. Just
maybe I misunderstood your original question, but I would not follow with just the
medina immediately. Now you could do the medina and hold you for a while
and then add the nitrofossil a little later to carry on through. But I
wouldn't do two fertilizations with any fertilizer, just right back to back. The
thing with the liquid food, it's a real quick release. It gives you
a fast response, and with the longer release fertilizers, they do start releasing
but it stretches it over time. So if you wanted to use both of
those, I would start with a hast grow and then I would give it
probably a month or so before I would put down the nineteen nineteen nitrofoss that
you were talking about. Okay, And also on my roama tomatoes, I've
probably got about twelve to twelve thirteen maybe where Ima is on there. Do
they ripen from that bottom up? Because I've got like four at the bottom
that are red, but the ones closer to the top are still green.
Yes, that is the natural way they do that. Those at the bottom
are the oldest tomatoes on your plant, so they they're the furthest developed.
And then as you know, as a plant grows, you get new flowers
which become fruit, which grow in size, and then they will finally you
know, ripen themselves. Oh okay, okay, well thanks Skip. Do
you have time for one more question. I'm going to have to hold you
over break, but just let me put you on hold and I'll come back
to you. And by the way, David I see out there in Southeast
Houston, will come back to you as well. You know, if you're
trying to prevent weeds. Barricade is a product that can do that both for
broad leaf and for thin grass like weeds. Barricade is pre emergent. What
does that mean, Well, it means the weeds never have a chance to
start. It prevents the seeds from germinating and successfully establishing a weed plant.
And that's that's the easiest way to shut things down rather than killing weeds are
already growing in your lawn. Now you're gonna find barricade all over the place.
You know, the K and Ma's hardware and Kingwood D and D feed
and Tom Ball carries that gym's hardware out of Montgomery plants and things in Brenham.
It's it's not hard finding nitro FoST products, including barricade. Well,
good morning on a good day for gardening and a good day for talking about
gardening. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter and
our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We
were talking with Sandy and Cypers. We are going to go back and continue
that conversation. Hi, they ask, um, Okay, so I have
have bell peppers growing, hallapena is growing, and I wanted to know Um,
do I need to leave one on the vine on the on the plant
to ripe in four seeds for next season, or how do I do that?
Well, how I save the seeds for Yeah, if it's not a
hybrid, you can save the seed and it'll be what the plant was you
took it the fruit off of. If it's a hybrid, it's going to
be a mix. Like kids are not like mom or dad identically, although
when they misbehave one, from what I hear, they're more like dad.
But anyway, um, yeah, you can, you can leave one on.
I would wait until kind of the end of the season on it because
when you leave peppers to ripen to turn red number one, there's good reasons
to do that, but the plant doesn't tend to produce as much. It's
it's sort of like I'm finishing my cycle here. It slows down a little
bit. So I'd wait till the end of the season. Sandy, Okay,
so wait till the end of the season. Yeah, maybe it's not
the end of the world if you let one ripen, But just in general,
how do I know if it's a hybrid or not? Chet it should
say on on the did you plant it? From a seed packet or from
a snowbought tan. Yeah, bought it at eighth at eight. Okay,
do you remember the variety of it? Um I can go out in any
look. Oh well, let's let's just say I'm uh that chances are if
if it's if it's a variety that you buy at a garden center. Uh,
well, it's really fifty fifty on these plants. It just depends on
what they're what they're selling. A lot of the open pollinated ones are the
ones that we see on the market. But yeah, while we're while we're
talking about peppers. By the way, the the peppers when they turn red,
the beta carotein goes way out. They're very nutritious and they get sweeter.
Now I know with hallopenia is we pick them green when they're kind of
cracking before they turn color. And that's fine, that's a traditional halopenia.
But just know that if you want to let some turn red, you have
those two benefits, a little sweeter taste and higher beta carotene content. But
in general your bush's production will be a little less. This just as bonnie
green bell sweet pepper, oh bell pepper. Okay, yeah, that doesn't
give the variety. Well, you know, you could save the seed.
I think it's better just to buy packets a seed if you're not sure,
because that way you can get one that has the qualities you want and have
a better success with it. But if you want to save a few just
for fun, they will come up and they will grow peppers. Oh okay,
okay, thank you so much, scamp. Thank you. Have a
great day. All right, thank you very much. Let's now go to
southeast Houston and we're gonna talk good David. Hello, David, good morning.
Have a question or get your thoughts on a quander. I'm in I
have two live oak trees in my front yard. The house faces southwest,
so they're twenty two years old, and they provide good shade in the summer
months keep their conditioning bills down a little bit. The problem is they've gotten
so big they're starting to encroach on my driveway and underneath my house. I've
had to have some root or piers put in on my house already because of
unsettling in the soil. So we've had our house remodeled down and we don't
want to go through the same thing with the foundations so we're thinking about either
taking out the two oak trees and replacing them with other trees, are having
a root barrier put in around the driveway and the house. And my question
is which would you do and what are your thoughts on trees that grow to
the point where the roots don't go into these areas that I'm having problems with.
Well, the root barrier is a good solution, and it's also a
very pricey one. It's quite quite an ordeal to get that done. But
that would solve that problem. The problem of just putting a different tree is
all tree roots are going to go where there's moisture, and around the drip
line of your house there's almost always moisture there, and the tree roots build
up there. They don't you know, they'll go under a sidewalk and lift
it up and break it, but they don't so much do that the on
the foundation as they take all the moisture away from that area, and so
when your soil dries and gets wet, there's a lot of shrink and swell
and that's what's so hard on our foundations. So I don't think changing species
is going to be much help. I had a recommendation to put in some
crape myrtles that would grow to a good height, but the roots wouldn't spread
so far out into these areas. What are your thoughts on that, Well,
I guess that would be that would be a step in the right direction.
They're not going to tend to have the extent of a root system as
as you know, your your oaks and things would okay, okay, and
anywhere I can get rid of the roots that are that are above you know,
they're not really under the ground, They're just kind of above the surface
there, and I try to cover them with soil, and then the grass
grows on the soil, but then they return again over the period of time.
Yeah, because the root is getting bigger and bigger over time, and
it's pushing out in all directions. But when it pushes down, there's the
firm soil there, so when it pushes up, it's easier for it to
kind of come up. Plus erosion washes soil away from those rising roots.
Anyway, you can take a root or two away from a tree over the
course of the season. But I don't think that is recommended. There some
issues with that that that I don't I don't think I would recommend you you
mess with that. I would just bring in either use a ground cover in
that area to cover that up, or make a nice large mulched bed out
of it and do it that way. Okay, so let me get you
this straight. You've said a root barrier would be a good option. Does
it? Actually they've told me that the root bearer will actually hit the barrier
and turn away from that. Yeah, it'll turn sideways or turn down or
something. But properly installed, that would be a good block. Hey David,
I hope that. I hope that helps you with that question. I
want to go now out to Susan and Cyprus. Hello, Susan, how
are you this morning? I'm fine? Thank you. I appreciate your show
and all you do. I have a question about fertilizer. I bought a
bag of fifteen five ten earlier this year, but I have a really small
yard, so I have over half the bag left. Is it going to
be okay to use that fifteen five ten in June instead of the nineteen four
ten? Just making sure that what I've got is not going to be bad
to use in really hot weather. Yeah, no, it's not bad to
us in hot weather, and when you don't have a slow release fertilizer,
what I recommend is that you break it up into more than one application,
which is what you've done. And sometimes early in the spring, you know
we're on a quick green up, so we use the immediate release for that,
and I suspect the fifteen five ten almost certainly is going to be an
immediate release, So yeah, just go ahead, give it about six weeks
or so and do another application, but both of those being lighter applications,
not full flow, you know, full strength, and just go a little
bit lighter with it, and you can use up that fertilizer you already have.
Okay, great, I'm gonna use um medina medina spray on my grass
now this weekend and then use the nitro thoughts, I guess the middle of
June. Are you okay with that? Yes? But I think we were
just talking about doing the fifteen five ten in there too, right right,
I was gonna do. I was gonna put some Medina grass spray on my
yard this weekend, and then in the middle of June, I was going
to put five can down. Okay, So the medina has to grow twelve
four eight will be fine to use. It's going to give you a quick
response. I would give it about four weeks or six weeks before you come
back with another fertilizer. Okay, great, I'll do Ladina now and then
towards the end of June, I'll do sounds good. Hey, Susan,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know you're talking about fertilizers and
things. I don't know any place in town that has a better selection of
fertilizers and all the pest controlled, weed control insect control products as Southwest Fertilizer,
I mean Southwest Fertilizer. Check them out Southwest Fertilizer dot com it You
will not believe the selection that they have there's it is absolutely outstanding. And
when you take a sample or something in they're going to be able to help
put their eyes on it and identify what's going on and take you to the
proper product. They won't sell you something you don't need. Bob and his
team there or excellent at that. They're on the corner of Bissonette and Renwick,
or you can just go online to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Uh.
The the quality of fertilizers that we have these days is just amazing. And
you hear us talk about a bunch of different ones I know all the time,
but it's it's just it's just amazing the options. You know, if
you're an organic gardener, if you don't carry synthetics, fine with you.
They're they're just all out there and it's really really kind of cool. I
wanted to tell you about a place that I've talked about them before, but
Verdant Tree Farm. You know, they have the original location which is out
there on Barker Cyprus on the west side, and then they've got the pair
Land location on West Broadway, and then in the Heights on Yale Street they
have another location and Verdant there they are. Their selection of trees is amazing.
I mean the you know, palm trees, oh my gosh, unbelievable,
but all kinds of trees. They've got everything you can imagine. You
get to go there, you pick out your tree, you tag it,
they bring it to you, they planet, they plant right, which is
critical when you purchase a new tree. That's a nice investment. You're putting
in, but it'll pay off for years and years. And Verdant Tree Farm
has the kind of trees and the kind of service and the kind of train
staff that will set you up for a real good success. I want to
remind you again that I'm going to be out in sugar Land at the Home
and Outdoor Living Show from eleven thirty to one thirty today out at the Stafford
Center and Stafford So I hope you'll come out and see me. Come early
though, about eleven thirty. I'm gonna be giving a talk on successful tips
for a successful landscape, and after that I'll be there answering your questions at
a table. So bring me. I like to kind of like the m
Alazareth point, Bring me. You're tired, you're weary, you're huddled masses
of plants yearning to not be sick anymore. That's kind of a stretched it
Nikki. That's really good, how poetic. Yeah, well, we'll look
at them and we'll make some suggestions. No drive, but agis this wild?
