Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Scared Rickard's crazy trip. Just
watch him as many good things to septy not a sound sun beam done.
Good morning, Good morning, welcome to garden Line. Boy. We are
ready to go today. We got plenty to talk about. You know,
it's summertime and it's a little hot and uncomfortable to be outside during the heat
of the day. But there's a lot of things we can get done with
a little early morning, a little bit late afternoon hours as well. I
even take advantage of the mid parts of the day to get some other things
done. Perhaps inside we've been potting up some string ofves. Do you know
what I'm talking about? String ofves? My wife has a bunch of different
kinds of string, string of purple, string of tears, string of bananas,
string of turtles, all that kind of thing, string of pearls.
Anyway, getting some of those repotted up, doing some propagating on them.
By the way, succulents are one of the most popular plants and have been
for a number of years now. Just really grew in popularity because they're so
easy to care for, you know, with succulents. But the worst thing
you can do is water them too much. But if you ignore them,
if you neglect them, if you forget them, they just have the ability
to hang on and wait for you to show up again and take off growing
again. And boy, they're fun, they're easy, and they're so many
kinds of succulents, Lots and lots of options out there, and this would
be a great time when you're out and about visiting garden centers. Pick you
up some of those, bring them home. Some of our garden centers are
doing a great job of putting together combination planters of all kinds. You can
do a combination planter for succulents. And whereas with most things we put in
a container, I'm telling you one container size bigger than you think. You
know, go bigger, go bigger, more soil, more moisture holding ability.
Well, with succulents, you can put them in things that don't have
as much. In fact, you're less likely to overwater a succulent if you
don't put it in too much soil. If you take a you know,
you can have a succulent that's in I don't know what two cups of soil
and it's got strings hanging three feet down all sides, and it's perfectly happy.
It dries out quickly, which is what it wants. It doesn't want
to sit there and soggy wet soil. And it's just an easy plant to
grow. And you know when you buy from a nursery that knows what they're
talking about, and that would include every one of our sponsors here on Guarden
Line. You can talk to the folks. They understand the plants, they
understand how to take care of them. If you have issues, they help
you with that, and that is so valuable. Plus it's more fun to
shop at those places. They just have more selection than knowledgeable staff. Though
I think that you can't you can't overestimate the value of that. And I
see so many people go home with plants from places. Well, let me
just say, you will not be even be shopping at because the plants are
not in good condition in many cases, and they may not even be plants
that need to grow. Here, I just cringe when I'm trying to stay
out of the naming game here. But you probably can figure out the kind
of places I'm talking about when you go into those places and you see things
for sale that don't grow here. They will not grow here. They are
destined for death in our climate. And it's because some national company is ordering
them for all the stores. I guess. I don't know how that works,
but it doesn't make sense. Go to a good garden center and right
now succulents are a cool thing to pick up. I hope you'll consider doing
that. You're listening to garden Line. It kind of would help for me
to give you a phone number since this is a call in show. Uh
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two five eight seven four, give us a call listen if you have been
Maybe you're okay on your lawn fertilizer. You've got that covered for summer.
When was the last time you put down the azamite application. Asamite is the
micronutrient, the trace mineral supplement that helps make sure the bank account has the
small things that are essential for plant growth. They're not needed in quantity,
but they are absolutely needed. That's azamite. Asimite Texas dot com is the
website azimite Texas dot com. You can find azamite everywhere. It's easy,
easy to find. When we talk about feet stores and garden centers and ace
hardware stores and Southwest fertiliz All these places you hear me talk about, they're
going to have as might And that's something you don't do it every time you
fertilize. You just once a year. Even best thing of all is just
have a soil test done periodically and see where you are on nutrients, because
nutrients are essential and a nutrient balance is very important, and so I encourage
sol testing whenever you get a chance, and especially though, make sure if
your soil is lacking some micros is a mite important thing to know. I
was up in the Tumbul area the other day and D and D Feed Store
is your local feed store on the west side there of Tombul on twenty nine
to twenty. I always like to stop in at D and D because they
have a good selection of all the kinds of things that you would need in
order to have success. So like if I talk about fertilizers, you're going
to find them at D and D feed. When we talk about things like
a soil blends, a D and D is going to have things like the
aged leaf mold compost. It's so important for a top dressing. And I
don't talk. I don't mention this enough and I should more. But it's
you can do the complete yard deep tinme aerration, you know core aeration.
You can do the top dressing of compost over the whole yard. That's a
great idea. It's especially helpful when you have a heavy clay or a compacted
type soil. But if you're just patching up spots, grab you a few
bags of age leaf more compost, like a D and D feat and put
it out, sprinkle it out. You only have to put it about third
to a half inch deep over the area, so even a bag goes pretty
far and that will help patch it up. I've got a spot that is
struggling with some take all root rot that has come in due to some stress
from excessive shade. And so the first thing I did was, you know,
puur in the trees to get a little more light in there. This
happened to be a big old matches, crape myrtle, and then secondly,
do some air rating, just hand aer rating in that because it's a small
area, and then leaf more compost over the top. That's what we've done.
We've got it we're bringing it back along with regular watering to keep it
happy. But anyway, place like D and D Feed, you're going to
find heirloom rose soil, You're going to find the fruit berry and citrus,
the veggie and herb soils, and every kind of product you need to control
pest, weeds and diseases in your landscape. D and D Feed again,
they're on the west side of Tombull twenty nine to twenty. If you want
to give them a call to eight one three five one seventy one forty four.
Say hey to them when you go in. I think you'll enjoy also
seeing when you walk in if you haven't been there in a good while,
you're gonna be surprised at the new material that they have that. Of course,
they expanded the store last summer and it just is a great place to
shop. If you'd like to ask a question or discuss something that you're dealing
with, give us a call at seven one three two one two kt r
H. I'll be right good to have you with us today. Again,
if you'd like to give Uskull seven to one three two one two k t
rh ktr makes it easy to die that way. I hate you just a
kind of public service announcement if you're down anywhere near the Richmond area today after
the show starting in other words, at ten am this morning, going to
noon, Enchanted Gardens is having a Container Herb Gardening class now Maria, who
is their magician of all kinds of combination planters. If you've been to Enchanted
Gardens, you have seen the work. It is beautiful. And I'm telling
you a combination planter is so beautiful. Whether it's flowers or herbs or even
vegetables, there are a lot of ways to combine things to make it really
really interesting. Today there'll be that class, and that is going to be
from ten am to twelve noon Container Herb Gardening. She's going to share how
to combine things, how to put them together. The cost is based on
kind of what you select. You know, you pick out the plants you
want to put together, you purchase those plants, and they're going to help
you learn how to create that kind of beautiful, beautiful planting. By the
way, if you haven't been to Enchanted Gardens, first of all, you
need to crawl out from under a rock, because pretty much everybody has.
I think by now it's on FM three point fifty nine north of Richmond.
So if you're heading up toward Katie Way from Richmond at trut there, and
while you're out there, you need to check out some other stuff. They've
got some really cool plants. For example, have you seen the Texas sage
blooming all over town? The Texas Age is kind of the color varies from
kind of a pinkish, there's some white versions, kind of lavender colors,
beautiful shrub. It grows wild out west to San Antonio. You see it
out in the hillsides out there. So that tells you how much water it
needs, which is none. Tells you how much care it needs, which
is essentially none. You can do some pruning and things on it. But
they've got some beautiful and so they got one called silver Star that has silvery
foliage. And so following periods of rain, the Texas Age just bursts out
and blooms. We see those cycles all through the year. And I'm telling
you there are very few plants that'll track the honey he's in Like that plant.
When it blooms, it's like a notice goes out to all the bees
and they show up. But while you're riding in Jenny Gardens. Why don't
you grab you one of those Texas sages. The one called Silver Star is
just one of many beautiful ones that are out there. Excuse me. This
past week have been working on my yard. I let mowing get away from
me. And I'm the guy who tells you the most single most important thing
you do to your lawn to make density is mow it. Sunlight's important,
fertilizers important, water is important, of course, of course, but mowing
regularly creates density, and I let it get away from you. I've had
some things going on here and there where I can't get around to mowing my
lawn. Finally did cut it way back, and now it's time to start
over again on regular mowing to create that density. That's an important aspect of
long care. Another important aspect is, of course, fertilizing your lawn.
If you haven't fertilized your lawn this summer, now's a good time to do
it. I create a schedule that two schedules that are on my website,
gardening with Skip dot com. They're free, you can download them. They
got the products, they got the times you apply them. It's all really
easy, really easy to do. But if you haven't fertilized yet, or
you look at the schedule and go, well, the schedule said do it
back here, and I didn't get it done, then then go ahead and
do it now. You can still do it now. The product that will
release those nutrients rather quickly for you in an organic type form is sweet Green.
Sweet green is made by nitrofoss and sweet green is naturally occurring. It's
made from a molasses space and it will absolutely energize the beneficial bacteria in the
soil. That's why organic gardeners put molasses in the soil. It helps with
all the microbes that are there helping you in your plants. Sweet Green's eleven
percent nitrogen, very high percent for an organic type product. I would recommend
using it this way rather than creating a flush excessive flush of growth. Why
not split that sweet green in half. And you're going to want to put
ten pounds per thousand square feet of sweet green, So do five pounds now
and six to eight weeks from now it do the other five pounds. Just
small doses. You know. We can use a slow release product and get
gradual release, or we can take a not slow release product and immediate release
and put it on in small amounts and in a period that could be two
or three applications. And that's what I would do this summer at this point
in time. Starting off with that sweet green, Let's take the ten pounds
and cut it in half and do it in two about six to eight weeks
apart. I think you'll be very pleased. It dissolves quickly, it moves
down in the soil and the plants will respond. You will see a really
nice response. You can buy sweet Green many places. If you're up in
the Willis area, Grows Outlet has it up in the Woodlands, you're going
to find it at all Spa Ace Hardware Shades of Texas as well, and
then in the Memorial area Memorial Drive. Ace City Hardware is another place you
can find that sweet Green. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden,
a more beautiful landscape. That is what it's all about. Gardening is
the best hobby in the world. It just is. And for those of
you who haven't gotten around to it yet, that's okay. Just one of
these days, I'm gonna talk you into it. I think we need to
find gateways into gardening, you know, like gateway drugs into gardening, such
as taking care of house plants, or learning to propagate plants, or just
a few plants in a small area for cut flowers to bring in. There's
so many ways. If you have a five gallon bucket, you can drill
some holes in it, fill it full of a quality product, like a
veggie and herb mix for example, that would be a good one, and
then plant some herbs in it, plant a pepper in it for plant a
small tomato. Five gowns a little small for a tomato. But you can
do it. There's lots of things you can and grow and kind of start
getting your feet wet and trying out guarding. I'd encourage you to do that.
It is a lot of fun, it's not hard to do, and
the best thing of all is I'm here officially giving you permission to fail.
That's right. Didn't that sound strange? Where that come from? I'll tell
you why I have failed at growing things many times in my life. Listen,
to be a good gardener, you got to kill a lot of plans.
That's one good way to look at it. That's what I call the
permission to fail. No, we're not killing them on purpose, but you
never know. You know, nature has throws its curves, and sometimes we
try something that doesn't want to grow here. Sometimes we try it in a
way that doesn't work. Really well, that's okay. You just learned something
and became a better gardener. And gardening is not like you're painting your house.
You know, you paint the whole house and you look at it and
you go, oh, I hate it. Now I got to hire somebody
to paint the house again. Gardening is a constant rearranging. It's like inside
your house, you rearrange the furniture. You may add some new chair,
couch, your love seat here, you may put in new curtains, or
you may move this from here to over there. And you see what I'm
saying. Gardening is that way you can do from A to Z the whole
yard from scratch. Good luck with that and bring your checkbook. Or you
can just do it a little at a time. You know that front flower
bed that needs redoing, you can redo that bed and just make it look
nice. Maybe it's just reshaping the bed so it's a nice flowing bed that
has a more esthetic shape and more balance to it. Didn't matter what you
want to do. It may just be putting in one plant like that silver
star sage I was talking about dan in Chinne Gardens. It may just be
putting that one plant out in a sunny spot so in the brutal heat of
summer we get a little rainstorm and boom, you've got beautiful color. Whatever
you do, have fun doing it, and keep listening to garden Line and
call us when you have problems. Let's help you get it right. Because
this is a really fun, relaxing and healthy both physically and mentally healthy hobby
and you can have success. You will. Don't give up, just keep
keep trying and get good advice. One of the things I often say on
garden Line is the brown stuff comes before the green stuff. Take care of
the soil first, and then get good plants, put them in, and
that's the steps to success. Another thing I say is there aren't any brown
thumbs that are only uninformed thumbs, and we're going to inform your thumb.
When you see somebody that can grow things and you can't grow things, it's
not because they have some special kind of thumb. It's because they've learned some
things. Maybe they got lucky and learned them that way. Maybe they paid
attention and learned them that way. Whatever it is is you get the right
information on how to create success, you get better and better at it,
and your thumb gets greener and greener. So in the meantime, let's keep
listening to guard Line. If you've got a question, you'd like to give
us a call about seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three, two one two five eight seven four. One of the important
things for summer is making sure that you do not leave bear soil anywhere on
your property. Where the soil is bare, nature plants of weed. Wherever
sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. That's how it works.
Mulch is your friend. Mulch does a number of things. It blocks the
sunlight out so weed seeds cannot germinate and establish successfully. That's important. It
prevents erosion when we get the gully washers, and we've already had them this
year, already more than one. It also help prevents crusting when when rain
hits the soil and then it dries out. You get this little shell,
this little crust over the surface, and many types of soils and mulch helps
prevent that. One of the most important things it does in summer is moderate
soil temperature. It is bla hot here and you can measure the temperature an
inch deep or even three inches deep, and it's hotter than roots are gonna
thrive in. It just is, and that's taking away some of your root
zone of your plant. And the roots tend to be up near the surface
where there's good oxygen. And if you make that area too hot by not
mulching in the heat of summer, then you're just dressing your plants. Mulch
is wonderful and the folks at Landscaper's Pride have a number of excellent mulch products.
