Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Richter, So
just watch him as Woody Well, good morning on a good Sunday morning,
looking at darkness outside, by the lights coming. It's going to be a
beautiful day and a good day to get outside for gardening. You're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number you
want to write this down seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm was trying to
get some houseplant care done yesterday after the show, trying to do some you
know, general kind of trimming up on some things and watering. Notice that
I've got a couple of containers. You know, we always tell you make
sure a container has drainage holes so that you don't over water it well and
very inevitable. I fall in love with a container that doesn't have drainage holes.
So you can do that. You just have to be real careful that
you don't keep it too wet. I usually throw a little bit of charcoal
in the bottom of a container because it sort of they say, sweetens the
water. It helps a little bit with the souring of the soil and things
like that from saggy wet conditions. You still overwater, for sure, But
I always have to stick a finger down in a poddlettle bit or a pencil.
I don't know if you've ever heard about that, but you can check
the moisture down in your soil by taking a sharpened pencil. And it's important
that it is freshly sharpened, not you know, the oil your hands getting
on that sharpened wood surface, but it needs to be freshly sharpened, and
stick it down in the soil and pull it out. And number one,
if it's really wet, you can see the fact that the wood has gotten
wet. But even if not that wet, you see soil sticking to the
sides of the pencil. It's kind of like those of you who know how
to bake a cake know that you can stick a toothpick down and some types
of cakes and pull it out and see if it's ready or not by whether
you know, batter or whatever from the cake is coming out of there.
But you can do the same thing with a pencil. It's just another other
little tip, I guess. But I do have some containers that don't have
good drainage, and so I always have to do that. But man,
I love those containers. But anyway, it was just kind of grimming and
checking on them, make sure everything's doing good. I have some ivy that
is is trailing very long. It's actually a pothos ivy, real standard basic
plant, but a good one for good reasons. There's a reason you see
it everywhere. And so as it gets along, I'll just take the vines
and kind of lay them back over the hanging basket and let them drape back
down again. It creates this really large clump a ball of leaves up at
the hanging basket, and then you have a few few trailing down. So
it just just general messing around, you know. That's that's why I always
say it's a good day for gardening, because even if it were raining outside
today, I've got plenty of the house to do. In fact, I've
got some seeds I need to start to that I want to plan out in
the garden, and so it'd be a good time to get out and do
that. But on a day this nice, we just need to get out
and get going. In fact, I'm going to jump out to the calls
a little early today. I have some of the comments as we go along,
but let's start by going out to Cyprus and we're going to talk to
Joyce. A good morning, Joyce, Yeah, good morning. I thought
I have three gallon high discus plants that I got from Mother's day, okay,
and I was going to lead them in the containers that they come in.
But will they get root bones? Should I be replanting them? You
don't need to worry about that for a good while. Okay, they'll be
fine. You know if they as they grow, I mean if they double
in size or something from what you purchased, then just you can pull them
out of the container, kind of tease away the roots that are packed around
the sides of the pot and put them in some fresh soil and a bigger
container. But I don't think this quick after buying them. You need to
do that. Now the container you got them in, was it the old
black nursery pot or what was? Yes, sir, okay, that's what
you And they're probably maybe three feet tall, and I think I think plants
fall seasons, says they were three gallon containers. Three gallons. Oh yeah,
good, Well, by the way, that's a that's a great place
to get to get plants. Would I would do one or two things if
you don't like the look of the black pot, which I don't either,
but then you could move them into a prettier container if you want to do
that. But something that I'll do is, if you can find a container
you like the way it looks, just slip the black pot down in that
container. In other words, don't add soil and replant it that way.
When you're ready to bump it up, you can pull the black pot out
and then you don't have to dig it out or try to get it out
of the container. You know, some container sort of curve in at the
top instead of being unless say somewhat V shaped, or the top is whiter
than the bottom, and it's hard to get a plant out of that because
it doesn't slip out because you've got that curved in lid at the top,
so or edge at the top. So that's what I'll often do, And
then I'll throw some moss or something around the top, just so no one
knows it's not planted in that pot. I do that with house plants and
with other things too. And I was talking earlier about if you overwater,
well, if you have a container that's like that doesn't have a hole in
it, that's another advantage because you can just lift the pot up and see
is there too much water in there, and set it back down again.
But just a few tis. There's no one way. I'm sorry, and
go ahead. I was going to say. What I did is we just
had you know, some of the turk are quite looking pots, and set
them inside that. But when I do transplant them, then what size container
would I go to? You want to go up one size, so whatever
sizer, and now you know, if you can get a two inches maybe
three inches at the most up at the top, if it's a three gallon
already, then you know you're you're going to get a much larger container than
if it was just like a little six inch pot. But I would move
up kind of one size, give yourself a little bit hand to grow.
They're going to always be a little route bound, and that's okay. You
just want to watch because those things want to be in the sun and when
it gets hot, they're pumping a lot of water, So having a little
more volume is probably better for them. So you're saying, so I should
put them in a bigger pot when it gets one, Well you can,
you can as it warms up, but I would you know, there's not
a This isn't a black and white issue at all. I mean, if
you want to just set them in something for now, they're going to be
fine the pot they came in. They are not overgrown in that pot yet.
They will be okay within a few months, but for right now,
you can just go with that. I feel like you're going to be making
that bump soon. That's why I was saying, set them down in another
kind of pot for now, just so you have something pretty around them rather
than the black pot. Yeah exactly, Yeah, all right, well,
thank you so much. Oh and then the potting soul should I use it?
But I think you talked about half was it happy frog? It kind
of helps contain water they have in the past here I've talked about jungle Land
recently is from nitrofoss and it's it's got a it's got a blend of Canadian
blonde peete with four different ages of four different types of decomposed organic matter in
it and then it has a microrhizal fungine. I really like that about it.
And so when you put that, when you put that in your container,
uh, it's gonna drain well, but it's also going to hold moisture
adequately, and that's important. So you can get jungle land all over the
place. I mean, you know everywhere nitrofoss is sold. I think you
said that you you were at plants for all seasons. Well, they'll they'll
have jungle land, I'm sure there. And if they don't, they'll have
they'll they'll have an aquioma for you. But I would I would just if
that's where you shop, then just go back there and talk to them.
But jungle lands in a lot of different places. One last thought is make
sure that is if the drainage hole for the pot is on the bottom and
it's sitting on concrete or something that's fine, or a deck, if it's
sitting just on a clay soil, you might want to get those little things
that lift the pot up a little bit, because it you don't get good
drainage when the pot essentially is sealing itself to the surface of a clay soil.
Do you know what I'm saying? Yes I do, and yes that
he is sitting on a place a little That's something I would have never thought
of. Yeah, give it a little, give it a little bit of
boost, not much, just a little bit. All right, Well,
thank you, thank you for that call, Joyce, appreciate thank you.
We're going to take a break, Harry. We'll come back to you as
soon as we get back from break. And if you'd like to call in
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, let's go. Let's
go way, good morning on a good Sunday morning for gardening. We are
dark outside now, but it won't be that way long. In fact,
if you want, if he looks over at the neighbor's house and the light
troff, go ahead and bang on the door and tell them they're missing garden
line. They will. They will thank you later, not today for sure,
but maybe later. We're going to head out to the Galleria area now
and talk to Harry. Good morning, Harry, good morning. I'll enjoy
your show. You're doing a great job. And by the way, five
h seven four is ktrh ktrh very good right, that's what it stands for
KTRH five H seven four. All right, I was wondering about potting soil
for herbs like regano and time and things like that. Yeah. We you
know, we are fortunate here to be blessed with a lot of different,
good quality kinds of potting soil. And you're not going to go wrong,
you know, with any of the group. I was talking about jungle land
from night frosts a minute ago. Uh. The Heirloom Soils has an urban
veggie mix, by the way, that would be excellent for that, and
I would also consider that one. Uh. And then the Nature's Way provides
a very quality potting soil as well. But I think you're going to find
that that Airline soil um veggie and herb mix is it's going to be widely
available for you. And that's that's one thing to consider. If you go
to h You see you're in a galleria area right. Uh, there's an
there go ahead, which which which nurse ree do you recommend? Police?
Well, if close to you, there's an Al's Handy Hardware. It's an
ACE hardware store. It's on Alden Mail Route just a little south of you.
Uh, and uh, just if you go on and do um Ace
Hardware dot com. You can do a store locator and ACE Hardware carries all
the products that we talk about here. They carry the soils, they carry
the fertilizers, a wide variety of of stuff. When you go in there,
you're gonna you're gonna see what I'm talking about. But Al's Handy Hardware
is on Alden mail route and that's probably the closest one to you. But
just just go to Ace Hardware dot Com. They're gonna have the heirloom soils
there. How do you spell that again, please airloom or yeah, it's
yeah, it's it's spelled like family heirlooms, like h E I R l
O okla. And but ask them for the Magian Herb mix in the Ace
Hardware. Yeah, and the Ace Hardware is Ace Hardware dot Com. And
you just look for the store locator. And this store is just south of
greens Point on that that's a little far away, but that's that's one closer.
Yeah, there's a lot of color. By the ways, this is
a tax free weekend for trees or something. Somebody said, yes, it's
tax free weekend for trees, any any plants. And also for anything that's
think of as water savings. So for example, mulch or putting compost in
your soil, you know, to increase the rooting zone and therefore it can
get the more water, uh drip irrigation. Go ahead, Yeah, I
keep up the good work. Really enjoy listening to your show. All right,
well, thank you appreciate that call, Harry. You take care,
Yes, sir, Now you know you're gonna find You're gonna find ACE Hardware's
wherever you live, and that that email Ace hardware dot Com is really the
easiest way to get down to it. I mean, you got friends and
wherever, they just tell them go to ACE hardware dot com. They can
find it there and they're going to carry all the It's nice to be able
to recommend places where you know they're going to have it. And that's that's
been the challenge, because you know, for me to send you out on
while goose Chase is trying to find something, well, that's not fun for
you and not something I certainly want to do to you. So that's why
we love to have a sponsor that I'll say we'll carry all those things and
just make it kind of fast, simple and easy, but they sure can
get that job done. You probably heard about Dell Web Communities. Dell Webb
has been building communities for active adults age fifty five and better for over seventy
years. And I was excited when they contacted me because they're putting a new
community out in Full Shure. In fact, it's less than two miles from
downtown Full Shure on FM three fifty nine. The reason I was one reason
I was excited is because I'm going to work with them to create a community.
I am working with them to create a community garden on that site for
the residents. So if you're a gardener and looking for the quality community that
Dellweb has been doing for a very long time that inspired designs and the lifestyle
programs that go along with that, you need to check out dellweb dot com
slash Houston. Dellweb dot com slash Houston. By the way, Webb has
two bees in it and you can also call them to eight one four five
nine zero six zero nine. I'm really looking forward to that community garden,
you know, coming together out there. That is going to be cool.
A good community garden makes for a wonderful community. And if you're a gardener,
you know how much fun it is to get out and hang out with
other gardeners and talk at Gardeners are the nicest, friendliest people you could meet.
We're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter and our
phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four if you are interested in doing some vegetable
gardening this week. We're in the hot summer weather, on the verge of
the hot summer weather, and so it's time to be planning things like okra
and let's see sweet potatoes, black eyed peas, all the southern peas,
Southern peas like black eyed peas, purple holes, crowder peas, zipper cream
peas, all of those kinds of things. Lots of greens. I was
talking about some greens yesterday that are summer greens are from parts of the world
that are hot, sultry, and humid in the summer. Welcome to Southeast
Texas, and so they do really well here. And so those are all
things we can be planning now. We still got stuff going on in the
garden from the spring garden. If you've never gardened before. I would encourage
you to try gardening this year, and you can start this summer if you
want, but sometime this year get out there and try planting something. Now.
You could do it in a raised bed that you build, a create,
or buy. You could do it in a big container. I would
suggest let's start with a container and just try your hand at it and see
how things go. With a very large container for the plant size that you're
going to grow, you can take it through summer without having to water it
twice a day. And so for tomatoes that would be at least ten gallons
for tomatoes to do well. If you're looking at peppers and eggplant at least
five, preferably about ten for those also just to give them. And the
reason is they need a large volume of soil to draw water from. And
the more soil you have, the more water that can hold, and the
more water will be available to the roots of the plant that are confined to
that container. That goes true for ornamentals as well as vegetables. But you
should, you should give it a try. There's a lot of help online
and for crying out loud, we're here eight hours a week on garden Line.
You can give us a call and we'll walk you through it step by
step. More more than happy to do that for sure. If you have
been considering growing herbs, I know we were just talking about herbs a moment
ago with Harry. You really ought to give those a try. They are
super easy, and they too can go in a container. In fact,
there's nothing wrong with combining ornamentals with edibles, and so why not have a
tall ornamental grass coming out of a container with some oregano or time spilling over
the sides. Just an idea something to think about. Let's head out to
Lamark and we're going to talk to Beverley this morning. Hello Beverly, right,
yes, I'm sorry to Boddy that I have a question on dollar weed
grass. All right, I don't know the best thing to get rid of
it. Okay, Well, first of all, Beverley, there is no
bother at all. That's why we're here, So thank you for calling.
Dollar weed can be controlled with broad leaf weed killers. That are we call
them post emergent because we spray them on weeds that are already there, as
opposed to things we put down to prevent the seeds from germinating and coming up,
so you can find there's a number of different ones out there. I'll
try I'll just try to make it simple instead of sending you to seven hundred
different products. The Bonide has a weed beater Ultra that's pretty good. There's
also a product called Celsius, like Fahrenheit and Celsius. It's Celsius that weed
beater ultra. When it gets up in the upper eighties, at some point
there, you're going to start to stress your Saint Augustine. So if you
can find a little bit milder day would I would use that. The Celsius
you can go a little bit warmer, probably up to about ninety two.
It may go higher, but that's as high as I'm comfortable with it.
And both of those will do a really good job on your dollar weed.
Okay, So Celsius it's a mean buy from Helle. Where do you get
back? Yes, you're gonna find Celsius in a good quality independent garden center.
You're going to find it in feed stores too. And you're down you're
down south in the Lamarck area. You got two options. One is to
find an Ace Hardware near you. They do a really good job of carrying
a lot of products and down in the Lamarck area. Just just go online
if you still got your pin out, go online to acet Hardware dot com
and then you have to select do the store locate or click on that and
it'll it'll take you right to the nearest one too. I think that's the
easiest way that I can get you. Thank you, sir, you have
a good day, you too. Thank you so much for the call.
I appreciate that. Well we are. We're rolling here this morning. The
first hour is halfway done, and these mornings sometimes go so fast. That's
a good thing at least. I think they say time flies when you're having
fun. Hermit's Rock says time it's fun when you're having flies. And with
that dad joke, I will turn it over to Nikki. My apologies.
