Katie r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Escape
Rictor. It's just watch him as so many crazy well good Sunday morning.
Welcome to Garden Line. We're glad to have you with us today. Absolutely,
what are we going to talk about? Let's talk about something related to
plants. How about that. That's what we're here for. We want to
help you have a beautiful garden and a bountiful garden as well as a beautiful,
gorgeous landscape, one that you enjoy. So how do we do that?
Well, we give you advice, we give you tips to have success.
We point you in the right direction of any kind of products that can
help with that, but especially focusing on practices that are important to have success.
You know, it's really not rocket science. It's just a matter of
doing the right kinds of things at the right time. And I know that
sounds like, well, how do you know? Well that you learn over
time and anytime you want, you can call us here, send me a
picture via an email. We can diagnose something and figure out what's going on.
By the way, we had a great time out at RCW Nursery yesterday.
Thanks the folks out there for David and Kathleen hosting us out there,
and just you guys wore me out. I kind of hit the bed last
night and I was about brain dead. I think I'd answered enough questions for
the day to last for the week, bring in samples of weeds and things
and pictures of things. It was good. I love doing that. That's
what it's all about. Gives us a chance to rub shoulders, look eye
to eye and resolve some of the issues that you have. Also gave away
a lot of good stuff out there too. RCWS. You know they've got
a credible sale on right now. I mean when I was out there,
I couldn't believe a pull a video on Facebook. Just the color the place
just looked awesome. I mean, if you didn't see yoga, look at
it. But it is just tons of roses still. I mean, they
still have a lot of roses available. They specialize in trying to have about
as wide a variety as anybody could possibly have when it comes to roses.
When it comes to trees and things, of course, they grow their own
up in Plantersville area. And the tree farm, and so they've got the
kind of trees that grow here, the kind that you would want to plant.
By the way, it's still okay to get a tree planted if you
hurry up and get that done. Just give it as much time as you
can for summer. So go ahead and get it done. Now's a good
time if you're thinking about it and going, well, I may do it
next year. Well, every year you wait is a year behind that you
are on getting that thing up where you can hang a hammock in it,
or where it's big enough to bloom. If it's a blooming tree, they
have beautiful boom and Billie is too some standards that kind of like they have
a single trunk or a braided trunk and and just beautiful billows of blooms up
on top. I was, I was super super impressed. I mean,
the place looks good. You know that that's just normal for them, but
uh, it was. It was a showplace for sure. Absolutely. If
you'd like to give us a call this morning, my phone number here on
the garden line is seven one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two kt r H. By the way, RCW for
those who don't know, is the nursery that is where Beltway eight and Tomball
Parkway Highway to forty nine come together right there. Easy to get to get
in and out of UH. And again, like I said, the stock
is great. I picked up some Lantannas myself while I was there. We're
redoing a front flower bed and I just needed a row of those. I
got some of the semi dwarf types. There's a number of new series of
Lantana's, by the way, that are just outstanding, several different series by
different breeders. But you know, the old Lantanna's got about waist high or
bigger, and those are fine. Those are good. There's a native lantanas
here in Texas, there's some, and then there's also lots of different bread
Lantanna's, but now they keep working with them. And there's some that only
get like a foot high. They're very small, very compact for lantana.
There's others that get you know, maybe two feet high eighteen inches two feet
high or two or three feet high, and you kind of get to pick
what you want. The colors are outstanding, they're just beautiful. Lantanna's a
great plant for the heat that we have to deal with here. I love
them, I just love them. Anyway. That's what's going on in my
house next this week, getting out there and get those things planted. Also
working on redoing an herb bed, and that has not the process hasn't started
yet, just the planning part of it. But I let some child dives
go to seed. I love chi flowers that are great for beneficials and stuff,
but I'll let them go to seed. And I know better than this.
And my herb bed became a chichia pet. It looked like wheat grass,
you know, just everywhere everywhere, little sprouts of chives coming up.
It was like grass through the whole bit. And so we tried sifting through
that and getting all the little bulbs out, and you know, that's an
ongoing process. But we're going to redo the soil in there, screen it
a little finer, and then replant with some new herbs that we're wanting to
try out to If you haven't grown herbs before, you ought to. Herbs
are wonderful. You can grow herbs for whatever purposes you want. I mean,
there are medicinal herbs which I know essentially nothing about I try to stay
out of that kind of field. But when it comes to culinaries, and
then just the beauty the herbs we use for cooking, and the herbs that
I think are just they deserve a place because they're beautiful. When Mexican met
marigold blooms in the late summer and fall, those yellow blossoms are beautiful.
When pineapple saved, which is a type of salvia, puts those red tubular
flowers out, the hummingbirds lineup. They love it. Plus you get the
wonderful pineapple scented foliage on the plant. And there's just a lot of great
ways you can use herbs. Oregano awesome groundcover, marjoram, same thing.
The time spilling over the side of a container looks really nice. Time is
another great one. Rosemary is one of the most drought tolerant plants you can
plant. Years ago, we had a drought. Oh, I guess this
would have been probably over ten years ago now, and the master gardeners up
in north central Texas, I can't remember if Denton County or which county,
they went around town looking at what was living and what was not, and
they were just taking Italia plants, and rosemary is one of the top plants
for surviving during that excessive drought that they had up there. It's a good
one. The only way the only problem with rosemary is you bring it down
here to Houston and put it in a black clay soil in a low spot
where it sits in a swamp. It will not be happy with that.
But just give a good drainage and it's an excellent plant, excellent plant to
have. Well, it's time to be getting our lawns in order for summer.
And nitrofoss is superturf the silver bag nineteen four ten Superturf by nitrofos.
Fifty percent of that nineteen percent nitrogen is slow released to gradually feed over time.
It's got iron about four percent iron in it, by the way,
which helps with green up. When you see yellow areas in your lawn for
one reason or another, they're usually connected to iron deficiency, and so superturf
helps fix that too, gradually feeding over time, which is how we want
to fertilize when it comes to the summer. You're going to find nitro fross
products in a lot of different places. I pretty much find them everywhere I
go, but a Fisher's Hardware down in a Baytown area has got them Lake
Hardware, and Angleton has got nitrofoss products. You go up to Tombold D
and D feed store day carry nitrofoss as well. Let's take a little break
here and I will be back of a number if you'd like to give me
a call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome
back to garden Line. We are glad you're with us today. We're going
to talk about some things related to gardening. Excuse me, that always happens
to me first thing in the morning. I don't know why, but when
when I see a microphone, I start dealing with that first thing. We
are glad you're here today, and I want to talk a little bit about
as we get going here. First thing, vegetables. We don't talk about
them a lot here on Garden Line, not as much as perhaps i'd like
to. Your vegetable garden is an opportunity to not only enjoy growing things,
but to produce healthy food for your family. You know, I always like
to say that when you grow stuff in your garden, it's fifteen hundred miles
fresher. That's pretty true. A lot of the time. What do you
like to eat? What do you like to grow? Tomatoes are the queen
the garden. I mean, that is the number one vegetable. Everybody loves
it. Behind tomatoes. I think probably we're looking at cucumbers. Maybe peppers
would be back in there too as in terms of popularity. But there's a
lot of different kinds of vegetables you can grow, and just by following some
of the guidelines on when to plant and what to plant and how to have
good soil, you can do that. If you don't have a garden,
you can get one. You can put a box on the ground. You
can buy a box like you know lego. I've talked about vego beds in
the past to put together and put things in them. A lot of people,
i mean people even stack up their cinder blocks to make a box for
gardening. It doesn't the plants don't care what they're in. Whatever holes the
volume of soil they need makes that makes them happy. They're going to be
okay with that. It's for us that we want attractive or easy to get
two beds or beds that don't take up much space. Cinder blocks. Each
block takes up eight inches. With so two blocks, one on each side
of the bed, there's sixteen inches of whatever space you had that's gone just
for the sides of the bed. That's kind of the negative on one of
the negatives on those, but whatever you want to do. Also, containers,
You can garden in containers. It is not difficult at all. Just
make sure your containers hold as much soil as possible. So if you're going
to grow a tomato, can you grow a tomato in a five gallon bucket?
Yes, the holes in the bottom. You can grow tomato, but
be ready to water it twice a day to make sure it never lacks for
moisture, doesn't go into moisture stress. I prefer to put tomatoes in at
least ten gallons of soil and a good quality soil mix. When you have
a good quality soil mix, it's going to hold water, but it's going
to drain well, and that is important if you want success. Here's the
thing. People grow tomatoes in containers that are too small, and they look
out, oh it's wilting, and they water and it bounces back and they
go, no harm, no foul. Well, actually, yes, there
is, because what would have set may then abort, but maybe one will
set the next day or two or three and so on. But you don't
know it. But you're losing productivity, or you're losing the development of the
fruit into a good sized, tasty fruit, or you're getting blossom and drot
because of that intermittent too wet, too dry kind of condition. And so
you just want a good sized container. So there's a large volume of soil
because ever drop of water in every molecule of nutrient has to come out of
that one container, and a plant grown in the garden would have had much
more root zone area to draw from. So if you do that a container
that's a good size, it drains well with a quality mix, and you
fertilize it, you're going to have success. It's not hard. Sun o
add sunlight six hours of sunlight or more. Now. Jungle Land is a
niche frost product that is designed for outdoor gardening, and they also have a
version for indoor gardening too with the water saving crystals. The outdoor one is
called jungle l in flour and vegetable planting soil, and it does the magic
trick of draining away excess water very well, but also holding onto water for
the plants to be able to use. So you want moist soil, you
want soil has plenty of water, but you do not want water logged.
That's why we have drainage holes in a quality mix like jungle In. You
can buy jungle In in a lot of places. You know, nitropos products,
they're widely, widely available. If you go down to Clute Lake Jackson
Lake Hardware and Clute Well, they've got it there. If you go to
Gym's Hardware up in Montgomery for those of you listening in Montgomery or maybe over
a task Asida, the task as to Ace Hardware store also has nitroposs products
like the jungle In. But if you get a good container, get a
good quality soill like that, you can have success. I've got two pepper
plants to uh jalapanias that are in it looks like little whiskey barrels, but
they're plastic and they're probably hold about a fourth as much as a whiskey barrel
holes a half whiskey barrel holes, and they're growing in there. And a
couple of times I've let it get away from me I'm busy, I'm doing
other things. I'm out of town, and I come back and they're kind
of wilting. I know better. I know that should have been a little
bigger container, but it's what I had on hand at the time, so
we went with it. I just need to watch. Another thing you can
do when you are struggling to keep a plant adequately hydrated is if you put
that plant where the hottest part of the day it gets a little bit of
shade. You know, you're still getting plenty of hours of sun, but
it's not like eight or ten hours. Yeah, I mean, it's not
just like all day that thing is getting hammered with sun. That helps a
little bit on you keeping up with the soul moisture, and a lot of
plants appreciate that. By the way, is the weather heats up, you
want to move your some of the plants that are a little bit wimpy when
it comes to hot summer sun into that partial shade. I have some geraniums.
I love geraniums, some beautiful, beautiful new geraniums on the market,
and in the springtime they're great. Just put them out there in the sun,
full sun and everything. They're happy. When it gets hot, mine
move over to where they get some afternoon shade. I give them as much
sun as I can in the morning and then afternoon shade, and that helps
them get through the hot summer. We're just a little on the hot side
for them to be real happy down here year round. But that's an easy
plant to grow if you don't overwater it. There's another good example. I
was visiting with the folks at the Bee Supply the other day and they were
telling me about a couple of cool things that are going on. First of
all, they have a b rental program. Do you know you could rent
a bee, Well, not ab but a bunch of bees. So if
you live within fifty miles of Dayton, Texas, which is where the Bee
Supply is, and you've got five to twenty acres, you can contact them.
Go to their website, thebsupply dot Com. Go there. That's where
you order your bees. By the way, we're drawn near to the toward
the end of the time, where you get all your orders in and get
your bees in. So if you want to order bees, get that done.
But you go there the website and check out the bee rental program.
If you need an AG exemption on your property. Bees are a legit way
that that can be achieved. And what the rental program is is that they
come out, they set them up, and they do the work for you
on tending the hive. And so that's a good deal. You just need
to read more about it on the website and talk to the folks at the
Bee Supply. Another thing, and I talked about this for the first time
yesterday, is there are a lot of different kinds of bees other than honey
bees. We have many native bees and one type is a leaf cutter bee.
And you may have seen the little bee homes where it's like a box
and it has all these looks like straws in it, all stacked up like
a pile of pencil or apollo straws. Rather well, the leaf cutter bee
is an excellent pollinator bee. They're super aggressive or anything like that. They
mostly work during the daytime and they get their nest set up, they raise
their young in those little straws. And you can actually purchase leaf cutter bees
at thebe Supply. I think that is so cool. It's another pollinator that
you can use in your gardens and it is a very good one. It's
one of the one of the native bee pollinators that we have around the area.
They can tell you how to do it again thebesupply dot Com. You
want to add to your pollination in the garden, have more success, more
productivity, and so on. Why not contact the bee supline get some of
those leaf cutter bee boxes. Plus, it's a cool conversation piece, you
know, walk around and show people what's going on. It's a whole different
kind of bee than the regular honeybee that you may be familiar with. Our
phone number if you would like to give us a call seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. How do your beds look out in the garden or do you have
good color in them? This is a season to get the color planted in
your beds. And when you're doing a bed change, you want to fertilize
the soil, mix it into the bed and then plant your plants. Every
time I do a bed change, in addition to pulling any little weeds that
have popped up in there, work in a good supply of nutrients for the
next Think of it as a crop a crop of flowers that you're about to
grow and watered in real good after planting, and you're back off hitting the
ground running again, ready to go for summer. It's time to plant heat
loving plants. I know it's not hot hot out there, certainly not today,
but we're about to get warm and so some of the things that are
a little wimpier that aren't going to make it past spring, you still plant
them, but you're the amount of months or weeks that you're going to get
a beauty out of them is more limited at this point in the season.
But things that can take heat. I mentioned Lantana before. Salvias another great
plant for taking a lot of heat. If you're looking for annual em bedding
plants, Colius. It never gets too hot for Colius. They are Colius
now for the sun and for the shade. Angelonia is one of my favorite
summer color plants because it's just dependable. They call it summer snap dragon.
Not real crazy about that name, but it's sort of is like a snap
dragon, and that it has a spike of flowers on it comes in beautiful
colors as well. That's an excellent one. I mean, I could go
on and on and on. All the heat loving plants, personalane, and
many many others. But get those beds done, get the soul worked up.
Add some composts to it. Always a good idea to add an entrer
to a compost every time you rework a bed, and that just gets it
better and better. Now you don't do all that work yourself. Call Piercecapes,
you know. Piers Capes is the company I've talked about for years now
that is just absolutely unbelievable work when it comes to designing a landscape, designing
a bed, creating an outdoor area, hardescapes, drainage problems, irrigation all
that. They also to a quarterly maintenance of beds. You can harre them
come out every quarter. They trim, they weed, they fertilize, they
check the irrigation. They do seasonal color changes in the bed. You know,
hey, it's time for trading out the pansies for something they can take
the summer heat. They do that sort of thing, and they mulch over
the beds really really well. And I think it's nice having the peace of
mind knowing that they're keeping your beds looking really really good. It's like you're
not coming home one day going, oh my gosh, that thing's gotten weedy.
I got to get around to taking care of it. Let them do
it for you, pierscapes dot com. Here's the phone number two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero.
Go to that pierscapes dot com and look at the other kinds of work
they can do. You will see some really inspiring things there. As a
result, they do excellent, excellent work. Do you know that you could
rent bees? I was just talking about renting bees. No, I did
not want the bee supply. Well, if you have five to twenty acres
and or within fifty miles a dayton up here, they'll come out to your
property, put bees on it, and they come and take care of the
bees for you. It's like you're this big bee farmer and they're coming in
and doing the work and they turn me hives and you get to watch and
you know, be part of that. These so critical to plants, to
food to us. It is. I think Honey's involved in this deal too.
