Welcome to Katie r. H Garden line with skip rictor it's gas. You
just watch him as many people takes the sepotzy gas not a sorry credits salmon
between welcome, Welcome, welcome to garden line, good morning, good Sunday
morning. Still dark outside. If your neighbor's lights aren't on, go bang
on the door and let them know they're missing guard line. They will really
appreciate that a lot. I know, because I always like to be reminded
of things when I'm forgetting. Well, maybe don't do that today. They
may not be appreciative of it at this point in time. Well, we're
here to answer gardening questions and to help you have a beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden. Whatever it is you grow, we want
you to be able to do it better once you have success with it.
You know, gardening is not rocket science. It is not sure. There
are things you need to observe and learn. I think someone who is a
guy that once said that he spent a lot of his life learning to see
things from a plant's point of view. That's a good way to put it.
You know, if you were a plant, what would you want that's
what we got to do. And it really gets simple too. You know,
you need good soil. That's number one. Soil is important because it
holds the water and the nutrients that a plant gets. That's absolutely essential.
So if your soil is built in a way and I do mean the word
built that creates excellent internal drainage. Water goes in and it just moves down
through the soil, but then it holds adequate amount of moisture, so you're
not watering day to keep it alive. If your soil is chock full of
a nutrient bank account, and if you keep it adequately moist, not soggy,
not dry, adequately moist, that plant root system is ready for success.
You put that plant in the amount of light that it wants. Some
plants like full sun, and typically, as a very general rule, if
it if it grows roots, fruit or flowers that we're going to eat the
roots or the fruit, or if it's growing flowers fruit looking at then it
needs as much sun as you can give it. Six hours is kind of
the magic number we throw out there. Plants don't have a little timer to
see, was it you know, five hours and fifty minutes or they don't
have that, but of course, but good amount of sun for the plant.
Some plants can tolerate shade, but even shade loving plants have to have
light energy in order to grow and survive and thrive. And there's a difference
between staying alive and producing and doing what you wanted to do. Can you
grow a tomato and three hours of sun? Yes you can. Can you
get tomato fruit? No you can't. And why do we grow tomatoes for
the fruit? Of course? And the same thing goes to with flowers and
things. So good soil, a good sun exposure, and then of course
picking plants that want to be here. There are some plants that just don't
want to be here. You may have a vacation plan to Colorado this summer.
Don't bring back those blue columbines and the blue spruce and other things you
fall in love with up there. Just leave them there. If you want
a columbine, we got some that grow here. It's a different kind of
columbine, very different, very tolerant of our situation. The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Plants needs to have a check station at the Texas border,
going every north southeast west everywhere, just to make sure we're not bringing
things that we're going to kill here. That would be a whole nother purpose.
So yeah, learn to see things from a plants point of view.
That's what it all is, what it all amounts to. And we give
you little tips on that here on garden Line, hopefully guide you in the
right way, and you know, most of all have fun. We no
longer live in a hunter gatherer life where if we don't find some food we're
going to starve to death if we don't chase it down and kill it with
a spear. We no longer generally speaking, most of you listening to me
are not just have no idea how you are going to eat tomorrow. Fortunately,
unfortunately there's there are people in that situation. But we don't garden just
to survive. We garden for the enjoyment of it. Now, the benefits
are, yes, you get beautiful flowers. It really does help your sense
of wellbeing. Gardening is like I mean, it is like better than meds
for making you feel encouraged, hopeful, depression, staying healthy, and it
just goes on and on down the line. We get that out of it.
We also get good healthy food. We enjoy eating. But if your
tomato plant only produced one tomato, aside from being disappointed, it's not the
end of the world. We're growing tomatoes and other things because we like to
do it. We like we enjoy getting out there and being part of nature.
And you know, the way I like to put it is, as
a horticulturist, I always tell people I'm working in the original profession of mankind.
You know, it all started in a garden and here I am still
doing the same thing. And in many ways you do that as well,
and so our goal is to have fun. So how do we make it
more fun for you? That is one of my one of my goals here
on garden Line is you know, if you go to a nursery and you
find this plant that oh man, and you picture it in your landscape and
you bring it home and you're excited about it. I want that hope and
I want that joy and fulfillment and everything to actually come to pass as you
take it home and you plant it. So how do we help you to
have that success. Don't be afraid if you fail at something. You never
fail at gardening. Unless you give up, you may lose the skirmish if
you will. That rosebush you brought home didn't make it. Well, Okay,
let's figure out why and let's try it again, because you can do
it. Gardening is fun. That's the bottom line. That's kind of what
I'm saying here. Your lawn is something that people, a lot of people
enjoy. They love the beautiful carpet of the lawn. It has many actually
has many environmental benefits, moderating soil temperatures. We live in an area around
big cities and those are heat islands where it really gets hot. Well.
Nitrofoss has their Silver Bag that is a super turf. The super turf feeds
your lawn all through the summer season. It's going to give you three months
plus of nutrition releasing to your lawn and when you then return the clippings,
you're set up until fall when it's time to fertilize again. You're going to
find superturf, the Silver Bag the nineteen four to ten at RCW Nursery on
I forty five North, not I forty five on Tomball Parkway. You're going
to find it at the ace and a task Asda or up at the arbor
gate or maybe at Lake Hardware down in Angleton. It's easy to find that
product and it is an excellent product. The way it's designed is to make
the nitrogen gradually available, and that matches the way your grass takes up nitrogen
a little bit at a time, day after day overtime. That is why
Nitrofas has the design that it does on Superturf Nitrofass Superturf, the silver bag.
All right, it's time take a little break. Our phone number seven
one three two one two KTRH if you'd like to get involved, and I'll
be right back. We are here to talk about the things that interest you
when it comes to gardening. Let's go straight out to the phones right now,
by the way. The number if you'd like to call in seven one
three k t r H. We're gonna talk now to Gerardo in meadows Play.
Hello, Hey, good morning, Skip. I had a question about
and uh particularly ants on fruit trees. I seem to be losing the battle,
especially with my Asian pear tree. I have ants all over. I've
tried demetrious earth. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. UH have
tangle foot, that's really goofy and sticky. Is there anything I could put
down the uh? Not the ants from calling up the tree? And do
you do you feel like they're they're tunneling into the wood, eating eating the
I feel like they're I feel like they're bringing up a bunch of uh I
hope I'm right, bringing up a bunch of a fits and stuff like that.
And it's just it, I don't know. It seems like some of
my leaves on the Asian para tree you're dying and uh, and there's the
ant all over it, and I just I'm like, well, I don't
know if there's something I can put down that I because it's not bar and
a through right now. So yeah, well, in general, you know
answer that there there's a carpenter ant that literally digs tunnels in wood and weakens
trees over time. And then there are the ants that are up on the
tree because they're farming the aphids up there, taking care of the aphids and
and uh, basically it's like a dairy cow situation. The ants literally milk
the aphids, if you will, by using their antenna. It's kind of
cool, but not not when you have them all over your tree. I
think the only thing that I would suggest is maybe get a persistent product to
spray on the trunk around on the base so that they would have to come
down there or to have come up and down and walk through it to go
up in the tree. And that could be something containing by fen Thren.
By fen Thren is a synthetic perithroid that persists out there a good while,
so you're not having to spray it every week, uh, in order to
get good control. Okay, And where would I get like that at?
Uh? Oh you can. You could just go up up the street southwest
fertilizers not far from you and they they definitely will have that and more corner
of binet and Runwickay. Okay, thank you so much, kid, all
right, good luck with that. Yeah. Answer. It's an interesting thing.
Sometimes there are I said, those are the two situations with ants and
our plants that we have. That that sounded interesting, uh, But actually
the fire ants will get in some kinds of plants just to get the moisture
or the protein kinds of material in them. But for example, ocrapods,
you'll find fire ants that are feeding around ocrapods and stuff. But in general
ants are not there to attack our trees. But I'll tell you what.
They when they start taking care of a fits, it's a problem. They
literally they will pick an a feed up, carry it up onto a plant,
and set it down. And it's just like dairy cattle. Dairy farmers
bringing in cattle on their property. And then they basically use their antenna to
make the ant produce a little drop of honeydew which they feed on. And
so if anything tries to come and get the ants, like a beneficial insect
that would attack aphids, well, the ants are there to protect the cows,
right, and they will. They will make it very difficult for beneficial
insects to get in there and get them. Kind of interesting natural situation going
on. Let's go, I'll tell you what. Let's go to Oak Forest
and talk to b C. Hello, BC, Hey, how are you
doing. I'm good, I'm good. How are you? Oh? Pretty
good? I loved y'all. So I'm just my second time wald. Hey
did I call you baby? Your tree? After the heat waiting last year?
So we end up chopping it down. Anyways, I'm planning some rose
bushes and four rose bushes and three of one of them on he came up,
Uh, you know they sprouted a rose, you know, did his
stay, grew leaves and branches, But uh, I got squirrels, did
it around by other ones? Is that the reason why they're not coming to
light? No? No, they're squirrels are not hurting them other than a
little disturbance of the soil. But I think number one, lots of sunlight
at least six hours very important if you're gonna get out of here. Get
that. They get that. Okay number two where I'm playing them at this
nothing butts okay, well number two. Then they need adequate water, but
good drainage. If it's just a heavy clay soil and a low spot,
it's going to tend toward the saggy wet side and not be good if it
drains. If it's too loose, like a sandy soil, for example,
you're gonna have to water more often to keep it moist. But water and
sunlight or key? Have you done any fertilizing on those roses yet? Now
I too, because the soil I use was the miracle growd type soil,
and then I put some bulk over that. But then I use some miracle
grow for the roses. I thought that would help, but nothing. Okay,
Well, if I were you, I would grab Nelson Plant Food has
a couple of things. They've got something called color Star that we use on
all kinds of plants. But they also have a rose food and a little
canister, and that is going to be one that It's pretty easy to find
Nelson products around. But just follow the label, sprinkle some of that around,
and I think I think that I think that will work pretty pretty well
for you. Okay, that's great because I was like, it's made like
only one came up and I'm like, oh man, I wonder what's wrong
with the other one. But what do I do about the squirrels? Uh?
Well, not much. You know that they they're they're gonna do what
they do. And I would say, other than you know that there's nothing
practical in town that you can do about squirrels. Uh So, I guess
you know. I like him because I'd like to see them playing around in
my front yard, But when it comes to my roses, I'm like,
uh yeah, taking too far deep down in there. Yeah, I don't
think so. I think they're okay. I don't think there are problems if
you were trying to raise some pecans in the front yard. Yeah, that'd
be a that'd be an issue. But the roses. Okay, all right,
well there you thank you byes. All right, you take care,
bec I was talking earlier about the silver bag nitrofoss super turf. I always
have to remind myself when when I'm talking to you about fertilizing your lawn.
I always want to remind you that it's not just the numbers on the fertilizer
bag that are important. There's a lot of nutrients over twenty nutrients. If
plants need to survive and do the various processes that they do in order to
survive or produce, if that's why the plant's there to produce something for you.
Well, asamite is a mind product out of Utah, it's mind out
of the ground, and it's chock full of all kinds of trace minerals.
And when you apply azamite to your turf, this isn't the fertilization that you
put on to make it greener and grow, grow denser and all of that.
It's just putting a bank account of essential nutrients that are part of the
whole process in there. So, in other words, putting a zinc down
and are putting selenium or all these other various mineral substances that are essential.
It's not something we do in a large quantity. It's something we do in
a very small quantity, and azamite is designed just for that. Now you
can find azmite information at asmite Texas dot com. You can find azamite in
a lot of places. It's widely available throughout the area. Here in Houston,
our garden centers, our ace hardware stores, a Southwest Fertilizer. You
know, they're the opportunities to find asmite or everywhere. Feed stores. That's
another good example. And another example would be ana plants and produce up in
Montgomery for those of you who are up near Lake Conroe area A and A.
That's your hometown garden center, and boyd did they ever have a lot
of really really good products and things that you can find there. I was
just noticing that the gosh, I can't say kuffia. The kufia ignia also
called a firecracker plant. It's it's a shrub like perennial dies back to the
ground oftentimes when we have cold weather, but then it comes right back out
and it has these little red tubular flowers that hummingbirds love. In fact,
took a picture of a hummingbird on one a good while back. Just it's
an amazing little tough plant. They got that at Ana Plants and Produce things
like Turk's cap, another hummingbird favorite that is absolutely bulletproof. I mean,
that is one tough plant. They've got that. And of course they carry
every single fertilizer I talk about on garden line at Ana Plants and Produce.
They're on the east side of Montgomery and so it's real easy. As you're
going across one oh five between Conroe and Montgomery, you pass by them.
Every time you do that, Ana Plants and Produce, I'll go check them
out. And especially if you're looking at these fertilizers you live up in that
area. They're going to have everyone that you hear me talk about. Well,
let's see. Our phone number is seven one three two one two ktr
A seven one three two one two kt RH. Give us a call.
Let's talk about the things that are of most interest to you. I want
to give you another reminder heads up that Nature's Ways Summer sale is still on,
but not much longer. We're about a week away from from the it
being over. What is the sale. It's thirty percent off most of the
plants, all the way through the month of June through July first. Now
that is excluding The only thing I know of that that excludes is the native
sun perennials. Only native sun perennials. Now, Nature's Way has a huge
selection of Texas native plants, a huge selection of plants for pollinating. Oh
and also and this, you got to take advantage of this one twenty percent
discount on all composts, mult and or soil blends. So if you're just
buying composts, if you're buying a bed mix, if you're buying mulches,
twenty percent off, that's both bagged and bulk. Either way, you go
and buy it in Nature's Way. That's it. But you have to mention
Garden Line. I'm gonna say that again when you call up Nature's Way,
when you go to Nature's Way, tell them you heard about it on guard
Line about this twenty percent discount. Now's a great time to stock up.
Summer's here. It's time to get mulch, all right, And it's time
for me to stop and let the news be the news. I'll be right
back seven one three two one two Kati, welcome back to garden Line.
What are we going to talk about today? Well, why don't you tell
me that? What is of interest to you? What are you accomplishing in
your yard or what are you trying to accomplish in your yard or your garden?
