Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scarre Rictor so Trim.
Just watch him as so many goods. S. Well, good morning,
good morning, and a good Saturday morning to be listening to gardening stuff on
the radio, but also getting outside getting some gardening done. We got some
rain coming in this weekend, so we take advantage of whatever hours we have
to get outside. But you know, when it rains, it's still a
good day for gardening. Because we have house plants. We can start seeds
inside, we can start cuttings inside. And if you've never ever tried starting
cuttings yourself, I think you should give it a try. And I'll talk
about that a little bit this morning. First of all, I want to
give you our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four R. You can just
type KTRH. I'll get you in there. I first learned how to propagate
plants many many years ago, and I'm telling you it as a gardener,
it opens up a whole new world. You know, you can you buy
a lot of great plants by either by transplants or by seeds. At a
lot of good options out there. But when you learn to gross some things
your own, it expands the things that you can grow. For example,
you know, you go look at any plant in a garden center, tomatoes,
or it could be I don't know, zenias or whatever, sunflowers,
and there are a lot of good varieties available. But when you consider all
the varieties are out there that are available by seed that are just not going
to be available locally, if you want to try one of those out,
you got to start it yourself. That's just how you go. I mean,
a garden center can never carry all the varieties of all the plants that
are available. That just would be ridiculous. But you can start them yourself.
And when you learn to germinate seed and start your own transplants, it
just opens up some new varieties you haven't grown before. Now. The ones
you can find locally available, of course, are great, and those will
always be our standards. But when you really get into a particular plant,
let's just make it sunflowers, for example, there are hundreds of varieties and
so many types. You know, you've got the big sunflowers that you grow
to grow the seeds. If you like to eat sunflower seeds, you can
grow them seeds yourself and roast them and enjoy that. There are sunflowers that
only get one foot or eighteen inches two feet somewhere in there tall that are
good little bedding plants, or that are good container plants. Those kind come
in many colors. Typically it's going to be the traditional yellow sunflower, but
then as you get up taller, there are sunflowers of each height. There
are sunflowers that have multiple stems, where instead of one sunflower on top like
we would expect with our edible sunflowers, there's all these stems going out and
a lot of sunflowers on them, of varying sizes depending on the variety.
There's the traditional yellow, but then there's every kind of shade from a rusty
red to all the way through orange into yellow, and different patterns in the
folas. In other words, there's a lot of different types. You know,
maybe you want something that gets four feet high. Maybe you want to
grow one called the Mexican sunflower, which is actually a different species, but
the Mexican sunflower Tythonia is an orange flower all about the size of a little
bigger than a tennis ball. Maybe that is really fun to grow, does
really well here by the way, swallowtail butterflies love it a lot. That's
another another good butterfly plant. There are sunflowers that you grow for looking at
in the garden. Then there's those you grow for cutting inside, and some
of the ones for cutting inside. Breeders have developed types that don't drop the
little flower parts, the structures that are used in pollination. I don't know
if you've ever brought a sunflower inside that you cut, but you look around
on the table underneath it and there's all this little sunflower debris sitting on the
table. Well, there's some types that don't do that, And so when
you go to the store and buy sunflowers, you're probably going to get those
types because I don't know, people just don't like to have the debris dropping
down off the flower. Well, you can grow those yourself too, it's
just another option. So I just picked one example of a plant to explain
why you would want to learn to start some of your own seed. Many
of our garden centers do carry a wide variety a variety of seeds that you
can try out, and of course there's only a bazillion others out there that
you can order and find. But I would encourage you to learn to start
your own seeds. It's not that difficult. There's a lot of good free
information online on how to do that. The secret to success with seeds now,
this time of year, we've got good light outside, so you can
start your seeds in a shaded outdoor area where the temperatures are warm. The
light is bright, but it's not direct full sun baking down on them,
and gradually, once they sprout up, move them into more and more sunlight,
probably morning sun first and then finally evening. Some people just start directly
in the full sun, and that's that's okay too, depending on what kind
of plants you're trying to grow. But you can start your own seed really
easily outside. When we get to the cooler times of the year, you
know, maybe it's January February and you're wanting to start some tomato plants for
the spring garden, Well, you're going to start those inside where you have
more mild temperatures, and in that case you're going to want a good quality
source of light. And we'll probably talk about that a lot when we get
back to that time of year. But a good quality source of light ensures
that your seedlings are stocky and strong, and so you can put them by
a window. People have done that for years, but the seedlings lean toward
the window because as bright as it seems to be on that window sill,
it is not really bright enough. I mean, you can make one grow
and you can turn it around each day, so make it lean back the
other way instead of just leaning one way from the window. But it's better
to have a good quality light when you're starting them inside. And I'll discuss
that at another time, but I encourage you to give seeds starting a try.
We can also talk a little bit later about starting seeds in the garden,
and I'm gonna I hope to do that we get through some calls and
things today, but starting seeds in the garden, there's a few tips that
I'd like to give you for success with seeds outdoors. All right, first
thing we're gonna do is I want to talk to you a little bit about
Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Garden Center. Kingwood and Warren's Garden Center in Kingwood.
Both of them are open seven days a week now. If you live
in Kingwood on Baltasca Seed to Porter New Caney, anywhere out that direction north
and east of Houston, this is one of the go to garden centers that
you need to check out. They've got those Microlife and Nelson plant food filling
stations, so if you want to bring your plastic jugs back in and fill
them up again, they can take care of that. These garden centers have
a beautiful supply of plants. They've got all the bling you need to go
with your plants, and they can also do can help you with designing your
mixed planting containers. There's full landscaping services available for the surrounding area and some
really beautiful gift shops too. It's worth a stop. They are both of
them. In fact, I would plan a day where you can go out
visit both of them and just see what they have to offer. Super Garden
Center's knowledgeable staff and really really well worth a visit no matter where you live
in the Greater Houston area. We're hitting time for a break here, so
I am going to take a break and any when we come back we will
get to you. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Good morning on a good Saturday morning. When that music
makes me think about going to the beach, doesn't it. Hey, that's
we're That season is here and I look forward to getting down to Galveston sun
this year and being them enjoy a little bit of the waves and just all
the other enjoyable things that you get when you go down to Galveston to enjoy
some time down in that area. Do you know the fun fact here?
May well, let me change that not so fun fact. Did you know
that Houston is the number one community in the country when it comes to household
pest problems. Now, don't run outside shouting we're number one. We're number
one. I mean, this is not not great news. But I do
have great news, and that is that we have a company called McGrath Pest
Control that specializes in just that. Scott McGrath, the family's been going since
nineteen seventy four in this business. Still a family run company. This is
a kind of company where the owner is involved day to day. They cover
the whole Houston area. They specialize in all types of pest from the things
you think of, like cockroaches, for example, all the way through rodents,
and that certainly is an issue in our area. Now you can call
them at two eight one four six nine eighty two forty, or just go
online McGrath pest control dot com McGrath pest control dot com. You don't have
to sign a contract and get this. When they say they're coming, they
won't give you like a five hour time block. They'll tell you the time
and they show up. It's that kind of old fashioned business and service with
modern technology, the ability to shut down a pest problem at your place so
that you can show your home without having to share it with a lot of
six and four legged creatures other than your pets. Of course, Hey,
let's go to the let's go to the phones. I'm going to head over
and talk to any I believe in Morton, Any or you in Morton?
Yes, Morton, Texas? Morning, Yes, Horton, Texas. Oh
Horton, Okay, got you grt oh Wharton, I got you know there
is a Horton, Texas and it is west of Waco. You're almost in
a New Mexico. If I thought, well, that's an interesting call for
the for the show. How can I help today? Yes, or have
a mountain laurel? And last year the twenty twenty five foot mountain laurel started
dying one branch at a time, so I had only about one tenth left
this year and now it is dying. So my tree has bitten the dust.
So is that the lifespan for a mountain laurel. No, they can
live longer than that. You got a lot of good years out of it,
for sure. But I know that they don't have just a specific lifespan
in our area. You know, we're not their native range. They we
get a little wet here, and if it's a little twenty years, you
must have it in a spot with pretty good drainage. But that's one of
the things that challenges mountain laurels is if they get wet feet. They're not
happy about that at all. I've seen that, let's say, partial dieback
that just progresses through the plant before. Sometimes we have associated it with untimely
freezes when the plant wasn't ready, but it can also be related to root
issues, and that's that's most likely what ended up happening to it. Oh
well, it's it's sad. I have propagated those seeds and have three more
larger trees from it. So right now they're doing fine, but I worry
about it bite the dust too well. You know, all plants, whether
they have a lifespan or whether you know, just things catch up with them
unexpectedly over time. Uh they do, they do come and go. But
I Mountain Laurel is a beautiful plant. The fragrance of it. For the
listeners that are listening to this call don't know about Mountain Laurel. H If
you've ever had the old super bubble great bubblegum, you know that aroma,
that's what Mountain Laurel smell like. They're they're absolutely well. I just wanted
to check on that. I'm relied on that free for shade for my potted
shade of plants, and so just have to this has changed in the landscape.
Yeah, it is. It's unfortunately because they grow kind of slow and
so it's not like you can, you know, in two years, have
one that's fifteen feet high already, and I mean it's gonna take a while
to get up there. But I'm glad you started something from seed. Did
you do anything special when you started those seeds or do you just take a
red seed and put it in the ground. No, they just volunteered in
the around the tree, and I just jumped them up and reported and had
scads of them that you routinely come up. Yes, that's good, good,
good for you. You should start the Mountain Laurel Nursery over there in
Wharton. I guess it sounds like you've got them going. They have to,
all right. I thank you for the info, any, thank you
for the call. I appreciate that. Bye bye. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking about starting seeds outdoors, and
I want to give you a few tips this morning on how to have success
when you're starting seeds outdoors. So, first of all, we're entering the
hot season of the year, and that surface of the soil gets blistering hot,
and so it's kind of hard for seeds sometimes to get started when temperatures
are so excessive. Down As you go down lower in the soil, it
gets cooler and cooler, but near the surface it's pretty hot. So one
of the things we try to do is moderate that so little temperature when we're
trying to get seeds started in the heat. Now, seeds want things that
are going to grow out in the sun wants sunlight. But for the seeds
starting, I usually will shade that road just a little bit. You could
make a little kind of a canopy of shade cloth, or people have used
burlap sacks, they've used I mean I remember growing up, we would stick
a license plate in the ground at an angle to kind of on the west
side to sort of shade the new transplant or seedling for a little bit,
or anything you can come up with. I mean there's a lot of it.
Some people will break off a branch and stick it in the ground and
let it's almost like a little you know, palm front hanging over it to
protect a qui something much smaller in the palm front. But give it a
little bit of break from the heat, and that will help them get off
to a good start. They're going to get used to the full sun.
They can handle that, but early on, just that blistering hot sun.
Here's the thing most people don't know, and that is that the preplant watering
is the most important one. Now, if your soil is in any way
getting close to dry, which in the summer it often does. Before you
go out to plant seed, maybe the day before, I will usually soak
the soil really well. In fact, sometimes I'll make up just a little
shallow trench, very shallow, so that it holds the water in there,
and then I'll put water in that several times, because you want the water
to go straight down, not run off, but you want it to soak
down in the soil. And then a couple days later I'll go out and
plant myself, cover them up at the right level, and then water them
again. And here's why this is important. When that seedling sprouts, any
seed, when it's sprouts, it's very vulnerable, vulnerable to drying out and
dying. If until it gets established, it dries out, that seedling dies.
It has zero drought tolerance. So when that root comes down and it
moves down deeper and deeper and the soil is moist, that is super duper
insurance for that seedling surviving. Of course, you do need to water it
and continue to water it and stuff, but if that soil is dry,
it's hard to wet down deeply. When soil is dry, you may have
noticed that before. Some people go out with their finger on the end of
a thumb hoose and spray in the soil and spray in the soil and it's
puddling up and wet and running off, and they think they've watered. When
you do that sometime, go back then and pull them soil back and look
how deep you've wet it. I bet it's only about a half inch inch
deep that it's actually been wet. And so that preplant watering is very important.
Secondly, you want to pick species, of course that are going to
do well in the heat and in the exposure of sun location that you've chosen
for them. But the other thing you want to keep in mind is a
seed planting depth. Usually we say with seeds, plant them about three to
four times the width of the seed deep. So picture a pinto bean.
Pretty much knows what that is, So that was going to be that's going
to be planted about an inch deep for the depth of a pinto bean,
and that helps it to be a little deeper in the ground. The surface
doesn't dry out quite so fast. Little tiny seeds would be planted very shallow
as a result. Using that width of the seed to depth of planting ratio.
So if you bury a little seed that's the size of a poppy seed
an inch deep, it'll never see the light of day. So you want
to plant them at the right depth. You want to make make sure that
your surface is very fine textured soil, especially for small seeds, so you
could sprinkle a little compost there, a little screened compost. It just makes
it really easy to get them at the right depth and get good contact between
the seed and the soil. That's that is something that you want to know.
And by the way, when you're looking, when you're looking for composts,
if you if you live down in the Arcola Sandy Point Rocharon south west
of the Houston area, you need to know about Cnamalt sells both mulches but
also composts as well. You can buy bulk, you can buy things in
bags there, but you need a good quality mix. And sometimes what I'll
do is buy a compost and when I'm doing seeds starting, I'll even run
it through a little sieve to get it even smaller, to get a real
fine textured little compost and use that on the surface. You don't have to
put a lot of it, just enough to get those seeds really taken care
of. But if you're down in that area, you need to check out
Cnamulchamals dot com. You can go to see them on five twenty one.
They're near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together. They're open Monday
through Friday seven thirty to five thirty and Saturday seven thirty to two thirty,
so they're open today. They carry all the products too that we're talking about.
By the way, So if you're looking for our fertilizers we talk about
here on garden Line and whatnot, they're the place to go. And if
you need quite a bit, you can buy them bulk. They'll deliver within
about twenty miles for a small fee. And so in addition to that,
by the way, if you're looking for beautiful rock and stone and sand all
other kinds of things, you're going to find it there at this SNA Malts.
