Katie r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's
crazy trim. Just watch him as many battis. They're not a sad credit.
Well, good morning on a what is going to be a awesome Saturday.
We've got we have got the weather today. This is going to be
a good one. Welcome to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer your gardening question. So let me give you
a phone number. You can write this down and give us a call when
you have a question about guard that's seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Speaking of
it being a great day out today, I'm going to be going out to
r CW Nurseries after the show. I'll be out there for their fall Fling,
and it is a fall fling. They're going to have barbecue sandwich lunch.
They're gonna have a sale on all the shrubs and select trees that they
have on stock there. And you know they always have a good stock there
at RCW because they grow their on trees up in the Plannersville area. That'll
be fifteen percent off all shrubs and on select trees. They're going to be
given away or today we're all going to be given away the frostcloth and different
fertilizer. We're gonna give away flowers. We're gonna give away a fungicide for
your lawn. We're going to give away the uh see. I've got a
number of microlife products and some Nelson products and the nitrophost fungicide. Also lay
spark elm white oak, Mexican white oak, and live oat seedlings. And
these are row bust seedlings. So if you're looking to put a tree in,
these are three excellent species that will do well and they're given away free
seedlings. They've got deals going on. The San Filippe red maple, it's
normally one hundred and fifty. It's on sale for a hundred. If you
want a live oat, normally one hundred and fifty. These are fifteen gallon.
By the way, these are pretty good sized and they're on sale for
one hundred too, So it's a good time to come out. I hope
you'll come out and see me if you've got any samples to be identified or
to be diagnosed. I'd be happy to do that. If you maybe you've
got some pictures on your phone we could look at, say hey, what
would be a good plan for this area or whatever questions you have, come
on out. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty, and I
hope to see you. If you have a piece of property and have been
thinking about getting a tractor, now is the time. And the reason I
say that is because Caboda and Lansdown Moody have teamed up to create a wonder
full deal. Now. Lansdown Moody that's our Houston hometown tractor company. They've
been here since nineteen thirty six. They have nine locations on the Texas Gulf
Coast. It's easy to find them. The specific website you need to go
to to check this out is lmtractor dot com. And what is the deal?
Well, you pick the Cabota you want. I would recommend you take
a hard look at the L twenty five oh two that's the workhorse from Cabota,
and then you go to tractor package dot com and you pick out the
accessories that you want for your tractor. You know things like a front end
loader, for example. And then you go Orange with their finance plan,
which again is it's an unbelievable plan. And here's why, no money down
and no interest from up to eighty four months eighty seven years. Folks,
that is a long time lansdown. Moody is locally owned and locally operated,
and I recommend you go buy hop on one of those things and see what
you think. I think, like I was, you'll be very very impressed
with the lensdown and the Caboda combination. I've got the number of things I
want to talk about today. One of them is the new USDA Plant Heartiness
Zone map, and I'm going to talk about that in a little bit here,
but I've got quite a few things to say. There's a brand new
map out and I think it's number one. I'm excited that that happened because
we needed a new map. It was time for that. But I just
want to kind of give you an idea from a gardener standpoint, how do
you how do you use that map? What does it mean, what does
it not mean? And so on. Well, folks were getting into the
last call for fall fertilizing season. You know, the each each week you
wait is a little less time the grass has before it really slows down a
lot to be able to take up those nutrients. So how about the Nitrofoss
Texas three step. You know it's got their fall fertilizer. It's got the
Fall Special which is designed for our soils and for fall. Fall fertilizer is
different than spring and summer fertilizer. And then in the Nitrofoss three step,
you've got the Fall Special which is designed for fall. It make the grass
takes it up. It's able to create the carbohydrates necessary for cold heartiness and
when it comes out in spring to come out stronger. Second step of the
three step is the Nitrofoss barricade. It's a pre emergent and it's used to
prevent grassy and broad leaf weeds. So you get it down for the weed
sprout and when they try to sprout and establish little weed plants, it shuts
it down. That's why we call it barricade, forms a barricade on the
soil surface. The third step is the Eagle Tour fungicide, and it soaks
into the tissues and is there to help prevent diseases like brown patch and take
all root rot, which is also a disease that attacks when the cool temperatures
arrive, both in spring and in now. Where do you get nitroposs three
step well plants for all seasons? Has it on two forty nine in Chanet
Gardens out in Richmond or Lake Hardware and Angleton all examples of places where you
can find this and other nitrofoss products. You're listening to garden Line and our
phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was out in my vegetable
garden and you know, the warm season garden is still there, but it's
not very happy to be there right now. And I have a lot of
oak grove. Course. I've got some peppers though, and they seem to
be very happy. Boy. Fall is pepper season, and most people think
of peppers peppers are hot that therefore it must be summer. You know it's
hot in summer, hot peppers. Well, actually, the fall is the
best pepper season of the year. And here's why you plant your pepper transplants
in the spring. And we're just gonna start at the beginning of the year
and they grow and you get some peppers. The plants are relatively small,
and they will produce some peppers for you. Then it gets really really hot
and production tends to wane during that time. And then when fall comes,
these plants have continued to grow and they begin to set fruit, which the
peppers again. And oh my goodness, I have some hobby naro plants that
literally are you know, at eye level now with me, and they are
I need to open up a hot sauce company because they are loaded up with
hobbnair. I got some klipenias also that also are growing. Not quite as
big as a hobbinarow's, but they are growing and they are loaded with peppers,
and so, you know, I just think that's a cool thing.
I made a Christmas decoration for my door at the office last year. Everybody's
supposed to decorate their door. Well, I had to horticulturally decorate my door,
you know. Used create a little Christmas tree shape with some some branches
and twine, and then hung some some various boughs of evergreens on it.
And then pepper's were my ornaments. And they've gone all the way to red
by then and they made nice little ornaments. Well, we're gonna take a
break. If you'd like to get on the board, Josh, we'll get
you going and ready for when we come back at seven one three, two
one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, enjoying little Shake Russell music
this morning. That reminds me that the folks at Oba, the Organic Corticulture
Benefits Alliance is they are having the lone store yule Ball fundraiser and this is
something that that they do. It's one of the many things Oba does through
the course of the year. But this fundraiser is Thursday, December seventh,
and it'll be from five thirty to nine thirty. It is quite an event.
It's at the ball room at Tanglewood and there's going to be you know,
the cocktails ob magician there at DA v C. Strings also will be
there by the way, there'll be a fortune teller there. I mean,
it's just kind of a fun time. You dress up in your western attire.
There'll be a wonderful dinner that they provide and the silent auction winners that
silent auctions going on, and Shake Russell will be performing there. So if
you'd like to hear shake. This is a good time to do it.
All you got to do is go to OBA ONLINEHBA online, dot org,
slash register and you can find out more about it. Well, you're listening
to Gardenline and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
want to talk a little bit about the USDA Plant Heartiness Zone Map. Uh.
The map was I think the last edition maybe in the first it was.
The last most recent edition was in twenty twelves. That was eleven years
ago, and they've released now the twenty twenty three version and they updated it.
The new version is based on the past thirty years of climate data.
You know, we can have really unusual winters and unusual summers and so on.
So you don't just look at a few years. You look at it
over time to try to get an idea. You know, how cold does
it typically get in one spot for example. By the way, when you
go to the hardiness map, you can look for any location just by putting
in the zip code. You know, it's one thing to look at the
map and try to figure out where you are on that map, but if
you just put your zip code, it'll take you right to it. It
makes it real easy. The map is as I've studied the map, it
looks like most areas have moved one half step warmer. So what was once
an eight B is now a nine A. There's an A and B with
each number, So those of you who were in HB eight B are now
in nine A. For example, that's about a four or five degree day
different tread in there. It is a more accurate map, though, and
this is because instead of you know, doing like I don't know, eight
thousand stations across the country, this map has thirteen four hundred stations that roughly
that they are using the data from. So what you're going to find is
where you're located. In the past, they may have had to use a
station fairly somewhat of a distance away from you, and now it is likely
that they're using a station even closer to you, and that makes it a
little more accurate for your location. Now, remember that the USDA Plant Hardiness's
own map tells just one thing, and that is, on an average winter
over the past thirty years, how cold did it get in your location.
That doesn't mean last year or the year before. It means on the average.
And I jokingly say, when it comes to weather, on the app
average is helpful, but maybe not real precise. And for example, if
you put one foot in boiling water in one foot in ice water, on
the average, you're comfortable right in the middle. Well, that's of course
ridiculous, but it makes a point. And that point is is that maybe
on the average, they're going to tell you that your lowest winter cold of
the whole season is only twenty to twenty five degrees. That's the average.
Well, we could have a winter that it hardly freezes at all, we
could have a winter where we get down in the teens or hopefully not below
that because the weather fluctuates so much. But the average helps you choose your
plants, and by choosing your plants based on cold heartiness, you can avoid
some of the damage that occurs when you pick a plant that really is for
a warmer area than here. And I'm going to come back to talk about
the plant hardiness zone map, but I'd like to go to the phones for
a minute. The phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four, We're going to go talk to Larry out in sugar Land.
Hey, Larry, Yes, how can we help today? So well,
I got this problem with some weed in my backyard. I think it's all
lower. Everybody has that problem. It has a little yellow flower. Okay,
yeah, it's a well, I mean it's real bad. You know,
all ower the yards, you know, all around the neighborhood, everywhere,
I guess does it do real real well? Do you have any shady
areas in your lawn? No, there is doesn't go open? Okay,
well, you know, without seeing the weed, I can't tell you for
sure what it is. It sounds to me like a horse herb. The
weed horse are based on the little yellow flowers. But there are other weeds
that make little yellow flowers. So well, it takes. It grows like
benda summer too, you know, not only right now, but like when
the first coast bell came in and the heavy rain. Yeah, it just
took over. You know what was the backyard? You know, it's everywhere.
You know, all was Well, let's let's do it. Let's do
it this way, Larry. I can put you on hold when we're done
talking here, and you can send me a picture and then I can tell
you specifically what it is. But that said, I can tell you it's
a broad leaf weed, and so the control of it will be the same
no matter what the broad leaf weed is by and large, and that would
be a post emergent broad leaf weed control product. And you're out there in
Sugarland, You're you're pretty close to the Southwest Fertilizer and they they're on Bissonette
and Runwick in Southwest Houston, and they have a bazillion products. And you
could even take your weed and pull it up, put it in a bag
and take it in there, and they'll be able to tell you what it
is and point you. They probably have six to ten different products that would
work on that weed. And so yeah, like I say, it's it's
growth pretty well. You know, I joked about everywhere because you know,
people have got in the yards a little bit here, a little bit here.
You know. Yeah, well it would be it would be helpful to
get that ID and then get a product. It's going to be a post
emergent broad leaf we control product. There's a number of them on the market
that work pretty well. But uh, if either you know, take a
sample into Southwest and then they can give you know, point you to what
you need for it. Or if you want to email me a picture,
I'll take a look at it as well. So would you like me to
put you on hold and so you can get an email? Yes, email,
that would be better. All right, I'm going to do that.
Thanks a lot for the callery. Yeah. When it when it comes to
two weeds, there's different ways to divide them. One way is cool season
weeds and warm season weeds. Another way is annual weeds and perennial weeds.
A third way is broad leaf weeds and grassy weeds. And when you're picking
a product, you need to kind of know what categories it fits in a
lot of our warm season weeds have seeds on them, but they're not going
to make it very long. They're going to they're on their way out,
and so when a weed hits that stage at this time of the year,
your best bet is to pull them up. Now, I think with the
weed that Larry was talking about, that's not going to be an effective approach.
But things like the fall aster, which is the little dime sized daisy
like light pink to white blooms that one is setting a bazillion seed now,
and the sooner you pull it up and get all the seeds out, the
better. You're not pulling it up to control this year's fall aster. You're
pulling it up to prevent next year's weeds. Because herbicides that kill broadleaf weeds
don't work on fall aster when it's already at the point of setting seed and
it's going to die soon way, so your number one goal is to get
you know, there's probably five thousand seed on a good size fall astro plant,
and so that's that's what I'm talking about. You need to you need
to get ahead of those. So anyway, well, now we're going to
head out to Spring and talk to Frank. Hello, Frank, Hey,
Skip, how are you. I'm well? Thanks. Hey, listen real
quick, everybody's talking about their wheat problem. I have a dollar weak and
bermuta problem and I put an nerve beside and the dollar wheat is all browned
out. Great. My concern is to permute up and in another six weeks,
I'm we have somebody come out and dig it out. And I went
online. Do I have to go down like six inches to get that permute
out? Well, yeah, and those little underground rhizomes break off and it's
hard to hand dig it, but you can. You just need to thoroughly
sift through the soil. Generally we don't worry about going quite six inches deep
for it, but I would just dig it and you'll know pretty quick about
how deep those rhizomes are tending to run. After you dig it. It's
not going to re sprout much because of the temperatures, but next spring it'll
reach out and then you know to go back. That's why it's a little
easier to start the process if you're going to hand dig bermuda to do it
earlier in the season, when after the handig it comes right back and then
you know the ones you messed and you may do that three times. Yeah.
Sure, we're going to dig it all out, and they just put
new top soil on and just haul away everything. So that should probably take
care of that. It's only about a sixty square foot area. I had
chinch blood problem also, so I just laid some saw down three weeks ago,
so that's okay. Now, are you are you adverse to spraying it?
I did that. I had I have people that come out of company
comes out and they spread the dollar week twice and it didn't do it.
So I went to a got a post number herb beside and sprayed the heck
got it and it's all browned out. Okay. I just didn't know if
that would kill the bermute. Also, I didn't want to do the round
up for bermuda, but do you think that would have killed them? Round
up would kill bermuda? Also, if the bermuda is actively growing when we
go into winter, you can spray a bermuda grass lawn with round up and
it doesn't make the lawn happy, but it kills the weeds and doesn't really
kill the lawn because it needs an actively growing grass plant to be effective,
or any plant that you spray those kind of products on need to be actively
growing. Hey, Frank, I'm running against a hard break here. I
appreciate your Yeah, good luck with that. Well, here we are at
the end of another another section tomorrow. This morning's going fascinating it is.
I'm gonna just turn it over to you and then try to regroup. All
ready to go? Alrighty, I'm ready. Well, welcome back to garden
Line our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. I was. I stopped by the
arbor Gate yesterday just to see what's happening out there and kind of visit with
the folks, and oh, my gosh, that place is already in full
swing for the holiday season. I went into the gift shop. Normally,
you know, I'm a plant guy, but I went into the gift shop
just it is. If you would love anything for a gift or for decorating
your home, they are set up out there. They also got their Christmas
trees in. The Christmas trees have come all the way from the Blue Ridge
Mountains in North Carolina. Now, if you live in North Carolina, and
I have family that does, it's pronounced in North Carolina. But North Carolina
Christmas trees there they're beautiful. You know. I like that. A lot
of lots that have Christmas trees they're just piled up, sitting on asphalt or
whatever. Arburgate has theirs in these little bowls of water, so they stay
for and that is very very important on the trees. Hey, while you're
at Arburgate, go ahead and grab one of their one two three system bags.
