T r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip rictor
crazy gas trim. You just watch him as so many bird things to sup
botazing gas jobs not a sound gas sun bemon. Well, good morning start
it'd Saturday morning. Glad to have you with us this morning. Boyd we
ever have a lot to talk about. There's you know, the two storms
now have just been well basically right at records, if not records when it
comes to number of people without power and the effects driving around towncy and the
trees down the limbs. Just think about the loss that people have had and
the expense of course that follows that. Our hearts go out to everybody out
there, including the many that including some in my family, do not have
power during these days afterwards for extended period of time. You know, this
kind of thing happens in the summer. It's blazing hot, makes it a
little bit extra tough, But we are definitely gonna, like I said,
our hearts go out to everybody that's in that situation. If you've got an
issue with plants that's related to that, I think we're going to be talking
about that a lot today, so feel free to give us a call.
We'd love to love to talk to you at seven to one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven to one three two one two five eight seven.
I'm going to be discussing trees and some other things, tree training,
tree pruning, how to decide if a tree is worth saving or not.
We can cover all of those things, and we do welcome you. Just
give us a call. We get right on that. Just a few things.
First of all, I wanted to mention a League City feed down there
in League City, Texas. They are open, they've got the power up
and going, and they're ready to serve you. You know. League City
feed is the one just a few blocks south of Highway nineties of Highway ninety
six on Highway three. So you're on Highway ninety six, go south on
Highway three just a few blocks and you're right there. If you'd like to
give them a call, the phone numbers two eight one three three two one
six one two and everybody in that region, you know, the League City,
Baycliff Webster Ol Community, Real Dickenson sounding on all of you. This
is your hometown feed store. They're open Monday through Saturday nine to six,
so yes, today, they're open closed on Sundays. If you need any
of the fertilizers I talk about on guardline. If you need any products to
control pests, weeds and diseases, they've got them. They also have a
good selection of some soils as well. You know, if you have are
looking for a quality pet food, a Leake City feed carries the premium pet
food. There's always available, including everything else you would expect from a feed
store. Again the phone number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
Well, I tell you that thinking about some of the issues that are going
on outside as we as we deal with this. I had a number of
plants my vegetable garden that lodged over, and so we often get questions with
things like that. Typically it's corn in the spring, but what happens is
the plants fall over. You know, can you straighten them up? Nanchers?
Well yeah, if they're just leaning over, you can. This is
just part of what we live with when we get when and rain, and
especially when plants are just not in the super strong, sturdy shape. We
see that sometimes, but I was dealing with that of getting some plants moved
around and taking care of some other things, and you know, the life
goes on in the garden. We've got very warm weather and we have adequate
soil moisture, and I guess pretty much every area should. Right now,
we continue to monitor those plants that haven't been in very long, even though
we got some gully wash and rain many inches. For many people, the
soil dries out in time and as it's hot and the demands are high for
a new plant, it just doesn't have the root system to reach out into
all that bank account of sow moisture. So you still want This is hard
for folks to believe. You know, maybe you got nine inches of water
high many days ago, and now you've got these little plants that are out
there welting. What's going on. Well, the little rootball is confined.
That's the only place can get water. So you have to hope some kind
of wicks in from the sides. But basically you're still watering the root ball
and continue. I don't care if it's a little tomato transplant. It's time
now be planting tomatoes and peppers for the fall. Garden. Just treat them
like they're still in a pot. So I like to put it for the
first for little annuals like that, probably for the first week. If you
can give them just a little bit every day or so, just watch the
plant. It'll tell you if it's getting a little wilty. For trees and
shrubs and other things, that supplemental goes on a lot longer. In fact,
you know, it takes a year, two or three years even for
trees and shrubs to get the root system that they need to be resilient.
So remember that I've talked to someone a good while back about their planning some
drought tolerant plants, and I don't remember what it was, might have been
a Texas Mountain Laurel or I just don't recall the exact plant, but they
were talking about planning it, saying the water all the time, and I
told him, well, yeah, you you know, once they're established over
in southeast Texas where it rains, we're talking about not having to worry about
the water on those hardly at all. But when they're little, you know,
they're like the example I use is John Wayne. You know, when
he's an old guy who's a tough ombre and he can go through the desert
without very much water and survive everything else that came at him. But when
he was a baby, his mama had to nurse him and change his diaper
and take care of him. And that's what your Texas tough drought tolerant plants
are. They're babies, So help them get established. Don't mean over watering
them. That's as bad as not watering them. But it means helping him
get that root system out so that they can perform like their species and genetics
and everything make them capable of performing. It's one way to look at it.
You know, I said our soil there's a moisture bank account. There's
also a nutrient bank account in the soil. And whenever you buy fertilizer bags
you see three numbers. That means that fertilizer has nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium in it if those numbers are anything other than zero. But there's also
secondary nutrients like calcium that are needed. There's magnesium and sulfur and whatnot.
There's also micronutrients. Micronutrients are trace elements that the plant needs a very small
amount of, but they are essential. So even though they don't need a
lot as with the Big Three, they need them. They have to have
them to grow and survive. And asamite is a fertilizer mind in Utah to
provide trace minerals for the plants. And that's exactly what you do. You
don't every time you fertilize, you don't put out asimite. You don't need
that. Just maybe once a year if you get a sol test done,
you can see exactly the kinds of things you need. But if about once
a year you were to go out and whatever time of the year you want
put some asmit down, that will help build that soul bank account. So
that's what we're aiming for with am You can go to Azamite of Texas dot
com Azamite of Texas dot Com find out more about the product. It's widely
available a lot of stores. We're going to go to a break right here,
and when we come back, if you would like to be on give
Chrysal call at seven one three two one two KTRH. Here's what's trending from
the Iheartsports Network presented by Draft Kings Fantasy. All right, welcome back to
Guarden line. Glad to have you with us this morning. We are going
to talk about all kinds of things garden. There's a lot going on out
there. I have a flower bed in front that I had maltzed and really
that it was in good shape, and I just noticed that there's these little
weeds coming up here and there. And as I walk up to it,
I see that those are the areas where the multch somehow got bump moved off,
or maybe I didn't cover it well in that spot. But wherever sunlight
hits the soil, nature plants of weed. That's the way I like to
put it, because it's an issue, you know, to deal with weeds
in the summer that nobody wants to be out there working doing weed pulling on
a hot summer day. All it takes is a little more mult You got
to cover the surface of the mulch with a mulch. And what is a
multus is decomposed organic matter that it should be at least. I mean,
there are a lot of other things that are sold for mulching, including rocks,
even but we're talking about natural, organic, decomposable mulches. The folks
at Landscaper's Pride have got a selection of mulches. They are like a number
of different ones you can choose from, for example cedar mulch or cypress mulch.
Those are the is naturally beautiful red color as you put it out of
the bag and has an aroma initially there until you know, breaks down a
little bit, but it's a very good mult You can use cypress mulch which
really kind of has a heaviness when it's wet that it sort of stays in
place and instead of floating just floating away everywhere. Very light colored mults.
Pine Bark's the most popular course has been for a long time, very slow
to decompose. And then shredded hardwood mulch that is an excellent option from Landscaper's
Pride. It's not ground up palettes like some cheap old companies will do to
you. Now, this is a quality ground up hardwood tree materials that makes
an excellent It locks in really well and stays in place. Black velvet mult
is there molts, its not dyed, but it's naturally dark in colored vet,
very velvety, very dense, but all from Landscaper's Pride. You can
go to Landscaperspride dot com find out more information on these. They're widely available,
so wherever you go you find one, but make sure check your beds
and see what is the condition of those, because it doesn't malt breaks down,
it goes away and you want to keep it. I would say on
most mulches, probably about three inches deep is a pretty good two and a
half three inches deep. Some chunk your mulches a little deeper because there's more
airspace in there for light maybe light beams to get through. But basically,
any good quality mults you put down, including just leaves ground up from your
yard, are an excellent option. Save yourself the trouble later, the watering
later. You know. One other thing mulch does that I guess I don't
talk about enough is the soil temperature moderation. It is a huge factor here
in Texas in summer. Listen, walk out on your driveway barefoot on a
ninety five degree day. If you're brave, go to the asphalt out of
the street that is blazing hot, and maulch over the surface makes a huge
difference in soil temperature and roots can't function. You know, if the soil
gets up to ninety eight one hundred degrees. That's too hot for roots to
function properly, and you've got to keep a mulch on it. So that
would be a good thing to put on the to do list to get out
there and try to get that done. Ana Plants in Produce we got word
from them that they are up and running. Everything's good out there. They've
got some really kind of cool deals going on. For example, just starting
today, so you're hearing this first here, just starting today, all of
their plants are on sale forty percent off. Yeah, you heard that right,
forty percent off all of the plants, all the pottery that includes metal
trellises and also metal trellises and gazebos and arches. If you've ever been out
there to Ana Plants in Produce, they have beautiful selection of all kinds like
metal furniture and these arches that go over your walkways and gazebe. They've had
all that. It's all thirty percent off, So forty percent off all plants,
thirty percent off all pottery, and all those metal items, trellises,
and then any kind of a side in other words, a herbic side,
fun just side and sect to side and fertilizers. Well you're talking about twenty
five percent off those as well, So just give them a call out there.
Check it out it listen, you need to stop by. It's on
the east side of Montgomery on one oh five, just on the edge of
town. Really easy, really easy to get to, get in, get
out, and boy, you are not going to find better deals than right
now. In fact, that'd be a good thing to do today. Let's
say after ten am we get through the garden line, head out there and
get you some of those things. All those folks listening up in the Lake
Conroe area, this is your hometown garden center. You are listening to garden
Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven
to one three two one two kt RH seven one three two one two kt
r H. Give Josh call. Let's talk about the things that might be
of interest to you. Otherwise I got plenty of things of interest to me
that we can talk about this morning. I mentioned working out in the vegetable
garden. Also the flower We have some flower beds that my wife actually has
put together and growing things in and they just are looking outstanding. The plants
are happy, they're growing. She's keeping them well watered. That's an important
thing. But just remember when you plant something in a raised garden bed,
it may dry out a little bit faster. That is one of the characteristics
if the depending on the bed size and the bed height and everything. I
find that up near the surface with the high organic matter materials we use in
growing mixes and bed mix it's you know, things like rose oil, veggieerics,
those kinds of mixes that they drain really well, but up near the
surface that can get kind of dry. So if you're planting any seeds.
There are seeds we can plant in summer, like sunflowers and zenias for example,
that do just fine, but you got to keep a moist. You
have to keep a moist and I don't care if you've put an okra in
the vegetable garden or zenias in the flower beds. With seed, just remember
that when a seed starts to germinate. After that point, when it starts
to germinate, biological processes begin and that initiates the formation of a root to
come out, a shoot to come up, and all of that. Once
that starts, just before you even see any root or shoot, if the
seed dries out, it dies, it has no resilience, and it takes
a little bit to get a root in the ground where it has some resilience.
So moist soil continue. Moist soil is very important. If you're in
a container or whatever. You can get the water for a day and it
dries out, you lose that seed. And so just to remember that you're
bathing it along as it's getting started, and as a result, you end
up with a really, really nice plant provided you give it that kind of
care. We're going to go now out to Palacios and talk to Craig.
Hello, Craig, good morning, Welcome to guard Line gorn to Skip.
How are you? I'm good, I'm good. How can we help today?
I got a question about an orange tree that's going to be producing later
in the later this year or small. But I've got a small I'm pretty
sure it's a set suma. It's not very big. It's probably six probably
six feet tall and five feet across, and the current day it's got forty
nine oranges on it. For good oranges for taste value. Sit up,
take some of that forty nine off of a tree that's as small as it
is. Or should I leave them on it? Give me the dimensions again,
please, probably six six just a harrow over six feet tall and five
feet across. I'm trying to picture forty nine on them. That size about
as well as you are, and you know, up to your neck sideways.
It is a good load. But I don't think you need to.
And the reason is Cuchrus trees are notorious for if they get a little too
much of a load or they go into a stress, they will abort fruit,
especially early on, right after bloot. So the fact they're all on
there, I think I think you're gonna be okay with that size tree.
Now, if I walked out there and saw the thing, I might change
my mind a little on that, but I believe that if they're holding on
to them, I think you're gonna be fine. That sounds the little the
limbs seem so small and diameter compared to two oranges, for example, on
the end of a limb that's going to mature into a side of my fist,
that seems like, okay, that's pretty heavy. So you're talking about
a little willowy tree. This isn't a like a well I don't know,
Okay, Well, go ahead, say if you feel like there's too many,
you're you're welcome to take those off, and you can see it.
I can't. But so if there's like little willowy growth, like when you
say six feet is like a whole lot of air, but one little branch
reaching up to six feet versus a really thick bush, then the thick bushes
at more than than the little willowy thing. So if you see that there's
they're weighing everything down and you feel like the whole tree is going to be
basically have limbs on the ground with all this heavy fruit, then yat them
somehow. Yes, sure, maybe I could have said that differently or set
it up differently. I've got it's got quite a few limbs, and some
of the limbs have zero fruit. Some of them have quite a few fruits.
Yeah, on the quater few, then that may be a place,
you know, to do a little bit offending on it. That's that's the
problem with trying to answer without seeing it. A lot of times I'll have
guests just send a photo in and that way I got a much better look
at it. Actually I took photos, but my cell towers are not working
very good. Around here, and I'm not getting picture photos out. I
was so I knew, I didn't even try. I've been I learned that
through work during the week you're not going out. But okay, so the
value if if the if the limb seems like it's going to be able to
support the weight. At the same time, there's three orders on the same
limbs. Should I worry about value of taste them? Craig, I've lost
you here. Yeah, that figures, okay, Jiff, thank you very
much. All Right, thank you, Craig. I appreciate appreciate your call.