That's the most important part. Oh cool, I think that's cool.
All right, we're gonna turn it over Nikki here's the phone number if you
won't get me a call, seven one three two one two k t RH.
Welcome back to the garden Line. Good to have you with us today.
Hey, what do you want to talk about? Gardening wise? If
you have a question or just could use some advice, I will even allow
you to bragger in your garden a little bit, but not for long,
but we'll all a little bit of that if you'd like to give us call
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know,
gardeners are proud of the things they grow and do in the garden, and
because it's an accomplishment, you know, it's kind of cool to think about
the fact that you can go out there in the dirt, and I know,
don't lecture me about difference between dirt and soil. You can go out
there in the dirt and you can put something in the ground and you can
end up getting flowers and vegetables and herbs out of it. You can go
out there in the dirt, you can plant some grass and mow it right
and fertilize the water right, and you can end up with a beautiful outdoor
carpet that affects the actually affects the temperatures around your house because that reflective heat.
You know, people that think of rock landscape, what you see out
in Arizona, Phoenix or someplace. You see these rock landscapes, Well,
yeah, you don't have the water them, but oh my gosh, the
reflective heat, the effect of that, we don't need that lawn is like
an air conditioning unit. Literally, they can tell you how many BTUs of
cooling turf grass and plants in general, but turf grasp me in a plant
provide. That's true with trees as well. It's not just the shade that
you get from a tree which helps cut down on the temperatures down lower,
but when plants are transpiring water, then that moisture that they're sending out that
actually has a cooling and effect that that's what happens when moisture essentially evaporates away
from a surface. I see what we're going to do. Let's head out
to Parland and we're gonna talk to Don. Hello, Don good, I'm
good, sir, how are you today? I'm doing good. I want
to ask you about my lilyes that I have and they don't but it already
the flyers and they'll fall off the stem. Well, they re all bud
again this year? And also if they're not, should I go ahead and
cut the stem back where they butt it at? You know, I would
wait and see. There's different kinds of lilies. There's different variations of little
the you know, the what we call lily. There's even things that aren't
lili's that we call lily. So I would just wait and see on these,
give them a little more time. You may get in some more either
side sprouting or shoots that come up and do blooming, depending on which kind
you have. But are they are they still blooming some or are they completely
done? No, they're still bloomy some. Okay, Yeah, I would
give them. I would give them a little more time. You may get
they get some more out of it. I wouldn't give up just quite yet.
Okay, Yeah, not cut the stems that the flowers is on dead,
not just yet. Let's wait and see. Let's see how they do.
How long have you had these lilies done? Oh? Maybe two three
weeks? Oh okay, pretty short time. Yeah. Another thing you could
do is send me a picture of the flowers so I could see specifically the
lily you're dealing with, and I could comment on that if you would like
to go that route. I have the type of and actually pronounced its a
is a t I c oh asiatic lily. Okay, yeah, what color
is it? It kind of an orange color or pink pinkish, well,
the pink and some of pink, well actually some of white, and then
the other plant is kind of reddish red. Okay. Asiatic lilies in general
are not going to rebloom. You shouldn't see more blooms coming on those.
Uh there. Yeah, I would say some people can get them to rebloom
with, you know, providing them with some care and just depending on the
climate you're growing in and the and the health and condition of that plant.
But yeah, as far as generally, I find that they're kind of a
one shot and the future blooming is not that great on most of the asiatic
lilies. Now, there are exceptions to it. And again, like I
said, there's there's so many different kinds of lilies. There's the easter lily,
there's the foremost in lily, there's a tiger lily, and those are
all different kinds of lilies that have different like the formotion lily doesn't rebloom.
Okay, I know better than to pick them next time. Well, but
but just wait and see maybe that maybe they'll they'll turn around and do good
for you. Okay, well and brown now, so yeah, it was
some of those some of those kind of factors in there. It's it's just
you know, some people will tell I've talked to people that said they cut
the blooms off real carefully when they're done, and keep the foliage intact and
fertilize them and stuff like that. They can try to get them to re
sprout and do a little bit. But I again, it's going to come
down to specifically the one that the specific one that you have. All Right,
appreciate it all, thank you, thank you very much, John,
I appreciate that. Yeah, it's oh gosh, lilies are so beautiful,
tiger lilies and some of the others. If they are stunning when they bloom.
I mean, even if they bloom once, it's it's worth it because
they're so beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Hey, if you haven't fertilized your lawn,
sweet green from nitroposs is a great option for a natural fertilizer to put
out there. It's a molasses based microbes get a hold of the molasses in
the process the production of it and to create the Sweet Green on eleven percent
nitrogen, which is high for an organic fertilizer. When you put it on
the soil, microbes, especially bacteria beneficial bacteria love molasses type product on the
soil, that carbohydrate and they do really well. It smells wonderful first of
all, and when you put it out you're going to get a release as
the microbs go back to work on it and release that nitrogen out of the
fertilizer and you will see good results in your lawn green up really nicely.
Sweet Green is available in a lot of different places. Being a nitrovoss product.
You can find it at the Arbigate Arbrogate in Tombaal It carries nitrofoss products.
Kingwood Ash Hardware is another nitrofoss product retailer where you can find many of
their things. And those are just two good examples of places. Shades of
Texas, by the way, another one out on Genoa, Red Bluff.
They carry nitrofoss products out there as well. Let's go to San Leone right
now and talk to Ted. They ted Ou there, we've got a viney
weed growing through the Saint Augustine. The only picture I found is maybe close
enough, kind of look like a spotted spurge. Okay, in the yard
behind this, they didn't mow and it would grow vertical. But then when
they mowed, this thing grows horizontal and it's a it's a very viiny looking
and uh ted. To give you a specific idea, I'll have to see
it, and we can do that with this. You're sending me a picture.
I can take it well. And this picture I showed they finally referred
to it as a broad leaf. So I'm wondering if the weed beater ultra
might handle it. The weed beaters will would all handle that pretty well,
they should would. I would use the spray so you can get it on
the foliage and use it so it holds onto the foliage. Okay, you
put it, you said, you said, yeah, at a fact,
and to make sure it sticks to the foliage. Okay, Well that's pretty
sticky as it is, isn't it the night it is? It is?
But they are made to do that. But depending on the weed, some
weeds are just very resistant to to waters that it balls up. I canna
leaves, you know, you spread and they're not they don't look slick so
much. But boy there so it just so. So if you don't want
to do a photo, I can tell you if you go out and break
the stem of the weed, if it's a spurge, milk, white milk
will come. Read that. Okay, I'm doubting that's what you have though.
Okay, yeah, it kind of looks like it though. But a
funny thing. I was going to call you yesterday to see if it was
too hot to use the wheed. Well, it's a lot cooler today,
It's yeah, it's not. And for I don't know how long it's going
to stay the temperate, not today's temperature, like the temperature it was yesterday.
But on days like that, do it early in the morning so that
by the time it really heats up, it's dried. And you know,
I wouldn't worry about that. There are other weed beaters. There's weed better
complete. There's a weed beater for southern lawns and and but the ultra is
more effective, but it's also one that can do more damage if you Yeah,
well I use it. I just spot treat with a pump up sprayer
because I use it. Okay, okay, I wish, I wish I
could tell you what weed it was, but it several weeds. Figure out
a description. When you said it can come up high, but it can
also go sideways when you mow it. That sounds like the fall aster that
that happens like what it sounds like what fall aster? Or it's also called
black land aster or slender aster. Okay, okay, all right, good
luck, ted, hike you my bye. Appreciate it. Take care our
phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be
right back. Welcome back to garden Line. We're talking gardening today. What
are the things that are of interest to you? I know one thing that
is of interest to you is having quality plants. Because when you get a
quality plant, that means that it belongs here, meaning it wants to grow
here. It's not a blue spruce from Colorado you're trying to kill it in
Galveston tech. It is a plant that wants to grow here. Another thing
is a plant that was grown well, intended too well. I was in
a place, I'll say the other day, I wasn't there for plants.
I was there for hardware type things and it was one of the big,
old, giant, big box stores, I'll leave it at that. And
I was out in the area that they had their plants in and it wasn't
being taken care of. There a whole racks of plants that were just shriveled.
I mean they were basically dead or they soon would be when you got
them home. And that's not what you need to take home, right You
need plants that are healthy, plants that look good. And that's why we
like to promote our independent garden centers. We call them the mom and pops,
if you will. And Plants for All Seasons is that kind of place.
It's been around a long time since what nineteen seventy three. Plants for
All Seasons has existed and thrived because they offer quality products and they have knowledgeable
staff that know how to help you have success. And if you go in
there and you bring them a baggie full of some little bug or weed or
plant or whatever, a picture or something, they're gonna be able to identify
it. They're gonna be able to point you in the right direction if it's
something you need to control, if it's something you need to fertilize. They're
gonna they're gonna put the exact products you need in your hand. That's what
they specialize in and people know that. That's why they go back there.
They get good results. They are true lawn and garden experts. His family
owned operation by the Flowerties has been going strong for a good long time and
that is one of the reasons why if you want to turn your brown thumgreen,
that that's a good way to do it because they have the knowledge to
do just that. Plants for All Seasons dot com. That's the website,
Plants for All Seasons dot com or give them a call two eight one three
seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three seven six one six four six
and they are stocked up on color right now. Saw some beautiful color in
there the other day, really really nice. Another one of the secrets to
success is Ciena Mulch. If you live down south of Houston, you need
to first do what what is the first step on garden line to success with
plants. Take care of the brown stuff, get the soil right, brown
stuff before green stuff. Cienamol specializes in everything to make that plant happy by
making its roots happy. That would be composts, that would be bed mixes,
things like vegetable herb type mixes. You know, things for your rose
mixes, things like a what's a leaf mold compost? A fine greened leaf
mold compost, things like every fertilizer I talk about on garden line. When
you go to Sienna and bring that home and put it in your ground,
make your beds, create that nutrient content that is so important in the bank
account of the soil. Then when you go buy a plant and bring it
home, it is so much much more likely to have success. And that
is step one. And Cienamult is step one for all of you that live
down way south of the Houston area. They deliver within about twenty miles.
So if you are in Siena Plantation or Cola, Iowa Colony, Pomona Lake,
Olympia, Meridian First Colony, roadcher and Manville Riverstone, do I need
to go on? I will pair Land sun Creek Estates near the brasis Men
State Park, Sweetwater, Quail Valley. All right, I'll stop there.
Oh at one more Riverstone. All those communities are in the backyard of Ciena
Maltz. That's your local multch place. Also Multchz. Do you need native
hardwood molts, double ground malts, two inch screen malts? Do you need
rocks? Are you creating a river bed a dry river bed, which is
a real great way to improve your drainage, just channel it away like that?
Or are you creating a pati and you need some flagstone, some flat
stone. They've got it all at Ciena Mulch Again, just go to the
website Ciena Multch dot com, Sienna Maltz dot com. They'll get you set
up. They're closed on Sunday today, but they'll be back open again Monday
through Saturday. I love going down there too. It's just always I'm always
surprised at some of the blends and just the quality of a lot of the
products that they carry. That's nice. If you haven't fertilized your lawn yet
this spring, a great option would be some of the turf Star products from
Nelson's. You know Nelson has a long line of turf Star products that do
very well for your turf too. I want to kind of focus on today.
One is Bruce's Brew. Bruce's Brew is we think of it like as
a fast release fertilizer, and it is. It provides most of it's nitrogen
in a form that's going to release pretty quickly, so you get an immediate
result. You get that boost, that quick boost from it. But it
also has some of the fertilizer in forms that are slower available, so it's
not just a fast release. It's a fast release with a little bit of
gradual release going forward from there. Now the slow and easy from Nelson's that
is the completely slow release fertilizer, or almost all of it. It's got
a you'll get a little bit of release initially, but for a very long
time, for three or four months, you're going to get slow and easy
release of nitrogen into your soil. Grass needs to be fed gradually. When
you overdo the nitrogen at any one point in time, you get a lot
of top growth at the expinded root growth. And what does that mean when
you have drought? Well, that's not good, right. What does that
mean when you have grubs chew and a few of the roots that are there.
Not good? So we want to gradually feed it over time to develop
a good deep root system. It makes the plant more drought tolerant, just
physically just makes sense to do that. You're not going to burn your plants
with it. With that slow, gradual release, it's going to feed microbes
in the soil, and the slow and easy even the components of it helped
acidify the soil. This is not a you know, you're going to turn
a pH of eight into a pH of five overnight, but graduate over time
as you use it. It's it's pushing downward, which is helpful. Diseases
like take all root rot, for example, love a high pH environment around
the runners of your Saint Augustine grass and other other species that attacks slow and
easy by Nelson's is a great choice for that. I'm kind of amazed at
all the technologies now that we have to create products that you can just kind
of custom design them to do what you want. And the microbes get in
there, they get involved, they break some of that stuff down, They
some things, you know, certain kinds of compound. I'm kind of wandering
here, but I find this of interest. Maybe you will. Certain kinds
of nitrogen forms when they hit water, they become available. Water releases them
out of the granules. Other kind water if it's says really wet, it
actually stops release of the nutrient to a large degree. There's others that my
microbes get in. The microbes break it down over time. There's a lot
of different ways that those fertilizer particles can work, and a well designed fertilizer
can utilize that to provide the exact kind of release that you're looking for.
And I think that's that's pretty pretty interesting stuff. You're listening to garden Line.
We're gonn take a little break here in a bit our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to call
Josh and get on the board when we come back from the top of the
hour break, you can be the first up. Those of you downe in
Richmond, you know about Enchanted Gardens and Jenny Gardens has you know, it's
been there for a long time, but it's a place that people know about.
And I don't mean en Richmond, I mean around the state. People
drive from a long distance to go to in Chenny Gardens because other towns don't
have the garden centers we have. They just don't. And I've said this
before, North, south, east West, wherever you live in Houston,
you've got some awesome independent garden centers and Chenni Gardens. Richmond is that kind
of showplace. It's the kind of place people drive from because they don't have
one in their town. And I mean driving from Austin. I've lived in
Austin area. Some good garden centers over there, but nothing like over here
in the Houston area. And people drive to Chenne Gardens just for the plants
and for the experience of going out there. They have a whole lot of
little gadget tree for your faery garden. Have you ever seen a ferry garden
before. It's like think of a miniature garden, but it's outside. It's
not like it can be in a pot or a container, but you can
even do it around the base of a tree, little figurines and you put
in some moss and stuff and it just looks like, you know, a
little faerry family has moved in around the base of the tree or in a
large container. In Chened Gardens can get you set up and some really fun
cool ferry guarding. In fact, I think that's something that you got to
get the kids involved with. They're gonna have some fun with factor. Hey,
by the way, in chended Gardens Richmond dot com in Chennigardens Richmond dot
com. Go check them out. They're open today. Why you're there,
you can pick up those products that I've been talking about. You hear me
talk about fertilizers. They got them, they got it. Well, here
we go. We're about to put an hour in the books. Hey,
just a reminder, and I'll mention this again. I'm going to be at
Southwest Fertilizer next Saturday at eleven am, eleven not eleven thirty. Eleven am
to one pm, Southwest Fertilizer, and I'm going to be giving away what
they call skip bucks. What is that, Well, it's money, paper
money that you can use to buy product when you're there. So it's like
giving here some money, go buy you some stuff. And you know they
have everything at Southwest Fertilizers. They're going to give away a Toro blower,
a touro string tremor, We're going to give away some and other products.
It's gonna be a good time. I'll tell you more about that later.