They've got their black Velvet and that is a beautiful velvety, dark,
naturally dark, not dyed mulch that is excellent for use in your plants.
You can find it in bags all over town. The hardwood mulch is another
good one. Ground up hardwood. This is ground up the trees. The
hardwood is a clear lands. They take down trees and things. They grind
that up and make a mulch out of it. That's excellent. This isn't
ground up palets like Jo products will be. You do not want that.
It's pine bark Moltz. There's another one, probably their most popular one,
very slow to decompose. And then things like cedar and Cypress. Cedar and
Cypress both are very nice natural multus. I like cedar because initially you know
it comes out with this wonderful air aroma, beautiful natural red streaking through the
mulch. Cypress is very durable and very very i'll say heavy, and that
when it gets wet, it stays in place and doesn't just float around and
go places. Very light colored. All from Landscaper's Pride. You can go
to Landscaperspride dot com find the stores that carry it. But I can just
tell you this, it is very widely available in the human Houston area.
Whichever molts you choose, get it done and keep it done, meaning add
to the mulch as needed. Mult decomposes away where it touches the soil.
That's how the forest floor works, and so you have to top it off
each time. Don't take the ulmulch away that's just getting really good for the
soil. Just add some new to the top. But just remember this.
Wherever the sunlight hits a soil, nature plants a weed, so don't let
it get the surface of the soil. It's time for me to take a
break for some news here. Our phone number is seven one three two one
two k t RH if you'd like to give us a call broadline. Glad
you're with us today. Good to have you with us today. Listen,
we've gotten that rain recently, and oh boy, do we ever get some
rain. Most of you did it at least, and some of in excess.
When that happens, your clay soil swells up. It literally gets bigger,
It literally swells up. And then when it gets dry. A lot
of our clay soils have that same characteristic. They shrink down. And that
movement, that soil movement. That's why when you down drive through streets downtown
and you see it's like you're driving down a mountain range. You know the
street is buckling and pushing up and sinking down, and that's from the movement.
It breaks water lines, it's not powerful, and it breaks foundations,
and it breaks sidewalks and it breaks driveways. Fix my slab Foundation repair is
a place that you want to call when you're dealing with anything like that.
Ty Strickland's been doing this for twenty three years. It's a local small business.
But I'm telling you he knows what he's talking about. He's got the
experience. I've sat on him with him and picked his brain and just learned
a lot about the whole world of soil movement and the effect that has on
foundations and other things. Do you have sicky doors in the house, that's
a possible sign of movement. Do you see cracks in the brick or cracks
in your sheet rock indoors. Don't waste time. It's not going to get
better, it only gets worse. So give him a call. You can
reach time. Let me give you a phone number two eight one two five
five forty nine forty nine two eight one two f five forty nine forty nine.
Or go to the website fixmyslab dot com. Let me tell you something
about tie in his business. He shows up on time, he fixes it
right, and he does it at a fair price. What more can you
ask from any kind of a service company? On time, fixed right and
fair price. That's fixed. My lab foundation repair Tietrickland two eight one two
five five forty nine forty nine our phone number if you'd like to give us
a call seven one three two one two K t R H. And we're
going to head straight out to the phones now and talk to Troy and Plantersville.
Hello Troy, and welcome to garden Line. How's it going? Hey?
I got me thinking about fifty area that I'm working with and it's I've
tore it down because I'm doing some landscaping in it and it's uh clay,
and I want to bring it back. And I got a tractor with a
killer on the back that I was going to kill it up. Can I
put regular tree uh chippings that's coming from the trees, that from the chippers.
Can I put that in that mix mix that into soil to bring it
back? Well, I wouldn't mix. Yeah, I wouldn't mix those chunky
wood things in the soil. Well, that is fine for use as a
surface mult you know, shredded whatever is fine to use as a surface mult.
I would The thing is when we put a lot of undecomposed wood type
material in the soil, it ties up nitrogen quite a bit and that eventually
that balances back out. But we would rather use something that's already decomposed in
the soil. That's why you always hear people talk about putting compost and bed
mix things like that in the soil. Now, if you're not going to
deal with that soil for a long time, if you're not going to plant
in it, and you know it's gonna be six months or something, you
could mix some things in the soil. But the bigger and chunkier it is,
the more the soil is going to settle down as it decomposes away.
And it just for some kinds of gardening things like planting seeds, it's very
hard to plant them when you don't have a nice fine seed bed mix.
You know, when you got big chunks, do what I want to do
in that area? Well, you know one thing I might do is pile
it up and let it decompose. And if you got the equipment sounds like
you do, uh, you know, every month or two, just turn
that pile over and mix it a little bit and let it keep decomposing,
and then you're going to have something ready to go right into the soil.
If you want to go that route. So that's another option there. But
yeah, if you mix it again, I got it, it'll settle in
time. But yeah, okay, because I got something's about four years old
is sitting there too, just multi multing away, you know, decomposing too.
So yeah, okay, yeah, And so I'd scrape the outside of
that pile off because it's not going to be decomposed on the outside, just
like leaves on the forest floor on top or not decomposed. Uh, And
get to the stuff down in the pile that is breaking down well and use
that material. That's why I said mix the piles occasionally because and you may
even have to water them occasionally, you know, get them wet again,
and that helps the decomposition. All right, that'll work, all right,
appreciate it sounds like a plant drug. Hey, thanks for the call you
Yes, sorry, take care. Yeah, that is that is important.
I'm going to go now to bel Air and talk to Beth. Hello,
Beth, good morning, Good morning. I have a question about poison ivy.
I have been fighting poison ivy in a bed with an oak tree and
some you know plants that I want to keep, and now I have discovered
in another part of my yard. I've been trying to pull it out,
but it's gotten beyond beyond that stage, and I was wondering, Okay,
what can I do to try and get rid of it but not damage you
know, trees and other plants that I want to keep good. Question,
So is the poison ivy a little tiny spinley stemmed plants still very small or
is it something that has a trunk on it, like the size of one
of your fingers are bigger? Most of it is small. There's one area
in a bed that I haven't gotten to because it's it's gotten so overgrown.
But it's in some lagustrum which are surrounding my air conditioner condensers outside and we
had to have one replaced, and I just want to get it out of
there. I was waiting for the reins to try and pull it out,
but I thought, if there is something I can spray on it, you
know, protect everything else around and systemically it gets drawn in, I would
I try and do organic, but I'm really allergic, and so it's most
other people in my family, so I'm just I don't know. I don't
know an organic there's an ivy control that's it's very effective. But there is
a product ingredient called triclo pier try as in tricycle clowe pier tr i c
l o p y r, and you'll find it in things like brush and
stump killer poison ivy killer. But triclop pier is what you're looking for,
and that's going to help you get to the You know you're down in bel
Air. You're not far away from Southwest Fertilizer. Oh, they know me.
I go there all the time. Well, just go in there and
say I need some triclo peer for poison ivy. And then what you're gonna
do now. Triclo peer kills things that are broad leaf, especially effective against
woody things that many other broad leaf killers won't kill. So if you've got
it on a little augustrum and you spray it, you kill the lugustrium and
the poison ivy. So what you're going to need to do is go down
to where the stems are and I would take the straight tricle peer, And
if you want to be extra effective in that, you could mix a little
bit of like an oil product. People typically will use diesel, which is
an oil, but you could use even a cooking oil. Put a little
bit in the straight tricle paer and that helps it stick to the surface of
the thing. Get you a little tiny foam brush, you know those little
things you get for painting, those little brushes with a wooden handle. Just
get one of those and dip it in that and then just paint it right
on the stem of the plant. You don't have to do the whole stem,
just even a section, you know, four to six inches long.
Get it all around that and it'll soak into those tissues. Now, if
you ever have to cut a poison ivy off, dab the fresh cut immediately
with the same thing. In fact, you don't have to have the oil
for that, but just dab the cut with that. If you've got areas
where there's poison ivy and not a desirable plant, you can spray the tricle
paer on the foliage of the poison ivy, but it moves down. It
does a good job. Sometimes you have to do another application, depending on
how strong the plant is and how much you get on it. But that
is the best way to do with poison ivy and any other kind of witty
weed that shows up in your landscape. I really appreciate it. Thank you
so much. All right, good luck, Thank you for your call.
I appreciate that very much. We're gonna have to take a little break here.
I'll be right back when we come back. Let's see Terry and Steven.
You'll be our first two up your summer get away from the shoot.
Good to have you with us, looking forward to talking about the things that
most interest you. That's what we try to do here. If you're done
in the League City area, your local hometown feed store, and we do
love feed stores. Here on Garden Line is League City Feed. League City
Feed has been around for forty years now. In other words, they know
what they're doing and you get the same kind of old fashioned service that they've
always provided there at League City Feed. They, by the way, are
a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three in League City.
So you're heading across ninety six, just turn south on Highway three just a
few blocks and it'll be if you turn south, that'll be there on the
left hand side. They serve Santa Fe. They serve Webster, Clear Lake
City, Lamark Baycliff, San Leone, El Camino Real. That whole region
down there. They're open from nine am to six pm Monday through Saturday,
clothes on Sunday, so anytime, even if you're at work through the week,
you can just head right after work swing by there on the way home,
grab the things you're looking for, such as I was talking about azamide
earlier. They carry nitrofoss products, microlife products, Nature's creation, Nelson plant
food, airloom soils, all the different kinds of brands that you may hear
me talk about here on guardenline, pesticide, herbicide, fungicides to control the
things that are messing up your garden. They can help you with that as
well. Phone number if you want to give them a call two eight one
three three two sixteen twelve two eight one three three two one six one two.
Of course, it's a feed store, so you're going to find everything
for your backyard, chickens, for pet foods and whatnot. They're at League
City Feed City Feed just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway
three in League City. Let's head now out to the phone. We are
going to go to Rosenberg, Texas and talk to Stephen. Hello Stephen,
Hello, my name step Yes sir, Yeah, how can we help welcome?
Regard line first? Foremost, Sir, I want to say, hey,
I've been listening to this show for probably about fifteen twenty years, and
I had a lot of time in with Randy Lemon, and you have been
an excellent replacement for him, or thank you, I should say, yeah,
nobody replaces Randy, but I've enjoyed here on the show for it.
That's good. How can we help you? So, I just got rid
of a water road thanks to this storm, and I'm looking to replace it
with a jack Aranda. I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm saying
that correctly. It's a big purple tree. Internet of all of us wisdom
tells me they grow down here pretty well. I've never seen one down here.
Do you have any tips or advice on how to get started with at
Randy used to always say, do rose soil for starting trees. But what
do you got for me, sir? So? Jack aroanda is beautiful blooms,
but most of the trees that grow fast are not strong wooded and long
lived and whatnot. So if you're looking for a nice, big shade tree,
I'd go a different direction. The blooms. I won't question the fact
that they are beautiful. I just wouldn't look at it, especially when you
look at future storms and other things like that is probably the best choice for
that. There's a lot of good trees if you want small blooming trees,
if you want a big old shade tree, there's a lot of options out
there. But my advice would be to look elsewhere. Okay, how do
you feel about red maples? Red maples are okay. They do have some
issues. One of the issues with red maples. You know, every plant
has pros and cons. Stephen kind of like people, right, and so
red maples tend to have narrow branch angles, so you have to really work
with training them to keep them from having limbs that are more likely to split.
They do okay here, and you're even further south than a lot of
the listening area, being down below eye ten. There they're not going to
have the color that you expect out of a red maple. Like if you
went up to the northeast during the fall and saw a beautiful maple color.
We don't quite get that color down here. So one of the biggest pluses
of red maple we kind of don't get much of so that's one reason why
I tend to not put them high on the list. But there's nothing wrong
with planting one other than the branch angle thing. You just have to watch
for understood. If you have any suggestions as far as what you think I
should put in. I'm looking for something with pretty blooms and it doesn't go
down here pretty blims. How big does it need to be real big?
Or do you want a medium or small size tree? Or what are you
looking for on size? If a medium or it can be it can be
huge though. The one that is it's replacing effectively was the giant water oak.
Run it out from the inside and luckily fell in my yard at out
of my house. Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm glad to hear that.
So. Chinese fringe is a small to medium sized tree. It grows
a little bit slower, but it has beautiful shaggy white blooms that have a
honey like fragrance in the spring. That's a nice one. There are crape
myrtles that'll get thirty feet tall. Natchez is one that has beautiful cinnamon colored
bark and white blooms and if you train it and prone it. You can
make a single trunk tree out of them, or you can have multi trunk
trees and they will cast nice shade, and of course they bloom for like
ninety days during the summer, three months of bloom. That's what a crape
myrtle can do for you. So that would be a good choice for that.
I'm trying to think. You know, as you get in a bigger
and bigger tree, Stephen, you don't really get to see the blooms because
they're way up high, as opposed to a smaller tree where you have a
line of sight on the blooms. So the bigger the tree gets, I
would say, the less significant the fact that it blooms is. You may
just start looking instead for something that has good structure and long term health and
a good growth rate. Red oaks are that way. If your area is
a little on the web side red oak, I would plant the nut tall
and newt l I may be misspelling that by a letter. Nut tall red
oak is good if you have soggy soils. It's very tolerant of that.
It'll grow on not soggy soils too, but it's tolerant of soggy Shumart oak.
If you've got a really nice, deep quality soil, Shumart would be
a good red oak to plant. And then there is let's see, Mexican
white oak grows at a very good rate and it is a white oak that
it makes a beautiful shade tree too. And then we have things like Chinese
elm, Drake elm or other Chinese elms that have beautiful exfoliating bark that's gray
and rusty patched, and I think it would be another good choice. So
there's dozens of good trees out there. Okay, took a lot. I
appreciate it, all right, You take care. I appreciate the call.