Right, we're gonna take another little break here. I will be right
back if you would like to be first up when we come back. Seven
one three two one two K t R H. All right, welcome back
to garden Line. Glad you're with us today. We're here to talk about
the things that you would like to talk about in your garden. So let's
see here, We're gonna head out to spring and talk to is that skip?
Hello? Oh? Yeah? This Mark? Oh? Mark? Okay,
Mark, you're in the guarden line. How can we help? All
right? I sent you an email last week on the High Biscus, the
Hardy High biscus. Okay, you get it. Well, I'm gonna look
and see here. Tell me a little bit more about it while I'm hunting
this one down. Uh, it's not growing very big. It's it's staying
small. It's not like my other ones. The leaves are small and and
it's long, alrighty Mark, I am not seeing it. Would it have
come under a different name? Uh? No? Do? Okay, So
it's as a hearty hibiscus, right, yes, yeah, And the leaves
are smaller than they should be, like like how much smaller half the size
or what are we talking? It's it's a core of the size. Uh
huh wow. My my other two high business are like three feet taller or
smaller. This thing here is only about eighteen inches mm hmm. Well something
is yeah, something's wrong underground. A few questions. Did you use any
kind of a weed killer around it or in the yard right beside it?
No? No, I got it in a okay. And secondly I put
a good poty soil in there. Okay. Well if the pot is at
all limiting, well, if the pot is not big enough, it will
limit the size of the plant because it's a big pot. Okay, Still
not getting anything. Did have you ever had success with that and now it's
getting smaller leaves and things, or did it just never? I transplanted it
last year. Okay, yeah, I put it from a smaller pot to
a bigger pot. You know, mark basically from what I'm hearing, assuming
it's getting good sunlight and you are not letting it go into drought, and
the drainage is good in the pot, meaning the holes aren't plugged up so
that it doesn't stay too wet, although that Hibiscus is pretty tolerant of that.
But I would say I'm kind of wondering if maybe in the transplanting some
nema toads may have come in with it and now they've proliferated on the roots,
because they're a very stunting effect on plants nemotods. And the way you
would check that is kind of take a hose and try to wash up some
soil some of the roots, or pull it out of the slide it out
of the pot. If it hasn't filled the soil yet, that's going to
pull it out of the soil. But try to look at the roots,
is what I'm trying to get at. And if you see little games and
knots on it. You're kinda just need to throw away the soil and the
plant and start off fresh with new soil and a new plant, because there's
no curing them. It's no cure in that not nematods, no, sir.
There's things we do that suppress them, but they will be there and
you're never going to get the performance you want if that's the case. But
don't don't jump to the conclusion until you see or it looks like a string
of pearls but not why heat kind of the root kind of a Yeah.
Another thing I've told you was like a snake that swallowed a rabbit. You
got this little bump in the middle of the snake. That's kind of okay,
okay, okay, then all right, okay, that's what I see.
Other than that, send me send me a picture. If you want
to do that, I can put you on hold. Have the producer you
know, get your information, give you the information to send me some photos.
Happy to do okay if you want. Okay, thank you, sir,
Thank you. You have a wonderful day, you too. All right,
there you're listening the guardline. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. Medina has a number of plants, I mean of plants products out
there that you know about. I mean you've heard about Medina has to grow.
The Medina has to grow for lawns. Uh. Now they have Medina
has to grow super grow plus, super grow plus. That is a sixteen
zero two fertilizer hooks up to a garden hose, a little quart bottle.
You just hook it up to your garden hose. It'll take about I don't
know, ten minutes to cover the four thousand square feet you should get out
of a quart bottle. That's a lot and that's fast. Of course,
it has a sixteen zero two fertilizer, which is a good ratio for our
lawns here in the summertime. And what you'll find in there is a keylated
form of iron that'll help keep your grass green. That supplement of the keylated
form of iron is excellent. They have seaweed extract in it, it has
molasses, and it has humic accident. It's just got a lot of things
that stimulate the soil and then therefore stimulate the plant and the plant's performance,
and Medina has to grow widely available here in the Greater Houston area. They
pretty much you hear me talk about a garden center and a hardware store,
a south Its fertilizer feed stores that you're going to find Medina astra grow in
most places. And it is an excellent product. I love it. I
really love the design of it and the ease of it, and certainly the
results that you get when you use it out in the lawns. I'm seeing
a lot of iron chlorosis this year, speaking of the has to grow having
kilaid iron in it. Iron chlorosis is when areas of your lawn just start
yellowing, but they're not any pattern. It's not like a straight little strip
or a circle or anything. It's just generally yellowing. And you go grab
a grass blade and hold it up to the light and you see streaks of
yellow and green. That's iron deficiency. So the question becomes, why is
the grass iron deficient? Maybe there's not enough iron in the soil. That
most likely is not the case, but it's very possible that is not enough
iron in the soil. You need to add it. But generally what happens
is either something affects the roots of ability to take up the iron, maybe
a drop period where roots actually you're starting to lose some roots and then they're
coming back, or maybe a disease like take all root rot that kills roots
and when you kill a root, you can't take up a nutrient. So
those are possible things that will end up in iron deficiency. But another one
is extra high phosphorus levels and high pH and that Medina hashcro was just talking
about, that's a sixteen zero two zero phosphorus in it. And a lot
of states are kind of going in the direction of limiting just indiscriminate use of
phosphorus for various reasons. But I think that if you have high pH and
high phosphorus, you're going to have iron deficiency. But a soil test would
tell you that. And that's where a soil test comes in handy. And
you can go to the website soil Testing dot ta MU dot edu, soil
testing dot dot edu, and you can find out how to get your soil
tested. Just remember when you go there. By the way, if you
download my lawn Care schedule soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu, the whole URL
is there to get right to the urban soil test form. You need the
urban soil test form. I don't care if you live in timbukt and you
haven't seen a human being in ten years. You need the urban soil test
form for your yard, garden, landscape, orchard, et cetera. That's
the one you want to use. All right, we're gonna take a little
break here. We'll be right back with your calls. Good to have you
with us, Glad to have you. Hey, we're going to go straight
out to the phones. We've got some folks here that are waiting to talk.
See here, all right, we've got some glitches with the system.
Yeah, the storm's affecting us too, So I'm not going to know your
name, but welcome to garden Line. Who are you hello? All right?
For some reason, I'm not able to go there. We gollo.
I'm here, I'm here together. Is it's me? All right? I'm
Candy from Spring And in areas of my flower bed, the mulch has turned
black, and I have black on the trunks of my crape myrtles, and
leaves of the mandevillas and periwinkle, and do I need to just clear it
all out? And start over, treat it or what do I need to
do? Are the periwinkles and mandavilla's close to being under some some crape myrtle
or what? Yes they are okay, yeah, I have lots of flower
beds and they're on a stand, you know, hanging baskets, and they
have black leaves. The mulch underneath is black. Okay, Here here's the
deal. The crape myrtle has a couple of pets that are capable of producing
sugary water. One is aphids and one is great myrtle bark scale. The
bark scale shows up on the trunk as little white specs. You'll see that.
Okay, that's what it is. That is what is there. It
is, And so what they do is basically there's drinking sugary sap and excreting
the sugary part. They don't want the sugar, they want what else is
in the sap, and so it falls on surfaces and then a black city
mold goes. So it's like you if you make sugar water up in a
spray bottle and squirt it up over something, you would see that kind of
mold type thing for me. But the bottom line is you've got to get
rid of the scale, to get rid of the sooty mold, and they
think some the scale are very difficult to control. You can use a systemic
product that goes into the roots and up into the crpe myrtle and kills the
scale because they're sucking the juices out, and you're basically putting a poison in
the plumbing of a plant a tree. Okay, do that now. The
problem with the systemics is that honey bees need crape myrtles in the summer.
It's one of the number one plants honeybees go to. These plants are all
over town, and so you don't want to toxify the nectar of the flowers
either. If you can, if the crape isn't too big, and you
can prune brent it blooms off and just go to the treatment stage here for
a while, that would be good. Wait until it's lost at least most
of its flowers, if not all, and then do the treatment at that
time. That's another option. Okay, yeah, Do I need to pull
up the mulch and put new down or no? No, no, that
black is it. Don't worry about that. It's not a pot it won't
hurt anything. Okay, that's what I was worried about. The only thing,
the only way it would hurt like your periwinkles and other things, is
that it's like putting a shade cloth over the leaves. The sunlight reaching the
leaf is less. So some people have tried using like an insectidal soap up
spray and then washing that off. I don't find that that works super well
and definitely don't want to do it when the sun is baking down. It'll
burn, you can burn. Okay, all right, now these are kreite
myrtle. These are almost like trees instead of bushes. Okay, we can't
them. Okay, that's the best thing I can suggest you at this time.
All Right, Okay, thank you so much. Bye, Thank you
very much. Appreciate that here. All right. Uh, if you're up
in Tomball D and D Feed Store out west on twenty nine to twenty,
that is just a hop, skip and a jump outside of Tomball, very
easy to get access on and off from twenty nine to twenty and boy do
they ever load up on everything that you're going to need for your garden.
So if I talk about a fertilizer, they're going to have them. They
do. They have the soil mixes and blends, especially airloom soil, rose
soil, a leaf, more composts, a berry and ctrus, the vegetable
and herb. That's all there. They carry some plants outside as well,
and inside they got all the products again, like I said, the fertilizers
and some of the soils. They've got insects, side, pesticide, bungeicide,
whatever kind of things you're dealing with. They're going to have it there
at d and Defeed Store just outside of Tomball on the left side of the
road as you're heading away from town. They're not too far there. If
you want to give them a call two eight one, three five, one
seventy one forty four. I'm going to run to the phones now and we're
going to talk to who are we talking to today? I don't have your
name? All right, let's try this again. Are you there? Put
that call on hold. Maybe they stepped away from their phone for just a
second. If you're heading up and down two forty nine Tomball Parkway goes to
Tomball in Houston. Plants for All Seasons is just north of Luetta on the
east side of two forty nine, you exit Luetta if you're going north and
cross over the Luetta Street and you're it's right there on the right hand side.
Plants for All Seasons is a place you're going to go if you want
plants that are well adapted to here. Because listen, the Flowery family has
been doing this since nineteen seventy three, so they know what grows here and
what does and it's a place you go when you want excellent service. It's
a place you go when you want excellent advice. You got a bug,
a plant, some picture of Hey, my neighbor has one of these?
What is it? And how do I get one? They can help you
with all of that kind of thing. Plants for All Seasons dot Com is
the website and here's the phone number two eight one three seven six one six
four six. They are loaded with really quality plants that can take our blazing
hot, blazing hot summer heat. And that is an important thing, because
you know, just because it's gotten hot doesn't mean that we have to give
up on planting all together. There are things we can plant now. And
I always have to try to remind people that summer is a long time and
I mean in terms of the number of months, it includes September in my
book. So we're looking at the beginning. We're here in July, and
the mid July, you've got August, you've got September, and even on
endto October. You're going to have color from the things you plant now that
can take the heat. That's important and just providing that kind of a little
added benefit of a good successful establishment will provide color. There's no sense that
your landscape has to become a sea of green, no sense at all just
because it's hot. And listen, landscapes do become a sea of green,
green grass, green trees, green ground covers, green shrubs, and it
is just yeah, green's are pretty color, but why not all the other
colors in summer we can have them. One of the main ways we do
it is with foldage plants. Ooldage plants have bold colors, but blooming plants
as well. So don't let summer get to you. Hey, get some
work done earlier in the morning, and you can have a beautiful garden,
beautiful landscape. Well you're listening to garden line. We're going to take a
low break here for the top of the hour. I will be back if
you'd like to get on the board with christ seven one three two one two
K to our age three thousand open beds. They could have put these criminals
in, but instead they let them go. The men accused of killing Jocelyn
face the death penalty after it was determined during the investigation that a sexual assault
had occurred. The manslaughter charges against actor Alec Baldwin have been dropped by a
new Mexico judge due to the prosecution withholding evidence. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted
to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice.
Your motion to dismiss with prejudices granted, Judge Mary Marlowe Summer. Baldwin was
accused of shooting a cinematographer on the Rust movie set in twenty twenty one.
Our next update comes at seven thirty Now Sign for more of the Garden Line
with Skip rictor. I'm Jared Lewis on Houston's news whether and traffic station News
Radio seven forty k r H kt r H. Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt
r H. Garden Line with Skip Rictor it's Trim. Just watch him as
stray sun. Thank you. All right, welcome back to Garden Line.
We are back in rolling again for another hour here. We actually we're going
to go for several hours, but we're starting the new one. I'm going
to head straight out to the phones on this one and we're going to go
talk to Jim in Conro. I believe. Hello Jim, and good morning
Yip. How are you? Yes? Hello? Yeah, I was calling
because I almost lost a new two hundred gallon live oak that was put in
a couple of months ago in the storm, and you had advertised a tree
support system. I was calling to see what that was and where it could
be found. Well, it's called the Tree Stabilized three sixty tree Stabilizer butt.