But I just had to I don't know, talking about compost reminded me
of them. But you want to get your seeds down in the ground,
you want to get them to the right depth, and you want to keep
them continually moist as they're starting to germinate. Now, a few seeds,
this is just a few need light to germinate. An example would be let
us and carrots also do well planted right up near the surface where sunlight can
hit them. If you want to get nerdy, it's the red rays of
the sun that help those seeds germinate. Most seeds you want to bury them
to germinate them, but some need lights. So read the packet so you
don't make a mistake in how deep you plant them. Those others we just
press on the surface, but then it's a little extra hard to keep them
at the right moisture because they draw out real fast at the surface. But
those are a few tips to get you going on your seeds. If whether
you're starting vegetables or flowers or even herbs, you can have success, and
I encourage you to try it out. Seed packets aren't very expensive, so
even if it takes a few times to kind of learn the tricks of the
trade, it's simple to do well. I think we're gonna take a break
and go to the news. Our phone number if you'd like to give Josh
a call and get on the boards seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four in a green fihouse soul. You go to Houston, be quiet,
look good morning on a good Saturday morning. Josh's expanding. I always
talking about expanding, Y'allso listening experience with music. Josh's expanding mine with a
little mama's and Papa's there. I've heard that one before. Thank you for
that. Well, you're listening to garden Line. I am your host,
Skip Richter, and we are here available to talk on the phone about whatever
you want to talk about. Maybe you've got some questions. I bet somebody
else does too. Don't be shy. Give us call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four and we are going to head to Seabrook here
talk to Hannah this morning. Good morning, Hannah, good morning. What's
up. I just had a question. So, my folks and myself are
from out of town. We moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I just
had a question. What kind of plants would you recommend down here to attract
hummingbirds. There's a lot of good ones, a lot of good ones that
you can grow down here. Uh. A lot of the salvias are attractive
to hunting hummingbirds. I know, the Salvia garanitica um is one that I've
grown and had really good success with hummingbirds. But there's some others. We
have some vines like trumpet honeysuckle is a good one. It's a very tame
honeysuckle vine with with coral red flowers that does really really well here. Uh.
And it's a spring bloomer, so that's going to be very popular with
them in the spring. Are they like perennials or do they bloom all your
thing? They're not all your The honeysuckles the spring bloomer, and it's it's
a print. It's a woody vine, a very tame woody vine. By
the way. You know, we're not Columbine country in terms of like the
Colorado Columbine, but we have a couple of native columbines that you can grow
in bright, shady areas here and they are attractive to hummingbirds. Now that's
something that you would plant in the fall and they would do their little blooming
in late spring and then go away. So that would be a temporary that's
where things like your salvia's would come in and they would pick up. There
is a really tall flower that's actually native to parts of Texas, and it's
called cardinal flower. Another name is Lobelia mobilia, is attractive to hummingbirds.
Monardas are also called bee balm. Bee balm is a good one. It's
a mint family plant. So there's your warning that it does spread. Just
be ready to kind of keep it in bounds. It's not quite as bad
as mint, but it you know it is in that family, it spreads
anyway. Those are those are really popular lately. We've we've had a lot
of interest here and agistasch agistasch is called hummingbird mint. That's one of the
names for it, and it does well here. Just going to keep it
if I might ask you one more question. So my family's not quite used
to like the clay soil we have down here. Yes, So when you're
planning something, what would you recommend it's like a tree, like a lemon
tree or anything like that. Like you're dealing with digging into the clay soil.
You absolutely have to fix your soul first. That is number one key
to success. I usually tell people that by the time you've put a plant
in the ground, you're eighty percent to success or failure. And a good
part of that was what you did to the soil compost, compost compost.
If it's going to be a bed, we might recommend one of the rose
soils that's one of the blends sold here in the Houston area. But it
is important, very important to build up a slightly raised bed to facilitate drainage
if it's at all low lying, because it does rain, it does rain
a lot. I really hate to waste too much of your time. What
do you do when it gets the freezing temperatures? So for for what for
white like plants in general, or yeah, like it, like outdoor plants
that you have, like I know we're supposed to wrap them in plastic.
I think, well, yeah, that's a That question is about ten questions
in one, so I don't know how to give a real quick answer on
it. But first well, first of all, we don't have to worry
about a lot of freezing temperature. So you have moved to a nice,
balmy climate and buy and large. We do have our freezes. I love
it. I love it down here. I definitely appreciate it. Yeah,
we do have our we do have our freezes, and so you know,
we we do have to protect things and because we're further south, we try
to grow things that we're on the northern end of you know, citras and
people try to grow avocados here and you can. But so it let's uh,
we probably cover that one when we get to it. There's a publication
that I co authored, and if you go to a website called agra life
Learn. It's strange that I'm giving this website in June, but if you
go to agrilife Learn and type in frost and freeze, then a publication will
pop up that is taking care of plants during frost and freezes. And I
co wrote it with one of the Horticulture Department specialists, and it tells you
everything you need to know about protecting and frost and freeze. I did want
to throw in though, with the hummingbirds. One other one is called firecracker
plant, and it is a superplant for hummingbirds. It does well in the
heat here. It'll get you through the summertime when the the you know,
the temperatures are hot and things like that, and so there's really you know,
I'd probably keep going and going and going on hummingbird plants, but there's
a lot of other really good ones what I would recommend you do since you're
done in this area is go visit a wild Birds Unlimited store. We have
about seven of them in the Houston area. You can go to deb That
sounds like fun time. It is beautiful and in fact, let's see you
are in Seabrook. I'm gonna be up in Kingwood, the Kingwood area,
which is kind of north and east on a little bit of Houston next Saturday,
June tenth. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty answering gardening
questions and stuff at that WAH Birds store. But there's seven stores in the
Greater Houston area and they're gonna have all the things if you're interested in hummingbirds
are gonna have all the things you want, including like books on hummingbirds and
other things. But birds are what they're all about, and it is it's
a really cool place to visit too, So I would that's great man.
Thank you so much for talking to me today. I hope you have a
wonderful day and too well. Thank you thanks for the call. Welcome,
Welcome to the Greater Houston area. We look forward to talking to you again
sometime. Thank you. Hannah thank you, sir. We are going to
go to break now and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four Josh will get you on the board. If you happen to
have a piece of property, maybe you got an acre, five acres or
even more, you need to know about a deal that's going on with Lansdown,
Moody and Caboda Tractors. It is a great package. They have a
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or a rotary cutter or something like that. Listen up to this because if
you've even thought about maybe getting a little tractor for your property, now's the
time, zero down, zero interest for eighty four months. That's seven years,
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If you want to know more, go to l M tractor dot com.
That's l M tractor dot com. Imagine me, you do. I think
about you day and night. It's only right to think about the girl you
love. Well. Good morning on a good Saturday morning for gardening. You're
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to talk to you about things that you're interested in. You know, not
too long ago, I was visiting with the folks out at dell Weeb.
By the way, Dell Web you probably have heard of them. I mean,
they've been building communities for active adults age fifty five and better for over
seventy years. They've got a new community going in about two miles from downtown
Fullshure on FM three fifty nine. And like all Dell Web communities, it's
got those inspired designs and the lifestyle programs that are designed around you. But
here's what makes me especially excited about this one. In addition to all the
things that they offer, I'm working with them to create a community garden on
site for the residents there. So here's an opportunity to live in a state
of the art community with all the amenities you look for. Plus, if
you're a gardener, wow, community garden right there on site to be part
of. Now, if you want more information, go to dellweb dot com
slash Houston. That's d E. L W e BB dellweb dot com,
slash Houston, or call him at two eight one four five nine zero six
zero nine. I'm going to head out to northwest Houston now and we are
going to visit with Dennis. Good morning, Dennis, Good morning. I've
harvested some blue bonnet seeds and I need to know when the best time to
plan that I do is mother nature and sew them now? Or do I
wait till October? Or that's a good question that sew them also? Do
I just I was just going to mix it with that sandy soul that I
have out in the country, and so it that way or do I rake
it in? I just don't know which best route? Do not do it
directly? Yeah, that's a good question. So let me just ask when
we say you have seeds, are we talking about a little handful of seeds
or how many? How much do you have? What's a quantity roughly then
good gallon or more? Okay, there we go, all right, So
I'm not going to suggest that you pick up each seed and file a little
little corner off the off the seed. Uh. What what people will do
when they have that many seeds is blue bonnets are made to live in Texas,
which means it may not rain next year or the next year, so
they don't let their seeds all germinate in one year. They slowly drag it
out and they have a tough seed coat so depending on the weather. That
way, its protects them against the vicissitudes of Texas weather. If you will,
and as a result, you can plant them all out and they will
come out slowly over time. If you want to higher percent germination, maybe
you're going to put some in a four inch pot and start them is a
bedding plant or something. I would use sandpaper or something to scratch, rub
those around on it, scratch those seeds to get that surface coat broken down
just a little bit. Some moisture can move in, but with a gallon
of seeds, I wouldn't worry about that. Some people go to great links
like the equivalent of a rock tumbler with sand in it and running those seeds
through that. I don't think that's worth messing with. I would just make
sure you rake up the area really good, get a lot of the debris
off the surface. Because you want the blue bonnets seeds when you scatter them
to go down to the soil surface, and then if you have a way
of raking them in whatever, that would mean just scratching the soil a little
bit to get good contact between the seed and the soil. As the seed
falls down in that scratched up surface, that's better. But again in nature
that doesn't happen, so don't worry about it. I would plant them probably
in September. They should start sprouting sometime maybe in October. When we get
a little bit of rain it colls off just a little bit. You should
see some little tiny plants coming up that'll sit there over winter and then bloom
next year. All right, So plan them in September. And I know
now they just pop open and spread on their own, so I don't plan
them now. They do, Yeah, they do. Yes, that's right,
all right, you bet. Thank you very much for the calls.
Hey, you know, speaking speaking of the fall and getting some rains,
you know, when fall comes, welcome to Houston. Here comes the hurricane
season. Well, actually it comes along before fall. This is sort of
your your warning and recommendation that if you need any limbs removed. If you
need your roof lines cleared. If you've got some dead trees you're worried about
breaking in a storm, don't take time get those down. That's a liability.
Limbs over your roof for your neighbor's roof, and so on. Power
lines. There's another good one. Now's the time to call Affordable Tree Service.
Now you've heard me talk about Affordable Tree for a long time. Affordable
Tree Service. It's Afftree Service dot com. They are professionals. Call seven
one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Martin or his wife Joe
will answer. If they don't hang up, you've called the wrong place with
Affordable in the name. They serve our entire area. By the way,
when you call them, tell them that you listened to garden Line, heard
about him on garden Line, So that is that is the service you need
to talk to get those trees taken care of before it's too late. Down
in southwest Houston, we've got a we have a place called Southwest Fertilizer,
and I've had some callers today that it's been here for a short time.
You need to know about Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer is the go to place
for all the kinds of products that you might need. They're down on the
corner of a Bissonette and Renwick. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com
to find out more. But if you need herbicides and secticides, fungicides,
if you want organic versions of those products, Southwest is a place to go
to. They carry all the products we talk about here on garden Line,
and that is very very important to be able to go to one place and
get all the things that you're looking for for your garden. They know what
they're talking about. They can help you with your plant problems. They are
the way to really know that you're getting the products you need, the advice
you need to be able to accomplish the things you're trying to accomplish in your
landscape. I was talking about starting seeds outdoors and something else you might want
to consider right now. This is a great time for starting basil that basil
seeds. By the way, basil loves hot weather and we have a lot
of good kinds of basil. Someone was calling about hunting birds while ago,
and a lot of times people are curious about how do I attract beneficial insects,
or how do I attract bees and good pollinators, some of the native
bees and honey bees and others. One of the basils is called African blue
basil. Now, all basils are going to have flowers that are going to
attract things, but African blue is just like a magnet, especially when it
comes to bees. And so when you're out shopping at your garden center,
look for African blue basils. I've I've grown them in my garden for years.
I've got some more I planted this year. It's just really a really
quality quality basil. I don't so much grow that one for culinary There's some
others that I like better culinary wise, But if you're looking for a bush
that just blooms and blooms all day, I mean all summer, that's one
to go with. It just gets better and better and better, and I
you know, I African blue is one of my favorite basils. I don't
go through any year without it. And when you're when you're growing basil,
you want to give them a quality soil with good good drainage and a moderate
amount of fertilizer. And one of the ways I like to fertilize my basils
and all my herbs is with Microlife fertilizer. Microlife has that green bag which
is a six two four, and it is slowly releasing the nutrients, so
it feeds exactly like the plant wants to be. It's nutrients and it goes
well right through the summer. It's our main fertilizer. When it comes to
an organic fertilizer for your lawns, Microlife is a six two four. In
the green bag, you can add Humates Plus, which is the purple bag.
It's like composted or concentrated composts in that bag. So I put them
both on together. I first apply the Microlife six two four and then I
do the Humates plus. And when you do that combination, your lawn is
going to be good to go. If you're looking for Microlife number one,
it's available everywhere, but you can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer
dot com and find out where you can get Microlife fertilizers. And by the
way, there's many, many more than the two I mentioned. Find out
where you can get them in your area, your lawns, your gardens,
your plants, will thank you for it. Quality quality mix. Well,
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here on garden Line today.
We're about to head to a break, but if you'd like to call
and get on the board, give Josh a call at seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. But all you need to do is tell
him your name, where you live, and just a word or two about
your question. Don't start explaining to Josh what your question is. He doesn't
want to hear that. He doesn't need to. He even tells me he
knows nothing. No, just tell him, you know, like I'm Joe,
I'm from whatever city and i just have a question about hummingbirds or a
question about herbs or something like that. He'll get you on the board and
that way he can get onto the other calls as well. We're looking forward
to coming back the next hour visiting with you about things that you're interested in.
If you have any kinds of questions regarding anything regarding plants, that's why
we're here. We want to guide you to have success. We have people
call in today that have moved in from other areas of the country. When
you come here from another area, it's a whole new world of gardening.
But we're here to help you get off to the right feed. I don't
want anyone to think that they have a brown thumb. I don't want anyone
to think that I tried gardening and it didn't work. It does work.
This is one of the best places in the country to grow things. Yes,
we have some challenges. A lot of places have challenges. Our soul
can be a challenge and other things, but we can overcome all of that.