See well, good morning on a good day for gardening. This is
the garden Line Radio Show. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our
phone number seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's go out to Baytown
and we're gonna talk to Mary. Good morning, Mary, Hi, Hey,
are you dealing this morning? Well, I'm well, thank you,
good good. I have a a drift white rose container plant. Um.
I would say maybe three gallons side. Anyway, when I bought it,
it was very very healthy, the roses, the green leafs. Well,
now I haven't played any yet because I wasn't sure that's where I wanted it.
And now my leaves are all going yellow and the roses are all dying
off. Is that too much water or what? Well, it could be
um, too much water, not enough water, or that fluctuation where it
gets a little bit dry. It's it's stressed and then you water it.
Often we see yellow leaves follow that. You notice that probably in your houseplants,
you know, you gotta Papha's ivy and gets too dry, and then
you water it and suddenly the leaves are turning yellow. It's just part of
that cycle. But if it's just yellow and it's the older leaves, then
I wouldn't I wouldn't be concerned, just try to try to make sure drainage
is good, it's not soggy roots, and also that it doesn't go into
drought. But we haven't been anywhere near drought this this spring. Okay,
okay, so kind of not too much sun either, like between the front
that has a little bit of an overhand, Well that shouldn't be a problem.
Well, it comes down to how much light energy hits the leaves of
the course of the day. So we say things like give rose is at
least six hours of sun, but it you know, all light is not
equal. There's there's partial shade, dapple shade, morning sun, afternoon shade,
or you see what I'm saying. It just comes down to you need
you need a lot of sunlight on those leaves, and as it starts to
become less than ideal, then bloom will be less than ideal as well.
Oh okay, okay, yeah, yeah, And I just Mary, thank
you. I'd give it some time. You're gonna you're gonna see this summer
how it does. And then if it's not right, then this falls a
good time to move a rose anyway, That's what i'd recommend, And and
thank you for the call. Our phone number is seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four. You know, the other day I was
out at arbor Gate for a visit on a weekend. They had their little
event out there by the way. That was awesome, and thank you for
those of you who came out. But if you haven't been to arbor Gate,
you need to check it out. If you have been, you need
to check it out again because that place changes all the time. There's constantly.
In fact, when I got through with my talk, there were trucks
lined up through the driveway. Almost couldn't get out of there because there are
so many trucks of plants just coming in with new stuff all the time.
And those of you who've been to Arbrogate, you know that their selection the
kinds of things they carry is wonderful. Arburgate dot com is their website if
you want to check it out. But why are you there to check out
their one two three easy system? And what that means is they have a
food that feeds anything with roots, soil for any application, and a compost
to improve your soil, all completely organic and completely easy. I just love
I love a system like that that kind of keeps things simple, makes it
a little easier to do. Well, let's we're going to head out now
and talk to Mary. Good morning, Mary, good morning. How can
I help today? Major? And too? It about a rosebush, maybe
a knockout rosebush that does not bloom and hasn't bloomed in years. It's in
a ninety degree corner of the property, doesn't get a lot of sunlight.
Its facing the west, but the the crape myrtle trees block a lot of
the sun. It gets too much water in that corner. Okay, all
right, Mary, I think I've heard enough to diagnose this one. You
need to get it. You need to get it in more sunlight. You
know, you can grow rosebush. What do I do, transplanet? Move
it somewhere else on the property? Yeah, I'd wait, though at this
point it's going to get hot and you can move a plant now, but
boy, the chances of success go down a lot. I'd do it in
November and November okay, So live with a situation until November. Yeah.
Give it a good bed that has quality, you know, quality soil and
excellent drainage and some sunlight, and it'll come alive for you and do what
you want it to do. So it is salvageable. Oh, yes,
yes it is. I'm assuming the bush looks okay in and of itself.
It does, it does, but it's it's it needs some help with a
saw and it's just in too much water up, especially the flash flooding that
occurs in my area. Gotcha, Well, those things I recommended, they're
going to be the way to turn that around. Mary. I appreciate your
call, Thank you very much for it. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. That's the number Josh will get you on the board.
I just wanted to mention if you haven't been out to Enchanted Forest and
Enchanted Gardens, you need to go check them out that they have. By
the way, each one has its own Facebook and Instagram pages, So just
get on Facebook or get on Instagram and either type in enchanted Gardens which is
the one from Richmond up toward Katie direction, or Enchanted Forest which is the
one from Richmond towards sugar Land direction on the south side of Highway six there,
excuse me, not Highway six fifty nine. They the selection is unmatched.
It's one of those cool places to go to where you know, you
visit and it just it's like a wonderland. Both the places are like this.
They got unbelievable plant selection, all the products we talk about, of
course, by the way, and you will find something, I promise you.
In fact, you better take a big vehicle because you're going to find
a lot of things that you're going to want to be home or bring home
from enchanted forest and enchanted gardens. Oh gosh. You know, we're here
to answer your gardening questions, and we're gonna take a little break, but
we're gonna come back and do just that. Seven one three two one two
five eight seven four Good Saturday morning on a good day for gardening, for
talking about gardening, getting out and enjoying, enjoying the weather and life and
everything like that. You know, I talk to people sometimes and they talk
about not having good fruit set on plants that they have, for example,
squash and things like that. Bees are the key to that. And sometimes
we kill our bees by spraying and you know, using insecticides that kill them.
And when you kill a bee, you inherit it's job, which means
you're going to go out there with an artist brush or something and dab it
on the mail part to get some pollen and then go over to the female
pardons, which is a separate bloom on a squash, and take care of
it like that. To have a beehive in your backyard is really cool.
I used to have those myself, and you will see your yields go up
just from having a beehive. I've talked about the bee supply before. Be
Supply out in Dayton, but they have beginner classes twice a month out in
Dayton. Now you can learn how to take care of your bees. And
it's They're not just going to say you a product and say good good luck.
They really want you to have success. So you can come in over
and over again, Callumn over and over again, here's what's going on with
my bees, or just continue on with the instructions that they have there.
If you don't want to have bees, but you just like to learn about
them. It is one of the coolest insects in the world. It is
amazing the facts about bees that you'll learn. And you can go out to
be Supply and Daton by the way, they have honey tours where you'll learn
all about bees. You'll get to taste all kinds of honey, so any
kind of group you have, especially a group of youth, will love going
to the b supply. Be supply dot com vbe supply dot Com is a
place you need to go. And I would say if you never thought about
keeping bees in the backyard port, you might give it a try. I
think you will enjoy it. We're going to head out to Spring Branch and
talk to Jennifer. Good morning, Jennifer, Hi, good morning, Thank
you for taking my call. So we have a little condo townhouse that we're
selling, and it has a little patio in the back and it fence in.
It has a little plot garden plot kind of along the fence line.
And I lost a lot of my bushes in the last freeze, so I
had a lot of things in pots, and my friend gave me a lot
of perennials and I'd like to take them with me to my new home.
And I don't know what I can still plant now that will help sell the
home that will survive. Do you have any suggestions? Yeah, hey,
Jennifer, when do you want to put that house on the market as soon
as possible? Soon as possible? Okay, so annuals or your friend can
take the perennials with you because well, I mean, if they have beautiful
blooms on them, I guess you could go ahead and put those in.
But annuals give you the instant. And we have a lot of great summer
annuals. I would include Angelonia, which is has tall spikes of color blue
and kind of a pinkish color. There's very purple. There's various versions of
it, but it looks really good. And Angelonia would get you go ahead
and did the bush. I know it's an annual. It's a little small
plant, a bedding plant that you would put in a flower bed. Uh.
And so when you do that, you get the instant pop. So
so go oheat and stand at the street, look at your place, and
what you'll find is, you know, maybe a little planting over here along
the driveway or walk or whatever. I don't know what. You know your
place looks like. But you may even decide you're going to have a container
and put some flowers in it if you already have one. Uh yeah,
don't I don't have to take them with me. Yeah, And for that,
maybe you know one of these gaudy hibiscus shrubs that it looks so good
right now. Okay, well that's one you want to take with you,
by the way, But anyway, Yeah, you want people when they look
at the house, and of course any real estate person takes you want them
to look and go wow for that first impression. Wow, this is cool.
And color is the best way to do that. You can put some
color in shady areas with colladiums or something else like that. In the shade,
use some white with the other colors because it really brightens the shade and
it draws the eye, whereas dark colors in the shade you almost don't see
them. Thank you so much for your help. Yeah, those are a
couple of options. And you're you know, you're out there in the spring
branch. You've you've got all kinds of garden centers that you can pretty much
equal distant from going in all directions, so we sure do. Yeah,
you're fortunate. Hey, good luck selling that house, Jennifer. Thank you
so much, boy bye bye. Yeah. It's one of the fastest things
that we can do for a home is to make a instant color impact,
and with annuals you can just do that. Just remember one other tip,
Jennifer, if you're still listening, is the further away you view something,
the more you want to mass your colors. And what I mean by that
is like a swath of white, a broad swath of red, or something
like that. When you get close, you can have a lot of different
colors together, and that's very interesting. But from the street, don't you
know, just have eight hundred different kinds of colors all in a bed,
because what's going to happen is it's it's all going to blend into one.
It's like pixels again. When you get all the colors of pixels right together
and you back up, it doesn't you don't see those colors. You see
something kind of different than that. So just a tip. And by the
way, when you when you're selling a home, the most valuable part of
your landscape of the trees. Trees are I mean that very very important to
the home value. And when you pick a tree, you want to pick
one that's going to be a long lived variety, not something that grows fast
and dies young and falls apart. And in the meantime, you want a
good quality, long lived variety, and then you want to take care of
it, right. And you've heard me talking about affordable tree before but Martin
and Joe at Affordable they know what they're doing. It's kind of a motto
of mine that if someone sticks a business card in your door for taking are
your trees, I just those go rout in the trash for me. I
want to know that the people I'm hiring know what they're doing. And that's
Affordable Tree. By the way, their phone number seven one three six nine
nine two six six three. Tell them you're from Garden Line if you call,
because that'll put you at the front of the line. They've got experience,
you know, their employees have been around fifteen twenty years. They know
what they're doing. Someone that goes in and takes care of your trees and
doesn't know how to do it, they can ruin a tree for life.