Katie R. H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h Garden line with
Skip Rict. It's so crazy gas. Just watch him as many good things
to set czy in gas. Not a sound good morning on what's gonna be
a great day, by the way, I mean a very great day.
It is cloudy out there now, and it's gonna be cloudy for a little
while, but those clouds are going to push away and we are going to
get some sunshine peeking through, and it just gonna get better and better.
And the temperature is so good. Be a great afternoon to be out in
about, pick up some supplies and plants, or get out there in the
garden, do a little work if it's not too soggy wet. You know,
it's always best to work soil when it is moderately moist. You know,
when a clay soil is dry, dry, dry, it is like
concrete. You need a jackhammer to get through it. When it is soggy
wet, it is like a stick of warm butter. You try to,
you know, stick a shovel or a spade and fork or a rototiler in
it, and it's just goo. It's just a mess, and it destroys
the structure of a clay. To work it. When it's wet, let
me talk about structure in just a minute here. But when it's moist that's
when it's friable. That's when it breaks apart very easily. And even if
you have a really difficult clay, if you can catch it at that right
moisture level, that's a great time to do the amendments to improve it.
Things like expanded shale. If you can put about I know this is a
lot, but if you can put about three inches of expanded shale down into
a heavy clay, you can dramatically improve its internal drainage and oxygen levels and
everything for many, many, many years. Expanded shale is a type of
a clay that or well, it's shale, but it's been expanded by putting
it into a super hot oven and causing it to swell up and get all
these little poreholes in little pits and pockets and things kind of like lava rock,
sort of on a microscopic level, and it really improves the clay.
It's a good time when a clay is moist wet, not dry, to
put in organic matter like compost or bed mixes, to mix them with it
and take advantage of those moments when you can get in there and do that,
because you're always going to be wanting to have a quality soil. And
if you get it ready when you can, then whenever you want a plant,
you just go at it and you can get it done. Makes it
really really easible easy. I talked about structure and stuff. I'm gonna mention
I'm going to talk a little bit about texture and structure of soil little bit
later. It's a little bit nerdy, but I think it will help to
understand it a little bit better. Well, speaking of soil in a container,
a quality potting mix like jungle Land will do what your roots need to
provide everything they need in terms of nutrients and water. And here's how it
works. A quality product like jungle Land is going to hold on to nutrients
pretty well. It's going to hold onto moisture well also so that you're not
water in it three times a day trying to keep it going. But it
will drain away the excess when there's too much water. Gravity just takes it
right down through the jungle land and out the whole, and you don't have
to worry about soggy, wet conditions. It CAUs root rots. Jungle Land
is available in a number of places. Like a nitroposs product, It's going
to be pretty widely available through the region. Ktieace Hardware is going to have
it. You can go out to Memorial Drive and Ace Hardware City. You're
going to find it there. You can go down to Stanton's Shopping Center which
is down in Alvin and they're going to have it. Also, the the
land product. One one other quick quick thing. Well let me come back
to let me come back to that in just a minute. Let's go out
to League City and we're gonna talk to Jeff if I can figure out how
to push the right button. There we go. Hey Jeff, Hey,
what's going on. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing good.
It's a great day. Yeah, man, hey, yeah, So I
had this company to come out and cut my grass. I don't know,
several maybe a year ago even uh and and and the weeds have I guess
there are a law more must have brought in Bermuda. I've had Saint Augustine
and then uh just weeds and I mean it's just oh man. Then I
had chinch bugs hit. I'm trying to let that grass kind of grow in
there and put some weed and feet on about two months ago. But I
still have a real serious weed problem. I was reading something about atrazine.
They wouldn't harm, but I need something to tackle these weeds with. Yeah,
don't do the exerzine now. So you've got a couple of options,
and it part of it depends on what weeds you have. Things like bermuda.
You're not going to kill them in your Saint Augustine. They just coexist.
That's a problem with that particular week. If if these were weeds that
were more annual weeds, not really perennials, I would say you have two
options. One is you can spray them and kill them. Or number two,
you could just work on fertilizing, mowing, and watering properly and build
density through this whole growing season in your lawn. And then next year,
with a denser lawn, you're gonna have fewer weed problems and you just keep
focusing on good lawn care and grow yourself out of it. So there's the
options spray now or take time and just grow yourself out of the problem by
building a denser lawn. There are a few weeds that can coexist in a
dense lawn, but the majority of them ant and so so spray. You
said, spray, now, what what do you mean, like a contact
spray? Well, no, but you're you're spraying a broad leaf post emergent
weed killer like Furtilan has one called weed free zone, bon Eye has weed
beater. There are several forms of weed beater like the Ultra. Uh.
With cool temperatures like this, this will be a great day to get out
and do the spray. And because some of the better products for killing weeds
when the temperatures get up in the upper eighties and above can damage your Saint
Augustine. So do it now. In fact, this afternoon be a good
time to do it. Uh and uh Okay, so emerge like bone Eye
weed beater, Ultra or there are other weed beaters from Bonnite or Fertilan weed
free zone or two that will kill broad leaf weed. Now, Jeff,
if you haven't been online to gardening with Skip, go on there and I've
got my two schedules, the lawn care schedule and then secondly I've got the
lawn pest disease and weed management schedule. If you go to the second one
and you go down to weeds. There's weeds prevention and weeds kill existing.
You want to kill existing. And if you follow the bottom of the chart
on all the things on my charts, there's the organic and synthetic options,
but you'll find you'll find these products listed down there. Just remember, when
we get into the upper eighties, it's you still can do it, but
you need to do it early in the day when the temperature is probably in
the in the upper seventies maybe or lower mid seventies early on, and they
won't damage the turf. Okay, sounds like a plan. I appreciate it,
all right, You have a good one, sir, all right,
you as well. Weeds are an issue, I know that. And people
vary in their tolerance to weeds. They just and that's understandable. You know.
Some people it has to be perfect and so anyweed has to die.
Other people it's like, hey, weed, your green grass is green.
I'll mow it all and take my glasses off and it'll look just as pretty
as it ever did. I don't know where you are on that spectrum,
but it's okay. Wherever you are, go for it. But I want
to take a little break here and when we come back, Marty, you
will be the first up if you'd like to have a skull seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Gardenline. Good have
you with us this morning? Hey? If you I was yesterday, I
was out at an RCW nursery and talking to Mike Fodge, who is I
rep from azemite that serves the whole Texas area really maybe more uh, And
we were just discussing the product and people were asking questions about using it.
They donated a few bags it gave away for them yesterday. Congratulations. I'd
by the one that if you haven't put micro nutrient supp clement onto the lawn,
you might want to consider asimite. It is an excellent product that's mined
up in Utah and it provides those trace minerals. What does trace mean?
Well, the three numbers in a fertilizer bag are the elephant in the room,
Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Urfan needs lots of those. Then
there's things that are more secondary, like calcium for example, or magnesium that
are essential and it needs a lot of that, but not as much.
And then there are things that are trace like manganese or zinc or iron or
all the little trace minerals. Well, the trace minerals are also essential,
but they're needed in tiny amounts. A forty four pound bag of asimite will
cover about six ten thousand square feet seth going a long long way, But
you don't need a lot of it, and so you can do a soil
test to see what kind of nutrient youee you made. Just need to put
it on occasionally and do the replenishing. People that return their clippings typically are
recycling things like that. People that bag their clippings are hauling away some of
the nutrient that is important for grass to survive, so supplementation is even more
important in those situations. You can go to azimite Texas dot com and learn
more about it. Don't put azimite in the same hopper as your fertilizer at
the same time because the particle size is different. But you can do them
both on the same day by fertilizing and then putting out asimite, or you
can wait put out azimite at a different time when you aren't fertilizing. It
doesn't matter. Timing is not important on the asamite. It's just important that
your soil bank account has everything that the grass needs to grow and to thrive.
I want to head out to Marty now in Fairfield. Hello Marty,
good morning, Skip. I have a question. I have two different roses,
and I got to identify my problem as thrips and then on the other
one it has a little bit of thrip, but more importantly it has a
bungle on the on the leaves see and I've had manko zeb and I wondered
will that take care of both of those things? Not thrips? But it
is a good fungicide. Okay, now what would yeah for the throups if
you don't overuse it. Spinosaid is pretty good for throups. It's an organic
product that will kill throups. The problem with spinosid is people like it because
it's effective and it's organic, so they just overuse it every time they turn
around their spring and spinosid spinosa spinosid, and then we start to see resistant
thrips that to this organic product spinosa. So using it occasionally that is fine,
but I would alternate spinosid with other kinds of products just to avoid losing
a good product mean losing it, meaning it doesn't work anymore. It's not
the products heavy. Yeah, have you ever heard to Captain Jack's. Yeah,
Captain are you talking about the dead bug Brew? I don't know.
One of my guardians buddies recommended Captain Jacks and right, I don't. I
never really, I've never even seen it. Well, Captain Jack, there's
a dead bug brew that has spinocid. That's the Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew.
So yes, that would be one. Uh. There's also a Captain
Jacks that has soap in it with the spinocid. So you know, it
just depends. They're bon eyed products. Bone Eyde makes Jacks line. But
yeah, the Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew is a spinocid product, and you
know that would go ahead and that would help the thrips kill him. Yes,
huh. It is effective against thropes. But like I said, just
just don't don't only use that all year. Switch out to a different kind
of and say decide occasionally, you know. And so as far as the
diseases are concerned, you know, there are a lot of products out there.
There's fungenil, which is a pretty good leaf spot type of fungicide.
That's how I think of it, so you can use it on your roses
for black rot and things like that, fungenail. There's copper based sprays that
work pretty well for both powdery mildew and black spot on your roses. So
you got a lot of good options. Just the mancaz ebb would be a
good one. Again, don't just for the next two years spray nothing but
manca'z ebb. Well, I don't use it very often, but I have
it, and I didn't want to go out and spend more money on news
products, so well I understand. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Okay, Well, thank you very much, have a good one. All
right, Barty, good luck, thank you, thank you. Bye.
You live up Montgomery and you haven't been to A and A Plants and Produce.
I do not know how you have avoided that, because I mean it's
right there on the east side town. Every time you drive by you see
it. Just wonderful to wander through there. They've had a wonderful selection of
plants, of course at the garden center, and they have great supply of
products. And when you go to A and A you hear me talk about
a fertilizer soil. It's there. For example, they got Nature's Way leap
Mo compost, They've got airloom soils, they have fertilizers like Microlife, like
Nelson's plant Food, including all of the turf store line that I've been talking
about. They've got nitrofoss products as well, so it's easy to go in
there and get what you need. They do work up in the Lake Conroe
area if you need to hire their landscape crew to come out and do some
work. Talk to the folks at A and A about that as well.
Very active in the community, always doing stuff with kids there at ANA.
If you've got kiddos, contact them and find out when's the next activity coming
up, what's going on because they do a lot of fun stuff with kids
and supporting schools and things. Just a great part of the greater Montgomery area
community. So all of you up in there in the Lake Conroe area,
this is your hometown garden center and you really need to check it out.
O pig what Let's go out to Humble, Texas and talk to SHAWNA.
Hello, shawna Arnist, you thank you so much for tanking my call.
It's got to get any advice on the type of soil that I can use
for a plotted ut, for for a what please, a pot? Oh
oh yeah? Uh. You know, there's a lot of good mixes out
there. A sega is going to be around a while, so it's not
like your plant and pansies in a flower pot. So I would probably go
with something that's a little more on the chunky side. There are some good
blends. I know people that use rose mix and and all kinds of applications.
Not just a rose bed that would be a good option. Any any
kind of a good bed type mix would be fine to use because you're going
to need a good sized hot for that, saygo yes, yeah, excellent.
And any storage recommends to the Humble area. In the Humble area,
I would go probably, Well, you've got Kingwood Garden Center. You've got
Warren Southern Gardens up in Kingwood. If you get down into the Humble area
and you're you know, looking for like let's say an ace an ace store,
you can head out over toward a task Asita direction. Just down the
street on timber Forest Drive there is an task Asda ace hardware. Those usually
carry a good blend of of the products as well, so you might you
know, call first just to be sure. But task Asia Ace Hardware would
be another good one close by. Excellent, Thank you so much, all
right, you take care, all righty well, let's see here. Yesterday
also when I was out at RCW Nursery, we were visiting with the three
sixty tree stabilizer creator Kurt Kurt has created really just an ingenious product. Three
sixty Tree Stabilizer is a plastic bar, super reinforced, very strong. It's
got rubber straps on each end. You can get it fitted with a T
post attachment if you want, or you can buy the one that's just for
putting around a regular round post. It grabs a post and it grabs a
tree and it holds them very very well. Now, forget the wires,
buying wire steaks in the ground to trip over, you know, cutting pieces
of garden hose to go around the tree, you know, cut into the
limbs. Don't mess with that. Just put one tea post in the ground,
Put one tree stabilizer on the T post attached to the tree loosely so
the tree can move a little bit. That's important. You don't want to
make it perfectly stationary. Just a slight amount of movement and it works well
if you got a little more of a windy area and you want to use
two stabilizers one or south, one east west, so no matter where the
wind row goes, it's got that tree stable. You can do that too,
tree stabilizers or widely. But of course RCW has them. Buchanans Plants
has them, arbor Gate Plants for all seasons, Southwest Fertilizer where I'm going
to be next Saturday as tree stabilizers. Jorges Hidden Gardens down in alvin carries
the tree stabilizer as well. Makes it really easy, really easy to do
that. By the way, have you if you're down in the Alvian area
anywhere around that area and you haven't been to Hoges Hidden Gardens, you need
it. You need to go. Or has a wide variety of things.
You know you're gonna seasonally, you're gonna find things like vegetables there and whatnot.
They they're always carrying, you know, citrus trees. They've got roses
in stock. Typically last few times I've checked, they had blueberries and thornless
blackberries on hand. If you need some color in your beds. I was
bragging on lantana while ago they got those. They got Mexican heather, which
is another great plant. By the way. By the way, Mexican heather
too should be mentioned more on bee lists. Honey bees love Mexican and heather.
Hoe carries a lot of fruit trees and so on. Of course he
has that tree stabilizer. They're on Elizabeth Street in Alvin, just south of
Highway six, so seventeen seven twenty one Elizabeth Street and alban It's called Jorges
Hidden Gardens. They are open on weekends, so today from eight am to
four pm. Back on Fridays eight am to four, Saturdays eight to four
and Sundays eight to four Friday, Saturday Sunday. Jorges Hiddingguards had a bunch
of beautiful Peggy Martin roses that they brought through this year that were really really
attractive. I love I love those things. Let's see, We're gonna go
now to Cypress and talk to Sandy. Hello Sandy, good morning Skip.
I have a question do you birds like blueberries? Because I have so many
flowers and blueberries, and then the next day I go and they're vne they
do they do like blueberries? Yeah, you got to put a bird netting
over it probably if you're gonna if you're having that problem. And then strawberries
as well. Oh yeah, yeah, they will also eat strawberries. You
know, it's weird. I have a strawberry patchie here and I haven't had
any bird damage, but usually I do. So I don't know what's going
on right now. Maybe they just haven't discovered them. And then my black
beauty eggplants keep giving me flowers, but then the flowers fall off in that
Yeah, flowers don't produce anything. I need it because it didn't pollinate.
Well, yes, but I need to look into that more as to why
that is. We have that question come up seasonally, and I've never worried
about eggplant pollinating, but I do know that happens. I don't know if
it's a lack of bees or something, or if it is a temperature related
thing, but that does happen. There's nothing I know of that you can
do to fix it other than just wait. And they tend to settle in
and start setting a little bit better. Sandy, I'm ten seconds away from
a break. If you want to hold, we can keep talking her.