Maybe growing tomatoes, grow in some fruit trees. I don't talk about
fruit a lot, and we should talk about it more because there are a
number of different kinds of fruit we can grow here in the Greater Houston area.
For sure, we are far enough south to avoid some of the worst
of the cold weather that takes out things like citrus and what and just do
the things a plant wants. Remember, learn to think like a plant.
What does a fruit plant want? Wants good drainage in the soil, It
wants good sunlight. And let's just summarize this real quick. Whether it's in
your vegetable garden or in your orchard, or if just one tree is your
orchard. When you have roots and fruit, you gotta have sun because think
about a carrot that is lots of carbohydrates packed into a root so that we
can pull it up and take it to the kitchen and enjoy it. A
peach, a tomato, a pepper, or a squash. All the fruits
on a plant our sinks. Where the plant puts a lot of carbohydrates,
it sends them there to build that fruit. So when you don't have good
sunlight, you have trouble with roots and fruit. That just is a normal
thing. Storage roots is what I'm talking about, like sweet potato, for
example, or a carrot or a turnip. But when you provide it that
you're able to have a really successful planting, whether it's vegetables or fruit.
Now, if you have a vegetable garden and you're going, yeah, okay,
but the trees have gotten bigger every year and I don't have as much
sunlight, well that's where you would turn to your leafy greens. Now,
it doesn't mean let us wants to be in shade or spinach wants to be
in shade. It just means that it doesn't take as much carbohydrate production to
produce a leaf as it does to produce a root or a fruit. So
your leafy vegetables, if you've got okay, let's do it. Let me
do it this way. If you're looking at your garden, and there's one
spot that's very, very sunny, and there's another spot that's not sunny enough
to produce the roots in the fruit. Put your leafy vegetables over there in
the shadier spot. Now, they would like to be in the sun,
but they can do the shade a little bit better than the things that produce
roots and fruit. All right, hopefully that makes sense. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. I haven't talked about Star Hope in
a good while, and I'd like to just for a moment. Star of
Hope is a christ centered community that has been in Houston since nineteen o seven.
That's right. They've been helping the homeless for now what one hundred and
over one hundred and sixteen years at this point. They provide lots and lots
of different beneficial services. You know, when someone is having a time of
it, when for whatever reason faulted their own or someone else's, it doesn't
matter in terms of Star of Hope helping. Starf Hope steps in and they
provide him a pathway to put their life back together, which certainly helps them,
but also their kids, the children involved in this kind of a situation.
It's just a tragedy, it absolutely is. It's enough of a tragedy
for mom and dad, but the children especially, I think. But you
can't just go from having nothing to suddenly you're driving to work every day with
great job. There's a process, there's training involved there. In many cases
there's like a substance abuse issue that needs to be dealt with. Star Hope
does all that. They serve about six thousand meals a week. They've got
over three hundred beds in the Downtown Men's Center, Women and Women and the
Family Development Center. See I think the one hundred and eighty I believe women
individual women or one hundred and thirty different families. And I've been in there
before. I've seen it. I've seen everything for providing care for the kids
so mom and dad can learn and whatnot, to the way they basically walk
someone from wherever they start to a productive life for them and their kids.
And you know what, to be honest for the greater Houston community as well.
To take someone and turn a life around like that is good. It's
good for all of us as a community. So Star of Hope kind of
going on and on about it, but it's because I believe in it.
My wife and I support Star of Hope. We believe in Star of Hope.
If you would like to donate to them, I guarantee you your money
will be well spent and even just like two dollars and eighty cents provides a
meal for someone in that situation. Go to s o Hmission dot org,
s o H Mission dot org, and I would ask and just really encourage
you to do that. The more you hear about the changes they make,
the stories of lives turned around, it's exciting. And I know you're I
know you're a compassionate person and this is a channel, one of many channels
we have now in our lives where we can put our compassion into practice.
You're listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone
number is seven one three two one two k t R H seven one three
two one two k t R h. Ace hardware stores are ubiquitous. They're
everywhere in the Greater Houston area, like forty stores in the Greater Houston areas.
It's not hard to find one. And when you find one we use
that phrase that ACE uses, and that is ACE is the place. ACE
is a place to get your turf fertilization products, your pest control products,
disease control, weed management products. ACE is a place to get those mosquito
dunks we were talking about yesterday with Bill. It's the place to get fire
ant control products like baits, for example. ACE is the place to get
that fogger to turn that backyard patio area into a little more hospitable place,
at least for a while, so that you can enjoy it with family and
friends. ACE is a place for all of that and much much more.
Acehardware dot Com is their website. Go to the store locator and you get
a nice little map with red dots all over it. That is ACE Hardware.
And I really enjoy so much walking into ACE Hardware's because you know,
each one's independently owned, and so the guy that or Galva whatever runs that
Ace Hardware store gets to decide exactly how they want that store to be.
You know, do you want a fudge bar in your storage? You know
you have fudge bar in hardware store? Do you want to They just have
a lot of cool stuff, lots of cool stuff. By the way.
Next Saturday, the twenty ninth, it's a week from yesterday. I'm going
to be at the Langham Creek Ace Hardware. Langham Creek Ace Hardware. Now
Langham Creek is over in the Copperfield area. That's northwest Houston, just south
of Cypress. If you've ever been to the Berry Center over there, it's
a little further south than that, But Langham Creek Ace Hardware. Next Saturday,
it's on. If you know where FM five nine and Barker Cypress,
for example, come together that that's the spot. I'll be there from eleven
thirty to one thirty and be answering your gardening questions. Bring me some photos
things you want to ask about, bring me some samples, put them in
a bag and bring them over there. And see the store Langham Creek Ace.
The new owners have been in place for a while now there and they
just continue to take that store better and better and better. I love going
in. I love to just see all the different things that they carry there.
So next Saturday, come see me. This, by the way,
is my last appearance for this spring season. I'll pick it up again in
the fall. But if you'd like to come out to a place and meet
so we can visit. Well, here's here is the last call Langham Creek
as Harbor FM five point nine and Barker, Cyprus there in the northwest Houston
area. All right, I'm gonna take a break here for some more news
and I'll be back. Here's a phone number if you want to. We've
got to open lines at this point, so if you would like to give
Chris a call and get on the board, will come to you when we
come back. Seven to one three two one two k t RH. We
welcome back to Garden Line. Good heavy with us, Thanks for listening to
back. We're here to talk about the things that interest you. To have
a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful garden, that is what it's about.
And so if you'd like to give me a call the number seven one
three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two kt r H.
Plants for All Seasons is they've been around since oh gosh, nineteen seventy
three. I believe this family owned operation has really become a fixture. Everybody
in the whole region knows about Plants for All seasons because it is a popular
place. And why is it popular, Well, it's because it's because they
provide the kind of plants that want to grow here. But even more than
that, it's because they provide the advice and the guidance and the help so
that you can have success. Remember how I said gardening is supposed to be
fun, not stressful. Don't worry about failing at it. Well, when
you go into plants for all seasons, you can take a branch or a
leaf, or a bug and a bag, or you can take a photo
and say, hey, look this is the weed I'm dealing with or whatever.
They're going to point you to the product you need and talk to you
about how to do it. When you buy a plant, they'll tell you
how to plant it. If you want to put a combo planting together,
they'll tell you about how you go about that and even help you pick out
some plants for that. And now's a great time too. By the way,
listen, we got three more months of hot weather coming up here,
and you should be planting now. Still, it is okay to plant now.
And if you will and get a good heat tolerant flower, which they're
going to have it. Plants for all seasons. If you will do that,
you will find that you have beauty all the way up until it's time
for fall planting for the cooler season. So don't just set out three more
months of blazing heat and maybe not so exciting landscape. You need to provide
that good color that will carry you through, and plants for all seasons will
do that. They're on Luetta, or just actually there north of Luetta.
If you exit Luetta going toward Tomball on two forty nine, crossover Luetta,
and they're just right there on to forty nine, the number two eight one
three seven six sixteen forty six. Two eight one three seven six sixteen forty
six. Go by there and you will be very impressed with the selection and
also with the help that you get. We're going to go out to need
Bill now and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Hello, good morning.
I have some I have some oak trees in my front yard, live
oak trees and the mature trees, but they keep putting shoots out from the
roots, and I can't stop them. Is there any way to stop that
without hurting the tree? Are there are these shoots coming up fairly close to
the trunk. Yes, Okay, Shoots coming up have to be one of
two things. They're either coming up from acorns, being a seed and that
can happen under a live oak. That generally happens just randomly all around,
not just closer mostly closer to the trunk. Or it can be a root
sucker. And that's the ones you see. As you get closer and closer
to the trunk, you get more and more of those, and as you
cut them, it just makes them produce more. They just like pruning a
limb and getting you know, regrowth from pruning a limb. There there's not
a good product to control them. Certainly you don't want to kill them because
you'd be that would translocate into the tree if you sprayed them with something.
I've seen people cut them back as far as you can. It's be a
little bit of a job. Get it. Get them cut back. Put
a very strong ground cloth down like you see in a garden center that they
set plants on that black fabric, and then cover that with a mulch.
And when you cover it with mulch, if especially if it's a little bit
of a heavier multch, not not something really lightweight, uh, that can
help suppress them or at least keep them down a little bit. But there's
not a really good answer to this bill other than what I just mentioned.
Okay, well, I've tried cutting them off, and you're exactly right.
They just keep coming back, even more dense than before. There is a
product called sucker stopper. I can't remember which of the companies makes sucker stopper.
You know, it's Boneyde or High Yield or Monterey or Fertilan or whatever.
But sucker stopper suppresses that kind of regrowth and so as you as you
spray that that that can be helpful, but you have to follow the label
instructions. Okay, sucker stopper. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah,
what you've got there is a live oak that is from more of like
a Texas Hill Country original source after we get oak motts, because oaks sucker
a lot that type. When you get along the southern Gulf Coast, you
know, Louisiana, Mississippi, all three there, you see you don't see
as much of that, and it's because that type of live oak that is
native there doesn't sucker so much. That's just a fun fact that doesn't really
help you, but it's just just a fact about why we're seeing that on
some trees and not others. Okay, well I'll give it a try and
see what happens. Appreciate it all right, Bill, Thanks, appreciate your
call. Thank you very much. Let's uh, well, let's go to
another Bill. This time we're going to go to Jersey Village. Hey,
Bill, good morning. This is Bill. I've got some Magnillia trees and
they're this smaller variety. They're rather old, but need some trimming. Probably
will get a professional to come out and trim the bottom limbs out of the
trees. But I'm concerned, well will they be damaged to just be prined
or should we put some sealer on the wounds after primming. You do not
need to use a sealer on the wounds when you're punting magnolia tree. You
just want to cut the limb. If you're going to remove a limb,
cut it back to where it flares out to attach to the trunk. So
if you're if you are following a limb backward, it has a fairly consistent
diameter and as you get just a few inches away from the trunk, it
flares out, and so you want to cut it right where the flare starts
there. Okay, And no printing, say or anything is necessary. Sad
is necessary. And if you want to have somebody, you want to have
somebody to come in and do it professionally. Yes, I've got I've got
several of these trees and it'll it'll be kind of a big job. Yeah,
you ought to give Martin spoon more. Recall he's with Affordable Tree Service
and tell him your guardline listener. Uh. He stays busy because he does
a good job. People over the years have been doing this a long time.
Over the years, people have, you know, kind of latched onto
him. Well his number. Let me give you his number and a website
in case you want to take a look at that. Okay, okay,
thanks, thank you very much. It's seven three six twenty six sixty three
seven win three six nine nine two six six three or aff Tree Service dot
com. Hey ff Tree Service dot com. All right, all right,
thank you very much. All right, Bill, you take care. Yeah,
Martin right now, he is busy because after that storm got our attention
just a few weeks ago. Now people are calling to get their trees pruned
and taken care of, because we know until November we're in hurricane season and
it's just a matter of time before some wins come back. This way,
as we learned a few weeks ago, it didn't take hurricane to really do
a lot of tree damage. And it's just part of nature out there.
But why not get your trees ready? In fact, I can't express enough
the importance of proper tree care coming in to this storm season. So Martin
spoon Moore Affordable Tree aff Tree Service dot com, give him a call,
go ahead and see when he can come out. By the way he charges,
he turns like one hundred and fifty dollars to come out, and then
that money you paid for him to come out becomes part of what you're paying
him to do the job. In other words, it's not like you lose
the one fifty. It's just hey, it's just a are you really serious?
Do you really want some help here? And when he tells you what
needs to be done, you can harm to do it, and you've already
paid one hundred and fifty for it. I think it's a good way to
do it. Isn't a big place I wouldn't want to drive all over town
based on people's curiosity. Just coming up at this tree the garden Line.
We're here to answer your gardening questions. If you will like to write down
this number, I courage you to do that. Seven one three two hunch
k t r H. Just another reminder next Saturday, I'll be at Langham
Creek H Hardware, which is over in northwest Houston, just south of Cypres,
south of the Berry Center. If you will, John Barker Ciphers and
what's on FM five twenty nine? What was that try to and Spencer Road?
I believe is Yeah, that's a proper name. FMI. Anyway,
I hope you can make them next Sad we'll be right back. Welcome to
kd r H Guarded Line with Rickards. Just watch him as crazy side starting.
Welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you with
us. The sun is shining. We've got another good day today. Uh,
it's going to be a great day this afternoon. You got to get
outside, just take care of some things you need to do in the yard
landscape. We can kind of help with that. I'll in fact, i'll
talk here a little bit about some of the things we need to be doing,
and also go out to a garden center. Remember it is warm now,
but it is a great time still to plant plants. All you have
to do is just keep a little more attention to keep them watered well when
they're getting a stablish you know, and think about this. When you put
a plant in the ground, the roots are still in that cylindrical shape they
were in the pot. And so if you were to take a pot and
set it right down in the ground and don't take the plant out of it,
just plant the pot and plant, that is how it will be for
a while. After you plant, roots will try to move out, but
you need to think as if that pot is still there because that's where the
roots are after you plant. So I don't recommend planting the pot, by
the way, But what I'm saying is it's going to take time. So
the soil can be pretty moist all out and about, but that whole plant's
root system is having to come out of that original cylinder. And each week,
each month, as we go forward, it becomes better and better established,
and it's less and less needy for us to provide everything it needs.