And we're just talking to Jennifer about the value of selling a house. Oh
my goodness, to have that done to a tree somewhere in its life and
now you're trying to sell it instead of them just being drawn to this big,
beautiful tree and shady area. Now you know it just mars mars it
up. And so I would recommend Affordable Tree and you can go to their
website too. It's aff tree Service dot com. But don't just hire the
I like, I like to refer to them two jerks on a chain saw
tree service that drives behind a pickup truck and they own a pickup and a
chainsaw and now they're a tree specialist. No, no, no, you
need people that know what they're doing, because, like I said, it's
it's huge. The way they make a pruning cut, the way, um
you know, the kinds of care they give a tree affordable. Is that
that kind of company. We're gonna now head out to League City and we're
gonna talk to Jean V. Hello, John V. Good Morning's gift morning.
Yes, my question is on growing eggplants, okay, and what how
deep should we plant them and sent them outside? And now much care do
they need? Yes? Okay, well, eggplant likes lots of sun to
do well. And John V, could you turn that radio down in the
background, We're gonna it's already down. I'm sorry you sawur International landline.
I apologize. Okay, Well, anyway, eggplant like a lot of sun.
Um, you are going to want to make sure it has good drainage
and you want to plant the plants at the same level that they were growing
before. Now it's kinned to tomatoes. But we don't bury the stem of
eggplant like we can get away with burying the stem of a tomato. So
put it at the same level it was growing before, good drainage, quality
soil, and just give it moderate amounts of fertilizer over time, either with
a slow release product or with a fast release. It's it's broken up.
In small applications. Eggplant can be really really productive and it takes a heat
better than it produces better in the summer that I think than peppers, and
certainly better than tomatoes. How exciting, Oh wonderful, Thank you so much.
I'll have a wonderful day. Well, next thing you need to do
is go get a good recipe for baba ganose, so you're ready to go.
When you got that, you name it. My wife made a castro
all the other day. That was it, with slices of eggplant, with
ground beef and all I don't know what, all kinds of onions, who
knows what. That was the tastiest thing I've had in a very long time.
Hey, I appreciate, appreciate that call John to be Thank you so
much. Yeah, you're listening to the garden line and we're about to close
down an hour. My goodness that this one flew by about eight o'clock.
Just a reminder. I'm going to be out at Sugarland Home and Garden Show
today from eleven thirty to one thirty, and that's at the Stafford Center in
Stafford. You know, I keep calling at the Home and Garden Show because
I'm so used to saying that they call at the home an outdoor living show.
But you can come and listen to him. I'm going to be given
a talk on you know, secrets and tips for success and so as a
result, hopefully you're gonna go home a better success. You can ask any
questions you want. We're going to be given away free fertilizer, some little
containers that Nelson's has provided us, and then I'll be at a desk where
I can sit and visit with you answer questions, you know, whatever kinds
of questions. If you've got some quality photos on your phone, that would
be really good. That would be really good for me to be able to
look at and identify. Just make sure, especially when it's like a bug
or a disease or something you may get a distant picture of the whole thing,
but get a close up picture and then check it. Make sure it's
in sharp focus. I cannot identify something that I can't see, so good
quality, sharp focus on the photos, and that way we can help you
the most we can. If it's a weed in the lawn, you want
to know how to kill it, pull it up, shove it in the
bag, and I will bring it and put it under a hot lamp,
make it confess its name, and then tell you how to get rid of
that weed. That's why we're there, and that's why we're here on Garden
Line. Our phone number, by the way, seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Give us a call, Josh. You'll get
you on the board and we will come to you in the next segment.
Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scared Rector. It's just
watching as so many good morning, like every day today is a good day
for garden Harder heard me say that a hundred times. I'm gonna say it
a five thousand more because it is. Someone often will say well, it's
pouring down rain outside. Well, do you have houseplants? Do you want
to start some seeds indoors under light to get going in your garden or do
you just want to do that armchair gardening We do as we peruse websites,
see catalogs, all that kind of stuff and just have fun. You can
check out some of the sponsors of the show that we talk about and they
have awesome social media sites Instagram, Facebook, and good websites as well.
A lot of them have a little newsletter that they send out. You can
subscribe to it and you'll see all the plants as they come in. Plus
you'll get some cool ideas for ways to you know, maybe add some color
or some beauty to your landscape, bring in some pollinators, things like that,
you know. Speaking of sponsors, the RCW, the Williamson family,
they've they've been in this business since nineteen seventy nine and r CW Nurseries.
It's at Tumball Parkway at Beltway eight. The color is amazing that they have
there right now. Now we know that our CW has probably the best selection
of roses anywhere in the area. They also have wonderful tree selection fifteen gallons
up to two hundred gallons. But I just think that the color right now
is a thing that has been drawing my eyes as I've driven by there or
pulled in there to get it got at nursery. If r CW doesn't have
it, just ask them. They'll order it for you. They'll do their
best to get that in for you. They carry all the products that we
talk about. But our CW nurseries dot com is the place that you may
want to go and check out see if what I told you as a case,
and you will find it. Definitely. It definitely is this my favorite
time of year to go out and visit garden centers and just see the color.
I think I need to buy a motorcycle because whatever vehicle I have,
I'm tending toward wanting to fill it up because there's always things I gotta have
that I don't have in these places. And I go in to buy one
plant, and well, you know how that goes. So I'm surprised my
wife doesn't call in and report all the credit cards stolen once she knows I'm
heading toward a nursery. Let's go out to spring and we're gonna talk to
Bill. Good morning, Bill, Good morning. I'm a question about during
the recent rains, I collected a lot of rainwater in gallon jugs that I
had have and also have a question about what type of fertilizer I need to
use for cannons for Kennis. The yes, sir, big broadly. Okay,
So what's your question about the rainwater? How long? How long will
that rainwater I've got I must have a hundred gallons of it that I've collected
during the rain, and I just wanted how long it's gonna last. You
know, I've never stretched it out to see. I mean, it doesn't
go bad. I mean it's rainwater. You know. Think about rainwater is
what's that a pond? And ponds just sit there for months and months,
right, So I wouldn't worry about it. I think you're gonna end up
using it up because it's fixing to get hot, and our plants are gonna
need a lot of water, and so I don't think the longevity of the
rainwater is going to be an issue at all for all. Right, as
far as the cannas, cannas are, they're pretty easy. You can use
one of the color types of fertilizer that we have, you can you know
something that'll that will bring the nutrients that are a little better for color plants.
That's all good, but I on mine a lot of times, I'll
just use the term fertilizer that I bought. It gives a little vigor because
got a little more nitrogen in it. But you're not going to go wrong
on the fertilizing for cannis if you if you're in a place and you got
the choice, look for something you know that's that's for color. You know,
color star, you know a good example of that, you know.
But how many the cannons you have? Are they the green leaf kinds or
do they have like yellow stripes or purple colors or what they're green leaves?
Okay, all right, well they're there are a lot of fun and boy
they are willing to grow here. Yeah, I've got some of them that
are blooming now, but one of them is holding back. Okay, all
right, Well, hey, thank you for the call. Bill. I
appreciate that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Hey. Hey, by the way, listen up to this,
I've been talking about being at the Sugar Line Home and Garden Show,
Home and Outdoor Living Show today at the Stafford Center and Stafford from eleven thirty
to one thirty. And if you would like to email someone we can get
we can email you back a voucher for two free tickets. Okay, now
it's it's first come, first serve. But here's the email, Robert Reese
at iHeartMedia dot com. Robert r. E. E. S E at
iHeartMedia dot com. Do it before nine am. It's got to be done.
The next one us in fifty minutes. But first come, first serve,
and again we'll be given away some fertilizer out there as well. Hey,
I wanted to I wanted to talk a little bit about the lawn again.
We've been getting a lot of calls today on lawns and that's kind of
a normal day on Garden Line. It is to have people want to talk
about their lawns because it's important to people have a beautiful lawn. The Nitrofoss
SUPERTURF nineteen four ten is the kind of fertilizer that provides that slow feed twelve
to sixteen weeks, so it'll carry all the way to fall. Because it
spreads out the feeding. And you've heard me talk about this kind of thing
before you cut down on your mowing, because you don't have that over flush
of growth. The over flush of growth that also sets a plant up for
certain disease damages. It'll make all the chinch bugs happy if you have very
succulent grass for them to come chew on. But the nitros nineteen four ten,
it just provides that kind of slow growth. And it's a quality fertilizer
that, by the way, is the silver bag from nitro FoST. And
you know Nitrofuss. They're available all over the place. Everywhere you're gonna look,
you're gonna find them at a task aseda ace at Arburgate and tom Ballades,
Shades of Texas down South Houston. Nitrophospertilizers like nineteen four ten or a
quality way to go. And by the way, when you're fertilizing, you
need to think about adding some azemite to your lawn. And here's why you
don't mix the two together. I like to apply them separately because the setting
on your spreader is a little bit different probably from your fertilizer to the azemite.
But you can go online to Asomite Texas dot com and learn more about
them. But basically, what this is, it's a ground up mineral that's
mined and it is loaded with trace elements, all the elements that your plant
needs. You know, plants don't just need those three numbers on the bag.
They need sixteen, seventeen or more depending on the plant. Nutrients to
supply that are essential for growth. And azamite helps us get there. So
when you fertilize, follow that up with can I say asomit ties. That's
new, brand new word. I have to try that one out a little
bit. Azamite Texas dot com those where you can learn a little bit more
about it. We're going to be taking a break here, Fernando. I
see you out there in East Houston, and we will get to you first
when we come back back. Bettamam a little back, Betty back, Betty
ahead of child. Bam Lam the damn thing going byam lamp said. We're
not a minam lam the damn thing gone by that'll get your blood powing on
good Saturday morning for gardening. We are here to answer your gardening questions.
I'm Skip Richter. This is Garden Line and seven one three, two,
one, two, fifty eight seventy four is our number. You know,
while Ago I was talking about that garden, beaut beautiful landscapes, enticing landscapes
aren't just flowers. There's a lot of other things we do. You know,
running water is nice. I call butterflies flying flowers because that's basically what
they are. And then there's birds and the sound of birds. Just the
beauty of birds. Even if you're not an all out birder, it is
something that it needs to be part of your landscape. By the way,
next Saturday, that's the twenty seventh, I'm going to be at Wahbirds Unlimited
at clear Lake City that's across from the HEB the storeflunt Faces clear Lake City
Boulevard, and I will be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. I
hope you'll come out and see me. But there are actually seven locations in
the wild Birds Unlimited Houston area now that includes you know, West Houston,
certainly, Belair, Pearland, Cyprus, Kingwood, Katie. No matter where
you live, there's one near you you can go to. If you want
to find a Wahbirds near you, go to w BU dot com. W
BU dot com Forward slash Houston, WBU dot com Forward slash Houston. I
hope you'll come out and see me next Saturday, especially all of those over
in the clear Lake and pear Land area or wherever you want to drive from.