What is one two, three. Well, it's a food, it's
an organic fertilizer, it's a soil, and it is a compost and all
three are top quality. And if you're going to do any planting, go
ahead and get some of these. Even if you're not planning on planting right
now, get ready so when you ready to go, you can fix that
soil and go full force. By the way, you should be planting right
now. Now's a great time to get planting done. If you are thinking
about buying a generator, then let me tell you about something that you definitely
need to know. Quality Home Products of Texas sells generaic generators, and they
you can buy generators a lot of places, but nobody, and I mean
that nobody gives you what quality gives you in terms of service and an assistance.
For example, you sit down with them and they match the generator to
what you need. When you say, okay, I want this one,
they take it from there, and all the hoops you got to jump through,
you know, maybe got to go the HOA has to approve of something
or just be notified or whatever. The electric company gas company too, These
are gas powered and the I don't know what else there's other types of things.
They have to take ahead. They have to get ahead of them.
I can't even talk this morning. They have to get ahead of all that.
So then there's permission. They even come out and pour the lab,
they put the generator down, and then once you own it, they're there
three hundred and sixty five days a year, twenty four hours a day to
help you. Right now they have their holiday blowout. It's ten percent off
up to two five hundred dollars off. I mean, if you get a
real big, nice generator. But I find that a lot of folks just
need something a little bit smaller to take care of the particular maybe the freezer
and refrigerator, or maybe you need to keep the internet going. They can
do that. Here's the deal, QUALITYTX dot com. That's it, QUALITYTX
dot com. Go there or give them a call at seven one three Quality.
It's as simple as that. They have won so many awards. I
could spend the whole show talking about the different awards they've won, about serving
the customers and people come back and they make sure that you are happy with
it, and they continue to come in and take care of the generator a
couple times a year after you make the purchase, boy, peace of mind,
and you're not going to find a better time to go ahead and get
that done. So if you thought about buying a generator, now's the time.
Go ahead and get it done. We're going to head now out to
El Campo and talk to Linda. Hello, Linda, Hi. My problem
is I received a plant from a funeral and I did find out from workers
that it's a peace lily. It's three feet in diameter and four foot tall.
I really don't have a place for it in my house. I was
wondering it can it be planted outside? I heard it's toxic to dogs,
and I have a dog in the backyard. Well, it's not cold hearty.
It's like almost all the house plants you would have. It can't take
the temperatures outside. That is a big, beautiful plant. Wow, a
lot of people are ready their mouths are watering at the thought of having something
like that. It's a very beautiful plant. It puts up a very low
light, so that might open up some of the places where you might be
able to keep it in the house. But yeah, outside, you know,
if we're talking about mild temperatures, yes, but if it's living at
seventy two degrees or whatever in the house and then suddenly you put it outside
and it's fifty five. That's not going to go well for it, Okay,
So can I put it in a room that doesn't have much light?
Yes, But it all comes down to think about foot candles. Our eyes
adjust to different levels of foot candles of light, but plants don't. They're
not able to make big changes in that. So you may want to have
a little maybe buy a grow light bulb and have a little lamp that's above
it shining down on it on a timer. That's what I do. I
have some plants indoors in a spot that's a little too dark for them,
and I have a little grow light on a little lamp stand and it just
shines on them. I've got it on a timer, so every day it
comes on at a certain time, goes off at a certain time, and
it's it's really easy to do. Okay. And how much water does this
thing require? You want to keep it moist but not over watered. You
just and I know that's kind of a vague way to answer your question,
but that's the truth. If it gets too dry, you're gonna have problems,
and if it gets it stays soggy wet, you're gonna have root rots.
And so I would just one trick you can use is if you sharpen
a pencil and push it down in the soil and pull it out. You
know how you use a toothpick to check if a pound cake's done or not.
It's the same kind of thing. When you pull that pencil out,
that freshly sharpened spot at the end, it's if it's wet, well,
then you know the soil is moist. But if there's moist soil bits clinging
to it, then that's another sign that it's okay. If not, then
it's time to water. Okay, all right, all right, well that's
very helpful, so very much, thank you, Lily. I appreciate that.
You know, if you are if you have house plants, or if
you have outdoor plants for that matter. Nature's Creation has an all natural bedding
bedding plant food with micarizal fungi, and it's not just for betting plants,
but it is designed for blooming plants. So it's got our falfon cotton seed
meal, a lot of other things in it, including mic orizal fungi.
So maybe you have outdoor beds where you have pansies or cyclomon or snap dragons
and listen that whole thing. It's great for that. Nature's Creation all natural
bedding plant food with micorizal fungi. It's available a number of places. Quality
Feed on Luzan in north central Houston has it. Moss Nursery down southeast in
Seabrook, RCW Nurseries where I'm going to be today on two forty nine,
and all Houston Garden centers carry Nature's Creation all natural betting plant food with mike
rhizal fungi. You're listening to Garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter.
We're here to answer your gardening questions. What is of interest to you,
That's what we want to talk about. You can give us a call
at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we come
back, I'm going to be talking a little more about the USDA Plant Hardiness
Zone Map. In fact, I'm going to probably comment on that on through
the show today because I've got a lot of thoughts about the new map that
just came out. Don't forget that. I will be at RCW Nursery today.
I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty for their fall flag and
there's a lot of good stuff going on, and I hope you can come
out out and join us. Welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're
listening today. I'm your host, Skip Richter and our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, I want to
tell you a story. Over fifty years ago. There was a young man
in college and he realized he had a baby on the way and he needed
to earn some money. So on Black Friday in nineteen seventy three, he
opened up his store selling Christmas trees right on Highway two forty nine, and
then over time he began to sell other things. They added plants and flowers,
tree shrubs, fertilizers, anything you can think of for your lawn and
garden all times of the year. And that's why they call it plants for
All Seasons. That's how Plants for All Season got started with Christmas trees for
sale. Isn't that interesting? So if you're out and about, you need
to go buy and check out the trees that they have. If you're out
and about on Black Friday, stop in and say hello. That is their
anniversary that they are celebrating now on Black Friday. They're giving out free swag
bags full of goodies too. So another reason, as if you needed another
one to go to Plants for All Seasons. So happy fiftieth anniversary to my
good friends the Flowerty family out there at Plants for All Seasons. You can
go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com. They're on two forty
nine, just north of Luetto as you're going north on the right hand side.
There they are, and they've been there a good while now, and
there's a reason for that, and that's the kind of products they carry and
the customer service that they provide at Plants for All Seasons. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you would
like to give me a call, be happy to visit with you about things
related to your lawn, your garden, your landscape, whatever you want to
talk about related to plants. I was talking about the Plant Hardiness oone map,
the new one from USDA, and I think I ended by making the
point that that map is based on the coldest temperature over thirty years each year
the coldest temperature. They average those and that's how you get the number.
Whether you're an eight A or or eight B, or nine A or nine
B. Most people listening to this show or in nine, eight B,
nine A, and nine B zones. But before you choose a plant,
just realize that not all zone nines are equal. Did you know that?
Did you know that there is a zone nine on the western coast of the
state of Washington. Yeah, the Washington up there by the Canadian border,
there's a zone nine there because in that area it's cold a lot, but
it doesn't drop down below the lowest average temperature that we do. So now
let's just say in zone nine up there, you can grow blue spruce,
you can grow rhododendron, you can grow what else, Oh gosh, certain
different kinds of us that we grow here, well, not down here,
even for cynthia, not down here. But it's because the temperatures all through
the year are different. The USD hardiness Map has nothing to do with summer
heat or how hot the nights are. Hot, sultry nights are very hard
on plants here too. It has nothing to do with any of the other
climate factors. Now, I'm not dissing it. It's there for one point,
and that is what would you expect on average? How cold is it
going to get this winter? That's what it's about. So just remember that,
and you know these temperatures can vary year to year and you're going to
have to get some stuff out to cover and protect plants. That's just how
things go. But if you want to find out more about it, you
can go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com, and on that website
I have a link as well as some other comments about the USDA Plant Hardiness
Zone Map. If you've speaking of landscapes, if you would like to take
your landscape to the next level, well, Piercescapes they're the ones that can
do it. Jason Garretty and his team out there. They can do everything
from like a complete design of a new landscape area. Maybe you just want
to create some rock borders or hardescapes, or maybe you need help with your
drainage that is not working right and plants are suffering from it. They can
do all of that. Now, Piercescapes is easy to get hold of.
That's two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven o
five zero six zero, Or you can go to Piercescapes dot com and reach
them there. Check them out online. See the kind of work that they
do. It's really amazing. Let's heat out to friends with now we're going
to talk to Brian. Hello, Brian, how you do it? Skip?
I'm well, thank you. I have a small vegetable garden and personally
is just taking it over. Guys wondering is there any way to get rid
of it? I know it's you can eat and all that stuff, but
there's any way to get rid of it without having to kill our person.
Lane is a warm season weed, and yes it is edible. I was
about to say, if you can't beat them, eat them, but personally,
I like personlane. Actually, there's even vegetable varieties of percelaine that you
can purchase. But you're trying to get rid of it. It's a warm
season. It sprouts when the weather's warm, and it can come up anywhere.
If the soil is poor and droughty. Perslaine is just fine with that.
It doesn't matter as far as getting rid of it. The best thing
you can do is keep a mulch on the soil surface and don't allow sunlight
to hit the soil. That will do it. If as far as spraying
it at this time of the year, I wouldn't worry about it because it
is about to die anyway, and you're not going to gain much trying to
spray it. But you could put down a pre emergent herbicide in those areas.
I would probably do that in early to mid February. You may have
to repeat it in the summer to prevent the seeds from germinating. But you've
got to get the you know, you've got to get a that is a
pre emergent to do that. But I'm telling you, just a good mult
will do the trick. Very good. I appreciate it, all right,
sir, thank you. I appreciate the call. Yes, sir, thank
you. I uh, you know, talking about weeds and stuff, people
have different tolerances of weeds and some people it's like in the lawn especially,
it's like, hey, weeds are green, grass is green. I'm good,
I'll moh it it all looks good. Other people is like, no,
there's one weed in the yard. Uh. And I'm you know,
going all out to make sure it dies and everybody falls somewhere in there.
But I'm telling you there's nothing better than malts to just prevent most weed problems.
There's weeds that come through malts. Nut grass will come through malts.
Bermuda grass will come through molts, and there's others that will too, But
molts as a first start. If you don't mult your soil and you keep
bare soil areas, you are constantly going to be fighting weeds that is.
That is just a guarantee because wherever the sunlight hits the soil, nature plants
a weed. I was visiting with the folks at Microlife a couple of days
ago talking about some of the different products that they carry, and you know,
the brown patch is our fall fertilizer. That's the orange bag. It's
a five one three fertilizer. And if you haven't already fertilized, you need
to get it done. Don't wait another day. This fertilizer, you put
it down, you water it in, the microbial activity takes off and it
releases the nutrients to support your plants. It works very very well. They
also have the Microlife humatees and that has a little bit of the potassium in
it, which is the magic thing when we go into fall and want to
strengthen our plants. So consider the hum mates plus the microlife brown patch and
you have got a perfect blend for an organic fall fertilizer application. But remember,
don't delay get that done. Each week that passes, things cool off
a little bit more, the grass slows down a little bit more, so
better sooner than later. I was talking about the plant harding, the zone
map. I just wanted to come back to it one more time. So
when you're picking your plants, your plants have will have a tag usually on
them that says this is a zone eight or zone nine or zone ten plant.
And I just realized that, just like I said, all zone nines
are not equal. The weather varies dramatically between Zone nine is a different part
of the country. It's the same. It's true for plants. Plant you
may see a plant that says it's for our zone, but it's a plant
that is for zone the same number zone but in a different location in the
country. And be careful with that because a lot of times, especially when
you know it says it's good in zone six, seven, eight, and
nine, I'm always skeptical because on the bottom end, or the warmer end
of that range, they tend to stretch it a little bit, and it
is cold hearty here. But again, it's not necessarily adapted here. And
that's another reason why you need to go to a good, full service,
local mom and pop nursery garden center. It is because when you go to
these places, and I talk about them all the time. I was just
mentioning the Arborgate mentioned plants for all seasoned Buchanans and warren southern garden, kingwood
gardens. There's just a lot of them around here, and chanted forest and
chenet gardens. All of these are garden centers that have staff that know what
they're talking about, and they don't buy and then sell plants that don't grow
here. Now, you can go to other places and you may think you're
getting a good deal on something, but you're wasting your money because the chances
of you getting a quality plant and it you knowing that it's going to do
well here are slim to none at a lot of places where they have no
idea what they're talking about. I could ramt on this all day long.
I have been in a big box store and ask someone a question. They
had no idea what they were talking about. And I asked them how long
you've been working here? And they said, well, this is true.
I was managing the jewelry counter last week. Another time someone I asked someone,
they go, oh, I just got the job here. I was
a hair dresser, haircutter before that. That's the preparation that they had.
And I'm not saying that just to desks some of the box stores. I'm
saying that because when you go to a mom and pop garden center, the
ones we talk about on Guardline are prime examples. You get service, and
you get service after the sale, and you get true information about how to
plant that, how to take care of it, where it grows, and
so on. It's a soapbox for me, but you know how it is.
Hey, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back.
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 Richard's
Crazy Trip. Just watch him as well. Well, good morning on what
is going to be a beautiful Saturday today. Chamber of Commerce, Weather we're
gonna enjoy ourselves out at RCW Nurseries by the way, after the show today
from eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll tell you more about that later,
but uh, if you're not doing anything right after this show or even into
the early afternoon, you need to come out there. There's gonna be a
lot of giveaways that we're doing out of RCW. I was talking with the
folks at Ciena Maltch. It was a while back they had a big shin
dig down there, and by the way, it was a great one.
I really enjoy every time I get to go down there. Ciena Maltch is
south of Houston and for that whole area within twenty miles in all directions.
They can deliver. There's a charge for delivery, but they can deliver or
you can just go right to the place and pick it up. They have
bags, they have bulk they carry all the fertilizers that you hear me talking
about here. And they have other products as well, including some tools and
some other things. But Ciena Maltz has quality products. Maybe you're thinking about
doing a I don't know, a flagstone patio for example, they've got it.
Maybe you'd like to create what's you know, the equivalent of like a
dry river bed through through the property. For a specific kind of design,
they've got rock for that. They have everything that you can imagine and they're
easy to find. They're north of road sharing so it's FM five twenty one.