If we're done, I'm going to go ahead and put your on hold either
way. Okay, okay, oh all right, very good. We'll be
right back phone number seven one three two one two kat r h. Wellcome
back to guarden line. Good have you with us today? We are visiting
with Sandy and Cyprus. Sandy, Where do we go from here? I
have one more question my slicer tomatoes. They're getting big, but they're still
green. Can I pick them and put them on my counter and let them
turn right? Or how does that work? Yes? Uh, it's hard
to fully describe the difference as a tomato matures, but here's what happens.
You start off with the tomato that has very quirky material inside. It's not
it's not like jelly. Uh. And when you slice through a tomato like
that, if you did, you would cut right through the seas too,
with a sharp knife. Then as it hits a mature stage, the cells
inside those open spaces where the seeds are become more jelly like, and if
you slice through, the seeds are harder and they just sort of push to
the side. That's the line between it'll ripen inside and it won't. So
it size is definitely a factor, But you can have small tomatoes that just
aren't going to get any bigger that mature. So you can't just go by
size. But if you pick one that's hit the mature stage but it's still
green, you pick it and put it inside or wherever you put it,
it's going to ripen and just fine and actually turn out to be pretty good.
Oh okay, all right, well, thank you so much. Skip
had a great day, all right, Sandy, thank you for call for
the call. I appreciate that very much. Have you guys been to the
rosen for him? I'm telling you this is one another one of our awesome
destinations. But this is a great little trip. And by the way,
it's not that far. It's up there in Independence, Texas, north of
Brenham. You get there about an hour to where in the area you're listening
living in. You know, it's bluebonnet season still up there, so it's
a beautiful drive. It's just a wonderful outing. When you go to the
antique rosing Porium, it's like you enter another place in time. I mean,
it's like a botanical garden set back in the historical Texas past. Maybe
that's a good way to put it. I just love going out there.
Fun fun to go walk around see things. They've got the demonstration gardens they
call them the display gardens. Out there the nursery is loaded with all kinds
of things. I mean, if you want to go out and look at
all the things they carry. You know they are roses, but they are
so much more than roses. They've got native trees, they have fruit trees,
they got house plants and herbs and perennials. Lots of beautiful plants out
there. If you are part of a garden club, maybe a master gardener
group, a junior master gardener, group of kiddos, Native Plants Society,
Herbs Society, or just a bunch of friends hanging out looking for a place
something to do, don't go out there alone. Take your friends with you.
In fact, if you will get a hold of them, you can
email them at events at we Areroses dot com, events at Wearroses dot com
and say, hey, I've got a group I want to come out and
do a tour. I'd like to do a lunch and learn with you guys.
I'd like to do a gardencraft for workshop or something during the week or
on Sunday during the spring season. They can set that up and do it
with you. You can give them a call at ninety seven nine eight,
three, six fifty five forty eight, or go to the website and boy,
you're going to love the website. It is inspirational. Antique Roseemporium dot
com. They grow their roses and two gallon container. It's a nice robust
amount of soil there for a good strong rose. Ever roses that price twenty
nine to ninety five at Antigrosenporium and listen. They are nationally known for growing
wonderful quality, wide variety of antique roses. I hope you make a plan
on going out there. That's a great outing. We call that what do
you call it, horticultural tourism. There's a word for it, horticultural tourism.
It's a great place for that. I love doing every time I go
to a big city somewhere in the country, I find a good garden center
or a pick your own patch or something and just go out and see and
learn. Botanical garden there's another good place to do. I hope you do
some of that. It's pretty fun. The folks at Landscaper's Pride they have
a wide variety. In fact, twenty seven different products are available in bags.
Of course, they'll sell you bulk too. By the way, they
are always local, top quality resources. When you're talking about landscapers Pride,
they've been in business. That's two thousand and two, so now what over
twenty two years of experienced going on there. Landscaper's Pride has the kind of
products to have plants success. Remember, the brown stuff is what makes success.
With the green stuff. They have a rose mix marketed as rose Soil.
It has in fact is good for woody ornamentals or any especially plants that
like a little bit less hyghe. It's a little more acidic direction. It's
got fresh and composted pine bark and sphagnum and slow release fertilizer. Their gardener
Magic Soil contains humus. It contains the pine and composted rice halls. Isn't
that interesting? Little chicken pellet fertilizer too, takes it up to three months
of nutrient release in there for it. The pot Dirt is their organic certified
soil for those color beds where you really want things to pop and take off
growing. It's got worm castings and sand and vermiculi and other things that's just
an example of the twenty seven different products at Landscaper's Pride. Go to the
website Landscaperspride dot com. That's how you find out where to get it.
It's widely, widely available, a very high quality product for a very reasonable
price with Landscaper's Pride. When when you're taking care of your lawns and your
gardens, you always want to make sure the nutrient content is up there.
Think of fertilizing not as feeding the lawn that day, like as if you
were taking a spoon and feeding your plants each day. Think of fertilizing as
a bank account. And in that bank account are all the nutrients that a
plant needs. And so if the plant today the roots out there and it
goes, man, I've got to have some zinc and there's no zinc.
It's up a creek. It's in trouble. But if it has adequate of
all the nutrients, in adequate supply and in the right ratio too. By
the way, we need some nutrients more than others, then your plant's going
to thrive. And that's how Microlife fertilizer is designed. It's an organic fertilizer,
so it came from a plant, right, So if it was once
a living thing, it has all the nutrients, including the micros and things
like that that required to grow that plant, and now they're in an organic
fertilizer form. Microbes get a hold of micro life and they break it down
and they release the nutrients to your plants. So, whether you're using the
green bag to fertilizer lawn the six two four, whether you using I was
a Rcwstree we're talking about with one of the folks that stopped in the acidifying
the pink bag of microlife fertilizer. They were going to grow some things that
needed more acidic soil, and I said, this is the one you need
to get. The purple bag is humans plus, it's concentrated compost in a
bag. This and many many other microlife products. You can find out more
by going to Microlifefertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com. There you can find
out where to buy it and all the different products and learn a lot more
about it. Let's head out now, let's see here. I'll tell you
what, Jim, I'm going to have to hang on. I am hitting
a hard break and I always hate to have to cut somebody off for they
even get through asking the question. So, Jim, I'm going to put
you first up right when we come back. That would be helpful. If
you haven't been at the Arburgate in a while, you need to go.
Arborgate is a show place. It always is, it always has been.
Any kind of time of the year, you're going to find fruit, trees
and flowers and plants and shrubs and trees and or the gift shops are unbelievable
out there, the gardens to wander through or outstanding. And the best and
newest thing out there is the Trishel Road access parking lot. You just turned
on Trisher Road, go around behind Arburgate. You got an all weather parking
lot. Almost I'm gonna post a picture our video of that then I did.
I'll get it out on Facebook here. You need to see that,
and you need to go. You need to go to Arburgate because no matter
what you want, you're gonna find it, and you're going to have staff
that knows what they're talking on telling these people know what they're talking about,
they won't steer you wrong. And that is so important when you're buying plants
and products to get stuff that works, that works for the plant or against
the past or whatever you're dealing with. You need to be pointed in the
right direction. And Arbigate always does that. Knowledgeable with quality products. You're
not going to be better than that. All right, we're gonna take a
little break here our phone number seven one three two one two ktr GIM you'll
be first up. Welcome back to Guardline. Good have you with us today?
Listen? If you have trees, you need to take care of them
for a number of reasons. Number one, they shade your house, They
shade your patio, They provide you a break from the sun. They add
a lot hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to the value of your house.
They make the house more sellable. You know, if you picture a
house, you're going to buy a house, and you drive up there and
there's not a tree in site, versus you drive up and there's a big,
beautiful tree there, right, aren't you going to be more attracted to
that house? Those houses move up to move quickly on the market. In
order to have a successful tree, you need to plant a variety a species
that wants to be here in the site you have. You know, maybe
you got a soggy, wet soil and you need a species that can take
that kind of condition. Do you want flowers, do you just want shade?
Do you need it to be evergreen or do you prefer deciduous and so
on. All of that's important, But very important is somebody that knows what
they're talking about take care of the tree. And that's why I like to
talk about Martin spoon Moore an affordable tree service. Martin's been doing this for
a long time. He's he is very skilled at he's very knowledgeable at it.
He knows how to take care of a tree. And you got a
lot of people that I call him the two jerks on a chainsaw tree service.
They own a chainsaw, they own a pickup, and therefore they're a
tree person. Know they are not absolutely not. You need somebody that knows
how to pruit tree properly. If deep root feeding or something like deepruit watering
during a rescue drought, for example, we're doing that last year. If
that's needed. You need somebody knows what they're doing. If you're going to
do anything around an established tree, like put in a driveway or a sidewalk
or dig a trench for a utility or something. Call Martin first, have
him come out. Martin charges one hundred and fifty bucks to come out for
a consultation. Now, I will tell you what's needed or not needed,
to be honest with you about it. But if you decide to go ahead
and okay, I'm going to hire you to do that, whether it's pruning
or feeding or whatever, that one fifty goes on to the price of the
service you're hiring him for, so you don't lose it. So it's worth
having him come out, and you know he's not going to drive all over
town for everybody. It's just got a question and they're curious. Can't afford
to do that. So the one fifty is, hey, are you serious?
But I'm telling you you're you're hiring knowledge that pays off many times over
in terms of the value in the success you're going to have with those plants.
That's about as simple as I can put it. A f F Tree
service dot com, A f F Tree service dot Com. Martin Spoon Moore
seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three sixty nine
nine twenty six sixty three. Hey, this is a business. Martin and
his wife Joe or the owners. They answer their own phones. If you
don't talk to Martin or Joe when you call, hang up, you've called
the wrong place. Affordable Tree aff Tree Service dot Com seven one three six
nine nine twenty six sixty three. Let's go now out to Bracewood Place.
We're going to talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey skip, thanks
for taking my call. Yes, sir, I've got a problem with some
trees. Three years ago, I had a professional landscape put in a couple
of Eagleston Hollies for privacy screen and the one the first one, so one
of the two died. It got an insect problem and I wasn't able to
catch it quick enough and it didn't make it. The other one is still
okay. The other one made it though. Once I found out what the
insect was, I got the proper spray at Southwest Fertilizer. Anyway, put
in another one and it lasted. It grew for a while and it died
and it had actually gotten the same insect infestation. Do you know what insect?
That was? No idea, but it was one where you it would
make spots on the leaves and you could rub the spots off. That's all
I know, okay, And that's the guy told me that that was insect
It wasn't fung asign Okay, it wasn't fungus. And anyway, so I
put another one in, and that one that that actually got the infestation.
I treated it and it survived and then it went for a while and grew,
and then it just suddenly died. So uh and there one didn't seem
me much roots left when I pulled out. Anyway, I stuck another one
and I and so I did this myself. So what ends up being the
bottom line? Then on this I hear your plantinum and they're dying. So,
yes, where do we go from? What do I need to do?
What do I do? What do I need to do with this soil?
I've got an old yopon, I've got an old, mature yopon.
Holly. I could transplant over there, and I know that they're really hearty,
But is there something wrong with this certain location? Remember six feet over
there's another one that's doing just great. Yeah, yeah, Well, okay,
Holly's love to be in a forest soil, which means there's lots of
organic matter, a very rich foresty type of soil. They like a raised
area if at drainage is at all a question, because they do not want
to sit on a swamp when it rains too much. At the same time,
the first three years of a holly's life you need to pretty much handwater
it because it's important to keep it moist. They are not resilient when they're
new. After they get established, after about three years of growing, it's
not so touch and go. But with a holly, we lose a lot
of hollies early on because they can't wilt and show you they need water.
They just are stressed and they look okay, and then all of a sudden,
the leaves are turning brown, and because it's heading downhill, it's hard
to stop it. So quality soil mix, a good bed mix, something
like a rose soil blend would be an excellent one. Creating a raised for
drainage, and then the handwatering. If you've got an automatic system, that
can be okay. But what I find is things can block those sprinklers from
getting good even coverage all over that root zone, and that is what's very
important. That's why I say hand watering the first three years can be more
specific skip about watering and like is it every day every other day? It's
totally dependent the accurate answer. And this seems oversimplified, but it's just the
truth. Moist soil. You got to keep the soil moist. So if
it's one hundred degrees outside in full sun, you're going to water a lot
more. If you've got a sandy soil the water runs right through, you're
going to water more often. If you've got a clay soil that holds the
water pretty well, you're not going to water as often, but getting the
whole zone equally wet. Not a dry spot over there, but a nice
soaking. Just you know what I do when I'm not sure is I'll take
a trial dig down about four five inches and feel the and you can tell
is it sop and wet? Is it a little too? Drives it nice
and moist? You want to maintain that moisture. And just remember that that
holly plant, which is quite large when you buy it, it has a
very small, confined cylinder of roots that came out of the pod, so
early on it's got to have water there because there aren't roots out in the
soil to pick it up, and so you gradually wean it out. But
there's not a schedule. If I told you once a day, if I
told you twice a week, if I told you, you know it.
And for how long you water. It's just water enough and often enough to
keep the soul moist. Okay, So do you think I need to like
treat the bottom of this hole with because I intend to do another one.
I need to do it. I need this priv syscuat. Yeah, do
you need to do I need to treat the bottom of this hole with bleach
or something? No, no, no, no, no, no,
nothing, nothing like that. You make a good bed mix and you dig
a hole and your plant and put the soil back in that you dug out.
That's very important, all right. And if I raise it, say
say, if I raise it with like wood sides, you know, trigger
wood sides, if I do twelve inches up, would that even help?
Yeah? That's very helpful for drainage? Sure is? Okay, Hey,
Jim, I got to run, but good luck with that. I hope
this someone turns out. Just watch for those insects so you can jump in
early if you see them again. All right, they're nasty. Thank you
all right, thank you very much. I appreciate that. If you're looking
at fertilizing your lawn a turf Star by Nelson's. There's two versions of Turfstar,
two types of Turfstar fertilizer that Nelson makes several of them. Bruces Brew.
That's a faster release, but it has some slow release. Not all
the nutrient gets released all at once. Bruces Brew is a quick way to
get in there, get those nutrients out and get a boost to the plants.
Slow and Easy is the name tells it. Slow and easy gradually over
three or four months, is releasing the fertilizer. In fact, if you
do slow and Easy now, you may not fertilize again until you're your fall
fertilization. I mean, it really really goes out there a long long way,
especially if you're returning your clippings to the lawn. Both of them work
very well with that nice. I like the slow and Easy's nice gradual because
it just creates a stronger, more resilient plan. In general, Kaye A.
Nelson products, You're all quality. I always have good reports on those
people. I tell you what we're gonna take a little break. It's time
for the news, right Bob in Walker County. We're going to come to
you very first when we come back. Thanks for hanging on with us,
don't forget to Let's see on Saturday the twenty seventh. Next Saturday, I'll
be at Southwest Fertilizer at eleven am, not eleven thirty. Eleven am to
one pm. I'm going to be given away, Bob at Southwest gonna be
given away a Toro blower, a Toro string tremor. I'll draw for those.
I'll be giving away some Medinos products and other products. And I'll be
giving away skip bucks. What's a skip buck? I hand you a piece
of paper, you go buy stuff, and it's like giving you money to
go buy stuff. Well, pretty cool stuff. Southwest Fertilizer, bess Utt
and Runwick Next Saturday. Kat RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of
the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden
Line with Scamp Richard. It's so crazy, Trim just watch him as Welcome
back to guarden Line. Good to have you with us on a Sunday that
is going to turn out to be a beautiful day. It is cloudy outside,
Do not fear. We will have those clouds moving out, sunlight coming
in, nice fresh temperatures come in kind of nice outside today. Love it
good day to be out and about. And I hope you'll plan this afternoon
some activity with your gardener, maybe going out and doing a little bit of
shopping for some of the things that you just can't live without, whether it's
vegetables or flowers or herbs or that all important getting the soil ready. I
want to run real quick out to Galveston and talk to Bill. Hello.