But wild Birds will trust me on this one. If you've not walked
into a wild Birds, I want you to walk in and I promise you
will be amazed at the products that they have. These people go beyond just
a here's some bird seed. They have bird seeds for different kinds of birds,
have bird seed for different seasons. You know, in the spring when
they're raising young they need a high protein seed like a dried worm. The
thing about them is they know what they're talking about and they can get you
set up for success and beauty. Another reason to be outside and enjoying the
landscape out there. I want to head out to East Houston to start off
this hour and we're gonna talk to Fernando. Hello, Fernando, good morning,
Good morning. Who are you well. I'm doing great. I'm saving
a cup of coffee here, but I don't want to take stood long with
my question. I'm in Channel V, Texas. I'm moved into the house
that I'm in now, and in the backyard, I have a corner,
a good corner. I wanted to put some basol, some sorroundo peppers and
hallepenion peppers, and so I did last season. I killed the ground,
I pulled the weeds by hand. I'm, you know, putting my plants
in. I watered them wan and behold, I've come these lily pads.
And I was like, okay, So I started digging them up, and
apparently I thought I got all the roots, but I didn't. And they
kept growing and they kept growing, and my basil hallepenos were, I mean,
the sorroundo peppers. Everything was just overtaken by the lily pads. And
I just got beat like a drum. Okay, So my question is,
right now, I cleared the area again, I put molts. I put
an inch and a half molt under and then I put another another inch on
there and there's still growing through the molts. My question is, how can
I get rid of these friendly lily pads so I can start my gardening back
with my albanetto's, my chila pikine and basil in in that one spot.
Man, man, you're making me hungry with all these all these cool people,
Fernando. And when you say lily pad, you're talking about something about
the size of a quarter. No, these are the ones you find in
the pond, like the big one. Well, I'm well, I know
what a lily pad is, but I thought, surely you're not talking about
you know what we look at. Yeah, I think we're dealing with something
else. But I want to do two things. Number One, I'm gonna
give you a suggestion that I think will take care of it. But I'm
gonna put you on home when I'm done. And I would like Josh to
get you an email to send me some pictures of these things, uh close
up or if I just want to make sure what we're talking about. A
broadly post emergent weed control product is probably going to work on these And so
because it's an area where you're gardening, I wouldn't want to just spray it
all over the grounds and stuff like that. You're gonna have to give up.
Whenever you're doing a transition of the plant, that would be a good
time to do the treatment for these things. But I would be real careful
with when you spray it, because it will kill all your vegetables that are
broad leaves well, and so I would do it in a transition. But
you can either wipe as an applicator on the leaves. There there's applicators that
you just basically rub it over the leaves and it gets on them and that
way you're not spraying the soil and everything else. Or you can just be
real carefully spray. But you know, there's a number of good broad leaves
out there, and the Ultra oh gosh, I just went blank on the
name. Uh, it'll come back to me in a minute. Let's see
where are you. You're in East Houston, so are Yeah, so you're
gonna be able to find it out there, But ask where you go shop,
where you do your shopping. Uh, there's gonna be some good place.
I don't know how far. You're not too far from Baytown and Quality
feed is is up and north of Baytown in there. Just asking for a
broad leaf weed control product we'd beat or Ultra as the one I couldn't think
of a minute ago. I probably would use that one wiping on them.
Now. A lot of things that are general weed killers, you know,
the glyphosates and things like that are fine, but all of those will kill
this weed, but they're they're gonna also damage your plants, so be really
careful. I think there's Here's the thing that's making me hesitate is labels tell
you where you can use stuff. And some of these products are not labeled
for use in a vegetable garden. And that's a lot of the ones I
would recommend if these things were growing in your lawn. We I'm not going
to officially recommend them for use in your vegetable garden, okay, because then
right now nothing is there because my mom my plants are dead and I pull
the weeds. Okay, but the only thing that's left is is what I
say, is these lily ted looking plants. Well now I'm thinking of about
going back and killing the whole thing over again, but I want to make
sure that their sins they're out. I want to be able to address it
first, get to the root cost of everything. Yeah, first spray and
then give it a week or so and then do your killing. Don't till
first, because then you're just breaking them up and essentially probably propagated. Yeah
all right, well, I appreciate you said you're putting a hole for an
email. Yes, I'm putting you on hold and Josh is going to get
you an email to send me some photos of these. Thanks a lot for
that call. When when if you're an organic gardener, or even if you're
not an organic gardener, the microlifeline of products is just outstanding for providing nutrients
and microbes boost for microbes in your landscape. Now, when we go through
the summertime, that's big lawn fertilizing time. And their green Bag six two
four. Green Bag six two four is an excellent lawn fertilizer that'll carry you
in through the summer. Being an organic, it's going to have a natural
slowly. You can also add and I'd recommend it, the Humates Plus.
That's a purple bag, So think green, think purple for your lawn and
follow the label instructions how to how to apply it. And the Humans plus
is basically concentrated compost in a bag. If you want to find out to
where to get microlife will number one. It's everywhere, but Microlife Fertilizer dot
com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com will get you on the right track for these
products. You know, we uh talk about weed control and things like that,
and the label is the law on these things. Uh, and we
do. I just need, especially when I'm talking about them, to be
careful to tell people, you know, don't don't apply it outside the label
because it's labeled and the company is responsible if you apply it right and the
right place like they say it. And that's what the research has been done
to say, where can you apply it and where is it safe to use?
And so when you go outside the label, then you know it you're
on your own, I mean, and chances are you're gonna you're gonna cost
some problems with that. I can't wait to see this weed because I you
know, the word lily pad and the way he's describing it is not fitting
in my head. So I guess I got something to learn on that one.
I look forward to seeing those seeing those photos of it. I mentioned
that I'm going to be at at Wilberg's next next Saturday, but today Sugarland
Home and Garden Show, Home and Outdoor Living show at the Stafford Center and
Stafford from eleven thirty to one thirty, So I don't know if you're still
listening, Fernando. Another option if you want to take a little drive,
but it'd be kind of fun. Go out to the Sugarland Home and Garden
Show and Stafford Center and bring me some examples of those lily pads and I
can take a look at them, and we can save a lot of time
right there and do that as well, if you are willing to come out
and do that. Those of you who have a little piece of property,
you know where you you, it's the dream right to get an acre two
or more out in the country. You need to know about a deal that's
going on right now with Lansdowne Moody. Lansdown Moody and Caboda have combined to
create a special deal, zero down, zero interest for eighty four months,
seven years lansdown and Caboda. We're talking about the Caboda L twenty five oh
one, which got a the hydrostatic transmission. I used to have a tractor
and I ground gears a lot. Now with the hydrostatic transmission, I wish
I'd had this then. And you can trick it out with your front endloader,
your box blade, rotary color cutter. But now is the time to
do it. By the way, if you want to find a Lansdowne Moody
near you, it's l M tractor dot Com and there's a number of them
around the area. But remember this deal ends June thirtieth, so that's just
around the corner. Don't delay. But that that particular Texas Edition Caboda L
twenty five O one. It's an outstanding one, and all your chores out
on the low piece property are going to be a lot easier and you are
going to really enjoy driving one of those. When I used to have a
fruit orchard and a strawberry patch up in the Willis area years ago, and
I had this old clunker tractor, you know the kind where the seat's long
worn away and you had to set a piece of foam up on there to
sit on it. You know, I got the job done, but I
probably spent more trying time trying to get it to start than I did actually
using the tractor itself. So I guess I'll need to get me one of
these Cabodas, and that would be really nice. Yeah, out in Grimes
County, those of you who live, oh, let's say east of Navasota,
anywhere around there. Brian College Station, beat Eyes, Rones Prairie,
Grimes County, Feeding Farm. That is a company that really has the products
we're talking about. I was just looking at some of the things that they
have on hand, and in fact I saw they had some of the Nelson's
Slow and Easy. That's the twenty two to ten, that's the gradual release
that we were talking about a little bit earlier. You know, Nelson's,
whether whether it's Bruce's Brew eighteen four nine, twenty two to ten. Grimes
County Feeding Farm is going to carry these for you. So if you live
out in that area and you want a good local feedstore, a mom and
pop, pop, family owned plate place, I need to avoid peas today
to Nikkia believe I'm just plopping this out. So anyway they stop by,
tell them you heard it on Garden Line. You're going to find the kind
of products you need, like dog and cat food, quality food, all
the things you would expect from feed store. You got roading problems, past
problems, they're going to have something to deal with it. It's been raining,
you need mosquito dunks. Grimes County Feeding Farm is going to have it
as well as the Nelson Plant Food, Turf star line Brown. You know,
it's it's hard, it's hard to cut in on Jim Crouch. Yea,
I love that guy. I love those songs. Law I guess you'd
call that oldies now right, Wow, today's music oldies for you know it.
That's the way it goes. You're listening to Gardenline the number and you
want to write this down seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. By the way,
I want to remind you if you would like to get a voucher for two
free tickets to come out to the sugar Land Home and Outdoor Living Show where
I'll be at eleven thirty today, just email have your pen ready Robert Reese
R. E. S E at iHeartMedia dot com. You have to do
it before nine am. So what do we got twenty four minutes? Don't
delay if you'd like to come out. It's a great opportunity. And by
the way, we're gonna be given away the nitro fist fertilizer. Heard of
Nelson's fertilizer out there today. It's a nelson product. I was just cross
tongue there on it. But Nelson's has provided some little bottles of look at
the plastic jars of their fertilizer, and we've got a wide ride and we
give away some let's see vegetable fertilizer, rose fertilizer, plumarium. I mean,
there's all kinds of things that we have there. But come out and
listen to me. I'm gonna talk about the things that you need to do
this spring to have or this summer to have an outstanding beautiful landscape. Just
giving you some tips for that. And that will start at about eleven thirty
and then I'll head to a table where I'll stay until about one thirty to
answer your questions things that you might be interested in. Well, let's head
out to Humble and we're going to talk to Ruth this morning. Good morning,
Ruth, good morning. How can I help? I was listening earlier
to the young man and call you about the weed that looks like lily man.
Yes, and that's the dollar weed. I learned that from Randy Lemon.
The dollar weed. It can get his side the biggest round as a
half dollar. Yes, and it grows up with the stem and that little
that little thing is on top that does look like a lily pad. It's
not near as big. But that's a dollar weed. Yeah it is,
and that's what I thought it was. But I asked him if you know
they're about a quarter size, because a lot of times a dollar weed is
getting started is about the size of a quarter. And he said, no,
it's like a lily pad. So I'm gonna wait and see his photo.