Sienna Maltz dot com is the website. Need to go check them out,
and you need to go buy there. You'll be very impressed with their
stuff, as I was. And it's important when you buy composts and molten
things that you get a quality product, and that's what they carry there at
the Siena Mulch. I've seen a number of people that bought cheap or organic
materials like composts, composts and bed mixes, and the gardens suffered. In
fact, that's why I saw them because they call me, my garden's not
growing, and well you may have thought you saved some money on something,
but yeah, not so much. If you haven't done your fall fertilizing of
the lawn, now's the time. It is absolutely time to get it done
asap. And in fact, Nitroposs they have a great fall fertilizer. It's
the fall special. The nitroposs Fall Special. The design of it, the
nutrient content and ratios of it are for fall, and it's got plenty of
that potassium for winter heartiness and to make sure that when it comes out in
the spring, it comes out strong because your grass, the initial growth of
your lawn in spring is from stored energy, not from what the roots are
taking up. Right at that point, the roots start to grow and pick
up stuff pretty quick, but the initial health and growth and green up is
based on stored energy. Now, Nitrofuss has this three step and the first
step is the fertilizer. Second is the barricade, which is a pre emergent
that stops weeds from getting established from seed, and you need to get that
down ahead of time. I'd put down the Fall Special and the barricade and
then apply about a half inch of water to move both of them down into
the soil surface. That's very important. The third step is the fungicide and
it's called Eagle Turf fungicide, and that's put down to soak into the tissue.
So when brown patch and other diseases would want to come in and attack
your lawn, well, you've got a grass that already has been protected by
that system locally systemic fungicide that they have. By the way, if you're
doing if you're doing your lawn fertilizing, it's a good time to do the
as and mite application too. You do not have to do as mite when
you fertilize, but it's just easy to remember and don't put it in the
same hopper. It's a different particle size than your fertilizers and you won't get
the right spread, even spread that you want to get. But asmite can
be done any time of the year. It's chock full of all those trace
elements that although they own the grass only needs a tiny bit. They are
absolutely essential and it has to have them, and you want your sole bank
account to have plenty of those in it. That's what aze MIT's about you.
If you want to learn more, just go to asimite Texas dot com.
They have a lot more information online there. You're listening to Gardenline,
I'm your host, Skiprechtor, and our phone number is seven to one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. The other day I got a call from somebody and they were
asking me if it is okay to use oak leaves for malts. Now think
about that for just a minute. Is it okay to use oak leaves for
malts? Every oak tree on Earth, well in its natural setting, has
oak leaves for malts, and all the trees going by that oak tree have
oak leaves for most Yes, it's good to use oak leaves for malt.
There are very few times when I would say, don't use that tree's leaves
for malts. We don't have a lot of black walnut here, but black
walnut roots produce a substance called jew glown and it's their way of it's their
own natural herbicide that they used to keep other plants from being competition around them.
And it'll affect tomatoes and grapes and several other things. But in general
the leaves are fine. Some have more tannins than others. But yes,
the most important thing you do is multur soil molts Moltz moltz, and you
are getting free leaves at your property every year. Those can be ground up.
They can use for walk away materials. In a larger garden, you
can that's what I do. You can make composts out of them. Or
you can just multch beds with them, but don't let that free organic matter
go away. They have nutrients in them. Those leaves that fall on the
ground, just like grass clippings, they have nutrients in them, and those
nutrients you need to keep on your property, not pay somebody to haul your
nutrients away. I always say if you don't, If you bag your clippings
and you bag your leaves, you just are renting fertilizer. You buy the
fertilizer, put it down. The nutrients go up to grow grass blades and
leaves. You chop those off, rake those up and put them in a
bag, and pay somebody to hollered away. That doesn't make any sense at
all, That's sure, sure doesn't make sense. I was talking to things
last week about salads and the greens we can grow. The cool season is
the best season for salads, and if you have not, you need to
get past. You know, let us for example, let us is good.
It's kind of the mainstay. But baby kale we can grow this time.
A regular we can grow this time. And sorel sorrel comes in different
types. There's one type that has red veins and a green leaf. It
is gorgeous. In fact, they have it at Enchanted Gardens. I saw
it out there. The sorel has a tart kind of almost a lemony kind
of flavor. So when you mix your salad with all these, oh my
gosh, it is so good. While you're out an Enchanted Gardens, you
need to check about some of the other things they have. Certainly they have
Christmas trees in but they also have living Christmas trees that's not the same species.
That may be junipers or cyprus or something else. But if you wanted
something out in the yard that you know you could maintain and have that shape
to it, well they got you covered there. They have everything you need,
including staff that know what they're talking about, and that is very very
important. They are on the Katie fullsher side of Richmond off FM three fifty
nine. Just go to Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com and you'll learn a lot
more. We're going to take a break right now. The numbers seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hello and welcome back to garden
Line. We're glad you're listening today. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, if you have been
thinking about getting some roofwork done, you need to call the folks at Brinkman.
And why do I say that, Well, because Brinkman has been here
for fifty years. They are highly rated by the Better Business Breer Effact.
They won the Pinnacle Award. They give they give you a good price,
they give you a good service. They make sure it's done right, and
that is so important. These fly by night roofers that come through, they're
gone. And if there's a problem, then what are you gonna do?
Well, not with Brinkman. They fully warrant their work for twenty five years
of service. You can get any you know, if you want a composite
roof, do you want a metal roof, or do you want one of
the Brinkman solar shingles. It's the timberline solar shingle roof that's really cool actually
makes electricity for you. You can go to their website Brinkman Quality. It's
b r I n K M A n N quality dot com or call them
at two eight one four eight zero seventy six sixty three. We're going to
go now out to a Tasca Sita and talk to Cheryl. Hello Cheryl,
Hi, kis. I wanted to send you some pictures of my backyard and
my sideyard. It was doing really good and I've already used the ncrofoss three
steps sometime in October. And what am noticing? They're not They're not circular
circles, are just very A lot of the grass looks like straw, and
then if I pull it up, it's completely there is you know, no
roots, and some of the blades that are still green close to the straw
looking have like straw the size. So I've seen some lawns, but not
very many of them, and so I have no idea what it is.
Yeah, it could be a number of things. It may be more than
one thing too. That's part of the If you would just send a picture
kind of do one of the whole lawn, and do one close up of
an area that's showing what you're describing in the leaf blades, then I would
like you to you say, you can just pull it up. I would
like you to just pull it up and then lay it on a dark surface
sideways and let me see the roots going out and I'll take a look at
that. We're looking for several possibilities here. I want to make sure we
cover all of them. But in general terms, you've done what you need
to do. You've got your fertilizer down, you took care of any fungus
or we issues it might come up in it. You shouldn't have to water
right now. I mean the rains that we've had and the mild temperatures are
fine. If we go a couple of weeks without rain, well then give
it a little bit of water. But in general, we are cutting way
back on watering. And the reason I say that is you can make things
worse by overwatering things like brown patch, for example. You're just giving it
such an edge. So that's what I would recommend. But let's take a
look at those so that I can make sure when I tell you what to
do, I'm giving you accurate information. All right Now, the parts that
I pull up that are like straw, you might pull up some that some
green so it has some roots on. Yeah, you're saying it just pulls
up. Does the grain just pull up or are are No, it's just
one of the straw. It just pulls up, and it's like really,
it's like shunk it. It's like a different color. It's like orangish color.
And yeah, yeah, I think I think some of that is just
natural die back. We got some weather that's cooled off a little bit,
but we also have some we went through. What was I'm trying to say,
Oh, this summer's extreme drought could have weakened the grass and just made
it kind of I don't know, not go into the falls as strong as
it should have. But let me take a look at it, because otherwise
I'm just spouting possibilities and that's not helpful. Okay. And then what website
do I send it to skim? Oh you when you're gonna get an email
from Josh, I'm put you on hold and you sent it to that email.
All right, Hey, Cheryl, thank you for the call. I
appreciate that very much. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
By the way, if any of you have lawn problems and you are anywhere
close to the RCW Nursery, which is where two forty nine Tombo Parkway comes
into belt Way eight, it's right there easy to get to if you want
to put those in a bag. Let me see them. Just make sure
you get a four x four inch plug and the zone between healthy and dead,
So don't bring me dead grass. I'm unable to do autopsies, but
I can do diagnosis. So bring me a sick patient and we'll take a
look at it, get some roots with it, and if there's anything going
on in there, I'll be able to see it. And I'll be there
from eleven thirty to one thirty today, So that's a good chance to get
that done. It is tree planting season, it is shrub planting season.
It is perennial planting season. Perennial herbs, flowers, grasses, all of
that should be going in now. It's also the season to plant cool season
color, so it's a time to plant. But the most important thing you
plant, if you are going to have I can get out in the garden
for I got Saturday morning or afternoon or whatever, and that's all the time
I got. If you're planning on establishing a woody ornamental, you need to
do it now. That is so important to give it all of these months
before it gets blazing hot again to establish a root system. And verdant tree
Farm has a wide variety of trees. I mean, they are known for
their palm trees, but they have a lot of just standard types of trees
and all sizes, all the way up to seven hundred gallons. And the
thing I like about it is you go to the tree farm, you pick
out the tree you want. You get to pick it out, just like
choosing a Christmas tree. You pick out the one you want and tag it.
They'll tag it and bring it to your house and they'll plant it,
and they do it right. If you happen to be a veteran, they
offer a ten percent discount for both military and first responders. By the way,
too out at Verdant Tree Farm verdanttreefarm dot com. There's one on Barker
Cyprus in West Houston. There's one where Yo comes into it in the Heights
area, and there's also one down in pair Land on Broadway Streets. It's
not easy to find your way to a Verdant tree farm. That talking about
Verdant and trees and the importance of that. Whenever you're let's say you're buying
a smaller tree and it's one you're going to plant yourself, remember that it
is important that if you have any circling roots on the outside of that container,
cut them in about three or four places around the roots cylinder, you
know, so just vertically slice down with a box cutter knife if it's if
the roots are small, or get your handprinters out and cut them. They
will branch and it'll establish better, and the long term prognosis for that tree
will be much much better as well. When you plant it right, don't
plant it too deep. The topmost root. I don't care how much soil
is in the container. Find the topmost root and put that at the soil
line right add or slightly below, not much the soil line. That is
very important as well. There's other tips on how to plant, but those
those are just a couple of them. It's important to do it right.
Those are investments. Sometimes there are you know, if you get a big
tree, that's a pricey investment and you just need to get it. Give
it every chance in the world to get off to a good start. That's
important. That's why I always tell people when you buy a tree, get
a tree hug or sprinkler. You may not be using it a lot this
winter, but you might need it some because you know, an established tree
and the winter should not need water. But when you just put a new
one in the ground and it's starting to grow roots, the entire root system
of that tree is right there. Now. If it's deciduous, that's good.
There's no water pumping going on to speak of, and it's okay.
But if it is like a live oak and it has leaves through the winter,
it's pumping water. And you may have moist soil out there, but
that root cylinder pumps dry. And that's where the tree hugger sprinklers come in
because you can, you know, you can turn them on just a little
bit, or turn them on a lot that tree five years from now,
ten years from now, when we go into summer droughts, you can put
the tree hugger around the trunk, turn it on and give a good soaking
to the most important area to survive. That's why I like those things.
They're available all over the place, real easy to find a tree hugger sprinkler.
You can also go to their websites tree huggersprinkler dot com. Simple as
that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a
call. Josh will get you on the boards and we can talk about the
things that are of interest to you. I seem to be on a roll
here with trees, so I'm just going to keep going because I got trees
on my brain right now. I talked about the importance of planning a tree,
right, and that's very very important. Uh, when you dig that
whole, by the way, don't dig deep and then fill soil in to
set the tree on. Dig only as deep as the root cylinder. So
get a little measure and tape and set that black pot the tree came in
on the ground, and measure how deep is it from the bottom of the
pot up to where the soil is. That's how deep your hole should be.
And that way the tree sits on firm soil and doesn't sink as it
settles over time. That is important. If you've got trees already that are
growing, training them properly early is very important. If you've got nice established
trees, do not let anybody touch those trees that doesn't absolutely know what they're
doing. And that's why I'm always talking about Martin spoonmore at Affordable tree because
he knows what he's doing. He's been doing in a long long time here,
I believe thirty years now. He's been taking care of Houston trees.
But when you get somebody that doesn't know what they're doing, the printing cuts
they make and I drive around town and see them all the time will ruin
a tree. And therefore life. You can do everything you can to help
the tree recover, and a good arborus like Martin U he can get in
there and work on it. But that bad printing job just is for years
and years and years. So in fact, let me give you Martin's number.
It's seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Seven one
three six nine nine two six six three. Call Martin or his wife Joe
will answer. They answer their own phones. If you get somebody else,
hang up. You got the number wrong, call the wrong place. Seven
one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. You can also go
to the website aff Tree Service dot com. Now you need to call now
and get on the schedule. There's a lot of printing going on as we
go through the cool season, and Martin stays busy. You know, when
you do your job right, and you know what you're talking about, and
people say, yeah, I hired this guy and it was he did a
great job. You tend to fill up and he does. Just tell him
you are a garden Line listener so that you can get to the front of
the line, because that's what he does. And he provides a garden Line
kind of the front of the line spots and get it scheduled. Even if
it's going to be in February that the printing is done, you need to
get its scheduled now, don't delay. Go ahead and get that, get
that checkbox checked and out of the way, and proper tree work can get
done. And he won't say you something you don't need. He'll do the
amount of pruning that is best for your tree. Well, we're going to
take a break here our phone number seven one, three, six, nine,
nine fifty eight seventy four. Donald, Well, welcome back to garden
Line. While ago, when I was going to break I gave you the
wrong number. I was mixing up Affordable Tree and my number, so I
don't know what would happened if you call the number I gave you. Our
number here on garden Line is seven to one three, two, one,
two, five, eight seven four simple as that. The folks at Ace
Ace Hardware Store have added more stores. They have forty stores here in the
Greater Houston area, the Orange and Bay City stores or the new locations.
Hey guys, welcome to the ACE Houston Area group and the garden line as
well. You know, ACE is the place for your lawn. It's as
simple as that. We know, for the outdoor living, the patio materials,
the taking care of your plants, They've got all that. But did
you know Ace is also the place for Christmas lighting and decoration needs, both
indoor and outdoor. They've got all the accessories that make that installation fast and
easy, and so you don't have to count of Jerry rig something to get
that wreath to hold up on. They got all that covered. They have
lights and every size, every color, I mean, just all these configurations.
They also have something called custom lights by the foot and it's what you
would think it is. You just go to an ACE and ask them about
their custom lights by the foot. Do you need wreaths, do you need
garland? They've got all of that and Ace hard And how do you find
an Ace Hardware store? Well, you just go to Acehardware dot com,
Acehardware dot Com to the store locator and it'll take you right there. You
can find the one near you, and there'll be more than one near you
because they are everywhere. We're going to head out now to Lakeside of States
and talk to Marine. Hello, Marine, good morning. Well, I
have an exceptionally beautiful points out of your plant. It's in a large pot.