Alright, we've still got some amber alerts to be aware of. I've got
to details coming up. Well, good morning on a good Sunday morning for
gardening. We are going to be talking with you about your questions until ten
am this morning, so we invite you to give us a call at seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four two one two KTRH two ways
to go about dialing that you know. This weekend, the Memorial Day weekend
is the Lawn and Garden tax holiday where water saving products are exempt from taxes.
So this is a good time to get out there and buy plants,
to buy compost, to buy soil, to buy a tree hugger sprinkler for
planting your new tree. It's a good time to get out and do all
of those kinds of things. And more drip irrigation, This would be a
great time to do that. Maybe you need a hose end timer so that
you don't forget and let the water run all night. And the kids have
a little river going down the curb to play in at your expense, this
is a good weekend for in that. And I was at Buchanans yesterday and
was looking at the native plants that they carry, and they have a lot
of native plants, and of course this is a great time to buy native
plants. They have a good selection. They even have a table that's devoted
to plants just here in Harris County that are native here, not only here,
but plants that you will find in their native habitat here in Harris County.
And then have a wide variety of other natives, just all kinds,
lots of really good options. If you want a little butterfly garden on some
milkweed, make your little monarchs happy. It's a it's a great time to
be out at Buchanans and Native plants if you want to find them there on
East eleventh Street and the Heights. And if you want to just go online,
it's buchanan Plants dot com. They've got a great newsletter. They've got
a good presence on Facebook and Instagram if you want to kind of keep up
with them, see see what's going on and he's sales coming up or anything
like that and just get some inspiration. Always love visiting out at Buchanans.
You know the fertilizing for summer, now is the time to get that done.
And when you fertilize, you should follow that with an application of azamite.
Azamite is a mineral source for trace elements. Now, the nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium on the fertilizer bag, the big three, they're important
in large numbers. That's why they're the three numbers on every fertilizer bag.
The micronutrients, the trace minerals or many of those are also essential for plant
growth. They're just needed in small amounts. That's why we call them micros
or trace. Not less important, just less volume. So azamite puts those
out. When you put that on your lawn, you are going to be
adding that kind of mineral to your lawn. And it's just it's good for
your lawn. Your trees has roots underneath there and they're going to benefit from
it as well. I use azomite in the garden ten pounds per thousand square
feet. And here's why. I want my vegetables to have every nutrient that
my body could possibly need, which may be nutrients that a plant doesn't necessarily
need. That's why I love to use asamite. So when you think fertilizing,
also think about putting out that that asamite. And for those of you
who live in the southwest part of town, I need to get back there.
It's been a it's been a just a bit since I've been out a
Southwest fertilizer. But they're a Houston lawn and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five.
I go in there, you know, as a horticulture educator if you
will, just to see what are the newest products, because they're going to
have them there. They have wide variety of products, probably the greatest selection
of products here in the city. They have all the fertilizers we talk about,
you know, the soils and mulchas and things like that. They're going
to have an organic selection like no other. So if you're an organic gardener,
just because we say they have all these chemicals, well the organic products
can be chemicals too. That includes a large a large volume, but they
have those there. You'll find what you need to have your organic garden there.
They have their own Southwest Gold A fifteen five ten slow release fertilizer would
be a good time to apply something like that. But if you have any
questions, bring Maybe you're at the house and you got a weed or a
bug or something going on, just put it in a bag and take it
in. When you go, Bob and his team will diagnose it and they
will give you the right product. They will they know what they're talking about.
They'll give you the right product and take you to it. They're in
the corner of Bissonette and Renwick in Southwest Houston. You can go to Southwest
Fertilizer dot Com to find out more information. Such a good day to get
outside with the weather we're having, it's it's just pleasant. And I always
say frontload your gardening work into the spring and maybe backloaded into the fall.
Summer is a tough time. Now, I still love guardening in the summer.
I just go out early in the morning. You know, you can
break a sweat in the summer going out early in the morning walking across your
yard. But that's the time to get the work done in the summertime.
So now you know you need to build soil, you need to plant grass,
you need to fill in the blank. Now's the time to get those
big projects done, because of course here comes the summer won't be that far
away. And if you have been looking at your landscape and it just you
know, it's you like it. You've gone and bought the most wonderful plants
and all these great nurseries and brought them home and you planted them, and
but you look at it and it's just like you know that I don't know,
that's just not I'm not a designer. What you need to go to
Peerscapes call the folks at peer Escapes, Jason Garritty and his team will come
in. They will do a design for you. It can be something small,
it could be something large. I mean it could include hardscapes, walkways,
drainage, irrigation and on and on down the line. Or just be
a redesign maybe of those beds in front of the house. They are professional
at designing and they're professional at installation. Their employees are trained, they're certified,
they have their licenses. I do what to find out more, just
go to piercescapes dot com, pe a, r ce sca pees, spell
that one out peerscapes dot com or give him a call to eight one three
seven zero five zero six zero. You want to get your lawn and your
garden, your landscape and everything's set up to be a show place. Another
idea, and I need this. My back patio has been neglected. They
say the cobbler's kids go barefoot. Well, I need a good design for
something like that, you know, for some beds around it. Reconsidering some
of the arrangements of things I have and changing the pots up, putting in
an irrigation system for my containers. If you have container plants and I love
containers. You need an irrigation system to go with them, because to go
out every day, in some cases twice a day if it's a smaller container
in the sun and water them, it just well in my house is not
going to happen. It just won't happen if there are too many days where
I'm just not even there to do it. And so a drip irrigation system,
which would be a good thing to buy this weekend, by the way,
a drip irrigation system with a hose end timer. It comes on when
you tell it to. I want to water Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
and I want to water at seven in the morning or six in the morning
or whatever. It'll come on and do that. Of course, with containers
you need to water every day pretty much, but this is a good weekend
to buy that too, by the way. That is water saving. But
you can take an area that's a patio, for example, and really beautify
it with containers. One of the things I like about containers is they make
you look good. And here's what I mean. If I have a container
that is started, maybe the plants are kind of wimping out like a petunia
heading into the heat of summer. Maybe you can just pick it up,
move it around the side of the garage. I call that the plant hospital,
and bring another one in with freshly planted plants and instantly it looks good
while you take the old one and kind of rework it and get it going
to come back out again. Containers are easy and they're fun to work with,
and for folks that don't have a lot of space, containers allow you
to grow things in a sunny spot. Maybe you don't have a sunny spot
for a garden bed, but with a container, you can go put it
on a sunny spot and look looks really really good. So consider containers.
And there's so many beautiful ones. I mean, there's everything from I mean,
if you just want to grow some vegetables out in the back forty and
not worry about them, and you can get a big old black pot and
put it out there, nurse your pot and grow in them. And then
if you want something nice, you can have the most beautiful vase or urn
type container that it is a show stopper. And I would encourage you to
consider this summer when you're planting, especially this week now as we're getting ready
to head into the heat, and most importantly to day because it's the last
day of the Memorial Weekend tax holiday. Adding a container. Hey, you're
listening to garden Line. Give us a call seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four and Josh will get you on the board. Sweet pea,
pablum, I don't know what and don Louisa, can I keep bump
coming? Is he singing to his vegetables? At least that's how the way
I'd like to look at it. You're listening to garden Line our phone number
seven one three two two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to head straight
out to Richmond now and talk to Marcy. Good morning Marcy, Good morning,
Skip, Thanks for taking my call. You back, Um. You
were just talking about containers and growing vegetables and plants and containers. I have
several containers that basically are from last year that have soil, and I mean
they were it was good soil when I planted in them, but they're empty
right now. Would that be a situation where I would use aisamite or would
I just use something my micro life to kind of re energize the soil before
I plant well, okay, both, we'll do something. Aismite is is
purely the trace minerals, okay, and so that is why you would use
that. I might use them both. Actually, microlife is an organic product,
meaning the material in that fertilizer was once alive and is now available to
spread as a fertilizer. They they've gotten, they've made it into a fertilizer,
and so when you put it out, microbes release it. But because
it was once alive, all the micros that a plant had to have to
be alive are now in that fertilizer. Also, you know, it's like
you walk out and pick a leaf off your tree. When you look at
that leaf, if it didn't have all the micros that needed it wouldn't have
successfully made that leaf. And if it's low, may be the like with
pecans, for example, if they don't have zinc, the leaves are small
and kind of rounded, and so plants have to have all the micros as
well. So I would probably do them both in a container if you got
them that. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, Okay. I just kind
of scatter it around and mix it in the soil little bit. Yeah,
I would mix it in the soil. I think that they do a little
bit better when you mix them in. I mean you can throw stuff like
that on the surface, that's fine, but get it down and get it
down in the root zone and in the container. You have that that privilege
to do that. On a lawn. You can't really roto tail the lawn
to get things down underneath. I just don't want to waste the soil.
I don't know what else to do with it really, well, no,
you can. You can reuse it. The only time we don't reuse it
is when it maybe you've got a nematodes in it by coming in with a
plant or something, or if a disease, a root rot disease killed the
plant. They're actually they're actually ways to past your eyes. Potting soil probably
more trouble than anybody wants to go through. But that that kind of soil
I would throw away. But just the whole soil, I just add to
it, freshen it up, put some good quality soil in there, and
you can just keep going. And you can also throw it in your garden
and road or till it end if you want. I mean, it's it's
it was potting mix. By the way, you're fortunate to be out in
Richmond and be near the Enchanted Forest and Enchanted Gardens. If I were you,
I would if I'm going, Oh are you which one are you going
to today? I'm going to Gardens Gardens. Yeah. Oh, they're they're
They're both amazing. I love, love, love to go out to those
places and just see. I don't know, just when you walk out,
isn't it inspiring? Both of them. You walk out and you're just look
and it's like, oh my gosh, so many plants, so little time.
I know. I'm so lucky because I do live in between both of
them, so I can go to either one. Yeah, and they each
had their own unique uniqueness. Uh. Yeah, I was. Chanted Gardens
had a display of bougainville Is that just looked like a million bucks and that
would be a good one to bring home for now that we're going into hot
weather. Yeah, good for you. You're a fortunate lady to live so
close to two great garden centers. I am, well, thank you so
much. Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Yeah, the
Enchanted Forest has a lot of the Salvia nemerosa and it's a it's a Salvia
nemerosa. It's a type of salvia which is in the mid family. The
stays really low and the foliage is I don't know, maybe six inches or
so high. It could be a little higher than that, and then the
bloom stalks come above it, so it's kind of it. It is just
stunning in the colors. Oh my gosh, purple and pink and blue,
light, sky blue and white and everything. You use that as a border
plant in a sunny area and it will it'll be amazing in many ways.
It kind of reminds me of the angelonia or summer they call it summer snap
dragon in that it has a little spiky flowers and is down low. But
number one plant group for me is Salvia's. I just love salvias and got
a lot of plants. I love that. I really love the salvias.
Pretty cool, pretty cool stuff. Salvia nemerosa. So we're when you're out
shopping, I know they having a chanted forest. I'm sure they having a
chanted gardens. And I would suspect a lot of our our garden centers in
different parts of town where you are going to have that. Just ask them
for the salvia and nemorosa. It's a really beautiful little little sage. You
know, Salvia's are there's such a wide genera of plants. We have salvias
a get really tall, like the Salvia garonitica, dark dark purple, dark
blue, light blue, comes in a light blue form. Argentine skies.
We've got the salvia's like mystic spires that generally speaking are about waiste high.
They can get a little larger in that in time, but in general they're
pretty compact. Actually you'll notice them from kneehigh to waiste high a lot just
just beautiful. Then, you know, Salvia's are one of those plants at
bloom on the new growth, the ends of the new growth. So nice
to do when you're when you're out shopping. This weekend for garden centers are
at garden centers. When I say this weekend, I guess I mean today.
It is the tax free weekend. So all of our major garden centers
are Ace hardware stores. Of the feed stores we talk about, they all
carry the tree hugger sprinkler. And if you have any plans to plant any
plant, or if you have a tree that maybe was planted a few months
ago, or a couple of years ago. Tree Hugger sprinklers water right where
they need the water and so you're not wasting water. It is a water
saving device and it would be another example of a tax free device. You
can go to tree Hugger Sprinklers dot com if you want to learn more about
them. They come in three sizes, the seven inch, the eleven inch,
and the fifteen inch. I have all three. Actually I like the
seven inch when it's a small tree and I'm just planting it, maybe a
rosebush. It's awesome for rosebushes too. You could put them around them,
turn on the water just a little bit because you just want to wet that
area, and then as plants get bigger, you can turn it on higher
and higher and it'll wet a large circular area. I love those things.
Yesterday I was out at Wildbirds out at clear Lake. Had a great time
out there. By the way, Wilbirds at clear Lake that's there. This
is still part of their grand opening and today they're going to do the drawing
for the advanced pole system for the easy squirrelproofing devices that they have. There's
advanced pole system and a couple of others. The eliminator eliminator bird feeder.
That is another good one. And somebody's going to win a twenty pound bag
of their no Mess bird seed blend each month for the next twelve months.
So if you haven't, the drawing is on Monday. It's tomorrow, So
get in there, get your name in the pot. Who knows you might
get lucky and win this one. And in the meantime, going to wahbirds
is cool no matter where you live. And now I was out at at
the one at good night. I can't even say clear Lake, clear Lake
yesterday, but they're wahbirds all over town, seven of them. As a
matter of fact. Just go to WBU dot com. That's wu BU dot
com and if you would put a forward slash after that and then the word
Houston WBU dot com forward slash Houston. And by the way, this is
a little bit far ahead announced, but hey, we plan our schedules ahead.
On Saturday, June tenth, two saturdays from yesterday, I'm going to
be at the wild Birds in Kingwood. I'll be out there for a couple
of hours. I'll talk a lot about that next weekend. But if you
would live in the Kingwood area, Porter, New Caney, Humble anywhere,
Humble, anywhere up there. Just to consider Saturday, the tenth of June
as a day to come out. Let's meet, let's talk, and let's
let you see some really cool stuff that the wild birds folks have on there.
I really really was inspired. Yesterday they had a this is funny,
but they had a little cork thing that you put in your wine bottle and
it looks like a bird and when you pour wine, at chirps at you.
So that's a conversation piece. I don't know why I picked that out
of all the things they have at the store, I guess that was the
one amused me, amused me the most. And if you're not, if
you're not into birds, you need to think about it. Do you know
that gardening is a number one hobby and guess what's number two? Bird watching?