So when you plant a plant, just remember for a while you're watering it
as if it were still in the pot. I think that's a good way
to do it, maybe in that area, but a little beyond that area,
because roots are going to slowly be moving out. Just a little tip
right there. Uh, other things that we can be doing, by the
way, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Just a tip on mowing your lawn. There are a few factors in
lawn mowing that really make a visual difference in your lawn. Did you know
that mowing your lawn is one of the key factors in terms of having a
beautiful, attractive lawn or mowing it right. The more often you mow,
the denser your lawn is going to be. To let the lawn get real
tall and then cut it way back, that's a that's a kind of a
shock, a sat back for the lawn. Of course, it bounces back,
but it looks terrible for a while, Especially things like bermuda grass.
They have most of their green up on top, and when you cut back
into that, it's real sticky, uh like as in sticks looking, and
it eventually greens back up again regular lawn mowing very important. Mowing with a
sharp blade, that's the second one. Mowing with a sharp blade makes a
cleaner cut. And at the tip of every cut grass blade, it's going
to turn brown after you mow, right up at the tip. But if
your lawnmower is dull and instead of slicing a clean cut, as if you
use scissors to cut your lawn, instead of that, if the ends of
the grass blades are just sort of shredded, just sort of hammered apart,
if you will, by that dull mower blade, now we have a larger
brown tip on each grass blade. Now why am I on my hands and
knees down in the lawn talking about this? Well, here's why you got
billions of grass blades all over the place in your lawn. And if you
think of it in a pixelated way, the more brown pixels or tampixels from
those tips that were cut with a dull mower, the more of those you
have, it lessens the overall beautiful deep green uniform effect that we want to
have in our lawns. So it also is easier on your lawn mower to
have sharp blades as well. So mow regularly and mow with a sharp blade.
And then finally the height the more the shorter you cut your lawn,
the more often you mow your lawn, because when you mow, you cut
off a third of the leaf blade. That's the goal is a third.
So let's say you want to mow your lawn at two inches high. When
it gets to three inches, you cut off that third one inch, and
now you're back two. That's how that works. So the shorter you cut
your grass, the less it has to grow before it's time to mow again.
If you moved all the way up with say Saint Augustine, especially in
a little lower light area, and you're cutting it let's say three and a
half inches high, well, then and it can grow a lot more before
it's time to cut it again. You see what I'm saying. So golf
course greens remote every day at a very very tiny, little low cut that
they do. That's what makes them such a wonderful playing surface is the regular,
regular mowing. So mowing is important. Have a good sharp mower and
set it so that you are cutting at the right height and then the right
frequency and all of that with a sharp blade. That that's your mowing tip.
That's how your lawn mower makes your lawn more beautiful and greener. It's
not just a matter of keeping it from becoming a jungle. It's a matter
of building a dense carpet that you the kids can play on, that you
enjoy walking across as part of the overall painting a landscape around your home.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
If you'd like to give a skull seven one three two on two five eight
seven four if you are anywhere out in the Katie area, in fact,
if you're anywhere West Houston area, the folks at Nelson Nursery and Watergarden have
really built a destination garden center out in Katie and it's just a hop,
skipping or jump outside of Houston. Well. In fact, I think Houston
ate Katie a good while back, as big cities tend to do. Nelsonwatergardens
dot Com is the website. But when you go there, take a friend
because you're going to enjoy it and it's okay to hang out a while.
In fact, you can just think of it as therapy. I want you
to go over in Nelson Watergarden and Nursery, and just go where they have
waterfalls and those disappearing fountains. You know, they're the ones that invented that
large, tall, beautiful container where the water spills over the side and recirculates.
Just go sit there and just enjoy the sound of water. Number One,
you're gonna want that for your own home landscape. We had put a
water feature in our landscape a year ago. It's just a nice to sit
out and just listen to it. And that also is attractive to birds.
They hear that too. Anyway. Nelson Nursery and Water Garden one of a
kind plants. They have pots, they have fish, they have fountains,
and they have expertise to help you have success. But you got to go
see it. You got to go see it. See what I'm talking about.
You go to Katie Turn North on Katie Fort Ben Road and there you
are just a rocks throw down the street. I wanted to say a few
words. I don't talk about house plants a lot on Guarden Line, but
pretty much everybody has one buy and large and a lot of people struggle with
their houseplants, so they feel like they're just not doing good. The number
one reason that I see house plants struggling is a lack of light for that
species. Now, every species of plant that we bring into the house has
different light levels that it needs. There are plants that can take very low
light, and that would include the sense of area, which is also called
mother in law's tongue. The zz plant is a great low light plant,
and the one they call closet plant as if you could grow it in the
closet, which is an exaggeration. Spathophylum is an excellent plant for low light
areas. Then you have plants that are going to have to have more Any
houseplant that blooms is going to have to have a lot more light than that.
A lot of the herbs that we have can take shade, but not
that much shade, and they're going to struggle along. But getting the plant
in the right exposure is important. And just remember our eyes adjust to the
light, and so you may look at something and go, well that that
ought to be enough light. Well, go stand outside in the sun for
a while looking around, and then walk in the house and look at that
area until your eyes make the adjustment. It's like, yeah, they're not
much light here. At all, and so making sure they get adequate light
because light produces food. It's the fuel for the plant. So you take
all these these nutrients that are being taken up, light shines on the leaves.
The leaves make carbohydrates. And we talk about fertilizer like plant as plant
food, and I get that. That's all right, you can call it
that. But the real food for the plant is when that fertilizer is turned
into carbohydrates and all the other things that the plants make out of the nutrients.
That is important. You cannot make a plant and super low light grow
better by fertilizing it or watering it. It has to have light first.
But when you do, you want to make sure that you give them the
adequate nutrition. And there are a lot of great fertilizers for doing that.
That you keep the plant moderately moist, moderately moist. I see a lot
of house plants that die because they were overwatered. And root rot is a
bad thing. Two things promote that. Number one, you've got a soil
mix that may be a little too mucky, a little the particles are small.
There's lots of lots of organic matter, and our potting soils uh,
and it just sort of gets mucky. It doesn't have good oxygen down in
the root system versus one that's a little bit looser, and in the internal
drainage is a little bit better. So water adequately, water often enough to
keep it going, but don't over water them. So the light and the
watering are the main two things I see where people struggle with their houseplants.
Also, just know some plants do not like to sudden changes. If you
have a little Fcus tree in the house of fiddlely fig or or the other
types of Ficus, the common ficus, uh, and you move them from
low light to highlight or highlight to low light, gonna they're gonna drop leaves
or you're gonna see sunburn on the leaves. How that works? All right,
let's take a little break here our number seven one three two one two
KTRH. I'll be right back. A welcome back to line. Good to
have you with us. Here we go on another hour. Well in the
middle of they are almost if you are looking for an excellent source of all
the things that I talk about when I say bron stuff before green stuff.
Ciena moltch down south of Houston. Cena Molts down south of Houston is by
the way. They're on FM five twenty one, just near Highway six and
two eighty eight down north of Roe. Sharon Well cnmals dot com. Go
to that website you can find them. You can find out a lot more
about the products. But they're going to have the stuff that I call brown
stuff. And what is that. Well, that would be composts. That
would be the mulches that go on top of the ground. That would be
the bed mixes. That would be things like, for example, the veggie
mix that you get from Airloom Soils. They have that down there at Cienamulch.
They also have brown stuff. In terms of the soil. All the
fertilizers I talk about on guarden Line, all of them they end. Then
they have an excellent selection down there. So when you drive into Cenamalts or
when you call them up, they deliver within about believe twenty miles for a
small fee. If you go and come home with the good stuff they have,
your plants are going to hit the ground running. That's how that works.
And Ciena Maltch they don't they don't take short cuts. They don't mess
around. They provide quality products for their customers, and if you listen to
people who go their talk, you know they are in love with Ciena Malts
because of all those kinds of things. Cienamultch dot com. That's the website
on FM five twenty one. Now they're closed on Sundays, but they're open
Monday through Friday till five and Saturdays from seven thirty in the morning until two.
So check them out. Get the brown stuff right and you will have
much more success than otherwise. Let's go now out to Mike in surfside.
Hello Mike, Hello, Skip, how are you doing today? I'm well,
sir, what's up? I got a couple real quick questions. One
is a gut some tomato plants left over from the from the summer, from
the spring. Is it worth keeping those things alive or just go ahead and
replanting it fall, you know, Mike, Uh, It depends on the
condition of them. If they are loaded with spider mites and leaf diseases and
everything like that, I think I would get all that out of there,
with all the you know, all that mass out of there and replant What
kind of what I was thinking? What I have done? Before though,
is take the end of a tomato shoot, cut it off where it's about
I say, eight inches long something like that, and then take it inside
and just swish slash it really vigorously in water to wash off any spider mite
or things like that, and then put it. You can put it in
water to root, or I'd like better to put it in a in a
growing medium like a potting soil with a lot of pearl lighte in it.
You can get that thing rooted, and now you've got a brand new plant
that you've taken from the end. It's the exact same variety you took it
off of, and you could just plant it out in the ground once it
gets a good root system on it. So that would give to get all
those old plants and spider mites and leaf diseases, spores and everything, get
them out of there, get it all cleaned up and ready, because July
is a great time to plant tomatoes for fall. Second questions, real quick,
I also raise bees. What is a if you can think of one,
a high pollen producing plant that grows at this time of the year and
this extreme heat, well, as you know, there's not a lot blooming
right now in the bees need that pollen and I can't. I don't know
if there's anything out there that that produces pollen at this time of year.
Well, when you're talking about as a bee keeper, you need you need,
you need an acre of flowers and things to provide plenty for the bees.
But around our landscapes some popular bee plants. The African blue basil is
unbelievable pollinator attractor in the landscape. I see honey bees on a lot of
different things. There's one called melaluca that is a little shrub with kind of
a silvery green leaf and a pink flower through. Pretty they like that.
At my house we got some Mexican heather as lining a driveway and I'm telling
you, they love the flowers on Mexican heather. That's another one. There
are just a lot of different kinds of plants that bees like. Later in
the summer, we're going to see the coral vine start to bloom. That
is a vigorous vine that produces huge clusters of pink blooms and bees all pollinators
loved that one as well. You know. V Text is one that used
to say v Tex was a beekeeper's friend because it's blooming at a tough time.
And Kramerless a while back at TEXA and M they did a study in
college station on all the bees that were coming back to the high there as
part of one of the researchers in entomology, and they found the number one
pollen bees were coming home with was crape myrtle pollen, which tells you that
that crpe murder, which blooms for about ninety days in the summer, that
is an important plant for sustaining bees. Oh. Absolutely, Yeah, this
time of year, there's not a lot there's really no vegetables out there going.
These love to get the pollen from the vegetables, right, something,
man, They've got to be something else they'd really like. This is just
kind of a supplement their rather their regular diet. Get them something little extra
for summer. Yeah. Monarda is called bee balm, and for very good
reason. They love they love Monarda's. They there's a wildflower that's a Monarda
type plant that they love as well. But anyway, yeah, that was
a great recommendation. I could go on and on. There's a lot of
plants, but you know what I would do, And I was out at
Arbrogate Nursery just the other day and walking through they have so many kinds of
plants. Our landscapes full of plants. You can walk through and what where
are the bees? What are they on? And you know that it's it's
a simple way to go about it. But as you go to a garden
center, look at the bees. I did the same thing of plants for
all seasons over on two forty nine a good while back, and it was
just interesting because the bees know the flowers are there, and so they're gonna
they're gonna go for their preference if they have a choice. All right,
appreciate your recommendation, Skipp, thanks so much. All right, Mike,
thank you. Good luck with all that. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, we we had
that heck of a storm a while back that knocked out power, and that
can happen. It doesn't have to be hurricane season, but that it doesn't
have to be caused by a hurricane for that to happen, because that storm
we had wasn't a hurricane. What do you do? You got a freezer
full of food, you've perhaps you work from home, and you have to
have internet all the time to have access. What do you do well,
You get a generator, but not just any generator, and especially not just
any place. A Generac generator is a high quality product. Quality Home products
will sell you a Generaic generator, But I want to tell you it's everything
that goes with that that makes Quality Home the absolute best place to go.
Here's what I'm talking about. They take care of you. They walk you
through the process. Number one, just making sure you buy a generator that's
adequate for what you're trying to accomplish. Number two, getting the permits necessary
to put that there at your house. They work on that. They don't
just tell you go do that putting a slab out there, They actually do
that as well, getting the generator set up. And then once they walk
away and you're ready to go, you've got this generator that's ready to come
on when the power goes out. Once they walk away, that's when the
service begins. And that's why they've won the Pinnacle Award for the Better Business
Bureau eight times. That's why there's fourteen thousand and five star reviews. It's
that twenty four to seven, three sixty five customer service. Go to Quality
TX dot com, QUALITYTX dot com or dial seven to one three Quality.
WHOA, yeah, home grown tomatoes. Nothing's like a homegrown tomato, that
is for sure. We obsess over tomatoes. Tomatoes the queen of the vegetable
garden. And you know, I always say that tomato is the number one
vegetable that makes the phone ring here on garden Line. Nobody ever calls me
about their core Robbie. I don't know why, but anyway, tomatoes.
What would a gardening year be without some really great new tomatoes and things?