Bill, Hi, got a question for you. I've got an avocado tree
that has a lot of green leaves on it, but keeps losing leaves.
And I don't know if it's like my magnolia that's always lucious leaves, or
whether that's all I need to be worried about. Probably not. Avocado doesn't
drop all the time, but some leaf drop is not a big concern on
them, especially if it's the older leaves further down. The branch of the
new growth should still have leaves on it, though, Okay, and that's
all I need to know. Thank you, all right, You're good.
Take care appreciate that very much. Let's head out to Walker County down and
talk to Bob. Hey, Bob, Hey, good morning, appreciate your
show. Thank you. Hey. I have a whole bed full of knockout
roses and they used to be really great, but the last couple of years
they've been sort of yeah so so, and I am I treat them,
treat them with uh systemic insecticides. As matter of fact, I fertilized with
a combo nitroposs for fertilizer systemic. But I got to looking at them this
year when I was trimming them, and a number of leaves don't look bad,
but the maintains the stalks are just covered with sort of a number of
spots. I'm wondering if it's black spot or something. It sure looks like
a fungus. And my question is what's the best thing to treat that with.
That's very strange, Bob. Knockout is about his disease resistant of a
rose as you're gonna get. So I am very uninclined to jump toward a
fungal spray. You know that I've got a good looking picture of it that
I can send you. That would be that that would be best if you
could send me even more than one picture, maybe the bushes as a whole,
and then a couple up close and good sharp focus. I will put
you on hold and Josh will pick up and give you an email and if
you'll send it to me, if I can get a good look at it
for the end of the show, I'll say it on the air. You
know, I'll diagnose it on the air, but if not, we'll find
a way to get you an answer on that. But yeah, a fungus
on knockout. I definitely need to see this one. Yeah, okay,
all right, thank you you bet. I appreciate that a lot. One
of the most effective things you can do for a long to bring it back,
to make it look good is to do a deep aerration, a core
aeration with a compost top dressing. What does a core aeration mean. It
means that instead of just squeezing a hole into the soil by pushing something into
the soil, a core errator goes in and it pops a plug out of
the soil. It takes attle a little round plug out of the soil and
drops it on the surface. I like to say, when you've core aerated
you walk around, it looks like someone had a very small dog convention on
your yard because there's always a little well. You figure it out anyway,
The core aerator opens that soil up and gets oxygen down in the root system,
which on a heavy clay, especially when it's compacted, is very important.
Then the compost top dressing goes on the top and it finds its way
down in the holes, as does fertilizer, as does water, as does
oxygen, and it just stimulates the root system. And especially when you've got
a long that was hammered like last year's lawns were hammered with the drought and
the heat. If you've got issues with compaction, if you've got issues with
you know, bear soil and weeds and just problems, getting that back in
shape is really important. And BnB turf Pros is our go to provider of
cororating and compost top dressing down south of the Houston area. So if you
live let's let me just give you some cities. If you live over in
Missouri City or sugar Land, that's southwest. If you live down in Siena
Arcola, Fresno, an Iowa colony, for example, or Manville down south
or if you even as far east. I believe they go as far east
as pear Land as well. Now, when I was talking to the folks
at BnB turf Pros as we're bringing them on, I always want to know
about service and their attitudes and how they look at things. And I'm telling
you this company, BMB turf Pros, their number one goal is customer satisfaction.
Their number one aim is to achieve high quality work, quality products.
That is what they do. They don't put stuff down that I don't recommend
and trust on garden line on your So they're going to go to a place
like Sanamulch and they're going to get a top quality leave more compost top dressing
to put down on your lawn because that is top quality stuff at Ciena Malt
they will you know, they'll they'll schedule you out, they'll come to the
yard. They can't go too far, like I said, because you know,
you're carrying a big, heavy machinery that really does a job better than
anything you can rent locally. Uh, And they do it right. Bbturfpros
dot com. This is a website Bbturfpros dot com, not BnB, but
BB turf pros dot com seven to one three two three four fifty five ninety
eight seven one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. You go check
them out. They're very highly rated online because they go above they make a
personal connection with the clients and their goal is for you to be satisfied,
and that's what they achieve because that's how they go about it. And so
I love to recommend places that provide that kind of of customer service. Bnbturf
pros dot com for all of you down south and little of the southwest of
the Houston area, that's your go to for aeration and compost, top dressing
both. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When was the
last time you went over to Buchannons. You know Buchanans and the Height.
They're on Eleventh Street in the Heights. I hope you've been there. If
you haven't, well, it's time to crawl out from under a rock and
go see it. This is a wonderful little hideaway there. You're driving down
eleven Street and all of a sudden you look over there, whoa there it
is. They specialize in native plants. I mean, you're not going to
find a better selection of natives. They absolutely are always well stocked in that.
They'll even tell you a native. If you say I want something that
was native right here in the Houston area, they can do that as well.
They had a nice little gift shop, good books available in the gift
shop, good quality gift items available. You know, Mother's Day's coming up.
You don't want to forget that, right, Very very easy to shop
for mom at Buchanan's Plants. I like to go online and look at all
their educational material online too. That alone is worth the price of admission,
as is signing up for their newsletter. Their newsletter is outstanding. Just sign
up for it and check it out. You see what I'm talking about.
Buchanans Plants dot Com on Eleventh Street in the Heights. Go check them out.
If you haven't been there in a while, go back. There's always
something going on there. Houseplant selection is stunning, just absolutely stunning. Hey,
I've talked myself into another break. Time flies when you're having fun.
Well, here we are seven to one three two one two k t RH
I'll be right back. Welcome back to guardenline. Hey, good to have
you with us. Would you like to ask a question today? Well,
here's how you do it. You dolls seven one three two one two k
t r H seven one three two one two k t RH and we'll discuss
whatever is of interest to you. That is for sure. Our goal is
to help you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape, and so how
can we do that starts with simple principles. I was talking earlier about the
structure of the soil, I said, I had mentioned that a little bit
later. Structure is the way the particles group together. Texture the size of
the particles. So when I say texture, I'm talking about sand, silt,
and clay. Clay's the tiniest particle size. Silt is just a little
bit bigger than that, and sand can be well. Essentially, sand is
big, old, chunky particle sizes of soil. But structure is the way
it groups together. So you could have a clay that is just like modeling
clay. You ever played with that before? You know? You make a
little bowl with your thumbs and fingers and you put water in it and just
sits there all day. Right, it holds water because it has no structure
into the clay particles. It is just a massive solid mass of clay that
doesn't allow water through, it doesn't allow oxygen down through. That's just ideas
when you take a clay and you add organic matter or other things that help
humus is a good example that help create a structure now instead of being a
mass. It's imagine if you look that under a micro scope, seeing a
bowl of popped popcorn. So you have all these clumps of soil particles clumped
together with airspace in between them. That is structure in the clay. So
we gripe about our black clay soils and poor drainage and whatnot. But you
can build structure to your clay with organic matter by not working the soil when
it's wet, working it when it's wet. Just to continue my popcorn analogy,
imagine now spraying that bowl of popcorn with water and just smashing down with
your hands. I mean you turn it back into just a flattened goo.
Right, you've destroyed the structure. You haven't changed a texture, you destroyed
the structure of it. And so clay soil is not bad. You know,
sand is not bad or good. I mean they each have their pros
and cons, but the most important thing is that we build structure and plant
roots do that. When you go into a forest, that soil is nice
and friable because the roots of plants, the organic matter from the plants dropped
on the soil surface, earthworms moving through it, and on and on build
structure. When you go to a meadow, the grassroots that live and die
within a year typically are constantly loosening up that soil, opening it up and
adding structure as they decompose into the soil. You can do that. You
can cheat and take a shortcut by buying a quality bed mix like a roast
soil, like a vegetable and herb soil. You know, whatever you're going
after, you can buy a bed mix of that and you instantly get that.
Or you can take the soil you have and just keep adding compost to
it. If you got garden beds, don't walk on them. Never walk
on your garden beds if you can possibly avoid it. What does walking do?
It smashes down the structure and it reduces the amount of oxygen and air
and water infiltration. Now that's a lot of information on it, but just
understanding that principle kind of helps you understand. Okay, I got a heavy
clay, what can I do? Well, you know now what to do.
I've got to loosen it up, doing a little bit of loosening of
the soil, whether you use a spading fork or whatever, Putting some organic
matter in it, Putting some expanded shale in it, which holds its structure
for a long time, keeping that clay more open. All of those things
help with the And if you have the other extreme. We don't have as
many sandy soils in this area, but we do have many quite a few.
Just mix organic matter in it instead of water just running right through and
nutrients just washing right through. With a lot accomposite organic matter, that sandy
soil becomes richer, it holds moisture longer, it holds nutrients longer. So
just a few tips there on soil, but that I think that's really an
important thing to keep in mind. I was talking earlier about finding the kinds
of products you need and making sure you get stuff that's going to do the
job you want it to do. And ACE hardware, that's what they specialize
in. ACE is the place, is their motto, And it's a place
for whatever. I mean. You know, it's a hardware store. It's
a place for plumbing, it's a place for electrical it's a place for small
appliance for in the kitchens, and I mean just a thousand different products.
But ACE is a place for your yard. It's a place for your soil
mixes that I talk about. It's a place forever fertilizer I talk about on
garden line. It's a place to get fire in control. The bait.
Start with the bait, and then two weeks after you've baited, if you
got some mounds, then you can hit them with an individual mound treatment.
Those are two kinds of products. A bait is a food that's scattered far
and wide in a very low rate that the fire ants take, they bring
back, they eat, they feed to the queen. Everybody dies. Who
ray. We love that. The individual mound treatment you drench over the mound,
into the mound, and it just physically kills the fire It poisons and
kills the fire ant right there. But don't do the mound treatments. Only
that's played whackam all. You'll never catch up with the start with the bait.
That's the way, and ACE Hardware has that. Do you have mosquito
problems? Well, you know, dump out all the water that you got
sitting around the house. And I mean I mean the outdoor of the house,
the saggy gutters, the little uh dog bowls it's sitting water for too
long, or the bird bath that sits in water for too long, or
uh just wherever you have water standing you gotta dump that out, or maybe
you want to put some mosquito dunks in it. Well. ACE carries that
they carry that they carry foggers for the mosquitos and other things. ACE is
the place. What do you want? I was in an ACE just the
other day. I was walking through looking at those little luck I call them
beer lights, little strings of lights. You hang outdoors for the early evening
ambiance. You know, summer's coming. You know. I can almost sit
out in the middle of the sunny day from the outside. But boy,
in the evening when the sun goes down, you get a little break from
the sun, having those lights and enjoying your patio area. Maybe you got
your barbecue pitted Ace. Boy, do they ever have quality brands? Trigger
Big Egg Weber all of that and lots of accessories to go with it.
ACE is a place, So where's Ace. Well, go to ACE Hardware
dot com and you're gonna find If you put in a store locator for the
greater Houston area, you're gonna find forty ACE hardware stores. Easy, easy
to find. Let's see. I think we're going to go back to the
phones now. I'm going to go to who's been waiting long? Stephen and
Cyprus. Hello, Stephen, body Skip. Hey, I just got a
question about the stickers that are in the backyard. The dogs keep running around
out there. I'm concerned about them. You know. Well, first of
all, too fall, they not heard themselves, and plus they bring him
in the house. What's pet friendly besides pulling it out of the ground.
Is this a grass or a broad leaf weed? That's the sticker, because
we have stickers of different kinds of weeds. It's the broad leave okay,
uh. That would be a post emergent broadleaf we control product, and there
are a number of them in the market. If you go to my schedule
on Garden with Skip dot com, I list by name some of the products
that you can use, both organic and synthetic on weed control. If the
stickers are already on the plants, you probably don't want to hear this,
but to get out there and pull those plants up, get some gloves on
your hand, pull them up, gets all the stickers out. If you
spray them and kill them, you still have dried stickers and dogs are still
bringing them in. So that's that's why I say pulling. But next spring,
putting out a pre emergent to prevent them from coming up would be a
good step. And that is also on my schedule at gardening with Skip dot
com. It tells you what products do you use in window apply them?
Okay, we I'll definitely do that. I appreciate you. I just I
was just concerned because they chew on the grass a lot, and I was
worried about anything I've sprayed down on there. But like those work. Yeah,
yeah, And well you've got grassy stickers and you've got broad leaf stickers,
and so you may have a little both in there, Dannie, almost
like you do. You're an overachiever, Stephen. I appreciate right, take
care of Thank you, bye bye. Appreciate that. Hey, Spring Creek
Feed Center is your hometown. Feed center. We love our feed centers here
on Garden Line. You can go to Spring Creek Feed if you're up in
the Magnolia area. It's just right in your backyard FM twenty nine seventy eight,
just minutes away from Grand Parkway Highway to forty nine. The fertilizers I
talk about are there. The products to control pests and weeds and diseases are
there. And best of all, I think friendly, courteous staff to help
you. They've expended their garden area. By the way, I got some
plants outside they've been bringing in and all kinds of these. It's always a
good time to go to Spring Creek Feed. If you are FFA or four
h or military or senior citizen. Their discounts available for you. Would you
like something special ordered, they specialize in that at Spring Creek Feed. They
can absolutely do that and they even have a delivery service. So whether you're
looking for garden supplies or quality brands of pet food, Spring Creek Feed on
FM twenty nine seventy eight up in Magnolia has got you covered, that's for
sure. Let's go to Dayton and talk to Kevin. Hello, Kevin,
good morning. They tak him a call, Sir, got a couple of
questions. I'll go about two and a half acre lawn, and it's mixed
between Zoija, Saint Augustine, Bermuda, just kind of getting into the lawnchair
and during the winter time, I really hate the brown lawn. I was
thinking about seeding with rye grass, but I also want to kind of follow
your schedule and get out some pre emergent weed and feed stuff like that.
And I was kind of kind of wondering how the rye grass will affect the
lawn long term. I mean, is that an option or Okay, am
I just kind of throwing money away. Yeah, So you're going to do
the rye grass seeding probably October. So it isn't a good combo with the
Whedon feed because the Whedon feed keeps a rye grass from coming up. It's
a seed and that's what the pre emergent products, whether they're weed and feed
pre emergence or whether you're just putting them down like barricade pre emergent, you
gotta you got to have a stand of rye grass before you put that product
down. Uh. And and so it's not a good trying to combine those
two, I would forego the weed pre emergent weed control if you're going to
try to overseed with the rye grass. That the positive of righte grass is
you mow the lawn. You got a green lawn on winter. The negative
is it's a weed. You are literally planting weeds in your lawn. So
they compete for water, they compete for nutrients, and they compete for sunlight.
And in the spring, rye grass is happy as a clam. It
is growing like crazy and going, going, going, and you're Saint Augustine's
trying to wake up, trying to get some sunlight, and so it can
stress. And that's true Bermuda grass too. A lot of times bermuda sports
areas and things are overseeded with rye grass, and it's a stress to the
bermuda too, because it's a competitor. Of course, when the sun heats
up, the rye grass will melt away and you're back to your warm,
seasoned turf grass. So if I did choose to do that and plant the
rye grass, you know, obviously plant you know late September, first part
October. I guess if I wanted to go ahead and treat with three emergent
later probably January February. Ish, I guess will be okay because that's yes,
and go to gardening of skip dot com get my schedule. It'll tell
you exactly when to apply and what to apply, and it's going to be
February for your area that you're going to want to get the pre emergent down.
But if you already have rye grass growing, you can put the pre
emergent on it and it'll be okay, just not before you seed the rye
grass. Hey, I am up against a five seconds away from break.