Bird feeding? You know, just the whole bird world. And when
you purchase quality products bird houses, bird feeders, and especially quality bird feed
not the cheap stuff that half of it gets kicked on the ground and not
eating because the birds don't like those round, red baby looking seeds. But
the quality stuff that is a no mess. It just the birds number one,
get the exact kinds of seeds that they like. Each one has a
different type. But it's just it's a blessing to watch. Time about sitting
on our patio, you know, I just sit out there, just watch
the feeder and see what's going on. My kids bought me a little bird
feeder with a camera and gave it to me for Christmas, and so I
get a little email every time a bird comes to the feeder. I can
set it up that way. It's how I have set it up, and
it's kind of cool just be able to watch it takes pictures and know this
is a little video of it as well. But birdwatching is something that's grown
on me the over the past few years. And I just think consider combining
the two biggest hobbies in America, uh, the gardening and bird watching,
and put them together and one sit on on a patio and just really enjoy
the beautiful birds and the antics that are for birds on them. We'll be
back in a little bit seven one three, two, one, two fifty
eight seventy four. Get on the board. We'll talk to you first.
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Ricord. Just watching as
well. Good Sunday morning, on a good day to talk about gardening.
Good day this afternoon. Get out there and do a little bit of gardening
out in the yard. Maybe the landscape needs a little sprucing up. Get
that lawn mode for the weekends over if you need to do that. You
know, the more often you mow the lawn, the prettier it is.
If you let it get tall, cut it way back, it's stressful to
the grass and you lack the density. And when you lack density, sunlight
hits the soil, and when sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weed.
That's just kind of hot works out there, unfortunately. So we try
to keep our lawns as dense as we can, keep our flower beds mulched.
By the way, this is the tax free weekend for water conserving products
that that and plants. You plants tax free, the anything that helps conserve
water like compost and mulch, like drip irrigation, tree hugger, sprinklers,
those are all on a tax free status for this weekend which ends today of
course, so if you if you haven't been out and you know, tried
to chop for some of those things before, I think you should at the
very least get a hose end timer that would you know, allow you to
set it and forget it, check on it periodically. But it just it
just makes sense, you know, when to waste drinking water is a shame.
And I mean you pay for water, you say, many of the
water systems you pay for it as a water and that's what helps set the
sewer rate too. Even though it's not going through the sewer, it's going
on your lawn. Still you use the water, so it's it affects your
sewer cost rate in many communities as well. So just another reason not to
waste the water that's out there. We're going to go out now and talk
to Elizabeth in Westbury. Hello, Elizabeth, good morning morning, Thank you,
Thank you so much. Um Yard developed that black fungus grass on it.
Yes, and unfortunately I did spray it with some fungicide, which I
found out you probably shouldn't. Yes, But my question is they everything said
you just leave it alone. But my big question is I have a dog.
What if she gets it on her? Paws. It won't hurt her
at all, not one bit. The black stuff is just some spores from
the fungus that are up there. It's producing those. And you're right,
it's not it's not a disease of the grass. What you're looking at is
something that lives on the grass. And it'll go away. You can take,
you know, Elizabeth, if you don't like the looks of it,
or you don't want your dog having it on the pause, just get a
water hose and set it to blast and just blast it right off. You
can wash it right off there. It tends to won't that spread the spores?
Well, here's the thing, it's not gonna It's not gonna matter because
the the spores are already out there. A lot of our fungal problems are
to be used to the fancy word ubiquitous. They're everywhere, and so it's
kind of like, can think about it this way, Elizabeth, if you
were to take a little spray of water, a little mist of water,
and let's say the side of your house you just constantly were missing it with
water, suddenly algae would appear, right uh. And it's not like the
algae where did the algae come from. Well, it's everywhere. It's just
you created conditions for it to grow. And that's what happens with these things
that pop up and go away, and especially the things that are sacrifices.
They are not parasites of the plant. I just don't worry about them.
It's just part of nature. So it's it's not going to hurt the dog.
It is not going to hurt your dog. It's not going to hurt
anything. But if you if you want just take a water hole and blasted
off, you can do that and dog won't track it around. My second
question is that I have a pecan tree. It's an old tree. It's
probably been years long as this house. And last year it did not produce
one single nut. Okay? Did it produce in other year's they had?
Yes, okay. So pecans are one of the plants that can do what's
called alternate bearing, and it because they ripen so late in the year,
you know they're a fall harvest. They're putting all their carbohydrates into making those
pecan kernels and they don't have enough carbohydrates to set a bunch of buds for
the following year. And so when you have a heavy crop year, it's
almost always followed by a very light crop year. There are other things that
can cause them to not produce well in a particular year. But if you're
looking on the tree and you're just not seeing pecans anywhere, it's some sort
of an alternate bearing thing going on, most likely because you know, the
neighborhood didn't change overnight where there's now no longer other trees to send pollen through
the air to your pecon. It's just a matter of that's the nature of
the beast. Now. I never gave it any fertilizer or anything, and
probably the only water it kits is when we get rain, and I don't
water the tree. Okay, somebody said maybe it needed some zinc if pecans
generally need zinc on high pH soils. But you can tell because instead of
normal shaped leaves, as the leaves are coming out, they'll be they call
a mouse eared, but kind of picture a mouse's ear and then picture a
pecan leaf and it looks more like a mouse's ear than a normal pecan leaf.
That's a zinc deficiency symptom. I don't know. There's not a real
great practical way to put a zinc on your tree. In this situation,
we can we can go deeper into it, but just for the sake of
simplicity, you just need to give it a good soaking when when we go
into hot, dry weather like we had last summer, a good soaking every
couple of weeks, every couple of weeks only, and not every day,
not every you know, just every couple of weeks a good soaking. And
then if you're fertilizing your lawn, that's probably going to be enough for that
large it's a large pecondry. Yes, yeah, I think that would be
enough. You can give a little extra for the tree if you want.
You can have somebody come in and do a deep root feeding and put some
nutrient down in the soil too, But I think for now I would focus
on taking care of the lawn with fertilizer that'll help the pecan, and then
watering as a rescue, watering during hot, dry summer conditions. I do
you there's a green probe people to fertilize and treat my yard. Oh well,
then you're you're set up. And actually what had happen with the squirrels
last year did not get the cons so we're not the nit tree. And
thank you so much, Skip. I really appreciate it, and I was
so concerned about that black grass and my dog. All right, well you
can you can rest well, thanks for the call. You know, it
is lawn fertilizing season, and nitrofoss In eighteen four ten is a good one
to apply. I mean it's a fertilizer that releases slowly, so gradually,
over time you get the nutrients that your lawn needs released, so you're not
gonna have to fertilize again until fall if you use nitro foss Super Turf nineteen
four ten. That's in the silver bags, by the way. And where
do you find nitro foss Well, pretty much ever where you live. Kan
Emma, Ace Hardware and Kingwood has it a task of seed as all the
Ace Hardwares are going to have it. You're gonna find it in places like
Shades of Texas up in the woodlands. You're going to find it at enchanted
gardens and chanted forest under Richmond Rosenberg nitro Foss Super Turf nineteen four ten.
Tell us why you had to pad away for so long? Tell us why
you had to p Well, good morning on a good Sunday morning. Oh
the sun is out, it's coming up. Got a little sunshine on the
on the skyscrapers of Houston. See it beautiful, beautiful day coming. You're
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are
here to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number seven one three, two
and two fifty eight seventy four or two and two kat r eight if you'd
rather spell it out. We're going to head out to Spring Branch now and
talk to Judy. Well, good morning, Judy. Hi there, um.
I bought a peach tree yesterday and I know they are better planet in
the spring, but I want to do it now. What advice can you
give me? So slip it out of the hot Make sure the hole is
as deep as the soil and the container, so like if you were to
pull it out of the pot and set it on the sidewalk or whatever.
And how tall is that column cylinder of soil. Make the hole about that
deep. You don't want to dig a lot deeper because then it'll it'll settle.
And we want to plant at the exact same level that the soil is
on the trunk. So when you finish planting. There shouldn't be more soil
around the trunk than there was when it was in the container. Okay,
okay, Well, initially you know you're gonna you're gonna dig your hole and
use the soil from the hole to go back in the hole. If your
soil is a heavy clay, it actually would be good to bring in some
quality mix to create a little bit of a raised bed for it. But
it needs good drainage, it needs good sunlight. If you want to have
peaches, I want to have a living tree that's productive for you. So
those are probably the two most important things, as good sunlight and good good
drainage. How much should I water a new tree every week? So that
tree in the garden center is probably getting watered every day, right, and
sometimes more than that depending on how big it is. But so when you
put it in the hole, it all the roots are in that cylinder still,
and it can pump that dry in a day, and you may have
moist soil around it, but it's not wicking in to the old to that
container soil fast enough, so you have to do small waterings. That's why
I like that tree hunter sprinkler, because you can get the little seven inch
one, put it on there and turn it on a little bit, and
you just wet that area and help it get roots into the soil around it.
And then gradually you're wetting a larger and larger area. But if you
can give it about a month of making sure that that area at least stays
wet, then you'll be helping it get some roots in it so it's a
little more resilient. This first summer is the critical one for your new tree.
Okay, well that's good advice. Thank you so much. All right,
thank you. I appreciate that very much. If you're looking for a
quality soil mix, Nature's Way Resources is that if you're fortunate enough to live
up north forty five up toward Conroad direction, just south of Conro is Nature's
Way Resources right where fourteen eighty eight comes in, just across on the east
side of forty five. Now, they have every kind of soil mix you
can talk about. I mean that they have roast soil, leafmol composts,
and so on. They also have a two acre nursery and garden center.
One of the largest varieties of native plants in the Houston area. You can
buy fruit, trees, native perennials, houseplants, even seasonal vegetables. There
at nature's way. So don't just think soil, think soil and native plants
and other non native plants as well. When you're talking about the opportunity to,
you know, look at a historical leader in this industry. That would
be nature's way when we think about you know, the original rad of the
rose soil here approved by the Houston Rose Society, the leaf mold compost leader.
That's nature's way. And so I hope you will give them a call,
check them out, and while you're there, get some plants too.
I'm going to go out to the guard let's say it's going to League City
and talk to John V. Good morning, John V. Good Morrie Skip,
Good morning everybody. Yes, my question is on basket flower. I
received the seeds closed and closed at an Earth Day event? What city of
Lake City? Okay, and so it says plant from August November. And
my mother also got the seeds that she was very eager, so she actually
already planted hers. And I can see the little bit of a greener you've
coming up already in the pot waiting to plant. Blind to August. Yeah,
I would. I think I'd wait. I'm what I'm wondering is if
we're truly talking about something called basket flower, or if you're talking about something
called love in a mist. That's also it's the label on there. It
says basket flower. It looks as a picture on the lay on the envelope,
and it's purple, like a bloom like purple, kind of white in
the center. Um a little bit, but it's all like a purple looks
like am okay, Yeah, that's probably a basket flower. That's an American
native wildflower. I would I would wait, and I would do it in
the fall. It would come up now. But it really, like like
all of our fall biennials, they sprout in the fall and they go through
winter and then they come up and really do their show, and you just
have a better result overall than trying to plan them in the spring. Yes,
sir, And so I'm going to put them in a correct because I
saw them. They're like a light, very like onion peels. They're very
large and delicate. Yeah, well, yeah, you want to you want
to make sure that they have plenty of soil if you put them in a
pot because this plant can get five feet high, you know if you look
at and going in the bar ditches and stuff. So they don't expect yours
to get that high in a container. I'm just saying the potential for the
plant is there. Sometimes you'll see them and they're only a foot and a
half high, but in general, just make sure it's a sizeable enough container.
Okay, how exciting. Thank you so much, Skid, have a
wonderful Sunday, you do. Thank you for the copy. I've been talking
about Dell Webb this morning and yesterday as well. I don't know if you
know this, but they contact me about helping them with their new Fullshire community.
They're putting in a community garden on the site for residents. I mean
it's an awesome idea. You know. Dell Webb has been building these communities
for active adults age fifty five and better for over seventy years. They know
what they're doing. The new community is less than two miles from downtown Fullshire
on three fifty nine. I think you ought to check it out. Go
to Dell Webb with two bees, dellweb dot com, forward slash Houston for
more information or just call them two eight, one four five nine zero six
zero nine. Let's go out to Lakeside of States and we're going to talk
to Maureene this morning. Good morning, Marine, Good morning. I've moved
forward with planting my ocra, doing nice leats about two foot high. Some
of the plants the seeds, and so my question is, because I started
from seed, and I also started my watermelon from seed, I want to
get them off to a good start. Now. Already I have the microoft
which but they're in pellets. Yeah, Microsoft, I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, that's okay, Yes, I just couldn't get it out,
okay. So what I also have is liquid kelp or seaweeds. So
because they started from just the seed, I want to make sure then I'm
fertilizing them the appropriate So I was thinking of using the kelp because into a
liquid form and the plants could get their nourishment quickly. Yes, what I
would do is I would put down the microlife kind of scratch it into the
sole surface around your ochra plants, just follow the label, and then I
would do the kelp as a spray on top. The Microlife's gonna take a
little while to kick in. It's a slow release, but with the warming
soil, that's going to start moving pretty fast. But right now, the
seaweed as just a or the kelp as a top spray would benefit the plant.
You could also drench it on the roots for a little faster results.
But that way you're taking care of them today for the next few days,
you know, and you're also getting something in the soil that's on its way
to really giving them a boost a fertilizer. Okay, and a part two,
so to speak. On the watermelon, I did get very good results
in one pot, in yucky results in a second pot. So I looked
at the soil and I think that because they were pots, I might have
put ozma coat on one and nothing on the other. So it's kind of
a two part question, meaning I will do the same thing you just told
me to the oprah. If that is correct from my watermelon seeds, Yeah,
but they are in pots and they are so I'm going to let them
trail over the pot. I've run out of garden rooms so that the landscape
when he mows my lawn will not have a problem. I have a very
large patio and I was going to let them trail and run. Is that
okay? Yes, that's okay. You need a really big pot for watermelon.
It does not need to go through a drought for half a day.
Even so, when you water it it's pump. They use a lot of
water when they grow them in the fields. And when you're watering it in
the morning, you may water it again in the afternoon. Just make sure
that pot never dries out because it'll abort flowers. You'll have something called blossom
end rot on the which rots the end of your watermelon fruit. So just
that's number one thing to keep in mind about. I have an automatic system.