It's not for a two hundred gallon sized live oak. You know's a
trunk trunk diameter on that tree probably about five inches. Yeah, yeah,
it would help. I just those I've never tried to take that strap that
far around. It may work. I need to actually go. Maybe I'll
I've got one handy and I'll take a look at. But generally it's for
when you're planning a little bit smaller tree to get it in the ground.
But if you use more than one on it, that would provide you with
some strength. Okay, Well, I plan to put in some smaller ones
anyway, so maybe I'll look at it for those. Yeah, you should,
because it's excellent. In fact, I would suggest you could do one.
But if you do two at right angles, then north south, east
west, whichever way the wind blows, and you've got really good strong support.
It's an excellent product, that's for sure. I just tree and live
oak and things. I'm just not certain that it will hold that I need.
I need to find out I need type. Okay, I haven't thought
question before on Yeah, thanks Jim. I appreciate you. Appreciate your calling
a boy. Take care. If you haven't fertilized your long this summer,
Nitrofoss has got you covered. They have something called Superturf. Superturf is a
silver bag that's the easiest. I don't think I've ever seen anything in any
kind of plant supplies store or of any kind that is in a silver bag
other than Nitrofoss Superturf. It is an excellent product. It provides a gradual
release. If you apply it now. If you haven't fertilized yet, go
ahead and apply it now. If you have, you're then you're okay.
But it'll carry all the way to fall and that's that is a gradual release.
And that is nice because you know, we just had a gully washer
rain and other than particles getting washed off the soil surface instead of it just
dissolving and going away and you lost your fertilizer because it rained so much.
Well, this one is going to gradually over time. It doesn't just dissolve
away. There is a chemistry to it that slowly, gradually, often with
microbial activity, help releases those particles and the nutrients into the soil. Ninetri
five super turfs available, many many kinds of places. You're going to find
it out at Plantation Ace Hardware in the Richmond Rosenberg Ad area. Katie Ace
Hardware has it as well as does the Growers Outlet up in Willis. Head
back to the phones now and all right, here we go. So this
is another case of I don't know who's calling. So who are we talking
to? Hello, Hey, you're on gard Yeah, you're on goodline.
Who are we talking to? Good? Morning. This is Kelly. Hey,
Kelly, I am calling. I have a property and sergeant on the
creek and we experienced saltwater storm serge during burrow and right now all of our
vegetation, our mature trees, pecand trees, apple trees, pear, citrus,
bi tech, all of it, even my Peggy Martin, they all
look dead. And I didn't know if there was something we should could do
to treat or mitigate the salt water that came on our property. Well,
salt itself, you know, it's dissolved in water. That's how it comes
in with the water, and so the way one way to move it out
of there is to do some major drenching of the soil to dissolve and move
it either down lower in the soil profile or whatever it takes. But that's
that would be the solution of salt. Now, anything that you could put
some organic matter in the soil, some decomposed compost that we talk about a
lot of them. We have bed mixes for vegetables or roses. We've got
straight composts that you put in your lawn as a top dressing, some deep
tying aeration. But ultimately you don't want to keep the soil so soggy that
the plant roots can't get oxygen. But at some point you're going to need
a good drenching, and it shouldn't be that just salt water briefly like we
had it. The storm surge should should be totally wiping them out. So
I'm kind of wondering did they get submerged underwater or was it just wet on
the soil. It was submerged. We probably had a foot of water on
our lot. We're about a mile from the beach, so we got storm
serge. It probably didn't last too long, and of course the wind,
you know, probably damaged the leaves quite a bit and that may be part
of why they look so bad. But we were we're pretty shocked. Yeah,
I wouldn't have expected that. A lot of folks down there on the
beach, you know, they plant things that are salt tolerant, and there
are plants out there you got and hunt them down and plant things that because
you have the salt spray, their salt coming through the air, even when
you're really close to the the coast, and just being able to have tolerant
plants is important. But I think for now, I think you got I
think you're right. I think the wind played a big factor. Certainly the
salt isn't helping. But your soil can be leached out. You can leach
it out of soil and then being submerged in water. Do you know how
many hours that that was? Was it like two or three hours that it
was submerged or how long I'm just guessing. I'm going to say six to
ten, but I don't really know for sure. Yeah, I don't.
That's submerging. Shouldn't shouldn't have killed everything? Okay, okay, help you
get a new re sprouting on them. But you know, I'm not there
on site walking around scratch and bark and everything, but I think that most
of them should come back. But anyway, what's in your power is to
add the organic matters as you can to the soil. We have some liquid
products that are you. I was talking about the the product has to Grow
Supergrow plus is an excellent one, but I would just use Medina's has to
Grow or has to Grow lawn either one on those those. Give them a
good deep soaking with it and see if you can get some benefit from that.
Okay, I will try that. Thank you so much for your help
with this, and we listen to your show every weekend. We appreciate all
the good advice that you give us. Well, that's kind. Thank you,
appreciate that very much. We are going to take a quick break here.
We'll come back. We got a call on the board. It's kind
of fun today. I'm playing mystery caller. I look at the board and
I see someone called, and I have no idea who it is. Every
now and then I do. All right, we're gonna take a break.
I'll be right back by the way. So just give us a call if
you'd like to talk and maybe ask a gardening question. Seven to one three
two one two kt r H. Seven to one three two one two kt
ur H. We want you to have success. We're going to run straight
out to the phones here. See there we go. Who are we talking
to today? By the way, Welcome to Guardland, missus Linwood. All
right, Lynn, how can I answer? I've got a vine growing in
my garden and it may be a morning glory. I'm not sure. It
wraps around my other plants and causing problems, so I've been plucking it out.
Well. I went to help my daughter the other day, and she's
got that vine or another vine growing in among her ground cover, and we
need to get it out, but it's gonna be hard to get out of
ground cover. Do you have any suggestions? That's a good question. Boy,
I wish I knew a little more about it. Can you describe the
leaves to me? Small leaves and and it it produces a pretty flower,
kind of a purple flower, probably an inch and a half in diameter.
Now my wife thinks it's a morning glory. Okay, it could be a
morning glory. That is, that is for sure. Morning glories have an
underground storage root, and so if you pull them up, they if it
breaks off, they just come back again. And you got to get something
to translocate down into that route to do the damage. Uh, these these
are you said they're grown in groundcover? What other kinds of things are they
growing in? Just so I can make sure not recommend the wrong thing.
Well, it was going around a tree, but she lost that tree.
I had reason, I was old. I took my chainsaw and cut it
down. So the tree is no longer an issue. But that that vine
was growing around that tree. Okay, Well, since it's a mystery bind
to me is to just the exact name for sure. I think you're going
to need a product that contains triclop here tri I clo p y R.
And it may be called poison ivy killer, it may be called stump and
brush killer or something like that. But triclop here is the ingredient now that
will kill anything that has broad leaves on it. So if it's in a
groundcover those are ninety nine percent broad leaf plants, it would hurt them.
So you would have to use a wiper type applicator to put it on,
so you get it on the weed, but not on the good plant because
the spray will get on unintended targets. Yeah. I make my own wiper
using those little tools that you grab a jar off a shelf with those a
little three foot long, got a pistol grip on one hand and the other
and grabs the jar. Do you know what I'm I'm a I do.
What do you use for the the You can find one of those that has
a suction cup on each side, uh, and they're available. They have
a little boat through them and I'll put a little flat metal plate or something
behind it. Anything that gives some firm, you know, rigidity to that.
And then I attach a kitchen sponge, a little normal sized little kitchen
sponge about size of a deck of cards, cut it in half, attach
each to each side. Through that, I put a little washer in that
boat, and you can squirt whatever you want on it. You could put
glavasat round up, you could put the triclip here that I'm talking about,
uh, and then you just reach down and kind of squeeze it gently on
each leaf and it it works very very well. All right, thank you
very much. Yeah, it's one thing that allows that surgical leaf weed removal.
And so I wish you well with that project. All right, thank
you, thank you very much, appreciate it. You're listening to Guardenline our
number seven one three two one two five eight seven zero seven to one three
two one two fifty eight seventy. You know that Southwest Fertilizer is always going
to have everything you need. It doesn't matter what it is, they're going
to have it. And way I like to put it is, if Southwest
doesn't have it, you don't need it. You can go to their website
Southwest Fertilizer dot com. The store is located in Southwest Houston at the corner
of this Net and Runwick bin Neet and Runwick. And when you go to
Southwest Fertilizer, you walk in and first thing you think is Skip's right.
There's a lot of product here. Each aisle is loaded, and you know,
it doesn't matter if it's insecticide, pesticide, fungicide, herbicides, fertilizers.
Their selection of fertilizer is huge, quality soil balloons in a bag.
You're going to find everything organic and synthetic. In fact, if you're an
organic gardener, you probably won't find a bigger selection of organic products in one
place than a Southwest Fertilizer the corner of Bess and Nutt and Runwick. You
know, you can go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com find out a
little bit more, but you need to run by their good selection of tools,
all kinds of things that you might need. Once you walk in and
see it, it's like, oh, okay, yeah, this is it's
true. If they don't have it, I don't need it. And I
really believe it when I say that we're gonna head out now to Tom Ball
and talk to David. Hello David, Hey, good morning, sir.
Hey. I've been buying these These they're called black palms at ATB and they're
just probably a little bit smaller than a tennis baller, but that's a big
plum. And man, they are so sweet and juicy, and I've saved
some of the pits. And I'm wondering, does that variety of plum do
well down in this area, and if so, how do you get it
from seed to tree? Or am I waste my time? Most of the
time when you get it's a store bought fruit, right, yeah. Yeah,
So when you do that, you're getting a variety that was bred very
carefully over many many years, crossing this and that and testing them and stuff.
And so when it's pollinated, the offspring of that seed are going to
be different than the planet came off of. So the plum may be close
to the same, maybe almost identical, but it may be more disease problem.
It may be a little different size or color. And it's kind of
like kids, you know, you kids never look just like one parent or
the other, although I have noticed that when they misbehave usually one parent is
identified as the cause of that. Genetically we know which one that is t
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do don't. We generally does not agree
with that assessment. But seriously, just like your kids are not identical to
either you or your wife, the fruit from a store bought tree, which
is an improved variety, is likely to be in a little inferior in some
way. That doesn't mean Okay, let me change well, let me change
my question. Then if I want to narrow that choice down to get a
good variety of plumb what what type do I get at the nursery that's going
to do well in this region? David, you're there, and Tomball and
arbigate out into they have fruit trees year round and they're going to have a
number of good varieties for so rather than me, just name one. If
you go there, if Arbur Gates Karen, a variety is going to be
a good one for you and they'll be able to give you your choices.
And that's what I would recommend. Alrighty, thank you man, all right,
thank you. I appreciate enjoy your show, all right, bye bye,
appreciate it, David, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
All right, folks, Well, I don't need to tell about a million
of you out there. That power can go out, and when power goes
out, things shut down. Of course, you got that refrigerator full of
food, you got that freezer full of food. You're working from home,
and you have to have access to the internet to work well. You need
you need dependable access. Quality home products can put you in a Generac,
which is a quality brand of generator, and they're called automatic standby generators.
So here here's here's what that means. It means it sits there and never
does anything, and to the minute the power go out, it comes on
and you're just like hardly missing a beat. You're you're going They do everything
from helping you find the right one to coming out working with whatever codes and
requirements and permissions are needed to do this. They put the slab down,
put the generator down, and that's when the good stuff begins. That's when
you start to learn about why they have fourteen thousand and five star reviews.
That's why you learn about why they are eight time winner of the most prestigious
Customer Service Award the Better Bus Business Bureau gives out. They take care of
their customers. You have twenty four seven, three sixty five service. Now
they do financing options also available. This is a family owned company since nineteen
eighty nine. Go to Quality tx dot com to learn more qualitytx dot com
or call them at seven one three Quality. A lot of places will sell
you a generator. You will not find service like Quality. They have the
best generators available and they have service that is unlike any And listen, when
you're talking about a problem time, you need a company that is going to
provide very good, very fast service. And that that's why I like to
recommend Quality Home fact, no question about that. And listen, This hurricane
season is now projected to be a bad one because we have that really early
storm barrel. Uh. It doesn't take a hurricane for the power to go
out. So I would give him a call. It's a process to get
this set up and done. Give them a call and let them help you.
Quality we are. Let's see here. I'm going to go to Brian
and Richmond. Hello, Brian, what can I get more thing to skip?
Hey? Just trying to figure out when it's going to be safe to
trim my lava tree? Uh? Brian, can hear me? Yes?
Can hear me yes? We're running out of time. Why don't you go
ahead and ask me the question, and then when we come back, I'll
answer it. Yeah, when is that safe to trim my lava tree?
Okay, you can do it now. That's an easy one. You can
do it now. Okay. If you want to hang on to discuss that
further, I'm put you on hold. Uh, feel free to im I
know what the issue is. I just there's a bunch of young shoe marks
and cherry bart in my neighborhood, and I don't want to start spreading wilt.
Well, wilt, if there's wilt in your neighborhood, that's an issue.
I'm not aware of wilt down there, but if it is, will
that's the one time I would say, paint a cut. If you want
to be absolutely sure, you can paint those cuts immediately after you make them,
not the next day, and you should be okay, Okay, great,
thanks you bet all right? Well you're listening to the guard Line.
We're gonna take a break and I'll be right back Houston's News. I've been
on my own for long. Maybe you can show me. Maybe I'm gonna
go back to the guard Line. Good to have you with us today.