We just can't live with that like that? All right, Well, let's
go talk to Joyce now out in Cyprus. Hey, Joyce, Yeah,
good morning. I just had a couple of sunshine lagustrums planted yesterday, and
I've had conflicting information on how often to keep them watered, you know,
for a while while they've just been freshly planted. Okay, here's what will
help you to think this way. Imagine when they planted them, they set
the whole pot in the ground, where would all the roots be well still
in the pot, right, And when they plant them, the roots are
all quote still in the pot, meaning they're still in that cylinder shape that
came out of the pot. Now, week by week, month by month,
the roots reach out further and further. It becomes better and better established,
where we almost don't water it at all. Nature takes care of it
pretty much. But early on it's as if it was sitting in a pot
above the ground, which means those things are getting watered every day in a
small amount. So you want to water in that cylinder area where the roots
are a small amount. You can dig down and feel the soil. You
can tell, but just by feeling about three inches deep, is it wet
or is it dry? Or is it in between? Just don't overwater them,
but know that they will go completely too dry fast because the roots are
so confined. Still Okay, yeah, they didn't plant them very deep.
They kind of build up, can think of a word to describe it,
but kind of a pile around the bottom of them. They didn't put them
in too deep. Is that area poorly drained? Does it tend to stay
wet or something not? Particularly? Okay? Well, you know I'm not
there looking at it, so I don't know what else to say about that,
but I can tell you this, Those plants are using water every day,
especially when it's hot and the sun is shining, and you just take
them out. And like I said, each week, each month, less
and less is dependent on you. Early on, it's it's all dependent on
you. So every day, a little bit, a little bit. Maybe
what size pot with it was like a gallon pot tree gallon? Three gallon?
Okay, I would put about probably a half gallon of water, maybe
a gallon around them. You could do that. That probably is the best
amount. I guess, all things considered, Okay, okay, thank you
very much, you bet, Thanks Joyce. I appreciate that a lot.
Listen to Medina's new product. Have you heard about the new one, super
Grow Plus. It's one of the has to grow products and you probably have
used has to grow or has to grow for lawns. Well, this is
has to grow super grow plus. And it is a really nice formulation number
one. It's sixteen percent nitrogen. It's a sixteen zero two fertilizer. It
comes in a court bottle that you hooked your garden hose, so it'll cover
about four thousand square feet and so you can do your line in about about
ten minutes or so. Just walking through the lawn real quick with that on
the end of the hose. It's got the about about a fifth of the
nitrogen is in a slow release form. It's got iron and achilated form.
That's very important. So if you want to green something up, nitrogen and
iron are two of the primary things that we see needed when something is lacking
good green color. It's got molasses in it, it's got humic acid in
it, it's got seaweed extract in it. This is a great formulation.
So super Grow plus sixteen zero two from Medina. It's widely available now.
Stores are carrying it, and it's just simple and easy. Makes it very
very easy to take care of your lawn and have success, which, as
we say all the time, that's what we want is for you to have
success. Let's go to Sugarland now and we're going to talk to Greg.
Hello, Greg nice, how are you doing. I I have a question
now, when should I start seeding my newly planted trees. They've been in
for about a month now. And once you got start feeding those trees,
you know, I would say providing them a little bit of nitrogen, especially
in small amounts over time, you could begin that now if they've been in
that long, they also have a very confined root system still, you know,
it takes time for the roots to move out of the original roots cylinder
and fully filled the soil. So I would focus my feeding within the branch
spread of the tree. So imagine the trees is an umbrella. Where does
the water drip off the umbrella? That's that's the drip line we call it.
And you know, primarily fertilized inside that area. Okay, and so
missing nitrogen. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you, Greg, there are
products for trees and shrubs out there on the market and they're good. Just
because I always have lawn fertilizer on hand for my lawn. That's what I
use on my trees as well. And easy. There's nothing wrong with doing
that. Uh So, Yeah, I mean I could Ncrophos and Nelson they
both have you know, products that are geared toward you know, woody ornamental.
Wow. Yeah, okay, all right, all right, and thank
you, all right. Thanks In the trees, you know, the number
one thing to make trees grow fast, let me not do that. I'm
not gonna do the number one. I'm going to do a series of important
things. How about that, planning them right, making sure if they got
circling roots, those roots are cut so that then they move out into the
soil readily, and and by the way, they will do that. One
time I was, uh, you know, working with Beverly up at Arborgate,
and she had some trees in there. Uh always do uh, And
I got permission to take one up out of the pot and do some root
running on it, put it back in the pot, and then come back
in two weeks and look at it, and there were already fresh new roots,
white roots, just coming out from behind those cuts. It's just like
if you pri in a branch, what happens You get ref sprouting. That's
what happens in the ground. Number one, cut those roots, that's important.
Step number two, of course, plant it correctly, but provide adequate
water. And number three would be nutrition. Those three combined are what is
going to produce fast growth when you plant a tree? What is the what
is the goal? How soon can I hang a hammock in this thing?
Right? In other words, I got to get it growing well. Of
all those things. Of all those things, more so than fertilizer, adequate
consistent water is very important. A young tree has a confined root system.
You know, an established live oak tree or big old whatever kind of tree,
red oak, whatever, whatever you have in your landscape. Established,
they've got roots two and a half times a height the tree in all directions,
so they have a huge bank account to draw from. The new trees
you put out don't and so providing regular water and small doses the very opposite
of what our long term goal is. Providing regular water and small doses initially
is important because when they go into drought, even if it doesn't kill the
tree, it causes growth to slow down or shut down, and then when
it gets water it can grow again. So, more so than even fertilizer,
is good consistent water, especially during the first I'll say five years of
the tree's life, with each year becoming a little less critical than the one
before. The first year is we got to be all in for that one
year two, you want it to grow fast. When we go into summer
it hadn't rained in two weeks, give it a good soaking, and then
year three and to year five were By year five we're probably not worrying so
much about water to sustain the tree. But that's important. That's how you
do it. If you want to hang a hummockfast, you gotta cut the
roots that are going in circles before you plant planet right, and then make
sure it gets adequate water, and then of course some fertilization as well.
Well, you're listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Our
phone number here is seven one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two k t r H. Well, yesterday I had
Zach Buchanan, and you know this week has been a week of the pollinator
week. And I'm gonna when we take I'm gonna take a break here,
but when I come back, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the pollinators.
Just hang on seven one three two one two k t R HILL.
Be right back on your Houston commute on news Radio seven forty and also on
all your streaming devices here kt r H anytime anywhere with the free iHeartRadio app
in the app store or KTRH dot com. If you own your own home,
you're like sitting on a pile of cash. But if only there was
a way to convert that equity into cash. Well, look no further easy
knock sale, leaseback solutions offer a flexible, convenient way for homeowners to turn
their home equity into cold, hard cash without the hassle of today's high interest
loans. If you need the money tied up in your home to pay off
debts, fund that next move, or just need cash to secure your financial
outlook, easy knock is the solution. Easy Knock get you the money you
need without worrying about high interest rates or strict lender qualifications. Sell your house
to easy knock at one hundred percent fair market value and rent it back getting
the time and flexibility you need. It's that simple. Easy Knock enables you
to convert the equity in your home to secure a better financial footing. Visit
us at easy knock dot com and turn your home equity into cash today.
Terms and conditions apply. Easyknock sale leaseback products are not available in Massachusetts and
select states and markets. Purchase price includes a mix of cash and an option
a slow network. There's no network for business. That's why more choos Comcast
business, and now we're introducing Ultimate Speed for Business, our fastest plans yet.
We're up to twelve times faster than Verizon at and T and T Mobile
and existing customers could even get up to triple the speech. All right,
it is summertime, right, can't do summer without the beach boys. Welcome
back to Garden Line. I am your host, Skip Richtor, and we're
here to answer gardening questions or just if I'll even allow you to call and
brag on how many tomatoes you grew last year? How about that, because
that's important. You know, the goal is always to have the earliest and
the best tomatoes on the block. All right, well we'll do that.
Seven one three two one two k t r H. That's the number I
was talking about yesterday. Zach A. Buchanan from Buchanus Native Plants in the
Heights. He came by and we were talking about pollinators because this was Pollinator
Week. Pollinators we pollinator Week, and I think it ends today. I
believe it is the last day of it, but anyway, it doesn't matter.
Week is pollinator Week in the garden because pollinators serve such an important role.
They number one. Our food supply is by and large thanks to pollinators
that in the cases of fruits, for example, vege, certain vegetables,
we wouldn't have them if it wasn't for the pollinators that are helping take care
of things. But you know, whether it's bees like honey bees or bees
like native bees, a bumblebee, a leaf cutter bee, there's a lot
of different kinds of solitary dwelling bees and are pollinators that are important. And
the more you provide in your landscape an array of blooms that continue through this
season. So if one plant's going to like wimp out by summer, then
let's have a summer plant that's blooming all summer take over for it. The
more you build a landscape like that, the more success you're going to have
in atracting pollinators and becann as native plants. They've got a just an unbelievable
selection and of natives. They have natives. If you want something that is
native just Texas in general, of course they got that. But if you
want something native just to the greater Houston area, they specify that particular division
as well. You can go to see them at Eleventh Street in the Heights,
six eleven East eleventh Street in the Heights, or you can go to
the website, which I'd recommend you to do that. You do that and
you sign up to receive their newsletter information. Buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot
com. They have been serving Houston gardener since nineteen eighty six. Right there
in the Heights. They have all the fertilizers that I talk about on garden
Line and many many other helpful products, including a beautiful gift shop that is
always a good idea when you're looking for a nice little gift for somebody.
Buchanans Native Plants in the Heights. Pollinators. We had a call earlier people
ask a guy was asking about bees. How to you how to you know,
support the bee? That was Mike, they called him, and you
know, we were just it got me thinking about what are the plants that
bees like the most? So while back I started compiling a list of be
favorites. But here's the thing. Bees are not all in agreement as to
what the favorite plant is. There's actually a bee that's called a squash bee,
and it it literally its love is to plant is to pollinate cue curbets,
is to visit ce curbet flowers for the nectar and the honey. That's
what it focuses on. Have you ever thought about that? Do you have
squash bees? At your house. I don't know, maybe you do.
They are around here. Uh that there's the leaf cutter bee. And there's
just a lot of different kinds of bees and they each have their prefectly So
making a list for bees is a little bit of a challenge, but I
think we need to put something like that together. They already exist. If
you're interested in learning more about pollinate the xerx Sees Society. Uh, and
I was gonna spell it, and then I realized I would butcher it if
I did. But it's xe r cees. Am I spelling that right?
X e r cees the xerk Sees Society. Yeah, that's right. They
focus on pollinators and it's xerxees dot org. Go there. Look at the
material they have. It is amazing the kind of material they have. Maybe
you're interested more in a flower garden for butterflies, we can do that.
Remember when you're planting a butterfly garden, you want to plant things for the
children and the parents. So what do I mean by that, Well,
a monarch. We use monarch. That's a familiar one for everybody. Milkweeds
are an example of something you plant for the children, for the larva,
the monarch, lazyego, milkweed, and there we go. It's it's larva
has something to eat. Then things that the adults can feed on. That
would be the nectar from the flowers. And there's plants that are very attractive
to butterflies. A Zac and I talked about some yesterday. There are a
number of different plats depending on the butterfly you want to attract. So with
monarchs we think of milkweed. With the goff frittlary, that's the orange butterfly
around here, passion vine very popular. There is a pipe vine, swallow
tail, and number of different types of pipe vine that you can plant.
But that particular butterfly that's with the larva feed on. So if you plant
it, they will come. That's a good way to put it. And
if you want to attract butterflies, learn a little bit about them, find
out what kinds you like, and you can attract. You can plant the
things that are going to be popular with that and as I said, if
you build it, they will come and it just gets better and better over
time. One of my favorite bee plants is African blue basil. Now it's
not really blue, but anyway, it is a basil. I suppose it
has some culinary uses. I've never used it in a culinary way. I
kind of like the genobe s basils and for making pesto and things. But
the African blue makes a really good sized bush. I don't know three feet
even possibly, I guess four feet in width and height and time. But
when we get toward the end of summer, that bush is loaded loaded with
bees because it is a very important source. They love that. They love
that plant. Now, bees love all kinds of basil flowers, but just
the stature and the growth of that plant is amazing. So we could go
on and on about other kinds of plants. I think I mentioned earlier that
my Mexican kufia is always a bee favorite. The flowers are not huge,
not a lot to write home about on the standard type of Mexican heather,
but the bee find them and they love them. They love that. I
was talking earlier about the importance of finding the right products and taking care of
the lawn, and no matter what, you need, any kind of fertilizer,
any kind of pest control, disease control, weed control. Bob Patterson
Southwest Fertilizer go there. Talk to Bob, talk to Aaron, talk to
the team there. They're experts. You can bring them a picture, they
look at it. They're on Bessin out corner of Bessinet and Renwick in southwest
Houston. I would recommend you go there if you've never been. Hey,
it's air conditioned in there, A good time to go. They have unbelievable
selection and knowledge. Oh my gosh. The last thing you need, and
you've got a weed or something, is to just start buying stuff that someone
at a store that doesn't know what they're talking about. Just set here,
go use this, and they don't know what they're talking about. They do
it. Southwest Fertilizer. You'll get it right the first time. That's that
tie work. All right. We're gonna take a little break for the top
of the hour in the news. If you would like to get on the
boards with Chris my producer seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
give us a call. You're right back. Welcome to kt r H
Garden Line with Scip Richard. It's crazy. Just watch him as a world
may well. Welcome back to garden Line. Let's hop in here and get
this hour rolling if you would like, if you have a gardening question seven
one three two one two k t R eight. Seven one three two one
two k t R eight. We're gonna head straight out to Katie and talk
to Dwyane. Hello, Dwayne, good morning, Skip. I've got I
sent you some pictures. So I've got a plumb tree that it may be
fire blake, but I want to get your opinion. And I've got some
sap seeping out of some of the limb areas, and I wanted to see
what your thoughts were on it. Oh okay, yeah, that does not
look like fireblight to me. Well that's good. What did you say?
What type of tree? So if you look down in those pictures, there's
one or two of those pictures that I sent you that's got some sap,
it looks like sap kind of seeping out of right around where the branches or
where the one of the branches coming out of the main trunk. Okay,
oh yeah, I see that. Okay, Well, a lot of things
can cause that just by wounding the trunk. So it could be like a
kinker where the trunk has a disease in it that is an infection in it
if you will. That causes the plant to bleed the sap out. It
could be an insecting on it in there plums did you say plum tree?