It's not a drip, it's an actual I have lots of pots um
so I should be letting it run for about how many minutes to watch some
of it drain out? Will that be a good indicator? Watching watching some
drain out is fine as long as it's not running. Like the soil gets
a little dry and pulls away from the side of a pot, and will
you water and it just runs around the side, do you know what I'm
talking about? And runs off the top down the side. Yes, that
would be water coming out of the pot, but that soiled and wet yet,
so with drip, that's probably not going to happen. But just you
know, dig down with your fingers a couple inches and make sure the soil
is moist. Okay, okay, thank you so much. Appreciate right,
Maureen, thank you. I appreciate that call. I don't know if you
guys have heard of Star of Hope, but if you haven't, you need
to. I think we all consider ourselves compassionate people. And you've probably been
in that situation where you pull up to a street corner someone's asking for money,
and you know you want to help, but you got some questions about
how that money might be used. If you want to get the most from
your dollar, give it to Star of Hope. You can go to Star
of Hope Mission dot org. It's actually shmission dot org shmission dot org.
They feed more than six thousand meals a week. They have a men's center
downtown. They have a Cornerstone Community for women and family development. They can
hold one hundred and eighty single women in one hundred and thirty families. See
here's what's happens. People say I want to turn my life around, they
go to Star of Hope. They've got the training they need. They have
food, they have access to clothing, they have training for getting a job,
and even the clothing to look good and be able to go get a
job to get back on their feet. Money well spent. Put your compassion
to action by giving to Star of Hope. Were good morning and a good
Sunday morning. You're talking about guarding getting ready to go. I tell you
this afternoon, take advantage of it. We got a long week coming up
ahead, and you get to get out there and get ahead of things by
just pushing things up a bit, maybe just going out and getting into some
new new plants. I guess you know. I talk about people often ask
me what's your favorite plant? And I hate that question because all of them
I like all of them. But I've talked about earlier my favorite group of
plants or Salvia's. If I had to pick one, I would just say
Salvias. All the other plants that I love are saying, hey, what
about us, Well, you made me pick one. But when I say
favorite new plant, that's gonna be the Cajun series of hibiscus. Now,
the tropical hibiscus is just an outstanding plan. You guys have seen him at
garden centers and things. But I was walking through our CW Nursery is a
good while back and it was the first time I'd encountered the Cajun hibiscus,
which I don't know where I've been, but there they were colors like you
cannot imagine. I mean, just I can't describe. I'm color challenged already
when it comes to descriptive words. But you need to see them. You
need to check them out, go buy Rcwe haven't been there before. Cajun
hibiscus, you know, they they've hit our area and they're a really popular
plan a lot of around town. A lot of people have fallen in love
with them. OURCW Nurseries dot Com is a website. It's that's the nursery
that's on Tomball Parkway Highway two forty nine where it comes into Beltway eight.
Check them out by the way. This weekend, Remember for all our garden
centers, this weekend is when we have the tax free weekend for plants and
water saving supplies. So that's a reason to go to r C. The
hibiscus is another reason to go. All the other plants or another reason to
go, and on top of it, off, that's not enough. They
got a fifteen percent sail on all their fruit trees and fifteen percent on select
other trees. And they have a wide variety of other trees as well,
not every other tree, but on select ones. But how many reasons is
that now piling up? To go to OURCW nurseries. But when you go
there, just say, hey, skip said go see the Cajun hibiscus,
and they will take you right to them. We're you're listening to garden Line.
We're here to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. In my home garden, one thing that I really need
to do is to add more compost to the beds that you might have noticed
that you build a bed and you fill it with soil. We call it
soil, but it's basically, you know, like a rose mix or a
vegetable and herb mix or something like that. But then next year it's a
little lower, and the next year it's a little lower. Same thing happens
in your containers because that organic matter is oxidizing way, it's on its way
to hum us think of it that way, which is a good thing,
but you have to add more and fluff it up, and I need to
I need to do that, and I can't think of a better place,
especially for those folks that are down southwest Sandy Point or Cola, Iowa,
Colony, Fresno, Quil Valley, Sienna Plantation. That's CNA Mulch. Then
you go on line to Sienna mulch dot com, CNA mulch dot com and
see what I'm talking about. They've got the bulk soils, they've got the
bag soils, they've got the mulches that you need to put on the surface.
By the way, uh, you know, mulch is the number one
way we fight weeds and the number one way that we protect the soil.
Keep the temperatures moderate during the summertime really important. While you're out at Sienna,
you can grab all the fertilizers who talk about they have all of those
as well. Now they're closed on Sunday, but they they're open Monday through
Friday seven thirty to five thirty and on Saturday seven thirty to two thirty.
They're on FM five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight. Boy,
that area is growing like crazy. I guess you could say that about
a lot of areas around Houston, but a lot of new neighborhood's going in.
And you are fortunate if you live in that area to have a place
like Sna Malch by the way, for a small additional charge, they can
also deliver and drop it off for you, So Sena Malch check them out.
But if your garden beds are settling down like mine are, it's time
to fluff them up a little bit, get some get some good material in
there. And we are fortunate in the Houston area to have so many options
for really quality material our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are
hitting the time when it's fixing to get really hot and then the stress and
the strain goes on our plants, and we need our plants to be in
the best health that they can. If you've got a tree, tree roots
reach widely out in all areas. I think one time when I was going
through school getting my degree and studying fruits and nuts and things like that,
they said that a pecan root can go two and a half times the height
of the tree in all directions. So think about the size of a pecan
tree. Now imagine two and a half times that distance out. So there
are roots everywhere, but the majority of roots the concentration where if you've gotta
you can't go to two houses down and water your neighbor's yard to water your
pecuntry. But if you can focus on the area underneath the branch spread of
the tree and maybe a little beyond that and give it a good soaking.
When we're going through drought, focus you're feeding in that area. Now,
to make things simple, just hire Affordable Tree Service to come out. They
are experts at taking care of your trees. They'll come out and you can
pay them to come out and of a consultation. What needs to be trimmed
back, what needs to come out, what is perfect just the way it
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They're going to tell you if you need something and tell you if you don't
need it. You can go to aff Tree Service dot com or you can
give him a call seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three.
Now, either Martin or his wife Joe are going to answer the phone.
How many times you call a business and the owner the owners Martin and Joe
answer the phone. If Martin and Joe don't answer, hang up. You've
called the wrong place with affordable in the name. But they specialize in all
things from deep root feeding to fertilizing to pruning, trimming up trees, getting
ready for hurricane season. Afftree Service dot com or you can call Affordable Tree
at seven one three six nine nine two six six three. I like to
I like to spend time out working with some of the flower beds and the
herbs and things. In fact, I got some plants that I need to
take home and get planted. The pleasure of it, you know, it's
fun to go out to the nursery and chop around and see those things.
You get to buy a plant and take it home. But it's also just
a lot of fun, you know, to get out and plant them and
pamper them along and take care of them and celebrate when the next bloom pops
up on those flowers. If you need the supplies for all the kinds of
things we're talking about, ACE Hardware dot Com is the place to go find
your local ACE Hardware. They're not hard to find, thirty nine of them.
They're gonna have every fertilizer I talk about on garden Line. They're going
to have a wide variety of pest control management products. They've got herbicides and
things like that. They've got an awesome grilling section. If you are a
weekend warrior with a web or Trigg or Big Green Egg and more, they've
got that. Their paint studio includes Benjamin Moore paint. In other words,
everything you would expect from a garden center. Ace Hardware dot Com, Ace
Hardware dot Com. Oh Mama, pay my girl to be at all.
He's a magic man. Good morning on a good day for gardening, as
all days are good day to talk about gardening. We are here to answer
your gardening questions. If you'd like to give Josh a call seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, he will get you on the board
and we can talk about whatever you're interested in regarding gardening. Let's go out
there now. We're gonna start in northwest Houston and talk to Ralph. Good
morning, Ralph. Hey, Ralph. I'm gonna put you on hold and
see if we can get. I can't here. Oh there you are,
there, you are? How are you doing? My vis is a garden
and everything. You should have got a good program here. You know.
I'm fine about my country. I got you got wat the works, I
got very fruit trees and everything, and I'm Gorden doing beautiful with your help.
Well knowledge, well and well, it just took watering thing. It's
just hard to get to without the uh you know, this rain has gotten
me all messed up. I got to know more about water. And I'll
tell you, man, is it staying too wet in your garden or what's
going on? Oh, I've got to get the rain. Okay, Yeah,
you know, I don't know whether it's just to keep a watering and
yeah, I guess I just keep a watering. You just have to,
you know, check your soil. See how it's doing. A big tree
like a pecountry, it's got roots in a lot of places. And I
can tell you this. Pecans are not struggling for water anywhere around the Eastern
area right now. We've we've had enough over you know the last few months
that they're they're okay. A good soaking never hurts a Pecan, though,
so you know, get the sprinklers, drag them out there and turn them
on, and or if you got an automatic system, just give it a
good soaking took you keep going, keep doing it. I got my may
hold, and I got my pigs and my pocons and my tears. You
know, Oh, you got a full time job, Ralph, you got
a full time job, mute. But it is a great this year and
everything. But you know, it's just it's just good. It is a
great hobby. But you know, and and uh, you're so much too,
so knowledgeable, and I really appreciate it. Well, Ralph, I
I think you appreciate the call. And yeah, gardening is a great hobby.
I mean, we stay busy and sometimes we have things to fuss about.
We we need something to fuss about, so usually it's the weather.
But anyway, I ta we're going to go out to Kingwood now and talk
to Joe. Good morning Joe, Good morning Skip. I'd appreciate your advice
on when to put out the grub killer, trying to keep the feral hogs
away mainly, and then also the armadillos. Is it when the you start
seeing dead June bugs on your driveway is that too late and you'd put it
out when you start seeing the armadillos digging up in your beds or were is
the right time to put it out? Well? The armadillo, the armadillo
is it could be a sign of grubs. It could be a sign a
lot of other things too. There's other things they dig up, like earthworms
and feed on. So it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. You know
that you have grubs, but that is that can be a sign as far
as grub killers are concerned. When the things come out that we call jim
bugs, they really should be calling them may bugs around here right then,
when those come out, that's a sign that they're going to be out there
laying eggs. And what happens is the eggs hatch, and after the eggs
hatch, the larva feed near the surface for a while and when it starts
to get hot, they go down deep. And when they go down deep,
we're not going to be able to get a successful treatment of insecticide down
to reach those grubs. So here's here's what's here's what's happening that we want
them to hatch out. We want to get as many hatched out as we
can, and then we want to apply our product before they go down deep.
So that's that's kind of the signs of it what we're looking at.
I would say that I wait until you know those those mating flights that you're
seeing around you see the bugs out there flying around your your lights at night
and stuff, then go ahead and put the application down. That should be
sometime in June. Some products last longer than others. Some insecticides just you
know, go right into the plant they do their stuff, or into the
soil and they do their stuff and that's it. Others stick around a little
bit. A meta cloprid is a grub control one of many products for grub
control that sticks around a little bit longer in the plant. But this would
be the time to stop them if you've if you've had a problem with those
over the years. So when you start seeing them dead on the driveway,
wait a little bit, or is that about the right time to start putting
them just a little bit when you know the very first ones again, we
want them to get all their eggs laid. You don't want a treat,
especially with a product that's not going to stick around. You don't want a
treat and then there's still June bugs out there flying around and laying eggs.
We'd like to get that egg lay and done. So that's why I usually
say toward the end of June, mid mid to late June is usually a
pretty good time to do that. Now, every years different, so using
the calendar to predict insects as a little iffy for the years. Yeah,
and then product another one in addition, tomate a clop dialogue dialogues is another
one. I think. I don't know. Dialox isn't as common of insects
sight and I don't know the label, but if it's labeled for use on
the lawn for grubs, that would be fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's
by advanced drug killer pluses. Okay, Yeah, sounds like it sounds like
it'll work. Yeah, okay, skip. Thank you for your help.
All right, thank you. I appreciate that call. Let's go to pair
Land. We're going to talk to Don. Good morning, Don, Good
morning, how are you. I'm well? Thank you, that's good.
That's good. I planted a rose busher last week in the lawn in my
flower would bed, and I was wondering, how long do I need to
wait before I put off my rose food on me. Usually I give plants,
you know, at least a couple of weeks to get settled in and
start growing. There's no rush, but there's also no harm being done to
go ahead and put it out. You're gonna put the rose food out in
a wider area than just that little cylinder of soil that you had when you
got the plant out of the pot, right, So you're gonna go a
little wider than that in the area you treat, and those nutrients will be
down in the soil and as the rose starts to send its roots out that
they'll be available to it. You might start with a little light application now,
maybe three weeks later, do another light application, just kind of gradually
feed it over time and encourage good, good rapid growth. Okay, Yeah,
and don't don't forget the watering if it turns dry that Oh oh no,
I've been water in an area the other day. Yeah. And yes,
and also before to fertalize out, should I water the plant first,
then put the food out? No, you put the you put you put
the food out and wash it in with an irrigation that are scratched into the
soil surface. If you're if you're able to do that, if you have
a bed around it like that. But just remember that that cylinder dries out
fast. When I say cylinder, I mean the soil that the rose came
with. That dries out fast because all the roots are there, They pump
all the water out quick. So make sure and keep that moist. Don't
overdo it, but keep that moist. And once the rose gets roots in
the soil around it, then you don't have to worry about that. Okay,
all right, all right, thank you, all right, mo hey,
thanks for the call. Appreciate that very much. We're going to run
out to spring and talk to mo Hello, mo Hi, me. My
neighbors are going around about plants. Okay. He went to alberghee by all
kinds of cheese, nice throwing them out in the damn street, and I
pull most of them back in on my property. Sounds like the hell you
got some? Are they still alive? Yeah? Uh summer peace cheese.
It says piece trees, lemon trees, apple trees. And one says,
uh pair, oh my god. Okay, Well get him in the ground
as quick as you can. It's gonna be touching. Go if they were
pulled out of the ground. It's gonna be a little touching go as to
whether they know they're in buckets. They were thrown out in buckets. Yeah,
he wouldn't bought buckets of trees. And then he didn't his wife didn't
like them, so okay, and she didn't even like the tomato plants he
bought, so I got those. All right, Well go for him,
I mean, take care, just make sure and add him to your Christmas
list for all those nice free plants. Yeah, I say. And then
he threw at this this uh ten fort something back of Stephanid goes on the
ground. It's in a silver bag. Okay, oh nineteen two. Wow,
it's a nitrified silver bag. That's that's like gold. Hang on to
that. Hey, we're gonna we're gonna winder. He through seven of those
bags away. Oh my gosh. All right, well don't I don't have
any I don't have any words on that one. Hey, I gotta go.
We're going. Yeah, I'm gonna save it and you can tell me
later on how to put it out. All right, Mo, we gotta
go to break. Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Sounds like
you went into a gold mine. Well, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here every Saturday from six to
ten and every Sunday for six to ten, eight hours of garden Line each
weekend. There's no excuse to not be able to listen to some of that,
right if you want to give us a call seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four, or you can say it this way two one
two ktr H Josh will get you on the boards and when we come back
from our break, you will be the first ones up. In the meantime,
I just want to remind you two weeks from now, I'm gonna be
out at the wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. That's Saturday, June tenth.