He's kind of stumped me. I think it was dollar weed too,
but you know, it didn't sound like that fit his description, so we'll
see. Thank you, though, I appreciate, appreciate that idea. You
gotta deal with dollar weed out there and humble a little bit in my yard.
Yes, okay, I can't remember the name of the chemical that minds
we put on it, but we kind of you don't get it under control.
Okay. Yeah, it loves living here because we're hot, we're human,
and it rains a lot and that makes dollarweed really very happy. Yes,
thank you so much. All right, Ruby, thank you for the
call. It's good to have listeners out there that are kind of checking in
and offering their two cents worth on some of these things. We often get
some very interesting calls. You know, I've been a county Agriculture Extension horticulturist
for thirty four years now and answering gardening questions the whole time, of course,
And it always amazes me sometimes when you get a question and people are
describing it, and then when you see the plant or get a picture of
it or something, it looks very different. And you know, I mean,
it's not just on the people describing it. It's like our minds tend
to go in a different direction when we're hearing certain keywords and we think we'll
know what we're talking about. But one time I was given a garden talk
out in the Porter area Porter New Caney, and a lady raised her hand
and she asked me about this plant, and I just trying to help her,
trying to understand, you know, it was a rose she was saying,
and it just something was wrong. And finally another lady in the room
goes, Mabel, are you talking That isn't not a rose and you're driveway,
that's a crape myrtle. I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm
sitting here. The lady tells me she has a rose and I'm trying to
help her and it's actually a craip myrtle. Well, hey, I try.
I try to be accurate and helpful, but you know, give me
a break here, help me out a little bit. Oh my gosh,
remember those days. Yeah, So we're going to answer any kind of gardening
questions you have out at sugar Land Home and Garden Show today, and we're
gonna also be doing that here on the radio. In fact, let's go
ahead and go to pair Land and we're gonna talk to Jason. Hello,
Jason, Hey, good morning, Good morning. Yeah, I just wanted
to call and chat. I've had recurring fungal issues in my lawn really since
we've moved into the place and treated with propoconazol an eagle and uh dacanil,
which I read out of out of Randy's Gulf Coast Gardening Book for the gray
leaf spot, but always seem to pop back up in certain areas and I
get those bright yellow blades. I have a Saint Augustine line, so so
if they're bright yellow, um, I don't know. I'm thinking that I've
seen a lot of that this year, and I'm not really sure what to
point it too. It's not it's probably not take all root rot, but
it could be that will cause yellow of the grass, but it shows up
more as an iron deficiency than the bright yellow older leaves. And I think
you're probably looking at if you looked at a runner, it'd be the oldest
leaves on the runner that are yellow. Have you have you looked that close
or not? Oh? Yeah, I've definitely looked at them before. And
to your point on the take all, you know there are certain patches is
that I mean almost it seemed like it happened, you know, within a
matter of a couple of weeks where it just melted away and I was able
to just reach in and kind of pull up a few stolens in those roots
were you know, kind of destroyed. I dug around to check for you
know, grubs and stuff like that too. But have you used a herbsider
in your lawn this spring? I did a notro foss pre emergent Okay earlier
in the year. Okay, all right, Well, I don't know.
I would I would think about take all as a possibility. I would also,
uh, you know, large patch we used to call it brown patches
typically a cool season disease. It's it's it's specifically a riise Actonia fungus.
And we have some rise actonias that can affect her in the warm weather as
well, and just like in the cool season, you know, it starts
to rots the leaves off the runner and so they turn yellow before they turn
brown. It could be that there's a little bit of that going on because
we have had a plentiful rain spring and I think some fairly mild temperatures.
So it's going to be one or the other. I would just watch it
for now. Uh, it doesn't seem to be at a stage where you
would become really alarmed with it. And I hate to send you out just
putting products on for whatever reason that I'd be ready to go. You know,
you're you're in Paraland so you're close to Lumber and Ace Hardware there and
they're going to have all kinds of products. They also have knowledgeable folks there
too, by the way, Yeah, they do. That's that's where I
like to go. They're they're great plas. Yeah, that's Paralinas is an
awesome, awesome store. Well, let me ask you this a top dress
of Pete Moss and I just did my last treatment. I did a combination
of azoxystrobin and uh propoconazow Okay, on the lawn, and that was about
twelve days ago. Then you've yeah, you've fund decided the heck out of
that thing. So I about the Let's just watch and wait and see how
it does. Okay, Jason, So hold off on the fertilizer. Then
for now. Did you fertilize this spring earlier in the year, around February
March? I put put some down. Okay, I would go ahead with
the fertilizer. I don't think that's going to be a problem. Just do
it at a moderate rate, don't overdo it. All right, Hey,
Jason, I'm gonna have to run, but I appreciate your call. We're
taking a break here Don in pear Land. We'll be coming to you Ernie
and Spring Branch and Mitch out in the Woodlands. Just hang on. We'll
be right back from break side. But you don't see too many days.
Well, good Saturday morning. I am looking forward to get into these calls
here and talking about the things that you guys are interested in. Phone number
if you'd like to be on seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. Let's head out to pear Land and we are going to talk to
Don. Hello, Don, good morning, how are you doing. I'm
well, thank you, thank you. I'm going to complain a some roses
in the in my flower bed, and I was just wondering what is the
best rose saw to use or recommended rose saw. I haven't seen several different
things online, one with landscape or mix and the other with a vegetable garden
mix. Well, there's also a rose soil. Specifically, the folks out
at Heirloom have I think rose soil in your area that probably you're going to
find them at the Ace Hardware in pair Land, which is on North Main
Street, or if you're if you're a little further south, the Ace Hardware
down and on Edgewood Drive in Friendswood is probably going to be carrying those um
Heirloom soil mixes, the one called rose mix, and that's the one that
I would go with. All right, That's what I needed to know.
One more quick question. Yeah, okay, since I'm going to be putting
it into my existing big should I mix that with my get maybe a bag
of sold and mix into these in salt so that roofs can have a way
to grow. You know, I often will do that, don That's a
good question. I often will lay some of the bed mix down and mix
it with the soil below. Let's say you've got a really wonderful bed mix
and then boom, you hit this solid, dense clay. I like to
break that interface between the two up by mixing it a little bit and then
finishing up by putting the rest of In this case, the rose soil in
the bed sounds good, and that's a erloom soils makes a rose blend down
there. I think they would carry it. You know, another common rose
blend we have is a nature's way. They carry that, and it's a
number of areas. I just am not sure they're down there in the ace
in your area, so they'll be able to point you to what they carry.
But if you've heard us talk about it on here, it's going to
be a good quality mix. Sounds good. Yeah, I would like to
go around, but it's so far. Yeah, okay, So I'm much
try ace and I'm not airloom. But I'm sorry, I got you.
Yeah, you're h E I R l O O M. But when you
walk into the ace and you say show me your bags at airloom, they're
Airloom simix or compa they're going to be able to direct you to it,
and if they don't, if a place doesn't have that, they're going to
be able to direct you to the other one that they carry. Well,
thank you, I appreciate that. All right, thank you, I appreciate
that. Call. Don a right good good information there, you know,
and we're sitting here talking about ACE. Here. There thirty nine ACE stores
in the Greater Houston area. So what I'd recommend you do is go to
ACE Hardware dot com. Ace Hardware dot Com and you can click on a
link that will take you to the store near you. You know, you
tell them where you live, and they're going to show you the stores that
are closest to you. And with thirty nine stores, you're not gonna have
to drive very far. We're going to head out now to Spring Branch and
talk to Ernie. Hello Ernie, Yes, good morning, Stewie. How
are you. I'm well, I'm well, thank you. Good. Quick
question, Uh, I need something to replace foxtail ferns with. I got
four big pots and lost them and didn't get to cover them the freeze again,
So you need suggestion on different type plant simmer conditions. So there there,
Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm talking over you.
The foxtails aren't coming back out from the ground. After all the time,
pros off, they're gone. Okay, who some of our time plant?
Uh, well, we have a number. How how sunny is the
area? It's a partial sun, partial shade, mostly son. Okay,
Well would you would you like to go to a shrub or do you want
something else just down low on the ground. No, I don't want to
get into shrubs. I got plenty of shrubs. I just want something that'll
go on those big pots. Yeah, if it's if it's not too sunny
that Another option would be to go with some type of a fern like holly
fern. Holly fern is is a real dense, dark green color. Uh.
It's got a big fat leaf, not the normal fern leaf, but
it's a different leaf. It does really well. And these are going in
pots right right? These are in pots. Okay, Well, that's that's
probably why it froze to death, because those pots the soil gets a lot
colder. Another another option, Uh, I like this planet. It's called
inland inland seats and it has a very do it you know, search far
it online? Take a look at the picture and see if you like that
it It has a little seat head that looks sort of like one of the
grain crops, if you will. And it does well in a lot of
shade too, uh, and so it can probably take a little bit of
sunlight as well. I just you know, not knowing exactly how much sun
you have, you know, I'm not sure whether to recommend, you know,
like a giant riopy or something to go in there to give you kind
of a green filler that's a little bit taller, or one particular plant.
But there's a lot of options. What was the last thing of the inland
what was it? What inland sea oats? And this is just for something
different, you know, it's just for something different. It's a it's a
pretty cool plant. It spreads and so being in pots that's good because it
does spread under underground in a bed, which isn't bad. But some people
don't like that that characteristic of it. So seats. Yeah, but I
would, you know, I would try that. And you're you know,
they're in the spring branch you got in nurseries. Every direction you can go
in. One of our good independence probably going to show you some other things
they carry that aren't coming to my mind right now. Okay, you appreciate
it very much. All right, I appreciate you. Bet. We're gonna
go talk to Mitch now in the Woodlands. Mitch, I got a short
time, but let's see if we can at least get the call started.
All right, Well, good morning, kits. They take my call.
I am moving down from Dallas. We're building a house in the Woodlands.
As I drive through my neighborhood, I see people with different types of grass
up here. We have a bermuda tiff four nineteen trying to find out what
would be the best thing to plant there. Not really a big stand of
bermuda, but it's that's what crows best, will go with it. Yeah,
and so the area again, the sunlight I'm out on the area,
the number of hours you think, yeah, a lot, there's not a
tree. Okay, there's not a tree on the lot. You know.
Bermuda makes the most beautiful lawn and Texas, I mean, think of a
golf course green. How can you improve on that? But bermuda has to
be mowed regularly, and the shorter you mow it, the more often you
mow it. And Unlike Saint Augustine, Bermuda is unforgiving of an irregular mowing
schedule. It'll survive, in fact, can't kill it, but it looks
horrible when you cut off all the green on top until it regreens again from
from lower. So I don't have a problem with bermuda other than the fact
that it invades my flower beds, and so that's that's not something I like.