We know how to do it. Give us a call and let us
help you have success. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip
Rictord. Just watch him as pleas ticket, not a sig. Well,
good morning, it is a good Saturday morning looking out there. We're gonna
rank coming this weekend, but boy, now's the time. This would be
a good day to get out, get some things done, Go visit some
of our great garden centers here in the Greater Houston area. Kind of get
off to a good head start. Enjoy yourselves. I love being out in
this time of the year, enjoying the weather, and just being able to
get outside. It's just something therapeutic to getting outside and enjoying yourself. Let's
head out to Cleveland and we're gonna talk to Ron this morning. Good morning,
Ron, good morning. How can we help you today? After by
checks bloom, you can cut them booms off that promote more blooms. I'm
sorry, was that was that a question? Do you were asking? Or
yeah? Yeah, I'm not sure if if that's what I heard you say,
cutting the blooms off after they're done, that it makes the vitex I
see, yes, yes, absolutely, In fact, you want to do
it really soon after they bloom. Now I realize sometimes it's easier to get
out there and just share the whole plant back and then get a fresh new
crop. That's that's faster and easier I get out whenever I think about it
when I drive up. I got a Vitex in the front yard beside the
house, and I just often we'll go over there and just snip off blooms
that are spent because they put their energy into those seeds. And if you
cut back, cut those blooms out. At each set of leaves going down
that stem, there's two more shoots that'll come out, they'll have blooms on
them. So every time you do that and invigorate new shoots coming out at
the terminal end of each one, you're gonna have more blooms. So you
can keep your vitex going and beautiful for a long time while at the same
time keeping it from having having all the unsightly dead bloom heads and seeds on
it. Yeah, it's I've got three of them alongside my driveway. I'm
a property there, and they've been they really bright and now they're just starting
to lose that brightness. So I thought I heard you say that last week,
So all right, I appreciate it. I'm gonna get out there today.
Yeah, good enjoy that. That's a beautiful plant and one of the
rare opportunities for blue color and the hot weather around here. Appreciate appreciate that.
Call run, thank you, thank you. All right, We're going
to head out of the heights and talk to Sean. Hello, Sean,
Hey, good morning, Skip, good morning. Enjoy your show. Thank
you. So we lost our week being my wife from our front lawn of
scorched last year. We had our neighbor's gardener come in and replace our side
in the front yard, and that person has kind of disappeared. That's another
story. But we this real fundamental question, how do we maintain the new
side? Saint Augustine? All right, have you fertilized this year yet?
Yes, a little bit? Okay, what type of fertilizer? What should
we start with? We're a offics. Okay, Well, in general,
you want to have a fertilizer that has a high first number, a low
middle number, and a medium third number. Okay, I like three think
think of four one and a two something along those lines. Now, at
this point in the season, we're about to enter the long stretch of summer,
so I would recommend that you look for a fertilizer that's going to give
you a gradual release over time. Okay. And because if you don't want
to get a flush of growth and have to mow a lot and then you
know the fertilizer's gone because it was immediately available, now it's gone. You
want something that gradually feeds your plants over time, so as you go through,
you just do better and better. You know, it just keep keeps
getting better as you go through. So what I you know, there's a
number of great products out there. One of them that I really like a
lot is it's a Nelson's plant food and it is they're slow and easy.
It's going to have a twenty two. It's going to be the first number
twenty two. And when you put slow and easy out, what's going to
happen is it's going to gradually release those nutrients over time. So that's a
twenty two two ten is to be specific. So you use about five pounds
of that per thousand square feet. Just put it out now, and you're
not going to need to fertilize again until we hit into the fall season.
Oh great, that'll give you that, that'll give you the food. Secondary
question, you mentioned mowing. How long before we were told to let it
kind of take root for a period of time before mowing. Yeah, I
would say by the time probably it's been in about two weeks. If it's
been watered in really well, it's going to have good roots going down and
you're probably going to be able to get out there and mow it at that
time. You know, all things being equal to a couple of weeks ought
to be where you can begin to mow. But just kind of watch the
grass. How it's growing, it's going to kind of sit there for just
a little bit. And once it starts getting roots down and it looks like
it's time to need mowing, that's the time I would go out and start
the mowing. Okay. And thirdly, so we were the old side removed
and bagged and put in industrial bags that we're about two hundred pounds piece and
left. Do you know where we can dispose of the old side. It's
debris, it's old magnolia roots and uh, okay, well we're having we're
struggling trying to get rid of this. Yeah. So it's more than just
the side with some soil, it's actually roots from trees as well in the
bags. Yeah a little bit. Remember we had a magnolia out there.
That can imagine what yeah, yeah, well, yes, that's depending on
you know, what your trash services and will do. I mean, you
could divvy it out and do it that way. If it were mine,
I would take it and use it as an opportunity to make some compost.
And even if you just had a heap in the back somewhere where it was
out of sight, uh, you know, because you want to get those
roots out of there. You separate those out and dispose of them. But
that's a lot of good stuff that will make a quality saw mix that you
can use in your beds and even top dress along with if you screened it
down far enough. But there's nothing to put it out there if anybody,
if anybody wants it, I got like a ton, Okay, all right,
I just I just need to Okay, yeah, well I would.
I would, you know, contact people that come and pick up pick up
the trash and stuff too. But other than other than using it yourself,
I think you're just gonna have to divvy it out. Very good. Hey,
thank you, sir, appreciate it, all right, thank you.
I appreciate that call very much, Sean. Thank you. If you if
you are anywhere near the area where Tomball Parkway to forty nine comes into Beltway
eight and you haven't been to r CW Nurseries, you need to check them
out. Go to RCW nurseries dot com. They are the nursery that if
they don't have it, they'll get it for you. And they have they
have it. They've got all the fertilizers we talk about absolute well of the
largest selection roses in town and super selection of trees fifteen gallons up to two
hundred gallons. They grow the trees themselves out in Plantersville at their farm and
they will bring them, they will plan them for you. They know what
they're talking about. A quality service and quality products and knowledgeable people. The
Williamson family has been doing RCW since back in nineteen seventy nine. RCW Nurseries
dot com. That is RCW nurseries dot com. You will enjoy your visit
to there. And by the way, when you're there, ask them to
show you their Cajun hibiscus. Wow, beautiful, beautiful. Hey, we're
gonna take a take a break right now. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four and Cheryl, we will come to
you first. If you want to get on the board, just give Josh
your call. Well, good morning, this is a good Saturday morning.
I have a little bit of sunshine at the tree tops out there, and
it really looks like a good day to be outside being a gardener and visiting
garden centers. I um, you know the spring the folks at Spring Creek
Feed they're they're up in Magnolia, by the way, on FM twenty nine
seventy eight. If you live anywhere up near that area, you need to
check them out. They are When I walked in there, I was just
surprised when I first walked in then who it was. The friendly, courtious
staff that greets you. I mean, just what you would expect from a
quality feed store. Gonna have all the products that you would expect, you
know, all the pet foods and all the livestock food and wildlife food and
all that kind of thing. But they also have the fertilizers that we talk
about. They have a wide variety of herbicides, fungicides, pesticides. If
you need supplies for the pond, for example, they're going to have that.
And nephew are with FA for h military or a senior citizen their discounts
for you. At Spring Creek Feed. They'll also special order products. If
they don't have it, talk to them about it. I bet they can
get it for you. They're in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight,
just minutes from Graham Parkway and Highway to forty nine. If you haven't been
to Spring Creek Feed, you need to check them out. And if you
have been you know what I'm talking about, really really fun, cool place
to be. We're going to head out to a task acita and we're gonna
talk to Cheryl this morning. Good morning Cheryl, Sorry, good morning Gift.
I just have a quick question about dollarweed in my grass and now that
it's over ninety degrees, Um, what can I use on it? Yeah,
now that it's gotten hot, we're kind of running out of options.
Um, you know, once it gets when it gets to the mid eighties,
it's kind of like, well, you know, let we're probably okay,
but we're on the edge. And then upper eighties is like okay.
But when it's when it's hitting nineties, we worry about a little bit more.
If you can find a time of day where the temperatures drop down to
get to get a product on it, you're probably still okay. I would
say, you know, if we if we have a temp day that goes
up just to the upper eighties or barely bumps ninety, and let that temperature
drop down in the evening and then put it down or do it really early
in the morning. First thing kit will take a while. You know,
if the high is going to be ninety for the day, well, it's
not gonna be ninety yet even noon. Probably it's it's gonna take a little
longer than that to reach that high. So you could still use a product
like Bonide. We'd beat her ultra. When temperatures get up high, something
that's a little more difficult to locate is called celsius, like the temperature fahrenheit
and celsius. Celsius can be used when temperatures get a little higher, and
they're not going to hurt your saint. It's not going to hurt your saint,
Augustine. You're gonna have trouble finding it. What I'd recommend is you're
you're over in the Taska Ceda area, so you've got a tascased to ace
there on Timber Forest Drive and Humble. I would go buy there and talk
to them. They are going to have a wide variety of products and there's
a good chance that they may carry that celsius. So check them out first
see if they have it. It is not not inexpensive, but you can
buy it in a very small packet. It's almost like a card with a
little plastic blister pack over it. You know, you get a small amount.
It's enough to get by and go ahead and do it sooner rather than
later. But I think you would be just fine using that at this point
in time. I don't know if you're familiar with the tascaseda ACE or not,
but they they're gonna be about the CONSI good. Good to know.
Okay, thanks, yep, appreciate it. Good weekend, and good luck
with the dollar weed. Yeah. ACE Hardware they are a great go to
your place, you know what. Thirty nine of them around the Easton area,
so it's not hard to find one near you. They by the way,
they carry the products we talk about, So if you're talking about fertilizers,
they're going to have them. If you're talking about pesticides, herbicides,
fungicides, those kinds of things, they're going to have them. ACE Hardware
is unbelievable. If you haven't been into one lately, you need to go.
You can go to ACE hardware dot com. Go to ACE hardware dot
com, click on their store locator and they will direct you to the store
nearest you you can find. Maybe you have more than one option close to
you where you live because there's so many of them around. While you're there,
sign up for their ACE hardware Rewards program. I belong to it.
You can earn money back on your purchase, so as you purchase products,
you get money back on that over time, and it just makes economical sense
to take advantage of that. You're listening to garden Line. We're here to
talk to you about whatever you're interested in today, regarden gardening. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you have if you live anywhere
on the southwest side of town and have not been to Enchanted Gardens, you
need to check them out. You can go online. Here's a website Enchanted
Gardens Richmond dot com. Now this is the Enchanted Gardens that if you're at
Richmond. It's up toward Katie Direction, north of Richmond. Okay. It's
a show place, and I mean they have people that drive from halfway across
the state literally to come to this place to purchase products, to purchase plants.
They're open Monday through Saturday eight am to five thirty Sunday ten am to
four thirty pm. It's one of those independent garden centers that we brag on
all the time. They're going to have all the products that we talk about,
the different fertilizers and the soils and things like that. They're gonna have
all kinds of things that I call it bling. It's the whimsical gardener,
chimes, fountains, all that other kind of stuff to add to your plants.
We're talking today about hummingbird plants and pollinator attracting plants. They've got that
and then some. If you haven't been, I've got a great idea for
you this afternoon. You ought to go check them out. Trust me,
you will be glad you did. You will be as impressed as I was
within Chanted Gardens out in the Richmond area. I want to head out to
North Houston. Now we're going to talk to Mark. Good morning Mark,
Good morning Skip, and thank you for taking a call. Yes, sir,
I've got I have a newly planted about maybe six weeks ago at Washington
Naval Orange Tree. It was a small tree about three feet tall. We
planted it in a whiskey barrel half whiskey barrel, and we lined the b
Some of the drilled four drainage holes half inch holes in the bottom of the
are maybe just five or six in the bottom of the barrel, lined the
bottom with gravel, and then added to what was labeled potting soil, and
planted the tree in this it's fairly dense, though it's not like any potting
soil I'm familiar with. We've now got the tree has after a heavy rain,
and then continuing from that time on, the leaves are yellowing from the
veins, and now it's starting to look less and less healthy. We held
off on the watering after the rains, just maybe let it dry out.
And we're a little unsure about how to proceed now if the soil needs to
be replaced, because maybe it's not me it's too wet, don't know.
Looking for some direction. When you say, let's go back to the leaf
symptom, is it the veins that are yellow or is the veins greener and
the in between the veins are yellower? The veins are yellow. Huh,
that's very interesting. Uh didn't use any kind of a weed killer or any
product like that. You wouldn't have a reason to do to do it in
the pot, but I just want to make extra sure there was nothing like
that applied around them. No. Well there, now, did you say
that I did apply to some weed killer nearby, but with a with a
sprayer, but down below the level them down at the ground level in a
bed not far from it. But certainly nothing intentionally applied, and I don't
think anything even drifted over to Okay, that's good. Well, we're gonna
we're gonna assume that's not the problem. It could be transplant shock. That
is certainly possible. You know, anytime you move a plant sometimes roots can
get broken, uh some you know, maybe it took it out of the
pot and it's out there for a minute and the outside dried out a little
bit. I mean, we could, we could kind of go to great
links trying to come up with some possibility, but I think for now,
Um, if you have questions about the soil, if you think, well,
maybe that was just a cheap soil and you would want to replace it,
I think that's fine. At the same time, seeing that plant in
the condition it's in and now you're gonna pull it out and put other soil
in again, I think I would be inclined to let's wait and watch,
get you a good quality fertilizer to put on it, scratch it into the
surface, water it in well, don't overdo it, go easy on it.
And there's a number of products that you can use as soluble that you
water with. There's others that are slow release that you put in. I
would go with the slow release, so you're extra careful not to burn it,
and just give it a little bit more time if you feel like it's
stressed and you want to move it out of full sun and just give it
some morning sun for a while, just for a week or two, and
then move it into more full sun. That's fine. By the way,
in that half whiskey barrel, it's going to weigh outlive the whiskey barrel.
That thing will ride out before, so you need to be thinking about a
few years down the line. You're gonna need to pull it ei there and
either go in the ground with it or into some other kind of large container.
Okay, yep, I kind of had that feeling that my experience with
whiskey barrels is that they last a while but not forever. Yeah, that's
true. That's true. They're not treated and hey, by the way,
on that particular plant, make sure that you keep it moist. A whiskey
barrel, it's a small plant now, but as it gets larger, it's
going to pump that whiskey barrel dry really quick on a summer day, so
you may end up looking at watering even twice a day once it gets some
size on it. A year or two or three or four down the line.