Thank you very very much. Speaking of trees, folks, Affordable tree Service.
Martin spoon Moore, boy, is he ever busy right now? He
always is busy because he does a good job. But when we get storms
in he's, you know, out dealing with the things that have happened since
the storm. What I'm trying to get you to consider is having Martin come
out before the storms, not right before a storm, but like go ahead
and get on the schedule now with him to come out and prepare your trees
for the storm and Just because you made it through a hurricane barrel or made
it through the storms before, doesn't mean that the next summer storm, hurricane
or not, isn't going to cause problems to your tree. That's just how
this thing works in nature. Have Martin come out do some selective printing in
order to make your get the dead areas out of your tree, make it
safer during the heavy winds, to set your trees up to do the best
they're going to do. As far as being ready for a storm, I
can't express enough the importance of proper tree care. As we move more and
more into this storm season, it's predicted to be a bad one with their
early arrival of barrel. So just get Martin a call seven one three six
nine twenty six sixty thirty. Let me say that again, seven one three
six nine nine two six sixty three. Or go to a f F Tree
Service dot Com, a f F Tree Service dot in holland tell him your
guardenline listener that gets you to the front of the line because he does good
work, he stays busy. Or call him back again and again because they
know the kind of word Martin. Though well, I hear the music that
means we're about to put this hour into books and then Katie, you will
be our first caller if you can hang on until we come back out of
this break. Thank you for being patient on that you're listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter our phone number if you would like to
call Chris and get on the boards. Uh seven one three two one two
kat t r H. I'll be right Brown. Just watch you as many
good things to welcome back to the Garden Line. Welcome back. Good to
have you back. We've got plenty to go talk about here. We've got
some calls on the line. I just want to remind you that if you
are looking to renovate your landscape, or if you're looking to put in a
brand new landscape, or if you're looking to just do some small work here
and there. Maybe you need some irrigation work done, Maybe you need just
a bed redone, some new plants, put in a little bit of a
redesign on something. Maybe you want to go all out and do landscape lighting,
you want to do hard scapes, you get the idea. Pierscapes is
a company that can do all of the above. Also, by the way,
they do quarterly maintenance. So if you just already have your landscape,
you're happy with it, you want somebody to come in and do trimming and
weeding and fertilizing, to inspect the irrigation in the beds, to do seasonal
color changes. As you know, you pull out the old flowers and put
out the new ones, add molts to the surface, top it off.
Pierscapes can do that. Pierscapes is an outstanding company that does outstanding work.
And if you don't believe me, just check out their website. In fact,
whether you believe me or not, please go to Pierscapes dot com pierscapes
dot com. You can see their work there and you see what I'm talking
about. You can give them a call at two eight one three seven oh
fifty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. No matter what you need
done, even if it's just quarterly maintenance or if it's new installations, Peerscapes
can do it. And listen. Summer is a great time to contact him
and get that work done. They have excellent crews out there. They stay
busy and you want to get on the schedule get the plan done. Maybe
you need to sit down with them, do a little bit of a you
know, kind of a design out and plan and figure out what it is
you want done, and then have them come out and get that work done.
Now's a great time to give them a call. Perscapes. We're going
to go back to the phones. Now, we're going to go to Sharon
and Katie. Hello Sharon, thanks for waiting. Good morning, morning,
Thank you, Good morning. I have a question about my oak tree.
I have a question about my oak tree. Can you hear me? Yes,
ma'am, go for it. Okay. The oak tree is probably thirty
five years old. I keep it trim every other year. It's beautiful.
I discovered the other day. So let's say the main trunk is about eight
feet tall, and then I have three big branches that come out from that.
Well in the middle there is a little like cavern, and I noticed
the other day it fills with water. Yeah, what do I do?
Yeh? Well, so what's happened. A branch was cut or broke off
or something, and water got access to that interior wood, which has no
ability to resist rot. And so because it was moist exposed to air and
microbes and water, it's going to start decomposing away, and a lot of
older trees have dark and partially hollow interior areas just where branches over the years
have given that open the opportunity for microbes to get in and start working on
the wood. You know, there's no really covering that anymore. If it's
an older tree, it's probably never going to heal back over, even if
you provided it with some sort of a little shelf for the callus to grow
over. So I would say the best thing you can do is occasionally throw
some mosquito bit's up in that area, because mosquitoes will be very happy to
breed in that wet standing water inside of a tree hollow like that. That
would be one thing to do. And other than that, you may want
to have an arborist come out and look and see if there's anything they could
suggest. But most of the time, by the time you have a hollowed
out area that's reached that stage of decay, there's no fixing it. It's
not like you squirt something in there and it stops the decay. I did
have a neighbor that said I did have a neighbor that said, try expandable
foam. Yeah, things have been tried over the years, from concrete,
which is a very big mistake, to expendable foam and creating a Yeah,
don't do the concrete one. Creating a kind of a shelf with the expendable
phone and it sort of occupies that space. It's not going to stop the
decay. The decay is already active and going on down in there, and
it'll continue. If the hole was a smaller one and you could create a
shelf with the expendable foam, then maybe as the callous forms from the sides
of the hole, it would it would go across that equivalent of a shelf
and close over. That's the concept, but in reality that generally is not
going to work, And especially if it's a larger opening like you're describing,
I don't think you're ever going to see closure on it go ahead. Probably
about the size of a large dinner plate. Yeah, I think that's yeah,
I think that's that's too large. You probably heard me talk about affordable
Tree earlier. But I would give Martin a call if you want to make
sure that there's nothing they can do. Just if there's anything they can do,
I would I would have him come out and look at it. But
anyway, I've kind of the bottom line, right, Okay, I have
one more question. Sure, if I have a tree removed and the stump
grind, how soon can I install a new tree? And do I have
to get out all those chips or fine sand that they turned it into?
Got to get all that out. It's the more you get out the better
because all that woody, any kind of an organic material, as it decomposes
away, it shrinks down to nothing. And so what was a level area
of soil is going to become a hole again as that sinks down, and
as the soil settles, So two things are going on. The soil is
settling itself and the organic materials the chips are decomposing. So I usually try
to get as much of that as you can. If you can't, then
leave it as a mound as opposed to flat, because it will sink down.
And if you start with like a pitcher's mound, then as it sinks
down, you end up more level. Okay, they ground it so much
that it looks like sand or soil. Does that make sense? In other
words, there's a bunch of chips there, right, And what about getting
out the whole stump. I'm sure they only went down a foot. That's
all we need to do. Now, there are tree roots all over your
yard from that, and you're going to see areas other areas where there was
a big root. Maybe of the root was you know, big as you're
part of your leg and it's but it's underground somewhere and it's going to decompose
a way too. But you can put a new tree in that spot.
I might move over just enough to not be right in that hole itself.
That I think that would be you. I think you would longer term be
better served by that, unless there's for some reason you can't move at all.
The tree has to go right there, which I can't think of.
A one area where it would go is a small area and that would be
the center point where they took the old tree out that in other words,
something else would look awkward if you anyway, okay, okay, thank you
for your all right, And like the previous caller, like the previous caller,
been the longtime listener. Love Randy Lemon, you're doing a great job
and I love listening to you too, and best of best swishes for your
future. Thank you, Thanks for the kind words. Sure, I appreciate
that we're going to take a break right now. When we come back,
Michael and Kingwood Shane, you'll be our first two callers up the back of
the garden line. Good to have you around today. Hope you are enjoying
the show. We certainly want you to. We want you to have success
with your garden, with your landscape. And if you like, you can
us a called it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I do not know if you have been to Ana Plants and Produce. They
are up in the Montgomery area. In fact, if you are on Highway
one to five goes from Conroy to Montgomery, they're on the east side of
Montgomery. So all of you up there in Lake Conro area, well they're
in your backyard. They've got some good deals going on right now. All
their hanging baskets are on sale. That you need beautiful ferm baskets or other
things. It's a great way to decorate a patio or a porch. Now's
a good time to do it. At A and A Plants and Produce on
Highway one to five and Montgomery. They also have a forty percent sale off
all of plants that they have going on right now. That is that's a
lot that's an incredible on a sale. You know when you go to Ana,
you're going to find every fertilizer I talk about on garden line, and
I mean that on nitrophoss and Nelson's in microlife in Nature's Way and the heirloom
soils, the soil mix and blends from heirloom soils and from Nature's way are
there. They have a landscape crew that can come out and do some cleanup
and work. If you're out there in the Lake Conroe area, you need
to give them a call A and A plants and produce swing by there.
Now is the time to get a really good deal on a lot of different
kinds of plant opportunities that you might want to put in. And remember just
because it's summer doesn't mean you can't plant. Now's the time to get in
color that will carry you all the way up until it's time for fall planting.
We had several months before we're talking about putting in fall flowers, so
take advantage of it. Let's have some beautiful color so your landscape isn't just
a sea of green during the summertime. We're going to go out to Kingwood
now and talk to Michael. Hello Michael, and welcome to garden Line.
Thank you. I appreciate your callback. Here. I have a gallon jug
that a purchase from Ace Hardware and Kingwood. It's by Microlife and it's humous.
Plus I read the instructions to apply it. However, I'm not quite
sure the per application. I have about one thousand square foot of grass and
says to put like four to six ounces in the water. Do I put
that in a sprayer that I put on my hose, Do I fill it
completely up? Or do I put it in a pump up sprayer with a
gallon the water? Well, you could do the pump up. I think
the easiest thing is to hook up one of those sprayers to the end of
your end of your garden hose and put it in and you want to apply
it somewhere between three and six ounces per thousand square feet. Okay, okay,
So however that little hose end sprayer works, you can do it that
way. Get let me give you something. I was just talking about A
and A plants and produce. They've got some information on their I think it's
their Facebook page. I believe it's their Facebook page where it tells about differ
diferent ways of applying these microlife products like seaweed and whatnot. And you ought
to just go check it out A and A Plants and produce, go on
there and just have to scroll down. But it's from Microlife's Facebook page too,
but it talks about how to apply the different products. You can put
them in a watering can, you can put them in a pitcher, you
can put it into your hose in spray er. You know, however you
want to go about it, okay, And what about the frequency on application
is that once every six months, once every three months? You know,
if you're using one of the products that we would consider more of a fertilizer,
then you would do that according to like our fertilizing schedule. Depending on
the plant you're going after, like with your lawn, you could do that
several times during the summer season. If it's a liquid application, I've spread
them out about six weeks apart probably now. If you're looking at something like
the humates plus there we're going after that concentrated compost and the benefits to the
microbe activity so you can apply that however you wish, as often as you
want. You know, you can use it in different ways. I wouldn't
just wait until you see a problem to use it. I would use it
on an ongoing basis to avoid problems. Okay, so something in the neighborhood
of every two or three months, apply it to the lawn. That would
be fun. And it's okay, Yeah, you could do that flower beds
around the lawn. You can do it in anything. Humates. We're putting
hum mates down. Think of him as putting down concentrated composts. It's a
it's a carbon source that really helps microbes which need carbon sources. And so
there's the granular form from microlife and there's also the liquid form that you're talking
about in the gallon, Joe, and you get same kind of idea,
same kind of ingredient. We're just applying it in different ways. With the
granule, you're getting more of it in a granule that's going to go out
there. With the liquid, you're applying it in smaller amounts each time you
apply it. Same thing, okay, And do you water it in after
you apply it? Or is the Gordon hose enough when garden hoses enough.
I mean, you know, it wouldn't hurt to water it in a little
bit because with the humans, plus, we're not it's not a folier feed
that we're putting on the foliage like seaweed or their ocean harvest would be Uh.
It's more something we're wanting to get down in the soil, and so
if you followed it with a watering end, that would be fine. Uh.
It's gonna get watered in either way, you know, and when next
time it rains, next time irrigation comes on. Okay, Well, appreciate
your show, and we'll get with you again when we need some help here.
All right, Michael, thank you, thank you very much. I
appreciate your call. Yes, the rebob, that is the case. We
want to make sure that we get those ingredients into the soil. Very important.
And by the way, if you're interested, you're hearing him Michael and
I talk about Microlife. You can go to their website Microlifefertilizer dot com and
learn about hummates. Plus you can learn about all their products and also where
to find them, which is I can just give you the shortcut to that.
It's everywhere. If you hear me talk about a good garden center.
Ace hardware stores OUTUS fertilizer speed stores. They're going to carry quality products from
Microlife like that. Let's see, We're going to go now out to Shane.
Hello Shane, and welcome to garden Line. Good morning, Good morning.
I wanted to say too, I'm a huge fan of the show and
even got my sixteen year old son and seventeen year old daughters while I'm watching
it now are listening to it. Now They've they've become big fans. Whenever
they're they're always in the truck with me and they're like, man, dam
why are you listening to the all the time? And then now they're loving
it, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, this is great.
You know how I have callers. Go ahead, I was gonna say,
Shane, I have callers from time to time that they used to listen
to Dewey Compton in the same way with their parents, wondering why is dad
listening to this or why is mom listening to this? And they're still Guarden
Line listeners. So good to hear that. Exactly the generational thing. Now,
I just had a quick question about my primeria. We've my my wife
and I we you know, we keep quite a few of them in different
pots and such, and uh we we brought the plan in during the hurricane
and saved it and everything that was no issue, and we kind of had
it underneath our patio for maybe about a week or so, and then I
noticed that the leaves started to kind of droop a little bit. So I
was like, okay, well it needs to go in ahead and go back
out where you know, it was normally put in the yard. It gets
a good amount of morning sun and then in the afternoon it's it's kind of
shaded, and then it gets just a little bit of evening sun. And
of course, we you know, we water you know, pretty religiously,
like every either every night or every other night, because we don't usually let
it go too far without having water. However, we've noticed that I guess
it was probably Wednesday, there was a couple of leaves that were turning yellow
then, you know, like krispy brown. And it was like, oh,
okay, so you know, I thought, well, maybe there was
just a couple of leaves that maybe got damaged or something. So I went
ahead and I plucked them off. Well, then I go out there this
morning, and I got about another four or five on there, and I'm
like, oh no, this is not good. And even the wandering Jew
that we have planted in the in the bottom of the pot, you know
that kind of surrounds the perimeter of the of the pot. I'm starting to
notice a couple of leaves on that they're starting to go bad, and I'm
like, oh gosh, if it's hitting that too, I don't, you
know, I'm wondering if maybe a fungus or something. Probably not. Diseases
tend to be pretty specific to one kind of plant, and so I don't
think you have the same disease on wandering Jew as you would have on plumeria.