So thank you so much Kevin for the call. When we get back,
Ronnie, you will be our first up. Now it's time for Nicky in
the news. Welcome back to garden Line. We'll get back garden Line.
Looking forward to your calls our phone number seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh.
If you're looking for a quality mix of soil, I'm talking about something
where you know when you put those plants in, they're going to be laughing
and singing and happy because the roots have everything they want. Soil is a
secret to success. Soil is a secret to success. Heirloom soils makes quality
soil. Do you need a veggie and herb mix? You can buy it
and buy the bag all over the place. Airloom soils are widely available.
You can go get it bulk up in the porter location. You can have
them deliver it. You can have them bring and dump it on your side
on your driveway, or you can basically have them deliver what's called a supersac,
a big, old, giant, one cubic yard sack of soil to
your place. They've got the berry and fruit, the fruit berry and citrus
type mix they have that. They have the roast, They've got the leaf
mold compost. What do you need Heirloom soil has it? Do you need
something for cacti and succulents, something gritty that drains super super well. They've
got that heirloom Soilsoftexas dot Com. I was telling somebody just yesterday out RCW
Nursery talking to people about things. I said, go to Airlom Sols of
Texas and look at the website for the mulch calculator, the soil calculator.
Do you want to put leaf moll compost over your yard a third of an
inch deep, over two thousand and five hundred square feet or whatever. It'll
tell you exactly how many QB cards you need to do that. That's the
kind of deal it is. It makes it really really easy. At Airloomsource
of Texas dot Com, I'm want to go out to Laporte. Now we're
going to talk to Ronnie. Hello, Ronnie, Hello, quick question.
Thank you for taking my call. But I was curious. I've got two
palm trees or queen palms, and they're a little bit over a year old.
In this past winter when we had the freeze, I actually covered them
with some bags that we had got from off Amazon. But when I took
the bags off, which was right after the next day, once the temperature
came back up, I took them off, and the the limb started turning,
you know, brown, and so I've left him on there and they
there looks like there's some green coming out at the you know, the top
of it right there where they're actors. They're not really that tall, They're
only about six and a half seven foot tall, and but I was just
curious, should I cut the ones that are brown more or less dead off.
Yes, if there's a little if there's a little green on them,
I would leave them because that is photosynthesizing, making carbohydrates for the plants strength.
It looks ugly because it's half dead, but if it's got green on
it, leave it for now. Just give as much time as you can,
because when you take all the green off a palm tree, it's like
scalping your grass all the way to the ground. I mean, it's a
real shocker for it to try to come back out. But whatever's brown is
brown, is not doing your plan any good. So you can cut that
off. The fronds can die. The key is you want that bud at
the top of the trunk to be alive. If it dies, If it
dies, that queen palm's dead. But if the bud's alive putting out new
growth, you're good, it'll be fine. Right, Okay, Well that's
that's what I'll do then, and I'll just let you see what happens.
Yeah, yeah, sounds good. Well, good luck with that. Those
are beautiful palm trees. Yes, okay, appreciate it, all right,
Ronnie, thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate that I was
talking this it was yesterday I went by one of the Wildbirds stores done with
Rich idiot or in the Memorial store. And you know, by the way,
you know, Wilbirds has six stores in the Greater Houston area, So
it doesn't matter where you live, there's gonna be a wild Bird's near you.
There's one in Cyprus, there's one in Memorial, there's one in bel
Air, there's one in pair Landing in Kingwood. There's one in clear Lake
also. So anyway, I was talking to him and he was describing how
this works with this cofront coming in. We have a lot of birds that
are going they're in their migratory pattern, they're heading north, and this would
be things like a Baltimore oriole for example. He named several different birds that
fit into this category, some type of a warbler. I can't remember the
name. I'm not a bird experts. I'm now proving live on the air.
But anyway, there are several different kinds of birds that are flying like
that, and when a colfrint hits like this, they just sort of stop
and go, Okay, we're not going to fight this one, and they
drop down and come down to our landscapes here. And if you'll put out.
If you'll take like an orange and you'll cut it in half, you
know, like you just set it up with a stem end up and you
slice the horizontally through it cut in half like that. So there's all these
open sections that the birds can get to. And you put those out there,
yeah, I mean, you can poke them onto a nail or something
to stick them on the side or something or whatever. Baltimore orioles love those
and they'll come to them. And normally you wouldn't see a Baltimore oriole here
right now. They're heading north. They're not messing around with Houston right now.
But when they drop down from that coal front, you may have some
show up in your area. And if you do, I'd like to hear
about that. I mean, it'd be really cool to hear. Let me
know if that works out. Other birds that we don't normally see. And
I mentioned to warbler, a certain type of warbler. You're going to get
to see those from the coal front. So keep your eyes open when you're
out there. By the way, when you get a chance, go buy
a wall birds. They are stocked up for Mother's Day. And I'm telling
you, I know mothers and mother in laws can be difficult to buy for
you because what do you get them? They got everything, and then they
say things like it's okay, son, I'm just fine, I don't need
any Well, you know that's not the case. You got to get them
something nice. Mother's Day gifts wildbirds a high perch hummingbird feeder. I've got
one awesome, awesome feeders. They are a really cool book, The Joy
of Bird Feeding. It's actually written by the guy who founded the president and
founder of Wildbirds Unlimited across America, and it is a beautiful book with lots
of color pictures of how to bring in birds to the backyard by feeding.
What do you feed them? What do they look like? All that?
Do you want one of their Eco Tough Classic feeders. That is a feeder
made out of recycled plastic milk jugs and it is beautiful. When you look
at it, you say, well, that looks like smida wood. Nope,
it is a recycled material feeder that is quality. I've got the Eliminator
squirrel proof feeder. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. The
little birds hop on it, they're fine. A squirrel gets on it and
they wait too much, and it is hard to thwart a squirrel. This
one has thwarted them successfully at my house. The eliminator. It's the Cadillac
in my opinion, there's the flying bistro cylinder. You see what I'm saying.
There. They even have jewelry, you know, for things like birds,
birds, seed and feeders and houses. And on Mother's Day. Don't
go through Mother's Day or mother in law's Day. We're gonna go ahead and
throw them in here too. By the way, I bought myself my mother
in law a little pole to hang a feeder outside her window where she's stand
and it is. It's really cool. She look out the window and their
birds right there. So I got her little pole. So, yes,
I am a good son in law. I know she's not listening to this,
but if you see her, tell her she has a good son and
we'll give her that for Mother's Day as well well. Anyway, you get
the idea why Birds is a great place. It's fun, it's educational.
You go in there and you ask them anything you want and they will explain
exactly to you exactly what you need to know to have success with that.
What a great hobby. All right, enough about me jammering about birds.
We're gonna go to Gardend oak Oaks and we're gonna talk to Frank. Frank,
I got about forty five seconds here. We'll see if we can get
into it and hold you until after break if we need to. Okay,
Skiff, I've got a crape myrtle that the last couple of years has had
some moss like growth on it, just little clumps, not you know,
not not real big sick hanging Spanish moss, but just small clumps, you
know, on the on the limbs. And yes, so I just just
want to know. Is that bad for the No, No, it's a
sign. It's a sign that crape isn't real vigorous. It's a The material
is called lichens l I c h e N. It's what raindery. By
the way, fun fact, lichen grows on plants as they get then the
canopy thins out the sunlight's coming through, we tend to see more lichens on
them. But you'll see lichens on rocks, on fence posts. Uh.
Lichens are not parasites, so they're just along for the ride. They're more
a sign that that crape isn't as vigorous as we would like it to be.
So I would focus on the fertilizing and watering and whatnot. Maybe a
little rejuvenated pruning here and there to get the crape into a little bit better
vigor but overall, don't worry about what you're seeing on there. Okay,
what kind of fertilizer would you recommend? You know, there are fertilizers for
trees and shrubs. Nitroposs makes one for trees and shrubs. You can do
that at my house. I just use lawn fertilizer on them. You buy
you a go quality lawn fertilizer, and then go up to that trunk on
the plant, and for every inch of trunk diameter across the tree, if
you have like three trunks, then total them up, give it one or
two cups of lawn fertilizer. If it's an organic fertilizer, double or triple
that, but one or two cups of fertilizer for every inch of trunk diameter.
All right, okay, great, yes, sir, thank you very
much. All Right, we're going to go to a break here, Teresa,
you will be first right when we come back. Welcome back, to
guard Line. Good to have you with us today. Hey, if you
live down in the Sugarland area or the Richmond Rosenberg area in Jani Forest,
write that down enchanted Forest Infection. I'll just give you the website. How
about we just go straight to that. We can do that as well.
By the way, Chinted Forest is an enchanting garden center. You will find
everything you're looking for there. Their selection is unbelievable. I was out there
not too long ago. Always impressed, very knowledgeable staff. Hey, if
you're looking for plants for butterflies, they not only have the plants, you
get to take home a caterpillar. Yep, that's right, they got caterpillars.
You can bring it home. You got your what's that the equivalent of
a sourdough starter for a butterfly garden. You're just ready to go right there
with Enchanted Forest. It's Enchanted Forest Richmond dot com. Here's one thing when
you're out there, I want you to ask to see that yesterday, today
and tomorrow is that's the name of a shrub. It's not an abbot and
costello skit yesterday, today, and tomorrow At the same time, these blooms
change as a color show. You're gonna have a purple bloom on there,
You're gonna have a white bloom, You're gonna have a violet bloom all at
the same time. A three to six shrub. You put it in a
little bright, bright, shady area. That's where it's happiest. It is
awesome. It's an old time plant. People used to have them all the
time. Now it's kind of not as top of the line terms of everybody's
got it on the billboard. But it is a great plant, and they've
got them an enchanted forest out there in Richmond FM twenty seven fifty nine.
FM twenty seven fifty nine, just north of Richmond toward Sugarland direction. Let's
go talk to Teresa out here in the woodlands. Hey Teresa, Hey,
Skip, how are you? I'm good? Thank you? Okay, so
real quick, too quick questions. My yard's been recovering the last two years.
I talked to you last year about it. I had to resaw it
it. Blah blah blah. I always used micro life, okay, and
this year I got convinced to use Bruce's brew. The yard's looking much better,
all that kind of thing. But should I did it a month ago,
the Bruces Brew. Do I need to do anything else up until June
or just kind of leave it set. If you did it a month ago,
I'd give it a little bit more time. Let's see. Probably let's
say go sometime into May, and you could do the Bruces Brew again.
But just remember that it is a fast release, but it also has a
slow release component, so it's going to spread itself out a little bit.
You could even wait until June to do it again, and it would be
fine. Okay. Yeah, In fact, I'm going to change my mind
on the May. I would wait and do it in June, especially if
you're going to return those clippings. Okay, yeah, I do that because
I was told do Bruce's Brew this year and then go back to micro Life
just to kind of give it that recharge from the last two years. You
know, all that. That's fine, but they're both quality fertilizers and so
it's not like you need to switch back and forth and stuff like that.
Do it however you want. There's no problem switching. But they're both quality
fertilizers, so you don't have to switch on stuff like that. Okay.
The other thing is real quick. You've mentioned about fire out control and you
talk about combine the I guess the andro was extinguished. And I tried to
look for extinguished yesterday at a couple of aces and I couldn't find it.
Okay, well, that's fine. So I think if I was talking about
combining, I was talking about a leaf a concoction for leaf cutter ant control.
You do not need to combine them. For fireance. You can use
extinguish, you can use the organic one called come and get it. You
can use amdro and then there's some more that aren't jumping them ahead at this
very moment. But there's a lot of quality baits out there for fire ants.
So don't worry if you can't find extinguished. Okay, all right,
well listen, I appreciate it, and have a great weekend. All right,
you too, Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much.
You're talking about all these different fertilizers. You know, Nitrofoss has got their
silver bag that is called super Turf because it gives you a super turf.
It's got half the nitrogen and a slow release forms. Let's compeede for three
or four months going out there. It's got iron to promote that good green
and it does gradually feed over time. And it's easy to find super turfs
everywhere. You know, night Foss products are easy to find because they're essentially
ubiquitous. You go to Ace Hardware store, you're going to find them.
You go out to garden centers, the speed stores we talk about here,
and you're gonna find them at Southwest Fertilizer too, which, by the way,
I'm going to be at Southwest Fertilizer this coming Saturday from eleven am to
one pm. I will be there and I will be giving away a number
of different kinds of products at Southwest. You know, Southwest is a place
that I like to say, if you don't if they don't have it,
you don't need it because they have everything, absolutely everything you could possibly want.
They're on the corner of bus Nutt and Runwick. I hope you'll come
out next Saturday, so really easy to get to bus Nutt and Renwick right
out there. Come by. I'm going to be given away a number of
different things. Bob's putting up a toro blower and touro string tremor. We're
going to be giving you skip Bucks, which means here's a piece of paper
that I'm calling money, and Bob calls it money, and so you go
get the products you need that day, and you can use those bucks toward
buying those products. I'll also be given away. I just got through talking
to the folks at Medina. So it has to grow super grow plus.
That is a new hose end sprayer lawn fertilizer sixteen zero two sixteen zero two
lolo phosphorus, which is good because most lawns do not need much of any
phosphorus at all. Now you spray this on your lawn. It's got a
keylated form of iron in it, it's got seaweed extract in it. It's
just all around. It's good. About a fifth of the nitrogen in it
is slow release form, so it's just a win when you spray it on
your gardens. I've seen people use it on vegetables. Saw some pictures of
people using it on vegetables and the results they got. Primarily, we put
it out there for the lawnch hook it up to the hose in one quart
is going to cover about four thousand square feet and it will be giving samples
of that away or actually product of that away. That's Southwest Fertilizer because Bob
carries that out there. It's a new product by Medina, an excellent product,
and it's it is just you're gonna have success. You're gonna see the
results because not only do you get a quick green up, but you also
get that a little bit of slow release in it to extend that out a
little bit further for you. So once you hook it up to the hose,
if you run out of yard, just hit the flower beds, hit
the shrubs, hit whatever you want with it. It's gonna make it.
It's gonna make it grow. That's one thing that I like about Medina products
is they are affected, they do work, and they're just handy. It's
just handy to use. You know, it can't get much easier. And
hooking it up to your garden hose and going at it with that, that
is for sure. If you've been out to Nelson Water Garden and Nursery,
that's out there in Katie, Texas. If you go to Katie, you
turn north on Katie Fort Ben Road and it's just a hop skipping or jump
up the road on the right, just real close by there. Now they
are specializing unbelievable. They can make fountains, they come to your house,
they can teach you how to do it. They can do it for you.
I mean, do you want a big disappearing fountain. They invented those.
They know how to do that. But they're also an excellent nursery.
A wide variety of plants there. Now when you go, take people with
you, because this is another destination garden center. You're going to go there,
and if you've never thought about having a backyard pond, I'm just warning
you. You're going to walk through and go, oh my gosh, I
have got to have one of these in the backyard, or at least one
of those fountains that disappears, so very very cool. Nelson Watergarden Gardens with
an s dot com Nelsonwatergardens dot com. But go check out the plants too.
I mean you'll be surprised. A wide variety of fruit trees right now,
citrus, peaches, pears, pumps, all kinds of things at Nelson
Watergardens dot com. But you gotta go see the water features, the koi,
the shabunkan fish, the aquatic plants and things. It is a destination
an inspirational one. All right, there, we're putting that hour in the
books. I'll talking about all these places and stuff. I just want to
jump up from the microphone, get my car and go back out and see
them. I love visiting these places. I'm telling you. Hear me say
this all the time. But Houston has so many awesome destination garden centers.
North south east West? What do you what are you into? Are you
into water gardens? Are you into tropicals? Are you into fruit? Are
you into herbs? Are you into we just have we are? We are
rich with garden centers, I said, north south east West. I'm up
through centraland I can't forget about Buchanans down the lights too. I mean it,
it's just great. It's a great place to live. This afternoon would
be a great time to get out too. That sun's going to come out.