We got plenty of things to talk about for those of you down in Richmond
area in Channon, for it is a wonderful place to visit. It is
out there on FM twenty seven fifty nine, So just kind of picturing it
as the crow flies. If you're in Richment and you're heading up toward sugar
Land, it's off to the right, FM twenty seven fifty nine. And
Chenna Forest always has a good selection of things, and I'm telling you right
now their selection of hot weather plants is outstanding. It really is. I
keep telling you this. We need to keep planting now for summer color.
So there is a Helianthus sunflower called Sunbelievable. They have that in stock out
there, and it is unbelievable. It makes a small, little bushy annual
plant that has little sunflowers all over it. It's's gorgeous and it just blooms
and blooms, producing flower after flower after flower. They've got that. Plumbago
lantana, lots of different kinds of Salvias, Tacoma stands or yellow bells does
very very well. Hibiscus, both the tropical types and the perennial mallows.
They've got that, lots of native plants. They're at the Enchended Forest,
Boogavillia's plumeria. Boy, those plants can take the heat. And thrialis trialis
is an outstanding when also all of those things are among many plants you can
get right now. It enchanted for uts, get them in the ground,
and you've got color to take you all the way up to fall, which
is unfortunately still well a ways away. No reason you count plan this time
of the year. Get out in the morning when it's cool, get out
there and joy making your place something beyond just a sea of green. We're
going to head now to Missouri City and talk to Kay. Hello, Okay,
Hello, Hi, can you hear Hi? Can you hear me?
Okay? I just moved into a new apartment complex and I'm on the first
floor. So they're going to allow me to have a flower When is the
best time of year to have a flower bed? Put in any month of
the year is good. Kay, You could do it right now and have
them plant some things that take the heat, like periwinkles and angelonia. There
are zenya bush types of zenny as. You can put in lots of good
plants. It can take the heat. Now In fact, as you drive
around and you see those little planting beds maybe entrances to guard to subdivisions,
and look at the flowers that are in them, and those are all good
exactibles for this time of the year. Yeah, okay, I was thinking
about more. I was thinking about more after the beginning of next year.
Is that still Okay? Maybe around February you could actually so in February,
as we get past pretty soon they're a final frost in whatever it is in
your particular, you can begin planting some of the things that are good spring
flowers. Petunias do well at that time of the year. That's just an
example. In the summer, we need things that can take the heat and
that that would well. I was gonna let incanted gardens take care of the
for me. I'm not going to choose. I'm gonna let them. But
thank you so much. I just wanted about the time of year. Okay,
all right, well you'll get good You will definitely get get good advice
from them. Okay. Thank you, have a good weekend. Thanks for
the call. Now you're listening to Guardline and we're here to help you have
a more bountiful garden. A more beautiful landscape. Nelson Plant Food is up
to the same thing. By the way, if you need your lawn to
look good for a very long time. Slow and Easy that's their turf Star
product that is slow released for summer Slow and Easy from Nelson, and Slow
and Easy is going to give you feeding all the way up to fall.
Slow and Easy is going to give you a slight acidifying of the soil as
well, which is helpful for some of those pesky diseases like take all root
route that likes high pH soil. Slow and Easy is going to gradually release
the nutrients so you don't have this peak of mowing and trying to water to
keep up with it, or the effect on roots that over apply applying nitrogen
can cause. That would be an example of something that can make the plant
not develop as deep of a root system as it should. Slow and Easy
fixes all of that. It avoids all of that. Slow and Easy from
Nelson one of the many excellent products from Nelson, such as their nutri Star
line and their color Star line. Well, you're going to find it all
over the place, and I can guarantee this I've used it. You will
not be disappointed. It works very very well. I'm going to head out
now to talk to Sky in Magnolia. Hello, Sky, Hey, good
morning. How are you doing this morning? It's actually ski but uh,
good morning Si. I appreciate that. Well, I'm a little polished,
so that's where it comes from. Uh. But uh, I was wondering.
I have a pool and I was want want looking for a palm tree
to go behind the pool, A couple of them. What would you recommend
for our Texas heat and our winners. We have a lot of good ones
I like. I like the sable palms. There's a Texas Mexican tables that
are s A B A L s A B A LA. They are.
They're about as cold hearty as you're going to get. They're going to do
very very well for you. Like that, But I tell you what you
need to contact Verdant Tree Farm. Verdant Tree Farm is one of the best
that I've ever seen selections of palms that are good for this area. You
know when you go there, you're going to get something that's gonna do well
here. And if you go to their website, it's Verdant Treefarm dot com
or let me check that one second. All right, that's bad radio for
me to have all that dead air space. But I had to reach and
grab grab a phone number for you. Uh uh. The Verdant Tree Farm
phone number is two eight one three four five sixty seven eighty nine. Two
eight one three four five sixty seven eighty nine. Uh. There's there's a
store in Barker, Cyprus and West Houston. There's one in Paarland off Broadway,
and there's one in the heights at Yale kind of where Yo comes into
Itan right there. But Verdant right the website Verdant Treefarm dot com. That's
where I'd start, because they're gonna have a thing where you can look at
all kinds of trees that they have, and then another button where you cook
at all the palms and it described it tells you know the benefits of them
and the specifics on how big they'll get and all that kind of thing.
But it's really a good website. Patrick has put together an excellent site there.
But Sable you said, would be the one that you might recommend.
Yeah, Texas or Mexican Sable, those that do really well. When we
had the bad, bad freeze in what February twenty one, I believe I
was up in the College Station area looking at a lot of dead palms and
some nice living Texas sables that so that that impressed me a lot. Yeah,
I'm actually a magnolia, so yeah, we're familiar with cold weather once
in a while. Yeah, you do. You get some cold up there.
I do appreciate that, and glad to hear you on line trying to
get back to normal out here. All right, Well, good luck with
that. I know it's been a booger of a storm again, but thanks
for the calls. Oh yeah, we're thank you. Have a good day.
Yes, sir BOBBYE, you're listening to Garden Line. I'm gonna take
a little break if you would like to give us a call, give call
of Chris. Give Chris a call at seven one three two one two.
Katie. Back to Guarden Line. Good have you with us today. We
are talking about the things that help you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful
landscape. That is our goal is to help you have success with that,
and one of the key elements of success is being able to get a hold
of the products that you need in order to have success with your plants.
Products like fertilizers for the lawn and for the garden, fire ant control,
mosquito repellents, mosquito control, all of that. Ace Hardware is loaded with
all of the things that you might need for success with your plants. You
know, right now, Ace Hardware has got their generators in stock, the
little gas powered ones you fire up to be able to run something during the
power. They've got that. They've got all kinds of things for cleaning up
around the house from the storm. You know, you need a chainsaw,
Do you need any kind of a handsaw or pole pruners or whatever. Everything
like that is going to be at Ace Hardware. They always have all the
things that are needed for the season, air conditioning unit. You know,
there's a lot of things that we have to deal with going through the year
when we're trying to have a beautiful garden or even a beautiful outdoor area.
And Ace Hardware has all of that covered. They specialize in that, and
there's forty stores around the Greater Houston area. It's really easy to find one.
Just go to acehardware dot com, look at the store locator and find
the store nearest you. When you get there, you're going to be able
to stock up on all the things you need, and one thing I would
highly recommend you go ahead and stock up on, get your mosquito dunks,
get your mosquito repellents. And because listen, with all this rain they're coming,
in fact, they're already here. It just encourages them to enables them
to reproduce even more. We have rainfall like we've had before. Oh,
but that's part of the deal living down in this area. But ACE is
your solution to those mosquito problems as well. You are listening to garden Line.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give Chris call.
Let's get you on the boards and talk about the things that you like,
the things that you are interested in. That's definitely what we want to be
able to do here on garden Line. I talked a little bit earlier about
yellowing in the turf and the fact that it's usually an iron deficiency, but
an iron deficiency that's brought on not necessarily, in fact, not likely by
a lack of iron in the soil, but by either high pH and hyphosphorus,
which locks up the iron making it unavailable, or by take all root
route, which is a disease that kills roots. And when you have that,
then you proceed into all kinds of of issues, including iron deficiency being
a pretty common thing that we run across. I wanted to just spend a
little bit of time talking about plant care. During the summer season, when
we are dealing with the issues of heat and humidity and often drought, we
need to make sure our plants have what they need. And water is the
single most important thing. But that doesn't mean you just water water water.
It means you water enough to keep the soil adequately moist so that very you
know, I get calls a lot or emails where it says where they say
how often do I water and how long do I water? You know,
and that kind of depends. I would the fastest answer to that is apply
water enough to put an inch of water down a week on your lawn.
One inch a week on your lawn. So every kind of lawn sprinkler will
put out water at different rates. There's the pop up sprinklers, there's the
rotors, there's the multi stream rotors. Several times and they all put water
at at different rates. So you tell me how long put a rain gage
in your lawn. Take some straight sided can like a tuna fish can,
a cat food can, a pinto bean can. Whatever you got straight sided
so it measures a little more accurately, and put it out there. Turn
on the water. How long does it take to apply Let's say a half
inch or a quarter inch. That then you can just multiply at times four
with a quarter inch, find out how long you need to run your system.
Most cases, you're not going to be able to put a whole inch
on at one time. You're gonna have to have it water and then go
off for a while. We call that cycle and then soak, and then
repeat it with another cycle and soak, and you can get the inch down
in the soil that way. See, we're going to run out here to
again a mystery caller. Welcome to garden line, who were talking to Hello,
Hello, Yeah, you're welcome to gardener. Oh I didn't realize.
Is there any way to get miss a pygmy bamboo that's taken over my Saint
Augustine? Is there a way to kill that without it's from coming over from
my neighbor's yard? Yeah, they like a more, they like a more
natives look. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it.
So I would recommend you get a product, either a grass only killer,
but probably for more effective control. I would get a glyphosate which brand name
examples round up and put it in a wiper applicator and just wipe it on
that bamboo because it's taller than your grass. And you can get it on
the bamboo without getting it on your grass, because both of those products will
kill grass. Okay, Well, I mow the grass, and of course
it keeps all the same leaks. But I think I can probably I don't
take a little paintbrush maybe, and it may take a while, but it'll
take a while, but if you stay on it, you'll drive it back.
But the only other thing to do would be to put some sort of
a trench in a barrier in the property line so that the battery couldn't crawl
underground. It would like hit an underground wall so it couldn't come in.
But yeah, those are your probably your best options for travel. Well,
thank you so much, Okay, I appreciate it. Take care. Yeah,
that's just one of the things that we have to deal with, you
know. It just we we end up with a lot of different kinds of
issues and they don't all have good solutions. That's something you probably have noticed
listening to Garden Line is sometimes there's not a good solution, or the solution
is not one you want to hear or do, or is not practical.
We try to kind of guide you and line you up with the right kinds
of products and the right kinds of approaches, but sometimes there's just not a
great way to get there from here, and so sometimes drastic measures are needed.
And believe me, I've I've had to take drastic measures, including you
know, like a replace my whole lawn this past year due to some issues
that we had with diseases and insects and me being away for several weeks and
unable to see them happening and stop them early on in the process. I
wanted to I want to talk a little bit about RCW Nursery. You know
RCW is it's the garden Center, that's where Tomball Parkway two forty nine comes
into belt Way eight and it's just a it's just an outstanding place. But
right now you need to see the sale that they have going on. They
have fifty percent off all their trees. That is huge, fifteen percent off
all their trees. Now they're open today from eight to four. Normally it's
seven to four Monday through Friday, and then tomorrow from ten am to four
pm as well. It's easy to get by there. RCW grows their own
trees. They grow their own trees up in Plannersville. So they have chosen
varieties that are gonna be successful here and that listen, trees are a long
term investment. Don't just plant a tree because you saw it somewhere else and
like it. It needs to be something that is going to be able to
grow here. And that is what they specialize in at RCW Nursia Chris.
They have everything else. They got roses, they got every kind of plant
you might want. If you can get by there and find their Cajun hibiscus,
I don't know if they have any laugh, but that is an outstanding
type of hibiscus. So RCW. They're on the access road there, two
forty nine access road right where two forty nine comes into belt Weigh eight.
Just go to the website RCW Nursery Dot, nurseries dot com, RCW nurseres
dot com you can find out what well looks like. We're about to put
another hour in the books here. Hey, I hope you stick around with
us. We got plenty of things to talk about when I come back.
I'm going to dive in head for headfirst into tree issues, from broken limbs
to bent trucks, to uprooted trees, to split tree trunks, you name
it. We're going to talk about all those kinds of things. And for
those of you who are recovering from the storm, or maybe you got to
enaghbor the tree covering and you could give them a tip or two if they're
open to that, We're going to fill you in on all of that.
It's right after we come back. If you'd like to get on the board.
In the meantime, give us a call at seven one three two one
two k t r H. That's seven one three two one two k t
r H with Skip Rictor. It's just watching as all right, we're back.
We are back here on Guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we are going to talk about the things that are most of interest
to you. That is how we would like to do this. Have you
been out to Nelson Water gardens that's out in Katie. So think of it
as your West Houston garden center, really your West Houston destination garden center.
It's quite the place. If you haven't been by there, you got to
go. I keep telling people this. So we're having some hot summer days,
what a wonderful time to go out to Nelson Water Garden. Strolled through
the shade back there and look at all of the beautiful water features. Listen
to the sound of the water, just sit down a while on it.
Think of it as free therapy. When you go out there, you're going
to get inspired and want to put some of that in your landscape because there's
nothing like the sound of moving water to just help you rest and just be
a piece. It is a very very soothing thing, and it attracts birds
too, by the way. To hear that sound. While you're out there,
you need to check out their rose sale. All the roses they have
are essentially half price. That's basically at about half price on the roses.