There's some broad leaf types of Zoysia that do really well too, if
their mode regularly with a sharp more and then of course Saint Augustine's is just
fine. It just it's drawback is it's not very drought tolerant, so if
you if you don't start watering it when it gets hot and dry, it's
gonna have a little problems with that. Okay, Well, Zoysia maybe it
is, Yeah, Zoya, maybe it is. There's a website and write
this down. It's aggy turf one word age turf dot tmu tamu dot edu.
And if you go there, there's a little thing on the lower left
that says turf grasses and you can read in depth about every kind. It's
pros, it's cons and and even recommended varieties of it. And it's the
fastest way that I think I can give you a more thorough answer than I
can in just a few minutes. You know, talk about one quick question.
If my neighbor has permuted it, I have zoysia. Are we going
to fight? Do we need to put a barrier up between those two?
Or the broad leaf types of zoysia? And it's the Zoysia japonica species.
Uh, those are going to look a little different than the bermuda. The
narrow leaf look a lot like the bermuda. But I would I would go
with the broad leaf. If you've got plenty of then I would go with
the broad leaf type. And I think you're going to do better. And
yes, any two turf grasses, like any wild native grasses, are going
to fight it out wherever they live because that they're in competition. All right,
Thank you appreciate well, Mitch, thank you. I appreciate that call.
Just a reminder that I am heading out to the Sugarland Home and Outdoor
Living Show today at eleven thirty, So once we finish the show, I'm
heading that way. I'm going to have some Nelson's fertilizer to give away.
A number of different types being provided us, some turf fertilizer, stuff for
roses and plumerias and trees and shrubs and all kinds of different things, and
nice little jars. So it's not just like a little tiny packet. I
mean you'll be able to use it and test it out. You're gonna find
out that works for a well blay. But come to come at eleven thirty
so you can hear my seminar, and that's where I'll be giving away the
first line. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Richter's so
please just watching as many pleas We're good morning, good Saturday morning, good
day for gardening, and good day to be talking about gardening. I'm your
host of guarden Line, Skip Richter, and if you will write this down,
you can give us a call. Seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. There's
a lot of interest this time of year in gardening. You know, in
spring, everybody's a gardener. I mean, you know, spring fever hits
and people get all excited about planning stuff, And I wish I could bottle
a little bit of that up and spread it out into fall, because fall
is also a great time in fact, when you're talking about planning some of
the woody ornamentals and stuff. Fall's an awesome time for doing that kind of
thing, perennial plants and whatnot. But we still love spring, no question.
It just doesn't get much more beautiful than spring around here. If you're
if you live up in the Montgomery area off of one oh five is A
and A Plants in Produce. It's on the east side of Montgomery, so
Lake Conro, Walden, bent Water, you know all those places out that
direction over in Conro, even even up in willis A and A Plants in
Produce does an excellent job of providing a wide variety of plants and color and
things to go with your plants. So if you're looking for Mexican talavera or
terra cotta, maybe you want a chiminea for the patio a gazebo. They
have it all seven days a week, nine to five pm. Ana Plants
on the east side of Montgomery, right on Highway one oh five they carry
all the products we talk about here, the fertilizers and the pesticides, herbicides.
Fun decide you're gonna find it all there by the way, they also
have I was in there the other day farm fresh homegrown produce and some eggs.
I thought that was interesting. So that's another reason as if you don't
have enough already to check out ana plants and produce. I'm going to head
to the phones now and talk with Donald in Northwest Houston. Hello, Donald,
Hi. I picked up some roots and stuck them in the ground.
But I'm just curious thinking back when I was a child, my grandmother up
in Illinois head bushes, and I ran across these in a wal Mart.
Leave it or not, it's thought, I'm gonna try it, and so
any advice about it. At the first couple of them have sprouted up,
by no, it'll take a couple of years proudly to get booms. But
the others did not even come up. Well done, don't be the don't
shoot the bear of bad news. But it doesn't surprise me that you got
those at a big change store, because those people are notorious all of the
companies for selling things in areas where they don't do real well. People have
tried growing pionies here for a long time, and for a while we had
some varieties we thought would go a little further south. But they're not not
really panning out to be outstanding. Now. I hope that you can prove
me wrong. But here's how you're going to need to try if you if
you want to do it, they need some morning sun because they do need
light. But once we get in the summer and it is what a thousand
degrees and you know, for days on end, and it's the night times
that are hard on these plants too. Maybe I'll talk about that more and
a bit. But the p and is just struggle. They just struggle with
that. But if you can give them the best chance at a well drained
bed full of rich organic matter like compost and a spot that has bright shade
little morning sun, that would be the ideal mix to give them their best
chance. Okay, all right, right, yeah I will what happens?
I did? I knew they did have to have sun. I remembered some
of my grandmas were in the shade and those uh I remember some of them
just coming up, but nothing ever happening and then all of a sudden you
come down and by a tree, and then they weren't great after that.
Yeah, and then that about the southside. But there is it might be
too hot as well. Let's see, let's see if you got morning sun
is the best Thomas of sun. Of course, you know here when it
gets to be summer, you walk outside and break a sweat and just walk
into your car first thing in the morning. So that's what we're having to
deal with. I had ponies. Well I lived in Missouri for three years
and we had some ponies, and I know why people love them. Just
good luck with it, all right, thank you? All right, yes
sir, take care. We're going to head out to Charles in Texas City.
Well, hello Charles. Top of the morning. To the rains coming
from the Gulf this morning, I think, hey, I have a question.
They're dead gun stinkbergs there, steambugs, they're beaten. They is beaten
up by tomato. Is bad. I've been using anyway, but I want
to know we'll be key will at work for steambergs. Also, it will
not touch them. Steak bugs. Stink bugs are a problem. You've got
it there, some pretty pretty powerful insecticide products to kill them when they're in
the adult stage. If you check your plants out regularly, they'll lay eggs
on them, and you'll see the little cluster of nymphs. They tend to
hang together like a herd. This is a stink bug and the leafooted bug,
which basically does the same damage. At that stage, you can put
a little soapy pale underneath them and swap the branch and they all fall in
it and die, And it's easy to kill them. As they become adults
and get wings and fly away, we're just basically spraying all over the place.
I would recommend spring early in the morning. They're a little more sluggish
than they are later in the day. But but you're gonna have to You're
gonna have to kick it into a higher gear at once they've hit this stage
now to try to shut them down. So the next question would be,
I guess in the diet to make your circuit. I tried it. It
will irritate them. They don't like having that like broken glass getting in their
body part joints as they move around. But I just don't think I just
don't think you're going to be happy with the results not so far. Well,
well, I want to steer you wrong, but yeah, that that's
probably that's probably the it is. But next year and this year, when
you see the little herds forming that means they laid eggs on the plants,
that would be the time to try to try to shut those down. But
you go into a place that sells sells your products and things, they're gonna
they're gonna be able to direct you. It's probably going to be a synthetic
paris throws insecticide that'll knock them out. Okay, now let me ask you
this my favorite fixing to put in bees, and I want to know I
use BT when the caterpillars are chewing up everything. Is that going to mess
with the bees? Not at all? Not at all? Okay, you're
good, you're good. Yeah, And you want your neighbor to have bees
because I'll come over and pull it out your flowers for you. Oh you
are to see the garden this year, I mean just so yeah, yeah,
there you go. Oh you have to just tell them, you know,
a little honey here and there is hush money and we're all good,
all right, all right, Oh, thank you for the call. I
appreciate that. Gosh, hey, Dan and Victoria, we see you there.
We're gonna take a break here, but we will be coming right back
to you. Good morning on a good Saturday morning. Oh the sun's out.
That's a good sign for gardening, isn't it. Can't wait to get
out there and do a little bit of gardening later on the day. We're
gonna start off by heading out to Fairfield and we're gonna talk to Marty.
Good morning, Marty, Good morning Skip. I got a pineapple wall of
years and years ago from the arbor gate and the first three we got it,
it got hit pretty hard, but it came back, and then this
last one it didn't really get hit. But it's it continues to lose leaves.
They're producing new leads, but there's still losing the old leaves. It
is now the time for it to be changing. I'm just not sure why
it's still leave leaves. Yeah, Usually when the old leaves drop, it's
some kind of a stress. You know, it got real dry and then
it got wet. It was watered again or saggy. Wet conditions can do
that. Certainly, anything that hurts roots, like a root rot or something
else can cause that. But if you're seeing new growth coming, then I
don't think you're dealing with a root rot down below. And that pineapple guava
is one of those marginally hardy plants, wonderful plants, you know, beautiful
blooms, even an edible fruit and the beautiful bark on the thing. So
it's well worth growing. But I think I would just watch it, just
kind of watch the soil moisture in the drainage. If it's down low where
it stays soggy, then that's gonna be that's gonna be a problem. Well,
no, it um it does have new growth, It looks healthy.
Everything seems to be good. It's just I you know, when I'm doing
the yard, I continually have to blow the leaves from underneath of it.
So I just I'll just keep an eye on it. But I do I
need to beat it. Yes, you do want because you want to encourage
growth, So you want to moderate amount of growth that would provide something like
that. Yeah, that just a moderate amount though you don't have to overdo
it, but just kind of gradually, maybe a little bit in the spring,
a little bit in the summertime. Just stop fertilizing your pineapple guava by
August. Don't don't do a late August or September fertilizer because if you push
it into late season succulent growth and it doesn't hard enough, then a good
early hard freeze will significantly damage it. So we don't want to push it
into late season growth. It's got plenty of nutrients from midsummer to carry it
all the way into fall. It'll be Okay, what should I feat it.
I've got every I've got Nelson's everything, I've got Microloff, I've got
just rigular type ten nineteen four ten OSMA code whatever. Yeah, I don't,
I don't know what defeated well. Those are all okay, I mean
they all do. They all do well. And both Nelson's and Microlife makes
fertilizers for trees and shrubs that are especially good, but even even a product
for flowering plants would work. Okay on it. It's a it's pretty tolerant.
I'll often use just a lawn fertilizer on on my shrubs because, uh,
you know, we're growing them and just giving them a little nitrogen through
the summer is good and then a good blend of other nutrients I find that
it's pretty easy. The pineapple, guava, it's pretty easy to go.