Hope to get out and enjoy it. We'll be right back to put
our last hour on the air. Katie r h. Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to
kat r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor It's crazy gas a trim just watch
him as well. As so many paties. Septaser not a sunda. Thank
you, welcome back to guarden Line. Good to have you with us today.
Glad you're listening in. If you've not done your lawn fertilizing yet,
why not consider an application of microlife fertilizer. The green bag, the six
two four and microlife he makes PLA plus that is the purple bag. It's
a zero zero four. You're not putting the hum mats plus on just for
nutrients. You're putting the hum mates on because it's concentrated compost in a bag.
Humans plus. That's the final decomposition stage of organic matter as it goes
from let's say a pot of leaves and grass clippings to compost to humus.
That's how it moves the humans plus. The purple bag is going to help
with your soil. When you put humus material, when you've been any kind
of a compost, but especially a fully decomposed like humus, you're going to
improve the soil structure itself. And you're also adding some potassium, which is
very important for drought tolerance in the grass. That is very helpful for that
as well. And then the green bag, of course is a standard lown
fertilizer by Microlife. When you buy a microlife fertilizer, you're not just getting
the three numbers on the bag. You're getting everything that was in the living
materials that you were used to make the microlife. So, for example,
the trace minerals and secondary minerals and things the numbers of which never appear on
the bag, You're going to have those in your macrolife fertilizer. Microbes get
a hold of it. Micro Life is a good name because if they are
living forms in the soil that essentially make plants thrive, That's how nature works,
That's how microlife fertilizer works. You can go to microlifefertilizer dot com and
learn more about it and the many products they have, and also where you
can find it here in the Greater Houston area. I want to head out
now to Brian, Texas and talk to Barbara. Hello, Barbara, Hi,
good morning. I want to pull up my poppies. They were really
pretty, the tinkling with the blue centers, yes, but the pods are
still kind of green and I want to save the seeds. How long do
I have to leave them for it? And pull them up what kind of
poppy did you have? Was it like the bread poppy? No, they
are pink. They're a large pink with a light blue center. Ooh,
that sounds beautiful. I will go ahead. No, I got them.
Oh, I can't remember a garden center that had them, and they didn't
have the seed, and they asked me to send them an envelope, and
then they sent me the seeds later on, so I don't know the name
of them. Okay, Well, on the poppy pod at the top,
it's going to pull back a little bit where the seeds can fall out when
it turns over, So look at it, and if it's not sealed up,
if it's pulling back, you can go ahead and cut those pods off
and then just sprinkle the seeds out, you know, where they can air
dry a little bit longer, just in case, especially because you guys had
a whole bunch of rain last night and whatnot. So go ahead and let
them dry well and then you can harvest them. I suspect if they're still
green pods, it's not quite time to pick them yet. I doubt they've
pulled back, so okay, if you can't afford to leave them that's better.
You say they pulled back, they open. Yeah, the pod sort
of opens up, you know, because the podg is like a capsule.
Depending on the specific kind of poppy, they're different shapes. But they they
actually as they dry, they shrink back, and that's how the seeds came
out of the poppy. It's not like a bean type plant where the suture
pops open and it casts the seeds out. This is that's how the poppy
podgs work. Okay. My other question was Manda videos. I don't know
if I'm pronounced right good enough? Can they do? They? Can they
do? Okay? Bloom and everything? Okay? In the shade or do
they need more sun? They need more sun. If you can give them
about six hours, it would be best. As you move them into more
and more shade, you get less and less balloons. Okay, they are
beautiful. They are absolutely beautiful. Oh okay, thank you very much.
Thank you for the call, Barbara. Good to talk to you. Bye
bye bye. All right. Yeah, absolutely, poppies are really cool.
Hey, those of you in the Kingwood area, you know you've got Warren
Southern Gardens. You know you got Kingwood Garden Center out there and those places
are always there's always something going on, there's always new products coming in.
I know, I've been a while since I've been. I need to get
back out there. It's been a while since I Actually I love to go
out by the way, because when you go out it's inspirational. You go
out and you see things that you hadn't seen before. Maybe it's a new
plant they got in. They just have some outstanding hibiscus in there. They
have got incredible selection of tropicals too, by the way, Plumeria, the
Hawaiian lay flower. Do you like those? They've got those out there.
Someone had called earlier about some lilies. They have lilies out there, for
sure. Whenever you go out to Warren's in Kingwoock Garden Center, you're going
to find color. You're going to find knowledgeable staff that can guide you and
the right way, and you're even going to find some really cool combos that
are already put together, where you have a container that's mixed, planted and
absolutely gorgeous. You can do this for the summer. You can do them
for the shade, you can do for the sun, all kinds of thing.
Good selection of Angelonia's so many colors Angelonia will take you through the heat
like very few things can. While you're out there, ask them to show
you the Salza dancer hibiscus. That is the most colorful foliage plan I've ever
seen in my life. It is gorgeous. I'm challenged. I know there
is such a thing as white, pink, and red and orange, and
when you start combining those, I run out of the right word to describe
it. But I'm just going to say these are very pink with burgundy and
a little bit of yellow and green on them too. They're gorgeous. They
bloom, But even if they didn't bloom, it is a showstopper. It's
actually gonna pink flamingo out there in your yard. You can't not see it.
Salsa dancer hibiscus that weren't garden center. I hope you enjoy it.
Those of you who are out there, you're fortunate to have it. Take
advantage of it. Stephnoon and go by and see them. I'm going to
go now to Ben in Conrad. Hello, Ben, Hey, good morning,
Skip, good morning. I've got a forty thousand square foot property.
Thirty thousand is Saint Augustine and a good portion of weeds. Okay, that's
a lot of square footage. That's three quarters of an acre of Saint Augustine.
Yes, there's quite a bit. So if I do if I go
with the supertture, that's four bags two hundred bucks, and if I go
with the four that's fifteen bags and seven hundred and fifty dollars. What are
my options? How do I decide? You know, back when sixty four
was twenty bucks a bag, it was a no brainer. You know.
You know with fertilizers, you can you can choose the options you want.
You can choose it organic, you can choose a synthetic. You can go
about the way you want to go about it. I would say number one.
And you're looking at a lot of lawn and a lot of fertilizing.
Definitely want to return those grass clippings. That is your first fertilizing option on
that. If you mow all season and return the clippings, no matter which
fertilizer you choose, you will put out more nutrients with your lawn mower than
your fertilizer spreader by returning. Yeah, and then you know, choose do
as you choose on it? I have there are things that I like about
each of the fertilizers. There's benefits of each of the fertilizers. I mean,
we could, you know, nail down and go through or what is
it not nail down, drill down and talk about this or that or the
other. They're high quality. I like using the slow releases because you get
a gradual feed and they're organic is naturally slow release. But the synthetics also
can be even more slow release because of the way they're designed out there in
the landscape or in the garden, the lawn. So is there what's the
difference between the super turf and some of the other similar formulations. Is there
anything specific about the marcro life that's different from well some generic right, microlife
is an organic material. It is a fertilizer that is organic, and so
microbes break that down and release the nitrogen and the phosphorus and the potassium and
all the trace minerals that are in microlife because it is an organic in the
super turf. In the super turf, Yeah, hey, you know what,
Ben, I can see. We're going to talk about this a little
bit and I'm going to run to a break. Let me put you on
hold and I'll come right back to you and we'll be able to have a
little more time for this. All right, okay, sure, thank you,
we'll be right back. Welcome to Gardenline. Good have you with us.
We're going to go back to Ben in Conroe. Ben, we're discussing
fertilizers. You're kind of drilling down into the slow release and some of that.
Just let me, let me summarize it. Let me summarize it a
little bit, and then if you have a follow up, we'll go with
that. Uh. The organic fertilizers, like a microlife for example, is
a compound that's got everything that was in the plant or whatever the organ it
came from, that is in that fertilizer, which means all the trace mentals
and everything else. Now it is going to decompose microbial lease. So as
the weather warms up it moves a little bit faster, it is going to
have a form of nitrogen that will release out into the soil environment for the
roots to pick up. When you go to a slow release, we're talking
about things like the nitrofoss silver bag that is Superturf nineteen four ten or Nelson's
Slow and Easy. Those are two slow release fertilizers. Now, the way
they're designed is with different forms of nitrogen that are not all night water soluble,
so you get a rain to wash them in, and normally a salt
based fertilizer, for example, would dissolve and go right into the ground.
Well, this is going to hold on and not solubilized, and it'll be
released over time based on either temperature some are not temperature affected much, or
microbial activity or other things, and some of these can extend out is like
four or five months from now, there's still releasing nutrients out there because the
chemistry of the molecules that are in them are designed to do that, so
you get a much longer gradual release. So while we use the term slow
release, we can mean a lot of different things with it when we say
that term. They're not all slow releases are the same mechanism and the same
rate of release. So I don't want to complicate it. I'm just saying
you're not going to go wrong with any of these fertilizers on your lawn.
You're going to get the performance. They all have a good ratio of nutrients
like grass needs, and you're going to have success with them. Okay,
let me ask you about compost leaf mold versus the fungal. What's better for
the yard or is there a lot of difference between the two. Well,
for the yard, you know, compost is decomposed organic matter, and whether
it comes from leaves or manure or ground up tree trunks, I mean it
ultimately ends up in a composted state. Eight. The key with the lawn
is you want a very finely screened compost, so the particle size is small.
You don't want pieces of wood the lawnmowar's knocking all over the place,
for example. You want it to fall down in the aeration holes or move
down between the grass leaves, around the runners themselves, at the plant,
at the soil surface. So leaf mold is the top quality for doing that
kind of thing. But you can use other screen types of compost if you
need to. And that's compost is gonna be good for soil and for plants
period. Well, it's just trying to weigh the fungal friday versus well the
fine Yeah, I think it gets done about sixty some sixty bucks a yard.
Yeah. Yeah, Nature's way is kind of long been a leader and
all of that and I would call out there and talk to John Ferguson and
ask him about particle size on the fungal products that they have. The fungal
compost just basically means, you know, but forest systems are typically fungally dominated,
Meadow systems are typically bacterially dominated. So when you get a lot of
things like wood product or leaf tree leaf products, those things are forest materials.
Fungi are going to be the primary decomposers for those. But ask him
about the particle size, because that's going to be the key. Yes,
it's a great fungal Friday at Nature's Way Resources. As a super temper,
they're probably going to lean towards the more expensive one. You know well that
they're honest. John, I'll be honest with you or I if you talk
to him and just say, look, I'm going to do some top dressing.
Here is the particle size on your fungal product the bag or the book.
Is it small enough to work well for that purpose? And they'll tell
you if it is or not. I mean, you can have a conversation.
They're not you know that, they're not the kind of people there.
It's in Augustine and I'm mowing about three three and a half inches, typically
keeping it a little bit higher. So yeah, the particle size wouldn't really
matter that to me. Every now and then i'll hit a piece. But
but you also you also wanted to break down pretty quickly. You wanted to
get down there and get good coverage over the soil surface and whatnot. And
uh, I would I would talk to John and ask him these questions and
say, so, tell me about what what is the You know he's going
to understand because he made it. He may just signed it. And you
know, he understands soil. He understands decomposition of organic matter better best as
well as anybody I know. Uh, here are his numbers, Yeah,
his numbers. Let me write this as nine three six three two one sixty
nine ninety nine three six three two one six nine nine zero. And when
you do that, you can grill him and he'll be happy to talk to
you. He loves talking about that kind of thing. And so he'll know
him about some of this before next time I see him. I'm gonna ask
him your question too, because I don't know on that fungal product, just
how fine the ground products they have on the fungal Friday. So that'll be
good to know. Thanks, be right, thank you, all right.
Good luck with that big lawn. You need to rent it out for parties
and stuff. Uh, it makes you look a little better, all right,
we'll work with that. We'll work on that. Thanks. That's funny,
all right, man. You're listening to garden Line our phone number seven
one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two
k t r H. You know there's forty Ace Hardware stores. I bet
you didn't know that. If you listen to guarden Line more than five minutes,
you knew that because I talk about them all the time. Forty Ace
Hardware stores in the Greater Houston area. Go to a play at the Beaumont,
there's an ACE near you. You go to Ace Hardware dot com and
you look for the store locator. It may say like, hey, can
we use your location? Just say yes, and then the map will show
you. I mean you can do. You could do the store locator if
you've got a cousin in Austin or Dallas and say, hey, where's the
Ace ardors over here, they'll tell you. But our Houston group, the
local group that's the one where I was talking about forty stores here in the
area. They carry whatever you need. They've got all of the firet control
products you need. If it's a bait, get it first. The baits
are best. And if you miss something. Two weeks after you've baited,
if there's still some mounds that are left, then do a mound treatment on
those. You just drench those over summer dusks you put on top of the
mound. Some are granules that then drenching on. I mean, there's a
lot of ways they go about it. But Ace Harder's got all that stuff.
They've got all the fertilizers that they talk about here. I mean we've
been talking about, you know, all these different fertilizers just a minute ago
in the air. They've got all those. They've also got sweet green,
which is another nitroposs product. Sweet green is eleven percent nitrogen. It is
a natural product. It's based on molasses that microbes have essentially gone to work
on and turned it into a fertilizer. When you put sweet green on your
lawn, it is stimulating to especially the beneficial bacteria, but microbe microbial activity
in general is going to be stimulated by this smells wonderful, and yes,
you get it at ACE Hardware store. So if you're looking for any kind
of a fertilizer I talk about on Guardline, it's gonna be at Ace Hardware.
Also, while you're in there, go ahead and get ready for mosquito
season. Mosquito dunks to throw into water areas so that that microbe is released
that kills mosquitos, doesn't hurt birds, doesn't hurt people, doesn't hurt dogs
and cats. It's specifically for that. If you need a fogger, if
you need any kind of mosquito control, they've got it at ACE Hardware stores.
Again, Ace Hardware dot Com and find the store locator and you're in
business. We are going to go now to pair Land and talk to Kay.
Hello. Okay, Hi, good morning, Skip, Thanks for taking
my call. I have a couple of questions. I have one. I've
spoken with you before about this monster ivy that I have, Okay, and
I'm getting ready to repot it because the stems, the runners, whatever branches
are dying off. They're bear There's so many of them that are bare.
Will any of those come back if I put them in water? Make you
know, just cut sections and put them in water. Will they regrow at
all? Yeah, if they're alive, they will root. You can root
them in water, but you can also root them by just putting covering them
up with just a little bit of soil and keeping it moist, and they
will form roots along those nodes in the stem the runner. Okay, well,
I was going to cut off those lives, you know, the leafing
portions, and re pot them into three or four big pots and try to
save some of them because it was so gorgeous anyway. And I also would
like to ask you on booin Villa and mandavilla. They do so well climbing
or in hanging pots, would they do on a flat bed as well?
Boom and Villa is going to be more of a mouth did plant. It
has kind of a shrubby growth habit and so it's not a vine that just
lays flat. To some degree. It does, but not not like your
ivys for examples, not crawl and not really. It wants to make more
of a mound. You see those in tropical even go down to Mexico and
see the booga and belleos and they're just big, old, giant mounded bushes.
Down there. The mendavilla is a vine. I've never seen it grown
along the ground that I don't see why it wouldn't do that. As long
as there's nothing for it to grab onto and go up. I guess it
could do that. Well, I could encourage it to, you know,
kind of just watch the runners and just you could you just want to watch,
you know, being down there on the ground and so splashing up on
it and things. I just having not seen it done, I'm kind of
wondering if that's fully okay. But I do know that it's a it's a
vine, and it's gonna it's gonna sprawl outward, So you probably could get
it to work like that. Most people like to okay it, see because
I love both of them, and I just think they're just so beautiful.