You're not going to do better than a deal like this. Excellent opportunity to
grab you some roses. While you're out there, you're going to find every
other kind of thing that you're looking for. They have got a collection of
beautiful hibiscus, and the hotter it gets, the more hibiscus just laughs and
loves being in Houston. Give a little bit of water and it is happy
to go. There are a lot of other great plants that we can put
out there, and you're going to find them an excellent selection at Nelson Watergarden
and Nursery. They're out on Katie Fort Ben Road. So head to Katie
on I ten. When you get to Katie Fort Benroad, turn right just
a little north of Ien. You'll find them there on the right. Nelsonwatergardens
dot Com. Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Don't go by yourself, take some friends
with you, because really this will be an enjoyable outing that you will love.
I'm going to head now out to the heights and we're going to talk
to Nancy. Hello Nancy, good morning. Hi there, My wife is
gamy phone. Quick question for y'all and of course enjoy your show, Thank
you for it. And quick question, before you know the hurricane, we
got some crep myrtles out front that got twisted up and some of the I'm
not going to say the trunk, but right above the trunk where some of
the major branches branch off, they split, and I'm one wondering can I
just screw those things back together and hope for the best. Tell me again
the type of tree and the diameter of the trunk below the split. Okay,
I'm going to say, well, it's a crape myrtle, and it's
probably about six inches the diameter of the split branch slash trunk. Okay,
Well, vaulting is possible, and it can help. It's not easy to
do, but if you're doing yourself, or you can pull it off.
What you need to do is to have some way to pull those two branches
together, those two trunks together, so that you close off that split as
much as possible, right, and then put a you can drill a hole
through and put a bolt through with washers on each side, and like you
use what's like an all thread material or or there's different ways to get figure
that. I didn't explain. I didn't explain it good enough. It's just
it's just it's just as it's one of the as the tree brand. It's
just a single brand, so the trunk isn't split. It's just a brand
that split a limb, okay, But it's just I get what you're saying,
and I'm thinking if it shouldn't be shouldn't be that barred famous laugh words.
Well, because of the angle on a limb, sometimes you don't have
a lot to hold up there, so I can't quite picture it. I
think I see what you're talking about, but I'm a little more hesitant about
the bolting working with that. But in general, there are other things we
can do. You'll see professionally done jobs where a tree branch is going to
hang too low and they want to hold it up, or where there's a
split, but they go out a little bit and you put a bolt through
the trunk and a bolt through the branch with a little cable between the two.
You can go that route too, where you're not you know, if
you if you thought about if you were to reach with your hand and grab
that if you could have it that big of a hand, grab the trunk
and and try to hold that branch from sagging down, you would have no
ability to do that because of the leverage on the branch. So going further
out on the branch and a little further up on the trunk allows you to
pull them together and have more strength because you're getting further out to pull it
to. I got you, I got you, okay, all right.
It was just I was looking out the window looking at and that that just
popped into my head and my wife so well, I know the guy who
can answer your question. Well, I appreciate that, Thank you very much.
And any anything else that is that'll basically what y'all call about. That's
it. Thank you. All right, well, thank you very much.
I appreciate the Take care, okay, bye bye, bye bye. You
know, we got a lot of tree things going on right now, a
lot of messes. And you know, after the mess what you do as
you go in and you just clean it up and you do the best job
you can. And believe me, there is a right and wrong way to
clean up a mess on a tree, to fix when you have split trunks,
broken limbs, bending trunks. Affordable tree service. Martin spoon Moore is
our go to arborist here on Guarden Line, and Martin's been doing this for
many, many years. He knows what he's doing. If you survive the
storm, I would encourage you still to have him come out take a look
at the trees and see if any selective pruning needs to be done, because
you know, there were things that went down in this storm that didn't go
down in the last storm. Why is that weather? It's all different,
okay, And so just because you dodge this bullet doesn't mean you know you're
going to dodge all the others in what's predicted to be a very busy hurricane
season. You can call Martin at seven one three six nine nine twenty six
sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six six' three, or
go to the website Afftree Service dot com. Telling me from garden line helps
you get up the list. There they put his garden line listeners up at
the top of the list, telling me from Guardenline, he's gonna he's a
busy guy. I mean he does a good job and boys are lever a
lot of work out there right now to get done. But get a hold
of him, get on the schedule so he can come by and you have
him take a look and do that kind of assessment for you at your place.
Affordable Tree Service seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three.
We're gonna now head out to Kingwood, Texas, and talk to Joe.
Hello Joe, Good morning, skip Uh. I have a question about recovering
from storm damage. Among the damage I got was my double knockout roses were
just absolutely had all their leaves stripped off of them. They're about four foot
tall, and I have six or seven of them grouped together, but they're
just sticks right now, What would you recommend I do to help them?
All right? So, in order to give you a little better answer than
just a quick one, I'm going to put you on on hold or I'm
going to hang on to you until we come back from the break I have
to take right now, and we will continue this discussion. But I got
several good ideas. All right, thank you, you bet. All right,
folks, we are just going to break here and we will be right
back seven to one three six or seven one three two one two kt r
H if you'd like to call in, all right, welcome back to Garden
Line. Hey, you hear all kinds of music on this show. I
doubt you've ever heard that one before. I don't know, maybe you did,
but it just reminds me about the fact that with this rain we're going
to have an increase in mosquita issues. That's the way it is. Wherever
there is a thimble full of water, a mosquito can lay an egg in
it, complete its life cycle and come out and run and fly around,
bite biting you and your friends. You got to make sure that any areas
that have water are dumped out. If you've got catch basins under your flower
pots, dump them out. If you you know you got a bird bath,
squirt it out with water. Blast all the old water out. If
the water is moving, and there's gadgets that move the water to avoid mosquitos
being able to lay eggs or wanting to lay eggs in there, that's okay.
I've got a little fountain that's circulating all the time. I don't worry
about that. But stagnant water, maybe it's in a tire somewhere sitting around.
Maybe it's in another kind of container, like the gutters in your house.
That's a place mosquitoes can breed. And you don't need to be a
squitter breeder. Stop it. Don't be a mosquito breeder. Get some mosquito
dunks. Mosquito dunks are the simplest, safest thing you can do to control
mosquito larvae from hatching out and adding to the popular All it is is a
little beige d beige dunk. It's about the size of one of those little
little debbies white powder sugar doughnuts, you know, the little bity things.
But you put it in water, it floats. It covers about one hundred
square feet per dunk, and it lasts for about a month. They also
have little granules that you can purchase, or you can take a dunk and
just hit it with a hammer and make your own granules, however you want
to go about it. But it works really well, the little granules.
I've got a neighbor's got some water, just a little bitty thing of water,
and they're gone on a little trip and it's not something it's like at
the top of their rainwater collection system. So I'm just gonna sprinkle some little
granules out of that later today when I go by there. It's really easy,
easy to do. Mosquito dunks is. They're available at almost all your
independent nurseries, their feet stores, ace hardware stores. So if it's fertilizer,
easy to find mosquito dunks here in the area. Don't be a skeeter
breeder. Let's head back out. Now we're going to go back to Joe
in Kingwood, and Joe you had the roses with all the leaves blown off
or yes, sir, so those rose bushes will put on new leaves just
fine. They're okay. They're going to bounce back quickly. It's a time
when you're looking at them. If they need any pruning done here and there,
some twiggy growth, a broken branch or, or however you might want
to trim them a little, go ahead and do that because it's easy to
get access without the leaves on them. And then just give them some fertilizer
and if we go into a dryer, hotter spell, make sure they continue
to get adequate moisture. But a good boost of fertilizer. You could use
a addition to providing nutrients for your roses, you could use some medina aster
grow to put on those roses to give them a good drench to help the
soil. That works really well. Microlife has a number of different products that
work. A seaweed product, a fish type product called ocean harvest, but
a little concoction of those mixed up and drenched into the soil around the rose
will also be helpful, but primarily right now, it's going to be just
a little bit of time and a little bit of nutrient. So find something
with a good nitrogen level in it. And I'll tell you this, Joe
a lot of times, just because I have it handy. I always have
some bags of fertilizer around. I just use a lawn fertilizer around them.
You can do that, or you can go buy a little canister of something
made specifically for roses. Either way, that's great. Yeah, I've got
some nitrofoss rose fertilizer. There you go. Well, then that's an outstanding
product. I think the Hoastern Rose Society was actually in on that, but
it's an excellent one. Thank you, Skip. I appreciate it all right,
Thank you. Appreciate your call very much. If you'd like to be
on the air, ask a question, don't be afraid. I like to
tell people that us there. And I know this is a stretch, but
I like to say there's no stupid questions, just stupid answers to put you
at ease, like, don't worry about it, if even if it's even
if it were a stupid question. There are other people that have it and
I'll worry about the stupid answers, the pressures on me. You relax,
give us a call seven to one three, do one two ktrh and we
will help you work it out. Don't be afraid to ask your questions.
That is why we're here. Uh. There is a product that we were
just talking about, Nitrofos with the rose fertilizer. It reminded me. Nitrofos
has a natural type plant lawn food called sweet green. Sweet green is made
from a molasses base. So you know, with molasses base, you're putting
a carbon material in the soil that is going to stimulate a lot of happy
microbes because that's what they go after. That's why we use molasses in the
garden. Well, sweet grain is eleven percent nitrogen, so it will release
that nitrogen quickly as it dissolves away. So what I would recommend is buy
your bag of sweet green. I would split the amount you're going to apply
in half. So at eleven percent nitrogen, you're going to put about ten
pounds per thousand square feet. But I would cut it in half and I
would do five pounds now and then about six to eight weeks from now,
I do the other five pounds, so, in other words, same amount
total, but spread it out. It's not a slow release, but you
can do that and achieve the slow release effect by doing that with sweet Green
from Nitrofoss and Nitrofoss products. As I always say, they're really easy to
find. If you're up in the woodlands all Spa ace HASM up there.
If you're down in Memorial area, ACE Hardware City a Memorial Drive has them
easy to find. The fertilizing products from Nitrofoss like sweet Green. We're going
to go now out to Richmond, Texas and talk to Nancy. Hello,
Nancy, Honey, h skip. I hope you're doing well. I've got
a hurricane related question. We have a pineapple guava that fell over. We
had one that split, so we cut that away, and we have one
that fell over. The root ball is halfway exposed, it's not all the
way up, so do we we need to remove it? How old is
the pineapple gava? Twenty five years old on a little bush like that.
I think you're going to get by with this. What you're going to find
is the wind and the rain that blew it over also washed soil in underneath
it. So what was what looks like a hole was once a much bigger
hole where it kind of lifted up. So you may have to move a
little soil out of there just to be able to set it back down and
then watered in real good. And you're going to need to put a steak.
I would you could do different things. I might try try the tree
stabilizer three sixty tree stabilizer. It's a little steak. You put a you
put an iron post in, hammer a t post in right there beside it,
and it'll hold it in place. Because it is going to take a
long time for that tree to redevelop the roots that can anchor it. This
is going to be like at least a two or three year process. I
said, pineapple, pineapple, globba bush. So they're trees there, Yeah,
they're like tall. Okay, well if you if you get it in
his place, just plan on leaving that thing there for a long long time
because it it takes a while to develop roots that reach out far enough and
achieve the diameter to be able to be really strong and hold on to things.
And that's not going to occur in the first two years. Okay,
is there any kind of roots stimulator or anything I need to put on it.
You think the tree, and yeah, you could do that. There's
a number number of different kinds of products that you can put out there.
There are things that are hormone type, things that have other ingredients in them.
Uh. If you're you're out there in Richmond area, you got a
couple of great nurseries out there. You got some hardware stores like Plantation Ace.
You can get by there and just look for something along those lines and
that will help. But the time is the main thing that you're going to
need to do. All right, Well, I've got a little bit of
time. They'll take care of it. I appreciate it. All right,
well, you take care. Thanks for the call. I want to I
want to continue that discussion that we were just having there. Uh, there's
so many things to talk about regarding plants that have blown over and whatnot.
But there's a lot of trees, young trees have been bent. I had
an email this past week from it was a new cypress tree that have put
in and the whole thing it was coming straight up out of the ground still,
but the whole trunk just bent. It was like you grabbed the top
of a fishing pole that someone was pointing toward the sky, and you just
bent that top all the way to the ground, made a big U shape
with it. That's what this tree looked like. And the cause of that
was that the trunk wasn't strong enough to support the top in the wind.
Now, sometimes when it's a new tree, it's because it was grown in
a very non moving environment. You know, the trunk is staked firmly up
against a rigid steak, and so that trunk doesn't bend in the wind as
it would in nature. And when tree branches trunks tree plant tissues, I'll
go that far. When plant tissues are bent and kind of stressed, they
get stronger, and in response to the wind, it gets stronger. A
lot of times in greenhouses they'll have a little ocilating fan going back and forth
across tiny seedlings coming up, and that's to just move them a little bit.
Because your little tomato seedling that grows in perfectly still air is going to
be a spindly, easy breakable plant when you put it outside. If you
move it around a lot, it gets stockier. And the same is true
with the woody tissues. On a tree trunk, and so that is the
cause of the bent trunk. What do you do. You stake it back
in place with a tree stabilizer, but you make sure that it can move
some, which tree stabilizers will do, because you do want it to get
stronger. But just holding it stiff in one spot doesn't achieve that very well.