And by large, the width of the diameter is fourteen and the depth
of the pot is sixteen. It's just been something that is sold at this
time of the year. Yes, so I've already checked out the soil.
It's not wet, but it's sort of cool. The bracts are perfect,
and so that's why I'm calling. Life can be wonderful. But when these
start bawling apart, it's sad. Yes it is. Since it's perfect.
You need to tell only how to figure out about the soil. And should
I miss the bracts, Okay, no, don't miss them. You need
to keep the soil moist but not soggy wet. So what I do is
we set them in the eyeset them in my sink water. I'm really well,
let all the excess, drain out, and then put it back in
the sleeve, the decorative sleeve that it was in. By the way,
when you pick it up after that kind of watering, you know how heavy
it is. Full. Oh yeah, and you know I'm going to tell
you other ways to know when to water. But for a lot of my
plants, I know how heavy they should be, and when I pick them
up and they're super light, I already know you got to add water to
that because water is one of the heaviest parts of the whole plant and pot
and soil and everything. So that that's one thing to note. If you
take a sharpened pencil and you push it down in the soil around the point
set I would go down in a pot like that. I'd probably go down
two inches maybe three, and then pull it out that sharpened wood. Is
it moist That means it's very wet. Does it have little flex of moist
soil sticking to it that means it's moderately wet. Or does a pencil come
out dry? Again, it's like sticking a toothpick and a cake to tell
when it's done. And that is that's a helpful way for most soul mixes
to tell. Okay, then the last question is, right now it feels
cool and crisp outside, I don't and gets super hot. Can I put
it outside because the weather right now seems to be perfect. But I'm a
human not a plant. Yeah I would. When the night times are going
to be like fifty five, I don't think i'd have it outside, and
some people do, but I wouldn't. You want to avoid shocking it.
So let's say you got up in the morning and it's been in your seventy
five degree house or whatever the temperature is, and you just walked outside and
set it on the porch at fifty five degrees first thing in the morning.
Well, that is a sudden shock. Also, keep it away from heating
vents if you can, because that tends to dry things out as well.
Okay, I'm not running the heat right now because I enjoy this weather.
Okay, So my moisture inside the house is at fifty six percent, and
so that sort of tells me because I sort of have breathing issues occasionally,
so I like moisture. Well that's a plant. That's fine. Point set
is not real picky about that, but that's oh okay, that's just fine.
That level all right, all right, Well, I hope you have
a nice long point set of season with your plant there justromber I ten sometimes,
but this one is just like a specimen. It's perfect. Okay,
everybody's happy. The pressure's on. Marine set a timer. Yeah, I
got it. I feel it all. You take it so much. I
appreciate the call very much. Thank you. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Oh my gosh. The holiday gift plants are so nice.
I love point settus of course. Uh, and every year my wife
and I have point sets in the house. I also like the little topiary
rosemary that are shaped like a miniature Christmas tree. Uh, there'd be one
you could hang your red hallopenas on. Uh. Those are really cool.
We have a little tiny, tiny lightching putting something like that. In fact,
our Norfolk pine gets decorated for the holidays every year as well. But
the Thanksgiving cactus and Christmas cactus are two of my favorite and you'll find those
out and about in our garden centers. Now. The thing I like about
those is it's not that hard to keep them year after year. You keep
them out of really cold temperatures, you know, going into the low fifties.
I'd probably have them in before it goes that cold. But they're tough.
I have them in a bright outdoor area. I keep some inside by
a very bright window, and they're doing okay. They're doing okay, and
some of mine are already putting buds on. There's one that's slow to put
buds on it, and I didn't force it into an early bloom by making
the night the dark period longer for it. But they're just wonderful plants.
And the fact that you can keep it. If you break a branch off,
stick it in the ground or sticking in a pot, it grows,
and now you've got a gift plant for somebody else. It's just really cool.
I love those holiday plants. There's some other ones. Cyclomen are often
used to bring inside in a container because they're so beautiful. The little blooms
look like falling stars, like meteors coming down, just the shape of them.
But you can put those outside too. But on those and on the
rosemary, I would make sure and get it outside as much as I can
to get light rosemary in your house for let's say three weeks, is going
to start getting little spindly new growth stretching to try to find light. So
you just give it a little bit of time outdoors each day, that would
be fine. Bring it in when you want to decorate, or for the
for the evening to enjoy it. So just a few tips there on those
kind of plants. We are going to head now to Oh my gosh,
it is already time for a break. Well, let's see Sandy. You
will be first up when we come back. If you'd like to be on
the boards, call seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
seven one three two one two k t RH. Welcome back to Gardenline.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one three
two one two kt RH. I'm gonna head out to Cyprus now and we're
going to talk to Sandy. Hello Sandy, Hi, good morning, Skip.
I hope you're doing well. I have some questions on my peppers.
Uh there's some that I can pick, some that need a couple of days
and some that need you know, maybe a week or two, and then
I've got flowers. But I have these little brown ants on them. Okay,
they're small ants. Is that? Okay? Do I need to spray
them with something? It's okay. There's probably aphids on your peppers. If
you turn some leaves over and look underneath, you may see some little bugs
under there. And that the ants are dairy farmers and the aphids are the
cows. They literally pick them up, take them up on a plant and
get them going. They protect them and they use their intended to stroke the
aphid and it produces the honeydew that the ant feeds on. It's kind of
an interesting idea there. But so they're not a they're not a concern at
this point in the season. You know, winter's at the doorstep here.
So uh, I would not even probably worry about the aphids at this point.
Okay, okay, And do you have time for one more question?
So I was the one that talked to you about my pool pump being broken
and I had so many weeds. I send you pictures and all that the
weeds are going around the back. Can I Well, the pump still isn't
fixed because they ordered it and it hasn't come in yet. You know how
that is? So I'm waiting for the pump still, and so I haven't
been able to do anything with my yard since October. Fertilizer, okay,
the winter Texas step three or whatever. But can I put that down again?
Just the weed beater at least did you put you had? I'd put
it down, okay, I would not reapply the weed control by nitrofoss.
If you put it down, you're good. It's called barricade. They're they're
we thing is barricade. Now. The weed beater that is a product that
is a broad leaf weed control product you spray on growing weeds, different than
barricade where you prevent the seed. So we're talking about weed beater or barricade.
Which which did you put down? I the ace hardware in Cyprus.
Yes, only had at the time when I was getting everything. The weed
beater. Okay, okay, Well then in that case the barricade application now
would be would be fine. That will prevent any weeds that are going to
germinate going forward. I would do that as a p because we are now
in the weather where we'd start germinating. And so again you want to get
ahead of them. If they get up and going pretty good. That is
not gonna it's not gonna stop them. It's for preventing them. But that's
why we do it. Soon when you put it down to sandy, watered
in with about a half inch of water, and and that moves the ingredients
into the soil surface where they prevent the weed seeds from establishing. So if
you don't water it in, that soil surface doesn't have that that barricade across
the top to stop the weeds. So watered in with about a half inch
of water. Okay, well, I guess I'll try that other ace on
nineteen sixty because I know my cypress, the one at the Langham Creek one
at five twenty nine. And yeah, you got a lot of aces up
there. I mean there's there's M and D, there's the one on Jones
Road, you know, and then you mentioned Langham Creek. It's easy to
find an ace in your area. Okay, all right, thank you so
very much. All right, thank you. Good luck with those good luck
with those plants. You know, she was talking about peppers and how far
they have to go and whatnot. Let me just have a few words out
here about how do you know when to pick some of the vegetables that are
in your garden. You know, we know a freeze is coming sometime or
at least temperatures too cold for the vegetables. Well, peppers don't ripen,
so they could be a little tiny pepper, or they could be a big
green pepper, or they could turn yellow, orange, and red, whatever
colors that species of pepper turns, and at all stages they're edible. When
a pepper starts turning red, you get a higher level of certain kinds of
phido nutrients that we need, you know, so vitamin A, the precursor's
vitamin A, for example, would be something that would be more in a
red pepper than in a green pepper. And some peppers have a traditional stage,
you know, pallapanias in general. They let them get mature size and
start to crack, and that's kind of what halopena looks like to people.
Well, I let my halopenias a few of them go completely red because they're
sweeter and I just like that. And so that's not a traditional halopena.
But you can do that. You can pick them at any stage if you've
got tomatoes, and I would leave them out for now as long as you
can they're not gonna move very fast, but they they'll move a little bit,
and when you have to bring them in. Any tomato that has reached
a mature stage and still green, they hit maturity when they're still green.
That doesn't mean the flavors best. It just means they have viable seeds inside.
At that stage, you can pick a tomato, bring it in and
it'll ripe them on the counter and it'll be a very good tomato too.
Don't think it won't. Tomatoes that are immature will never ripen because they haven't
hit that mature stage. And the way to tell the difference sort of,
well, it destroys the fruit in terms of being able to keep going.
But if you were to take a two green tomatoes and one was mature and
the other was immature. The immature when when you cut it with a knife,
those little those little spaces inside that are filled with that gelatinous material and
the seed they it would not be that way. It would just be a
kind of a little bit more firm material and then the seeds your knife would
slice right through them. A mature tomato, the seeds are harder and they
move aside when you slice through by and large, and those areas are filled
with a they're starting to become gelatinous in that cavities in between. So once
you've done that, of course you can't put the tomato back on the vine,
but at least you can get an idea what the look of it is
visually and go, yeah, those are worth are worth bringing in. And
I'll always bring an extra one or two just in case I misassess them.
But the little ones I just leave out because they're not going to finish ripening
inside. Uh you know, I'm going to be at RCW Nursers today.
RCW Nurseries is the nursery up there where Tombo Parkway comes into Highway to forty
nine. That it's right there at belt wait. I'm sorry, two forty
nine belt Way eight, Tambo Parkway, bel Way eight. I've said that
eight hundred times and anyway, RCW Nurseries dot com that's their website. And
I love to go to RCW because they have a wide variety of things.
Today is a specially good day to go out there to RCW because they're having
their fall fling and in the fall fling they're going to have giveaways of seedling
trees like live Oak, Monterey Oak and lace Park Elm. They're also going
to have barbecue sandwich lunch. They're going to have a sale on all their
shrubs and select trees for fifteen percent off. And we'll be giving away a
lot of stuff. Fertilizers for microlife and Nelson's, the nitrofoss fungicides, the
flowers, the frost cloth. Boy, you need some of that, the
frostcloth to cover your plants and protect them against frost freezes. It's all going
to be there. I'm going to be there from eleven thirty to one thirty.
So let's take a look at some of the plant questions you have.
Bring me some samples in. If you want to talk about identifying something,
bring me a sample in. If you have photos on your phone, that
is especially helpful because it's always better to see what it is I'm about to
be talking about than to just guess based on a description. That's one of
the challenges of doing radio is what someone is describing and seeing at their house
and what my mind is hearing and picturing may not be the same thing,
and that makes it harder. But I'll be their live. It's a chance
to come by. I love to meet you and visit. I'll be there
all the way to one thirty. So if you want to come by at
lunch for you know, grabbing the barbecue sandwich, that's fine. If you
want to come by in the afternoon, that's fine. We'll still be giving
away stuff through that whole time at RCW Nurses. While you're out there,
you got to check out their plants. You got to check out the trees.
They have a lot, a lot of cool stuff to make your winter
landscape better. And remember, now is the time, the best time to
get a tree planted. That it gives the roots all winter to grow.
And I'm a broken record on that one, but I just got to tell
you. If you wait until let's say you wait until May to put a
tree in the ground, you can keep it alive. You can plant a
tree in July and keep it alive. But it's very touch and go at
that time. You have to be very careful to attend to it and keep
that root cylinder moist without keeping it too wet. And that's the challenge.
So make it easy on yourself and get the thing planted now. Trees and
shrubs in Woody vines, any kind of a woody material like that. What
I'm saying is it holds water. We want them to get a good,
strong root system established. Hey, I just want to remind you guys,
if you're interested, the OBA, the Organic Horticulture Organization, is having a
Lone Star yule Ball fundraiser that is going to be at the ballroom at Tanglewood
that's on West Timer in Houston. There tickets. You go online to purchase
your tickets at OBA online, OHBA online dot org, slash register. They're
going to have a magician and fortune teller there. They're going to have great
music. D v C Strings will be there and Shake Russell. Now there's
a there's a headliner they're bringing in for that. You want to wear your
Western attire and have a really good time, have a delicious dinner, cocktails.
It's just going to be a shindig. That's kind of thing OBA tends
to put on is really cool events. Well, you've been listening to Gardenline.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're going to take a break
for the top of the hour. When we come back, you would like
to be on the phones with me seven to one, three, two,
one two fifty eight, seventy four seven one three two one two KTRH.
If you haven't been to my website yet, it's Gardening with Skip dot Com.
There you will find my write up about the new twenty twenty three USDA
Plant Pardiness Zone Map. You'll find my lawn care schedule. There. You'll
find my lawns disease and weed management schedule there. Both of those go from
January through December telling you what to do and what do you do. That's
really something I hope you go there. Gardening with Skip dot Com. Katie
r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip Ricter.
It's so crazy, rim just watch him as gods, what so many good
things to Septasy Well, good morning on what is shaping up to be a
beautiful Saturday. Great day to get out and do some gardening, garden shopping,
sprucing things up, getting ready for the wintertime. Now is the time
to get all that done. If you walking around the house you see cracks
in your sheet rock, or maybe walking around the outside of the house,
cracks in the brick. That's a sign that something's going wrong foundation wise,
and you need to do something about it soon. Don't put it off.
The earlier you get in on it, the better off you will be.
And fix my slab. Foundation Repair is a company that can do just that.
Ty Strickland, he's been doing this for twenty three years. He knows
what he's talking about. He understands our Houston soils and how they swell and
shrink as they get wet and dry. And oh my gosh, that wrecks
havoc on your foundation. Maybe your doors are sticking inside. That's another sign
something may be wrong. You can go to fix myslab dot com or you
can call them too eight one two fy five forty nine forty nine to eight
one two five five forty nine forty nine. They're on time. Well,
I'm speaking of fix my slab. They are priced fairly, that's important,
and they fix it right. That is also very very important. We're going
to head to the phones now and talk to Carol and a task Asita.
Hello Carol, good morning, back too quick questions please. First of all,
do you have a name brand product product for Virginia buttonweed? I like
the product called celsius for Virginia buttonweed. At this time in the season,
it is declining, and I don't know that you'll get a lot of benefit
from spraying it. I've been telling folks that if you got it, and
you can do it, every little strip you pull out of it with those
little buttons on it, you're you're taking some seed out of the mix for
next year, and so that's that's very helpful. The herbicide will not kill
the seeds, that's for sure. There are some other products that can do
it, but you just have to Virginia buttonwheed is not a one and done
spray. You're probably going to have to retreat it a little bit later.