But I don't have that much of you know, hanging trees that I can
you know, hang pots on, or I guess I could maybe devise a
trelliss some sort. Yeah, you should let them crawl. Well, if
if you got nothing to do this afternoon, or even if you do,
I got a better idea, go to Moss Nursery over there in Seabrook.
Oh yeah, they are loaded with those things out there. Yes, okay,
great, I thank you so very much, and have a beautiful day.
All right, thank you you as well. We're going to take a
little break here. It is time for Nikki and the news, so I'm
going to take a little quick break Thomas and a Testcasita. I want to
give you plenty of time with your questions, so I'm going to hold you
until after we come back from break. I just want to remind you guys,
I'm going to be a Southwest Fertilizer this next Saturday at eleven am till
one pm on corner Bisnett and Renwick. We're going to be answering gardening questions.
We'll be given away a lot of stuff, and I hope you will
go right now. Just put that on your calendar and come out and see
me. If you've not been to Southwest, here's your excuse to come.
You can see what I'm talking about, all right. I hope I'm not
crazy. Hope that doesn't make me crazy. You're listening to the guard Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter and our phone number. You want to
write this down. We actually have some room on the boards if you'd like
to give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know Verdant Tree
Farm. It makes tree buying easy because first of all, there are three
locations on the southwest side on Barker Cypress in central North Houston, which is
I will say the heights, probably not that north, but you know where
I ten and Yale Street come together, and then down in Pairland, down
in Pairland on Broadway Street. Easy. Easy to find a Verdant tree farm
near you. Verdant is an expert at matching you with the tree you need,
so you can call them up, you can send them a picture,
You can go into the place and sit down, do a free in office
design consultation. They are a turnkey operation. You go there, you find
out what plant you need. You show them what you look for. They
tell you what they got and they've got good stuff. Do you need a
hearty palm tree, They've got that. Do you need a particular deciduous shade
tree. Do you want a beautiful evergreen shrub a large shrub to block a
view? Then you go out and you pick the plants. Say I want
that one. I want that one over there too, and that one,
well, you pick them out, they tag them, they bring them,
they plant them. If they plant it, they give you one year warranty
and they tell you how to take care of it. They've got some unique
ways. That Patrick was just showing something on video. They have a real
active social media presence on how they determined that a tree is not saying too
wet. You just have to go find out from them how they go about
that, and then they guarantee it for a year after the installation. Is
a result. If you happen to be a military, if you happen to
be a first responder, ten percent discount for you. You're not gonna go
wrong with Vernon. Here's the website v er da nt Tree Farm Vernant treefarm
dot com. Go there and check it out. They have a wonderful little
website where you can click on a particular kind of species of tree and they'll
tell you all about it and you can learn a lot and make that good
decision, because remember, when you buy a tree, that is a that
is a long term purchase decision, and so you want to get it right.
Don't just buy something that happens to be for sale somewhere. Figure out
what tree you want and then go find it, and Vernon's probably going to
have what you're looking for. Let's go now out to a task Asida and
we're going to talk to Thomas. Hello, Thomas, good morning, great
show today, Thank you sir. We're going to talk plant nutrition for a
second. I'm a big proponent of organic. For my I use sweet green
and the acid might and have been really happy with it. Okay, good.
I have friends that use triple thirteen. It drives me nuts. One
of the negatives on that. Okay, here's the negative. To use triple
thirteen once or twice or three times, it's not going to be the end
of the world. But when you use it over and over again through the
years. It used to be triple thirteen and ten twenty ten were the fertilizers,
and both of those have more phosphorous percentage wise than plants take up.
If you take most plant materials out there, you're going to find they're going
to have a lot of nitrogen, a low amount of phosphorus, and a
medium amount of potassium. The third number, and that's why we say for
fertilizers and lawns especially, we do the three one two ratio. So when
you triple thirteen it and triple thirteen it, two things are happening. One,
you're putting out more phosphorus percentage wise in a ratio way. Then the
plant is using if you see what I'm saying now, if you happen to
have a phosphorus soil, well that may actually be helpful, but a lot
of people for lawns, especially where you're returning clippings and you're fertilizing it year
after year, that phosphorus builds up. That's the second thing. If you
put the let's just say you put triple thirteen on the surface of the ground
and you water it in, the nitrogen washes right through. It's very soluble.
It just goes everywhere. It volatilizes off as a gas. Nitrogen is
always going somewhere. Potassium moves down pretty well too, not as much as
nitrogen, but pretty well, and then phosphorus ties up to the surface.
It's as if your soil was made of magnets and the phosphorus is iron filings.
You drop that on a pile of magnets and the filings don't go down
to the bottom. They tie up right at the surface. That's what phosphorus
does. So year after year after year, not only are you putting on
more than you need, but you're building it up. And so now you're
seeing iron chlorosis because phosphorus can make iron unavailable, and so it starts to
create other problems by doing that. And that's why I'm taking some time to
explain this, but because this is not understood by folks, and it needs
to be. There's a reason I say eight three one two four one two
ratio for your lawn, because we're trying to put the fertilizer out there and
the ratio that's going to end up in the plant tissue as best we can.
Okay, excellent. One more. I've got a neighbor. His yat
is ninety percent weeks. I've been fighting it for years, but last summer
when it was hot, it really got bad. And I've been pulling weeds
like crazy this year, and I've got so many beer spots, okay,
and you know weeds go to beer spots. I'm having trouble and I need
to get that grass to grow without putting a ton of salt in there.
Okay, how can I do that, I need to go quickly. Actually,
is this Saint Augustine. It's set Augustine, and it's healthy. The
yat is healthy. Nitrogen is your friend, So en make Saint Augustine grow
faster and be greener. That's important. So I would do. You could
do a slow release, and that's going to feed over time. I might
even do some small applications of a faster release, something like Bruce's Brew,
for example, is going to get you a quicker response than the slow releases
might. And I would do that in small amounts over time and just push
it along. Another good option would be to get some of the Medina product.
And I was talking about it just a minute ago. It's the hose
end applicator. I don't know if you were listening when I was talking about
that thing. I was. I'd actually used that the Well, this is
brand new. Now, this is not the super Grow for lawns. This
is Supergrow plus. It's a sixteen zero two so it has no phosphorus.
It's got sixteen percent nitrogen. You hook it up to a hose end.
About a fifth of that sixteen percent is in a slow release form, but
the rest is immediate release, and it's got seaweed extracts, and it's got
a keylated form of iron to keep it greener and healthy. And I might
do that particular product by Medina, which is then a hose in sprayer.
Okay, thank you so much. I love your show. Yeah you got
the bottle itself is a hose in sprayer. I should say, Okay,
okay, thanks Thomas, You've got thanks a lot. I appreciate that.
Let's see here, we got about a minute. We're going to go out
to Donna and Seabrook. Donna, can we do this in a minute?
If not, I'll hold you over past break. Yes we can. I
had a new deck built you shaped around a crate myrtle. Well, the
contractor leveled the ground and of course they cut the roots. I went online
to look at a sucker stopper that you mentioned a few weeks ago. Yes,
Boneye does one, but all the reviews say the spray clogs after it's
used. What if I spend fifty dollars on a bottle of this stuff and
the spray clogs. What if I flush it with a detergent after I've used
it once? Will that clear out the sprayer. It might. I don't
know why that sprayer is clogging. I don't know what is in it now.
And again I'm not here to tell you by this or that brand of
a sucker stopper, but I know Monterey also has a sucker stopper that's in
a ready to use paint bottle. And you don't need much of this.
You know, this is a hormone, so you're barely putting it on.
That's the rate you need, so you're not drenching or anything like that.
It's a it's an ingredient called NAA, which is one of the plant growth
regulating hormones that occurs in nature. But sucker stopper, you just spray it
on, whether it's a sprout coming out at bottom of your crape, myrtles
or whatever you're trying to stop a sucker on. It will do that by
just telling the plant with plant type compounds, hey, don't grow, don't
stop stop elongating and growing here. Well, that also work on the gazillion
eight, so that I have sprouting in my yards opposed to using round up
on them. Oh well, I you know you can't use it round up
in the yard because it kills the yard unless you'd wipe it on something growing
up above. Uh. Oh boy, that's uh. I don't I don't
know. I think that would not be That stuff's not cheap, and I
don't think that would be a good sure. No, hang on, just
man, let me go to Bright and we'll continue this when we come back.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. Looking
forward to talking about what you want. This is our last segment of the
day, so here we go. Well, last call warning, uh,
if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We're going to go to Donna in Seabrook again and we're
talking about sucker stopper Donna, and we're just saying that that stuff's expensive,
so go and sprain it on every little laker and coming up in the yard
and probably not be very practical. I think a wiper type of applicator and
putting something that will kill a woody plant, a brush or shrub or plant
like that. I think that's probably the best. The only thing you need
to watch for is if those are truly acorns, that's fine. If they
happen to be suckers off the roots coming up, then whatever you put on
to kill them is going to go down into the tree system itself. Probably
not kill the whole tree just from treating a few of those, but it
wouldn't do it any good, that's for sure. Do we have donna there?
Yes? From here? Oh? Okay, well I have. My
backyard is not Saint Augustine. It's a wildscape. Okay. So I have
a gazillion acorns that have fallen, then, I mean I'm just really tired
of pulling them up. Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, in that
case, I would get a product that contains trichlope here tri clo p y
r. And when you fry it, it may be called brush be gone
or it may be called poison ivy killer or something like that. But trichlop
heres the ingredient and it kills brushy woody stuff. Now, you don't want
to spray it Saint Augustine lawn, even though it's not brushy root. It's
very damaging to Augustine too. But I don't drench these things with it.
Just put a little spreader sticker in it so that it sticks to the leaves
because live oak leaves are lost, glossy, and you want your water droplets.
You're just putting out a little bit of droplets to barely wet the leaves.
You're not drenching them. You can cause other issues with that. But
just just lightly sprayed on the leaves with a spread er sticker and it'll go
down and it'll kill that, it'll kill hackberry. So we don't know what
to do about this clogging spray. Yeah, I don't. I don't know
what's doing that. I would probably take the top out of it and you
know, heat up some water pretty warm, not boiling hot, and just
soak spray top in it. See if it'll loosen up a little bit.
If you can get it working again, that might work. I don't know,
yeah, because it amazed me the number of people. I mean,
I read the reviews and there were many many complaints about the sprayer clogging up
after it was used. And for that much money, you don't want to
clog sprayer. No, no you don't. But I thank you very much
for your information and enjoy your program, all right, thank you very much.
I appreciate the cost Ae bye you take care don Yeah. Interesting,
that's interesting if I had not run across that complaint about that particular brand a
particular product before. But anyway, doesn't surprise me. Things happen, that's
for sure. Do you live in Seabrook? Do you live south east of
Houston? Do you live anywhere where you can hear my voice and want to
go see a place that's cool? Moss Nursery in Seabrook. That is a
place you need to go by there. I can describe it all day to
the cow come Home, but when you go by, you'll see what I'm
talking about. Imagine wandering through eight acres where at every turn there are plants
that are just everywhere. They get so many trucks in at Moss unloading all
the time. I mean it's on the ground, it's on shelves, it's
hanging from the trees, and their hou'se. That greenhouse is just amazing.
Succulents, cacti, other kinds of houseplants and things. They are loaded up
with it. Do you want color Colius? To the cows come home?
Pentus? Have you ever grown pentus before? Egyptian starflower? Oh my gosh,
the butterflies will line up down the block to get to your pentas.
Beautiful typically in pink, lavender, white, red shades. That's kind of
that range is pentus. Lots and lots of salvias are loaded up with that.
They've got everything you can imagine. Lots of beautiful angelonias and they're cacti
blooming. It's amazing every kind. I promise you this. You go to
Seabrook and you go look at Moss Nursery and if you're into succulents, half
the things they have you not even know what they are. They're just amazing,
beautiful, beautiful elephant ears, tropical plants like that, just stunning.
Do you like bananas? Five to six different brides been as you can grow
at home. How about a shady area where you need a good greenery in
there? Ligularia. That ligularia is like a lily pad, growing out of
the soil, comes up with a big round leaf like a lily pad.
Beautiful, does well in super shape gingers and philodendrons. Listen. Moss is
not just another garden center. Moss has been in the family. Seventy years
is how long that nursery has been around. It's family operated eight acres.
You wander, you enjoy. Who knows you turn a corner, you're going
to see some ethnic mask that Jim brought in from who knows where. I
mean, he's always bringing all kinds of crazy stuff in. You know.
Beautiful obviously racks a better name for rock than rocks geology. I can't even
say it. All kinds of like big beautiful giant rocks that have come in
and brought in water features and containers and a little waterfall coming out of the
wall, and think just you just wander. I mean, I can sit
here and talk all day about it, but they have got all kinds of
things. Allow some time and also leave room in your car because you're going
to see things you just can't live without when you go there. The people
that help you, they're gardeners. That's who they hire there. They hire
gardeners. I've been there before, talk to a couple of different master gardeners
that work there. Other people that they love gardening. They knowledgeable, they've
been gardening. They didn't read it in the book, they absolutely do it
every day of their life. And now they go to Moss and they work
and you've got some friendly folks that know what they're talking about. That is
one of what did I give you about ten twelve of the many reasons you
want to go to Moss Nursery down there in Seabrook. Hey, the website
Moss Nursery dot com, m Aas Nursery dot com. Go check it out.
In fact, that'd be a great thing to do today. You know,
the sun is going to come out and we're gonna have a really good
day here. Good day to go to Moss Nursery. You're listening to Gardenline.
If let's see, we've got just a couple of minutes left, I
believe, Josh, is that right? Just about to put this one in
the books here, I want to talk about a couple of oop got a
little phone call coming in, so I'm gonna go ahead and take that one.
We're gonna head straight out to David and Alvin. David, how are
we today and how can we help? I'm driving, I'm in Alvin,
Texas, but live in Conroe. Actually have a very shaded front yard.
The trees shaded in the morning, the two story house shades it in the
afternoon. Okay, I'm looking at solutions and one of the solutions is artificial
turf. It's very realistic looking these days. And I've spend so much money
on water, fertilized pesticides. The guys that come in trim and mow.
All right, the economics is really pretty good, okay, from what I
can say. I just wondered if you'd ever had a call like this,
and well, you're, first of all, you're breaking my horticultural heart.
But I'll go ahead and talk to you about it. I'll talk to you
about it. I know people that have used it and like it. Got
a friend here who does that with his yard. I give him a hard
time about it whenever I can. But yes, it will accomplish that as
turf is gone. The artificial turf has gone through the years, they keep
improving on it in different ways. You need somebody who knows what they're talking
about, how to get the drain to try before they put it down.
I am not at all an expert on that because I'm into living plants and
things and living turf. But for an area, yes, you can do
that. You just need to get your blower out because you're going to be
blowing leaves off of it all the time. Too, since you're not much
over it. So yes, it's uh. I'll pay to have it well
in every two weeks, and I keep a car in the front under the
Port of Cichet and it's covered with dust every two weeks, dust everywhere the
seal. Hey David, it'll solve it'll solve several problems. Yeah, thanks
for the call. I appreciate that very much. I just want to remind
you, guys, if you're interested in Bonesye the BONESI folks, The International
Boneseie Society Bonesye on the Bayou is going to be at the Marriotte Houston West
Chase Hotel on bra Park Drive February twenty six and twenty sevens here's a phone
number eight three two four eight three sixty thirty six. Eight three two four
eight three sixty thirty six. Talk to King Casino. He can tell you
more about it. Next Saturday, I'm going to be at Southwest Fertilizer.
Come out and see me. We're going to be giving stuff away and answering
your gardening question starting at eleven am.