As far as fertilizing, you're probably not gonna go wrong. But uh,
you know, whatever kind you like. You know, Microlife's gonna have the
organic line, and Nelson's they also have some organics, and then they have
the synthetics as well, So you're gonna be able to you're gonna be able
to not go wrong with either of those. Yeah, that's fine. I
have just bags of Microlife and stuff that's open already, all this go ahead
to use depth, Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Lusory, go ahead
and use them if you've opened them up. Yeah, and blueberry bushes,
blueberry bushes. If you've got the Microlife, you're in the Microlife line,
then I would go with it's kind of a reddish bag. I believe it's
a it's a six two four for a Civic plants. Yeah, that would
be the one. Yeah, it sounds like you got a full stock over
there. All right, I get everything else safe. Thank you, Thank
you very much. I appreciate that call. Yeah, boy, all these
questions, let's go to Victoria and we're gonna talk to Dan. Thanks for
hanging on, Dan, all right, skip. My sister in law lives
in Tomball area, just out of Tomball. Last year she had all of
her plants and shrubs, all of the beds so covered with a mulch that
she purchased someplace, and this spring it erupted into some of the most difficult
leads that she'd ever run into. Cannot get rid of them. Her plan
right now, it's the househ one, removed all of the mutch that's there
and then replace it with some that is going to be free of weed seeds.
And she's looking for a source of that. I've been through Houston a
lot of times and seeing different Gordon centers and what have you know, with
yards mounded up with different types of launch and what have you. But could
you give me a recommendation of a place to go that she will be able
to find some that would be weed seed free? Yes, if you,
if you're if she's in the Tumball area, probably the closest place to her
is going to be Nature's Way, which is on forty five just south of
Conro. You know, fourteen eighty eight comes in around there and there they
do bulk delivery and there they will not sell you weedy mulch. I promise
you that they have a quality product. They know what they're doing. Okayny,
That's what I needed and I appreciate it very much. All Right,
Dan, thank you very much for the call. Appreciate that. Let's see
who's next. We're gonna go to Jamaica Beach and talk to Larry. Good
morning, Larry, good morning. We are have we have a large plant
bed that we need. We're we're going to be putting a lot of plants
in it. Okay, the spoil is not the best and I'm wondering what
we need to do to the ground, uh to play before we put the
rose soil down. Well, you're gonna put the rosal to create a raise
bed to grow in, so you don't necessarily need to do something to the
ground. If you've got like bermuda grass or something that's a noxious weed that'll
come up through everything, I would get rid of that beforehand. I'd put
a little rosil down, mix it in after you've sprayed weeds. If you
need to spray and let them die down, then I would mix a little
roso with the soil you have, just just so that interface isn't just sudden
from the one wonderful rose soil to the dense, heavy clay or whatever soil
you have, and then finish filling it up with roast soil. Yeah,
okay, Yeah, the soil down here is pretty clay. I guess that's
the word clay. Yeah, yeah, it is anyway. Okay, So
we don't need to putty mineral stuff down or yet. No, that's gonna
you're gonna have. You're gonna put your nutrients in the rose soil. Number
one, it's already got some some good nutrition just because it's a composted product.
But any fertilizing you would do, do it up in the bed that
you create with the rose soil. Okay, so just dig up the soil
a little bit before we put down the rose soil. Yeah. Well,
I what I do in my yard is I'll spread about, you know,
four inches or so of the mix and sort of mix it with the soil
you have a little bit, and then put the rest just rose soil on.
That creates a kind of a general gradual blend from the rose soil down
into what you have underground. Okay, very good, all right, Okay,
Now in terms of different plants, hey, do we dig the hole
and put the rules in the hole. No, No, you use role
soil as a raised bed. Now in play soil, it doesn't drain well.
And if you put if you dig a hole in clay and fill it
full of organic matter, I don't care how quality it is, you're gonna
it's gonna turn into an anaerobic rot with black goo and odors that you do
not want, and it'll kill the plant you put in. It don't matter
what the organic matter. Organic matter decomposing without oxygen gets pretty nasty. Thank
you so much, Skip, definitely, thank you so much. I appreciate
that call as well. You know, the folks up and plants for all
seasons. They it's like a complete package there. And here's what I mean
education. They know what they're talking about and they can educate you. The
selection is you're not gonna find better delivery of the things if you need it
delivered, uh planting, you know, cut potting. They're experts. You
can bring in pictures and samples. I hope you diagnose with plants for all
seasons. The way I look at it is if you're a green thumb,
well, you know you need to visit there. Because they've got everything you
need. If you think you have a brown thumb, you have to visit
there because you want to turn your thumb green. And we turn our thumb
greens with education. And the folks that Plants for All Season can provide you
good accurate education. They're on Highway to forty nine Tumball Parkway just north of
Louetta Road. Plants for All Seasons dot com. The landscaper that I would
consider to be kind of go to is Peerscapes. And I've talked about Peerscapes
before, but Peerscapes is the kind of place that has the quality folks that
are educated, trained and know how to design and create that landscape that's just
a wow wow kind of landscape. You know, the Jason and and his
team out there, the show places that they create. I mean, it's
amazing. If you want to turn an average landscape into something magical, Peerscapes
is a place to do that. Hey, write down this phone number two
eight one three seven zero five zero six zero, or you can go to
Peerscapes dot com. We're entering the summertime and this is a great time to
be doing some changes in your landscapes, you know, hardscape, new garden,
things like that, peerscapes of the folks that will be able to provide
that for you want to head out on the phones. I wanted to talk
to John out in Tomball. John, thanks for the call. How can
we help today? Lord and Skip? How you doing? Quick question for
you? Can you hear me? Yes, sir? Okay. I've got
a couple of things. I've just been here about a year or so.
Flower bed and I put this felt down, then I put comp posts and
dirt from a flower. It is now well this I know with the felt
when you're digging holes, obviously you gotta get that out. But is it
going to cause a problem later with roses and in plants. When I put
in the flower bed with that felt, well, bermuda grass is going to
go underneath the felt and it'll crawl around until it finds a place to stick
its head up and get some sunlight. So you're going to have to do
some sort of a spray with the felt. Felt will keep out the annual
weed seeds that might come up, but so well, a good mulch.
So just go with what you got for now. You may find at some
point if you get some dirt or decomposing mulch on top of the felt,
that you're getting weed seeds up there as well, and in which case you'll
need to pull the felt out and and just go with a straight mulch.
But this not it calls any issues with me planting, Noel felt. It
is just those those ground costs are just fine, John, They will be
just fine. You just have to make a hole to put your plants in.
So what do you suggest, real quick? Skip? What's all the
bermuda coming from behind the fence in my neighbor's yard? Yeah, John,
I'm gonna we're about to hit break here. But basically you're gonna have to
spray it with either a grass only killer or a general purpose we'd killer,
and give it a couple of weeks watch it, and you may have to
spray again if it starts resprouting, because you generally don't get at all with
one spray. You're listening to garden line right down seven one three, two,
one two fifty eight seventy four and we'll be right back. Well.
Good Saturday morning, man alive. Did we have some beautiful sunshine out there?
Good day for gardening, and good day for talking about gardening. I'm
gonna head right out and get on the calls here, and we're gonna start
off by going out to Deer Park and talking to Shirley. Hello, Shirley,
Hello. I've got a problem. I have purchased an apple tree and
I think it's a shimmer. I think it starts the Israelite's experiment. It's
still were there, and I thought it when it's about all six feet tall,
it's stout back eight ten feet tall, and it was sloaded with slack
apples. First year hasn't even been grant a full year. And I've got
a problem. I've got birds that picked all over it. Well, when
I had my trees back home, my father there because he made me to
them away because he said you could get a disease or set it from an
infected insect or bird is sect. Truth Well, no, basically not.
I mean, you know, it would be a long stretch from it.
But generally when something eats on our plants, we cut that out, cut
that little section out, and don't just just don't just each that same place
the bird pack, for example. But I you know, I guess,
I guess it's possible, but I would say just cut that out, cut
that section out and you should be fine, and maybe cooking just to make
sure just bacteria or not. A questions, what can I do to protect
those trees because they will know it first year, I think, being for
maybe two or three years. What can I protect them from them? And
so you've got two options. Well, insects, okay, to protect them
from birds, you use bird netting. You put a netting over them.
That's a little bit of a hassle, but you can do it. Or
to h you can also put a little argenza bags which is a kind of
a mesh type bag with draw strings on them. Put them over individual fruit.
Now that's a lot of trouble. But that's another Yeah, that's that
would be a lot of arganza bags. But those things are really cheap if
you buy them online. You know, it's just a mass. But those
are the only two I can think of for birds. Now for insects,
it kind of depends on which insect you're having to go after as to what
I would recommend. If you got a cat shit, yeah, okay,
well well we'll cross that berry. Call me back if you If insects show
up. But yeah, the birds, I think the the overall the netting,
and you want that netting to go all the way to the ground and
be pinned down to the ground, or be wrapped around the trunk of the
tree at the base because birds will go up underneath it to get into the
tree too. All right, A lot of the garden centers will carry a
netting. I would you know you're you're near an ace. Everybody that's everybody
lives anywhere is near an ace, and you know, so I would talk
to them. In fact, I've been in an ace and I've seen I've
seen some netting for sale before also, uh, so you know either way
you're gonna just netting is going to be widely available, So I would I
would probably check with with the ace. May I asked you one more question.
At the same time, I had bought a pear tree and we put
it between the houses here. And the problem is it was about eight feet
tall right now it's happy about twenty feet tall in one year's group. It's
beautiful. It didn't set me fruit this year, which I didn't think it
would, but who I don't know. I was thinking that it was.
It didn't I don't remember the name of it, but I was thinking that
it was for this area. Okay, Okay. Do I need have two
pairs to heaven? Yeah most of the time, yes, uh. And
it just it gives you better pollination. Even if they're partially self compatible,
it's better to have the two different varieties of the pairs. Okay, I
can do that too, Okay, All right, Shirley, I'm in a
hello yes, hello, Yes, I want to ask you a question.
I just thought of something long ago. This is the husband, h I
got it. Avocado tree and sat Suma tree out there in the back and
all that, and they I've heard a lot of stories about that. Uh
see they died in the wintertime. Okay. And the green stems are coming
up, but they're growing down from at from the bottom up, you know,
And people tell me that they're going to come out real sour and all
that is it? Is that true? Tell me the plant again, it
sat Suma tree. Okay. So if the green stems coming up have thorns
on them, that's a root stocks that Suma typically doesn't have a lot of
thorns, and they will not produce anything if it's if it's coming from belowograph
that's a root stock and just pull it up and get you a new one
to put in there. That would be your best bet. Okay, all
right, think that would be the same thankful lemon tree. Huh, yes,
well lemons can have some thorns, but yeah, I would just look
at the bottom. You can kind of see where the brand where the trunk
sort of makes a little bit of a dog leg. Usually that's kind of
where the graft is near the bottom, and if it's below the graft,
it's not going to be something worth eating. Hey, I've got to I've
got to run. But thank you, thank you for the call. I
appreciate that. I want to You know, I was talking about ACE.