Okay, at this point, the soil is staying extremely moist. We
can see the water drain out the bottom, but it stays several inches I
mean close to the top and shortly right below the surface. It stays moist
for an extended period. That's why I was afraid maybe it was getting too
stayed too with well, watch watch for that. I would dig down about
two inches and feel the soil maybe three inches and feel the soil. And
what I said about needing to water twice today, that's that's when that tree
is big and the roots that fill the bucket. Not right now for sure,
So be careful because, yeah, SAGGI, wet soil can cause some
problems for the plan. You definitely want to avoid that. Okay, very
good. We'll take it easy on it and try some of the some of
the things you suggested, and give it some time before we take any more
drastic measures. I appreciate your time. All right, I appreciate that.
Thank you very much for the call. Mark you're listening to garden Line.
We're about to take a break, but if you'd like to get on the
board, give Josh a call seven one three two one to fifty eight seventy
four. All you need to do is tell him your name, where you
live, and just a word or two about your question. Don't start asking
him questions. He's not he's not here for that. He's got other calls
to get to. Just you know, here's here's who I am, Here's
where I live, and I want to ask about nut grass or fire,
answer whatever your question is, and he'll take care of them. All right,
Good morning on a good Saturday morning. That's some nice weather. And
then telling you this is gonna be a day to get out get some things
done. We got some rain coming up here before the weekend's over with,
but not right now. It's a good time to be out there. You
know what, I wanted to remind you guys that I'm going to be at
wa Bird's Unlimited out in Kingwood. That is next Saturday, a week from
today, June tenth, So I'll be there for two hours, eleven thirty
to one thirty. I hope you'll come out to see me. I'll be
answering your gardening questions. If you got some samples you want to bring in,
You got some pictures on your phone, make sure they're in good sharp
focus. And if it's something I need to see up close, make sure
and get as close as you can and take a well focused photo. Maybe
it's a bug, a spot on a leaf, or something where I need
to kind of zoom in a little bit. Well, give me a good
picture and we'll help in any way we can. You know Wabbird's Unlimited.
They're seven stores now around the Greater Houston area. I mean that that is,
you know, pretty much any part of town you need to find a
wall birds in, you're going to find one pretty close to you there.
And Wibird's Unlimited has all the kinds of supplies you need. We're talking about
the food products for the birds, you know, the bird seeds and dried
worms and things like that that your birds need. They can tell you what
kind of fertilizer or fertilizer, what kind of feed the birds need for this
time of year, and for the type of birds are trying to attract.
Now. One thing that they do is they sell bird seed that is waste
free. If you've bought cheap bird seed before you know a small part of
it the birds you are gonna eat and the rest gonna get kicked on the
ground. They don't like those little red beebies. Most birds don't and they
just get ignored. And so why not buy a feed that's going to be
a clean, waste free feed that the birch are can eat it up.
Wall Birds can set you up with that. You can find them in Katie,
Kingwood, Cypress, Pearland, bel Air, West Houston, clear Lake.
Just go to w BU dot com forward slash Houston to find the wall
birds near you. And next Saturday, June tenth, come see me at
the one out in Kingwood. We're gonna head of the phones now our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're gonna
head out to Crosby and talk to Barbara. Hello, Barbara, Okay,
Skip. The humidity has been so nice and low this year. It's been
delightful. But that's all over here in Crosby. It is muggy this morning.
Oh well, oh well, welcome, Welcome to Southeast Texas, South
beat Texas. That's right. I'm trying to establish a dogwood tree. I
know how hard they are. I've tried and tried, but hope springs eternal.
I planted it and obviously, right off the bat it was getting too
much fun. So I've moved it back in to the shape I'm it leashed
out. It was all real nice, but now it's leaves or drooping.
It's wild and bad. Okay. Is there something special it needs? Okay?
So if the leaves are drooping, something's wrong in the roots. That
could be that it was transplanted, which means a lot of roots are lost
in that process. It could be that it's too dry. It could be
this too wet, and so either any of those things. Can you have
to go out and dig down figure out what's happening. Of those three,
you want to keep it moderately moist. Dogwoods are a challenge, you know.
I had a friend, a horticulture friend of mine from Mississippi, and
he made a recommendation once that I trust the guy. I've not hunted this
one down, but he said, if you'll go to where dogwoods are in
the woods and dig up just a little bit of soil in the duff the
forest floor duff around there and bring it in and mix it in. When
you're planting your dogwood, you will bring in some of the microizal fungi that
associate with dogwoods and they will do much better and establishing. Now right off
the bat, your trees having problems and wilting, well, it's not going
to be that fast of a result. It's in order for the tree to
establish and to really do well longer term. You might want to consider that
if you can go out and find one in that kind of situation, someone
lets you trape through the property or maybe do it on the roadside or whatever.
I might help a little bit. But otherwise just watch that salt moisture.
That's about all I know to tell you, and at this stage of
the game. But maybe I'll make a trip up to northeast Texas, but
might be worth it. All right, Well, good luck with that dog
with their challenge. But oh my gosh, you're beautiful. So if you
can keep it going, good good for you. And also we didn't talk
about this, but make sure you get it mulched really well. If you
haven't already. All right, we are now going to head out to Seabrook
and talk to Albert. Hello, Albert, I think for having me.
I appreciate it. I was calling it. I I have seen augustin grass,
and I've noticed maybe about Wednesday, I had some Thursday, I had
some yellowing on the one little spot maybe about a little circular, almost circular,
about twelve inches in diameter. And I noticed this morning I have another
spot forming on the other side of my sidewalk. The grass isn't completely dead,
it's just like the tips seem burnt almost or yellowing. And I just
don't know what to I don't want my whole lawn to get ugly. So
the first out, have you have you When you say tips, you're talking
about the leaves, tips of the leaves, Yes, sir, yes,
sir. Have you used any weed control product on it this spring? So?
I, uh, this is before I started listening to the show,
because now I know microlif's the way. But I used the weed and feed
the Scotts weeding feed in the early spring and the end of spring my lawn
was doing great. But now it's it's just those two little spots. Okay,
so well, I can get what it is, but it's just a
guess, and so I try not to do that but to stay with what
I know. But there's a disease called take all root rot that a kills
roots and that kind of yellowing symptom, spotty patches, general areas, no
pattern to it. That's kind of typical of take all root rot. So
you may be dealing with that now. To have a sample looked at would
be the best best way to do it. But in light or in lieu
of like sending a sample up to the lab at Techa and M and having
them and analyze it for what disease might be present, you might want to
consider just doing an application of a fungicide to the lawn to see if you
can shut that thing down right now. The alternative of that would be to
supply some key lated iron, an iron product to the lawn to help make
up for some of the root loss inability to uptake iron better. Those seem
to help a little bit too, But those that's what I would be your
options. If it was me, i'd take a sample and send it up
to the lab. If you don't want to do that, then I would
consider doing a treatment with something called azoxystrobin. It's a z o x y
azoxy s t r O b I N strobin azoxy stroban. Follow the label
very carefully and don't delay. Go ahead and get that done early as possible
in this process. Other than that, you're kind of in a weight and
watch to see if this is going to go away. Sometimes yellowing just goes
away as a weather warms up. But that's kind of where I see you
are right now, Albert oh Man. All right, then, well I
appreciate you, thank you so much, so I greatly appreciate it. You
bet, you bet, you take care, you know. Talking about lawns.
This spring, I used a Hestergrow twelve four seven on a portion of
one of my lawn areas, and it's one that you hook up to a
little quart bottle and you just spray it on the lawn. It takes about
ten minutes to do the lawn. But the twelve four seven is a good
ratio of nutrients and it's got Medinas oil activator, it's got natural food supplements
in it, it's got humate liquid humus in it, so it's going to
give you a really quick response. Now you can do that about four times
through the growing season if you return your clippings and get the supplement from that
and does really well. I enjoy doing the hashtragrow, and it just for
a good quick quick green up, a good quick fix to get going on
it, and then returning the clippings after that to kind of keeping things keeping
things going along. Well, we're gonna take a break right now. Our
phone numbers seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh
a call and we will be right back. Trish in Liverpool, Mike and
Willis and Jim and meadow Springs. You'll be the first we get to when
we come back. Stupid big stop me, Josh. I think we're running
a sock hoop this morning. I love all these things sound fifty cent to
the gun. It's kind of cool. If you're listening to Garden Line,
I'm your host, Skip Richter and our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. You know, before we went to break,
I was talking about the hast grow twelve four eight and it it just reminded
me. I always talk about azamite when I talk about fertilizing because when you
fertilize your lawn, that's a good time to also add azamite to your lawn.
Azamite is a crushed mineral substance that has all of the trace elements that
are needed by plants in the material itself, so you don't mix it with
your fertilizer. I like to do the fertilizing and then follow that with an
application of asamite because the particle size is different between the two, and that
way you get your fertilizer setting just right. I use asomite also, by
the way, in my vegetable garden, and that is because I want all
of the nutrients that are necessary for my health to be present produce that I
eat, and azamite is another way that you can help accomplish that. Go
to azamite Texas dot com if you like more information. But azamite is one
of those supplements that I think is very important in maintaining the quality of soil
nutrition that we need to have healthy plants and in a garden case, healthy
people. When I head out to Liverpool and visit with Trish now well,
hello Trish, good morning morning. I have a problem with my uh not
all of them but my tomatoes, okay, there, I've been finding some.
They look just fine, you know, from where I can see them,
But then when I go to pick them on the opposite side, it's
just completely rotten. It's not blossom and rot, because I know what that
looks like. But it's on the same spot of the tomato as blossom.
And right now it's the it's on the side of the tomato Sidekay, yes,
and it's stink. Yeah, you've got some sort of a fruit rot.
Now, I would look real closely on tomatoes as that first starts.
You might see a little hole where a tiny caterpillar has chewed in, and
then the rot has followed that hole. So if that's the case, we're
talking about an insect problem. If it's not the case, we're talking about
a disease problem. Generally we wouldn't spray for most rots of the fruit just
because well, you're not going to have as good as success trying to control
that kind of thing with sprays, because usually they're brought on by in a
case of blossom indrod, a calcium deficiency. In the case of a worm,
it's the physical wound. In the case of sunburn that you know that
can also lead to rots as well. But I would take a close look,
maybe even cut one of those open and kind of dig around inside and
see if you see some sort of little worm in there that's also feeding on
the inside. If that's the case, you're going to need some sort of
a spray like BT or spinosid that helps, right, Well, I do
have the BT sprain. I did use that, okay a few weeks ago
because of those small little black okay, well they get up under the leads
and stuff. Yes, well, remember, but if I could get if
I could get past the stink, I'll cut that tomato open. But it
smells horrible. I'll just get your clothes pin, put on your nose and
go after it. Let's get in there. We got to do an autopsy.
Got to do an autopsy and the tomato. Good luck with that,
Trish. I appreciate the call. Thank you very much, Thank you,
sir. You bet you bet, you know you If you have heard of
del Web before, you know what I'm talking about when I say they are
the premier community for active adults age fifty five and better. They have that
design of the community is beautiful, the walking trails, just the lifestyle program
is the best part of the whole thing. I'm getting to work with them
on a new community they're creating. When I say I'm getting to work with
them, it's to help put a community garden into the new Dell Web community
going in two miles from downtown Full Share on FM three fifty nine. So
if you're a gardener, I mean, there's reason enough to move to a
Dell Web community. But if you're a gardener, here's yet another good reason
to do it. Go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or give him
a call two eight one four or five nine six Z nine and find out
about the Dell Web difference for yourself. We're going to head out now and
go to Willis to talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, Hey, Hi,
I'll do it. I'm well, how are you well. I've got
about fifty blueberry plants and a bunch of fruit trees. We're right in the
middle of harvest of the blueberries. I've been hearing about pruning the blueberries after
harvests in the summertime. What are your recommendations about fertilizing after the harvest and
pruning the blueberries. I'm like, how aggressive should you get well, I
wouldn't. I wouldn't prune them. I'm not sure what the what the person
whoever said that, what the purpose of that would be. But I don't
prune the blueberries after harvest in the wintertime, if you've got older plants,
you'll take out the oldest a couple of the oldest canes, the oldest shoots
or trunks coming out of the ground, so you get fresh new ones coming
up. The old ones tend to become less productive you take them out all
the way at the ground, though, But I don't see a need.
I mean, if you want to do that after harvest, that's fine,
but generally I do that in the winter time. As far as fertilizing,
get a good fertilizer for acidc loving plants, sprite it at the rate recommended
on the label, and watered and really well, and then make sure you
maintain a moist soil. Blueberries don't have a root system that's tolerant of drought,
so a little little nutrient, a little an adequate water on an ongoing
basis gets that bigger up. Because as we get into midsummer, late summer,
they're setting the buds for next year's blueberry crop. And so you don't.
You don't at that time want to be pushing a whole lot of new
growth. You want to have already pushed growth that is hitting a point where
it's ready to set buds by then well they well last year they shot up
to seven eight feet long with new growth. Okay, So this year I
cut him back. It's you know, about to five feet tall. Okay.
Um, And I'm very aggressive with water. I heard that the guy
I think last week and or whatever said he was losing those blueberries before they
got right because my guess he wasn't water enough. But yeah, today,
well it sounds like number one, you are taking good care of him,
and number two sounds like a rabbit eye blueberry if it's getting that big.
Is that right? Yeah, we've got the premier and the rabbit eye.
But uh yeah, okay, Well I would hope I would hold off mic
on that fertile in a little bit then, because if you're getting that kind
of vigor, you're not needing to add a whole lot of extra to it.
So I'm gonna have to run to take a break here. But I
think that ought to get you off on the right on the right foot.
If you want to cut them back some, that's fine. There's going to
be some sprouting done, but just get that done sooner rather than later so
you have time to set those bloom buds for next year. And by the
way, Mike, thank you so much for that call. If you have
not been to Plants for all seasons, if you're let's say you're a green
thumb gardener, you take pride in your lawn and garden, you need to
go to Plants for all seasons. If you if you have a brown thumb
and you want to turn it green, you need to go to Plants for
all seasons. And here's why. They're a full service retail garden center.