It is a plumb. I don't know if that's a bruiser or a methley,
but it's either a brucher or methley plumb. Okay, yeah, I'm
seeing the leaves now. Yeah. They can be really prone to leaking sap
as campeaches their cousins. Okay, And so I would just watch it,
you know, give it the regular care, adequate moisture not too much,
and moderate fertilizer not too much. It's not going to need a whole lot
of fertilizer. It looks like to me that it's growing at an adequate pace
too, So that's kind of what we're looking for as a moderate rate of
a growth. That tip burning. I think maybe it got dry for a
little while, or it possibly some sort of a chemical used around the tree
could have been There's no nothing goes back there except fertilizer. I don't I
try to keep it. Okay, Well, I'm not using organic on the
fertilizer, but I don't put any type of pesticides or anything in the backyard
around any of that. No straight yeah, okay, Well, and this
is something that happens every It seems like it's every summer. I do fight
this. So maybe it has to do with the heat. I don't know
if that's something that's prone for the plumbs. Well, I'll tell you this,
Dwayne, diseases do not know where the tips and margins of the leaf
are. They land where they land and infect where they land, and so
disease bacteria and fungus is more of a random thing. When you see the
tips and margins, that means either water isn't getting to that spot, or
if you use fertilizer, assault type fertilizer and you overapply it, it's flowing
along and as the leaf is transpiring water out, it's leaving the fertilizer salts
behind. So we can get tip and margin burn from an excessive fertilization.
But that's about it. That's about the only things I can think of that
would do this. Okay, well, thank you, sir. I appreciate
it all right, Good luck with that, Thank you. Good our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I've talked about
pier scapes before and it's I am very impressed by Peerscapes. And here's why.
First of all, right, I want you to write down this website
and I want you to go there and look at it. It's Piercescapes dot
com. Pierscapes dot com. Look at the work that they do. Do
you need a hardscape put in the back. Do you need a perhaps area
that doesn't drain well to drain well? They can fix that. Is your
irrigation system not in good shape, it needs some evaluating and repairing, they
can do that too. They also do quarterly service for your beds. So
if you have a bed that you would like somebody to come once a quarter
and weed it and do any trimming that's necessary, fertilizing is needed, make
sure the irrigation's working, and maybe periodically a color change, like hey,
the Panzies don't like summer, let's put in a summer color. They do
all that. You can sign up for the quarterly maintenance. It works really
well. But no matter what you need in your landscape, I mean,
we're talking about landscape lighting, we're talking about pathways, just anything in the
way of hard escape. They specialize in that. And certainly in designing.
If you'd like to have them come in and really create a showplace for you,
they can do any level of that that you want. Piercescapes dot com
here's the number two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three
seven oh five zero six zero. Give them a call or especially go to
that website and look at the work. I think you'll be as impressed as
I have been. In Chani Gardens down in Richmond is one of those destinations
showplaces. You know, if you've ever been there, you know what I'm
talking about. If you haven't, well, I got something for you to
do then this afternoon in Janet Gardens Richmond dot com. That's the website Enchanted
Gardens Richmond dot com. They're on the Katie Foster side. So if you're
down in Richmond Rosenberg area, you head north and they're on FM three fifty
nine FM three fifty nine. It is a beautiful mersery. It's really an
unforgettable experience to go. You're going to find every kind of plants you want.
You're gonna find people that know what they're talking about to help you.
They are experts at putting together combination planters. You ought to see some of
the things that they put together there, and they just have everything you need.
You can bring your samples in for some expert advice, put them a
little plastic bag. Walk in there and say, hey, what is this?
What do I do about it? And they can help you with that.
They carry all the fertilizers I talk about on garden line. They're open
Monday through Saturday eight to five and on Sundays from ten am to four pm.
So, as I said, that's something for you to do. Remember
it is not too late to be planting just because things have warmed up.
No, take advantage of anytime you can pull aside to get some beautiful summer
color planted. Maybe it's a hanging basket, maybe it's a flower bed,
maybe it's starting a shrub or a rosebush. In general, now's the time.
Get that done. Don't wait we get I get impatient with plants.
I you know, you buy them. I know what this thing's going to
look like when it grows up. Oh my gosh, it's going to be
gorgeous. But right now, especially if it came out of a four inch
pod, it's like, okay, that's a little bitty thing, let's go,
let's grow. So but that's why we got quality fertilizers. Speaking of
a quality type fertilizer, nitrophoss is sweet green is a natural type fertilizer.
It's based on molasses with microbial activity to create an eleven percent nitrogen eleven percent
that is high for an organic type product. Eleven percent nitrogen product that will
really green up your lawn. And I would say right now, if you
were going to use a sweet green, first of all, it smells wonderful.
That's why they call it sweet green. If you're going to use that,
I would put it out now at a moderate rate, and then keep
returning your clippings, and probably a couple of months from now, maybe let's
say we get into I don't know, sometime in August, you could put
another application out to carry you on into the fall season when you do your
fall fertilization. Now, it's a nitroposs product, So you're going to find
it in a lot of different places. D and Defeat up there in Tomball
will carry it. Fisher's Hardware in Baytown will carry it. Plants and things
out in Brenham, Jim's Hardware, Montgomery It's easy to find Sweet Green and
other nitroposs products, and I think that this one will be interesting. I
was joking the other day that it smells so good that you want to take
the long way home from the store just so you can enjoy the smell a
little bit longer in the car. All Right, that's exaggerating a little bit,
but I love the smell. Our phone number if you'd like to give
us a call seven one three two one two KT right seven one three two
one two k t r H. I. I had Bill Stingle from Mosquito
Dunks on yesterday. I hope you were able to hear that. I want
to talk a little bit about mosquitos. We're gonna take a break here,
but when I come back, I want to talk a little bit about mosquitoes
and how how this product works, as well as some of the other things
we can do for mosquitoes. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Garden
Line. We are hoping here today. I love I love upbeat music,
just especially or kind of mid morning here. It's time to get going here.
That's enough coffee for me today, and I'm ready to hit a head
out of here after the show and get some actual work done this afternoon.
I don't know. I say work, it's not work for me. It's
play out in the lands ape some things I want to get planted. We're
gonna go first to Northwest Houston and talk to Malcolm. Hello, Malcolm,
Hey, good morning, Skip. How you doing. I hope you're doing
well. I am. I've got a small problem in my Saint Augustine yard.
I've been following your schedule and my yard's looking really great. But my
tree drafted a bunch of acorns, and I've got little acorns trees sprouting up
everywhere, hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Okay, can I do you
know if you if it's just mow them, they tend to kind of go
away when they're a little tiny ceiling. They just if they can't get good
leaves up there to capture sunlight that that little ceiling doesn't have a great wet
to to. There's not a spray for them. I mean, well,
there are sprays that kill them, but I don't recommend doing that on a
long Well, that's fine, it's I just didn't know if that was the
case. I didn't want them to get stronger in the roots and then up,
I'll never be able to get rid of them. So that's right,
I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Yeah, keep keeping mode. And
I mean, if you end up having to kill something like that, you're
gonna have to be very selective and how you spray so you don't hurt your
lawn too. Yeah. No, that sounds like Mowen's the answer. Man.
I appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right, Malcolm,
take care. Appreciate your call very much. Start of Hope. I was
talking about Star Hope earlier. That is a place that and the name is
so so appropriate. That is a place that brings hope to people. And
I'd like you, just just for a moment, just kind of go with
me on this. Maybe you've got a mom that has kids that is alone
now and for whatever reason, she's lost her job, maybe living in a
car. How do you take somebody like that and set them on their feet
where they're self sustaining and there's a future for those children. Well, here's
what you do. You bring them in, you give them a place to
eat, You take care of the kids with some daycare so mom can learn
get some job skills. Whatever if substance abuse is part of it. Provide
help with that too. No Hope has the whole pathway kind of laid out
for people that are willing to take the time, stick around and do it
for them to have a new life. And you don't hear the stories of
people that have been through Star of Hope and now have a wonderful part of
our community, contributing people leaders in the community and in their areas. We're
talking about hope, and I know you have a compassion about you. This
is a way to put that compassion to work. It doesn't take much.
You know, about two dollars and eighty cents, I think is what it
takes to provide a meal for people. But Star of Hope, let me
give you the website shmission dot org. Shmission dot org. You need to
learn more about it. My wife and I support Star of Hope. I
completely believe in Star Hope and I cannot think of a better group in terms
of using money to get the most out of every single dollar. That's what
they do at Star Hope. So, Sohmission dot org come out. We're
going to go now and talk to Lee. Haylee, how you doing.
I'm fine. I talked to you yesterday about my yard. I have some
orchids that I bought about three months ago and they were boomed out. How
can I get them to reboom? Did you get these at a at a
garden center or a grocery store? Where did you I bought them at home
depot? Okay, those are called moth orchids. That's why I'm asking where
it's moth orchids. Moth Orchids are the easiest ones for us to grow in
our homes. When they finish blooming, you can cut the bloomstalk off if
you like, and you want to give them a lot of light, but
not direct sun. So if your moth orcid is looking deep emerald green,
chances are it's not getting enough light deep deep green. It's almost like it's
packing more chlorophyll in the leaf to try to capture the light little light that
it's getting so good sunlight. Occasionally you repot them, and that would mean
pulling them out of their container. You know, they typically are going to
be in a real chunky mix. It may be sphagnum moss in the mix,
or maybe chunks of wood, but that's how they grow in nature.
They grow on the side of a tree and tree bark, grabbing onto tree
bark and cut off any roots that are damaged or dead and just move them
into a new pot. It can be a little bit larger pot. And
make sure you use something that's not like potting soil. You want a good
chunky orchid mix in our garden Center selbows, and then begin watering them with
a dilute, very fertilizer solution, not the full label rate. I'm talking
about just a little bit. And as you water them with that, it'll
encourage new growth and they will go through other bloom cycles. I've got some
that I've had for years and unfortunately some that have really been neglected by me,
and I'm always surprised they stay alive and with us a little bit of
care, I actually get reblooming on them. And I think that's the best
thing in the world. Well, when the home people have that fertilizer or
Walmart, I have no idea. I don't. I just don't. What's
your name of it? You know what you could use? You could use
a number of different things. Microlife has an orange bottle. It's a quart
bottle, it's orange and it's it's a seven to one four. I think
my brain just lost that last number seven to one for it's a microlife product.
I use it on houseplants a lot. But when you use that,
you're not going to burn the roots. It's not salt based. But just
use it dilutely. Read the label and then I would even go lower than
the label on the rate that you're using it when you water. Okay,
Okay, there's a lot of products out there though, I mean, we're
just talking about just a slight amount of nutrient to help it out. Well,
I appreciate the value. Can grow African balance myself, so I love.
Yeah, I just take a leaf and stick it in the soil and
let it root. Isn't that cool? That is really it's amazing. Yeah,
hey, Lee, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very much.
Okay, bye, bye bye. The Landscaper's Pride folks have twenty plus
products that help you have a successful garden of a successful containers, successful take
care of that brown stuff like I talk about all the time. Right now,
I want to talk about their mulches. Though. Mulch is very important.
Mulch blocks sunlight from hitting the soil, which means weed seeds can't get
a start, and that's important. Mulch moderate soil temperature, which is critical.
Listen on a summer day ninety five degrees the sun baking down on the
soil. That soil gets so hot. Roots can't live up there near the
surface. When you have a malt, it stays moist and it stays cooler,
and that's important. How about their black velvet malts, a naturally dark,
dark colored mult that is just beautiful and it's not dyed. They have
hardwood mulches, which is a shredded material from hardwood from trees and things.
It's a recycling of that. They have pine bark multch, which is the
most popular product they have. They have a cypress mulch that is very durable.
It kind of sticks in place too. It's not likely to float away.
In fact, it won't flow away. Cyper smultch, cedar multch made
from whole cedar logs topped up, has a real nice aroma as you put
it out, and a beautiful kind of a natural red streaked color. All
those are good mulches, and all those are from the folks at Landscaper's Pride,
and you can find them all over the place. Just go to Landscaperspride
dot com and you'll see the many, many, many places that carry their
products. I'm gonna head out now to talk to brother Daryl. Hello Daryl,
Good morning, Skip. How are you good? Hey? I got
a question. We got a fig tree last year. I think it's it's
a Celeste fig. We've got it last year and the summer heat just almost
completely decimated it. But this year it's come up. Well. It's very
green, but a lot of the buds, a lot of the the immature
figs have some just like a brownish color to them, like they're not maturing.
Is there anything that I could put on there? Or I would think
that they should have started to, you know, ripen by now. Yeah.
Sometimes sometimes figs just take their time. A lot of different varieties that
ripening at not all the same time. I don't know on the brownish and
I almost have to see a photo of it to know for sure that any
kind of a scarring on the surface of a fruit like a fig can create
a brownish kind of an area. It's like a surface, it's like the
plant tried to heal having damage to the surface. That's a possibility I'm not
aware of a disease that causes brownish areas on the fruit of a fig.
I'm sitting here trying to think through is there anything, and I'm not aware
of it. We know the I'm just going to say that, I know
that. You know, we've been very cautious about, you know, not
watering it because you know, overwatering tons to turn the leaves brown and the
die off. Yeah. Absolutely, well, figs are pretty tolerant of a
range of things. But you know what, let's do this. If you're
if you would like me to help you further, I'm going to put you
on hold and have my producer Chris pick up the phone and he will give
you an email where you can send me some photos and if you could get
up really close so we can really see exactly what's going on. Maybe a
picture of the whole tree, but some stuff that's up closed. I'll take
a look at it and see if I see anything that's not coming to mind
right now. Yeah, that'd be great because we really wanted to start producing.
We love our figs, you bet, you bet. I appreciate that.
All right, Well, thank you appreciate the call very much. I
certainly do. Let's see carry in. I'm gonna hold you till after break
so we have time to handle your specific call. Have you been to our
CW Nurseries. They've got some really incredible sales going on right now, and
on trees and shrubs and things like that. You know, they grow their
own they have outstanding quality and they only grow stuff that's gonna be here.