I think it's a water issue and plants, you know, they leaves
don't live forever, and so older leaves can be cast off, and when
you go through fluctuations like a little drowdy, a little too soggy, wet,
or fluctuations, we often see that. You'll even notice that on your
pothus ivy house plant. You know, you let it get a little dry
and then you water it and it perks up, but then the old leaves
try yellow and fall off. And that's just part of that's just kind of
how nature is. Make sure it's getting adequate moisture, makes sure not soggy,
but adequate, and make sure you're fertilizing it periodically to help, you
know, provide the nutrition that it needs to support vigor and growth. And
even as older leaves might be lost, new leaves are going to be coming
on to replace them, and so just a little bit of that leaf yellowing
and loss is not a big concern in my book. Okay, would just
be like a you know, just like your regular uh you know, miracle
grow plant food. Would that be adequate enough? But like you were,
that's not a fund That's not a one that I'm fond of. I think
Electropas makes a plumeria type food that works very very well. Uh know.
Some plant food makes a very good plumera food too, And wherever you are,
you're going to find one or both of those that do an excellent job
designed just for tropical blooming plants like plumereas. Oh wonderful. I didn't.
I wasn't aware of that because yeah, I don't come the miracle grow stuff
for wherever, you know, yeah, just follow wonderful all right, wonderful.
Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for the
call. I appreciate that. And we are hitting up against a break here,
So Jody from West Columbia. When we come back, you will be
the first caller up. In the meantime, if you would like to give
Crystal call, get on the boards seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I'll be right back. Yesterday with one of my kids and
we were looking at birds that are outside in our landscape. I've got bird
feeders set so where I sit typically in the house in the especially in the
mornings, I can look out two different windows and see two different bird feeders.
I like that. It's kind of entertaining to see what's going on.
You know, Wildbird's Unlimited is the source of everything bird and that includes good
information about birds. You can go to the website. In fact, I
write this down WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot Com forward slash Houston
that gives you the wabird stores in Houston. There's six of them. Wherever
you live, there's going to be a wallbird store fairly close to you that
you can run over to to pick up things like bird seeds, bird feeders,
bird houses, any kind of information you need. They got quality feeds
like nesting super blend. It's always a good time to be using that.
I use it myself in my land Escape. They have wonderful feeders, lots
of different types, from tray feeders to the squirrel excluding feeder. That's my
favorite. One squirrel excluding feeder to you just name it. If you can
imagine a bird feeder, they're going to have it there at Wallbird's unlimited and
a quality version of that. Now, if you're going to take a trip
out of town, you need to consider a seed cylinder. That is seed
that is compressed into a cylinder, kind of like one of those candles that
you put on your table, you know it stands up a cylinder. Well,
it's like that, but it's packed a bird seed and so it takes
them a while to pick that seed out of it, and so they don't
just grab a bite and run away. You get to watch them for a
little longer. And if you're going on a vacation a trip out of town
for a little while, seed cylinder is the easiest, longest lasting, most
convenient way to feed your birds and Wabbirds Unlimited has those. They even have
them that have the hot pepper oil in them. So if squirrels come along,
ouch, they will not they will not mess with that. They'll leave
it alone. So you can feed your birds Birds Unlimited, wbu dot Com
Forward Slash Houston. You just need to go by Hey a little quick tip.
The stores are air conditioned. It would be wonderful, a wonderful way
to spend part of your Saturday afternoon stopping in at a wild Bird's Unlimited store
to see what this is that I keep talking about as being such a cool
place. We're going to head now out to West Columbia and talk to Jody.
Hello Jody, and welcome to garden Line. Good morning ship. How
you doing? I really enjoy your show. Thank you, sir. How
can I help? I think I've overdosed my yard. I've got about a
forty by sixty area of Saint Augustine, and early in the spring had a
lot of dollar week come up, and I took the chief chief way out
and I put a weeding feet on it. Waited a period of time,
nothing happened. I did it again, nothing happened. I sprayed it with
image. Nothing happened. I sprayed it with two spots raid with two four
d nothing happened. Uh. My neighbor gave me the product Euge called We'd
be gone on Gordon Sprayer. I sprayed it and all my Saint Augustine grass
died dollars dollar wheed is still growing. Oh my gosh, jerdy. So
at nighttime when the at night time, when it's dark and you look at
the lawn, is it glowing? You've neew. I believe this isn't a
this isn't a laughing matter. But I that that was quite a I believe
you. There are very few things you left out of that list. But
seriously, if the grass is died back, you know you're going to have
to replace it, whether if it's severely damaged, I would just do a
wall to wall replacement of it as being the fastest easiest way to get back
in town there on it. Uh, if you wanted to do some plugging
or patching here and there, you could do that and have that grow in.
It's going to be a more ongoing tea thing. And anywhere the grass
gets thin, you're going to start to seaweeds come through because sunlight's reaching the
soil surface, so it's you know the fast ways you just reside. That
costs more money, but it's done and you're done with it. The less
expensive what would be the patch patch your way back to it. I think
I will resaw what can I do in the future to prevent dollar weed or
kill dollar weed? If it comes back it's up under a microtree kind of
in a shaded area. Yeah, yeah, well dollar weed. First of
all, know this dollar weed likes wet soil. So the weather it is,
the happier dollar weed is. So the first step is on you water,
give it a good soaking, but don't water so often. Don't water
so much. I mean, you can't control hurricanes and rainstorms and other things,
but you can't control the irrigation. So that would be the first step
on a lot of weeds like dollar weed and Virginia button weed. The like
wet conditions is cut back on the water because the grass will be happier and
you the weed will be less happy. Secondly, you're going to have to
treat it, but I would use a product called Celsius when you're having to
treat it. Now, if the grass has dyed and you're going to replace
it. A lot of it has died and you're going to replace it.
Now would be a good time to treat that dollar weed when you don't have
any grass you're worried about hurting. So yeah, there are a number of
products that control the dollar weed really well, and with where you're located.
I would go over to Southwest Fertilizer and talk to them there on the corner
business Notton Runwick. Go to Southwest Fertilizer. They have got every product you
can imagine. Explain to them what you told me and say, you know,
we talked about it, and you're wanting to come in, and this
is your chance to get something to really hit that dollar weed because you don't
have any lawn at risk. Once you get the lawn in I would use
a product called Celsius on the dollar weed, but it's much better to get
rid of it, and now's your chance to go after it. And I
think that would and stay away from the future, stay away from the weed
and feed. Let's instead pick a quality fertilizer and use it, and then
let's pick a herbicide to match the weed you're going after and do that.
Because weed and feeds can have anything from broadly if we control to pre emergent
weed control in them, and those are very different products. So I like
the idea of being able to do them separately, where I can pick the
best fertilizer and the best weed control for the particular weed as opposed to the
combo. I understand why people do the combos. That's fine. You can
use them, and if the particular thing in the combo is and the timing
is right, you can do that. Just overall, I think we should
aim for the dollar weed and not try to combo it with the weed and
feed. Thank you very much, and I will do that. I appreciate
it. Stup and enjoy your show, all right, you take care.
Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Yes, yeah, the whole
thing of the weed and feed, it's complicated, and uh, you know,
I can go into it more, but uh, just know that depending
on the time of year, the time to put out a pre emergent weeden
feed may not be the time to fertilize and vice versa, and so to
combine them sometimes the timing is off. It doesn't mean there's never a place
for them. There is. There's a place where you can use them and
they and it works and it does what you want to do. Uh,
it's just I don't know. I like the idea of prescribing going after one
and the other. You know, if you need a barricade application for pre
emergent, put it down when you need to put it down. Don't don't
try to make it match up with your your fertilization. But in the fall
time, it's actually a time when they tend to overlap a little bit better.
And that's that's coming out. But you'll find all that stuff on my
on my lun care schedules at Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip
dot com. Well, we're coming up on a break here. When we
come back, Carol and a tascasita, you'll be our first up. I'm
gonna go ahead and take a break. If you'd like to give us a
call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Have you with
us today? We are talking about all kinds of things gardening. We've got
some folks on the line we're going to head to in just one second.
When was the last time you were at enchanted Forest out in Richmond? And
if you haven't been well, Today's the next time you need to go.
And Channa Forest has the best selection of all kinds of plants, everything from
you know, gifts in the gift shop to house plants to annual color to
shrubs and trees and bulbs and containers. And they really specialize in plants that
attract beneficial insects like pollinators and uh, perhaps plants that attract butterflies that you're
interested in creating that right now, they got an excellent, excellent selection of
all kinds of things that take the heat, like Vinka periwinkle at agascar periwinkle,
or people call it menca. It's an annual plant. It is absolutely
fireproof. It comes in colors of you know, like white and pink and
kind of a lavendery. The magenta may be the proper name for it.
I'm color challenge so anyway, but they've got that. They also have an
unbelievable selection of herbs. You need to go check out their herbs right now.
The happiest herb in your garden is probably basil. It just loves warm
weather. And our basil is growing like crazy. And listen when basil blooms,
here comes the pollinators. The bees are all over it and they have
a number of different selections of basil. They're at Enchanted Forest Richmond. Whether
you put it in a container, whether you put it in a bed,
a garden bed, you know, you can plant basil and flower garden.
You can plant it in your vegetable garden. It doesn't have to just be
in an herb garden. It's an excellent plant and basil along with many other
herbs at Enchanted Forest and Richmond. It is an fm twe fifty nine in
outside of Richmond. If you're heading up towards sugar Land Way, it's off
to the right. Here's the website Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com.
Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Go check out their website.
You will see why I think it is such an impressive place to go,
and with all the shade and stuff they have around there, it would
be a wonderful place to go this afternoon to just enjoy being out and about.
You are listening to Garden Line our phone number seven one three two fifty
eight seventy four. We're going to go now to Carol and a Taskasita.
Hello Carol, good morning, I'm looking for a recommendation for a tree service
that will upright a tree that I have. It's a great myrtle about fifteen
feet call. Can you recommend someone? I would recommend Martin's. I would
recommend Martin Spoon Moore at Affordable Tree for about Do you need a phone number
or a website? Yes? I need phone number? Please okay seven to
one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. We'll give it to you
again seven one three six nine nine two six six three, And that's Affordable
Tree. Affordable Tree. Martin Spoon Moore is the guy you won't talk to.
Okay, thank you so much, thank you, thanks for waiting,
and I appreciate your call. Absolutely no hesitation on that one. Uh Ace
Hardware Stores or the place where you find whatever you're looking for. To have
a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape that includes fertilizers like nitrophoss, for example,
they have they have an outstanding selection of all though nitropos fertilizers. I
would recommend stopping in and getting some of the silver bag that that is the
one that we carry through our warm season with the silver bag. It's called
super Turf Nitrofoss superturf. Just think silver. It's only silver bag I've ever
seen in a garden center. All right, So Nitrofoss Superturf is going to
carry your lawn all the way up until the fall fertilization. Now, if
you just fertilized already with the slow release this summer, don't do it again.
But if you haven't, now's the time to do the super turf.
It's always good to have it on hand. You can use it any month
of the year. But the bottom line is we primarily are doing our summer
fertilization to keep the grass going through its busiest growing season of the year.
And super turf does that with a chemistry that is designed for our soils and
designed for our climate. That is important. And again, you do it
now, you're not going to do it again until the fall season. You
know, ace hardware not just fertilizer. It's also a place where you get
fireant control. And it's time. I've got fire antce. I just discovered
them in my ear. All this rain made them come to the surface,
and that's why baits are so important. Fire ant. Baits control fireance.
You don't see the mountains even yet because the foragers are out there, they're
picking up food to bring it back, but they just haven't increased the mound
and brought it up to the surface to where you see it on the surface.
Fire bait works and ACE Hardware has it. Do you have mosquito problems?
Listen, it's been long enough now since that rain. The mosquitoes are
popping up everywhere. Anywhere there's a tablespoon of water. A mosquito can lay
an egg and go through its larval stage and come out as an adult.
So we got to be diligent, and we've got to find things like the
mosquita dunks, the mosquito granules, mosquito bits that is, and put them
in these areas where there's any kind of standing water and it'll take care of
them. It's a natural mosquita control. By the way, it didn't hurt
birds then her cat dinners of the dog very very safe. It's just an
issue with the mosquito larvae. Now, do you need mosquito repellents? Do
you need maybe a fogging machine? What do you need to make your outdoor
landscape a place you can't wait to go be in? That's ACE hardware,
That is ACE is the place for a beautiful outdoor landscape, garden and sitting
area to enjoy during the cooler evening. I always we've we've been taking care
of our backyard area, trying to get some the patios, some enhancements done
and things. And we just put up actually, my daughter just put up
a string of lights at her place and it's one of those out We call
them beer garden lights because it's kind of that, you know, that outdoor
setting where you have the strings of bulbs that aren't really bright each one,
but overall it just creates a great ambience. By the way, as hardware
has those strings too, But we were just getting some set up and man,
it transforms that outdoor area into place you want to be, that is
for sure. Have you been to Arburgate Nursery lately? Arburgate is an outstanding
destination garden center. I mean there are people all over the state and even
out of state that know about Arburgate Nursery because it's been that kind of place
for a very long time. They got a wonderful new parking lot. It's
in the back of the store. You just turn down Trischel Road by the
way Arburgate on twenty nine to twenty just west of Tumball, Texas. And
as you're going out that direction, you'll see Trishel Road. You just you
can turn down it before Arburgate or after Arburgate and either way it's a loop.