Saturday June tenth. I'll talk about it more next weekend, either from eleven
thirty to one thirty, So I hope you'll kind of schedule your weekend around
being able to come by and see me. And when you do, you're
gonna see why we talk so highly of Walberg's Unlimbeth on this show a major
storm. KTRH. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scarre Rictord.
Just watch him as well. Good morning, great day outside, nice Sunday
morning out. This is the last day of this weekend, meaning it's the
last day of that opportunity to avoid paying your state tax on the water saving
plants, soils, composts, devices like treher or sprinklers, drip irrigation hose,
end timer and on on and on. So this is the time you
want to get out there. It's kind of like having a little bit of
a sale. You don't have to pay that extra what is an eight point
something percent or whatever that is. Uh, we're going to head out first
to Spring Branch this morning and we're going to start with David. Hello David,
good morning. So os mister Rictor on each your help. I have
a u it just overnight came out. It was like a my para tree
has a web web worms. I got just worms. I don't know what
they're called. Where they have a web surrounding the part of the outer branch
that they're in. There's about two spots in my para trees and it's full
of paris. Okay, you know what yeah, but I should do.
Yeah, I've been seeing those breakout. I saw some on some wild mulberry
that the birds had planted and they were starting to cover up with those.
You got a couple of options. Peartree. How big is it? First
of all, it's probably like about twelve years old, and it's probably like
around tall. Okay, way way too high to reach, that's for sure.
Uh. You know, when you break up the webs wasp which are
their number one food is caterpillars, they will start going in there and they'll
find them and they will start hauling them away. But what I would suggest
gets some kind of a long pole if you can are a very hard stream
of water to break up as much of the webbing as you can and then
spray it with either a product containing BT which is a wormed a caterpillar disease,
or a product containing spinosaid, which is an organic fermented product that's made
from soil microbes. So both of those are organic products, and they both
of them work very well against caterpillar is feeding on your plant. And by
the way, I can reach the web one on me like a ry ten
feet tall, but I will I'll tell you if you're not squeamish and they're
down that low. I probably just reach up in there and strip the webs
out by hand and then squirt the squirt the leaves are feeding on because both
of those products, they need to eat the product, So spray it on
the leaves and that that'll do it. BT, you're probably gonna need to
spray it about every three days for a little while, just if in your
new ones hatch out and so on, Spinosa. It soaks into the tissue
and it lasts a little bit longer, so that that's kind of part of
the decision. I guess, okay, I certainly will. All right,
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your call. I hope that
is very very helpful for you. Let's head now out to Austin County and
we're gonna talk to Doris this morning. Good morning, Doris, good morning.
How are you. I'm doing well? Thank you good. I have
to tomato bushes that have huge meatoes on them, but they don't seem to
want to ripen. Okay, well, they will just give them some time.
Once they hit they hit a mature stage. But they're still green,
but they've hit the maturity stage. And after that they start that ripening process.
If they're all the way to the mature stage, you can pick them,
bring them inside, set them on the counter, and they will finish
ripening. And some people do that when they're worried about mocking birds, and
some are squirrels coming in and ruining the show. But otherwise, just leave
them on the on the plant. They will ripen. They won't just stay
green forever. Unless it's one of the very very few varieties that actually is
a green tomato. I don't think it is. Yeah, I don't think
so either, And I don't know why they even have those. Well that
that would be confusing, wouldn't it. Yeah, just be a little patient
with it, you know, if I knew, I knew that it was
mature. You know, when you say full size, it's getting close to
them, sure there, but when very big, okay, well, when
it starts to blush a little bit, if you want again for the birds
and squirrels, you can go ahead and bring it in, let it ripen
on the counter, and they will taste a very good, very very good.
Okay, thank you so very much, you bet, and thank you
for the call too. If you have not tried the arbor gates one two
three punch the one two three completely easy system. It's an organic system.
So what they give you is they have a food that feeds anything with roots,
and that would be the four four three. It is going to have
organic matter. It's got to have all the nutrients, the trace minerals,
the main ones we look for as well the main nutrients, a slow release,
it's a quality product. The second would be the organic soil complete.
Now that is made with certainly with composts and also large particle sand and expanded
shale. So when you work that into a bed, the organic matter is
going to continue to decompose and head toward humus, but you have that shale
component that you've added in which is helping to hold the soil, keep it
open. And then finally, the organic compost complete, high quality. It's
two different types of composts blended together right before they bag it, so it's
got a lot of beneficial microbe diversity in it. It's well balanced too,
with the micronutrients macronutrients you need like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, but also
the micronutrients that you need. So the organic one two three completely easy Blend
from Arbourgate. You can go to Arbourgate dot com and learn more about it
and learn more about Arburgate Garden Center as well. I want to talk about
a place that is important to me. I mean it's a it's a personal
thing, and that's Star of Hope Mission. My wife and I volunteered for
Star way back years ago when we lived in the in the Houston area,
and it's it makes a difference in people's lives. We see homeless people around
on all the time and how do how do you help? How do you
put that compassion to work? Well, you do it through Star of Hope.
Now write down this email Shmission dot org. When you give to Star
of Hope, just two dollars and eighty cents is a meal that's like a
cup of coffee. They serve more than six thousand of those meals a week.
But people that move in with Star of Hope, they have one year
to go through the trainings for education, how to get a job, how
to deal with substance abuse. It doesn't cost them a penny. They even
provide clothing for them and help them go out and get a job. You
know, if you fall on hard times, maybe you want to get a
job, but you don't have a car to get around to do it,
or to show up regularly to work. Star of Hope changes lives. It's
money well spent. It makes a difference. Put your compassion to work.
Go to Star of Hope Shmission dot org. We're gonna take a break it
is. Let's see. I give you a phone number. We've got some
room on the boards if you'd like to call in seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Josh will get you on the board, and
Carolyn and Spring Branch we will be with you first thing when we come back
of the seas. Good morning on a great day for gardening. This is
called Chamber of Commerce. Weather that we're enjoying out there. So I hope
you have a little opportunity this afternoon get out and do a little bit of
gardening yourself. That's it's the most therapeutic thing that I can think of.
And that's that's not just my opinion. I mean, there's so much research
to talk about the benefits of gardening on our health. Certainly physical benefits you're
getting out, staying active and so on, got incredible benefits for mental benefits
as well, for example, fighting depression with kids ADHD. They're actually looked
at kids exposure to plants and being out in nature and things like that.
Done research studies and found that being around plants and that way hasn't an impact
on the ADHD or add that a child would have. So gosh, how
many reasons do we need to get out and have a good time in the
garden. Let's head out to spring Branch. First thing here and we are
going to visit with Carolyn this morning. Good morning, Carolyn, Good morning.
So Hi, step I just wanted to thank you. I was listening
to Central Texas Gardener on Channel eight yesterday morning and you were on there and
you were talking about the beneficial insects and you were talking about how the apids
of the insects eat them as wait, the eggs of insects the larva.
I think, yeah, I'll get it right in a minute. Yeah,
yeah, Anyway, it was really good and I especially like the idea of,
uh, putting tops of plants around your garden that attract these you know,
good intakes right that they can you know, have lots of time to
make little ones and eat the apits, right, Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, Angela Agender, I think it calls out an insectory garden. I've
seen some really cool stuff she's put on the web about that and when you
when you, if you build it, they will come. How about that.
That's a good way to put it. I didn't know. I didn't
know Central Texas Gardener was running those. That's a for those around here who
don't aren't familiar that that is a TV show on the public TV in Austin,
Texas. But it comes on a thirty in the morning Saturday mornings.
Interesting, Okay, I recorded. I guess, I guess I've become a
rerun so whatever that whatever, goo, I appreciate. I appreciate the call.
Thank you so much. Really, you're welcome and a good day you
bet bye bye bye. You take care. If you are looking for a
quality soil mix, you're you're you don't need to look further than Heirloom Soils
of Texas. And by the way, that's the website Airloom Soils of Texas
dot com. I don't care what kind of soil you need. Do you
need a ROAs soil? Do you need a vegetable vegetable and herb Blend.
I was talking about that earlier. Do you need a potting mix to go
into containers? They've got it all. Now. You can go online to
Airloom Soils of Texas dot com. They've got an Heirloom Soils qubic yard calculator
where you can you can say things like, okay, how many wheelbarrows is
in a qubic yard? You know? Or I've got x inches or feet
by x inches or feet by and how much composts do I need? And
boom, it tells you right then, right then, and there. They've
got those super sacks. They can bring certain ones of their mixes right out
to you in a big bag, set it on the on the driveway,
and it holds a cubic yard. And that's a super clean and easy way
to go about it. But airlin Sels of Texas you're not going to go
wrong. Super quality, super quality. We're going to head out to a
tes casita right now and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, Hello,
good morning, good morning. I have a question about no SEM mosquitoes.
Do you have any solutions to get right of them? Well, I'm I
always think of no sms as something you see that you get down on the
coast in some areas that now, the mosquitoes themselves are quite a problem,
and these are not These are not regular mosquito. Okay, these are little,
tiny biting bugs. Oh. I don't have a solution for them.
Maybe somebody has an idea on that. But you know, they're not on
your plants where you spray your plants, or at least you don't know where
they are when they're resting on plants somewhere. I guess do the repellents not
work? The mosquito repellents? Last year I was told to put bathron on
my lawn, which I did. It didn't help a bit. Try everything
I've read about and heard about, but I can't find anything, and they
just take they take me over when I go outside. Yeah, I'm gonna
look into that a little bit. That's outside the horticulture world, so I
am definitely no expert on that at all, But I'll see if I can
find anything. But yeah, the bifan thrin is a good persistent insecticide in
the lawn, but I doubt that no cms are coming from there. Maybe
wrong about that. I've been told they're real bad about Azellua bushes and I
have a lot of azala bushes. Okay, Well I'll look into it,
Carol, thank you for the call. Sorry, we can give you a
good solution on that. But I'll see if I can find that. Okay,
I have one of the quick questions. Have a lot of high biscus
plants, and I have one. The foliage is gorgeous, but it will
not bloom. I feed it just like I do all my others, but
no blooms. Well, be careful that you're not overdoing the night hitrogen on
it. You need a good balanced food and you know the hibiscus food.
And yesterday I was giving out some of the Nelson products out at wild Birds
and they have a really nice quality of hibiscus food. But when you look
at the numbers, it's not like overdoing the nitrogen on it. That would
be one thing. Good sunlight, of course, is important. Lots of
sunlight is important. I don't know what else would keep it from blooming.
Maybe we got some hibiscus experts that could call in and give us a thought
on that one. But anyway you get the idea of it, Just be
patient and watch that high nitrogen. All right. Thank you for your help.
All right, Carol, thank you so much for the call. You're
listening to garden line. All right, let's see, I'm your host,
Skip Richter in our number seven one three, two, one two five eight
seven four two one two fifty eight seventy four. Perhaps you used a pre
emergent herbicide in the spring, which is a good idea for all the warm
season weeds, but those don't last forever, and so we hit this season
and it's time to consider a second application as a follow up. So as
those products break down in the soil, which they will, then you do
another application to continue that protection against weed seed germination on into the summertime,
and that would be a product called barricade. Barricade is a nitro foss product.
It controls both broad leaf and grassy weeds, but it's not going to
kill the weeds you already have growing in your lawn. What it's going to
do is prevent any weed seeds from germinating. So if you're still struggling to
get that lawn back dense again where it chokes out most of those weeds,
this is a time where in the meantime, using a barricade a product will
work. You can find it at Plants and Things and Brunham DND Feed and
Tamba has barricade and K and M a side in Kingwood another place where you
can find barricade from nitrofoss. If you happen to live up in the area
around Magnolia, Tomballs Magnolia area up that way, Spring Creek Feed is a
wonderful opportunity to go and find the products we talk about and friendly staff,
courteous staff, and all of the other things that you might need, like
your pet foods, your livestock foods, wildlife feed. They even have a
grooming center. You can go to Spring Creek Feed. They're located in Magnolia
on FM twenty nine seventy eight. So up in Magnolia FM twenty nine seventy
eight Spring Creek Feed and you can buy all of that kind of stuff.
If you happen to be in FA or four h or if you're a military,
if you're a senior citizen, there's discounts for all of it, all
of you and if you don't see what you need, they will special order
products for you. So the things we talk about on garden Line or there
and anything you need just ask them and they will try to special order it
for you as well. I think we'll head back out to the phone right
now, and we are going to go to Baytown and talk to Robert.
Hello, Robert. Okay, I have his wife. Oh, we have
hello, Robert's wife. Okay. We have a spot in the front garden
that okay, rob us here. We have a funglish problem. We had
a satsuma, it was infected by it. We cut it down, and
now we planted a peach tree and sure enough he got it again. What
can we do well, ma'am, that's a little too generic for me to
be able to tell you, because I'm still not clear there. I cannot
think of a disease that attacks satsuma's and peaches, so you may have more
than one thing going on. Could you take some pictures of that tree from
a distance so I can see the whole tree, and then close up of
leaves or anything that when you say you have a fungus on it, show
me a good, well focused picture that I can put you on hold and
Josh can get you an email where you can send that in and I'll be
happy to take a look. Okay, hold on Herebert he can tell you
a little bit more. Okay, Um, we know we have brown rock
because when the when the pies did come, only as they started rick on,
they started rock with yes with fungicide, and the bark has some splits
in it. Okay, yeah, the splits in the bark could be natural
as the tree gets older. But if they're on the southwest side of the
tree and they're very deep fissures in the bark down even to the inner wood,
that is damage from cold in the wintertime. It strikes the southwest side
of the tree. So as far as the brown rock, you have to
spray preventively your fungicide. Don't wait too you see it, You just have
to be out there ahead of it, because it will ruin the show and
most importantly any rotten fruit. Pick it up. If anything is left dried
hanging on the tree, that mummy is full of spores to infect again later.
So cut those out, do that sanitation and lower your problems with the
brown Right, you want to eradicate it, but at least you won't be
as bad. It won't be as bad if we get that email worse pictures.
All right, I'm gonna put you on hole right now. Hang on
and let's see we will get Josh to take care of that. Um,
let's see, we're going to head out to League City and talk to Barbara.
Hello, Barbara, good morning, Yip, so good to hear your
voice. Question. I came home after being gone for a few weeks,
and my tomato plants are covered in holes, tiny holes. They look like
pincushions. Okay, okay, and I can't find any critters on it.