While Ago and ACE are located everywhere, I was trying to think of the
one closest over there to West Chased area. But if you go to ACE
Hardware dot com, you can find the ACE in your area because there's thirty
nine of them locally and they carry everything all the products we talk about and
a lot lot more. You're going to find much more from ACE though,
you know, grills and grilling section of course, everything you'd expect from a
hardware and don't forget when you go into an ACE, earn money back with
the ACE Rewards program on every purchase that you make, because once you get
in there, you're going to find that they've just about everything you could want.
ACE hardware. Let's see, I'm I'm gonna talk just for a can.
Here we're talking about fruit and cross pollination. If you go to Aggie
Dash Horticulture dot tamu dot edu. So Agge hyphen Horticulture dot tamu dot edu.
There's a section on there for fruit and every kind of fruit you could
imagine planting is in that section. A free publication to look at it,
so they'll tell you, you know, if you wonder if this or that
fruit needs a pollinator, it'll tell you in there, and they'll tell you
the varieties that are best to grow. Speaking of plants and fruit and things,
RCW Nurseries RCW nurseries dot com. They have all the kinds of plants
that you're gonna want. I mean, you're not going to do better on
a rose selection than our CW Nurseries. Lots of trees they grow in themselves
on their farm out in Plantersville. They'll even come and plant them for you,
so you know, it gets it done right. While you're there,
you're going to pick up all the products we talk about for multas and fertilizers
and things. But don't just think roses and trees, RCWS, herbs,
perennials, annual shrubs, native plants. It's located on two forty nine Tomball
Parkway at Beltway eight. RCW nurseries dot com. You're good Saturday morning.
We are looking at one of the best days in a while. They're for
gardening. Looking outside, it's a good day to get out and see some
garden centers, good day to go out in the yard and work. And
by the way, it's a good day to get out into the sugar Land
Home and Outdoor Living Show. I will be out there. It's at the
Stafford Center in Stafford. I'll be there at eleven thirty and giving a talk
on some tips for success in your summer landscape. Then I'll be there at
a table where I can look at plant samples or pictures or things to kind
of help you out with your gardening questions. And by the way, during
my talk, this is another reason to get there. Eleven thirty, we'll
be giving away Nelson's fertili the plastic jars and Nelson's fertilizer. Dean has given
us a wide variety of things to try to pass out, and so I
hope you'll come and being able to join us on that. We're going to
head now out to West Chase and we're going to talk to Sharon this morning.
Good morning, Sharon, Hi Skip, good morning, Hi, thank
you. I have a question basically about how to feed knockout roses because I
have three bushes that I've tried to nurse. I don't know much about growing
roses, but I've tried to nurse them for about five years. And last
two years ago, something attacked one of them that had always been real healthy,
stripped all the leaves off of it. And I don't know what it
was. That it happened just after my son had brought a feed that he
got from Junior League, and I remember I called Randy and asked him about
Junior League rose feed and Randy said, well, June year league raises money,
they don't do fertilizer. And I said thank you. And so the
rosebush did recover, and this year my son brought UM what is the standard
UM mix the fertilizer that you give it to everything. I can't remember the
name now, okay, but it's just it's just that little box you get
in the big box stores. All right. Now, you know what I
think about big box stores. So I know, I know, and he
fed. Well here's the question. So he fed it on my birthday,
which was a month ago, and finally from Mother's Day, I talked to
him into getting the nitro boss, which I've asked him for years, kept
the nitro foss rose feat and he finally got it for me from Mother's Day.
But he said, well, since I've already fertilized it for you last
month, I'm just gonna take this home with me because I have more rosebushes
than you, and your rosebush doesn't need it yet. So we've got this
argument going on. So when and how often do I feed my knockout roses?
Well, first of all, you need to remind your son of all
the pain and suffering through all the years that he puts you through, and
for him to now steal, for him to now steal from you, oh
my gosh, I can't. He has fifty said, he has fifteen rose
bushes. I only have three, and he needs it more than I do,
because mine was sped last month. Well, it's that little tiny box
that you get fertilizer, and you get it anywhere and everywhere, a grocery
store box or I honestly don't know what which when you're talking about, but
I'm just gonna tell you this. You were mentioning Nitrofiss, and I would
recommend you go with one of Nitrofoss's many excellent products. And they, you
know, if you are looking at rosebush. I even have used launch fertilizers
on my own my rosebushes, and Nitrofis. You know, they're going to
carry all these different lines of If it says it's for you know, flowering
plants or things you can use out, that would be fine. If it
says it for trees and shrubs, that'd be okay. Your rosebush is gonna
do just fine. And he gets me the nitro Foss for the lawn.
He does that, okay, And I finally talked him into getting the nitro
Foss rose feed. So he brought the bag to me. Okay, he
said, Happy Mother's Day. And then he said, but you don't need
it yet because I fertilized it last month and so I'm going to take it
home with me and I'll bring it back. Well, okay, so question
how often do I feed knockout rosebush? Okay, you can feed a knockout
rosebush as often as that bush looks like it may need it. And here's
what I mean by that. If it is growing vigorously and healthy and everything's
good, you don't need to feed, right then I usually do a feeding
in coming out in the spring. I may do one in early summer,
and I may do one in late summer. Typically with a knockout you can
share those things, and that just brings new shoots and more blooms. And
so when I do a shearing, I'll fertilize, water it in, and
then here comes the blooms and make the most well other than the ones that
have passed now in spring, one of the most important ones is in late
August. Do a sharing, give it some fertilizer, and you're gonna see
your October will be a very beautiful one in the rose and the rose bushes
with that. But okay, so or so spring in early summer in August
that's about the that would be fine. But but watch the rose bush.
You know what I mean, if it if it looks like it's struggling,
it probably needs something. But to struggle or should isn't there sort of a
timely schedule that we could Yes, And that's what I'm talking about. So,
okay, roses come out and they bloom. April's a big, big
time some now knockout's gonna keep blooming on you. But you can at some
point here, as we're going into summer, give it a little shearing,
fertilize it. I'd do that. I would do it now, and then
water it in real good and you're so even though it's been a month,
I can go ahead and put some nitrofoss rose feet up. You could just
go light since it's just one a month, but normally i'd give it a
decent dose and then you're going to get good growth. And then in late
summer you want to get ready for the fall, and I would do it
again. Those are the three times when I would do the roses. But
it's primarily connected, you know, to the shearing, and let's stimulate some
new growth here, okay, And then after I've done it in August to
get ready for the fall, then just let it go dormant for the winter.
Yep, that's it. That's it, you got it. I just
have to get this big picture because he and I argue over this. But
I finally got him off the junior league stuff, okay, and then he
finally got the nitro Fox feed. So we're making progress. Okay. Well,
you know you're gonna have to give him a talking to. You may
have to write him out of the wheel if he's going to steal for him
you like that. But we're crying out at Hey. Thanks for the college,
Sharon. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, the nitro Fox products,
there's a wide line of them. You know, the nineteen four ten
that's the one in the silver bag. Makes it easy to pick out,
that'll feed all through the side, and that's an excellent one for your lawn.
Does very well, good, good blend of nutrients. And Nitrofoss products
are sold everywhere. I mean, you go up to J. N.
M. Ace Hardware Importer, you're going to find nitro Foss products, Ace
Hardware Immemorial City, Ace Hardware Memorial down at Tasca, Ceda. Ace Hardware
Nitrofoss is all over the place. An excellent line of products. But for
the summertime in the lawn. Don't forget I mentioned it earlier, but the
silver bag, the nineteen four ten so one that you want to go with.
Well, we are reaching a the end of the show here day.
We've got a little bit of time left, but I hope you will come
out and see me at home at the sugar Land Home and Garden Show in
the Stafford Center in Stafford. We are going to be there from eleven thirty
where I give a talk, give away some furtilizer, all the way until
one thirty pm, and I'll be answering your questions as well. If you're
getting out and about today and you've never been over to Warren's Garden Center or
Kingwood Garden Center out in Kingwood, you need to give them a look.
Those are the kinds of nursery. It's worth driving even across town just to
see what they have out there. It is an amazing place. But Kingwood,
Porter Valley, Ranch, Humble you know at Tascacy to all those areas,
that's just a short drive. Both of them are open seven days a
week now. Kingwood Garden centers on Stone Hollow Driving, Kingwood Warrens is on
North Park Drive in Kingwood. They have all the things we talk about.
By the way, they also have those filling stations for jugs. So if
you have like a Nelson's Plant Food or Microlife plastic jar and you want to
refill it, that's an economical way to do it, and it avoids throwing
more plastic in the trash, which we've already got enough of that. They
carry all the fertilizers we're talking about there. But you would just be trust
me, you're going to be very impressed with the wide variety of plants and
products. And I'll just say the bling that goes with the plants, beautiful
containers and stuff, and why not get a beautiful summer multiplant container set up.
They can even tell you how to put it together. Pick out the
plant, something tall in the middle, something kind of filling in or tall
in the center, filling in around the middle section of the plant, and
then trailing over the sides. We call it thriller, filler spiller. And
they've got those kind of plants that carry into the summer heat really really well.
So there's no excuse not to have beautiful color on your patio or at
the entrance to your front door in a beautiful container like that, and Kingwood
and Warren's good places to go, good place to go for that out in
Kingwood. Boy, We've had a lot of calls have gone through today,
covered a lot of different things. I always enjoy getting to visit with you
again. Hope you come out and see me. By the way, I'm
going to be out there today, but I just want to remind you that
next week. Put it on the calendar for next Saturday, Wawbird's Unlimited in
clear Lake. I'll be out there for a couple of hours and I'll talk
about that a lot more tomorrow as well as next Saturday. But love to
get out to those places because it gives me a chance to see the stores,
gives me a chance to meet the folks that listen to the show,
and that's that's always a lot of fun. So I hope you can come
out and join me. In the meantime, enjoy your time out in the
garden. Just remember you can't fail at gardening. You can only give up.
And there's no brown thumbs, there's only uninformed thumbs. And that's why
we're here to uninform, to inform your thumb. And you're going to have
better success. I'm want to see your lawns looking their best. I want
to see your flowers looking their best. Your gardens are most bountiful. That's
why we have Garden Line. Look forward to talking to you again tomorrow