It swims around behind Arburgate, great parking lot. While you're there at
Arburgate, you're gonna have people that know what they're Their staff is so educated,
they're so on top of things. They can tell you about every single
plant you walk in and you say, here's a situation, what do you
recommend? And they're gonna have three or four recommendations. And when it comes
to summer, color that color that's going to carry you all the way into
fall. Arburgate has options upon options upon options. You can have a beautiful
plate. Don't let your lawn and landscape be a sea of green. Put
some color in it and Arburgate will help you do that. While you're there,
grab their one two three completely easy system that is a fertilizer for anything
that has roots. That is a soil mix that has expanded shale in it.
Also and a compost that has ex banditshell and it also all of those
build up the soil and set you up for success. You know, on
garden line, I say brown stuff comes before green stuff. The one two
three completely easy system is brown stuff, soil, compost, and a fertilizer
that sets the stage for their wonderful plants to do absolutely stunningly in your landscape
and garden. We're going to go back out to the phones now to clear
Lake and talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, good morning. Sure,
hope you're doing well. Thank you? How can I help? Did you
see the picture I sent? Let me go look, I'll check that quick
cure morning early this morning. Nope, oh yes I did. Hang on
just a second. Are you talking about vines? Yes, okay, that
is Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper for those of you listening on radio going,
hey, I can't picture this well, and some people think it looks like
poison ivy. It doesn't because this has sets of five leaves all coming out
of the exact same point on the stem, and it's not poisonous, but
it is vigorous. Virginia creeper is fine. I've seen people use it as
a vine to cover a wall. The question, your question Mark, is
is it a danger to the tree, and the bottom line is only if
it gets up in the tree and shades the canopy. The one that it
is in for you is a cedar tree. And cedars when they lose their
foliage. Let's say you get some Virginia creeper or something over the limbs and
the leaves can't get light, they'll die, and that branch will never reach
sprout, so it's really weird. Compared to other trees that you could cut
them off like a hat rack and they'd sprout back out again. Cedar can't
do that. So I would just say, mark, it's fine until if
you see it getting on the branches and becoming a shading like an umbrella over
the tree, and just go to the base where it's going up the stem
and cut those stems and everything above where you cut or die. Okay,
sounds to me like it's better to get rid of it now before it becomes
impossible to get rid of So yeah, yeah, And but it's never impossible
because you always have one little trunk at the bottom and if you cut every
vine going up that trunk, everything above it dies, so it can you
can shut it down real quick if you need to. But if you don't
do it now, that's fine too, Thank you very much. Sure,
take care. Yeah, let me give you a real quick tip. When
I come back, i'm gonna talk about what to do about it. Hold
on if you want, Yes, we'll be right back. Folks, credit
for deciding whilst just watch. Hey, welcome back to Guardline. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have a more bountiful
garden, a more beautiful landscape. And let me tell you, all it
takes is some good information and guidance and advice, because as we say here,
there are no brown thumbs. There are only uninformed thumbs. And we're
here to inform your thumb to help you out to have more success. Another
place that can help you turn a brown thumb green is Plants for all seasons.
They're on Highway two forty nine. That's Tomball Parkway. As you're heading
up toward Tomball from Houston, you exit Luetta and crossover Luetta and they're right
there on the right hand side, right on Tomball Parkway. I mean,
it's just easy, easy to get to get in and out of. And
they've always got something good going on there. Number one, they've got the
advice that turns a brown thumb green, whether you struggle with success with plants
or whether you're a professional at it plants for all seasons. It's the kind
of place you want to go. And a lot of people already know that
they have a loyal following of customers and for a good reason such as good
information, knowledgeable people, quality plants. By the way, did you know
right now they've got a sale in their knockout roses Instead of well less than
half price for a three gallon rose, I mean it's like fifteen bucks for
three gallon rows. You know, knockout is probably the most bulletproof ros we've
got in our arsenal for options. If you want maybe you're not a rosarian,
you're not looking for big, beautiful cut flowers and everything. You just
want to shrub. That's pretty well. Knockout rows a great choice for that.
You see them all around town, real popular. The original cherry red
one is still going strong everywhere. I saw knockout roses in a McDonald's parking
lot in Chicago, Illinois. I see Chicago. I see knockout roses doing
just as good in Houston, Texas. That is one heck of a rose
almost no. In fact, I would say no disease problems at all on
a knockout rose. It's the one you can share and have success with.
There's other kinds of knockouts. There's a pink knockout now. They just keep
coming out with new versions of knockout that do well. But here's your chance
to get one if you're looking for one. Plants for All Seasons has got
them as well as beautiful hanging baskets, wonderful summer heat color, and again
the products you need to have success with your garden and your landscape. Plants
for All Seasons dot Com. That's the website, Plants for All Seasons dot
Com. We're going to go now to clear Like Texas and talk to Mark.
Welcome to Garden Line, Mark. Well, this is a continuation of
the first call. Oh, that's right, for the break I forgot you.
We were talking about your Virginia creeper and the cedar trees. So Mark,
what you need is a product that contains the ingredient Trichlo Peer t ri
i clo P where I are now, Tricla Peer you'll find it. Sometimes
the product will be called Stump and Brush Control sometimes it'll be called poison,
ivy killer or something. It's the ingredient triclo peer that you're looking for.
You can spray it on the foliage. If you get it on the trunk
of the tree and it's just dead bark on the outside trunk, it's not
going to hurt the tree. If there's a living shoot or any broad leaf
plant that you like and you get tricle paer on it, it'll damage it
or kill it. So from your photo, I see you ought to have
pretty good access to spray in the trunk. You can also get a little
spongebrush like you would use for painting at a hardware store, the little wooden
handle spongebrushes and dip it straight in the triclo peer and paint it on the
stem of that Virginia creeper. I would do it down low, kind of
near the base and just paint it on the stem. I would even put
a little bit of vegetable or if you have diesel oil in the tricle pair
and it helps it stick and soak in better to that outer stem. But
in the photo I see those stems are very small still. The Virginia button
weeds of Virginia button. Virginia creeper stems are very small, so you just
painted on there and it'll soak into that tissue and go down in the plant
and kill it. And that's the fastest, easiest, least damage to the
environment, way and safest that I can think of. Well, on those
two trees that I took a picture of, it'll be easy just to snip
each each run. I'm pretty sure I can get it that way, and
then I can dab the end of the cut. A little bit of a
story about thirty years ago, we bought a small Leland cypress, a little
baby for a Christmas tree, and I planted it out there in the front.
And I should have made this call twenty years ago to you, because
some of that creeper got all over the tree and eventually went to the top
and start hanging down. It was real green, and I liked it.
The tree was dead underneath all that. The storm just knocked it down.
Saved me about twelve hundred dollars. So fortunately it went the right way.
I guess it went to the mailbox rather than the houses. So if I
had known what you were telling me about it shading the tree to the point
where it could be damaged. I wouldn't have let it die like that apparently,
Yeah, but I mean it was so thick you couldn't tell the underneath
there were much of dead leaves. I mean, yeah, it's you know,
we had lines like that in the southeast. They have kudzoo that is
like on steroids. It covers up everything. But I see you also had
I mentioned in cedary you also having it in a pine tree too. But
yeah, just cut it off at the bottom. Even though you dab it
on the ends, that's a little small cut surface, So I would still
paint it on the sides of the stem of that Virginia. Cut it off
to ab the end, but then just maybe four or five inches just kind
of painted on that stem, and I think that'll do the job for it.
Okay, Well, at this point it's easy enough to get to and
ahead and start killing the tree. So thank you very much for the advice
that we should have given it to me twenty years ago. Well, I'll
try to do better next time. Thanks Mark, I appreciate the call.
You take care if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four, seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you want success with plants, it starts with the soil.
You know, it's the foundation. Soil is the foundation. So what
is a good soil? Well? A good soil holds some moisture, but
it also drains well. It drains internally by letting water percolate down through the
soil so that oxygen comes in and the plant roots are not sitting submerged.
That is a good well. A good soil has organic matter in it which
stimulates biological activity, microbial activity that just enhances the root system in ways that
I could spend a whole garden line show talking about. A good soil has
nutrients at the right balance in the soil. That is important so that when
the plant needs any of twenty plus nutrients, it just its root has access
to them. They're in the bank account. That is a good soil.
So what makes a good soil? Adding organic matter to the soil quality?
Organic matter? Ciena Malts. They're down south of Houston in the Siena area.
They're just north of Road sharing near where Higway six and two eighty eight
come together. The actual road that they're on is FM five twenty one,
five twenty one. They're open Monday through Friday seven to five and Saturday seven
thirty excuse me seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two. Closed
on Sunday. Here's the website, Sienna bolts dot com. When you go
there, you're going to find every fertilizer I talk about on garden line,
which is part of the brown stuff of the soil. You're gonna find composts
and rose soil, and you're going to find a veggiane herb mix that's part
of the brown stuff. You're going to find Landscaper's Pride, black velvet malts
and other quality mulches. That's part of the brown stuff. When you drive
off from cienamultch or if you're within twenty miles, have them deliver it to
you. You're going to have this foundation for success with your plants. Don't
just buy a beautiful plant and stick it into an unprepared plot. Go to
Cianamalts get you the stuff you need. When you bring that plan in,
it's going to hit the ground running. Cenamlts cinimlts dot com. We're going
to take a break. We'll be right back. Look forward to your calls
two eight one excuse me, seven to one three two one two ktr h.
Every year we talk about today. What are your questions? Well,
let's help you with that. Give us a call at seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. If your lawn is struggling, you're looking
at your lawn and you're saying, I hear skipsay all the time. Wherever
sunlight it's a soil, nature plants, a weed will. Sunlight is hitting
the soil all over my yard. Well, here come the weeds, weed
seeds. Warm season, weed seeds will sprout. That gives them the opportunity.
What do you do. You got to get that lawn denser. And
one of the best things you can do for a lawn that is struggling is
to do an aerration, a core aeration, and a compost top dressing.
What's core aeration? That means we pull a plug out of the soil and
drop it on the surface. When they have gone through your yard and done
core aeration, you will think that there was a little tiny fufu dog convention
all over the yard. In other words, this looks like dog droppings everywhere.
It's the best thing you can do for a heavy compacted clay soil,
and whether it's compacted from foot traffic or whatever, it helps with that.
When your soil is struggling, Getting oxygen into the roots system is important.
Getting organic matter onto the surface and down in those holes is important. That's
why we do the compost top dressing. And you're not going to find anyone
that does a better job than B and B turf Pros. They are excellent.
They're outstanding. There are service provider for this service in South and West
Houston area BnB turf Pros. They do things professionally. Listen, They're all
about customer satisfaction and quality work. I love recommending this company because I've seen
the work they do. I've talked to them about their mindset. It's just
really clear. Go to their website BB no end in the website BB Turfpros
dot com, BB turf Pros dot com, or give them a call seven
one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. Look at the work they
do. They only use products and companies that I trust. Here on garden
Line, so Ciena Maltch, you just heard me bragging on them that is
a composted product. They have a composted product at Sienna. The BnB turf
pros uses because they use quality. They go above and beyond to make a
personal connection with you and to ensure you are satisfied with what they do.
They serve Sugarland and Missouri City on the west end. They serve Pearland on
the east end, and as you go down south Fresno, Siena, Arcola,
Iowa Colony, Manvil. Those are all communities and everything in between those
that are named is the B and B Turf Pros area. You will be
very pleased with the results. And don't wait until your yard is full of
weeds and these even declined more. Go ahead and get the core aeration.
Not just punching squeezing a hole by shoving something into the soil. We're talking
about popping a plug out, leaving it on the surface and then compost top
dressing. That's how you do it right, and that's how B and B
does it because they do things right. We're going to go now to the
phones and head out to let's see Fort ben County and talk to Lee Helle.
Hey, good morning, how you doing. I'm good I'm good.
How are you good? I'm well, Thank you for asking. Hey,
here's what happened during that storm. I've got a mature Texas Mountain Laurel,
and it blew it over. Now, it's not dead. The roots didn't
come up. It slipped the anchor roots through the mud. It's laying there
better than a forty five degree angle, like the side of the crown is
almost at the ground, and it's very much alive. There's nothing dead about
it. And I'm trying to I wondered, how do I stand this thing
back up? And unless you have any questions for me, Yeah, unless
you have any questions for me, I'm gonna hang up and listen because it's
kind of hard to hear on this old one. I got got you,
all right, We'll take it from there, all right. Thanks. We
have had yes, sir, We've had a number of folks that have asked
questions about trees leaning over. And I discussed that pretty much in depth last
week. But let me go into it again because I know a lot of
you had that same question. Lee does if a plant has been in the
ground for like, let's say, three to five years or more, it's
probably going to be difficult for it to recover, especially if it's a larger
tree. The bigger the tree, it's just you're just not going to have
success. I can go into great detail on it, but bottom line is
a big old tree, don't try standing it up, get rid of it,
get a new one in there. And I can explain why if you
want to call in, we talk about that. But if it's a younger
tree, the first three years, for example, it's very practical to have
them stood back up and staked into place. But you're gonna have to leave
mom a while. Now. In Lee's tree, he's not talking about broken
roots. He's just talking about kind of they just pulled and sunk in and
everything, and the tree still looks good. Well, if the roots are
broken, which happens some and I suspect there's some breaking on this Texas Mountain
rarel, you're going to have to leave it staked for a while because what's
going to have to happen is new roots are gonna have to come out.
They're a little tiny things, they can't hold on anything. And after a
year, two years, three years, four years, it just gets stronger
and stronger. So for at least three years, you're gonna need that steak
in place, depending on the size of the tree and everything else before it
is really well anchored again, because remember it was a well anchored tree to
begin with and the storm blew it over, So now you're starting with a
much weaker anchored tree, and so you're going to have to be patient.