I mean they've been doing this I think nineteen seventy nine when the Williamson family
opened up RCW Nursery and it's still the family that runs it. They're right
there where Tomba Parkway comes Ato belt Way eight. They have a selection of
any kind of thing you would want to plant. But I just want to
brag on their woody ornamentals, the roses, and the shrubs and trees.
They are really set up to help you have success with that as well.
We're gonna take a little break. We'll be right back, all right.
A little billy Joe Shaver there played a big part in Texas country music.
Welcome back to your guardline. Good to have you with us. I'm gonna
head right to the phones here. We're going to head out to Montgomery and
talk to carry in Hello, carry in good morning, Skip. I am
calling because I could use some advice on my yard. It's only two years
old, and so we planted it right before that real dry weather the drought,
I guess, okay, and so for two years in a row,
I ended up with take a root rot, pulled a bunch of the grass
out, or best it treated with fun So I'm doing everything, but there's
areas it just still look like I need to do something to help move them
along, to help with recovery. So when you look at them, is
it that the grass is then is it or the areas? Is the grass
yellow in some of those areas or what are you? Yeah? Yellow and
then just not thriving. Okay, well, uh, it could be a
number of things. If you have take all root rot, which sounds like
you do still, then anything you do to help the grass thrive is helpful.
You know. It's one thing to spray the grass with the fund side
to kill the take all. That can be done, but it's not as
effective as we would like it to be. Just it's important. By the
way, if you go online to gardening with Skip dot com. My schedule
is online. I don't know, have you seen that by any chance.
Yeah, yeah, I've done that. I've used the fund and I'll treat
it again. Okay, well, because I have the fungicides and the timing
all on there all right, So what else is in your control is if
it's a clasoild's kind of compacted air rating core aerating pulling the cores out,
compost top dressing over the top of it, providing adequate watering and a healthy
Saint Augustine lawn can operate on not that much water really, but when it
has take all root rot, now it has less roots, So how is
it going to take up water? So it's important to water in regular doses
somewhat frequently. Instead of that like once a week or so, you're probably
are going to need to water a couple times a week in small classes to
help that plant not dry out because it doesn't have the root system that it
needs. And in the process, of course, some fertilizer is helpful.
I would say this would be a good time to bring in something that is
a hose end sprayer, you know, Medina supergrow plus hooks up to your
home. I would try spraying that on the area because it's got iron in
it, which that's why your grass is yellow. Of course, the nitrogen
and then a lot of other good things, and you're kind of a follier
feeding it when you do that. And I would try that on it.
And then again when we get toward the fall season, that's when we start
treating for takeoll for the most effective time to spray for it. Okay.
And that when you said to do use the compost top soil. Can I
do that now or do I need to wait? You can do that now.
It's a compost top dressing. Oh sorry, top dressing. If you
can find a leaf mold compost, you're not that far away from Nature's Way,
which is over on Interstate forty five at south of Conra. There they
have a leaf mold compost. They can deliver a bunch of it, or
you can run over there and get it if you got a truck or trailer.
But that would be something that I think would be good to do after
you do the core aeration, okay, okay, and then obviously helpful to
keep treating the weeds because it's thinning. Put another pre emergent down. Yeah,
you know, hold off on the pre emergent. Here's the trade off
the pre emergence. If you don't, if you're not careful with how you
apply them, they can affect the ability of that turf to form roots.
It's called root clubbing, and the same way that it prevents a weed seed
from germinating successfully, it prevents the grass runner from dropping a root down in
the soil effectively. And I see people over use those all the time.
They're affective products. They can work well. But right now, we got
a patient that's very sick, and so I don't want to add any other
challenge to what that grass is going through. If you had a really good,
healthy loan, I wouldn't worry about this, but I would hold off
on the pre emergent right now. You may end up with some weeds,
but we need to get that grass healthy and then we can deal with weeds
and other things. Okay with the placement. Would that help at all?
These are my uh yeah, longer term though. Right now I'm concerned about
getting some healthy roots in the ground. Uh and uh, maybe kind of
circumventing the root system with that folier applications of the supergril plus I was talking
about, Kay, you know, it's kind of like we're it's like a
patient in the hospital. You know, if they can't eat, then they
get the IV right to keep them going right. And we're looking kind of
at an IV approach right now for your lawn. Uh and once roots are
down, then lots of good fertilizers to use for that. Okay, okay,
understood, Thank you so much. I appreciate your help. All right,
Carrion, Thanks, I appreciate your call. We're going to go now
to Alan and Tom Ball. Hey, Allen, Yes, Hey, how
are you. I'm good, I'm good. How can we help? Yeah?
I had two questions. I have a garden, a decent sized garden,
but it's kind of overrun with nut sledge and I've been it than a
sprain some of the things on it. And I was wondering if there's some
solution you might have to help me overcome that. Is this a vegetable garden?
Yes, So the options are not real great, but here's what they
are. One of them is hand digging. Every time you get a chance
to work the soil, you kind of learn what those little dark, wiry
rhizomes look like and the little nuts, which are also very dark, and
you just pull that out or if you get out there and you see,
I have a bed of okra that planted kind of laid, it's coming up,
and it's got a nutsedge plant, about three of them in the whole
bed, and so I'm going to head out there and just get down there
and get those out of there rather than try the chemical treatments on those.
But there are some products at work. Round up does not work that well
on nut seeds, and so it's not something that you would use unfortunately.
I mean, you can use it in a vegetable garden, but it's not
going to be as effected the things that are made for nutsedge, like sedge
hammer and sedge ender. There's there's image is another one. Most of those
I don't believe have a label for use in the vegetable garden. So uh,
that kind of leaves us without option. Some people will put that on
a sponge applicator and they will go in and just wipe it right on the
nutsedge plant. I use the low g I use the little grabber tools.
You get a jar off the shelf with U and instead of the little suction
cups or whatever's on the end of it, I put a couple of sponges
on there with a plate behind them, and I just keep it hanging in
the garage because I can squirt whatever I need to put on a plant,
a weed to kill. I've squirt it on the sponge and then I just
you don't even have to bend over it. You just you just squeeze the
grip. It grabs both sides of the plant and you pull up. It
wipes it only on the nut sedge, so that you can't get less chemical
than that. Okay, yeah, so I saw that. You know,
it said not for vegetable garden the image, and so if you contain it
to the blade of the nut sledge, then it should be okay. Well,
Allan, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be able to say yes or
no on that it When when a label says this is how you apply it,
I'm not going to say do something that's not on the label. That
is kind of that's up to you, that's on you and whatnot. And
I just, yeah, I don't want to do an outside that's recommendation.
But I was just talking about ways to avoid putting a lot of chemical into
the soil or around your plants, and things like that. Yeah. Otherwise,
just kind of hand pull it up and try to get as much of
the nuts and everything as I can. Always follow. I've got a long
fork weater that I put down in there, and so because if you pull
on it, it'll break off, and the nut's still there. And that
nut has about seven buds on it. So when you pull the head off
a nutsedge growth, it just it's another one right out. That doesn't phase
it at all. So that's why I say get the nuts out. Okay.
Then my other question was weed. Alan, I'm gonna have to I
have to stop you there. I'm run past a break here. I'll put
you on hold. We'll come back to you right after the break and Stephanie
Leake City, you are up after Allan all Right's welcome back to the garden
Line. Good to good to have you with us today. We're gonna head
right back out to the phone phones and talk to Alan Allen. I think
you had some dove weed, is that right? Yeah? Yeah, that's
just kind of taking over in various spots in my yard. And I've been
right now, I've been hand picking it out, but it just kind of
gets ahead of me. Okay. Uh a couple of things you can do.
There's a cinnamon based weed killer. And if you go to you know,
a good garden center Europe and the Tamboul area, So you got some
great choices. You got the arborgate and you've got plants for all seasons both
close to you, and they're going to carry that. Just say I want
a center based you sprinkle it on the doveweed if it hadn't rained, just
kind of turn on the water enough to wet the surface of the weed so
that stuff sticks and then you sprinkle it on and I mean it just shrivels
it and turns it black real quick. Now that comes in a small container,
and so treating if you got a big area of doveweed, that's gonna
get a little expensive and tedious to do that, but that's that's an option.
That's a natural option. You can use. The herbicide Celsius also will
work on doveweed. I'm told that at least that's on their label. So
Celsius herbicide like the temperature, okay, and that's probably something I can spray
on the yard or okay, yeah you would you would apply it for weed
control. I do it early in the morning. It's not as damaging to
your Saint Augustine as a lot of the broad leaf weed control products are.
When the temperatures above the mid eighties celsius. You can get up in the
early load nineties and it's okay. But I still would do it early in
the morning. That's just the best way to go about it. Okay,
Okay, Yeah, Hey, thank you very much. You've got good luck
with that. Sure like that call very much. Uh. The Nelson Plant
Food has so many different great products. They got the color Star line.
Uh, it's just it's so it's so effective if you've got flower beds and
you want to see them pop with color. Color Stars and excellent, excellent
option for that. If you've got tropicals, they have a nutri Star Plumeria
that covers all kinds of tropical types of plants. They've got the rose food,
which is also very very effective. They have a boog and Villa food,
which I would say, just think of vines. Use a boog and
Villa food on anything that's like a vine, the Great Myrtle food on anything
that's woody ornamental, especially a blooming, a blooming woody ornamental. Nelson Plant
Food Also, if you haven't done your Slow and Easy for summer, that's
the one that's going to last you all the way up until fall. Application
Slow and Easy excellent product, as are all of them from Nelson Plant Food
and easy to find too. Want to head out and now to League City
and talk to Stephanie. Hello Stephanie, Why yes, I have a question.
You've got a tree in my backyard when I was out there yesterday and
I noticed that the bark is pealing on it. It's not all the way
up the tree, but it's a good ways up the tree. Is that
a watering issue? It's peeling? Are we talking about like a splitting of
the bark? Are we talking about it curling up like coming up away from
the tree? Curly nut? Curly nut? Yeah? Do you know what
kind of tree it is? I have no idea. I know you're going
to ask you that. The fact that it's curling up makes me think that's
a natural exfoliation of that tree. Crag mercer and it's kind of a reddish
bar. Does this tree flower? No, it's or flowered. Okay,
well, we can do a couple of things if you would like. I
can put you on hold and get my producer to give you an email to
send me pictures of the whole tree, a close up of the leaves and
a close up of what you're seeing, and that'll get you the most accurate
answer. Right now, I'm leaning toward thinking this is a natural exfoliation of
the tree, but my hands are tired terms of being accurate with that.
The rest of the bark up the tree is just a gray colored, uh
colored bark. But yeah, I'll take some pictures. I think maybe that'll
help. Yeah, let's do that, the whole tree, show me the
leaves up close so that I can identify it for sure, and then show
me that bark situation that you see. All Right, I'm gonna put you
on hold and Chris will pick up and give you that email. Thank thanks
Stephanie for the call. Appreciate that very much. I had Bill Stingle on
yesterday. We're talking about mosquito dunks. That's it. That's his product.
The Summit Solutions is the name of the company. But mosquito dunks are that
disease of mosquitos that you put out there in water and it dissolves slowly.
It takes about a month for a dunk to fully dissolved. But as it
does, it's releasing a bacteria into the water that is like BT. You
know BT. We use it for caterpillars, well, caterpillar. BT will
not kill mosquitos and mosquito. BT will not kill caterpillar, just a different
strain. The mosquito one was discovered actually in Israel years ago. That's why
it's BT Israeliensis. There's your nerdy alert for the day. But mosquito dunks,
you can crack them up. You can toss them into any little small
area where water stands and keeps it good. I know a guy that he
has a rain barrow by the house and he doesn't have it adequately covered so
they didn't get bugs and mosquito larva in it. But he just throws a
dunk in there unlets it float in there, and that's how he handles them.
Works really, really well. You know with mosquitos now, getting ahead
of them is important. You got to keep them from having water to grow
up in. A mosquita lays an egg and if it is even a capful
I said that right, a capful of water a mosquita can the egg can
hatch the larvae can live and it can turn into adult. So that's what
we're up against. That's why check your gutters for drainage, check the catch
basins under your plants to make sure there's not standing water. Check the bird
bath that you have. Just switch that water out every few about once a
week ought to be pretty much enough usually, but you may have to go
a little more than that. But anyway, and then when you got a
bunch of water, put a dunk in there and take care of them that
way. You will find that in time, by you being very careful and
not letting there be standing water anywhere around your property. And then when you
do have water, putting the dunks in them, you can control at least
the mesquite that are coming from your property. Now some fly in from elsewhere.
Well, then we're just gonna have to go to other measures like a
backyard foger, so that you know, right before you go out and sit
on the patio you can get a little bit of a break from the mosquitoes
for a little while. With that. I know what kind of a mess
they are. You know, they hide in the foliage of your shrubs during
the day. They like to do that and then they come out when the
temperatures are a little more moderate. So sometimes people will even spray the foliage
of their shrub in order to get a product on their sol in the squita
lands, it's taking care of it all right. Well, we're putting another
hour in the books, one more hour ago on guarden Line today. So
you got some calls you want to call about now it would be a good
time to do it. Seven one three two one two KTRH Remember next Saturday.
My final appearance of the spring season. Langham Creek Ace Hardware. Langham
Creek Ace Hardware. It's out there in the Copperfield area of northwest Houston,
so it's south of Cypress. Just go down Barker Cypress Road where it comes
into FM two excuse me five twenty nine FM five twenty nine Barker Cypress Suscial
call Spincher. That's right what we're talking about. And I hope you'll come
out. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty night Saturday. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with Skin Richt. It's crazy. Just watch
him as so many bird Thanks to see block crazy ways s side. Welcome
back, to garden Line. Good to have you along with us today on
a great day, beautiful day outside this afternoon would be a great time to
get out there and get a little gardening done, maybe some garden shopping.