Now, whenever the tree blows over, that's a whole another matter.
And when we come back from the next break, perhaps we will talk a
little bit when I can give that a little more time. I just answered
a caller by saying, yes, you can lean it back up. You
may have to take a little soil out so it leans upright and stake it
into place. But this was a very small plant. We were talking about
U pine apple WIV I believe, and so it's not like a big tree
that uproots. But if a little plant does that, a little shrub or
a very small young tree, that's let's say within the first two years of
that tree being planted, then you can straighten it up, hold it in
place. But know that it's going to take at least a couple of years,
more like really three years before it has enough strength to really give it
some support, and it may even take longer than that. All right,
I'm gonna stop there, but when we come back, we're going to continue
this discussion about storm damaged trees. Welcome back, Welcome back to guard Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to answer gardening questions to
help you have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape. That's what
you want to do, right. Gardening is fun. Gardening is an enjoyable
hobby. And you know, we we have the vicissity of nature. How's
that for a word for the day. The vicissitudes of nature to deal with,
like storms, like freezes, like drought, like heat. Yes,
we do. It's a challenge. Every year is different. Sometimes things do
better than others, and that's just part of the learning experience and part of
the resilience that gardeners have and being able to stick with it and do it.
It is an enjoyable outlet. Though, don't worry about success or failure
in terms of oh, I tried to grow something, but it died.
Let's help you grow it successfully. That's what I'd like to do. I
want you to have success because there is listen Gardening is for your mental health,
gardening is for your physical health, and gardening is just the just the
joy and peace of mind that comes from being out in nature and a garden.
You don't want to miss that. We're going to head out now to
the phones, and I don't have your name on the board. So who
are we talking to? Yeah? Hello, Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, sir? All right, my name is the R and I'm
calling from out in catch Spring Belleville area. All right, good dar,
welcome to guard Line. All right, question for you. Yeah, so
I've inherited a I've purchased a place out there, and it had inherited a
tremendous number of rose bushes that are all around six seven years old and super
healthy. They're all good. But I've noticed that and there's like three different
varieties of rose bushes that are on that are on the property and the ones
that are at the front of the property that are like on these really long
flower beds. Uh. There's probably an excess of one hundred rose bushes,
and the top two thirds of them are pretty and green, and they're putting
out flowers, you know, putting out the actual roses. But then the
bottom third, the bottom third of them are kind of you know, they
they're they're brown. There's no there's no limbs. There's no limbs on the
property. I'm excuse me. There's no limbs on the rose bushes. No
limbs, there's no leaves. There's no leaves on the rose bushes. They're
just brown, like you know, twigs. So I'm trying, and I
don't know anything about rose bushes. But like I said, the tops healthy,
pretty and green. I just don't know what to do with that bottom
section. Got you, gotcha? All right? Well, here's the thing.
Whenever a rose bush is stressed, it could be a drought stress,
you know, it could be any kind of a stress like that. Oftentimes,
and this is true not just roses, plants in general. Oftentimes they
will cast their older leaves off, and you just see that sort of thing
happen. It be diseases, the oldest the leaves lower in the bush and
further down any shoot, or the oldest leaves on the plant, and so
sometimes you just see a casting off of that older foliage. You can do
a couple of things. You could just live with it for now, and
then in the fall season you could excuse me. In the winter season,
you could do some serious pruning to those roses and bring them back, let
them re sprout up from a little bit lower than you trim, and restore
them that way. If you like the shape that they're in now, I
might be tempted to leave them as they are a little bit of pruning.
I often will do a little bit of pruning to mine when we get into
the late late summer early fall season, like late August, for example,
and do a shearing back then, because October is a big blooming month for
roses, and if you fertilize them and water the water that fertilizer in,
you'll get a stimulation of growth and they'll fill in and look good again.
So there's a couple of pockets where you can. Yeah, So if I
just want to leave them, if I just want to leave them as they
are, if I just want to leave them as they are right now,
you're saying, let them be, and then uh, maybe like October,
you say, prune them and hit them with a little fertilizer. No,
in late August, at the end of August, the little fertilizer and watered
in really good for October blooms. You're gonna have really good blooms season October.
And also just one other thing, you are when you shade leaves out,
they fall off. They can't. If you look at any head shrub
and you just pull the hedge apart and look inside, it's all twiggy brown
inside. It's only out there where they get sunlight that you have the hedge
leaves. So roses, these roses could be overgrown enough to where they're doing
some of that to themselves. So maybe just leave them as they are.
Yeah, leave them as they are right now late August. Uh, trim
trim, trim the the lower parts I'm talking about when you say prune them
back. How far do I prune back on yours? I would do it
by about a third. You could do a third. You could also normally
I would just do a fourth. Uh, prune them back by about a
fourth to get new growth. With the fertilization and the pruning, you get
new growth, and roses produce on new shoot at the end of shoots.
So the more ends of shoots you have, the more roses you're gonna have
on the plant. But also in mid in mid to or late winter,
that's the time to do a heavy pruning if you want to reshape them,
and you know, because they're in a semi dormant state, right then uh
to get fresh new growth in the spring. Ah, okay, all right,
you answered my question. I really appreciate it. All right, good
luck with those sounds like you got your hands full. You might need to
join the Houston Roads Society. What mean? Yeah? Hey, thanks so
much. Right by the way, Houston Roads Society is a great organization anybody
that wants to learn more about roses and enjoy meeting people who love roses.
They're a great a great group for that. I've been to their meetings more
than once and I always enjoy dealing with folks from the Road Society. Soil
is important. Soil is critical on garden line. One of my mantras is
rom stuffed before green stuff. What does that mean? That means if you
get the soil right, that means good drainage, good internal drainage, good
oxygen done in the soil for the root system, and a good nutrient content
and pH plants are going to thrive. And Cienamulch is the place for all
things related to this brown stuff that I'm talking about Cinmulch has composts, they
have bed mixed blends like heirloom soils, veggie and or mix. They've got
that. They have out the blends as well. Cienamulch also has every fertilizer
I talk about on Guardline. So when you drive into Cianamulch and drive out,
you have in your vehicle what's needed to set the stage for success.
That is so important. So if you're going to plant, let me just
talking about rose. You don't put a rosebush and don't just PLoP it into
an unprepared plot. Don't just stick it into heavy clay soil and no amendments.
The drainage hasn't been improved. Stop in and get you some good products.
And for all those of you south of Houston, that's where Cenamulch is
there at FM five twenty one. You're where Highway six and two eighty eight
come together, just north of Roast Sharing. If you want just write this
down Ciena Mulch dot com. That's the website and that'll tell you everything you
need to know. You can buy in bulk, you can buy by the
bag, and by the way. They got their power back on they're rolling
full force. Open Saturdays from seven point thirty to two, closed on Sunday.
Of course, open Monday through Friday. But if you want to get
this stuff started and done now, it'd be a good day to get out
there. Just do it four two o'clock today and get the supplies you need.
They'll deliver within twenty miles of their location, so that's another option for
you. We are gonna now, let's see here where we're going to run
out to spring and talk to her to Hello, Herda, good morning.
I have a couple of questions of my cheffelera, which is outside, it's
not in the house. Two stems with about like five leaves to a stem,
they're turning yellow. What's wrong with it? Cheffleara leaves turning yellow is
usually due to a fluctuation and saw moisture. Maybe it got a little dry
and then then you watered it again, or maybe it's say a little too
on the web side. Uh, those are possibilities. Older leaves turning yellow
can be a lack of nitrogen. Usually on a cheff falara that doesn't they
don't turn yellow, they just lighten their green color. So I think it's
a sole moisture issue. While we have a lot of rain. Uh huh
yeah, well maybe too much. I don't know how well the drainage are.
Well that that's a possibility now yeah, yeah, if you got if
you lean a pot over, just lay it on its side and see if
water starts running out. That's a sign that it definitely needs a little bit
better drainage. Hey, hurd it, I got to run to a break.
You want to hang on and we can ask We can answer your other
question when we come back. Well, take all call back. Thank you
all right, that sounds good. Thank you very much. I appreciate the
call our phone. If you'd like to call, Welcome back to garden Line.
Have a little bit of fun with the music this morning. Hey,
we are glad you are listening. I appreciate that, and I hope that
it is helpful for you. I want to be inspirational, I want to
be encouraging. I want to provide you the tools you need to have success,
because gardening is the greatest hobby in the world. And no matter what
you like, maybe all you want to mess with is houseplants. Maybe you
want to be a rose enthusiast, and maybe you want to grow fruit trees
and you just want to learn all about that, whatever it is. Most
people, I just want a beautiful place. Well, we can help you
with that. Problems with the trees, problems with the lawn and other things.
Give us a call seven to one three six or seven one three two
one two k t R H seven one three two one two k t R.
As simple as that. Hey, the Enchanted Gardens down in Richmond,
they are stocked up on plants and they are ready to go. I mean,
if you need boog and villias, they've got them. You know.
They say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, maybe a little
spider loly to go in some wet areas, you know, that's right.
There are things called rain gardens, and basically it's places that don't drain well
after a rain. There are plants you can put in those, and they
have those an Enchanted Gardens Nursery. There's always something fun going on there too.
Lots of good educational materials that they provide. And I'll tell you this,
the kinds of bling that they have for your garden, I just love
it, absolutely love it. And by garden bling, you know all the
things like a little metal oh gosh, flamingos, you know that kind of
move up and down in the wind. You got to have stuff like that.
It's important. Plus the more you put in, at some point the
neighbors start to talk and that is really fun. You definitely need that if
you're looking at doing containers, and Chenny Gardens has an outstanding supply both the
containers and the plants that go in them, and they can tell you to
put that all together. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. That's the that's the
website, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. They're on FM five excuse me,
three fifty nine, FM three fifty nine on the Katie Fullscher side of Richmond,
and today it would be a great day to go out there. We're
going to go to the phones now and let's see, all right, welcome
to garden Line. Tell me who I'm talking to. This is Larry.
Hey, Larry, how are you doing well? I have got I have
about a twelve or fourteen foot apple tree that uh just has leaned all the
way over touching the ground. The roots haven't popped out of the ground or
anything, but I wonder can I I've bought a come along and I was
going to look it up to the back of my truck and gradually pull it
over and stake it up. Is that a Is that a possibility to do
that? Yes? It is, and let me make it. It's a
pretty, pretty, pretty big tree. Is probably big tree. I'd say
about eight inches in diameter on the trunk, right. But what I'm hearing
from you is it's basically the trunk has bent. It's not that the tree
has leaned and the root pulled roots out of the ground. Right. It
has not pulled the roots out of the ground. Thow. Okay, yeah,
I would bring it up in place. I would get what is a
trunk diameter about let's say chest tie. Uh, it's the trunk about chest
tie is probably five six inches. Okay, that's a good, good tree.
You're gonna need a good strong support to do that. Probably two of
them, if you use the tree stabilizers. I would put two on them
and bring it up in its place. And to those two steaks. If
you're going to use the come along kind of approach you mentioned, then you
could you could use a wire with a steak or U and I would do
two of them. Kind of coming in like in a V shape toward the
trunk. So in other words, if it blows left or right, you
used to have some support there. Okay, close wires up, and then
if you can move them a little bit later a little further do that.
I just kind of go easy, because that trunk has been really stressed and
the tissues have probably suffered a little bit of damage in it, and so
for you just to yank it right back up straight, I'd go a little
slower, move it as far as you feel like you know you can,
uh, and then wait a little while, and then if you can pull
up a little more, do that. But it's going to take a while
for it to grow enough new strong lignant tissue to where it's not going to
need the steaks. Okay, Okay, it's worth it. It produces a
ton of apples, so I'd like to keep it if I can. Well,
good, what do you know what variety it is? Oh, it's
a to me, uh, it's like a gala apple. It's like a
gala apples. I thought it at I got it at arbor Gate. Okay,
do you have something to pollinate it or is it? Well? Yes,
I have three other small apple trees that are blooming. Okay, good
good, I'm always curious. Yeah, I probably got two hundred apples off
of it this year. Holy moly. All right, well, Larry,
thank you for the calling. Good luck getting that tree back in shape.
Okay, appreciate it. All right, there we are. Now, you
know what I would like to just just briefly talk a little bit about some
more on the tree thing. I mentioned when a branch when a trunk bends,
and we just had a call from Larry about that. What did you
straighten him back up? And just know that you're gonna have to hold those
supports for a long time. When trees blow over and the roots are up.
If that happened in the last two years, that I mean, if
the tree has only been in two years, then you can probably lean it
back up keep it place in place for a long time. It's going to
take a while to not only grow roots, but grow strong, thick roots
to support that tree. But you can do that. If the tree's been
in longer than two years, certainly longer than three years, you probably are
going to need to replace it. And I hate to say that, but
a lot of people have big old trees that bring roots up out of the
ground. You got all these broken roots now sticking up in the air.
You know, they lift up the sod and everything else, kind of like
a pancake of soil and roots coming up. You're just not going to straighten
those out and have any kind of strength to them. For various reasons,
it's just not going to work well. So on established trees that do that,
i'd call it, I just pull them out. It's a good tree
to put back in. I hate that, that's the fact, but you
just need to think that way. We'll be right back. Let's just jump
right in here and get this thing rolling for our upcoming hour, the last
hour this morning on guarden Line. By the way, we'll be back six
o'clock in the morning tomorrow, all the way to ten am. So lots
of opportunities for you to call in, tell your neighbors about garden Line,
have them give us a call too. We'll be happy to answer their gardening
questions. I think about a lot of different things when it comes to garden
success, because people basically are wanting to know, how do I have six
how do I grow tomatoes? How do I have a beautiful lawn. How
do I what's wrong with my tree and how do I make it better?