It's been family owned since nineteen seventy three. I mean plants for all seasons.
Dot com is where you go to learn more about them. They're on
two forty nine up toward Tomball direction, right where Louetta comes in. But
on two forty nine. They've got the quality staff, the knowledgeable folks.
You've taken plans for a sample or pictures for a sample, they'll direct you
the right one. They will not sell you plants that won't grow here.
They will tell you how to make your plants do well. It's a promise
of success. That is money well spent at plants for all seasons. And
when you see all that they have. I was out there just last weekend
actually getting some pottery and a couple of plants that they had. I mean,
it is a wonderland of beauty and color plants for all seasons. We
are heading to a break. The phone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. If you would like to give me a call,
Josh will get you on the board. Jim o'da meadow springs. Didn't
quite make it to you this hour, but you will be first up when
we come back after break. Thank you for listening to garden Line. Look
forward to visiting with you about whatever is interesting to you regarding gardens. Maybe
some questions, some diagnosis, recommendations for success with plants. That's why we're
here. If you think you have a brown thumb, you don't. I
promise you your thumb's just uninformed. And on garden Line, we can educate
that thumb and you will see it turned greener and greener. KTRH. Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with skip Rictord. Just watch him as
clumped back not a s well, good morning on a great Saturday morning for
a garden. By the way, we got some rain coming and they start
tomorrow at some point then Mony Tuesday, Wednesday thirty. It looks like some
rainy days coming here. Today is a day to get out there and get
it done. You may have some time tomorrow as well, but don't delay.
Make sure and take care of that getting it done. If you happen
to live up in the Lake Conro area or Montgomery or Conro, we're talking
about on Highway one oh five, the place that you need to go your
neighborhood garden centers A and A Plants and Produce. They're in Montgomery, just
on the east side of Montgomery on one oh five, So anyone up in
that general region you need check out ANA Plants. They've got the kinds of
products we talk about all the time here. You're gonna be able to find
them at Ana awesome selection of color plants, of fruit plants, of vegetable
plants, of you know, just any kind of plant you can imagine three
acres to wander around and check it out, seven days a week, nine
to five pm. They got knowledgeable staff and all the extra things that make
our gardens and lens CAP's beautiful, like yard art, statuary, gazebos,
Topiari's furniture for the deck. They've got it all right there, a and
a plants and produce in Montgomery's place. You should check out in Today be
a great day to get that done. I'm gonna head out to the phones
here. We're gonna talk to Jim and Meadow Springs. Hello Jim. Hello,
Skip a couple of quick questions. I use some weed beater ultra concentrate
to kill some weeds in the yard. I mixed it up wrong, and
now I have all five or six spots of dead grass. I'm removing the
dead grass and looking for our best way for a recovery of those areas in
the yard. Okay, it's pretty much going to be time that is needed
for your yard, Jim. The fact that it was a broad leaf post
emergent weed killer means that when you get the grass out and everything, give
it, you know, give it a week or two, you can go
ahead and plant new grass. It should be just fine going in. It's
not like your soil is ruined or something in that area. But just just
give it. I'd give it a couple of weeks. You just you know,
get get some water on it and everything, and then and then put
the new new grass in. But it's good to get that old stuff out
because it still has you know, the ingredients that helped kill the weeds in
that old grass material. Okay, second question. I have a truckolor barricaded
ginger that survived the freeze. It was a nice twelve eighteen inch high plant.
It got burned back and I cut it back and it's recovered. It's
a healthy plant. It's only about eight ten inches tall, and I can't
seem to get it to flourish. I don't know what to put on it
to help it help it grow better. I'm assuming that it's in a partial
sun or a bright shade location. It's in a partial sun. It gets
about all four four hours afternoon sun. It's in a raise bed outside.
Yes, yeah, you may. You may be talking talking about a plant
called trialstar too. It's very similar to what you're describing when you said the
three color that that kind of makes me think of Trialstar, which looks a
lot like the green and yellow variegated alpinea type ginger. But I would it
likes a high organic matter, so also compost is always a good thing to
be adding to the surface. You want to fertilize it moderately but over time,
so you can use a very gradual, slow release fertilizer around it.
It's not a plant you're growing for the blooms, so just anything it's got
some good nitrogen content to get to invigorate it, get a little bit of
vigor, and then adequate slow moisture, which I think is what you know
to do already. Those would be the secrets to kind of getting it going
again. Once it has warm temperatures, sole moisture, moderate nutrition, good
drainage, it should just start growing. Well. I've used some has to
Grow on it and color Star and sail Activator, and like I said,
the plants healthy. It just doesn't seem to want to grow very much.
Well, I'd give it a little more time. We're getting into some warm
or weather, but I would give a little more time and let's let's let's
see if it improves. I don't know to tell you to do anything else.
It sounds like what you've done are the right things to do. Just
maybe a little more boost of nitrogen. A few more weeks from now,
maybe two or three weeks from now, you might give it a little bit
more. But in the meantime, let's just hold back and let the weather
warm up. I think it's going to get better. You've pretty much done
what you need to do. Okay, all right, thanks for the help.
All right, Jim, thank you. I want to talk about a
product or actually a product line that you need to be aware of, and
that is Heirloom Soils. Heirloom Soils of Texas. They're at in Porter,
but their bag products are available all over the place. They have roast soil,
they've got leafmole composts, they've got a vegetable and herb mix. They've
got on and on and on down the line, pretty much everything. A
podding sail for indoor plants as well. Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com is
where you go to find out more about what they have. They also have
a one cubic yard supersack they deliver and set on your driveway, and that's
one qbicard to big giant sacks. Very convenient to go about it that way.
You can go out there and get it yourself on a flatbed trailer,
or you can buy it by the bag. If you don't know how much
you need, go to Airloom Sails of Texas and check out their online cubic
yard calculator. You put the dimensions of how deep, how wide, how
long you need it whatever it tells you exactly how many qbkyards you need,
even down to the how many, how many five gallon buckets or wheelbarrowloads or
in a QUB heirloom. Soils of Texas dot com is a really, really
good opportunity to buy a really good quality product. I was looking at some
sales that were going on these past few weekends and things, and it just
reminded me. You know, we are in palm planting season, and if
you are thinking about putting a palm tree in your landscape, you should do
it now. Palms like to be planted in the summer. They you know,
a lot of times we talk about fall and winter planting. Course,
we can plant trees year round, but for palm trees now, they want
to be planted when it's warm and with palms you get this instant tree.
And the place to go for your palms is verdamt Tree Farm Verdunt Tree Farm.
You can go to online to Verdunt Treefarm dot com. But they have
a number of different locations in the Greater Houston area. The old location out
original location out on Barker Cyprus is one you probably familiar with. In West
Houston, you can go down to pair Land on West Broadway, there's another
Verdant Tree Farm location there and even up in the Heights three thirty seven Yale
Street, right where it comes into ten Verdant Tree Farm location. Now they
sell way more than just palms, but they have trees all the way up
to seven hundred gallons. Ten percent discount for military and first responders, and
they do offer a one year warranty included with the installation. We're going to
take a break right now. Give us a call seven one three two one
two five eight seven four and we will get to you right when we come
back from break. To the east to the west. But see the Gavin
I love well. Good morning. You're listening to the garden Line on a
great day for gardening. We are looking forward to visiting with you. But
right now I am going to tell you about a place that you need to
visit, and that is the Bee Supply. Now you're probably thinking, I'm
not a beekeeper. Well, if you're interested in becoming a beekeeper, you
need to go to the B Supply. If you're interested in learning about the
fascinating world of bees, you should go to the B Supply. These guys
they have beginner classes twice a month out there in Dayton at the B Supply.
By the way, go to the b Supply dot com to learn more
those I've been out there. I could just spend almost a day out there.
All the products that they have. They've got the second largest observation indoor
observational hive in the world, big plexiglass box up high. You can walk
up there some steps and see the bees working really really cool. If you're
interested in learning, take one of their honey tours. They do them about
once a month out there at the Bee Supply. You can go through learn
all about bees. It's great for kids, by the way, fascinating for
kids. Take six different kinds of honey. Have you ever had orange honey?
Have you orange blossom honey. You ever had creamed honey? There,
it's all out there thebe Supply dot com. It is well worth a trip
out to Dayton. You will be fascinated and you'll come back going wow,
I had no idea how cool bees were and all of the intricacies of what
goes on in a bee high. We're now going to head and talk to
Paula this morning, and Paula, welcome to the show. Thanks for calling
in now. If you have not been to the Arburgate recently, you need
to check them out. I was there not too long ago. And you
can never go to the Arbourgate at a time where there's not a lot of
cool plants and things to look at. You can go to the Arburgate dot
com Arborgate dot com and they've got there one two three, completely easy system.
And I want to tell you about that. It's a food that feeds
anything with roots. It's a soil for any application, and a compost that
improves the soil. It's all one hundred percent organic. Their compost is blended
with two different types of composts within credible beneficial microbe diversity in the product.
They're well, it's well blended. He's got the macro and nutrients. The
micronutrients have a shell component in it to improve drainage. They're organic plant food.
It's a four four three plus ten percent calcium. It is an organic
food that has a slow release form of nitrogen and it just absolutely whatever you're
gonna put it on, it is going to thrive from that. That is
the arbor gates part of that one two three, completely easy system. So
while you're out there, pick up some of that. But also, by
the way, I remember, today's a great day to get outside and do
some things. Be a great day to go out and visit the arbor gate.
Let's head back out now and we are going to talk to Paula.
Hello, Paula, it's a good morning, skip, good morning. Tell
I believe you know a thing or two about plumerias, don't you. Oh?
Yes, I do. It's it's like my passion, is it?
And what would you like to know? Well, you know, people call
me about plumarius all the time, and I am not a plumaria expert,
but they for those who are flamiliar with fleury is it's the Hawaiian layflower,
right and you can grow Plumarius here in Houston, and there are a lot
of enthusiasts. I think you're part of the Plumarius Society. First of all,
tell us just a little bit about the Plumaria Society. Oh okay,
Yes, the society is located here in Houston. It's the Plumari Society of
America. And we meet five times per year in January, March, May,
July, and October. Okay, down at the Sherry Floors Garden Center
in Herman Park. Okay, wow, and uh yeah, we have we
have one full events for our members and we're open to the public. So
it's you know, you don't have to be a member to come to our
meetings or to our events like our upcoming Plumarious sales. Okay, So can
you give like a website or something where people could go to, you know,
tomorrow when they remember we talked about it, but they can't remember when
and where and all that. Sure, it's called www dot v Plumeria Society
dot org. Okay, that's one word. So I'm thinking that if the
Plumerious Society of America is located in Houston, we might be able to grow
Plumarious here. So I've had Oh yeah, I've had people call me before
you know about the plumarius. One of the questions I had this year that's
coming in more than once is I have plumeria. Is they're there, but
they're just not blooming? And maybe is it too early for them to expect
that? Or do you have any thoughts on things they might want to look
into or check out? Yes, so, um, we had a really
wet and cold and rainy spring, so they are waking up out of dormancy
more slowly than they do in years past. But you will get to marry
a blooms as long as you provide it with at least six full hours of
sunlight. And you need a fast draining good soil is rose soil. And
you need to be fertilizing because they like to be fed. And you'll also
people forget to Mary's are trees, so you have to be patient with them.
They will grow into a giant tree if you let it, but usually
I never get them to grow that big because I like to store them in
the winter in my garage, so I keep them purposely small so that I
can move them. Okay, so how do you keep it Plumaria small?
Because they sort of take off like a telephone pole straight up right. That's
right, So you have to you have to use your discretion when you buy
a plumeria. Some are known to be tall growers and fast growers. Some
are dwarf, some are more compact than others. But what I do if
I have a tall plumeria and I want it to be shorter, I let
it grow to produce a nice small, multi tipped branch, and then I
make a cutting of that branch, and then I will start that plant over
as a mini tree. So I have a lot of mini trees in my
yard that have been started over. Okay, so no plumeria for a lot
of people. When you talk about rooting cuttings, you know, their eyes
roll back in their head and they think that's too hard. But plumerias are
really easy to root from cuttings. Can you give us kind of a real
quick tip on if you have a plumaria, or maybe someone you know has
a plumeria and they're willing to give you a cutting from it, how do
you go about making a new plant? Okay, so when you make it
cutting, you first of all need to make a long enough cutting, and
it should be taken in dark gray wood, not in the green growth area.
Green cuttings tend to not root as well. And then you let it
callous at the bottom. I make a flat cut, and by the way,
you always sterilize your cutting implements before you cut into a plant, and
so you let it callous for maybe a week, and then you can plant
it in a one gallon pot with a mixture of roll soil and perlite.
And don't plant it in too much soil, because when a plant has no
roots, it can't take up all the water it gets. If it's a
rain rainy season, that's a good point. And so you want to starve
it for water so that it sends out roots looking for water. Okay.
So yeah, a lot of people think, oh yeah, I keep water
and keep watering, but the general rule is if you have no leaves,
don't give it water, okay, So just be patient with it and it
loves. Someone was talking earlier about how hot and sultry Houston can be.
That's plumeria heaven. I believe it really is. And I've got lots of
lots of plumerias in pots around my pool, and they love the reflected um
sunlight. From the pool, and I also have them planted in my ground,
you know, in raised beds. Nice nice. Now in the wintertime,
plumerias aren't going to take a hard freeze. So what are some options
for getting a plumeria through the winter here? Okay? So if you live
in Galveston, you have different growing and dormancy situations that we do up in
Conro. So you have to watch the weather forecast, okay, and make
sure that it doesn't go below forty at night. If it's starting to look
like it's going below forty at night, you need to move that plant into
a situation where it's either a covered greenhouse or a garage or whatever. You
have to protect it from the elements. Okay, Okay, So forty degrees,
it doesn't have to freezy. When it gets to forty, it's time
to move it inside. Now. I remember years ago when I was up
in Conro. I remember going into someone's garage and they had plumarius. But
the soul shaking off, the roots hanging upside down in the garage. Is
that as unconventional as it sounds, or is that a legit? That is
some people choose to do it that way. If I have plants that are
big and they have a big root system, and I dug them out of
the ground. I shake. This is what my method is, and it
works really well. You take a black plastic trash bag and wrap the root
ball in the black plastic trash bag and tie it down near it the bottom
of the stem or the trunk with some green stretchy tape. Okay. And
then I take that giant tree and I will put it in my garage in
tall cardboard boxes like appliance boxes or something that will enable you to stack them
in there. And I have that cardboard box laid on top of a carpet
runnant. So the floor of the garage is a killer for plumeria roots.