Hey, have you been to Enchanted Forest? That's outside of Richmond. In
fact, if you're in Richmond and you had toward sugar Land, it's off
to the right Enchanted Forest FM twenty seven fifty nine. That's the road twenty
seven fifty nine. Enchanted Forest is a destination nursery. It's the kind of
place you go to and you just want to hang out a while because it's
so much fun. I've been talking about pollinators earlier and butterflies earlier, and
one thing I always think about when I think of the Jennet Forest is they
have got the best selection of both the larval food source plants and the blooming
plants that I've in a long time. They even the funny thing here,
they even if you buy a plant it's got a little caterpillar on it,
you can take it home. So that's kind of like your sour dough starter
to get go into it. That's your your starter. You're going to raise
that caterpillar at your house into a butterfly, and so it's kind of gives
you a head start. I guess that's one way to look at it.
They have an excellent selection of every kind of plant you might need. It
is still a great time to plant herbs, and oh my gosh, they
have an excellent herb selection. Whether you create an herb gardener, put herbs
in a container. Herbs are really versatile. They've got that beautiful color plant
summer color. You know, I said, we have three months of hot
weather coming up here, and why not plant something right now, get it
established, get it going so that you have beauty all through the rest of
this summer season. Heat tolerant. It laughs at our Houston summer. That
is the kind of plant we need, because I don't laugh at our Houston
summer, but our plants do. Our plants can, at least if they're
that tough. And chenn Us out in Richmond again, Uh, they're on
FM twenty seven fifty nine out in the Richmond area. You can go find
them online, you can give them a call, you can however you want
to go about it. Just go and check them out. Enchanted forest,
beautiful, beautiful, place our phone number if you'd like to give us call.
Now be a good time. Kind of got open open lines here,
uh seven one three, two one two fifty eight seventy four. So you've
got a question and you don't want to wait till next weekend, this'll be
a good time to ask it. Ace Hardware stores are everywhere. You hear
me talk about forty Ace harder stores around the greater Houston area here. And
it's easy when you go to ACE to find anything you need. Right now,
it's barbecue season. Oh my gosh, go to the barbeque section and
just look at everything they have. It's amazing. Uh, it's a good
time to be fertilizing the long stuff. You haven't done that this summer.
They've got that. You have fire ants, they've got the products to control
them, or mosquitos, whether the mosquito dunks I was talking about, or
a fogger, or however you want to go about it. They are loaded
up with everything you need. That's why we say ACE is the place.
Ace is the place for a wonderful summer, and I would say summer outdoor
living. They have some nice strings of lights, those little ambiance lights you
string around you seem like in a beer garden or something, a little string
of glowing lights around, Well, why not for your patio. Wouldn't that
be a really cool outdoor thing. Ace is a place. Acehardware dot Com
is a website. Look at the store locator, find the store near you,
and when you get in there, you're gonna find everything you hear me
talk about on garden Line, Like Nitrofoss bug out Max. Now that's an
insecticide from Nitrofoss. You put it. It's a granular, You put it
down on your lawn and water it in and just just to dissolve. Get
that chemical off the granules and into the lawn. It's gonna last a long
time. In fact, they last all summer. It's very persistent, so
it keeps going. So later if sodweb worms show up or chinchbugs show up,
you've already got a product in place to manage them. And ACE Hardware
stores, i mean all over the place are going to carry products like Nitroposs
bug out Max. For example, the Tascacita Ace and the Kingwood As have
it. The Kdace Hardware has got it. The ACE Hardware down in Oh
gosh, my brain just went blank. Sorry, say it again. Plantation
ACE are right down in the Richmond Rosenberg direction. They've got it as well,
so nitro foss bug got Max get ahead of them. If you want
to do that. You can find what you need at ACE Hardware. Go
now back to the phones and we are going to go to Spring and talk
to Bill. Hello. Bill, heyde Morris. You have got a couple
of live oaks about twelve and seventeen inch calipers, and they've got roots on
the surface of the ground. I'll call them layer roots. I don't know
what they are, but they are large roots. And what do I do
about them? Can I cut them at or cover them with dirt? What
do I need to do? And what causes it? Yeah? You know
the roots are really important to the plant, not only for bringing up water
nutrients, but for anchoring the plant, make it more storm tolerant if you
will. I hate to cut roots. They say you can take a root
out a year. That's a real rough estimate. And if you can avoid
cutting them, I would do that. You can bring some soil in as
long as you don't do too much. Don't do like three or four inches
of soil, maybe an inch or so and sprinkle it around there and then
do it again, you know, several months from now, do another inch
or so and gradually bring the soil level up to the top of those roots.
That would be one option right there. If you wanted to turn that
area into like a mom to bed, that would be another good option.
Then the roots being on top, it's not a problem at all because you
have beautiful mulch all around them. You can even plant some things that like
that much shade around it too, So that's another option. What causes it,
you know, people say they use the phrase come to the surface,
like, my roots are coming to the surface. Well, their roots do
not migrate upward. What happens is they get bigger in diameter. So when
that route that you're seeing now was the size of spaghetti, and it was
let's say it was two or three inches below the soil surface. As that
spaghetti becomes golf ball size, you know, softball size and so on,
well, it's pushing in all directions and there's no resistance above it. So
as it's getting bigger, it's pushing upward and just the soil falls away.
And also erosion will expose roots as the water moves across that area. So
that nation of the route just getting bigger, and the fact that erosion can
take the swell away or the two main reasons we see for that. So
the best solution is to be to cover them up. Let's get that cover
them at one time. Yeah, if you're going to use the maltch,
you could use about three inches of mults out there, and I think that
would be fine. You you know, after you see a couple of seasons,
like we get into winter or something, you could add some more molts
again. Another to just keep bringing that level up higher. Wonderful. Thank
you so much. I appreciate you. Yeah, Bill, And the reason
that I said on the on the soil just an inch is roots are very
needy for oxygen and they grow at a level where they get good oxygen.
So when we bury them significantly deeper, that's the problem that we run into.
I just want to tag that on. Just keep that in mind.
These things are so big, they're about four inches in diameter. Yeah,
well they're going to get bigger and so that would be the time to rethink,
replan that area of the landscape. Thanks thanks for the call, sir.
I appreciate that a lot. I'm gonna have to run to break here.
Tom in Kingwood, you will be the very first up when we come
back from break. You know, it's not every day that you get to
listen to music where the lyrics or should be do be doo bee doo wop
wop. That was before my time. Yes, there was such a thing
as before my time. Oh gosh. Wild Birds Unlimited is the place where
you can get anything that you need to have success. You know, with
birds in your backyard. They the folks that know what they're talking about.
For example, now is nesting season. I was talking to somebody at Wildbirds
and they were telling me, yes, we're still in nesting season. And
this I didn't know this, but baby cardinals. You know, cardinals have
kind of an orange beak, but when they're young, when they're babies,
they have black beaks. Isn't that interesting? They turn orange as they grow.
Okay, fun fact there you go with the price of admission. We
have the nesting super blend. There. That nesting super blend has got protein
and calcium. It's very important when birds are raising a group of young for
example, sunflower chips, peanuts, dried meal worms, bark, butter bits,
safflower tree nuts. That sounds like a snack for me, except for
the dried mealworm part, although I would be willing to try one. But
the birds really thrive on that and when they molt. This nesting super blend
is important because most birds are going to mot once a year, sometimes two
or three times. But when they shed those old feathers, they kind of
hang around a while because they're not really good. It's just flying anywhere they
want to go, so they tend to kind of take cover, fly a
little bit less, and having a nice reliable food sources good. You need
to grab one of their seed cylinders. Though the seed cylinders are tightly packed
sellar. It looks like a big candle made of seeds. Actually it's easy.
It lasts a long time because it takes a while for the birds to
get those seeds out of there. So maybe you're going to go on a
vacation or trip out of town, set up a seed cylinder. You don't
have to worry the birds. You're gonna have plenty the whole time you're gone.
Another reason I like those, though, is because because the birds have
to sit down and not just grab a seed and fly away. They kind
of have to pick them out of there. You get to see the birds
for a little bit longer, So a little bit longer enjoyment. All from
wild Birds Unlimited. Hey the website, find the one near you WBU dot
com forward slash Houston WU dot com Forward slash Houston. We're gonna go now
to Kingwood and talk to Tom. Hello Tom, and thanks for waiting.
Yes, third, good morning. I'm going to Actually got two questions I
missed when I tuned in. I missed the pill or whatever you put in
water for mosquito. Yeah, okay, it's called mosquito dunks. Mosquito dunks
by Summit Solutions. They also make a granular form. I think it's called
mosquito bits. But it looks like if you remember the cereal grape nuts.
That's kind of what it reminds me of. Little charts like that, either
the dunks, which are like little mini doughnuts that float on water, or
the bits. The bits are kind of nice because if you just need a
little bit here and there, you can break a dunk apart and do that.
But if you just need a little bit, or maybe you want to
scatter them through a very large wet area. Well, with the bits,
you can get that instant coverage in a bigger area than a dunk would give
you. Either way, you're going to control your mosquito larva. They will
not be able to reproduce there in that water. Okay, where can you
buy that ACE hardware? Ace Hardware's huh, you're out there. You've got
K and m Ace hardware there in Kingwood. If you want to run over
to Porters, there's j and Our's ACE Hardware. Another good ACE hardwristore Up
and Porter. Those are both really close to you. Okay, great,
And my other question is I've got a web in my tree and I know
you've been. It looks like everybody in Kingwood has one. Yeah, but
I sprayed at once. Do you have to spray it again? No?
Those caterpillars, they have a life cycle, a little tiny white man lazy
eggs. They hatch out, they feed and get bigger and bigger and bigger.
Once they hit about an an inch or so long, then they're ready
to form a pupa and create another moth like a butterfly would do. So
at this point in time, chances are you don't have a lot of active
feeding ones, but if you get up close and look, you can tell.
So it may be a little late to control this first generation. But
if I'm wrong about that and you've got young ones, then you need a
spray that gets on the foliage inside the web where they're feeding. Some people
break the web up with a long stick, strong stream of water, but
you got to get that on the foliage so they eat it. And there's
some very effective products. BT works pretty good on them. The spinosid works
pretty good on them, and then a wide variety of synthetic products that can
be sprayed and used for the same thing. Okay, thank you all right,
Tom, good luck with that. Appreciate your call. Oh webworms.
So just a reminder, webworms are called fall webworms because their main worst generation
of the year is in the fall. We get an early spring gen or
not an early spring, we get a spring generation. In early summer,
we may get another generation, and then that third one in the fall.
In our area and our latitude north south here in the KTRH listening area,
we have about three generations of webworms a year, and then that can vary.
But so what's going to happen is now all those webworms that we're everwhere.
There's a lot of moths that can lay eggs, and we have another
and then again in the fall it's the worst one. So just be watching
for them now that you know they're out and about. Unless they were just
devastated by wasps and all the other beneficial insects and things that are out there,
they're going to be back, and so be ready to go. When
you first see the first sign of webbing, that's the time to get out
and start spraying that foliage with something. It could be organic or synthetic.
Both of them will kill ball weborm. Caterpillars start spraying that so that when
they start eating that, you get it to them. And those two organics
I mentioned BT and spinosa. The younger the caterpillar, the better they work.
If you let that caterpillar reach almost the age to make a cocoon,
then it's not gonna be as effective at all. So the earlier on is
very important. And also another reason it's important is if you wait until half
the leaves on a tree are gone, and I saw shrubs and trees that
had no leaves this year. If you wait until then, well the damage
has been done. I mean, why kill a caterpillar? There's nothing else
up there for them to eat? So early, early, early. They
say that the best pest, no, the best fertilizer is the footprints of
the gardener. Have you ever heard that? What does that mean? That
means you're out there taking carry your plants on a regular basis, You're watching
them and it just makes them grow. Right to have that kind of care,
Well, i would say the best pest control is also the footprints of
the gardener. When you go out in your garden. If you wait until
the webworms have thirty percent of the canopy of a tree, that's late to
get a start and to really do the tree the good that you could be
doing it by preventing the loss of all that foliage. Trees are resilient.
Webworms typically do not kill trees. They to folio them. The trees refoliate.
But after what we went through, to have another one or two of
those, and I'm not predicting that's going to happen, I'm saying it could
happen, and to defoliate again and again that is not good for the trees
at all. So they're resilient. They can bounce back but hey, let's
not make them over and over again. Hopefully that makes a little bit of
sense. Micro Life fertilizers come in many, many forms. I was talking
to someone earlier about the orange label, the Microlife with the orange label.
It's a liquid and I've used that on my houseplants for a very long time.
It's not just made for houseplants. It works on any kind of plant
you want to put it on. But it works really well. I think
it's called Biomatrix. That's the name. Biomatrix, a seven to one three
fertilizer. But Microlife also has Ocean Harvest, which is a fish based fertil
They have super Seaweed, which is the green label. Ocean Harvest blue makes
sense water blue, Ocean Harvest green label, super Seaweed Seaweed's green green label.
Isn't that easy? Makes it easy to do. They have a lot
of other products. You can get the humants plus both in the purple bags
to put on your lawn, which I'd recommend you do to help especially if
you have a clay soil, to help build some soil structure over time.
And then they also have it in a liquid form, the humans plus and
that's purple as well. Just a few things for Microlife. You can go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out about all these products and where to
get them. But I can tell you this, I see Microlife pretty much
every garden center. I go into every Ace hardware staurant. I go into
Southwest Fertilizer, Bob carries it down there. And then the feed stores.
We love our feed stores here on garden Line and Microlife I see it in
them as well. So it's not hard at all to find. Let's head
out now to Missouri City and we're going to talk to Josh. Hello,
Josh, Hey, it's Missouri State. I'm the guy up near Houston,
Missouri. Oh you're near Houston, Missouri. That is yep. I called
you a while back about Greenbrier and it's been very effective what you told me.
Thank you? Well, I you know, what do they say,
even a blindhog finds an acre and ever now and then, well, what's
about a squashbug problem up here? Now? I've spent probably twenty hours just
in the last weak or so pulling leaves with squash bug eggs off and burning
them. What else can I do? This is getting ridiculous. I think
you're talking about the vine borer, right, squash vine No, No,
they're actual squash bugs. They're not the squash vine borers. They're the little
little the little squash beetles, little gray black things that are grayish brown.