Okay, then my other question. I have two very large looking billions in
pots. They're like seven feet tall and the drapes are equally six or feet
and usually I can pull those back in for the winter, but they're not
that large. Can I cut those things back to pull them back? When
I start to pull them back for the winter, you can do that.
Another thing that some people do is and this takes more than one person,
but you get a piece of twine, you lift those all up and you
pull them together kind of like a ponytail sitting up on top, and that
makes it easier to move the plant around. And I don't know if that
will help with your plant and your situation, but yeah, you can do
some trimming. Just minimize the trimming you do that, would you say,
minimize? So give me more, don't don't prune more than you have to
prune to handle the plant and get it where you need to get it.
Yeah, okay, all right, well, thank you so much. All
right, thank you. I appreciate the call very much. Our phone number
if you would like to give us a call is seven to one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. If you're doing any planting this fall. Microlife has a couple of
really cool products that are exceptional when it comes to getting your plants established.
One of those is Microlife Ultimate. It's an eight four six organic fertilizer.
And when you're planting a tree, normally I say, don't put fertilizer in
the planting All that applies to salt based fertilizers that are not slow release.
But when you do Microlife organic, you're not going to burn the roots.
And it is going to decomposed as microbes release those nutrients. You also should
have some Microlife Ocean Harvest. I call this the Blue plus Blue. It's
the Microlife Ultimate is a blue bag. Microlife Ocean Harvest, which is a
fish based fertilizer, is a blue bottle and you can use that to water
plants in you can spray it as a folier feed. It's just really versatile
and easy to use. If you go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com you can
find out all the places where you can buy Microlife in this area. We
are going to go now to Spring Branch and talk to John. Hey.
John, Yes, I wanted I have a bunch of clay pots, six
ants clay pots. I wanted to plant some things in it like alabera and
perslin and a shafts the day'sy seeds. What would be a good potting soil.
There are a number of good soils out there. I probably would go
with the heirloom soils. They have a couple of different potting mixes. One
they designed for indoors, one they designed for outdoors. But those are good
quality mixes that that will provide okay cole water. But they drain access and
which is what you need in a potting soil. Okay, yeah, all
right, yes, sir, and you can find that you can find the
Airloom Sols products and many places around town you can. I mean you can
also just you know, give them a call and check it out. But
I'm gonna talk about a little bit more about their products later. But that's
what the one I would recommend. And I appreciate so much you calling.
I love to visit with gardeners about their gardening questions. That's why we're here.
We're here to answer gardening questions. Uh. Wilbird's Unlimited is one of
my favorite places to go into. And by the way, if you're doing
any Christmas shopping, someone on your list maynn't be a garden but wouldn't they
love a beautiful birdhouse or feeder where they can watch the birds or hummingbird feeder
are one of the bazillion other really cool things that Wildbirds has. Now,
if you do feedbirds, you need to go buy and get some of their
winter super blend that's got the fat and protein content that birds need to get
through this winter season. You know, our days are shorter and the time
they have out there to run around and try to find seeds in the wild
is more limited, and a nice feeder really helps them to get through the
winter time. You know, with wildbirds, when they put something in a
bag and call it bird feed, you get every drop of what's in that
bag. There's not all those little red bebes that cheap bird seeds have some
of them. It's like way over half, like sixty two thirds or more
of the mix could be those little tiny bebes, and that is that's wasting
money. Well, actually you may think that's cheaper feed, but when you
pull out all the bebes and look at how much feed you actually got,
it's not feet And wildbirds doesn't sell that kind of stuff. They sell bird
blends for all kinds of birds, and they don't put the junk in that
those birds don't eat. Another thing about wildbirds is you can do their holeless
packages. So birds love sunflowers, certain kinds of birds love sunflowers, but
they crack them to eat the inside and then they drop the shells. Well,
if you don't want that mess, they have a holeless blend, where
again, one of what's in that bag is going to end up in a
bird's stomach as opposed to being kicked out on the ground. Wilbirds unlimiteds all
over town. There's six of them here in the Greater Houston area. You
can go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash Houston
real easy to find them. Uh. And again they're all over the place.
Easy to find waldbirds in the Greater Houston area. Let's take a little
break. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We'll be right back. Welcome back back to garden Line on a
beautiful sunday. Wow, we got a full board here, and I'm to
talk about a number of gardening things. Let's just go ahead and start with
Sarah up in Highland Village. Hello, Sarah, Hello, how came you?
Hell? I need to know what kind of Saint Augustine grass to plant
in an area to gets full sun all day and what kind of soil to
put down prior to planning it. There are a number of good Saint Augustine's
on the market, you know. Just naming one particular one, it is
difficult because there's so many good ones. We've always used Raleigh in the past
that that's still around that. That's a that's a good one. Uh.
There there are some new ones that are coming out too. By the way,
there's one. Oh my gosh, the name just escaped me. I'll
come back to the varieties. As far as soil prep, you want to
make sure the area is is. If you can listen the soil a little
bit, a little bit of a tilling, that would be helpful. You
want to fill any low areas that you have, so you level it out
before you put the sod down. Are you wanting to plant that grass now
or can you wait until spring? Well? Probably pretty soon, okay.
The challenge of planting late in the season is the grass roots, whether it's
an existing lawn or new sod, the growth that slows down a lot,
and you need to get those roots out of the sod you buy and down
into the soil at your place. And so this is a time of year
when you may need to be doing a couple of light waterings. You may
see some increased round patch on the turf as a result of watering it a
little more frequently to try to get that new sod established. So if there
was a way to wait till spring, I would do that. But if
you want a plant now, it can be done. Just you may have
some loss over the winter. Okay. And again, the variety you mentioned
that you dealt was particularly good, although they're all good. Yeah, well,
I mentioned I mentioned the variety Raleigh, but you know it that's an
older variety. It doesn't it doesn't have to be that particular variety of Saint
Augustine A. And M's got a new one that they released out there.
I'm trying to think of the name of that one, and let me see,
hang on just one second. I got something here where I wrote down
about Yeah. Uh, so there's there's one called Captiva you may find around
there. There is a palmetto that you see around a lot. That would
be another one that you might look at. Uh. And then there's some
others. You know. It depends on the grass company as to which ones
they grow. Not ever, grass company grows the exact same set of varieties.
But there's a number of good ones that are out there. And if
if we did wait, which I guess we should, if we must,
what's the best time then in the spring to play it. Well, if
you want that turf to hit the ground running about the time that you have
mowed your people have mowed their lawn twice would be a good time at least
one mowing. Let the grass and yards get one mowing that tells you the
grass is growing, that tells you the root system is taken off. And
so that would be a good time to start laying side for the season and
just to get a little faster results. But if we don't have any really
healthy live grass there, what month then I would say first of April.
That's pretty close to it. Yeah, first of April, could be the
end of March, first of April something like that. And do I know
that you that there are many grass companies, but is there a team you
name a few that I might call. Let's see Highland Village. There's Milberger
Turf. That is one that has been around for ages. They're they're a
grower and so they may be selling to other people who are selling you their
varieties. Duguet Turf is out east of here. That's another one. UH
King Ranch is another. King Ridge Turf is another company. You'll find UH
in the southeast Texas region. So those are all good growers that can provide
you a callery very helpful. Thank you so much. All right, Sarah,
thank you for that call. I appreciate it. Uh. Now I
know you've been to Buchanan's Nurser before, because if you have more, you
got to go. It's it's right in the the heart of Houston, kind
of in the Heights area. Buchanans is on eleven Street up in the Heights.
They have got their Christmas trees in and boy do they have a really
good selection of some of some cool varieties. If you like Frasier fur,
if you like noble fur, if you like the concolor fur bet you haven't
heard of that one the Nordman for they've got those, go by check them
out and see what they look like. You know, Buchanans has an event
coming up that I want to tell you about too, by the way,
Buchanan's open House, their holiday open House. It's a free event and this
is going to be one heck of a deal. It is on Saturday,
December second, from ten am to three pm. So get through Thanksgiving and
then you know it's time to get ready to go. Live music, beer
and wine. Food. Santa will be there and there'll be kids crafts that
they the kiddos can do local vendors setting up. I mean, it's really
a deal at Buchanans and again they are at six eleven eleventh Street and the
Heights, or just go to Buchanansplants dot com. You can find them there.
Let's now go out to Ron in Spring. Hello Ron, Hello sir,
how are you? Good morning? Morning? Yeah, I first time
I'm doing a greenhouse. It's twenty foot by ten foot seven feet high,
and I'm looking for gruel lights. Okay, tropical tropical plants. I've got
beans and peppers and tomatoes, and I was just thinking I'll begin I'm shopping
with effort for the groul lights. I didn't know how many Ambradge lumens and
all that. Yeah, boy, I tell you I could spend two shows
trying to fill you out with all the information on growing lights. Just remember
that quality products can cost you some money. It should be an led for
your little home greenhouse, and it needs to have the right wavelength for plants.
And you'll see things called grow lights out there that you may buy them
online, you know, some Amazon type place. There's a lot of ineffective
junk being sold in those I don't know all the lighting sources on the market,
but I do know there's a place called Greenhouse Megastore Greenhouse Megastore, and
you order online from them, and they have a lot of lighting for greenhouses.
They even have the little lights that you know you put in your house
to put a plant underneath on a table. But they have a wide variety,
and I might try them and start there. I was trying to direct
you to some information. I've got some stuff I should put online. Wrote
an article for Texas Gardener Magazine a while back on on lighting and understanding lighting.
Uh. And so that's I guess where I would start you off.
And that's again, Mega Mega Lighting, Greenhouse Megastore d Yeah. And I'm
not you know, I'm not recommending them as a company. I don't.
I don't know anything about business practices or anything like that. But it is
a place where gardeners and small scale greenhouses you can go and get a lot
of different products. Excellent, Thank you, sir. Okay, take care
appreciate that, oh very much. If you have them into the bee supply,
you really need to go. I'm going to try to try to get
the folks from be Supply in here on the air real soon because I just
love talking with bees, talking bees with them. You to. I don't
know if they're still able to order bees now on their website, but you
could go and check. It'll tell you for sure. But they have one
of the coolest things. It's an observation I have over seven feet tall and
gosh, if you go, definitely got to take kids. You watch the
bees come in and out from the outside into the building into this giant plexiglass
space where they're doing their work. I mean, you can get up close
and watch the work. It is super cool. You can give them a
call at nine three six seven seven six o seven three nine, or just
go to the website thebsupply dot com. If you're a bee keeper. They
got everything you need. If you want to be a bee keeper, they
got everything you need, plus really good training and they love to help people
have success. So you can go back in and ask them questions because there's
gonna be a thousand questions and it just you know, the beet Supply is
just it's just a place you need to go check out and also go visit
even if you're not a bee person. Pretty cool stuff. Well, let's
see here, We're gonna go to Spring and talk to Bob. Hello Bob,
Good morning, Chip. I got a question for you. Okay,
starting about two months ago in my backyard, it used to be Saint Augustine,
but the bermuna grass has taken over since the drought in the summer.
But now I'm growing mushrooms, okay, kicking them almost every day. Okay,
I become a mushroom farmer. Well, yeah, what do they look
like? Color? Size? Some of them have real big white heads,
you know, a good three four or five inches across, and the other
ones are a little brown, kind of button type mushrooms with little kind of
little brown helmetsile. Well, mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungus. And
for a lot of mushrooms, it may be the organic matter in your soil
that the fungus is decomposing. It's doing you a favor, by the way,
and then it sends up these mushrooms. Some people see the circles of
fairy rings, we call them. That's one type. There's other types that
live in association with tree roots or decaying wood underground, and there is not
a reason to worry about them. If you can ignore them. That would
be good. If you just want to get your golf club out and have
some fun, that would be okay. But they're not a disease of your
plants as you're describing those, and so I wouldn't worry about them, okay.
And can I get one more question? Sure? Okay? With this
crazy weather that we have in the summer and then these freezes in the winter,
might flower beds are pretty much naked except for two high biscuits. So
I'm looking for something to put in kind of around now that might be able
to get through the winter without me having to spend hundreds of dollars each year
replacing all my shrubs. So you're looking for annual flowers or what do you
now, I'm looking for some shrubs. I need some shrubs under my windows.
Oh, Michael, Well, hibiscus dye and the zalias I haven't had
any luck with. Okay. Well, you want to go and get something
that's very low growing because you don't want them to block your windows, that's
for sure. That's a mistake a lot of people make. Uh. There
are dwarf forms of yopond. There, there are dwarf forms of Chinese witch
hazel, which used to be the ones we had in the past who got
really big o there some that stay a little smaller can be kept a little
bit smaller in sunny areas. There's there're just a lot of options. I
think what I would do is go to a quality nursery and talk to them
about what they have, because literally they're going to have dozens of things that
you can choose from uh and do that. Your other option would be to
use a groundcover around the area, or to maybe have some taller th things
that our groundcover ish, like tall loriopee or cast iron plan in shade,
deep shade. So I would go to a nursery where you get a little
bit bigger, better palette than I'm going to come up with in a in
a minute here on the air. Okay, great, I'll take a couple
of pictures and that's what I'll do. There. You go, Thank you
so much, thank you. I appreciate that. See, we're going to
go Annie in spring. I've got just about thirty seconds, but you're going
to be the first when we come back. We're going to take a break
right now. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Well, good Saturday morning, and welcome back to garden Line.
We're glad you're listening, and if you'd like to call us seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four is the number you need. I'm going
to go now out to Annie and we're going to talk about what any killing
weed? All right? Eat something? I have bull rock around my house.
Of course, the rain continues, and I guess washes weed, seeds
down anything long term? And how often should I apply it? Well,
do you know anything about the kind of weeds you have? Can you describe
them or do you know names? Everything? You can? Think? I
have a little something that grows talls, and you know some that get down
and it's so hard to pull them because the roots are delicate. So you
know, I know it's I fight it with sprays and things, but I
thought you might have an idea on how to fight this because it just never
ends. Yeah, I understand the post emergent products that spray that kill the
weeds. You see, there are some that kill everything, all the grasses,
broad leaves and everything like that, and then there's some that just focus
ones. And so you kind of have that option I don't know. In
there. If your weeds are coming from seeds, then a pre emergent herbicide
would be helpful. But those you're going to have to put out seasonally.
You put them out in the spring. You might do them in the summer,
and then if you need it, and then in the fall again,
so you're still out there applying stuff. I think if you can just as
the seeds sprout and come up, just kill the ones that show their face,
that would be probably pretty good. If you catch them at a really
young age, you have more options on what will kill those weeds, what
kind of sprays or what would you see geest Okay, well, I'll just
mention some things. From an organic standpoint. Vinegar is the weed killer for
post emergent weed control probably just remember that it's a strong vinegar, not household
vinegar, and you need to be very careful using it. You wouldn't want
it to splash in your eyes or anything like that. Uh. It is.