All right. The holes are too small to be snails. They're all the
way up to the top. I know exactly what you're talking about. That's
a little beetle doing that. And if there's still enough foliage left to say,
find a product with spinosaid. It's SPI n O s A D.
It soaks into the tissues, so you know, day or two after you
spray, a beetle shows up and eats a leaf and it kills it.
But I'm having to head to break here. We got about a minute left.
But did that. I just got a pen. Could you spell that
again for me? You bet? SPI n O s A D spinosa Okay,
great, thank you you're my hero. Well, hey, well that
was easy, Thank you very much. I appreciate the call. There,
Barbara, you're listening to the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricter,
and the phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We're going to head to news now, but if you will give
Josh a call, he'll get you on the boards. Nikki, did you
know that spinosa is made by fermenting a soil? Micro isn't that interesting?
That is fascinating. And see you start talking about a little beetle and my
mind goes right to ringo. Yeah, that's funny. I'm kind of a
horticultural Cliff Claven. Also, they found it on the islands in the Caribbean
and brewery waste or no sugarcane something waste. So yeah, and here we
are with a wonderful organic product. Wow. Sometimes you want to go all
right, gosh, I get it, Cliff Claven. Those of you who
have never watched Cheers, you missed a lot number one. Cliff Claven,
he's a no at all. He knows everything. Well, let's put it
this way. He thinks he knows everything. But thank you for the music.
Oh gosh, best Meilvan Ever. You're listening to Garden line. I'm
your host, Skipwrecter, not Cliff Claven, although I could at times be
a horticultural Cliff Clayvin some one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Let's head to northwest Houston
and we're going to talk to Paula. Hello, Paula, good morning.
I have an answer for that lady who's plagued with mosquitoes. She said,
she may not plagued with no seems a little different creature, but oh I
thought mosquitoes. Yeah, well, what's your mosquito? Oh I'm sorry,
I'm just understood. That's okay. We kind of bounced around with both of
those. What's your mosquito remedy? Well, I'm retired, so I Gordon
every day. In fact, I'm standing out here in my yard right now.
I've been dead hitting flowers and like I said, she may not want
to hear it's this, but I'm literally covered from head to toe. I've
got a sunhet on, I've got a mosquito net under the sunhet. I've
got a T shirt on. I've got a light weight long sleep men shirt
over that. I've got lightweight, long pants, which and I'm wearing socks
and with my Gordon clogs clogs. It's so funny because I see the mosquitoes
like buzzing around my head. Yeah, of course they can't get to me
because I got the mosquito net on, which is I think ninety nine cents
at wal Mart or something, so it's back of a deal. Well,
very good. Sounds like you're you're bundled up. Well that's good. Protect
you that lu stuff. Protect your skin too, which you know the effect
of the sun's rays at up over time, so it's always a good idea
to protect your And then in the summertime, I have um coal packs that
I put I've got one that goes underneath my hat, and then I've got
that goes around my neck, so it all works. You sound like I'm
picturing like a polatoon of army people getting ready to go to battle, and
you're just heading outside the garden. I know, but it's a battle with
these mosquitoes, right yeah, all right, well, hey, thanks for
okay, thanks for that tip, Paul, I appreciate shot the call.
Yeah, the phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
and by the way, I, Carol, I've during break I kind of
checked this out, and I always go to research based websites. This is
information I found was from the University of Florida Extension and they basically there's not
a lot you can do for no sums. They do say that DEET should
be helpful, but they don't really throw all their eggs into one basket on
the DEET either. I think probably, you know, other than just nuke
in the yard all the time, which is not really going to help.
I don't think there seems to be a really good noseum control out here.
And I've again been perusing all these things trying to figure them out for those
of you who don't know what they are, which I was only vaguely familiar
with them. They're basically a little like a little tiny flying midge. A
midge is something when we say tiny, imagine let's see what would be this
tiny almost the size of like a poppy seed. But we're you know,
but the size of the end of a pencil, the lead, the width
of that. That's about how big these things are. And that's why there
are no SEMs. You can't see them. Kind of gross. I could
read to you what they do and why they cause a problem. But I
don't know, lunch is coming up for too long and I don't want to
do that to you. Yeah, we need a good no sum remedy.
It sounds like if you are, if you're interested in finding out better ways
to have success with your shrubs and your trees, maybe you're doing a hedge.
I want to give a couple of little tidbits of advice that I think
may be hopeful for you. If you want a hedge to be a screen.
Number one, you want to be an evergreen so that it's also a
screen in the summertime, as I mean in the wintertime as well as in
the summertime. When those hedges, you want to get them up high enough
wherever you sit or stand or whatever, you don't see what it is across
the hedge that you don't want to see, or vice versa people seeing in
You know, maybe you got the neighbor who's got the car up on blocks
in the backyard or likes to sunbathe in his speedo and his speedo years were
about three decades ago. Well, you know, you need to get some
type of a good hedge, but just high enough. It doesn't have to
be twenty feet high unless you're trying to block a two story building or something
or the view of it, but high enough to do that. You always
want to keep the hedge where all parts of the hedge get sunlight top to
bottom. So depending on the orientation of the hedge and the traveling of the
sun through the sky, just think keep that in mind. I always say
keep the top of the hedge a little narrower than the base because all these
hedge plants try to grow top heavy. The top wants to expand out and
then you end up with an umbrella of foliage and down below it's all bare.
And once you lose the foliage down low, it is very hard to
get it back short of just cutting the hedge way way back and kind of
starting over on rebuilding it. So always keep the top narrower, so most
of your pruning is going to be up at the higher parts of the hedge.
It's not going to be as much to do down low. But where
it gets good sunlight, you get good growth, you get good density.
So that's just a tip. If you're interested in having a success with a
hedge, you know when you're when you're planting trees and taking care of trees,
the first season is critical. Number one. Planting correctly is critical.
And I'm not going to go into all of that right now, but that
first summer season is a tough one because that tree had it grown in the
spot where you've now planted that tree, had it come up from a seed
and grown there, there'd be roots all over the place, reaching way out
in all directions. But now you've bought it with this little cylinder of roots
all wrapped around and you put it in the ground, so it takes time
for those roots to get out. First critical summer is really important. You
know. I talked about using a sprinkler that goes around the tree and that
provides and call them tree huggers, provides water right there. It can provide
water right there at the base, or water or a bigger area. You
can also put a little berm of soil around a tree, a little wider
than the root ball, just for the early on, making sure that you
know, you fill the berm up and it allsokes straight down in there.
That's also a good strategy because you got to keep that dried. It pumps
dry really fast. Once roots start to get in. Then regular watering is
the secret through the rest of that first year, making sure you support those
roots. So it's one thing that keeps the tree alive, it's another thing
to get it growing. And if it's a shade tree or a tree like
that in your yard, you want it to be big enough to hang a
hammock in as fast as possible, So that means good early growth. And
it's important to fertilize, but I think people don't realize that, and it
comes to supporting fast growth, watering probably plays a bigger role than fertilizing,
as important as fertilizing is, and so adequate watering is really important if you
want to do that. Hey, you're listening to garden Line. We're about
to take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you want to give Josh Cook, get on the boards,
and those of you who are on the board right now, we'll be
getting back to you first when we come back from break. Look they do
look ye good, A good Sunday morning. I hope you are enjoying the
day as much as I am. Already suns out Guy's blue really looks good
out there. Good day to get out and do some gardening. It's also
good day to call into garden Line the phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. And we are going to head out to Katie
now and talk to John. Hello. John, Hey, how are you
doing. I'm well, thank you. So a few years ago a bird
deposited mulberry seed. Mulberry tree is growing about four feet away from my house
and the utilities man, and I'm wanting to cut it down because it's it's
getting fairly tall. Wife says, not so much. Keep it. Let
the birds eat the berries. What's your thoughts? All right? John,
I gotta tell you a gardening advice on garden Line is free. Marriage advice
is one hundred dollars an hour. So I don't know if you want to
go. I don't know if I want to wade into the big middle of
that. Seriously, I'm not a fan of mulberries because of the reason.
You you know, birds eat the seed and they drop them everywhere, and
they come up in the fence lines and everywhere the bird stops, you know,
they just land on something and with one quick flick the tail, they've
planted and fertilized a mulberry seed, so I would I wouldn't keep them,
but everybody, it's your yard. You're you're in your wife's yard, and
so it's up to you guys as to whether you want to keep it or
not. But just know that you're just gonna have more of that going on.
Mulberries can be a little messy and the birds end up getting most of
them. I've had a mulberry tree. My neighbor had it across the fence
in the backyard and it would load up and I always thought, yeah,
the branch is hanging over this way, I may have me a mulberry.
But the birds came in and cleaned them out. So the one reason you'd
have it seems like the birds are kind of taking that away from us.
I don't know if that helped. One question I did have is regards to
regards to the root system and the utilities, meant, is there any possibility
of damage there or being really close to the foundation for house as well?
You said it was four feet away. Correct, It's not gonna damage your
foundation like it would damage going underneath the sidewalk and lifting it up. But
what it will do is there'll be a proliferation of mulberry roots there around the
house, because that's a cool, moist area, especially if you don't have
gutters in the house. But it's still and they pump the soil dry and
so our soils shrink and swell, and that's how we get a damage to
the foundation. And the tree roots there are part of the problem there.
I think four feet from the house is way too close. You're gonna have
limbs rubbing the eaves, rubbing the shingles and so on. Yeah, if
ever mine, I would get rid of it. Okay, appreciate it,
all right, thank you for appreciate that. If you live up in the
Montgomery area. By the way, this is the weekend where we have tax
free purchases on plants, soil products, and so on. So if you're
up in that area, the place you need to head right now is A
and A Plants and produce. A and A Plants is on the east side
of Montgomery, so all of Lake conra Conro itself and up and down Highway
forty five. Even A and A Plants is going to be an awesome source.
They've got all the kinds of things we talk about on garden line,
the fertilizers, the mulches and composts and things like that, awesome selection of
plants, lots and lots of plants. And one of my favorite things at
A and A is the bling that comes with it, you know, the
chiminy, the metal art, the flags to put out in the yard,
all the different decorations, the patio furniture and so on. So why are
you there pick up some of that as well, But don't forget Today is
the last day for tax free so if you're up in the A and A
area, you need to check them out. This is your chance to make
those kinds of purchases that help save soil moisture, helps save water, additional
watering because they're more efficient. That would be including composts and including malts and
so on. A and A plants and produce up there in the Montgomery just
on the east side of Montgomery on Highway forty five, let's head over to
Kingwood and we're gonna talk to Kenneth. Hello, Kenneth, good morning,
How are you doing. I'm well, thank you all right? I see
what I did? I just had or area. They didn't put down any
composts. Okay, is it that's assary quick down or is it just a
good idea? Well, those are two practices that are both helpful. So
if if you if you were to put a just an error, let's say
you just do the aeration, that is beneficial. If you just did the
compost, that would be beneficial. But when you do them both, now
you have the oxygen down in the soil and you're getting some of that organic
matter down in those holes, so that helps hold the hold open. That
still helps with the oxygen, but it's like you're you're mixing slowly over time
organic materials down into enrich your soil. So to put them together is better
than either alone, but either alone is still good. Now I've got plays
all down below, we've got a little the top. Okay, yeah,
but would you get into the clay? Yeah, yeah, that's it's hard.
It may be hard to get down that. You know, a narration
is probably gonna go about four inches deep, and so that that may not
be deep enough to get into the clay. But still it's improving the soil
that you have. And we always talk about adding compost to the soil.
Well, this is this is how you do it in an existing in an
existing place. Hey, Kenneth, I appreciate the question very much. Thank
you, and don't forget. I'm going to be out there at while Bird's
unlimited Kingwood on Saturday, June tenth, two saturdays from yesterday. We'll talk
about that more next weekend if you If you need to do some lawn fertilizing
for the summer, something's gonna last all summer. Nelson Plant Food Slow and
Easy twenty two two ten excellent ratio for the summertime it gradually releases. I
won't nerd out on the chemistry of why that is, but just know that
it gradually releases those nutrients over time twelve weeks or so, maybe even longer.
That it is going to feed your along all the way to fall,
so you're good until fall, especially when you return your clippings, which everybody
should do as well. If you'd like something that's a faster release, Bruce's
Brew eighteen forty nine, that's fine, Just don't overdo those in the summer.
You don't want to push a lot of nitrogen at one time because it
just makes for more mowing. But Bruce's Brew probably overall is one of my
favorite, the turf star line that Nelson's has. I hope you'll check it
out. They're available a lot of places. By the way, I just
talked about Ana, they carry Nelson's. It's a place you can get it
right there, as well as many of our sponsors of the show that we
talk about. We are fortunate to live in a place where there are so
many great garden centers this Houston. You go north, southeast, west,
all over the plate Central, there's a garden center near you. I mean,
we got Ace Hardwares all over for supplies, and we got feed Stars
all over that I have great supplies as well. It's just it's really a
good place. I've lived in cities before that maybe there was one notable garden
center not here. We got a lot of notable garden centers, So I
hope you'll take advantage of that. Just remember I'm a broken record on this,
but today's the last day for the tax free weekend for plants, for
compost, for Mulcha's, for water saving devices, a hos in timer,
a drip irrigation system, tree hugger, sprinklers, you know, anything that's
going to be part of the growing and watering or your plants that will help.
This is the weekend to save the tax money off of those, so
I hope you take advantage of that. Well, you're listening to garden Line.
We're going to be back for our last hour in just a moment.
The number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Josh, you'll get you on
the boards and we will look forward to talking to you about what your question
is regarding gardening. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Director,
so just watch him as well. Good Sunday morning to you on a
beautiful day. Man, is beautiful outside this afternoon. Good time to get
out there and do some gardening. And remember that plants this weekend end,
soil and compost and other water saving devices are all tax free. And if
you'd like to add onto that already great news, I want to suggest that
you consider purchasing a tree today from Verdant Tree Farm. And here's why they're
having a Memorial Day sale twenty five percent off limited time only. It ends
on May twenty ninth, that's tomorrow, twenty five percent off on all trees
and all palms, and boys, summers are great time to plant a palm
tree, I mean actually palm trees. It's better to plant them in the
summer than it is even in the winter. And the folks at Verdant they've
got all kinds of palms, the Madule palm, Sylvester, the Florida sable,
the Mule palm, which is a really unique hybrid palm, Canary Island
windmill, you name it. They are the palm source and they have a
lot of other kinds of trees, but palms are a specialty with those folks.