Let me just tell you the single starting point of all gardens success is the
soil. It is. And if you're heading up Interstate forty five toward Conro
right where fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left, you go to the
right, and that's Nature's Way Resources. They're on Sherbrooke Circle right there.
Nature's Way has been a leader for decades, for a very long time when
it comes to quality soil blends. They that's where. That's where things like
rose soil and veggie mixes and leaf mold compost and things like that. That's
where they were born. That really John ferguson Nature's Way that that is the
start of a lot of these mixes. And now we know our standards.
Nature's Way is having a deal right now that you need to know about.
It's thirty percent off in the nursery all the plants except native sun perennials.
That's only one thirty percent off everything else at Nature's Way Resource. Yes,
they have a nursery right there. You can go in and check out lots
of good native plants. By the way, twenty percent off. Now,
listen carefully to this one. Twenty percent off all composts, all soils,
and all mulches. If you mentioned that you heard about them on guard line,
you have to say that. You say, hey, I heard Skip
say on guardline that you had twenty percent off of your molt or your soil
or your compost, and you'll get it. And they make quality mixes.
You can go pick them up by the bag. You can go pick them
up by the bulk. You can have them deliver it. Just get a
hold of them there at Nature's Way and check it out. Start do yourself
the favor of starting off by making that brown stuff magical so your plants thrive
nine three six three two one sixty nine three six three two one six nine
nine zero. Another thing that I did want to talk about is our garden
centers being open, are closed or what's open what's closed? You know,
just like houses around the Houston area, some people have power, some people
don't. But a lot of our places, from ace hardware stores to garden
centers and other places, even if they don't have power, they're they're on,
they're open, they're still going. But I would suggest you give them
a call wherever you're going to go, just call first. Just make sure
I know, ace hardware stores that have full power and they know as hardware
stores that don't, but they're open. You can go in there. You
can you know, you can still go and do that. Just give them
a call, make sure that they are able to have customers come in.
And I think that in almost all the cases when I'm talking about these sponsors
that they are. I know Buchanans Plants is for example, by the way
Buchanans is, it is a wonderful place for plants. I mean, you're
not going to find a selection like Buchanans of natives anywhere nearby. You absolutely
native plants, that's what they specialize in. They also have summer tough plants
that are non natives, and one of my favorite plants like that is redbird
of Paradise. It's also called Pride of Barbados. That's probably a better name
because there's another plant called bird of Paradise. It's also just gone by the
proper name Sey Sulpinia pool karam o pul Karima means beautiful and it is.
It is gaudy. It has these orange yellow red blooms. That are just
gorgeous. I mean, it's like sticking a pink flamingo out in the front
yard. You got to notice it. You can't not see it well that
they have that there. It's a wonderful plant, and many many other plants
as well. With Buchanans Plants, you do also want to do this.
Check out their website Buchanansplants dot com and when you get there you're going to
find that the opportunities for education are limitless. They always have new programs going
on at buchanans Plants dot com. For example, let me just give you
some examples. We're they're coming up on a tomato excuse me, not a
tomato class. Oh gosh, I can't say. Had the class in my
head just a minute go, and it jumped and jumped right out. Starting
a cutflower garden on August tenth, that's the one I was trying to think
of. Starting a cut flower garden on August tenth. Get that on your
calendar. Ten to eleven am on August seventeenth is the tomato class. Tomato
one oh one. Yes, you can grow tomatoes here and fall at Buchanan's
Plants. But I'm not gonna read all the things they have going on.
Just go online Buchanan's Plans dot com, sign up for the newsletter and check
them out. Always something happening there. We're gonna let's see here are We're
gonna head out now. Talk to our mystery caller. Who's calling this morning?
Who am I tell you? Open garden line? Well, welcome to
guard line. I didn't have your name on the screen, so how can
we help? I was calling because I'm having a problem on my pepper plants
with caterpillars, and I was just wondering what type of the herbicide or natural
organic item to help get rid of them. Okay, the simplest thing is
something called bt B as in boy Teas and tom. It's a caterpillar disease.
It doesn't hurt anything else. Good bugs are bad bugs other than caterpillars.
It doesn't hurt them. It just hurts caterpillars, and you spray it
on there. It only lasts a day or two in the environment where it
breaks down. But if you can get it on there and get them feeding
on it, it's good. You might want to try spring upward from underneath
the plant to coat the bottle of the leaves as well as the top of
the leaves, because sometimes caterpillars are under the leaves, hiding and feeding when
they're real young. Exactly. Okay, so it's BT. Yeah, look
any product with B T b As and boy Teas and tom. I don't
know what where area are you located in. I'm in East Parrace County over
here in the Sheldon area. Okay, Well you're gonna find you know,
met is widely available. You're gonna find it in our feed stores, in
our garden centers and Ace hardware stores. We got a lot of feedback coming
in there, so I hope that you Hey, thanks for calling this morning.
I appreciate that very much. We're going to you bet we're going to
go to a break right quick. When we come back, Lee in Sharpstown
and Hurt you'll be our first two up for the lazy days of summer.
This is that song? But who can tell me who sang it? Well,
I won't wait for an answer. The rem Brands, the rem Brands,
Yeah, that is one of them, proby the biggest song they did.
Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. I
want to talk to you a little bit about microlife products. Microlife Fertilizer is
a Houston area fertilizer company. They are local and they have been a leader
in organic fertilizers for a very long time. Certainly, we have all the
bag fertilizers, like their multipurpose green bag for lawns and things. They have
the Humans plus, the Purple bag, which is concentrated compost in a bag.
They have an acidifying fertilizer a six two four acidifying. It's in a
reddish colored bag. But right now, with a lot of things we're trying
to do. As someone called earlier about had some questions about, you know,
salt that come into the soil and plants that were struggling along and stuff,
it's always a good time to do a liquid over plant root systems.
For example, the Humante plus is available by liquid, the super Seaweed is
available by liquid. The Ocean Harvest, which is a fish based fertilizer,
available by liquid. And there's several more that they have, including just the
point on old microlife molasses and molasses stimulates biological activity, and biological activity is
good, good for the soil. All available for microlife. You can go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com fu will learn more about it. Easy to find
microlife products. They are ubiquitous. There's another big word for the day,
meaning they're everywhere. You can go to feed stores, you can go to
garden centers, you can got ace, hardware stores, office fertilizer. All
kinds of places are going to carry those microlife products. And we are going
to go out to Sharpstown now and talk to Lee. Hello, Lee,
Hey, how's it going. Well? Well, I'm about trees. Okay.
I got a lot of trees in my art, I mean, and
I got two questions about them. Amusingly enough, the sick tree that I
was really worried about didn't lose the leave my totally healthy pecan. However,
lost a big old branch way high up. And my first question is how
important is it that I get all the way up there and see up that
and I don't know, pat with some pain for something, or is it
safe to just leave it and let it heal naturally? The tree is healthy,
it just you know, so typically when branches break off, they don't
break off in a good way for the tree to heal over that area.
So coming back and making a fresh so you're not leaving this. Did the
branch break off right against the trunk or you know, a few inches or
a foot out or something? Yeah, a little ways out. Yeah,
it's about it putting a half a split coming out. You know, it's
not a clean break at all. Yeah, So follow that branch back to
where it attaches to a bigger branch, and you'll see that the diameter of
the branch starts to flare out right as it attaches. Right at the beginning
of that flare. Cut it off there, so you're not leaving a stub,
but you're not flush cutting it up against which makes a much bigger wound.
So just cut it off there. There's no need to treat it.
Make a fresh, clean cut, and that's that's what's in control of the
tree. I'll take it from there, okay. And my second question is
the tree that I was worried about. It's the older Arizona ash was.
I spent the entire storm worrying about it falling over. I really need to
take it out, but I kind of like to keep a memento of sometimes.
Do you know of any tree trimmers or anybody that has a portable sawmill?
So I could turn one of my beloved trees into furniture when it's time
for it to go, and I don't have to, you know, totally
let it go. Boy, I don't And I don't even know where to
start looking for that kind of thing. If it was an Arizona ash,
I probably would not use it for furniture because just the nature of the wood
is not that great. But as far as your question, I don't.
I don't know where to get a sawmill kind of source. But hopefully if
we put it on the radio, someone'll call and say, hey, I
know this, There you go, There you go. Well, I don't
know, maybe even a little local Google search or something would turn something out,
but yeah, we can. We can do that. Hey, thank
you, La, good luck. Take care. Well, let's see,
I wanted to talk to you about insects in the lawn. We're in the
season where chinchbugs are on the We're on the lookout for them. It's a
little early in the season, but not too early for them to occur.
Uh, we'll fall webworms. It's another one that can occur early earlier,
but generally a little bit later. Nitroposs bug out max is a granular product.
You put it out there after recommended rate, and you watered in and
these things that live down in the thatch and around the base of the grass
plant like chinchbugs, side web worms are done in that area too. Ants
and fleas and ticks and things. Nitrofoss bug Out Max will work for those,
and you put it down once and it's it's gonna work for the rest
of the summer season. So if these pest show up a little bit later,
you've already got it out there in place you're gonna find that. Like
other nitrofoss products, it's easy to find. The Bugout Max. RCW Nursery
carries those products plans for all seasons on two forty nine out in Kingwood Ace.
Kingwood Ace out there as well as a Taska seat to Ace are going
to be places you can get nitroposs products like this bug Out Max. We're
going to head back to the phones now and we're going to talk to Hurta.
Hello, Hurta, welcome back. Let's thank you. Let's see.
My second question is about my Cali lily I putty in a little bit of
a larger pot, but it has oh less than a quarter of inch blue
white streaks all along the leaves, and it hadn't bloomed since I first started.
That's interesting. I kind of need to see a picture to know for
sure what you're looking at with the white streak. No, I don't think
I can do that. That's okay, I think right now you're kely with
Keller lily is. The secret is they need good light intensity, but not
too much of the brunt of the hot sun. They don't they're not real
fond of that. They need conn. Yeah, well, I had been
taking it in after you told me that. The last time I leave it
out in the morning shune. But I bring it out on the porch for
afternoon. Oh boy, Well, you don't have to go do all that.
I don't know if there's a way to give it a morning sun or
whatever, but just just that's a lot of moving and a lot of trouble,
but try to try to provide it good light. Light is essential for
bloom production, and it is they are somewhat seasonal, so uh, just
stick with it and hopefully it'll turn around and you'll get you'll get some blooms
in time, probably next spring. All right, thank you very much,
take care. You've heard it, Thank you back call. I appreciate that
Peerscapes is a professional landscape service. You can go in there and say I
want you to do the whole thing everything, and they'll do it. You
could go in there and say I want to redo this bed. I need
you to design something that's beautiful. Maybe I want some maybe you want drought
tolerant plants or native plants or whatever. Work with them on it. They
can do that. They do hard scapes. They do irrigation work. They
help areas. If you've got bad drainage and you ought to know it by
now, if you do with that rain we just had, they can take
care of that. They also have a quarterly maintenance program where they come in
they do seasonal color changes in your flower beds. They make sure everything's mulched,
weeded, fertilized, check the irrigation. Pierscapes is an expert in all
of those and many more things. You can go to the website, and
I highly recommend you go to this website, pierscapes dot com. It is
inspiration and all to see the kind of work they can do, or give
them a call. Two eight one three seven o five zero six zero two
eight one three seven oh five zero six zero. I'm going to go back
out to the phones now, and I don't have your name on the board.
But who do we have today? It's calling? Yes, this you're
on garden line. Who am I talking to? My name is Ken.
I live out near Beasy. I have a I have a burrow tree.
Looks all healthy, but it has it's starting to grow a little fungus.
It's real hard, sticks out kind of like a half moon from the bark,
and I'm wondering what I should do with that. Is this on the
small twigs, No, it's on the main trunk and the little fungus mushroom
type thing is growing out about an inch and it's about half moon about three
inches is wide. And there's others growing along it. The largest one is
that. I think that is a decom decomposing fungi. But if you want
the best answer, I would put you on hold and have you send me
a photo to an email that you can get from my producer, and then
I would know for sure. But I think it's probably Is it white you
said, you know, it's kind of a darkish tan, light brown.
I need to see it. I have ideas, but I don't want a
wild guess, so uh, can I put you? Can I put you
on hold and get that picture and I will get you and yes, yes,
I'll do that. Okay, oh gee, uh that we're having we're
having issues at the at the station due to all these storms and things.
Just a second, let me put I'm an to put you on hold for
one second and I'll come right. I'll tell you what. Let's just do
this, could you could you call back? Try calling back tomorrow and and
let me get to get it to you. Then I don't have a way
of getting you to the producer right now. Sure, I just don't know.
It's ten three inches half moon. It's I want to say it's a
decomposer of fungi. It also, yeah, I just think that's the most
likely, but but I just it's real hard. Yeah. Yeah, are
there dead limbs on the tree around? Okay? How do you treat that?
If I do that? There's not a treatment for either one of those.
But we're kind of we're kind of stuck on high center here, So
give me a try back tomorrow. Let's let's see what we could do.