Then as you go into the grass killers, there are two ingredients.
They're the names of the products will tell you they're a grass killer, uh
and and they will both kill grasses after they've sprouted and glacis, which is
round up and many other brands that kills both grasses and broad leaf weeds both
and so those last two products move down into the grass plant or the weed
plant and kill it from completely. They don't just burn the top like vinegar
wood. Sounds good. I don't like round up too much, but try
to avoid if I can. But yeah, it's your call, it's your
house. But yeah, those are some of the options. And if you
know, if you have pictures of the weeds, it may be that,
oh I need to recommend something different for that one, you know, But
but that that's my okay. I can think I get a little of everything
there is all right, And thank you very much. I appreciate you giving
us a call. You know, if you're going to establish and have a
successful laun or garden, you need to take care of the soil first.
The soil comes first for your vegetable garden, for your herbs, for your
flower beds. And the folks at Nature's Way they have got a quality mix.
They kind of have been a leader in soil building products for a very
long time. John Ferguson has created some of the He's actually created products that
a lot of other people sell now by the same name, like a leaf
more compost, like a rose soil for example. I mean he was original
on those. Now at Nature's Way, they have Fungal Fridays where you get
ten percent off bag products and twenty percent off bulk products that are fungal composts.
They can take care of that. They have leaf moll compass, they
have rose soil, they have all those things. Give them a call at
nine three six three two one sixty nine six three two one six nine nine
zero. We're going to go back to the phones now and talk to Ralph
in northwest Houston. Hey, Ralph, good morning. You're the greatest man,
the best ever been on this day. Anyway. I got my garden
now, and I want to put something in it right now. I had
trouble with my big old pecon try. I I'm kind of trouble this year
with its heat, and then we got a good weather finally. Okay,
So what could I just put plant good vest of bulgarsoma in my garden?
You want to know what vegetables to plant now? Is that what you're asking
me? Yeah? Okay, you can plant leafy greens like lettuce and a
regular spinach. Let's say it was just sorel is the LEMONI when I was
talking about earlier. Kal kal is a good leafy green that you can plant
this time of the year. And I'm probably probably forgetting a few more in
the other category, the coal crops. I call them blue leaf vegetables because
they have a bluish look to the green. That would be broccoli, cabbage,
cauliflower, kale, collars called robby Brussels sprouts. Those kinds of things
could also be planted. You can still plant carrots out in the garden and
probably get away with radishes if we don't have a real hard early phrase.
Okay, yeah, that sounds great. Well, hey, thank you for
the call. I appreciate it. Ralph, appreciate you calling. We are
going to let's see, I want to go to Carolyn here in southwest Houston.
Hello, Carolyn. Hi, I was so glad to hear you talking
about personally this morning and you said that we can now get it as a
vegetable. Yes. Does it have the same nutritional value as the weed.
Yes, it's just a bigger plant with big, fat, plump leaves that
are good. Uh, that's great. Do you have a pin or pencil
handy, I do, okay. One of them is called Mithra m I
t h r A m I t h r A. Another one is red
Groooner g r U n e r okay grooner. There's a third one that's
escaping me at this very moment. But if you do a search online and
you say pers Lane and Mithra for example, it's gonna it's gonna take you
to the where you can buy it. All right, yeah you can,
people do uh, but you don't know. So I was disappointed to hear
the narrow one one season vegetable. Vegetable one season. We don't plan them
until it warms up well next spring, all right, Oh okay, so
now will the vegetable ones be one season? All they're annuals, they're warm
season. Well, wonderful. Have to run, Carolyn, but go have
fun. Yeah that's a tasty weed one we ought to be growing more.
You know, the folks at Kingwood Garden Center and Warrens Garden Center out there
in Kingwood, they have got an excellent selection of plants everything you think about.
Okay, it's Christmas season, holiday season and whatnot. I need color
in my beds. They've got that out there now. They have the heirloom
Soul's Age leaf compost that is a high quality product. Three bags for thirty
dollars. Month of November only. Month of November only. They have package
bulbs and sale. They've got fall de coren accessories, Christmas cactus, Christmas
trees, everything that you can imagine. I mean, that's the deal that
they do now on Thursday, let's see. Nope, I had the wrong
date on that one. But when last time I was out of Kingwood,
I was. That's really impressed with just the color selection. And they are
so helpful. Again, it's a knowledgeable Mama Pop garden center and they can
direct you to any plant you need and tell you how to grow it.
We're going to take a break right now, Fred, you'll be first when
we come back. Our phone number seven one three two point two fifty eight
seventy four. Well, lovely brothers there on a beautiful Saturday morning. Welcome
back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Now, the
folks at Nelson Plant Food, Dean Nelson and his family and the employees out
there, they make a very high quality fertilizer. That's just the case.
They have beautiful blends that are designed for various kinds of plants. I mean
they've been doing this since nineteen eighty three. That's that's amazing. Now.
The lawn fertilizer for this season from Nelson Plant Food is carbo load. It's
called carbo load because when you put it in the ground, takes up the
nutrients and that grass is able to make carbohydrates that increases winter heartiness and helps
the plant come out stronger in the spring. And for every bag sold of
carbo load, Dean is going to donate two dollars to the Randy Lemon Memorial
Scholarship at Texas A and M for horticulture students. And I know Randy would
be very, very proud to know that there was such a thing honoring his
legacy up there. Carboload's an outstanding project. It also has a pre emergent
weed control in it, so if you are using the carbo load, you
are also putting down a pre emergent which is another reason to get it on
very soon and watered in with about a half inch of rainfall or irrigation.
We are going to go now to Cyprus and talk to Fred. Hello.
Fred and thanks for waiting. Actually it's an sage mond. Okay, how
can I help my Good morning sir. My question is I've been walking the
neighborhood recently a little bit more than what I should, and I know there's
those weed that's just popping all over, just taking control of everything. It's
a tiny little white daisy looking. Is there a nursey that I could take
a sample to in this area? You don't have to. I can tell
you what it is. It's called slender slender aster, slender aster. It
has other names that it goes by, but it is a warm season weed
that is in the astor family. That hence the little dime sized white to
pinkish colored flowers. There's nothing to spray on it now, it's too late
for spraying it. But every flower is capable of producing about fifty seeds,
and I've seen plants with one hundred flowers on them that big of a plant.
In the lawn, they grow horizontal. In a bacon lot, they
grow almost waist high. But you just have to grab it. It has
a taproot. If the soil is moist, you can grab it right around
that taproot and pull it right up, or use a pruning fork. But
every time you pull one weed out, you are saving yourselves hundreds of seeds
for next fall to be a problem again. So I highly recommend people hand
pull as much of it as they can as soon as they can. Okay,
surrender what astor as t R. Okay, thank you very much,
all right, sir, thank you. I appreciate the call. Our phone
number you're on garden line is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two kt r H. Give us a call.
We'd be glad to visit with you about whatever's of interest to you,
even if you like Fred walking around the neighborhood and you just see some weeds
and curious about what that is. That is definitely the weed of the month,
the fall or slender aster. Boy, is it ever? Is it
ever a little sneaky thing because you don't notice it until you get into the
later part of the season when it's about to start blooming. Now, I
tell you another time we noticed it around is this summer when lawns were dying
back from drought. It didn't get affected by the drought hardly at all,
and you had this blue, greenish looking plant growing in a dead to dying
Saint Augustine lawn kind of made it show up a little bit extra as well.
Okay, let's see, the Spring Creek Feed Center is our hometown feed
store. It's your hometown feed store if you live up in the Magnolia area,
and we love our feed stores here on Garden Line. They're on FM
twenty nine seventy eight now just minutes away. If you're up on Graham Parkway
or Highway to forty nine, you need your local feed store. It is
Spring Creek Feed. They got the fertilizers I talk about anything you need to
control pests, diseases, weeds and insects, or to fertilizer lawn, They're
going to have it there. I like the fact that they have friendly,
courteous staff that greets you. If you need feed for livestock, of course,
they got that high quality dog feed. They've got that. If you
want to do backyard chickens, they have all the supplies you need to get
started with backyard chickens. They'll special order products if you need them, and
they even have a delivery service available. I mean, what more could you
ask for from Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight.
Simple as that. Our phone number again if you'd like to give us a
call is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh. If you if you
haven't been to my website, it's gardening with Skip dot Com. I just
keep adding more things to it here. When we get past the holidays,
I'm gonna have a little extra time on my hands to be able to do
more, and we're going to really beef that up. You know, questions.
We had a couple of questions you know that came in this morning that
I thought, you know what, I need to put a publication up about
that. Like lighting, What kind of lighting do you need to start seedlings
for? That's something we do after the holidays, start our warm seasoned ceilings.
What kind of lighting do you need for a greenhouse? And how do
you know what's a good light and what's not a good light, and on
and on. I can do a publication on that, and I hope to
be able to do that soon. Right now, we're going to head out
to Eddie in Pasadena. Hello, Eddie, we got you. Hey,
Hey, Skip, I sent you some emails this morning. Quick, wow,
ask the question I do have, Saint Augustine Long, I got a
real bad beating this summer with tinchbugs and all that, and so I am
wondering if it is worth it for me to replace the grass with new sod
or just don't even bother and just wait for the spring coming up. Well,
that strip between the sidewalk and the drive the road is very dead.
There are some living sprigs that will fill in, but I think that's too
large of areas that they're going to have to cross over to fill in from
the little bit that's still alive. So I would probably consider resotting that a
lot of the rest that I see in the pictures. You know, you
got green spots here and there among the dead, and if the lawn is
healthy, it will cover over that pretty well. I mean, if if
you've got a spot that's even a foot in diameter and it can come across
from both sides, it'll fill that back in pretty quick once we get warm
weather. Okay, great, I'll just go ahead and focus on the ones
on the sidewalk. Yeah, take you there. I think that's it.
You bet, Thank you, for the call. I appreciate that very much.
You know, if you need any supplies for these kinds of things,
taking care of your lawn, dealing with pests and diseases, and fertilizing and
your gardens and your flower bits, Ace Hardware stor has got all of that.
But they're also the place for Christmas lighting and decoration. And I'm talking
about both inside your house and outside your house. Do you need a wreath,
do you need garland? Do you need lights? Oh my gosh.
They have a multitude of lights, different sizes and colors and everything even down
to something called Christmas or custom lights by the foot. Just go to your
Ace Hardware store and ask them about that. Ace Hardware dot Com is the
store for all Ace Hardware stores. The website and if you go to their
store locator, you can find the store nearest to you just by putting in
your zip code. Let's head now out to Baytown and we're going to talk
to Joan. Hello, Joan Ry, good morning. This is John Rumman.
They can not have an issue with one of my plants. Okay,
it's a flower plants that's outside. I don't know what the name of it
is anyway, what's happening. The leaves are have a white moldy looking on
it. Okay, now try to I showed my yard man, he said
it was a mouse. I would to the garden center and I gag me
something and it didn't work. Okay, Well it could be more than it
could be more than one thing. Are you able to take a picture and
send it to me up close? Eat my email? I can, yes,
Okay, Well, I'm going to put you on hold and Josh will
pick up and give you an email. I want some close up pictures and
a picture of the whole plant, if you would send that to me.
Make sure before you send them they're in good sharp focus. Okay, yes,
sir, all right, I'll be glad to help you that way.
I'm not just guessing as to what it might it might be. Let's see.
We're going to head out now to Liverpool and talk to Trish. Hey,
Trish, I got a couple of minutes here left. How can we
help? Yes, I have a persistent weed that it's very difficult to get
rid of out in the country. And this particular weed has these leaves on
it that when you touch them they fold up and then it develops a real
a purple puffy flower. Yes, I know the weed you're talking about,
and it is kind of cool how the leaves move. What's it growing in?
In other words, what do we not want to kill that? The
weeds growing around? Well, it's grown in my grass. I try to
keep it out of my garden, bent my raised beds. Yes, but
you know how deep those roots run. Yes, yeah, that's true.
So what you're going to need to use, and I'm just gonna talk kind
of quick here because I'm about out of time. What you're going to need
to use is a broad leaf post emergent weed control product. There is for
loam weed free zone. There is oh my gosh, weed beater ultra booneyed
that's another one. Just follow the label and you want to catch the weave
when it's actively growing, and you could try spraying it now, but next
spring when you start seeing it, they're going to need to do some spot
spring at that time too. Okay, all right, I'll do that,
Thank you, Thank you. Well, you've been listening to garden Line.
We are going to take a break and we'll come back with a nine o'clock
hour here in just a bit. Don't forget today to day. At RCW
Fall Fling, I'm going to be there from eleven thirty to one thirty.
They're going to have a sandwich lunch, barbecue sandwich lunch. They're going to
be giving away a number of different kinds of products as well as some little
tree seedlings I shouldn't say little. They're good sized lace bark ellm Mexican white
oak, live oaks. It's the time to pick up your trees because they're
on sale. All shrubs and some trees on sale at RCW. I hope
you can make it out today. They're the nursery where two forty nine comes
into Beltway eight. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with scip Rick
show Crazy, just watching as the world. Well, good morning and welcome
back to garden Line. It is going to be one awesome Saturday, and
I hope you have gardening plans from shopping to getting things done around the house.