If you can find the Verdant farm, the original one was out on
Barker, Cyprus on the west side. Down in pair Land, they have
one on West Broadway fifty nine or nine West Broadway, and then in the
heights kind of a center of town three thirty seven Yell Street at ten,
lots of places. Just go on line to Verdant Tree Farm dot com and
you can find where the nearest windou is and exactly how to get there and
maybe learn a little bit more about some of this. This deal going on
that is a twenty five percent off is huge. That is a huge,
huge sale, pretty cool stuff. I was in the garden the other day
doing a little bit of work on some of my experiments. Now I want
to say out loud, real crystal clear here, I'm not recommending that you
plant what I'm about to tell you, but I know you everybays wondering what
on earth are you gonna say. I have been working to come up with
a way to grow rhubarb down here now years ago. Now you probably know
I'm not from the Midwest that didn't grow up eating rhubarb or whatever part of
the country that rhubarb typically grows in. But a number of years ago I
did a little experiment where we started rhubarb from seed in the fall. I
actually planted it in August and little containers where we could keep it moderately cool,
and then we put it out in the garden late September October, I
believe, and it grew all winter, and then in the spring we got
a good harvest from it. Now, if we have a very bitter cold,
it will freeze rubar back, but it's by and large moderately hardy,
but we took it through and in the spring, big tall, beautiful stalks.
When summer came, they started to rot and fall apart. And I
mean that all the soil. This was at an organic farm in Austin that
I used to work with. And so if you think about it, when
strawberries you're ripening here, which is what February now, not February unless you
got him undercover, March, April, maybe going into the early part to
May. That's when the rhubarb was available. So if you've ever heard of
strawberry rhubarb pie, then you know what I'm talking about. And you can
grow it here. It's just a overwinter biennial. It would be like you're
planting a broccoli plant. You plant it in the fall, and of course
well that you're harvesting before the even the Christmas time, but you get the
idea. It's a cool season plant. So what I'm doing this summer is
I'm trying seedlings. I found a source of some people that collect rubarb seeds,
different strains from different parts of the country, and so I just bought
the seeds, put them out. We're watching them to see how long they're
going to hold up. I planted them way way too late. In fact,
it was spring before I got out there. I mean late winter before
I got out there and plant them. But they look good. Now I'm
going to watch them and see if any of them hold up. And if
they do, hey, we're saving seed from that. And we're gonna try
it again. Now, don't get your chops set for the great New Texas
version of rhubarb. If we ever developed up it, it would be a
long time coming. And I suspect that genetically there probably isn't a heat tolerant
enough rhubarb in the gene pool to grow down here. But we're going to
try it. But if you miss rhubarb, you're a transplant from somewhere else
and you just miss rhubarb. You can grow rhubarb in Texas in that winter
fall through spring technique that I just was talking about a minute ago. If
you happen to live out in Kingwood, you are rich with garden centers.
You've got Warren Southern Gardens on North Park Drive. You've got Kingwood Garden Center
on Stone Hollow Drive. Both of them are open seven days a week.
And here goes my broken record again. Today this is the last day of
tax free purchases for plants, for compost or for soil. Now they carry
everything, and both of these garden centers they carry everything. We talk about
regarding fertilizers. They have they have a filling station for the Nelson plant food
in microlife jugs, so so if you buy one of those in the little
plastic canisters, you can take those in and refill them. It's a little
bit less expensive and you avoid adding more plastic to the waste stream, which
we have heard and heard how we don't want to be doing that. They're
going to carry every kind of plant that you can imagine, herbs and veggies
and citrus fruit. And by the way, now is a great time to
get out there and plant some citrus roses and annuals and perennials and so on.
They're really good at designing. And I was at at Warren's a good
while back, and I was just really impressed with the planters that they had
created a beautiful container, maybe a tall vaselight container, and they had plants
spilling over the sides and going up through the middle. It's just that design
element. So you can go you can go there and just purchase those,
or you can go there and kind of look and go okay, okay,
I see what they did there, take a picture of it, buy some
plants, and go home and do it yourself. I mean, if you're
a do it yourselfer, which most gardeners aren't, you can also do it
that way. But take advantage this weekend. Now's a good time to go
out and purchase Warren's Southern Gardens on North Park, Kingwood Garden Center on Stonehallow
Drive. Those are really really fun places to go. See good gift shops
too. By the way, if I was talking about the rue barb and
rue barb in the vegetable garden, we always want to try to grow things
that aren't from here, right. I don't know how many times people have
attempted things like for scythia or lilac bushes because maybe they grew up in a
place where those plants were prevalent and did so well and they have those memories.
I always tell people if they want a lilac, the best thing they
can do is plant a crape myrtle and spray with perfume. That'll get that'll
get you pretty close. I'm sorry, but that's as close as we can
get to a Lilac there is. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Well, good Sunday morning, beautiful weather, Chamber of Commentation.
May leaders should cook calling it back start coming gardening weather, because that's really
what it means. Do you live up north toward Navasota, that whole region
we're talking about collistation in Brian Navasota, all the small towns out in the
countryside, beautiful to drive through by the way, if you'd like to do
that one afternoon. But we're talking about Ron's Prairie, Richards Anderson, beat
Eyes. Iola. Doesn't sound like fun, it is, it really is.
You're fortunate to have a place called Grimes County Feeding Farm Riot out there,
two miles west of FM two forty four on State Highway thirty. Now,
the folks at Grimes County Feed have done an excellent job of stocking up
on these fertilizers that we talk about. They have a lot of other supplies
there as well. But earlier I was talking about out slow and easy,
you know from Nelson's. They've got that out there. They've got the products
like the barricade from nitro files and then they have also some microlife fertilizer and
now I say some, it's quite a bit of it in stock. They
keep all that in stock. It's everything you would expect of a feed store,
all the supplies that we know feed stores carry, like quality dogging cat
foods, but even things like pond supplies, maybe an aquatic herbicide or fish
food or fish stocking. They're involved with fish stocking twice each quarter. So
check out Grimes County Feed again. They're on Highway thirty two miles west of
FM two forty four. Mentioning the Microlife, I wanted to just talk about
that just for a little bit. I have been. I've used Microlife in
my yard for a number of years now. It's a product I love.
The release of it is gradual over time, which you would expect from a
slow released product. Right now, I would say the combination to keep in
mind would be the six two four, which is the green bag, and
the Humates plus which is the purple bag for fur to Humates plus is concentrated
compost in a bag. Because that's about what it amounts to. You get
all the nutrients you get. The six two four doesn't just have nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium. It's an organic furtlizer. It's got beneficial microbes, It's
got all of the trace elements that we need so much to put back into
our soil. If you want to find microlife pretty much ever where you hear
us talk about here on guarden Line, but you can go online to Microlife
Fertilizer dot com and they'll take you right to it. I go back to
the phones now, by the way, the number if you'd like to call
seven one, three, two and two fifty eight seventy four, and we
are going to go to bel Air and visit with Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn,
good morning. How are you doing. I'm well today, thank you.
I have an east facing house. It's not a big house right now.
I would like to add some pretty foliage, but especially some color.
But there's one hang up. I cannot get out and do a lot of
maintenance. Okay, you know, I'm just not able to. I want
to know something about lantana that's been recommended to me and something that doesn't grow
very tall, because I have japonica next to the wall of the house and
I keep it at about three and a half feet, okay, So I
want something that would be in front of that that would not be taller than
that. I'd like something around two two and a half feet. Okay.
Well, lantenna would be a good choice, but you got to make sure
when you go out and buy your lantenna that you're getting a dwarf type.
Lantana can get you know, shoulder high some types of it, but there
are are some types that hardly get a foot high. I mean they're very
small, and so you would purchase them. They bloom a lot and if
do you think it may be about six hours of sun there, probably okay,
then I think lantenna would do maybe not quite that much, maybe not
quite okay, Well, lantenna would be a good choice. Goussion. You
know, there's so many there's so many plants that I just don't know where
to begin in terms of recommending them. I think that the perennial hibiscus would
look pretty good there. Now it's just going to be a summer bloomer and
not carry you on. But there's some very compact types of it as well.
And once again, if you bought a perennial hibiscus, make sure and
gets one that's very tall. In fact, it maybe a little tall for
what you were describing in that area. I may, I may pull back,
but I just love that. I love that plant. A lot I
had one years ago that had yelt bright yellow bloom with a deep orange throat.
Okay, well with the size of a dinner plate. Oh my gosh,
Well that's amazing that that is very unusual to have that color combination in
that size on a plant. Lots of good, lots of good opportunities to
find different things to go in the area. Certainly there's a lot of annuals.
I love Angelonia. I was talking about the Salvia nemu rosa meadow sage
is what it's called beautiful plants. They're only going to get the spikes on
those are only going to get about a foot part and a half high,
and it does a good job and it'll stick around for you. The anything
that's that's a perennial. You were mentioning not being out to just work all
the time in the garden. Uh, your plan at once you're kind of
done with it, maybe occasionally you would share it back a little bit to
get some more blooms, but those will be a couple of options. But
good on good, I'm sorry interrupted, No, go ahead say it again.
Did you say salvia Salvia nemor rosa? Just in fact, you could
tell them Salvia namerosa or you could just say where's your meadow sage and they
could take you to it and it lots of color options and it's really beautiful.
I've been very impressed with that plant. But you know, picking you
one plant or two plants for a spot is like you sent me to the
mall with a credit card and say buy me some clothes. You know I
would be I would be at a loss to know what to get, right.
So the same thing is true when it's that wide open on plants.
But go to a good quality garden center one of our mom and pops we
talk about, they are going to have ten good options for that area,
if not more. Okay, the Southwest Fertilizer carry plants. They do carry
some plants out front. Southwest Fertilizer has as you as you come in to
the store through the chain that kind of fencing. There's some plants that are
seasonal that are behind there. And I think you can find something there too.
You might check out see if they have some of them. I remember
seeing some there too. Okay, okay, So I appreciate there your information
so much. Thank you. All right, thank you for the call,
Carolyn. I appreciate that. Let's head out now and we're going to talk
to Mike. Good morning, Mike, good morning. Real quick, about
five years ago, had a couple of pine trees about fifteen feet apart,
taking out ground down the stumps. Now we're starting to get depressions where they
used to be, and I think it's the roots. I dug up some
dirt and I dug out some roots that were paper They were thick, like
eight inch roots, but they were paper thin and full of water. So
I had a feeling they're smart to last. What's the smartest way to do
it besides just pouring dirt in it? Well, yeah, there, that's
kind of the way to do it. You don't use a compost or malt,
because those are going to go the same direction that your roots went when
the plant was dead. Now you got organic matter that's just going to go
away as it imposes. So use something with some stability to it, and
that would be a soil, a top soil type product, and top soil
or field dirt. Well, when I hear the word field dirt, uh,
my warning signals go up because a lot of stuff gets sold that's not
quality because it's just used to create a mound to put a house pad on
or something. So just look at it, take a look and feel it.
You know, is this a quality dirt or is this just a bunch
of clay. If it's red, don't don't get that. Don't get the
red field dirt kind of stuff. Because I dug down about three or four
feet and I had some big o eight inch roots going straight down still.
Oh yeah, I just wasn't gonna dig. I wasn't gonna dig to China.
Well, you don't have to worry about those going straight down. If
you've dug down a little bit like that, that's good. Yeah. Pine
trees have a tap root and they can a big tap root that goes down
in the ground helps anchor them. Hopefully that'll get you off to a good
start there, Mike. Okay, Yeah, I just I was hoping there
was a smarter way and I had, you know, I was just hoping
anyway, Thank you very much. I listened to you all the time.
Well, I appreciate you listening. Thank you very much. If you want
to give a quick green up to your lawn, you ought to consider the
hash to grow twelve for eight. That's a beautiful ratio. Twelve four eight.
That's the one where I was talking about a three one two kind of
ratio is excellent. Now this is a this is a lawn food supplement and
it's got the Medina soil activator in it, and it's got the humate liquid
humus in it as well. You hook it up to hos in sprayer to
a little quart sized jar. You can buy bigger ones, but I use
the quart size and you just spray it on the lawn. It takes about
ten minutes to treat an average lawn. But because you're putting them out on
a liquid there, you're going to get a quicker response. It's going to
be a very nice quick response. It'll stimulate the soil organisms that happens when
we add things like a humus to the soil. I'd say do it about
four times per growing season. But if you just want to get a quick
start right now, your lawn's kind of struggling has to grow twelve for eight
lawn food from Medina Act products. It would be a good choice. I'm
gonna go out and we'll talk to Paul and Missouri City. Now, Paul,
are you going to put me on the spot? Well, no,
this is an easy one for you. Okay. Um, yeah, good
morning, skip, good morning. Yeah. I have a I think what's
called a cannus plant that has large leaves and flour on topic. I've seen
it in red, yellow, and orange. But um, you know,
they tend to spread as they grow, and and I want to I want
to put them in the front, but I want to build a barricade.
I want to stop the prolific spread of them. Okay, So, how
I guess my question is how deep do I need to go down to keep
that root system, you know, within a barricade. That's a good question.
Most of the time when I see canter roots there in the top six
inches of soil. Now, I don't think they're going to go deeper than
that. I guess I could be wrong. But you know another what I
do with my can is is I just take a sharpshooter shovel and every couple
of years, as they're getting too big. I just go in there and
you know, cut a circle as to here's where I want you to be,
and this pull the others out. And that's a lot of work,
I know. So I understand the desire for a barrier, but I don't
know if you went down about ten inches, surely that's deep enough. Yeah,
okay, well, yeah, I understand the thing about to shovel them
with my lousy Look, I've got some underground irrigation piping under the hair,
and I hate to, hate to hate to you don't get Yeah, well,
how how are you going to do a barrier with that irrigation pipe around?
Well, I mean the pipe is fairly close to the foundation of the
house, so okay, so yeah, I'm clear. I'm really clear that,
but I just I've done it before. Okay, Well, that's all
right, that is what I would do, and I think you'll find some
pretty good success with that keeping them in bounce. All right, very good,
thank you. Hey, thanks for the call, Paul. I appreciate
that you are listening to garden Line and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
Our phone number. Write this down so you can give us a call.
Hey, we've got thirty minutes left in the whole weekend of garden Line,
So get ready 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. And by the way, Nikki has walked in the room. I
forgot to tell you that somebody yesterday talked about how big of a fan you
are. So I'm thinking we need to make T shirts the Nikki Fan Club
that you've got your followers and adorers out there, and so here we go.
You know they used to be Lemonhead. So why aren't there some Nicky
Fan Club shirt Nicki News Network. No, No, this is my thinking.
I'm thinking since this is a three day weekend. Yes, I'm storing
a petition that we have you work on the Mondays of three day weekends.
Me. Yes, thank you for that. Yes, did I ever do
anything mean to you or what? No, it's because we love you,
because we on these holiday Mondays we garden all right, Yes, that's true.
It is true. On holiday Mondays. Just replay the show from the
previous day on we're on podcast. Okay, well, I know it's okay.