All right, Thank you? Okay, thanks so much. Yeah, we
too are dealing with a storm here and trying to get through some technological hurdles
that we're having to jump through. Uh. Ace Hardware stores are all over
the place. They're just widely, widely available, forty of them in the
greater Houston area. You can go to acehard Hardware dot com find the one
for you. What do you need right now? You know, do you
need do you need a little small generator, you know you power up and
do run some equipment or runner fridge or something like that off of They have
those a little gas powered things. Uh, if do you need perhaps an
air conditioning unit that can run off a generator and keep those nights that are
just not very comfortable right now? Are they a little less stressful? They've
got that new gas cans, They've got that evaperative cooling systems. They've got
that just make your list and stop by before the next hurricane shows up.
Ace Hardware has been getting truckloads of these kinds of let's just say hurricane relief
type items in and they're stocked out and ready for you to come in and
help you get off to a better start here. Ace Hardware Hurricane preparation,
ACE Hardware, Blondecair, ACE Hardware for pest and disease and weed management.
ACE Hardware. ACE is the place. Acehardware dot Com is where you find
the store locator so that you can find the ACE Hardware store nearest to you.
We're gonna take a break. We will be right back. James.
You'll be our first caller up you live. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back
to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richt. Good to have you
with us. We're going to run straight out this segment and we're going to
go talk to James in Spring, Texas. Hello James, and thanks for
waiting. Good morning, Skip. This is the first time I'm spoken with
you that you took over that position, and I have listened a lot.
I enjoy your program. My question on a tree I've got. I'm sitting
on about acre and a half in Spring, and I lost the six pretty
good sized trees in this storm. Fortunately it didn't hit anything but a fence.
But I noticed when I was cleaning up the yard near one that fell
that I've got this real tall pine tree. And I looked at the ground
around that pine tree the dirt and you can see where that trunk wiggled and
it moved. I'm going to say there was like a one inch gap in
the dirt around the base of that trunk. Now the roots or nothing is
lifted up, but it definitely did some rocket. Yeah, nothing to do
about that right now. I mean, you don't want that thing to happen.
But evidently that tree took one heck of a strong push from the storm
and remained upright, apparently unbroken, not uprooted. So I think I think
right now you wait and watch and see. It should be Okay, a
one inch move is not good, but it you know. I think the
the one thing that concerns me is that this is right on the property line.
If it fell to the south, it hit my neighbor's house. If
it fell any other direction, it wouldn't hurt anything. And I'm kind of
wondering, time wise, how long will it take that tree to re establish
itself if it's been you know, shook like then we don't know. And
my gut is that nothing got broken, It just got moved and the tree
held on. Understand the risks that is always the case when you've got a
big tree like a pine, They can fall if they're big enough, thing
fall pretty much any direction and do damage you don't want done. H So
you could call Martin Spoon Moore from Affordable Tree to come out and take a
look at it and see if he sees anything that is of concern to him.
Are not there on site. So I can't give you a final call.
I gave you my opinion, but that Affordable Tree would be you know,
if you want a number, I can give you one for him,
but that that would okay. But is it likely that that given time,
say by next season, if theres nothing nothing else disturbs it, that it'll
get his grip back. I guess for lack of a better way. Well,
if my if my best assessment based on a phone call, you know,
a description is true, then it is okay, and it it will
just continue on. It's okay. Yeah. So I didn't hear anything in
your words that made me think there's something broken that needs to be regrown or
fixed or whatever. Now it didn't seem to lose. It could have been
a limb or something come out of the top of it. I haven't really
looked at that. But there's nothing broken, there's no split, and it
seems to be. It hasn't moved the ground up, you know, were
some of those trees when they push over, well the roots will lift up
the ground that's all flat. So okay, all of a sudden watch it.
Yeah, that's nice. Essment Just remember this, a pine tree that
came through this storm just fine, could go down in the next one.
Not even a hurricane, just a good stormy thing. It's strange, you
know, we had those bad storms that knocked out power before a few weeks
ago, and then this storm came in and we lost trees that made it
through the other one. And that's just the nature of things. We even
have trees that, yes, sudden limb drop the middle of summer on a
still night. It's weird. But I'm just saying, based on what you
described to me, I don't see a damage that needs to be fixed.
But that's all right. Well, good luck with that. Thank you.
Thanks appreciate that call very much. We're going to now go out. Okay,
Color, I don't have your name on the board, but welcome to
garden Line. Who am I talking to? Christine? Hey Christine, how
can we help? I was listening to your show about somebody wanted to use
all this wood for maybe making furniture. And I just wanted to give a
reference that there's a Whitney Wolf in Atlanta that has a sawmill. The public
park system there when they are pruning and cleaning trees, or when there are
disasters or at any time, they bring him the wood and he mills it.
He has the kiln he makes for anture from this wood and the shavings.
Other people come that grow mushrooms commercially, people that grow or want,
uh the shavings for their garden, and so it's a completely economically and ecologically
balanced system. But he's got you know, I don't know of one here,
but there could be an affiliate, That's what I was saying. And
his name is Whitney Wolf. I don't know if there's an affiliate here in
Houston. All right, Well thanks for that information. The ultimate recycler.
They're they're like they say, what someone says, they're using everything from the
pig except the oint, so it sounds right. And he makes beautiful furniture
from the wood that he uses. And that's online too that they sell tables,
you know, things. So it's really a neat idea. And I
didn't know if we had one here, but I thought to pass them along.
Well, I appreciate you calling him to do that, and thank you
very much for the key. Have a good day, Christine. Where are
we here? Let's see we're going to head to Wow. Okay, I
just are you their color? I can't see who you are, but if
you give a you hello, welcome to Yeah, good morning Clark and Heights.
Hey Clark, how can we help? Well? I have sort of
related questions. I have uh, one big of coontry in the backyard,
and I think because of this drow that we had. It's just my grass
is dying like crazy in my backyard. And also have the same problem in
my front have a big red oak tree there that the grass. I've been
here, I've been here many years, and yes, sir, we've never
had a problem before. And then to add to that on the area between
the sidewalk and curb, about fifty fifteen foot squares spot, it's just bad.
I mean, it's just I don't know how to replant that or what
I should do about that. All right, Well, that's that is good
information. I'm hearing in my ear that we got to run to a break.
If you will hang on, I will address the grass under the trees
and the grass at the curb. Uh. Basically, just hang on for
a little bit. I'll be right back. Uh. If you'd like to
be able us to call the phone number seven one three two one two K
T R H. I will be right back. Good to have you with
us today. I tell you, have you been out to Arbigate lately.
I'm telling you the place looks awesome. I know we're entering summer, but
it is still time to plant things. Arbigate's got some outstanding summer color plants.
Uh. You know, there's many plants we're familiar with. Of course,
the perennial hibiscus. You're familiar with that. You know, it does
good. It's excellent here in the summer heat. But there's another plant that
they have out there called some believable and some believable, like as an unbelievable,
but it is believable when you see it. I've got one in my
guard I need to post that to our Facebook garden on Facebook page. Some
believable Helianthus. It's a type of sunflower, but it makes a bush.
It's a bush. It only gets maybe a couple of feet tall and maybe
two and a half feet wide something like that, somewhere in that range,
and it just blooms and blooms and blooms. They say it produces a thousand
blooms during the season, and that's because it's always blooming for a very very
long time and it is gorgeous, some believ That's another example. They also
have a plant called Pirate's Pearl. It's a little white blooming plant, looks
really good outstanding. You're gonna find it there, and you will find that
it just is just keeps going. It just keeps going through summer. Maybe
you're interested in a foliage plant, the colorful cannas, they've got those at
Arburgate Salvia's excellent selection of Salvia's. Arburgate is west of Tombull on twenty nine
to twenty. You just head out west from Tombull on twenty nine twenty and
on the right hand or left hand side, you'll see Arburgate. Before you
get there, Trishell Road leaves off of twenty nine to twenty, circles around
Arburgate and comes back to twenty nine to twenty. So I would recommend turn
down Trishel to go to the new parking lot in the back. It's all
weather and it's the easiest, safest access you can have. You know,
when you go to Arburgate, you're going to excellent advice from people that know
their stuff, and you know you're going to get a plant selection that is
just unstoppable. Don't let summer stop you from gardening. Hey, we got
two and a half more months here of blazing summer weather. Let's get some
plants out there and color things up. Let's break up the sea of green
at the Arborgate. We're going to now go out to the phones here and
pull up, so welcome to garden Line. Tell us your a Clark.
Hey, you glad to have you. But oh that's right, I had
you on hold. Sorry, yes sir, Yeah, no problem, my
brain. My brain was busy well during a break, So going on.
Yeah under whenever you get shade, even Saint Augustine, it gets shady enough
to where it just doesn't have energy to do much and if it starts to
h it's hard to get it to come back. You know, you need
extra energy to regrow and get thick and all of that, and that just
doesn't happen in the shade very well, So it may be the area is
too shady. Now. Selective limb removal can help that, but it's only
a temporary fix, and it costs quite a bit of money, you know,
to get somebody up there to do that. So the only thing I
would suggest or be considered transitioning that area into something other than turf grass,
something that can take the shade. And you got a lot of options for
that, but I think that's about all you can do in the shade.
I tell people set the more as high as you can to get as much
grass blade as you can, keep all the foot traffic off of it to
give the grass every chance. And if that doesn't work, then let's transition
to another kind of plant, like, for example, OKH groundcovers. There's
a number of different groundcover plants that will do well of varying heights. I
mean, some people in areas that are moisture in the shade, they'll put
ferns in there to cover over the ground. A cast iron plant will be
part of a large bed that does well. Aztec grass looks like you're wiape,
but it's white and green striped and it does well and shape. It
just depends on how bright the shade is and what kind of plant you want
to look at. A juga is another shade tolerant groundcover that you can have
do well, it's a little bit tolerant. In the part that I'm most
concerned about is the grass that actually died and there's brown dirt left there is
out on the street in a hot sun. I mean, have been there
for many years. We saw that as it's been going well for years,
and you just lost it. I lived here for fifty years, okay for
some reason, Yeah, I would reside it soon. Is there no living
grass at all in that area? No? Sure, okay, there is,
but not not in this cup of spots. Okay, Well, if
on the edges of what's dyed, you can get on on your hands and
knees and get your face down there near the grass level part the grass and
look for little chinch bugs crawling around in there. They're little black and white
bugs, smaller than a grain of rice, about half the size of a
grain of rice. And if that's the case, then you need to treat
those because just putting new grass in, they're going to move right back into
the new grass. But if you don't, but I would get that sided
a S A P. Because you've got a lot of time for the stay
to get well established. And a good place to buy grass would be I
have a truck, so I can go get it. Yeah, you know
there's a number of grass suppliers through the area. Yeah, I might ask
it. You know, what what area are you in right now? In
the Heights Downtown Houston area, that's right just north of downtown. I'm about
six blocks from Buchanans. Well, I would go by there. They probably
sell some sod there. I don't. I haven't, but if not,
they could tell you. They could tell you where we're lovely. Yeah,
there's a country cowboy or something like that, Alcle Brigmore on the west side.
That this huge place. But okay, well I'm gonna have to run.
Thank you though for Colin. I appreciate that. Uh going to a
new call here, Welcome to garden Line. Tell me who I'm talking talking
to? Ronda? Hey, Ronda, how can we help? Hey?
I live in Austin County and I have a huge water oak tree and part
of it is still alive, but like the top part is completely dead.
Does that mean the rest of the tree is dead. No, it means
that just the top died out. That could be anything from a lightning strike
to a anytime you get a severely stressed tree, root damage, droughts,
other things, the peripheral parts of the first to go, and that it's
like the tree loses that and you'll often see trunk sprouting below that where it's
trying to send out new foliage because it has to have leaves to survive and
do well, so it's trying to release what it lost. But that's what
that sounds like to me. That's typically not any particular disease doing that.
Okay, thank you so much. All right, Ron, thanks, I
appreciate your call. All right there, Well, gosh, we've run out
of time here. We've got another show coming up tomorrow six am to ten
am. We appreciate you listening to Guardline. I'm just going to end this
with talking a little bit about trees again. Things that you may see.
I mentioned that if a tree has blown over and you want to straighten it
back up, if it's a young tree, let's say one to two years
old, you can do that. You just got to leave those stakes for
a very long time. You can use the three sixty tree stabilizer. I
would get two of them and do them at kind of an angle coming in,
so whether the tree blows toward it the stakes away from the steaks left
or right, it's going to be stabilized. That would work. If it's
let's say five years plus. For sure, you're not. It's just not
going to make it. When you see a bunch of broken roots up in
the air now because the tree's blown over, you put it back down.
Number one, it takes an incredible amount of support to hold a bigger tree
when the wind blow, and it's just not practically to do. It's going
to take those roots forever to re establish and be strong enough to where it
doesn't just blow over again. So don't bother with it. I hate that
that happened to your tree. Put a new tree, get it out of
there, get it cleaned out, and put you win out. That's just
the bottom line. You're pruning off branches on your storm damaged trees. You
want to go follow that branch back to where it attaches to the trunk,
and as it gets close to the trunk, it flares out a little bit.
That's the base of the branch attachment. You want to cut it off
right outside that where, right where the branch shrinks down to about the size
it's going to be. Cut it off right there. That way, you
don't leave a stub which will die and prevent closure of the wound. Nor
do you cut it against the trunk, which creates a bigger wound. Because
this is flaring out. So the farther in you go to cut it,
the more you're going to have a larger wound. So that'd be my best
advice. No need the truth its wounds. I need to trade him.
We'll be back tomorrow and talk some more about tree damage. Then