So I've got two layers of protection there. I've got the carpet, I've
got the cardboard, and then I've got the plastic. Oh and that's because
of the cold, the cold. Yeah, okay, yeah, very interesting.
That is that is very interesting. Well, I know plumarias are not
that you know. They may be mystify people like how on Earth could I
get that to grow? But in the wintertime you're not watering them at all?
No, No, because think about it, when you're asleep, you
don't drink water. There you go. Your plumarias are asleep, and they
they're dormant. And when I here's a tip that I can give you about
preparing them for dormancy. A lot of times I will cut the leaves off,
which will hasten their dormancy. Okay, And I leave a little one
inch stub of the leaf stem and that usually falls off in about a week.
And when the plumaria doesn't have the leaves carry on photosynthesis, it just
sort of is told, Okay, well, I guess it's time to go
to sleep. And a lot of people say, oh, well, you
know it's not going to get that cold. You know, I've lived in
Houston for ten years and it's never gotten that cold. Well, we've been
surprised in the last three years so many times with surprise breezes like twenty twenty.
You don't ever want to risk leaving your plant outdoors during the cold,
You just don't. That's a good that's a good point. Paula. We
get about forty five seconds here, but can you tell us I think you
guys have a Plumeria Society plantel coming up on June tenth, tell us a
little more about Yes we do. Okay. It's at the Bay Area Community
Center in Seabrook and the address is five thousand and two Nasa Road, and
the hours are nine to one and it's a free event. And there will
be hundreds of plumaris in the room blooming, and you can also sniff the
blooms and ask questions of the vendors. There will be about twenty five to
thirty different vendors. All right, it's an excellent opportunity and it'd be a
great father's sake here. Hey, that's a great idea. Thank you so
much, Paula. We got to run to commercial, but it's so good
to talk to you, and thank you for all that great information. Bay
Area Community Center on June tenth, from nine to one. And my mom
to treat me wrong, Come and love me. Dat it all my love?
All right? All right? See the girl with the domraine, she
don't find and shit that day? All right? Now? Hey, hey,
hey, hey, tell your mama, tell you paul I'm gonna send
you back there. I get some more. Yes, you don't do right,
don't do right? All play one when you see me in misery,
come on be and see you by me night. Hey, hey, oh
bla see the girl. I would direct that song. She can do the
bullet on my long Ye what I say? All right? I tell what
I say every one I said that time. Tell what I say? What
I say? That done? I say what I say. And I want
to know. I want. I want to do. I want and I
want to do. Said I want to do. Yeah, I ain't.
I can't wait. All right, Well, you are listening to Garden Line
and we are here to answer your gardening questions dealing with a few gremlins that
we got going on this morning. Let's see, I wanted to mention something
while we were here getting off on a new segment that by the way,
we are here till ten am this morning. It is in the middle of
the big eight to nine segment right now, but we'll be going on till
ten to answer your gardening call. So if you would like to give us
a call, we would be happy to take your call at seven one three,
two one two five eight seven four. I want to talk a little
bit about a scholarship that I've talked about before that is in Randy's memory,
you know, Randy Lemon was the host of garden Line for over twenty five
years. Guarden Line has been on since back in the nineteen fifties. Actually
the name of the show has changed a little bit, but back in the
John burrowed about starting with Due Compton, John Burrow, Bill Zac, all
those and then Randy took over and he was here many years and made garden
Line really what it is today. And many of you remember Randy Finally,
as I do, and there's a scholarship that's been set up. It's the
Randy Lemon eighty four Memorial Scholarship. Now, this scholarship is a permanently endowed
horticulture scholarship at Texas A and M to help with training for future horticulture students.
And I cannot think of anything that Randy would be more proud of than
to know that he has he has that legacy at Texas A and M,
where Randy and I both attended. In fact, we live in the dorm
together back early in our careers up at the university. That scholarship was sent
up by Dean Nelson. And if you want to give to it, if
you would consider giving to it, and I would ask that you would you
go to give dot am slash Randy Lemon. Give dot am slash Randy Lemon
and if you will go there, you can follow just follow the instructions on
the screen and you were able to give toward that scholarship, you know,
along those lines. I just want to thank out it. At Brookwood Community,
there is a special nuttall oak that has been planted at the Brookwood Community
in honor of Randy. The nuttall oak is one of the red oaks that
we recommend here. It's a very well adapted tree and I can't think of
a better choice of a tree to put out at Brookwood and membrance of a
Randy Lemon, our CW Nurseries donated and I appreciate them for doing that donation
of the nutall oak. And I believe Arburgade has also put a bench out
there just kind of a place where those of you who really loved and enjoyed
Randy can go and just have that fond remembrance of our friend out at the
Brookwood Community. But if you haven't had a chance to donate toward that scholarship,
I would ask that you consider doing that today. One of my favorite
ways to garden is in raised beds, and one of the best ways I
know of to have a raised bed is to choose a Vego bed. Vego
is a modular metal raised bed. Oh it's it's absolutely rust It's coated to
have no rust, no corrosion. I mean it's i'll call it a fullproof
bed. It is a metal bed that then is coated in a safe paint
certified by USDA. Now Vego beds you can get them at different heights eleven
inches, seventeen inches, and even higher than that. They are perfect for
organic gardening because if you don't want to use treated lumber and things like that,
Vego is your choice. But even if you're not an organic gardener,
you need to check out veg. Vego is a company right here in Houston.
They're local, and they're the original in the United States. They are
the original modular metal bed company. You can go to vegogarden dot com.
Several of our dependent garden centers we talk about on garden Line do carry the
Vego garden beds as well. I think you will be very impressed. This
is something that's going to weigh out last any other kind of wooden bed materials
that you might put out there, they stay cool in the summertime, very
space efficient. You can get them in a long oval bed. You can
make a C shaped bed, a square bed, however you want to design
them. It's a modular metal bed and I have seen nothing on the market
in all my years that is the quality and just the practical, makes sense,
very effective style of a Vego garden bed. We're gonna take a break
right now. If you'd like to get on the board, give Josh a
call seven one, three, two and two fifty eight seventy four. Half
the loves and well, good morning, Saturday morning, Good day for gardening.
By the way, we've got some rainy weather coming up this next week,
and now it would be a good day to get all that kind of
good stuff you need done, including fertilizing your lawn. If you have not
fertilized for summer yet, now is a good time to put on the Nitrofoss
Summer Essentials program. Specifically at this point, the Nitrofoss Summer Turf nineteen four
ten Super Turf nineteen four ten is a product that will gradually feed your lawn
over summer. It was formulated specifically for our hot and humid Southeast Texas climates.
By releasing gradually, you're going to reduce your mowing bop to twenty five
percent. It's going to spread it out over time gradually like a little lawn
wants to take up nutrients. It'll also help you avoid that brown patch problem
that comes in the fall when we get that flush of green that we want
to avoid. Well, this is a way to do it. It's part
of that overall Nitrofoss Summer Essentials program. Now you're gonna find Nitrofis Super Turf
nineteen four ten all over the place, and that would include places like the
Arburgaton, Tomball or Shades of Green and Down Shades of Texas down in South
South Houston area and Angleton at Lake Hardware, both the Lake Hardware and Angleton
and include nitrofis Is available over the place. And where you find Nitrofos,
look for the silver bag that is the nineteen four ten and your lawn will
be set to go all the way until fall. Let's head out and we
are gonna go to let's see where should we start. We're gonna go out
to Baytown and talk to Marie. Hello Marie, good morning, sir.
How are you this morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm well?
What can we talk about today? Okay? I have a red shoemart
oak. It's around thirty feet high, had it since the home was built,
and it must have been three or four years old. Winter we had
it put in and I'm afraid it has oak leaf wilt. I have talked
to Moss Nursery, who recommended an arborist. Haven't been able to get in
touch with her yet. The tree is beautiful when it comes out in April,
and it's beautiful, beautiful till the end of May. But now if
you cut it into six pieces, it's like a sixth of that tree that
the leaves are starting to turn brown, Okay, and they will fall off.
This has happened. This has happened. This is a third year.
This has happened. I got suspicious last year, and I'm wondering, is
there any way I can save this tree? Like I said, symmetrically,
it's a beautiful tree and I would like to keep it. I would like
to do everything I can to keep it. All right, Marie, Well,
first I'm gonna put your mind at ease. You do not have oak
wilt. That is not something else is going on. I would if I
were you, I would consider calling someone who knows what they're doing, and
that would be a place like Affordable Tree Service. I don't know if you've
ever used them before, but you can go to aff tree Service dot com.
They're gonna if they come out and they'll do consultations, and i'll tell
you one thing that I like about them. They're not going to sell you
something you don't need, so they may look at it. I don't know
what they're gonna see. Maybe the branch that's affected has some issues going on
that's preventing the flow of water and nutrients out that branch. Maybe something's happened
to the roots system on that side of the tree. Oftentimes the roots on
one side of the tree feed that same side of the tree. Sometimes the
trunk twists and it changes a little bit, but overall they're gonna be able
to look at it. And I can't see it right now, so I
can't tell you exactly why it's doing that, but a good quality service would
look at it. And Schumard's a nice, beautiful oak, very beautiful,
and you want to go ahead as you know you've gotten on it. Already,
and you need to stay on it and try to get this solid before
you lose that section of the tree, because that certainly would be not good.
Right right, right, Well that's good news because but this goes from
the lower part of the branches all the way to the top in one section
and then it moves over. Last year it did this too, Like I
said, so yes, I will, I will, I will get in
touch with him. Yeah. So the area that had it last year came
out again this year and then it happened again. It has happened again.
The tree it turned. The leaves begin to turn a putrid yellow and then
they end up turning brown and then they fall. Okay, well, this
is going to be a job for Sherlock Holmes and Martin Spoon more with Affordable
Tree is that when it comes to trees harmed to come out and do a
consultation, take a look at it. It's going to be something going on.
In my opinion, it's something going on on the roots on that side
of the tree. But when he gets there he may see something different altogether
once he's on site. All right, Oh, thank you so very much,
all right, thank you, Maria. I appreciate that. I want
to talk about something that I mentioned earlier that if you are at all thinking
about moving to a new community, you need to consider this. The folks
of dell Web, they've been doing communities for adults fifty five and better for
a long long time. They create the communities that have the inspired designs,
beautiful walking paths. I mean, it's just it's pristine, and the accouterments
that they offer, the programs that they offer, the lifestyle design programs that
are specifically made for you. It makes it a place that's just a wonderful
place to live. They're doing a new community out there in Full Shre about
two miles from downtown Fullshre on FM three fifty nine. They've called me to
help them with their new community garden that they're putting on in that site.
So if you're a er, here's just got another reason to be in a
community like that. Go to Delweb Houston dot com for more information or give
him a call to eight one four or five nine six oh nine and you
can find out about that Delweb difference for yourself. I'm going to head out
to Parland and we are going to talk to well out in paraland hello,
Will how are you this morning? I am doing great, Thank you,
sir, Yes, sir, I am calling about. I have I transplanted
six magnolia trees three years ago and they are now about between six and I
mean eight and ten and twelve foot call. And when I transplanted on the
bottom branch, some of the lower ones are down low, and I've got
a five foot mulch bed around each one of the trees, and so the
bottom branches are just a little bit in the mulch, and I'm wanting to
cut those back and so uh so I don't have low leaves on the bottom
as it rolls up, and now I'd like to have about two foot of
trunk or something on the bottom. But so told me to be careful to
cut those back, queen. And how should I cut those back? Well,
you could cut them back now, are you wait till wintertime? If
you're want to do that, it's up to you. But I would take
them back all the way to where they attached to the trunk. Don't leave
a stub cutting back close to the trunk and that'll do it. Magnolia's is
pretty simple tree to handle that way. And if you want to give it
a couple of feet a trunk, you can certainly do that, no problem.
Do I need to put anything over the cut places? Absolutely not.
Just leave it. Just just leave it. If it's in the mulch,
yes, in fact, pull the must back. But I mean you don't
want you don't want to. I can't quite picture what you're seeing there,
but I don't have any mulch palled up above where you know the soil line
of the tree is when you're at the base of the tree. Don't have
that low volcano cone like some people do. Right, okay, okay,
all right, appreciate it. Thanks, Sorry, having a good day,
you bet, thank you. I appreciate. I appreciate that call very much.
You're listening to Guardenline and we are here to answer your gardening questions.
We hope you will give us a call. We can talk to you next
hour. Josh, you'll get you on the board. Doll seven one three,
two, one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four or two unto KTRH. That makes it even simpler.
Remember, tell jus your name, where you live, and just a word
or two about your question, just so I can kind of get a basic
idea what we're going to talk about. Don't go into details, you know,
don't start explaining to him. He's gonna he's not gonna help you with
that. He's taking the calls and getting him on the board. So if
you will do that, we'll look forward to talking to you. Bill.
We are going to come to you first when we come back from break.
Thank you for being patient hanging on with us in the meantime. We look
forward to seeing you again as we enter our last hour starting at nine o'clock
this morning. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line
with Skip Ricter Wat Trim, just watching as you tell us so many back
ticket not a sience. Good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning. We I
keep learning us today that this is our good sunny day. Got a little
bit of sunshine tomorrow, but especially today to get out there and get gardening
done, and get out and visit some garden centers. Hey, if you're
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Trusted Lab dot com. We are talking about all kinds of things on garden
line today, all kinds of topics and whatnot. We've got Bill out here
in Conro and we're gonna go talk to Bill and see what's up in Conro.
Hello, Bill, let's skip hey today. I'm it was kind of
a shoot first name. Later I put some mulch down, And I got
a bunch of questions now that I've done it, think, is it going
to change the pH of the soil? Do I need a soil additive?
Is it going to promote fungus? Do I need to change my watering?