You can jump up and dance. You're listening to Guardline on a good
Sunday morning for getting outside getting some stuff done this afternoon. Hey, our
phone number is SEE two two fifty eight seventy four. I wanted to talk
to you about the Dellweb community going in at fullsher It's two miles outside of
Fullshre from downtown Fullshre two miles to on FM three fifty nine. Now,
the reason I'm excited about this community number one is Dellweb. I mean,
that's the quality of the inspired designs, the lifestyle programs that come with a
Dellweb community. The thing that excites me as a gardener is I'm helping them
create a community garden on site for residents. What a wonderful opportunity. You
live in a beautiful community with walking trails and all of that good stuff and
have a community garden there that's for you to use. Go to Dellweb dot
com slash Houston for more information. D E. L W, E B
B dot com slash Houston or Callumn two eight one four five nine zero six
o nine. Let's head out to the phones here. I'm gonna talk to
Sharon out in stagecoach. Hey, how you doing, Sharon? Great?
Thank you. I've tried a couple of times to grow poppies and I think
I'm doing unless we're doing something wrong, is it any way to grow them
here? Well, Sharon, poppies. You should just throw the seeds out
there and you have poppies. I mean, they reseed profusely themselves, so
even when you're not planting them, if you've had one, they come up,
so they're pretty easy. But here's what I would recommend. Get your
poppy seeds and just hold them into them, keep them inside, don't let
them get hot outside in the garage or something. And when we get to
about late September early October, go ahead and throw those out on the ground
and they will come up. You need to learn what they look like,
so you don't think they're a weed, because they look a lot like a
thistle somewhat coming up. But yeah, and they will come up. Just
you need good bear soil. You need good seed to soil contact. Don't
bury them. They're a little tiny seed, so basically you can rake the
soil, scatter them and then just water them in and in that water it
sort of settles the soil in around the seed really nicely. But do you
need to seed them. No, I mean, I guess you could.
I have never fertilized poppies in my life. Of course, they're in a
garden bed, so you expect this all to be a little decent there.
But yeah, correct, Now what kind of you try to grow? I
probably should have asked that to begin with. Yeah, well, of course
I love the red ones. Okay, so that's that's where I want.
I have a strip that's like tinsotwat and and thirty foot long. It's got
kind of like a wild flower garden, so that's where I want them.
But I would to get them. I was wondering if I should do them
in pot you know, like in seed bad things, and then transplant them.
I guess you can't do that. Well, it is humanly possible,
but they don't like it. So I would recommend just throw scatter the seed
out there where you want them to grow. And since it's a wildflower area,
random is good. So I think you'll have success if you'll do that.
Next year, you may have to clear away a little debris on the
soil surface so they can get good seed to soil contact. Okay, I'll
try it again, all right, you call me. You call me back
the next spring if these things came up and I want to hear all about
okay, all right, all right, thank you, bet bye bye goodness.
If you are interested in gardening and you don't have a spot, you
don't have a garden, you're not going to dig up the dirt and go
to all the trouble of all that stuff. You need to consider getting yourself
a Vego garden modular metal bed. Now. Vego garden beds come in different
sizes. You can get them down eleven inches seventeen, they go they go
on up in size. They're they're coated with a product that stops them from
resting and corroding, and then they're coated again with a paint that is food
safe paint to use. They're completely modular. So do you want an oval
bed? Do you want a square bed? Do you want a bed shape
like an L or a C? You pick it out, you can do
it. You can set one of the Vegos. If you get the taller
sizes, you can set it down on a concrete patio and grow in that.
Just fill it up with a good quality mix. If you're an organic
gardener, it's especially nice because you know I don't want to use the treated
wood. Well, here goes Vego. Now there's a lot of impostors out
there, but go to Vego vgogarden dot com and you can learn all about
them. A lot of our local independent nurseries and garden centers are starting to
carry the Vego garden beds as well, but I highly recommend them. If
I were to create a brand new garden, I wouldn't think twice, it
would automatically I would put in a Vego bed. They are attractive, they're
beautiful, they work really really well. I want to head out now to
Jersey Village and we're gonna talk to Maybeth. Hello, Maybeth, Yeah,
good morning. I had black swallowtail larva on a Dell plant twelve up.
Okay, what do I do? Do you want to keep? Do you
want to eat dil? Or do you want to have butterflies? The Dell
is not edible right now? I mean it's fine to see, okay,
and so now I don't want a deal. Well, they like dill.
They probably like fennel too. I think I'm trying to think of what else
are you worried about them not having to something to eat, not making it
to adult stage. I don't know what to do with the farming is new
to me and so I don't know. Do I just leave them? Yeah,
yeah, just leave them. Watch and enjoy. You'll see some little
crysalists appear as they get ready to become a butterfly. You may not see
them on the deal plant. If there's anything that's leaning against they may crawl
up on that and make their crystalists. But watch for them. They're really
cool, really cool to watch. It's amazing. Well, it's a bad
descott a lot I've got adjacent to it, like some tis and some sage
and basil and map that are all in there together. So well, thank
you. Spread sounds like you're doing a good job. If the bill,
if the dill seeds land around in there, they will come up and spread.
In fact, I hate to say this on the air, but I
have tried to start dill as transplants before and I get them out in the
garden and they just seem to be really unhappy with me. But when they
come up where they want to come up, they're very happy. So just
let them do what they want and weed out the ones you don't want.
Okay, this bed's so full that I think they're probably going to fall to
the wayside instead of to the ground. I don't think they could reach get
down to the ground. If they they'll blow off somewhere. We may have
dil Yeah, so next next spring, uh maybe Mathew, definitely need to
plant some cucumbers and you you're ready to go for some pickles, that would
be true. So just let them go and enjoy. Let them go and
enjoy. That's right. Appreciate that call. That's funny. Yeah, deal
is boy? Does is it ever willing to volunteer? That is for sure?
Oh my goodness. You're listening to garden Line and we are here to
answer your gardening questions. I enjoy talking to gardeners. And our phone number
if you want 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. Josh,
we'll get you on the board. We're gonna take a little break here
in a moment, and we will come back to answer your gardening questions.
By the way, those of you out in the general Kingwood area, Porter,
New Caney, all those places, I'm going to be two saturdays from
yesterday, June tenth, at the wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. Please come
out and see me. I love to meet you. So nice meeting the
folks out at the clear Lake wild Birds Unlimited. By the way, if
you're still in clear Lake and you haven't registered for the drawing, they're drawing
tomorrow, so don't delay. We bit barning. Wonderful day to be outside
and enjoy the weather this afternoon. Get outside, do some stuff in the
yard or garden, just relax, enjoy yourself, or get out to a
garden center pick up some wonderful new plants. Boy, this is a good
time to do it. And again here's the reminder. This is the last
day of the tax free weekend for plants, for compost, for mulch,
for water saving devices. This is the time. So it's like having an
almost eight percent discount on what you're what you're purchasing out there. Sounds like
a good deal to me. Let's head out to Groves and talk to Tony
Well. Good morning, Tony Well, good morning to you, sir.
Can you hear me? Okay? I can okay? On the vegetable guards
skip and first I appreciate what you do on the vegetable garden, skip on
the pathways in between each row. What can I put in there that I'm
able to walk through there? You know, like maybe after a big I
don't know range storm and I can't get in it. What I get my
all muddy? You know what I mean? Okay, So what I do
is I put leaves in And you can put a lot of leaves. You
feel, you know, you put them in there, it's like it's full
up when you walk on them. As it stays moist it they sit down
and then you add more and you add more one time in a thirty five
thirty five garden. I'm not kidding. I put three hundred bags of leaves
in one season. Just wow. And at the end of the season,
now you have a trench full of compost, which is kind of nice.
You can move that up into the bed if you If you don't want to
go through that process, you can just get wood chips, you know,
the uh whatever access you have. Some people use those tax free, tax
free the grind up and blow them into the back of the truck. Services
you know, the tree grinders and stuff. They'll they'll often dump chips for
you but you know that's a little bit more of an ordeal. But anyway,
yeah, I just fill it with organic matter that will create an all
weather pathway. And you can't just do leaves once. You gotta several times
pile them and walk on them and they sink down and then you will have
a nice all weather pathway. Okay, Well, how about grass. It's
not a good idea grass clippings. Grass clippings you can only spread a little
bit, like an inch or two because they will start to get mucky and
stink and they'll get slippery and your fee can slide out from under you if
you're sitting on something that's got thick layer of grass clippings under it that are
decaying, getting gooey. So just be a little sparing with those, okay,
Because my wife is the one that told me to quit putting them in
there because there was bringing in weeds and uh, well, I mean yeah
it could be. Yeah, if you if you mow a weedy lawn,
you're gonna have weed seeds in those grass clippings, So that's true. Also,
you don't want to use grass clippings from a lawn that's been treated with
a lot of herbicides because you do some of those are a lot of persistent,
a little bit persistent, right right, right, okay, all right,
scamp. Well that answered my question, sir. I appreciate all what
you do for Thank you so much. I appreciate appreciate your call. By
the way, I want to mention I was wrong about the tax free ends
today. It's actually I believe good for Monday as well, so you can
go on line check that out. But uh, maybe we get an extra
day out of this deal. Uh we uh. You know, I wanted
to talk to you about the Bee Supply. I've mentioned them before. I
wish that I could convince you how cool it is to learn about bees.
Kids would be fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by it as an adult.
They do these honey bee tours out there twice a month out in Dayton,
and you get to walk around, you get to learn about bees. There's
a little presentation, and then you get to taste all the different kinds of
honey. It's pretty cool. Go to the b Supply dot com. It's
they have an excellent website. You can learn about those tours. If you
are a beekeeper or you want to learn to be a beekeeper. They have
classes. They have a beginner class twice a month out there in Dayton where
you get hands on and the good thing about going to and purchasing from the
B Supply is you can go back a thousand times with your questions. I
mean that, and they will patiently help you and help you to have success
because they want you to have success, and beekeeping is really a fun hobby.
Check out the b Supply dot com. Let's go to West Katie.
We're going to talk to Joe. Good morning, Joe, Good morning,
Skip, thanks for taking the call. Yes, I've got a small raised
band. It's four foot by eight foot. I've got three tomato plants that
are tomatoes that are rappening. But before they fully rappen, there's a small
gnat that is eating chewing them up and eating them from the bottom, mostly
from the bottom up, but little black gnats. My Google search says it's
fungus gnats, but I don't I'm not certain about that. Okay, do
you have a suggestion on what they use to persuade them from eating my tomatoes?
Okay, there, it's not fungus nats most likely, unless you had
a wound on your tomato, and they were able to attract them in.
When they smell the fungus gnats, you know they they it's like fruit flies.
They can smell and and be attracted in. But I don't think it's
fungus nats what I think may have happened. They may just be there because
they're hatching out in the soil. They like a rich organic soil, which
is what we typically plant in. And you may have fungus nat larva they
are hatching out, becoming adults and sitting there, or it could be that
there is some sort of a wound, but it's probably a different kind of
gnat that you're seeing. Sometimes the tomato will get blossom en drought where it
decays on the end, and then that will attract some little things in like
that. But I can't think of anything that is what you described that's located
on the tomato where you described there would be a primary attacker of your tomatoes.
Oh okay, But if what would be first course of action doing something
about the soil? You keep it. Go ahead, because you're right,
it is rich and all that end with all the range you stayed Willie most
for a period of time, so that I mean I tried to initially some
liquid seven and that did not okay, you know, gave relief for a
few hours. That's about it. That's interesting. Well, letting the top
of the soil dry out is very helpful with fungus nuts. There's also a
form of BT that's what we buy for caterpillars, but there's a form that's
different. You can't use a caterpillar BT. There's a fungus gnat type of
BT. So go to where you purchase your gardening supplies and ask them for
the BT that's for fungus gnats, not caterpillars, and you can spray the
soil and shut them down that way too. Okay, okay, all right,
well, thank you, thank you so much. All right, thank
you. I appreciate appreciate that call very much. Yeah, and by the
way, out there in Katie, oh my gosh, you have you have
Ace Hardware stores nearby, and no matter where you live in town, there
is Ace hardware. So go to Ace hardware dot com and on that site
you can find a store locator and you can find all the stores that are
near you. I mean they this place. We are fortunate at thirty nine.
ACE Hardware is in the Greater Houston area. I mean that is that
is just absolutely amazing. I am always uh, I always enjoy going into
ACE. Just all the supplies they have. I mean, anything you need
for gardening that we're talking about here, like the fertilizers and and the pesticides
and all other kind of things like that, you're going to find those at
an ACE Hardware. You know, depending on where you are out in the
Katie area. We got one on pin Oak Road, you know, it's
not too terribly far away. There is a number of aces. There's one
as you as you're going out to Katie, a little south of town,
there is a really nice ACE Hardware out in um the guys you can't say
the name of the town, Rosenberg area, thank you. It's down Plantation
Ace Hardware. They've got some really cool supply. That's I was at that
one a while back and I was really amazed at all that they had on
stock there. Super super great place for buying all the things we talk about,
as well as all the hardware stuff, you know, work gardeners where
we're more interested and fertilizer that we were in, light bulbs and plumbing parts
and all those other things. Nice thing about ACE two is when you go
in, they greet you and they know what they're talking about. I mean,
I'd give my right arm for any kind of place I'm shopping at to
actually have educated people to know what they're talking about. I can tell when
I walk into a garden center and if I ask a question, I can
tell in the first few seconds by looking in the person's eyes, Oh,
they're going to be scrambling around trying to come up with an answer rather than
telling me what's actually the truth. And they know that's that's just a shame.
Not going to happen today though, Well, you've been listening to Garden
Line today. We are about to head out. I want to wish you
all a very very happy Memorial Day. What a wonderful holiday for remembering all
of those people who sacrificed for us, some of them giving the ultimate sacrifice
for us, for the freedoms we enjoy. You know, we do take
things for granted. That's just our nature as human beings, and we definitely
do not want to take for granted those who are willing to put their life
on the line for our freedoms. For our liberty that we are so fortunate
to live in the land we live in to have that kind of a group
of people and armed forces willing to take care of us. I mean,
you can even stand that out to people in law enforcement, people, firefighters
and other many many people that make the freedoms we enjoy, the safety and
life we enjoy, the benefits we enjoy possible. And that significance is not
lost on me, and I know it's not lost on you either. In
the meantime, we're going to be back next Saturday. You're Saturday and Sunday
six am to ten am, So we hope you listen in. If you
miss something today or missed yesterday, you can listen to us on podcast.
Just take your podcast app I art Media hopefully and you can get right to
garden Line and listen to us. Meantime, I just hope you will have
a wonderful, successful gardening week.