If it's not a big trunk, I would get a three sixty tree stabilizer
and a steak and attach it to that. If it's a bigger you may
need to use some guy wires to pull it in, But at three sixty
for most of the things that are worth standing up, three sixty tree stabilizer
is going to be perfect for that. If as you stand it up,
if you're feeling some resistance, it may be that water has washed in underneath
roots and now you're pulling against that washed soil in. Now you're pulling against
that soil, so you may have to kind of get under there a little
bit, and you know, open it up a little bit so the tree
can stand up a little better, and then put soil around the roots.
Water it in real goods, settle them in, get it staked, and
be patient. It's going to take time to do that, but you can
do that. You want to pull gradually. You can kind of tell when
if I pull any further, I think I'm going to break something. And
it may be that later you can move it a little bit more, but
probably not. You probably need to get that move done all at once.
But a Texas Mount Laurel is a slow growing plant. It's a very resilient
plant. As long as it has good drainage. It does okay here in
the Houston area and Lee, that's what I would recommend that you do on
that particular one. I do want to mention a garden center for the folks
in West Houston, really for the folks all over the place, because it's
a destination. That is Nelson Water Garden and Nursery that's out in Katie.
As you head out, I ten to Katie. When you get to Katie
Fort Ben Road, you turn right and it's just a little north across the
tracks right there in Katy. Easy to get to. I mean just a
hop skipping. It won't take long at all to get out there. It's
our West Houston destination garden center. One of a kind plants, one of
kind pots. They got fish and fountains. You know, water gardening.
They are nationally known for their water gardens. They designed that. You've seen
the large beautiful glazed pottery urns that come upward then have water coming over the
side and go into some gravel at the bottom and it recirculates and comes back
out through the middle of the pot. They designed that idea, and they
have all the equipment to do it. They'll come out and do it,
or they'll tell you how to do it. You can buy the components and
do it yourself if you want to go that route and do it. But
what you need to do now is just go get some friends and go out
there and walk around. I mean, they ought to charge admission for the
therapy of walking through all of their water garden features and just hearing that soothing
water. To walk in the shady area, you know, today be a
great day. We're always watching the weather to see when it's safe to go
out in terms of rain and things. But you know, anytime you can
get out to Nelson Watergarden and walk through and enjoy and hear that beautiful music
of water, you're gonna want to do this at your house and while you're
out there, check out the nursery. I'm telling you they have an outstanding
selection of all kinds of landscape plants, including citrus trees and annual color and
groundcovers and herbs and whatnot. Nelson Watergarden and Nursery. Here's the website Nelsonwatergardens
dot com. Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Go check it out. But when you
do, take your friends. I'm telling you it is a fun place to
go and visit. We're gonna head now out to the phones and go to
Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hello, Martyn kip I earlier here your four
hanging back? Did and what you play cross? And he's got tobina because
she said, oh, don't handle all that well, I'm Marty, Martie.
Let me cut in. I'm sorry, let me interrupt you. I'm
having trouble hearing you. It's it's a little muffled. I don't know if
you can go ahead. I think you did you say guardena nobina verbina.
Okay, let me call you that. I just got through a walk.
I've got my Okay, all right, we'll put you back. Chris Crys
will put you up the front of the line. When you go back.
Thanks a lot, appreciate that very much. Let's go to Conroe and talk
to Bill. Hello Bill, Hey, good morning Skip. I bought a
book and Vilia about it six weeks ago and it was a small little guy,
about eight inches round at most. And now it's really growing well.
It's two and a half feet round and it's even when I pinched it back,
it's really well. But it's got the flowers. That's not good.
But yeah, the growth is really great. It looks really healthy and happy
and all that stuff. Anyway, that what's the what's the secret or the
secret? Uh? Yeah, any ideas for pushing the flowers out? I've
heard I'm sorry say that last thing? Salt? No you heard putting salt
around it? No, don't do that. Nelson plant food makes a Boogainvillia
food. It's good for all kinds of tropical vines and vines like that.
Comes a little canister. You just sprinkle it in. You want to do
that. Boom Villa does best when it's a little root bound, and so
your new plant probably hadn't quite hit that stage yet. It's still growing actively.
You don't want to overfertilize it, but you do want to fertilize it
periodically. That's important. Make sure it gets full sunlight and it'll settle down
and you will get some bloom. It's just right now in kind of a
growth spurt. Face, So maybe be a little sparring with the water,
don't you know. Subject it to severe drought, but let it dry out
a little bit between waterings, and that'll also cut back a little bit on
that vigor and help it settle in a little bit. Okay, Oh,
hey, sounds good, very good. Thank you, thank you. Good
luck with that. I appreciate that. Hey, we got to take a
break. Scott and Cypress you'll be our next up when we come back from
break. Let's see our phone number seven to one, and greener and greener
as we go along. You know, it's all about informing our thumbs and
that's what makes them green. That's what we do here on Garden Line.
We're gonna head out now to Cypress, Texas and talk to Scott. Hello,
Scott, Hello, got a cuzon for you. I think one of
my pine trees has pine beetle in it, and I'm just curious what to
look forward to see if it has it, and then if it does what
I need to do? Tell me what you're seeing that's making you think maybe
pop it? Never like the other pine trees are really green, really got
a lot of needles on them. This one's real thin, almost looking,
it's kind of dying off, like it's barely making it. And then I
did look around the tree and I see a bunch of little holes all over
it that the other ones don't have. Some of them have a little sap
kind of coming out. I'm just stopped, really sure, Okay, it's
a plus. Okay, how big? How big are the holes that you're
seeing that little bitty circle? You know small? You are they in horizontal
are they in horizontal rows going across or are they just random everywhere? They're
Okay, they're random and some of them have yeah, okay, well,
I mean it could be. It could be. There's I think five different
species of pine bark beetles from turpentine beetle that attacks down low and has large
gloves of sap typically associated with it, to ips and graver beetles, and
the southern pine bark beetle, and so there's a lot of them. Some
of them will attack, you know, all the way up the trunk and
signs or typically globs a sap when the tree has enough energy to push them
out. Sometimes you'll see sawdust catching in the bark as it falls down the
trunk that the beetle is pushing out. So I think you probably need to
get a professional arbist in there, Scott to take a look at it,
because me on the radio, not seeing your tree and stuff, I'm not
going to be able to diagnose it accurately. I've given you kind of some
facts to look for, but having an arborist come out some of you can
trust to come out and look at it and assess it. Oftentimes, by
the time you're seeing globs the sap and holes all up and down the trunk,
it's a little too late to save that tree. That's usually the case.
But if you have other trees around it, you can put products on
them to protect them from the beetles moving in. But that's where a professional
arborist coming in and kind of boots on the ground to take a look at
it. That's where that would be real hopeful, all right. And what
about if it does happen to have it. I've heard different varying things with
it do so you need to remove that tree out and have it hauled off.
Don't heard somewhere with redsmore like you don't burn it as firewood? Is
that true? No, there's no problem with burning Well, you wouldn't burn
a pine anyway as farwood. But if there's no problem with burning it.
The pinmarked beetles are really poor flyers, and just in the forest where they
can't go through all the spraying and stuff, they can't afford to do that.
In a natural forest, they just take a chainsa. I'll cut them
off at the ground and drop them horizontal on the ground and the beetles they
come out of it, or they have a very difficult time like flying up
to the tree to attack another tree. So they get them down as soon
as possible. That's the first thing, because the beetles are going through their
life cycle in a tree. But before we jump to conclusions, I really
think you need to have an arm look at it and let me let me
give you a phone number if if you don't have it for Martin spoon More
it's a seven to one to three six nine nine twenty six sixty three six
six Cale Martin. Have them come out and look at it. Because you
know, it may be that you got a problem, maybe that there's nothing
you can do for that tree, but something you can do for other trees,
or maybe your neighbors need to be aware of it if they have pine
trees. Right, exactly cool, All right, all right, sir,
thank you, bet, thanks a lot, appreciate appreciate your call very much.
Uh. One of my favorite new products that has come on the market
this year, or let me do a bit this way, that has become
widely available this year is Medina's Supergrow Plus. It's one of the Hastro Grow
line of products from Medina. Medina has to Grow. You're familiar with that
that's been used for decades and decades around. Uh. There is the hast
Grow Lawn, which is a fertilizer, hashed form of has to Grow that's
used in the lawns. And then the super Girl Plus is another fertilizer.
It's a sixteen zero two. It's got a low metal number of phosphors.
Most of our lawns already have enough phosphorus, so that design that sixteen zero
two is a good one. Really, it contains more than just the nutrients
though, by the way, about a fifth of those nutrients, a fifth
of the nitrogen, its slow release form and supergro plus, but it also
has molasses, it's got humic acid in it, it's got seaweed extract in
it, and it's got a kelated form of iron that gets into your plant.
And if you've got a lawn that's struggling with take a root rod and
you're seeing the yellowing from the loss of roots. When you can get a
folia or iron into that plant, that is helpful for greening it up.
It's like you're bypassing the roots that in essence don't exist because of being lost
to the disease, and it helps sustain that plant while it tries to get
back on its feet again. The grass plant. I'm speaking of supergrou Plus
from Medena sixteen zero two. You're gonna find it widely available all over town,
easy to find and an excellent product. Hooks up to a hose en
sprayer, takes ten minutes to cover about four thousand squeak square feet. That's
what air will cover of the Medina Supergirl Plus. We're going to go back
out now to Fairfield and talk to Mary Mary Marty on a brand new phone.
Hey, Marty, is this better? Can you hear me now?
Okay? Like that? Yeah? Sorry, so we're talking right. Yeah,
Well that's what I had. That's what the galles Over Plants for all
season told me to put in there. At the time, that was all
they had. It was still cold. But I was wondering if you had
some suggestions. I've I've thought about the Angelonia and the the purse lane and
the vinka, but you know, I want something. I like things that
are different, and it's it is hanging baskets. There's four of them,
and I just wondered if you had some other types of suggestions that would work.
It gets full sun almost all day, full son. Okay, Well,
Boogovillia is always an option, you know when you've got lots of sun
and a hanging basket and that's kind of unusual. Uh, kind of nice
one to do. Uh let's see, did you mention scavola. That is
uh fan flower. Uh it comes in a purple, a blue, kind
of a pinkish white and white colors. That will be an option. It
uh fan flower s c A E s c A E v O l A.
The flowers are not big and showy, but they're pretty and I'm telling
you that thing just about can grow in a barbecue pit. When it comes
to heat. It's a it is a very very tough plant. Uh.
That would be a good one. Uh, you know, plant for all
season. Have a lot of those, since I believe that sounds like that's
where you like to shop, and they're going to have some good selections of
those. I'm trying to think of person laying baskets. Did you mention that
as being one that is too common? Okay, yeah, trying to think
of either. There are I like the hangings, there are several other possible
options on it. I'm just trying to think. I like colorful foliage too,
and so something doesn't just have a flower to add color. And so
there are some some colises that will trail over, but they're not They are
heat tolerant. But when you do the combo is sticking them in full sun
and the heat. You just got to keep them watered for them to do
well. Uh. Oh that's more than enough for anything. Yeah. That
so those would be some options, okay, all right? And then the
ones in the front are shape full shade, no sun, and should I
am in the soil that they're in. Everything put in there, it seems
to die. I've done in patience core Line Colius, everything's dying. All
right? Hey Marty, can you hang through break? I'm gonna have to
run, but I'd like to continue the discussion. Yeah, all right,
no problem, hang on, I'll be right back our phone number seven.
Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. Hey,
we just had a storm, didn't we. We had a big storm that
knocked out tons of power for a long long time for folks. One of
my kids lives in the Houston area and they were one of the last ones
to get power from that big storm. And then here comes Beryl to just
give us a repeat. So we need to be learning our lesson, and
that is that when you live in this area, storms do come. Hurricane
season starts in June and goes all the way through November, and this year
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It takes it. It's a process to get one chosen, selected, prepared,
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them a call seven one three quality. We're going to head back out to
the phones now and continue our conversation with Marty. Hey, Marty, sure,
I'll just make it short and sweet. I do. I do the
fillerspiller, thriller, and my pot's up front and they're I just I'm wondering
if the soil needs to be amended because everything I've been putting in there is
dying. And it's full shade, no sun at all, full shade,
no sun, and you got plants that want to be in shade. I
assume, right, yes, co is in patience, cordaline, yeah,
all those things. So I assume you're watering enough to keep it moist.
I know you know how to garden, so you're you're not letting it dry
out and you're not keeping it submerged in water undergrown, right correct? Uh.
The only thing I can think of is just check the drain holes on
the pot and make sure they're not plugged. If a pot is sitting on
the ground, the soil seals the drain hole that they're not with the pot.
Okay, then I would say, perhaps dump that soil out and get
some fresh new soil and put it in there. Maybe if it's been in
a while, all soil continues to decompose away and it gets thicker and muckier
as it sits there. So what started off as a really good loose weldering
potting mix or growing mix becomes you know, muckier if you will, as
it decomposes away. So maybe that's it. It's not a lack of nutrients.
It's just like killing them, you know. That would be lack of
growth or not good color in the leaves and things like that. So I
did one time, I put that the indoor microlife stuff on them, the
orange one, the orange bottle. Yeah. Would that have done it?
Would that have? No? No? That's good, No, I have.
I have used it over and over and over again in house plants,
and it no that doesn't do it. And if you had a salt based
fertilizer and you over applied it and watered it, and you can burn plant
roots and plants with the salt based fertilizer. But this the uh is it
seven to one two? I'm trying to remember the third number on it the
orange label. But anyway that that won't burn them. Okay, well I'll
just keep I'll put some more soul and then just change it out, all
right. Yeah, I had a feeling. I knew the brown before the
green, and you know how it goes. Yeah, yeah, well that's
that's what it is. Now. One other thing that will help is you
know people tell you to talk to your plants, right, have you heard
of that talking to you? Well, I'm talking to my dogs while I'm
outside at the front port, so maybe they think I'm talking to them.