Uh, this is a day for it. It doesn't get any prettier
than this. For sure. The questions that I had earlier in the show,
I was just thinking back on some of those things that people had asked
about, and it reminded me we were talking about some houseplant watering and issues
like that, and it just reminded me that we kill more house plants with
too much water than we do it not enough. That's that's true. I
mean, yes, you can underwater a houseplant, but we tend to keep
them too wet. And then we go into the cool season, the winter
season, and I know it's not winter in your house, but outdoors,
the light levels are lower and there are cold windows and things that can affect
the temperature around houseplots. They're just not using as much water and it is
extra easy to overwater them when they're in that cool season as well. So
just kind of think about that, take care of that. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. If you are in the market for a
roof, there's only one company that you need to think about, and that's
Brinkman. Brinkman Quality Roofing. They can come out, they can assess your
roof if you need one or not. They'll be direct with you, honest
with you on that, and what kind of roof do you want? Do
you want a metal roof, you want a composite roof? Do you want
a one of those Brigman timberline solar shingle roofs. I just think that's the
coolest thing in the world. Imagine this. It's not a solar panel that
sits on top of your roof, it is your roof. These these sections
of shingle have the ability to take, of course, take in the sunlight
and make energy out of it. That's really cool. Now, anything Brickman
does, they're going to order a warranty for twenty five years, and they've
been doing this for fifty years. Their customer ratings with a Better Business Bureau
are unbelievably good. I mean, people like the kind of work they do,
and that's how you stay in business for fifty years. You can go
to Brinckman Quality dot com. Brickman has two ends at the end Brinckman Quality
dot Com or you can call them at two eight one four eight zero seven
six six three Brankman Quality. If you have not downloaded the lawn care schedule
and the lawn Pestd's disease and weed schedule from my website. You need to
do that and check back perodotically or just bookmark the website probably be a better
way to do it, because I make adjustments to these, and I'm always
putting something new up on the website. But these tell you everything that you
need to do and when you need to do it, and what you need
to do from January to December of each year. It's multicolored. It's easy
to follow and even list products and things for that particular application, so it
makes it real easy to do. I did put an article up at the
website today or actually yesterday evening on the twenty twenty three USDA Plant Hardiness Zone
map. The new map came out. It's been eleven years since we had
a map, and a new one came out, and lo and behold,
most people have moved one half of a zone warmer. So if you were
a nine A, you were now a nine B. If you are an
eight B, you are now a nine A. You get it how that
works. My article on there explains a lot of things about what the map
does and does not tell you, and the importance of selecting quality plants that
are adapted to your region. And that takes us right back to where do
you go to get quality plants. Well, you go to a place like
enchanted Forest, for example Donn and Richmond. They are not going to say
you something doesn't grow here. They know what they're doing very much so they
by the way, they've got Christmas trees in now, they're being set up.
They're starting to arrive, and we'll be getting more in set up and
stands ready for you to come by as of right now. The first half
of the orders here and then the second half. The first half or Fraser
first. The second half will come in over this weekend will be Noble,
Grand, Nordman and silver Tip first. Wow, lots of different options there.
Next week the pointset has arrived. The nursery right now is loaded with
colors. So do you want pansies or cyclomen or snap dragons, a lissome
stock, lobelia. They've got all of that stuff and your winter vegetables and
herbs as well, so there's a lot of reasons to get out there.
Remember, as always, fall is the time to plant woody ornamental plants,
shrub trees and woody vines, and they have that as well. An excellent
selection of those as well. I was looking at Chinese fringe trees, one
of my favorite trees that they carry out there at Enchanted Forest in Richmond.
Now, how do you get there? Well, Enchanted Forest is it's not
going to be the thing that you just drive by going down Highway fifty nine.
You need to if you're heading let's say you're heading from Richmond North to
sugar Land. It's FM twenty seven fifty nine, so it's off to the
right. That is how you get there. You can go online and find
them. I mean, it's real easy to do as well, but it's
Enchanted Forest and it is a place you go for plants that you know are
going to do well. Here. We're going to go now out to Pearland
and talk to Ronda. Hello, Ronda, I skip. I have a
crate myrtle that has a black fungus or mold on it, and I've sprayed
some copper side on it several times and it doesn't seem to be helping.
So okay, I wondered, Yeah, okay, well, don't do any
more spraying with that. That is for fungus, and the black city mold
is a fungus, but it's not We don't spray for the mold. We
spray for the insects that cause black city mold, insects that feed on the
sap of plants. The flowum sap out the back end of the insect goes
a lot of sugary water. They don't need the sugar, they get the
other nutrients in the sap. And so you have this little mist falling all
the time. It's dropping on your leaves, it's getting on your trunks,
you know, on branches of your crpe myrtle, and then the city mold
grows on that. So you need to figure out which it is. It
could be aphids. Turn over a leaf and you see little yellowish chartruce colored
things underneath a leaf on a crpe myrtle. That's aphids, or it could
be bark scale. And that's going to show up is some little white things
on the trunk and branches. In each of those we approach from a different
way. But depending on which of those you have, the product you use
in the timing would be a little different. Okay, And if you want
to send me a picture, I can tell which it is and tell you
what to use for it if you'd like, I'd be happy to do that.
It looks more like the black scale. There is some white, okay,
spot well. Crete myrtle bark scale is a very difficult thing to control.
You can use oils in the winter time, but they're not fully effective
like they are against other types of scale. In the spring. There's a
period of time it's going to come, probably around March. It just depends
on the year where the baby scale come crawling out to set up shop,
and at that stage certain insecticide sprays will kill them, as will a horticultural
oil sprays at that time. You just need to time it well in order
to get ahead of them. Okay, thanks a lot, you bet,
thank you, Randa. Well, there's there's another publication I need to do
on great myrtle bark scale. We're going to take a break. Seven one
three two point two fifty eight seventy four. Good morning on a beautiful Saturday
morning, A good time to talk about gardening and get ready to go out
and do gardening, whether you're purchasing plants or preparing the soil or planting the
plants. Remember brown stuff before green stuff. Do not leave a garden center
if you haven't prepared your soil and you purchase plants, do not leave that
garden center without bags of compost to mix into the soil. To get that
soil right, heavy clays, maybe you need, you know, a little
expanded shale to go with it, but whatever you do, get the soil
right before you set the plants in it. That's the secret to success.
That is it. It's as simple. It's as simple as that. It's
also a time this weekend to go ahead and get your fall fertilization done.
And any fall we control that you're going to do because as the days get
cooler and cooler, we're going to see more cool season weed germination, We're
going to see diseases on our turf, and we're also going to see those
that rude growth slow down and its ability to take up a lot of nutrients
decrease. So we want to get it done. Nitropos has their Texas three
step It's just really simple. All all you have to know is it's three
steps. The first is Nitroposs Fall Special Fertilizer widely available, the second Nitrofoss
Barricade pre Emergent weed control widely available, and the third Nitrofos Eagle Turf fungicide
to soak into the its systemic. It soaks into the tissues and then it
prevents disease issues that may come around. Now, you can find nitrofoss in
a million places, but places like Gym's Hardware and Montgomery Ace Hardware, City
Immemorial, or Lake Hardware out include they all carry the nitrofoss three step system
makes it really easy to do. I'm going to go to the phones here
in just a second, but I did want to just say a word about
plant starting indoors. Now, I know the holidays are coming, it's the
last thing on your mind. But this right after the holidays, right the
first of the year, it's time to get those warm season transplants started.
And I can talk about more at that time. But if you have a
gardener on your list, or if you are a gardener who would like to
give a hint to people who have you on their list, a good quality
plant lighting is a great idea. The little cells with the covered clear plastic
covers, those little gadgets, that's great for starting plants. It's real easy
to do, and I would recommend that you consider some of the gardening supplies
for that gardener on your list. I always get excited when I get gardening
supplies as a gift. We're going to head now to Victoria and talk to
Michael. Hello, Michael, how are you today, sir? I'm well,
what's up? Good? Hey. We live out in the country and
mow inside our yard and outside the yard, and we've got some old world
blue stem krs and that kind of thing starting to pop up in the yard.
Is there any way to get rid of that? Saint Augustine? Is
it Saint Augustine, It's in a Saint Augustine yard, But we've got old
world bluestems like yeah, King Ranch and k R that's those That is tough
because you're killing a grass and the grass in some cases perennio grass and the
grass that those all come up above your Saint Augustine. So using a wiper
applicator could be a sponge soaked and round up. There's different kinds of applicators
you can purchase or make homemade. Uh, And you just wipe it over
the top and get it on those taller grasses and keep it off to Saint
Augustine. That's a strategy. I don't know how you know, appealing that
thought is will a wiper work? I mean, what's going on right now?
I know, you know, is just we just got seaedheads popping up.
Yeah, yeah we do. It'll help a little bit. But it's
better to catch those grasses when they're actively growing. And so I would,
I would right now. I would just mow them, just keep the mode
and uh then you know when when they come up in the spring, go
ahead and go after them. Then sure, all right, well that's kind
of what I thought. But I was hoping you had a silver bullet.
Well not not on that particular weed. You know, there are some things
that will kill what's the behea grass out of a long nice in. Yeah,
I'm not those others though. Hey, which direction from Victoria? Do
you live? A little bit east? Little east? Okay? Good,
well, enjoy it out there, and sure, good luck with the with
the weed management. You know, if you're wanting to fertilize your flower beds,
your vegetable gardens, your herb garden has to grow. Six twelve six
is a good fertilizer for doing that. Now. I use it myself as
a transplant fertilizer. That's just how I really love to use it. It
can be used in other ways, even a folier feed. But when I
put a transplant in, I don't care if it's a little pansy plant or
if it's a shrub or a tree or perennial grat whatever, watered in with
hash to grow six twelve six, and then about five days later, do
it again because you got new roots coming out in the soil. And about
five days later a third time, do it again, and that will help
that plant get off to a good start. It just does. And it's
important early on that that plant get its roots down and get them going and
you know, do some good early growth. We're going to go to Cypress
now and talk to Tiffany. Hello, Tiffany, Hi, Skip, how
are you today? I'm good? What's up in Cypress, Texas? Well?
We absolutely love you. You are just a joy to listen and so
informative. But I'm actually piggybacking on the lady who called about her as nailure.
Sorry, create myrtle. We have two in the backyard that are just
thriving, but one in the front. But it's not actually in the yard.
It's like in beds, and it's a lot smaller and it has that
black stuff that's just started developing about a couple of weeks ago on the leaves
and on part of the trunk, And so I really just wanted to send
pictures to you via Josh if I could get the email after we stopped talking
and let you look at it and just recommend what you think I should do
now and then heading into the spring, because I don't want to lose her.
She's really pretty. But okay, just let you see. Okay,
yeah, I can. I can do that. You know the city mold
already mentioned you probably heard when I was talking about that before. Demand of
managing the scale insects as far as printing the well, less is better on
a crape myrtle, people way over prune them all the time, they butcher
them, and so just I would take out little tiny twiggy growth if you
want. You don't have time if you want. And is this a younger
plant or is it an older plant? No, we've lived here four years
this June, so it's been there since we moved in, all three have.
And I did call Affordable Tree Service and not just to prune those,
but to also hang I'm sweetie, also to prune our trees like our oaks.
And he said, though he did not have availability until January. And
I know that you always say October November the prime time. So what do
you think of October November for planting or prime time? Oh for planting?
Plant in December, you can plant in January. Those are still good months,
even February. It's just how many weeks do you want to give it
before next summer. That's kind of the question, is when do you want
to get it planted to give it as much to him as you can,
right, and then what do you think about pruning our trees? Is January
and okay months to do that. January even early February is a good time
because you're about to get spring growth when the wounds they created heal the fastest.
Okay, gotcha, Okay, perfect, Yeah, I'll send you those
pictures. Yeah, I'll put you on hold, Josh, we'll pick up
the phone and give you the email. Thank you very much for that call,
Tiffany. I appreciate that. Let's see, we're going to go now
to Joan. Let's see. I didn't say where Joan is, but hey
Joan, Yes, yes, okay, how can I help? Oh,
I'll send you some email pictures on my plant that had you hading to mold
on it. You did, let's mold and plant looks sick. Okay,
all right, boy, I'm glad I had you send me pictures. That
is not mold that. Yeah, I know that's a mite. It's caused
by a mite and it's called the eero fid might if you want to,
you know, a fancy name. But that might is causing those white blotches
on your You sent me pictures. Wait a minute, did you send me
pictures of ruellia? I don't actually know what the name of it. Okay,
I think that's would it have come from Yoshi Mama? Okay, well
I got the pictures with it. But anyway, yeah, that's what it
is. What I would do wintertime, those plants are going to look good,
They're going to die back a little. I would cut all those branches
out at the ground and because they're not going to grow and bloom in the
winter. Next spring when it comes up the first time you start to see
those there is some treatment you can do, but it is a problem for
ruellia. But get all that old stuff, along with all the mites out
of there. Don't put it in your compotpologist, just bag it up and
get rid of it. Okay, all righty, But there's nothing I can
put on it right now. There's nothing to do it now. And it's
those are hard to kill when they're at that stage, and it just I've
had to cut them down one time already. Oh, you can cut that
thing down all the time. You are not going to kill it. It
is. It is like a weed in terms of its growth. Thank you
for the call. I appreciate, appreciate that very much. Now we're going
to go to let's see Greg in northwest Houston. Hello. Greg, Yes,
sir, how are you? I'm well? Thank you. I have
what one of the ladies earlier we're calling you about. Possibly it's it's scale.
I know it's scale. I've used soap and water and a tooth brush
on about twenty great myrtles, and then i use Captains Jack's and the sick
disidal soap okay, and then I've used melthion okay. And I need to
see if there's something. I think there's something I can put down on the
ground soap, the ground around the crepe myrtle, okay, to uh to,
So the crape myrtle's cooking up, so we eliminate this, okay,
systemically, all right, So for malathion, the only time that would work
is in the spring when the scale baby crawlers are out trying to set up
house. It would kill those, yeah, but it would do no good.
Now I'm trying to think of what the other thing you said before that
was. I think I think there's something called dominion. Dominion. Oh,
okay, now we're back to the put on the ground. Yes. Dominu
is a product that you mix up, follow the label, and you pour
it on the soil around the plant and just follow the label. Okay,
and the plant takes it up. Now they're not going to be picking it
up now because they're shutting down. They're shutting down, they're not growing.
The problem with the systemic insecticides for creatmurtle bark scale is that great myrtles are
one of the main things bees rely on in the heat of summer, and
if you get the insecticides up there, there's a potential to do damage to
those native pollinators. That is, that is the caveat on those But the
systemic is the most effective way to go about it. But they also they
also have beneficial insects. There's a lady beetle that's black with two red spots
that goes after scale and in time builds up the numbers to kind of keep
it in check. It'd be rare to see creat murtle, bark, scale
killer create myrtle. And I've found that while it starts off horrible, usually
over a few years it just sort of gets better, a little better on
its own. But those other options we've already talked to. That's how you
would go about it. Yeah, you know, and like I said,
I spent like two three hours with a tooth brush and a little don soap
and water also so get it and I just spot treat when I see it.
Yeah, well that you've kind of got the whole package. Eric,
Greg I'm gonna have to run, but I appreciate that call. Thank you
very very much. Hey, if you were up in the Montgomery area,
you need to go to A and A Plants and Produce. You probably already
have been there because when you drive from Montgomery toward Tomball, it's on the
edge of town on Montgomery on the left hand side serves that whole Lake Conroe
area, all those neighborhoods around Lake Conrod. This is your hometown garden center,
family owned for over thirty years. You know, Kathy now runs the
place. She's taken over from her took it over from her parents, Adam
and Alice Flores, who started it. And you're going to find every fertilizer
I talk about at A and A Plants and Produce. They're open seven days
a week from nine am to five pm. And if you want decorations for
the holidays, if you want color plants for your yard, A and A's
got it, plus all the fertilizers I talk about, and pest weed and
disease management products as well. On the east side of Montgomery on Highway one
oh five. I let's see here. I'm going to go to Marcy and
northwest Houston. Hey, Marsy. I've got about a million and a half.