No? No? In fact, well, in fact, the mulch helps
hold the moisture into the soil. So you know, you might water less
and if you didn't have mulch, but just you just want to make sure
keep the soil adequately moist you know. As far as fungus promoting, no,
not at all. You will find occasionally over time, as organic meta
decomposes, there will be some types of fungi that grow in it. But
they're not they're not plant diseases. There just what is part of nature that
helps tree trunks turn back into soil, and so that that is not a
concern at all. In fact, I look at it as is actually a
good thing. Okay, good, How about pH? Does it change pH?
No? Mulch on the surface for buy and large design. No,
Because it's it's interacting with the soul surface. The microbes there will break that
mulch down and release it back into the soil. Now, if you were
to if you were to take a mult that was super high pH or super
low pH and mix it in as a soil amendment, which is different than
mulch. Mulch is a blanket on the surface. Well then yeah, you
you probably could see some changes in certain nutrient content and pH whatnot. But
no, mulch absolutely is it is the only way to go when it comes
to protecting our soul because wherever light hits the soil, nature plants a weed,
and malt is your ways. Exactly what I'm doing, all right,
So one last question, what do you what's your take on died mulch.
I tried to. I avoided it, but I was. There's a lot
of it out there. I would avoid it, like the plague number one,
just esthetically. I just think it's ugly. I mean, you might
as well stick pink flamingos and you know the little cutouts of a lady in
r bloomers been over in the garden, Remember those little gaudy things people put
out there. Yeah, you might as well stick that out there. That's
about how beautiful it is. And it you know, the DIA material does
no good to plants whatsoever. Yeah, all right, thanks all right,
Bill, Hey, thank you for the question. I appreciate that if you
live in the Heights area, if you live anywhere in the Houston area,
you need to check out Buchanan to Native Plants. They are on Eleventh Street
in the Heights. And if you haven't been to Buchanans, my goodness,
go today. You can go to buchanan Plants dot com. By the way,
when you're there, sign up for their newsletter because it is inspirational.
Not only do you find out what's going on at Buchanans, but you find
out what to be doing that time of the year. I mean, they
have a lot of really good advice. They carry the products that we talk
about, the fertilizers, the soils and things like that. Super super supply
of all kinds of plant material are available at Buchanons Plants. I think right
now they've got a summer sale going on. They have a thing called their
Bungalow Summer Sale. By the way, they are a great gift shop and
they've got a lot of items that are for sale of there. They have
a specialty in really native plants. I mean, they have excellent supply of
that, and by the way. Right now, all pepper plants, all
four inch pepper plants, are on sale for a dollar each. Now you
may think, while summer's coming, you get those peppers in the ground.
Now keep them going through summer, and by the time you got a good
sized pepper bush in the fall, it is going to be like Christmas tree
ornaments, peppers hanging all over those plants. Fall is the best pepper season.
Get them started now at a deal of a dollar apiece. Buchanan's Native
Plants buchanan Plants dot Com. We talked about a lot of different things today.
You know, I just keep thinking about all the different topics that we
could be going on too. I mentioned that now summertime is an important time
for fertilizing, for taking care of things, for making sure that our plants,
you know, of course have adequate water and whatnot. But maybe you're
looking at your landscape and you're thinking, you know, I pick good flowers,
I put them out, they look good, but something's missing in the
landscape. Well, I would suggest that it's time for some professional help.
And I would do this myself. I mean, I'm a plant person,
but I'm not a landscape designer. Peerscapes is They're you're one stop for everything
for the landscape, new gardens, rock borders, walkways. If you've got
drainage issues, welcome to Southeast Texas. They can fix that. Peerscapes can
design what you need to make your landscape awesome. Maybe it's some lighting,
some seasonal lighting options peerscapes dot com, peerscapes dot com, or just go
give him a call two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero.
Let the folks at Peerscapes turn your landscape from cute attractive to wow, awesome,
unbelievable, unbelievable. I was visiting with folks at Peerscapes a good while
back and talking to some of the designers and their skill, their expertise.
They understand this area, they understand what works. Right of course, they
have that design I you know that you would want a landscape designer to have,
but they understand what it is to landscape and garden here and they can
create that kind of beautiful thing. Earlier, we were talking to someone about
a tree issue. If I've had a couple of tree questions today, we
had the dogwood tree question, and just recently I think we're talking Maria,
Maria the Town about a Schumart oak tree. If you're going to plant a
tree, whether you're getting a nice palm tree from Verdant Tree Farm or wherever
you're getting a tree, you need to get a tree hugger sprinkler when you
plant it. And here's why. The first summer is make or break for
a brand new tree comes out of a container. The roots are all in
that cylinder and you put it in the ground and it's a big tree,
but all of the water and nutrients can only come from where the roots are,
and it's that cylinder. With a tree hugger sprinkler, you can give
it water right there and then as a tree grows, you can turn it
up to where you get larger and larger areas. But tree hugger sprinklers are
investment for the woody ornamentals, including roses in your landscape. Go to tree
Hugger Sprinkler dot com and you can find a retailer near you. We're gonna
take a break right now. Give Josh you call at seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four and we will be talking to you. As
with Terry and Jim. You'll be the first stop. Come all fish pine
filius to night. I'm gonna see Mama Chasm. Well, good morning on
a great, good, good Saturday. Pay for gardening. For talking about
gardening. You know, earlier I was talking about the nitro file Super Turf
nineteen four ten being a great fertilizer to carry you through your lawn summer fertilizations.
I wanta tell you about some other part of that summer essentials product line
that Nitro five s asked. One of the things, is there bugout Max.
Now, Bugout Max is a top choice for managing all kinds of insect
problems. In fact, it kills up to one hundred and thirty different species
of insects. So all the different pests that are going to invest your lawn,
the advanced formula of Bugout Max is going to take care of them.
And then there are these insects call firing killers. We've had some folks calling
today that moved here from elsewhere. Well, I have good news and bad.
Good news is welcome to Houston. You can grow anything here. Bad
news is I got to talk to you about this thing called fire ants.
But nitro fis fire at killer works quickly it kills the colony. It takes
out the queen to prevent new colonies from coming in and spoiling the show,
for ruining that picnic or just that barefoot walk through the garden. You know
what I'm talking about. Nitrofoss fire at Killer and nitrofoss Bugout Max two parts
of that nitrofoss summer essential system. And you're gonna find nitro foss all over
the place. Now, if you go up to D and D up in
Tomball, they're gonna have nitro foss products up there. If you get a
plantation ace hardware down to Richmond Rosenberg or maybe enchanted forests and enchanted gardens out
in that area, they're all going to have nitro foss. Wherever you shop
for quality products, you're gonna find the whole line of nitro foss products as
well. Of course. Well let's head out now, We're going to go
to Montgomery and talk to Terry. Hello, Terry, good morning, Thanks
for taking Micha. I. Yeah, I transplanted to crape myrtles this last
winter. They were stuck in the northeast corner of my backyard and they were
just shrouded and they're about twenty well, once about twenty feet tall and the
others about sixteen feet tall. I transplanted them and they're growing. They have
leaves on them, they're not flowering, and I think they've got a lot
of suckers came out from the bottom. And my question regards those and am
I watering too much or am I not watering enough? Well, you said
winter. Do you know about what months you did that transplanting. Oh,
we did it when it was coldest, probably late January early February. They
were completely dormant and we dug them up and transplanted them or to a nice
sunny spot in the backyard. Okay, well, they still are in quite
a transplant shock season or in hell because that they lost a whole lot of
roots. The vast majority of the roots were lost in the transplanting. So
they're re establishing. So the fact that you've got green on the branches is
a good thing. I would take out the suckers that are coming up around
the base if your branches are green, if they if you, I mean,
if you're seeing green growth up on the existing trunks and branches, I
would take all the suckers out, and then I would just give them some
time, let them settle down, let them get their roots going. They're
smart, they know that they've got to get a good root system before they
start to trap trying to push out new growth, a whole lot of it.
Okay, do you think that I should scrim them down a little bit,
try and get rid of a little bit of their lankiness, or should
I just leave them alone? I would leave them alone. Let's get a
lot of foliage on those things over the course of the summer. Let's restrengthen
them a lot of carbohydrate production from all that foliage. Let's get I'm strong,
and then we can talk about maybe if you want to change the height
of them or something at a later date, we can do that. But
let's not jump in right now and add insult to injury with that move.
Okay, okay, okay. And I can't change this right now because we're
in summer. But the two trees are pretty close together. They're about three
feet apart. Okay, that's okay, that's a little too close for big
Craig Merlas. You said sixteen and twenty feet right, Yeah, they're about
sixteen and twenty feet tall, but they're quite thin. Well, I would
put them further apart than that, you know, I haven't at least twelve
All right, well, I want to think about doing that at the end
of this year. Maybe one of them sounds good. Thank you so much
for your time, and I will get rid of those suckers, you bet,
Thank you very much. I appreciate the call. You take care okay
by now? All right, bye bye, you know, call them from
up in the Montgomery reminded me of Nature's Way, which is Nature's Way Resources
and thirty five just south of Conro It is on about where what is at
fourteen eighty eight comes in Nature's Way Resources. That's always been a leader in
soul products. When we talk about who came up with the rose soil,
the leaf mole compost, that happened at Nature's Way, they are the leader
in that. Now Nature's Way has a thing called Fungal Fridays. I think
that's a funny name, Fungal Fridays, but it's a good thing. Ten
percent off their bag products, twenty percent off their bulk you can have them
deliver to you those kind of quality products. They've also got the largest variety
of native plants in the Houston area two acres Nursery and garden center, fruit
trees, native perennials, even seasonal vegetables and house plants at times out there.
But when it comes to native plants, when you're at Nature's Way,
you just kind of get it all get you. The soil gets you,
the malts get you, the plants all in one stop now, by the
way, beginning this weekend their summer hours or Monday through Friday from a to
five and Saturdays today from eight to two. They're closed on Sundays. So
if you want to get out there and get some products or give them a
call and get lined up to get a delivery, you need to do so
today before two o'clock Saturdays from eight to two pm at Nature's Way Resources.
I want to head out to Montgomery again now and we're going to talk to
Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, Skip. I was wondering. I'm
trying to find some large lava rocks. I've seen the moss rocks. I
can get those. I've got a bunch of those, but I'm building a
fire pit and some other stuff, fountain and all that, and I want
to use some of those charcoal colored lava rock the big ones and maybe even
some gray ones. I've found a couple I've had I've kept for years,
but all I can ever find in Large is the moss rock, and I
don't want to use that for what I'm doing. Yes, if you have
a bender or something that sells the large you know, like head size or
bigger of the lava rock, Okay, if are you able to go get
them or are you gonna have to have somebody deliver it? Well, it
depends on you, know how much it is. I live in Montgomery,
but I'm really closer to I'm between Magnolia and Dobbin. I'm just kind of
like called fourteen eighty six, and so it's about twenty five miles from Nature's
Way and eleven miles from A and A. Yeah, I believe. I
believe they have some stone in Nature's Way. The last time I was out
there, I believe. So I don't know, you know, as you
describe the stone. I'm not a stone expert, so I can't tell you
they have that one that you're looking for there, But you might try that,
But I tell you what you're really you are really close to Anna.
I would go over there. I know they have some stone there. But
if they don't have what you're looking for, ask them who would they recommend
in that area, Because when you're talking about something as heavy as rock,
trying to get that delivered it can be a little pricey, you know,
hauling at a distance and whatnot. So I would start with them there and
just ask A and A who in the area would they send you to,
because they're going to be aware of some places that I'm probably not aware of
up in the area. That's where I would run. Okay, because like
like you said that the Labba rock doesn't seem to be as heavy as a
monster rock. Monster rock is very heavy. It's very dense. Yes,
But I also comment that lady about the dogwoods, he needs to make sure
that's understory. It's an understory tree. I've got several of them growing on
my property. I got five acres here, and these are just wild ones
and they all grow up underneath the other trees. That's true. And they
yeah, dogwoods happy real well, that's right. A dogwood's happy places being
on the edge of the forest with its face stuck out there to get some
sunlight and the droots back in the nice forest floor. Duff. That's that's
dogwood. So you good point, well made, all right, Jim,
thank you for the calling. Yes, sir, good luck finding that material.
Heading all the way up to Montgomery. And while we're heading north,
why don't we go a little further north Carlos, Texas. Do you all
know where that is? Well, Grimes County Feeding Farm. It's just to
the east of Navasota. So if you're in the Brian College Station area.
I've talked to so many people from Brian Collos Station that listen to this show.
Carlos is just down Highway thirty from you. It's about two miles west
of FM two forty four and Grimes County Feeding Farm. They carry the product
lines we're talking about. So if you need the fertilizers, the nitrofiles,
the high Yield, the microlife, the turf Star, Nelson's and Medina and
Landscapers, Pride, tree Hugger sprinklers too. By the way there, you're
gonna get everything from a feed store that you would expect. Quality dog foods
like Victor Star Pro cat foods, food for other pets, livestock feed,
pest and rodent control supply. They got those mosquito dunks and hey, here
comes the rain. You go ahead and I am now, because you're gonna
want to toss them out wherever they're standing. Water to help control those mosquitoes.
Aquatic herbicide for your pond, fish food for your pond, and they
even have fish stocking twice a quarter through the Grimes County Feed and Farm Now
again, that is on fifty two sixty four State Highway thirty, about two
miles west of FM two forty four. I love Grimes Candy, Feed and
Farm. By the way, they got real cool cool shirts too, if
you want you a really nice shirt. The Grimes Candy shirts I think are
really well designed, really attractive. We talk about the importance of a quality
roof, and you've probably seen the solar panels that are out there on roofs
and you might find those a little unattractive. Well, Brinkman's roofing has timberline
solar shingles, so they're not above the roof, they don't sit on your
roof, they are the roof and they're fully warranted for twenty five years.
Brinkman. They've been providing service to the Houstonary for fifty years. This isn't
a fly by night. Don't trust the companies at knock on your door claiming
that you have storm damage and trying to get you to fill a claim.
Have a professional like Brinkman looked at the roof so they can assess it and
tell you what you really do or don't need. They custom manufacture metal seam
roofing as well. Go to Brinkman Quality. Brinkman has two N B ri
n k M A n N quality dot com or column two eight one four
eight zero seven six six three two eight one four eight zero seven six six
three, whether it's commercial or residential. Brinkman stands behind their workmanship for leaks
up to twenty five years. Brinkman Roofing. Well, Nikki, we are
we're just talking about all kinds of things gardening this morning, and what would
you expect from garden low Who would have thought that? Wow, I've noticed
that you just haven't had any gardening news in a while. So do I
need to make up some gardening news? So we can you know something breaking?