Yeah, okay, yeah, Well you know here, here's a fun fact
that is the only insect that I know of where the name of the insect
and the recommended control method are the same. Squash bug two bricks boom,
You got it. I'm not joking around about your dilemma up there. Uh,
those hemipdra piercing sucking insects like stink bugs, leaf footed bugs, and
squash bugs. A lot of the lower talk simple products we have don't work
that well against them. You're going to have to shift over to either.
You might have some help with pyate, which is an organic product, but
a lot of times it's not that effective on them. Stepping up to the
next level would be synthetic parrethroids, which will kill them. But I had
a squash patch once then had a bunch of them in it, and basically
I just would water the mulch and they'd come crawling up out of the mulch
and then do a lot a lot of hands smashing. If you've got a
sizeable squash patch, that's probably not practical. But no, I've probably got
one hundred and fifty plants and they're on almost everything. Is that allowed in
Missouri? Can you have that many? Well? I went a little overboard
this year and put in about a quarter acre of guard vegetables. Josh,
hey, I have to run for the news break. I'm gonna put you
on hold. If you want to hang around and talk, we can do
that. Otherwise. I hope that helped, and thanks for the call.
We'll be right, We'll be right back. All right, little Megan trainer
this morning, Oh popping song there really moving along. I let's say here,
Well, first, let me give you the phone number seven one three
two one two U ktr H if you'd like to give me a call.
Uh, this is our last half hour of guardenline this weekend, and if
you've got some questions now, it would be a good time. Seven one
three two one two ktr H. Makes it easy. Uh. Back at
my place, we're doing a number of different things in the landscape and I
love getting out and moving things around and it just reminded me that for a
lot of people, they look at a landscape as a permanent thing, and
while it could be, in general, landscapes are constantly in evolution. Uh,
maybe you planted a shrub that you're having trouble now keeping below the level
of the window, or from scrapping, scrapping on the eaves of the house.
So whatever, Maybe it's a plant that develops disease issues, or maybe
just end up wanting a new one to go there, something different. You
know, when I was growing up, the shrubs that we had, we
didn't have as many dwarf options, and in many cases we didn't have as
much colorful foliage options like you start to see right now. And there's a
lot of good ones out there. It doesn't matter what kind of shrub it
is. There's always breeders that are working and improving them. So maybe that
shrub needs to be pulled out. And I know you think, but it's
been there for twenty years. Well do you like it? Do you like
it where it is? Would you like something different there? There's nothing wrong
with that. It's just like, think about the inside of your house.
Do you ever just go, you know what this place needs painting, or
let's rearrange this furniture, or you see what I'm saying. That's our landscapes
too, and enjoy yourself out there. I mean this is to have a
nice new look. I'm working right now on a stone patio and behind my
house we got a little satio area. But we're putting some flat stone hardscape
in there, not cementing it in our soul moves around a lot and anything
you put in as seamount is going to crack. But just going to have
some decomposed granite in between the stones. But it would be a real nice
outdoor sitting area. It's underneath a big old cypress tree, a real beautiful
area. I think. Really looking forward to getting it out there. So
that's a new thing. We decided this is what we want to do because
we love to have people come over and enjoy, you know, the evenings
outside in the in the landscaping garden. What would you like to do different
or what do you think may need some upgrading. Don't be afraid to do
that. It is okay to do that. There's nothing wrong with taking a
perfectly healthy plant and replacing it. If that makes you happy, that's what
you want to have the goal that you want. So there's like glossy Abelia
as an example, the old glossy Abelias. There's one type and it got
big. Now we have many types kaleidoscope and some with white in the foliage
as well, and there's just a lot of options. So keep your eyes
open and don't be afraid to enjoy yourself and be creative. We're going to
go now to Montrose area and talk to Teresa. Hello, Teresa, Yes,
hello, how can I help? So? I've got a mature shape
sago that is actually planted in the ground. It's really big. It's lasted
through the freeze or several of the friezes, right, and it is now
starting to yellow, not in spot, but all the whole palm frond.
So I don't know what to do for that. Interesting just to check.
Have you done any kind of weed control anywhere around that plant? I have
not, no, right, I don't know that it's a root problem.
Something's wrong in the roots, and I don't know exactly what that would be.
Sego's are pretty tolerant of a range of soul moisture conditions. They like
it moist, but it could be a root rot that's going on in there.
To be honest, I would have to go research what root rot would
attack segos if any do. I'm not run across a root rot problem on
segs before. But something is going wrong in the plumbing system from the root
tips all the way up to the top and for it to turn yellow.
That's not a lack of nitrogen. It's not a lack of iron. If
a leaf was green and turned yellow, that's not a lack of iron.
If it's a new leaf developing yellow, it could be. But what you're
describing there, I just keep it keeps leading me down to the roots to
wonder what's going on down there? Gotcha? I mean, we've had so
much rain or lots of rain and the new rain, lots of rain and
the new rain, so I didn't know if that was something that was going
on. Was a pretty tolerant of that. You see so many around the
Houston area that just looked fine, aside from the freezing that we've had so
bad recently recent years. Let me just ask one other thing. When you
look at those yellow fronds, if you look under the underside of them,
is there a white material underneath or are so we're going to eliminate psychad scale,
which can also cause a yellow in the leaves. Okay, well,
I'm not sure what to tell you other than just provide normal care. If
it is a root rot, then you could lose the whole plant. But
a lot of times segos, if for whatever reason the top collapses from freeze
or whatever, they will often send little puffs up, little babies up around
the sides from the base of the trunk. So you maybe have to cut
the top out, but hopefully the plant would continue going if you're interested in
keeping it right. I do see new growth in the center areas, and
I've pushed on the trunk and it's not squishy, so I didn't know if
that made a difference. And it's on an incline, so I'm surprised if
it would be, you know, staying in water, so I have to
research it. Yeah, you said in the center areas, so it's I
was picturing that every frond on the entire sego was yellow, but you have
green. You the little baby ones that are coming out of the center,
the little teeny tiny, you know, little three inch guys, they are
green. Are you talking about Okay? I just want to make sure I'm
understanding this right. You're talking about new friends coming out of the center,
the baby French. Are we talking about a baby, the new baby,
the new baby Froz. Those old ones did that. But if they're coming
out green, you ought to be okay. This yellowing is not how it's
been. You've had good green in the past, and this sounds like it
happened somewhat suddenly. Uh just it hadn't been that way a long long time.
So uh I think I would just continue to carry your giving it and
be ready to cut those o ones off as you get new foliage up there
to capture the sunlight. All right, gotcha? Okay, thanks, thank
you, good luck with that. I appreciate that. We're going to take
a little break. If you would like to call and get on for our
last segment, here's your chance. Seven one three two one two kt R
eight seven one three two and two kat R H. Welcome back to Guardline.
Good to have you with us here. We are launching out in the
last segment of the day. I'm going to head straight out here to the
phones. By the way, if you like call, do you have a
little bit of room If you want to not delay too long. We're going
to go to Alvin and talk to Dennis. Hello, Dennis, Oh,
good morning. How are you doing. I got a question quick and easy
to answer. It concerns tomato plants growing in the autumn season of the year,
or this time anyway. Recently purchased a couple of tomato plants from all
localized will say to say, home depot an, you know, but I
have them in the ground and they are growing. They actually are growing pretty
good, but I'm not getting blossoms on it like I think I should.
And of course they kind of looking unhealthy, you know, I mean just
looking at them, they just they're kind of like, so, what what
could I be doing that would perhaps enhance their growth? Okay? Well,
adequate so moisture. A new plant has a limited root system, and so
it's going to need some time to have the type of root system that can
be resilient. That's that's large and extensive, if you will, And so
that that would be one thing. Probably the most important thing is keeping it
adequately hydrated. Fertilizer is always a good idea, and with tomatoes, we
have a number of excellent products that will work well they got good nitrogen levels
to keep stimulating new growth. Now, it's not a bad time to get
a tomato in for a fall fall harvest. Are slicer tomatoes, they don't
like to set when the weather starts to heat up, and so it's going
to be way into the fall before they're really setting. Again. We need
to get a break in the in the heat. Those little cherry tomatoes and
grapes, those set better in the heat, and so you you may get
some fruit off that before we even get to fall. Okay, well,
you recommend like products like Miracle Grow, would that be a good choice or
just that's not one. No, that's not one that I that I would
recommend. There. I say this a lot, but I be honest with
you. I use blond fertilizer in my gardens a lot. And Okay,
Nelson's has a really good quality plant food for tomatoes. In fact, they
have an organic plant food for tomatoes, and so you could go with something
like that. It comes in a big old clear jar with the screw top,
and you could do that. But when you're getting the nutrients out there,
with a pretty good amount of nitrogen, especially, that's going to stimulate
the growth and they're going to do fine for you. Great. So you
advice. You can go hunting for vegetable fertilizer, or you can just make
it easier in yourself and use what you got, which most people have land
fertilizer because they have a lot fertilizer. Yeah, good advice. Thank you
very much for your advice, and I'm going to try that all right now,
Dennis. I don't know how much you listen to Gardenline, but we
do have a rule here that my advice is free, but I do expect
to be paid in tomatoes. So just bring half of your fall crop and
leave it at the station and we'll call it even. Okay, I could
do something like that, Yes, sir, you could. That was very
careful. I know, I understand, I understand. Sure, thanks a
lot. We're having fun here. Thanks, thank you. You have a
good time, that is for sure. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Nutrients. You know, we we think nutrients as making plants grow, but
nutrients help plants grow. Like if you put nitrogen on the soil, it's
not like it makes that plant grow faster. It's if the plant gets adequate
nitrogen, it can and will grow faster. So think about it that way.
That's why I like the bank account analogy for nutrients and soil. Your
soil is a bank account. And whether we look at it as a bank
account or as as a storeroom if you will, when you need something,
you go to the storeroom and you get it out of the storeroom to use
it, okay, or a bank account you make a withdrawal. Well,
if our bank account has all of the twenty plus nutrients that plants might be
or will be needing in it, then you're going to that plant's not going
to go hungry. It's going to be able to continue to do the things
it does take up the nutrients it has. And so that's that's important to
build that bank account. So while yes, when you put nitrogen on your
lawn, it makes a long grow faster, but that's why it's because you're
you're making a readily available form, and nitrogen is a very volatile nutrient.
Nerd alert here, I'm nerding out a little bit, but I think it's
important to understand this. Nitrogen can volatilize as a gas and go away.
It can wash away, it can it can literally just be carried away very
easily with a good rain, uh, you know, down into the soil
and it changes forms a lot in the soil. There's there's several different forms
nitrogen takes in the soil as microbes do their work on it. So it's
not unusual to have a temporary nitrogen deficiency. And we can fix that by
in small amounts continuing to provide some nitrogen now a lot of the other nutrients.
It's more the bank account where you just build it up and if you
if you got it now, you're going to have it next spring. It's
still there, you know, but with nitrogen especially and to a degree of
potassium, is that way as well. Let's go to West Houston. Now
we're going to talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hello, Skip,
is that you? This is me good Well, I just want to say
I know it's in the show, but I think you are the greatest choice
of the successor to Randy. I've heard you on his show and other places
before, and I go back, I can remember Bill Zach and Ben Old
Dag Bob Bob flagg Is, John Burrow still with us. I have I
do not know the answer to that one. I don't Yeah, I hope
not. I hope. I mean, I hope so, I hope he
is doing well. What was the name of that weed you've talked about with
it, It's a strange name with the mimosa like leaves chamber bitter, chamber
bitter, and that's it. And when you look at the little mimosa lee
underneath that leaf petial, you know how a compound leave, well, even
like like a pecan leaf, it's it's a compound leaf with a little stem
that holds leaflets as you go down the stem. Well, on mosta weed,
it's a little tiny weed. Uh. It has a little seed bloom
blooms and seed underneath there. It's really strange the way it blooms. It
is. And I've got I've got it beaten down pretty good, but it'll
come back up. My main question is I've got a bed with some hybrid
teas and it's been a long term bed used for that. It was looking
pretty scraggly. I put down some rose soil and some compost and then topped
it with munch and I've used in the past. I never want to use
that, uh, you know, that weed cloth, because it just tears
and it's a mess. I've got weeds. I mean they're they're they're growing
every Okay, I mean it's just I've weeded three days ago and that's full
again. Okay, Well, Steve, I just want to let you know
I've got about about a minute here before they start playing the music for the
end of the show. If it's if it's annual weed, mult keeps the
seeds from being able to sprout and establish always keeping a good thing. Mult.
If it's a perennial weed like nut said, or like bermuda grass,
you're gonna have to go down and do something to kill that weed, uh,
in order to have it translocate down in the weed and truly killed the
weed. Because go ahead, I'm thinking about time. One last question.
I do have some low n eyed weed beater, but I was hisitant to
use that in that bed. And I also have some barricade. Okay.
Barricade is a barricade is a pre emergent that prevents the seeds from coming up
the weed beater. You better check the label on that to see if you
can even use it in that bed. Thank you, Thank you so much
for your time. I'll check that out all right. Well, thanks for
coming, Steve. I appreciate you. That's a nice way as far as
I'm concerned in the show. And take care all right, don't forget next
Saturday. What's next Saturday. I'm going to be at Langham Creek Ace Hardware
and Langham Creek Ace Hardware is over where five twenty nine also called Spencer Road
and Barker Cypress come together in northwest Houston, just south of Ferry Center,
south of Cypress and whatnot. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty.
We're going to be giving away some products, the reps from Microlife,
from micropost Boat. I'm going to be there providing a free product, and
I'll be there to answer your garden the questions and last time I'll be doing
it until this fall. I call this Disney Latin. I have a better
chance of not killing something if I get the plants from Rbardie. I very
rarely have anything die that I buy here, as opposed to blows or home
Depot. You know, half the stuff I buy ends up dying. And
you're going to find varieties of plants, trees, shrubs that you're just not
going to find that those other garden centers and ever,