But I see good morning. I live in a corner in every other
year, I put new soil to my whole property, right okay, And
where is the soil going. I know it's great for my for my land,
but nobody else does that. And I've been doing it for the last
twenty five years. Where are you putting the soil everywhere. Well, it
just I just level level it because I noticed the soil goes down in Okay,
if it's a if it's a bed mix with a lot of organic matter,
then it's going to decompose a way and and somewhat disappear over time.
And you add more. If it's actual soil, like top soil, it
should stay there and then the level should stay where it is. But the
bed mixes the compost things like that, you can top dress along with those.
It does very very well. Uh, and so that's probably it.
I got about twenty seconds here. What was that great? Thank you,
Thank you very much for your help. All right, Marsha, thank you.
Yeah. I hate to go to a call right for a break,
but I also want inybody to not have to wait, so darnong to talk
to me. Hey, we're going to take a break. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a
call and get on the board. And now I'm going to pass the baton
to Nicky who just when it comes to news she is the empress of the
newsroom. Oh wow, how was that for? That was free? By
the way, my Crown some titles, Trust Money, That one's free.
Thank you, Welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening today.
We're talking about, hopefully whatever you're interested in. That's why we have phones.
If you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two kt RH. It's
as simple as that. Now. I always talk about in the order of
planting plants, what do we do first? Brownze stuff, then green stuff?
Right, That's how it works because you want your plants to have a
foundation for success by the time you walk away, whether you put in a
seed or a transplant, when you walk away, you're about seventy five percent
of the way to success or failure. You've put it in a spot that
drains well or not, and the plant's going to have an opinion about that.
You put it in sun or shade, it's going to have an opinion
about that as well. You've chosen a species that is either adapted or not
adapted. You've planted it properly or you've planted it incorrectly, one or the
other. Do you see what I'm talking about? But most importantly is you
have put it in a quality mix where the roots can thrive, or you
have it and to just dig a hole in a clay soil that's an underground
bathtub. Put a plan in that. That is a recipe for failure.
So building your beds properly is so important. Heirloom soils, they're having a
big fall special. I mean, this is a huge deal, the veggie
and herb mix. It's normally one forty eight for a supersack and one hundred
and ninety eighteen. No excuse me, that is the new prize. I'm
sorry, more than that. One hundred and forty eight for a supersack and
one hundred and nineteen bolt. That is really really good. They can deliver
it. You can go pick it up. You just work that out with
them. The rose soil ninety nine dollars for that supersack. By the way,
a supersack is what you would expect. Just imagine a giant sack that
they set on your driveway with a whole qubic yard of soil in it.
Seventy dollars book for the rose soil. So don't miss out on this.
By the way, someone called earlier and was asking about grasses. Well,
they also sell out of the Warren Drock and Moltz. They also sell and
deliver lawn grasses too, so that you know, while you're out there buying
your soils, or while you're calling in buying your soag, you can also
go ahead and get your grass delivered for you. The number for that,
by the way, for the turf delivery Warren Trock and Malts would be two
eight one three five four nineteen fifty. And again just remember you can have
them deliver it, you can go out and pick it up or airloom soils
products are widely available around town at the garden centers you love to visit,
so check them out. Take advantage of the bulk sale if you're doing any
bed building, and I hope you are. And also if you just need
small amounts, you can buy it by the bag. That is about as
convenient as you can get. We are going to now go to Leah and
Tomball. Hello, Leah, Hey, Skip, how you doing. I'm
well, thanks. So I was unlike everybody else, my yard took a
major hit with the drought and everything. And I have Saint Augustine. I
get so much sun in the front yard and it just got burnt to a
crisp And I was looking on the Aggie turf site like you recommended, and
I saw that there's a Zoija Jepponica that has a seed option. What would
it be like to throw seeds of that into the dead areas of my Saint
Augustine? Wou those two mixed together? Well or not? It would be
they would both be a weed to the other. They're They're very different in
their look and their mowing schedule, even mowing height is different. So no,
I would. I wouldn't Exstoysia with Saint Augustine. Okay, Well,
I'm just you know, I'm looking at potentially having to resaw it half my
yard, and I was just trying to look for other options that might be
a good drought tolerant. I understand that, Leah, I feel your pain.
I lost a couple sections where my eargation didn't come on this summer when
I was away for several weeks. But yeah, it's just it's what we're
left with, you know, just putting some sod back in those areas or
starting over if you want to go to that, and then you're really buying
a lot of sod and are you recommending I know you were talking about you
take care of the brown stuff first. Yeah. Do you think do I
need to dig out, like take away all of the dead Saint Augustine stuff
and put down maybe compost or whatever book for I resell. If you're doing
this in and among your grass you already have, I wouldn't do the compost
and things. You can do a top dressing later on, but I would
get all the debris off the surface, because you want the soil that comes
with the SOD to be completely in contact with your soil, So maybe raking
it to loosen it a bit and then laying this down and making sure it's
it's good contact. That's the secret to that. Hey, I'm going to
ask have to run, but I appreciate the call very much, and I
know a lot of people are having the same kinds of experiences with it as
well. We're going to go out to Georgia and Laporte. Hello Georgia,
Hi, Skip, how can I help? Well, we had a magnolia
tree out in our front yard and because the drought, it died because we
weren't here to take care of it. We were wondering what kind of tree
can we get where the roots go down, but yet not a whole lot
of mess like berries and stuff like that. You don't what you're saying.
You don't want berries? Right, Well, we're not sure what we want
yet. Then we know we need a tree out there because it's so hot
on our metal front door that it almost burns your hand to open the door.
All right, Georgia, I've got about one minute to answer you,
and after that, if you want to stay on hold, I'll come back
to you after the the Uh, we have to take the break. You
might consider some hollies. There are some nice upright hollies that you know,
the various sizes are available. You can you're down there and the put You're
pretty close to the Verdant Tree Farm down there, not too far from Pasadena.
Uh, and that's on Broadway Street. You might talk to them about
I know they carry several of the more upright or taller types of hollies.
That would be an option to get you back into an evergreen. Uh.
So you don't have the complete deluge of leaves at one time in the fall,
but just take good care of them if you're going to plant them.
Uh. You know, there are a bunch of other plants we could talk
about, but I think that's pretty much the one I would go with.
Okay, all right, that sounds good. Thank you. All right,
Well, when you talk to the people at Verdint, they're going to probably
have another idea or two for you. Thank you for the call. I
appreciate that very much. Well, here we are another break. We'll come
back for the last fifteen minutes of Garden Line. Our phone number is seven
to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, welcome back
to garden Line. We're We're glad you're here today, glad to be able
to talk with you about all kinds of things plants. We are going to
go straight to the phones, and first we're going to talk to Jennifer and
Dickinson. Hello Jennifer, Hi, how can I help? We have a
Holly Stephen tree, and we have several of them, and this one isn't
as green as the other one because he's turning yellow. Okay, I don't
wonder causing that, Well, it could be different things. Holly's how long
has it been in the ground? Is it within the last year you planted
it? Yes, sir, Okay, the first year or two or three,
actually Holly's you need to kind of TLC them when it comes to the
roots and make sure the whole root system gets well watered to keep the soul
moist and not let it dry out. When it's a new plan, all
the roots are confined, and so the watering has to be done right there
because even though the soil around it's moist, that root system gets pumped ry
quick. So it could be something like a droughty symptom. But it also
could be soggy wet conditions. And when holly roots cannot get oxygen, that
tree is going to have big problems. It's going to go down. So
it'd be one of those two. If the yellowing is just on the newest
growth of the leaves, sometimes that we point to a iron deficiency for that.
If it's the older leaves that are yellowing and falling off, I'm going
to go back to the water as being the most likely something in the watering.
Okay, okay, that makes sense. All right, Thank you you
bad, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. If you're looking
for a quality fall fertilizer and pre emergent herbicide all in one well, that
is Carboload. Carboloads made by Nelson Fertilizer. And by the way, every
bag of Carboloads sold this fall, Dean Nelson's going to donate two bucks to
the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship. So you think of that the Houston area and
the potential there for a nice little donation, and Randy would be so proud
to know that his legacy lives on in that way. But Carboload, and
the main thing I want to tell you right now is that it is a
quality product. It's designed for the fall fertilization, and this is the most
important fertilization of the year, is in the fall. Yes, it's important
to fertilize other times, but in the fall you're sending that plan into winter
with the carbohydrate load that it needs for cold heartiness. By the way,
potassium's good for drought tolerance too, And then coming out in spring, it's
going to come out stronger because it uses stored energy for the first growth of
spring. So carboload will do that. It's got a pre emergent in it.
Just put it down, do it soon before a bunch of weeds have
germinated, and before the grass is slowed down anymore, put it down half
inch of water watered in, and you're in business. It is as simple
as that. We're going to go now out to Richmond and talk to Frank.
Hello, Frank, how do you there? Skip a nice talking to
you. They I'm good. And now Joe, we have a coddo about
you down at the in China forest. And it has never produced. Okay,
Uh, how old is it? Oh bye? About eight years now.
It's been through the Harvey, has been to two freezes. Uh,
actually three floods. I think two three flood Yeah, I've been right on
the river. Well, Joey's a tough, tough tree. Yeah it is.
I mean it prosed and it came back from the root, and so
did my old citrus of It's an orange tangery type tree. My uncle gave
me about thirty years ago. And I put it in the ground here and
once they called Randy and I asked, hey, somebody told me if you
bang it with a bat or something during the spring, before the spring,
it'll it'll come back. And it's sure. It blossomed me in put a
lot of fruit. Well, it also and they're coming back. Okay.
Well, in general, I wouldn't recommend the bat banging, but I could
go into why that works, but that's not important that. Why is Joey
not producing? You're not seeing blooms either, nothing? Nothing? Well has
it had severe freeze damage in past years? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
I mean it came back. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, you
were telling me about it. Well, that that's setting it back and having
to come with new growth. I mean that's not doing it any good for
sure. Hopefully it will after we get through this winter and everything. Next
year will be a better year for it. Uh. The only you know
there, you know, the stuff hitting with a bat and things like that.
I just wouldn't recommend that. Getting Giving it good fertilizer, but not
too much is important too. Just what I use for the trees normally that
the green one. I think it's micro life. Yeah, micro life six
two four would be fine for avocados. And you wouln't want to play that
several times? Yeah, several times, yeah, several times in small doses
with that micro wife around the avocado. Is it getting lots of sunlight?
Yes? All right, all right, Well, uh, Joey just needs
to get with the program here. Maybe if you walked out with the bat
and just tapped the trunk a little bit and said, if I don't see
avocados next year, I'm coming back and I'm going to go after you like
a baseball player, maybe that will normally bloom. Oh gosh, you know,
I should know that I don't have an avocado tree. I live too
far north for avocados. Oh, I have you know what I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna get my best guess. I'm gonna find the answer before I
answer that. Thank you. Well, I'll listen. I listen all the
time. So all I appreciate you. Okay, you take care and enjoy
a program, Sir, I appreciate ate that very much. We're going to
go now to Tom in Rosenberg. Hello, Tom, Tom, I'm not
able to hear you. Well, okay, let me can you hear me?
Now? That's better? Yes, okay. I have a silver leaf
maple that I thought I was going to lose this summer. I deep root
seated a lot water, and I want to know what type of fertilizer and
if I should continue that process this fall. Deep water root feeding and watering
did you say, what what for what type of tree? It's a silver
leaf maple. Silver Okay, it's thirty years old, and I know they're
not common for this area. Yeah, yeah, well you I tell you
you it. You've gotten a lot of years out of that tree. A
lot of people don't don't get that many years out of it. I would
not do any more deep root feeding or watering. Now. It's fine.
It's going to be just fine when you does it have a lawn around it?
Yes, it grass all the way around it. Okay, I would
say when you fertilize your lawn, that's plenty for that silver leaf maple.
At the stage it is now, it's kind of reached close to its full
size and it doesn't need to be pushed into a lot more growth with a
you know, like a high nitrogen fertilizer something along those lines. I wouldn't
do that. I would just gradually feed it with a moderate amount, and
I think that's probably the best route. And I just know that you're right.
It's days or numbered. But we always have outliers in any species that
live way longer than we would expect. So yeah, so would I do
you think in the spring do I need to deeproot water or just water like
normal. No, are like normal top down. Think of a forest.
You know, the forest gets water from the top down. That's just fine.
Now, if you have really dry soil, you need to get down
there and provide some water just a little under the surface a foot or so.
That's fine. But as long as it's raining, or as long as
you can provide a good soaking from the top that that's the way I would
go about it. Wonderful. I appreciate your your intelligence and helping all of
us figure out our gardening and treat issues. Okay, well, thank you.
Those were kind words. But that's what we do and we love doing
it. It's fun. Thanks for calling Tom. I appreciate that. Wow,
this is it's been a whirlwind day. We've kind of gone pretty quick
here in terms of you know, each segment seemed to go fast today.
Going back to the avocado question, I should have known the answer of that.
But avocados are going to bloom in earlierly spring and all all the way
into mid to late spring, even depending on the area and the type you
have and whatnot. But that's that is the answer to what I was asked.
Just a moment ago. I want to remind you that I'm going to
be at RCW Nurseries when this show ends, which is in a very short
time. I'll be there and we will be They have a barbecue lunch first
of all, barbecue sandwich lunch, and they're going to be given away all
kinds of products, and I'll be there giving them away as well. We're
going to be given away lace park elm Mexican white oak, which Monterey oak
and live oak seedlings that are in really quality seedling growing pots. So these
are trees that they are perfect for planting right out. And then they have
a sail on all the shrubs fifteen percent off, and many of the trees
as well are on sale. There's a number of really cool quality trees they
have, so while you're out there, there's your chance to grab the tree
or shrub or rose bush or hey, why you're out there, you can
get your winter color and winter vegetables. RCW has it all and we're gonna
have some fun out there today. So I hope you show up and let
me meet you. I'd I always like to meet people that listen to Garden
Line. We can look at plant samples for identification, for diagnostics. Just
make sure and don't bring me dead plants. I cannot do autopsies, just
diagnosis. Also, if you want to maybe take some pictures from your phone.
You saw a plant somewhere, what plant is that? Or here's my
yard, what would you recommend for this area over here, we'll have all
those kinds of conversations eye to I. Thank you for listening to garden Line
today. It's great to visit with those of you who called in and we
look forward to coming back tomorrow. You know, we're here every Sunday and
Saturday from six am to ten am. We're also available by podcast. Look
for garden Line on your podcast supplier for the iHeartRadio or whatever your podcast supplier
is, you can find garden Line on there. You can even go to
my website gardeningwith Skip dot com and I've got a link right to the show
where you can listen to past shows and you can also listen to live shows.
So lots of ways to listen to Gardenline. Thanks for being a listener.
We'll be back tomorrow.