There is a last dish effort at talking to your plants, and that's called
threatening your plants. I'm not people to walk out with a chainsaw fired up,
stand in front of a tree and say if you don't start growing,
I'm coming back and I'm going to finish the job. You know, walk
out there with some round up and show the plant and go, I know
how to use this if you don't start drowing, And of course you wouldn't
do that, but the plant doesn't know that, so you know, scared
straight. I just bought some the other day. I will go out and
see if that works. Don't be afraid to throat. Thank you, Barty,
appreciate your call. Oh gosh, the things that come out of this
mouth on garden lines. All right, at least we're having fun. At
least I hope you are too. Speaking of having fun, have you've been
to Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights lately? They're on eleven Street in the
Heights, and boy, with weathered the storms and cleaned up and the place
is in good shape and it's a great, great fun place to visit.
You just head down eleven Street and it's this little place off to the side.
You know, it's kind of like a secluded and the way I like
to think of it. And boy, when you park and go in there,
it's just a fun place to walk through. There's every kind of plant
you can imagine. Any Buchanan's Native Plants they specialize in natives, but they
don't at all limit themselves to natives. You can buy anything, buy house
plants or herbs, or vegetables or flower things that aren't native there. Buchanansplants
dot Com, Eleventh Street in the Heights. Go buy there. Let them
show you their Houston area natives. We talk about a plant that is going
to survive here. I've at a plant that was here before we came and
started trying to quote garden with it. Buchan's Native Plants in the Heights.
They can get you set up on that. They have all the fertilizers that
talk about on guardline, quality, soils. Everything you need to have success,
including knowledgeable people and good advice. Eleven Street in the Heights. Buchanan's
Native Plants. Put that on your two do list. It would be a
fun outing any day to go buy and enjoy well. I hear music.
That means time to put this hour in the books. But we will be
back. Our phone number if you'd like to get on the board. By
the way, board just opened up. That last call seven one three two
one two k t RH give Cris to call and if you're the first call
and going to be the first one up when we come back. Thank you.
Welcome back to guarden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you with
us. Looking forward to talking to you about the things that are of most
interest to you. What are the kind of questions that you might have.
Well give us a call seven one three two one two K t R H.
If you'd like to talk gardening. We love to do that and we'd
be happy to visit with you. We're going to start off by going out
to League City and talking to Dina. Welcome to garden Line, Dina,
thank you, thank you for taking my call. Sure, I just recently
purchased some as am I put the super turf down in spring, and my
lawn looks great that I've got a few little jealous spots. But my question
is my lawn is so wet right now and I have stand in water in
certain places. When's the best time? And how do you put the eighth
and mic down? I know you don't use a lot, but I'm just
concerned is it too wet to put it down right now? It's it's the
issue with wet is it's more than just you know, trying to get out
in the lawn if it if it's soggy and sop and wet and stuff.
It's not easy, but it didn't matter when you put it down. You
can wait until it drives out a little bit, get your spreader and set
it so you know you put out the right amount. Asamite bags will tell
you what to put out, and then you just apply it. I would.
I usually like to use half of an application. This is true a
fertilizer too, going one direction across the lawn. Just for example, let's
say north and south, and then turn around and go east and west and
put down the other half. And that way, you know, if you
misestimated, you know, maybe you're putting it out too fast or not fast
enough. You can kind of adjust that accordingly and get a good, nice,
even application if it dries out. If the lawn dries out and it
appears to be pretty dry, do I need to spray water and wet it
down before put the a's and mite down or spray water it down. It's
better for the lawn not to be wet because you want the granules to fall
to the ground and not stick to the leaves, so you don't have the
water spread it well, you could and I water it to work to wash
it in into the soil a little bit that eventually it's going to have to
have moisture to move that particle on down. But it's really wet now.
Yeah, so there's no hurry. Listen. This is not like nitrogen.
This is trace minerals and there's no rush at all. So just take your
time. When you get around to it and it's dry, go ahead and
put it down. A forty four pound bag is going to cover six to
twelve thousand square feet. I have a huge backyard, a very very big
backyard. Well, you can make it go a little further, you know,
that would be fine? You bet this? Yeah, yeah, you
bet. Hey, thanks for the call, Dean. I appreciate you calling
to get that clarified. All right, welcome back to Guarden Line, folks.
We're ready to continue with this last hour of the day. We got
one more hour in us today and then I'll be back tomorrow morning. By
the way, while i'm talking about that, uh, if you are enjoying
garden Line, I want to tell your friends and family and neighbors about it.
We would appreciate that they can listen to us. Certainly listen on the
radio. If you're in the kt R H listening area, which is pretty
broad. It goes all the way up I knowed at least Huntsville and a
little beyond that. I've had calls and calls from almost all the way over
to New Bronfels and then over to the Louisiana border. So we got a
big area that can listen by radio. I like to listen on my phone
to the station. You can uh get the iHeart Media Apple red emblem iHeartMedia
app. You can go to find garden Line and subscribe to it, and
you can listen live to KTR at any time. So during the garden Line
hours you can listen to us live. You can also listen as if it
were a podcast, because we do post these shows where you can listen to
them afterwards. So if you heard me say, I just said six to
ten thousand square pounds our square feet per bag of ASMI, and you go,
what was he saying? You go back and listen. You can catch
up on that and hear it. Anybody anywhere can listen. We have folks
that listen, you know, long road truckers halfway across the country. We
got folks that listen way outside the area that just listen by phone. A
lot of our people will just absolutely put it on their phone and that's the
only way they listen. They put the phone in the pocket and they go
outside and do yard Right right now, you could be out there doing something
to the yard during these nice cool hours, listening to Garden Line right there
in your pocket. So there's a lot of easy ways to do it,
but we just encourage you to do it. Also, the nice thing about
carrying it around in the yard while you're working is you may run across something
you want to give us a call and we can help you find success,
solve a problem, identify an issue, diagnose a problem. That's easy to
do when you just got your phone right there with you. Speaking of easy
to do, Ace Hardware is a place where when you walk in, you
know you're going to have what you need to have a beautiful lawn, a
beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden because they have it all. Ace Hardware has
the fertilizers that I talk about on guarden Line. They have sold products to
improve your soil. They have all the tools that you're going to need,
you know, the garden hose and the hoe and rake and prunters and whatnot.
Every fertilizer I talk about on guard like, we're just talking about asmite.
They got asimite at Ace Hardware Store. You have insecticide, do you
have herbicides? Do you have fungicides? Organic or synthetic? Ace carries a
mix of both. They have a great supply of products to control fireance or
to manage mosquitoes, which unfortunately we're too familiar with those here, aren't we
in the Southeast Texas area. They've got all of that. They have things
to make your outdoor setting wonderful, including one of the best barbecue sections you're
going to see anywhere. I mean, they've got Trigger, they've got Big
Green Egg, they've got Weber, They've got all kinds of quality equipment there
so that you can have success with that. Ace is the place. Ace
Hardware definitely is a place, and with forty stores in the Greater Houston area,
it's easy to find one. Just go to Acehardware dot com and find
the store locator and it's easy to find the stores stores plural, that are
nearest to you. We're going to go now back to the phones and head
out to Arlington, Virginia. Speaking of far away and talk to Joe,
Hello Joe Hoddy in Arlington, Oh, the amazing and the English ivy are
growing profusely. Okay, But back Jersey Village, I cannot. I've given
up on grass under my oak trees, and so I'm going for ground cover.
English ivy Arlington is amazingly lush and plentiful. And I'm thinking, would
English ivy work under the oak trees there in Jersey Village for the summer in
the winter, well the summer heat anyway, and or would jazmine be better
choice? Uh? English ivy I think will do a little bit better and
more shade than jasmine, but both would be okay if the shade is dright
enough. The positive of jasmine over ivy is that jasmine doesn't climb up your
trees and take over the world. It does grow, and you've got to
edge the sides of the bed to keep it from crawling out of the bed.
But English ivy grabs onto stuff, and it'll grab a tree trunk and
go to the top and completely envelop that tree if you ignore it for a
long period of time. So if you're willing to keep it trimmed and keep
it from doing that, English ivy is a very good tough groundcover. It
can also be used as something growing on a wall because it has the ability
to grab a wall or a tree chunk. But they both have their advantages.
Just remember with the English ivy that it it does not understand what you
consider the border of the bed, and it looks on the street and wants
to go seven blocks down the road to keep growing. All okay, I
think that answer that question. So I'll go with jazzmine or some other than
you. You bet, if you got enough light, Jazz, I'm gonna
be okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate appreciate your phone call.
We're we're going to go to WESU visiting with Charlie. Hey, Charlie,
Hi, good morning. Yip. I called you because they've got some maybe
mars flying around in lariaty. Okay, maybe a hap happened long light pan.
I could send you a picture if that would help, Okay, I'd
be happy to look at a picture. There is not a lorioty pest that's
a moth that I'm aware of, at least not one that's of any significance.
Uh So, there's a bazillion different kinds of moths out there in nature.
We encounter them all the time. There could be a hatch out and
so I mean they hatch out the larva eat something and then they go into
pupas. And now you got the moths flying around. So if you had
seen a bunch of damage on something, then we might look at that as
a possible culprit the moths that you're now seeing. But my gut on this
one is it's probably not a problem of what you're say. If you want
to send me a picture of one, I'll take a look. I'm not
a moth expert, but if it's any of the common pests, I'll know
what it is, okay, all right, yeah, well, thanks for
the call, and I'm going to put you on hold. Chris will pick
up and get you an email to send me. Make sure the photos are
as close as you can get them in as sharp a focus as you can
get, and if you kind of get some different angles on it, that
would be helpful. While you're out taking pictures, look see if something has
been decimated by a caterpillar. That would be another helpful thing to know.
All right, all right, you take care. I'm going to run back
out now and we're going to head to Matthew and Livingston, Texas. Hey
Matthew, Hey, how's it going. I'm good, I'm good. Help.
So my godfather out there in Luston, Texas. He's lived on the
same property for about forty years and he's had a constant battle with cutter ants
over the years. He's been able to kind of push him back, but
they always come back and usually come back worse. As one ANSWER's anything we
can do to completely eliminate those well, you know, in nature, we
usually don't use the term eliminade. It's kind of like saying eliminate mosquitoes.
You know, there's gonna be more that fly in kind of thing. But
I do have a little a mix that I would like to send you,
And so what I'm gonna need to do, I'm not going to try to
read it all out over there. If I'm gonna put you on hold here
and have Chris pick up the phone, get your email, and I will
send you a combination of a couple of things that can be mixed together.
But the instructions are key. So but that's why I would like to put
it in print and send it to you that way. It's a couple of
ingredients you mix together, you let it's sit in a bucket a while,
and then you put it out and it seems to be as good as we've
been able to do in terms of a bait to control leaf cutter ants because
they are a problem. Excellent, Thank you, all right, So here
we go on hold and Chris will pick up and give you that recipe.
Okay, let's oh. I did want to mention something for those of you
down south. Have you been to Hoges Hidden Gardens. I've been meaning to
talk about this. Horace Hidden Gardens is in Alvin, Texas. It is
on Elizabeth Street, Elizabeth Street and Alvin, Texas, and it's a really
unique little place. Hoorge has been building this place for a while now and
it just keeps getting better and better. They carry a lot of good products.
They have quality fertilizer options. They've got lots of different kinds of plants.
Always Horace Hidden Gardens is a place where you're going to be able to
find the three sixty tree stabilizer, for example. That would be definitely worth
the price of admission right now. They got a really good selection of avocados
and yes, if you're down south like that. Avocados is an option.
Occasionally we got one of those doozy freezes it comes through, but a lot
of people have fun growing some avocados out in the art. You're going to
find Mexicola, Lula, the Arizona, the Joey, just a lot of
different varieties that are the ones you need to be planting here at Hojragez Hidden
Gardens. Now, they're open Fridays from nine to three and Saturday and Sunday
from eight to four, So today and tomorrow eight am to four pm.
And again, the avocados are still in stock there, so I suspect other
people are heading that way to get one, so don't delay. But for
those of you down south though, in Alvin area, Horayes Hidden Gardens is
a nearby nursery that is going to provide quality plants and I think you will
enjoy give them. Check them out. We'll see what you think. I'm
going to head out now to Tumball, Texas. We're going to talk to
John. Hello, John, good morning to Skip. How you doing.
I'm good sir. How can I help? Well, I've met you in
the past at Arbor Gate and I'm kind of wrapping my brain around this.
I'm looking for some hedges to go in front of my fence to kind of
kind of like a privacy to kind of bounce off the noise behind me.
And I don't have a lot of room to work with with my cable box.
Fact, I've got two three feet. So what do you think about
the linebacker the stelium? Is that a good would that be a good fit
for what you think? Or what about the Eagles? Now that's a good
question. I do not know linebacker. I mean I would have to look
into that one. Yeah, the challenge the hedge, Yeah, well,
I don't doubt that Arburgate's got about everything you could possibly want. Uh.
They I would talk to them because they're gonna know obviously, they're gonna know
that plant better than I do. Uh. And in terms of how will
it perform, you know, if they're selling it, it's a good plant,
Okay, So I don't I don't have any question about it doing well
here, but the specifics of the performance of it. My concern on the
distillium is you're gonna have a pretty wide plant, and so you're talking about
only having a couple of feet, Is that right? A couple of feet.