No, because it's like fishing today. Fishing Yeah, okay, Well
I can I can tie anything back to gardening? When the settler, when
the pilgrims came across the Native Americans told him you drop a fish into a
hole and then plant corn on it, and the fish becomes corn fertilizer.
So there we want from fishing the gardening. I'll get out of your way.
The Red Blue Jean Queen all the team. She just the bull Bufalula.
I haven't heard that one in a lot. You're listening to the garden
line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven
won three actions before my time seven one three two one two fifth seventy four
seven one three two and two kat r H. We are going to head
out now to pair Land and talk to k. Hello. Okay, good
morning, Good morning, Skip. Sorry, tell me anything but late for
dinner. How can we help you today? Yeah, thanks for taking my
call. And it was nice to meet you last week then at the Birds
Birds Center. Well that was a great time. I appreciate you and all
the other folks that came out. That was a blast. That was good.
Okay. My question is i have a great big bed that's gotten out
of control and I'm getting it back in condition and weeding and everything. Enough
come across, uh some little volunteer seedlings crape myrtles anywhere from five or six
inches up to two feet tall, and a couple of little small oak shoots.
Okay, I went to my garden center yes day and got UM roots
Stimulator riv organic roots stimulator, and it recommends using um fertilizer with it.
And I have medina has to grow. Can I just mix that with the
roots stimulator in the water, Yes, you could. And how long should
I leave the roots? You know, leave the plants in the liquid?
Oh, just soakm in it for a few minutes and then and then pull
them out a few minutes. That all right? When you when you dig
them up, get as much of the root system as you can. Soak
them down in that. Just make sure you mix the products according to the
label, not too strong. And then after you're done planting, you can
water them back in with it. Now, let me let me say something
about the digging up crape myrtle seedlings. When they develop crepe myrtles, they
go through ten thousand plants that they have specifically bred, choosing two different parents
to create a great crape myrtle, and ten doesn't planted. Maybe one of
them makes it as a variety. So what that tells me is even when
they intentionally breed a plant, most of what they come up with is not
the best. And it may be that it gets tall or short. It
may be that it's susceptible to powdery mildew or not. You see what I'm
saying. It may be that the color of them, that's right, I
mean it could Your yard may have the most beautiful crape myrtles, and those
seedlings you make it lucky. They may look pretty good. But you know,
if you just want to save a plant and do it yourself, and
hey, this is mine, you can you know, who knows. If
it turns out great, you can call it the k crape myrtle. But
my suggestion is pick a crepe myrtle by the size you want first, so
you don't have to butcher it every year to keep it a certain height.
Make sure it's one that's a disease resistant, and then pick the color that
you want, you know, just kind of play, you know. And
I've already done three and I thought they were gonna do I but they worked
back up and they're doing real good now. They're very small, just about
six inches well, and I just keep them in a pot but anyway,
well, I just wanted to get your idea. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it, you bet, And that's how you do it, I
mean you you you will have success with these. They're they're pretty forgiving and
so and by the way, thanks for coming oaks. The oaks, same
thing, same thing. Most of these things that are coming from seed have
a little bit of a tap root and so you know, oh they do.
Rather than digging real wide, you want to dig down. So the
more of the root you can get going down, that's more important than going
wide. Okay, Well, even with these little ones that I did,
I ended up just having to just pull them up and that was just bare
root, you know. And I just poked a hole in the dirt and
you know, got it firm around it and thought hope for the best and
kept watering. Okay, thank you so much. Yes, I did enjoy
the visit. Thanks, thank you so much. It was good. Good
to get to visit with you out there. By the way, I'm gonna
be now at the wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood next Saturday, a week from
today, eleven thirty one thirty. I'll be out there. Please come and
see me. The wild birds unlimited in Kingwood. I'll talk about that more
tomorrow and certainly next week as well. Let's head out to Spring and we're
gonna talk now to Anthony. Hello Anthony, Good morning, Skip. How
are you doing well? Thank you. I have a question. I am
trying to grow an avocado tree, and my guys planted it last year and
I actually got it growing. But I'm looking for somewhere to get a graft
from a mature tree, okay, and I have no clue. I've called
a few places and nobody can help me. That is, do you have
any suggestions. I do not know of a commercial source of graftwood. Now,
if you know somebody that's got an avocado, you know you certainly could
you get a graft off of a tree that is somewhere from your neighborhood or
family, friends or whatever. Uh As far as where you would go to
get a graft, I'm just sitting here trying to think of what a good
recommendation would be. I know there's probably a bunch of people listening going,
Hey, I've got a Joey here, I've got a Wilmer, I've got
whatever. You're welcome take a shoot off of it. But you know,
as far as just in for general public, where do you go to get
avocado graphs? I don't know of a good source for that. Maybe someone
listening does, and if you do, call us in the next ten minutes
here so we can we can hear about that. But that's okay, no
problem. I'm still fishing. I guess, yeah, really quick. Another
question. I wanted to try and grow some citrus plants this year, orange
and lemon a line, but I want to keep them small. Any recommendations.
I want to be able to bring them in when the weather gets really
cold. So the recommendations for what kind of citrus or how to grow them?
What do you? I guess what kind? What type? Mostly the
oranges? Okay, uh, yeah, I would I would consider doing it
at a container. And there are some oranges that you can grow in a
container, but oranges typically get pretty large, and so they kind of outgrow
a container pretty quick. And when a plant's outgrown it, it's more touching
going keeping it watered and you know, keeping it producing some bigger so it
continues to fruit. But that certainly could be done. I have tried satsuma's
successfully in containers before. They also get larger than a container would normally be,
but you know, satsuma about eight feet or at the most something like
that. In general, I've grown them in something the size of a half
whiskey barrow. But don't use a wooden whiskey barrowl because those rot out,
you know, the trio way out last the pot. Now you've got a
problem of what how to move that to a bigger container, So I would
try that certainly. The smaller things, you know, the myer lemon is
commonly grown in containers. The different kinds of limes and stuff would just be
another opportunity. Okay, Yeah, I had heard about these dwarfs orange trees,
but I don't know anything about merange trees. So well, hang on
if you want to hang on till after break. I need to take a
break right now, but I'll be happy if you're gonna stick around. Make
a few more comments. You're listening to garden Line, give us a call
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know you make
me run on? Who can tell me what movie? You probably heard that
song animal, hous Animal. A lot of toga parties said that is the
same track. You're listening to garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to
give us a call. Hey, if you're thinking about moving, if you
are interested in in a community that is one where you will find inspired designs,
maybe one that has lifestyle programs that are designed around you, you need
to consider Dellweb. Now, Dellweb has been doing communities for active adults age
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in about two miles from downtown fulsher on FM three fifty nine. Now,
this community is especially of interest to me because they've contacted me to help them
create a community garden on site for residents. And hey, this is garden
Line. If you're a gardener and you're looking for a place that it has
the quality lifestyle programs and the designs, I encourage you to at least give
them a checkout. I think you will be very impressed. Dellweb dot com
slash Houston for more information, give McCall at two eight one four five nine
six o nine. Check out this new fullshre community and discover the Dellweb difference
for yourself. I know you will be impressed with that. We're going to
head back over to Spring and continue our conversation with Anthony. Anthony had a
couple of other thoughts when we're talking about containers. One of the most popular
citrus and container is not just here, but all over the place is calm.
Calamondon is an acidic citrus fruit that for years has been popular. Even
people in climates where you can't grow citrus will grow these because they flush about
five times a year, meaning you get a new group of blooms and a
new group of fruits, so there's a lot going on through the year.
It's a real cool, cool citrus. To hot now it's hardy. It's
pretty hardy down to I think about twenty degrees if I'm not mistaken. Of
course, that depends on how prepared it is when that cold weather comes,
but calamondon will be kind of a novelty to do that. Another one would
be the cum quats there. I don't know if are you familiar with kumquats
or not. I've heard of them. I don't I'm not real familiar with
Okay, well, they're about the size of your thumb. The fruit the
maiwa sa maiwa and nagami are the two most common cultivars. One of them
is round, one of them's kind of oblong. Kumquats probably are most used
in marmalade because the skin I think is actually better than the fruit inside itself.
But they'll be they have that beautiful citrus bloom fragrance that is worth part
centris for and then you know it would be something that you would make kind
of a marmalade jelly type product out of ivy eating them fresh eating. They're
not the best citrus in the world for fresh eating, but they're very flavorful,
and like I said this, the skin is just eating pop like or
grape in your mouth. They're really really uh kind of yummy for that.
So that'd just be another couple of ideas if you want to go with a
container, those two are going to be even more suited to that. And
plus both of those have significant hardiness. The kumquat is hardier than even the
satsumas, which are one of our hardiest of the mandarin types of orange.
Is it too late to get going on any of those of plants. It's
already tune. I know. Oh no, not at all, not at
all. You go to our garden centers that you know carry products like this,
I know Europe in the spring area, so you're not gonna be far
away from plants for all seasons. You know, you head out to Arbigate,
they're gonna have I think our CW Nurseries also has those. Uh,
it's gonna be very close to you. All of those kind of places are
going to carry the citrus. Just give him a call if you want a
specific kind of citrus, call first to make sure they still have those in
stock that have been bought out. But those those kind of places carry citrus
through the year for us. About what size container would you recommend to be
bringing in and out of the elements, like, I don't know, a
fourteen inch or something. You could start off small and do about a fourteen
inch just to get going. A lot of the containers you buy these in
are going to be almost that size. But once if you can get up
close to a half whiskey barrel size again, go with something that's not all
that would it's enough soil to where the plants are just going to be less
likely to go into stress from drought or whatever. And uh what I do
it just as a tip. You know, people think, well, how
can I carry something that size into the garage. Well, you get a
dolly or a hand truck, whatever you want to call it. Slip the
bottom under the edge of the pot, put a strap around the pot and
to both sides of the dolly, and you just lean back and I mean
one hand moves the whole thing. You don't even have to call your carprector
when you're done. Yeah, I got a dolly. That's what that was
my plan. So I appreciate that. That's some good tips. All right,
Well, thank you, yes, sir, you as well, thanks
for hanging on to through that break. I love citrus. I mean,
there are a handful of plants out there, and if as I name some,
I'll forget some of the best ones. I'm sure that are out there
as well. But there are a handful of plants that just have that unbelievable
fragrance, and citrus is one. It is heavenly when citrus blooms waffed across
the yard. That's why I like them in pots, because you can put
them on a patio where you sit there and enjoy them. Another one,
of course, is Gardenia. Oh my goodness, gardenia fragrance, white butterfly
ginger blooms in late summer and fall. Primarily the white butterfly, especially of
all the hidachims, has a great fragrance. Just heavenly. There's another plant.
Oh, what's it called? What's it called? Trying to remember the
name. It's got a vanilla fragrance to it. Now. The name of
it just jumped right out of my head as I started. Aloysia vergatta,
Aloysia gush. You can't say the name anyway. The genus is Alosia,
and it has a vanilla fragrance. It makes a big shrub, so this
isn't gonna be a small plant. Makes a big shrub, got little spikelike
blooms that come out wonderful, wonderful fragrance to those of vanilla like fragrance as
well. I wanna just remind you that when you're needing products, and we
talk about all these products on garden Line all the time, one of the
simplest answers is to where do I get if those? Is to go to
an ace hardware store near you, and there's thirty nine of them in the
Houston Greater Houston area, and so there is one near you. Now you
can go to ACE Hardware dot Com. Go to there. You know,
they're a selector for locations, and then you can find the one that's closest.
You got a map of the area and zoom around find one or two
or three that are close to you. Ace Hardware carries all the products we
talk about and so fertilizers and soils and things like that, but Ace Hardware
is so much more. You know, their grilling selection is like none other.
Do you like Webbard? Do you like Tragger? Do you like Big
Green Egg? They've got it all. They've got power equipment for your yard,
the things you need. Maybe you need a grilled, maybe you need
furniture for outdoors, you need decore lighting, and then everything else that a
hardware store would have, you know, paint and plumbing and electrical supplies,
home supplies, I mean different appliance of products, you know, like your
you know, croc pots and types of things like that. They've got all
that kind of stuff at an ACE Hardware store. You're gonna be really surprised.
And as far as gifts, un amazing gift selection as well, all
kinds of things that would be very suitable for a housewarming gift or for just
a gift for a friend or someone in the family. Go to Ace Hardware
dot com and you'll find those thirty nine Ace hardwarees in the area. Go
check them out. If you remember the Ace Hardwares of old, you haven't
seen the new Ace Hardware. It has a service that we've always expected from
Ace, but oh my goodness, it has become so so much more Ace
Hardware. I love going in to do shopping at Ace Hardware's. We've been
talking garden line all day here, all kinds of plants. So we're gonna
be back tomorrow. By the way, we'll be here from six am to
ten am every Friday and every Saturday as well. Now, if you miss
a show, or excuse me, Friday and Saturday, what am I talking
about Saturday and Sunday. You know, you'd think I'd know the show that
I actually hope it's actually on the air. But that's what happens to your
brain when you give more than twenty thousand words in the morning Saturdays and Sundays
six am to ten am. If you miss a show, or if you
heard a show, but what was that thing? He said? Check us
out by podcast. We're available by podcasts, part of the iHeart Media podcasts
that are out there. You can listen to pass shows as well. Tell
your friends family about ACE Hardware, Ace Hardware, about Garden Line, about
all the products that you hear about here. When we promote something on the
show, it's because I've tried it, because I know the product, because
I believe in the product, and so it's not just like someone shows up
with some money and says, hey, here do an ad. We check
things out, and I know Randy always did that through the years. There
are a lot of times someone would want to advertise on Garden Line. You'd
say, no, we're not going to do that. That tradition is continuing
here. So if I'm going to put my name on it, it's going
to be something I believe in, whether it's a product, whether it's a
service, whether it's a store, you name it. That we want to
be a place that you can trust. We want to be a place.
I really strive on the information that we give being research based information. You
can go on social media and hear all kinds of things about plants. Forget
about ninety eight percent of what you hear