A couple of feet, you know, you don't have to have these
table boxes, these concast boxes. Is probably a couple of feet from the
fence. So my concern was the roots and if I could keep it trained
to where it would be a little more thinner. The roots don't worry me
as much as you know. It wants to be about probably six to eight
feet wide, and so keeping it at two feet is going to be quite
a chore to do. There are not a lot of plants that will stay
that narrow. Arbigate is going to have some. They may have a juniper
that's that way. They may have a upright yo pond that stays kind of
narrow. The other thing to be just be aware of so your expectations are
at the right level. John is plants as a sound bear or helpful,
but they're not huge. Okay, you're gonna you're gonna hear the sound coming
through. It's gonna there's gonna be some reflections and muffling and benefits. But
just know that it's not gonna you know, it's not loyal, it's not
noise canceling headphones. Uh. Level of help there. So something you might
want to try go ahead. All right, So what do you think about
the Eagleston Do you think that's sounded big enough area either it's also narrow for
Eagleston holly, But Egleston's fine. Anytime you're gonna do a holly, you
want to make sure the first two or three years to hand water it,
because it's very important that it not get dry, that you water all of
the root system all around it. Uh. And I just I see a
lot of times people have an automatic system and something foliage or something is blocking
one of the emitters, and the eagle you're holly of any kind starts to
have issues because it's not getting getting that. But Wilson will get quite large,
in fact get very large, which is also helpful in terms of a
sound barrier. But it's going to get big. It wants to be.
You know, it'll get twelve feet or so wide in time, So you're
going to have to stay with the pruning of it. I'm just when you
got that limited of it with, it's hard to find something that's going to
do well and be thick enough. Some people will put in like maybe some
sort of a trellis panel, like a livestock panel or something, and they'll
put vines on it to block of you, but you don't have the depth
of foliage. It's giving you the best sound barrier that way. But that
is one way you can when we don't have room for a shrub, that
we can get a good flat panel of foliage out there. Okay, thank
you, Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry skip the teddy bear may know
you can I keep that in a different But could I keep that tour it
doesn't continue to grow high? Real real high? Can I keep them somewhat
six to eight ten feet tall? Boy? I think that would be a
challenge. Teddy bear wants to be bigger than that. It's a fairly slow
grower, as man southern magnolias are. But I think that would be a
little bit of a little bit of a challenge. So theoretically, yes,
you could. I mean people take elm trees that are sixty feet tall,
put them in little pots to make bones eye plants out of them by burning
them all the time and going through great links. So you can keep any
plants small. But it's going to be a lot of work over a long
term, and I don't know if you'd get tired of having to do that,
but you certainly could try. All right, thank you Skip, All
right, well, good luck, thank you for the call. Appreciate that.
Tom. Let's see here, where are we a little short on time?
Here? I tell you what, I'm going to have to take a
little break here for the news. When when I do come back from a
break, d in Montgomery, You're gonna be our first up, and Randy
you'll be right after that as we come back. I just want to remind
you that my website, Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot
Com is where you find my garden schedules. The law and Care schedule tells
you mowing, watering, and fertilizing advice, what do apply, when to
apply it, organic and synthetic options. The other one, Pest, Disease
and Weed Management schedule, talks about controlling insects like chinchbugs and side web worms,
for example. It talks about diseases like take all root rot and brown
patch, are large patch and so on. It talks about the various weeds.
What do you use pre emergence, When do you use them? Which
ones do you use? How about post emergence? And again for all these
things. There's organic and sonthetic options on those schedules are multicolor January through December.
One page free to download, print up, carry with you when you
go shopping, or stick up in the garage. So next time. So,
welcome back to the guard Line. Thanks for joining us again today.
We are so glad to talk to you and I hope that this is a
helpful show that gives you the opportunity and the what the information you need to
have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, or the way I
like to put it, the information you need to turn brewn Thumb's green.
That's what it's about. We're going to go out to Montgomery, Texas and
talk to d Hello, d Hi, how are you today? I'm good,
I'm good. How can we help? Well? Unfortunately I lost my
absolutely gorgeous giants eighty but oak tree in the storm and it was my porch
shade tree. Do you have any suggestions for a fast growing tree I can
put replace it with something that's a good long lived tree. Could be a
red oak, that's one option. Red oak, a red oak, red
oak? Okay, it is your soil. Does a spot tend to stay
a little wet after rains. Is it a little bit soggy a time?
Sure, it's a little in my it's in my sprinkler system, so it
does get water, it doesn't retain it. It's a little It was a
little on an angle this tree. I'll plant it a little farther down this
time. Okay, Well, if the soil drains well, then a shoemard
red oak would be the one. I would choose. Nut or nuttall in
u t T a L not tall t a l okay, read out book
either of those. Another good one would be a Chinese elm. It is
very open. It's a drake elm. You see them all over town.
They are tough. They use them in landscaping and parking lots and stuff like
that, and shopping center parking lots. Because they're tough. You just want
to make sure that it's it's grown right and it is very well anchored.
Sometimes they can lean a little bit when they're young. Uh, And so
just picture it's planted properly and it does really well. But there's some big
beautiful specimens of Chinese elm around too. They cast a nice light shade.
So okay, and where in my area. What you think Arborgate or I'm
not by AA nurseries? Do they carry something like that? A Montgomery?
Uh, give them a call, give Kathy or whoever they're a call and
see if they have If they don't have anything, probably get them in for
you. We certainly have tree companies that carry all of these things as well.
But if you're I think Arburgate, if they don't have it, they
can get it in for you. Or again A and A F and Montgomery
that I think they could. Yeah, I haven't been there. There's so
many nurseries I don't keep up with, you know, every plant that everyone
carries, I can't. But the ones I recommend it are pretty common and
should be pretty widely available. And then when you go there they may have
some other options. I mean I pulled two out of the air here there
I can give you probably a dozen good options that would work well. So
it doesn't have to be either you know, the red oak or the drake
or the Chinese elm. Okay, well, thank you so much. By
all right, You take care good to talk to you. Appreciate that Nelson
Plant Food is a purveyor of all kinds of quality plant foods. And here's
what I'm talking about, the turf Star line. We have lots of products
that are used for the lawn and the turf Star line by Nelson. Probably
the one that I most would focus on right now is slow and Easy.
That's the one that will feed gradually for three or four months. You put
down slow and Easy. Now, if you've not fertilized for summer yet,
you don't have a slow release already in your lawn, then do the slow
and Easy and it'll carry all the way until it's time for fall fertilization.
Turf Star Slow and Easy, excellent product. Then they have the Color Star.
Color Star works on all kinds of flowering plants. It's one of the
most popular products they have and widely widely available. Then they have their specialty
plant foods. For example, earlier someone was talking to me. We were
talking about the Nelson Plumeria plant food and it's not just plumerias, it's all
the flowering tropical plants. It will do very well for those. Bougain villa
plant food any kind of a vining plant, a flowering vine is what they
recommend the bougainvilla plant food for. It works very well. The rose food
another example, the tree and shrub food, the crape myrtle food, the
vegetable garden azalea, citrus fruit, and avocado hibiscus. They have all of
these by Nelson Plant Food. They're available in jars, and we also have
local retail garden centers that will have a refail station, so you take your
jar back in you can refill it, save the plastic and save a little
bit of money on the cost of refilling those jars. Just makes them even
more convenient. And all of this is from Nelson Plant Food. We're going
to go now back to the phones and let's see here. We're going to
go to Randy. And where are you located, Randy. I can't quite
make it out there. We're down in Bay City, Texas. Skip Ah,
Okay, good well, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for
having us on and answering our questions. Hey, my wife and I were
recently in the Pacific Northwest on the Oregon coast, and we were kind of
mesmerized by the road of dendrons that they had up there, and so we
started doing some research online about whether or not you could grow them down in
our grow zone and there's a lot of conflicting information out there. Ohther or
not you can be successful with rhododendrons on the Gulf, I don't know if
you have an opinion on it. And if if you can grow them,
what type you some type you would recommend? Okay, Well, I think
it's a challenge, and by and large, as you move further and further
south, the rhododendrons just don't perform as well as, for example, the
azalias might perform. I've seen some rhododendrons further up in East Texas, you
know, you get up the Tyler and areas like that, you'll see some.
But even there, it's asking a lot for them. And I'm not
a rhododendron expert, I'll just admit that. But the times that I've talked
to people that grow them and have tried growing them and things, it's just
it's quite a challenge. So if I told you no, you can't do
it, I'll get ten calls from people saying they do. Because that's how
it is with all plants. But bottom line is, I think if you're
looking for something, I think azilias are probably the ones that you would be
interested in. There are even some name of azaleas that are deciduous, uh,
and they drop their leaves and then they come out with the blooms and
things. And then there's our standard types of azaleas. And there's a lot
of options out there. But I don't blame you for falling in love with
the rhododendrons when you get up there. Uh, they have some gorgeous ones.
They do absolutely okay, and you answer my next question, so we'll
look into the zailies. Thank you so much. Skip all right, Randy,
thanks for the call. Appreciate that a lot. All Right, well,
folks, Uh time taking another little break here, Lloyd. When we
get back, I'll I'll put you first up and we'll come right to you
in the meantime, take a little break our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to the garden Line. Good
to have you with us. If you are looking for a one stop shop
where you're gonna find every product you need to have a bountiful garden and a
beautiful landscape, Southwest Fertilizer down at Southwest Houston is a place you need to
go buy and if you haven't been there. You definitely need to go buy
there. By the way, the place is air conditioned. It's safe to
go during the summer. Southwest Fertilizer has every kind of pest control, every
kind of weed control, every kind of insect control, every kind of fertilizer,
an eighty foot long wall of tools, so quality tools, everything you
need to do the job right. And you know, there's nothing like having
the right tool for the job, and Southwest has got that. They've got
knowledgeable staff. You bring in a sample, you bring in a picture,
you just walk in and describe something going on. They can point you to
what you need to have success and then tell you how to use it properly.
That's important. They're at the corner of Bissonet and Renwick and there's not
a fertilizer I talk about here, nor will you hear me talk about some
pest control that Bob doesn't have it Southwest Fertilizer, because that is what they
specialize in having everything. I like to put it this way, if Southwest
doesn't have it, you don't need it. And that is not an exaggeration.
That is absolutely true. Excellent, excellent place, good supplies. Even
things like I always brag on those kneeling benches, the kind you can flip
one way and sit on, flip the other way and kneel on. You
can fold them up and store them easily. Listen, if you're anywhere north
at forty years old, you gotta get you one of these. Those are
really cool tools among the many nice things that they have. If you're an
organic gardener, you're not going to find a better selection of organic supplies than
they have at Southwest Fertilizer corner of Bissinet and Runwick. Here's the website Southwest
Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. For example, why you're there.
Nitroposs bugout Max. That is the insecticide granular form from nitrofoss that we
put in the lawn to prevent lawn pest issues. Do you have ants like
fire ants, yep, it works well. Do you have fleas fleas have
an egg and a larval form that's out there in the thatch of your grass.
If your dog has fleas and walks out there, fleas are going to
hop off lay eggs. You're going to find them out there night fuss bug
out max will control that. You can get night Fuss at Southwest Fertilizer as
well as many many places and night Fuss products are widely spread out and all
over the area. Chinchbugs. That season is upon us and it's only going
to get more and more as we move into later summer chinchbug season. You
put out bug out Max, it's going to give you protection through the rest
of this summer growing season to control those kinds of things. Over one hundred
and thirty different kinds of insects from night Fuss Bugout Max. Let's head back
to the phones. Now, we're going to go talk to Lloyd and Growton.
Hey Lloyd, how are you doing today? I'm good, sir.
How can we help? Okay, A couple of weeks ago, my daughter
in law brought me a peach of for her grandfather's tree. I beat into
it that peach blue. It was a dark, dark blue. The flesh
of it was. Can you tell me what kind of peach that is?
Well? If today was April first, I would have an explanation for your
question. I have never heard of a blue fleshed peach, and I would
almost say that doesn't exist. I don't oh boy uh. Anyway you could
send me a picture of one, or get more information on it. I'll
see if I got any more. She had to tag where she boughted,
and he said, okay, but I know, yeah, no is a
good peach for this this area. But it's a yellow flesh peach. It's
not not blue. I don't know. Uh, go ahead, This peach
was blue. I mean it was a dark blue cad and but it was
a good it was an absolutely good peach. It was good. Well,
I'm gonna rewind this. You have won. You have won the game called
Stump the chump today because you got me on that one. I think I'm
just gonna put you on on hold here in a second half, producer Chris,
give you my email and if you can find it more information on it.
Mainly send me a picture because what I'm picturing in my head does not
does not exist. I've called about five nurse reagions and nobody had ever heard
of Well, my master's my master's degree in horticulture was in pomology, which
is a study of fruit. That is what I specialized in. I've had
peach orchards myself. I've advised speech orchard just I've never heard of this and
I'm old enough to know never say never, right, So I'm not going
to tell you nothing exists. But I'll tell you this. I'd bet a
lot of money that there's no such thing, and you're telling me you saw
it. So I'm willing to open my mind and say, send me a
picture. Let's take a look. I'll be happy to see what I can
figure out on it. But let me well, okay, but that would
be something completely different. And still you using the word blue for the interior
doesn't sound right now? Maybe exterior it's got a it's it doesn't have a
fuzzy skin, right, that's right, it doesn't. Listening to her,
I appreciate, all right, will hang on. I want to because I
really want to see more on this. If you can provide it, I'll
put you on whole right here, Uh, Chris, if you'll pick that
up and get in my email, because we're gonna have to look into it.
There's the first time for everything. We're going to go to Bess in
Conroe. Now, Hey, Bess, Hello, thus are you there?
Yeah? Hey, welcome to Droudline. Can you hear me? Yes?
I can can you hear me? Yes? Okay, we have a new
build in Huntsville, Texas, forty pallets of grass. My husband was a
little overachieved, and how do I take care of it. It's been down
about a month. Do I need to fertilize or just keep water and it's
really struggling of course in this heat. Yeah, the most important thing on
grass that's been down a month. As you were planting it in June,
that grass needed water from day one more than once a day to help it
get established. But now that we're a month out, if it's still alive,
you're in pretty good shape. I would water it with a good soak,
but just once, maybe twice a week. If you do it once
a week, try to get an inch on it. It may take more
than one application over the course of a morning with about a forty five minute
soak in between them to get an inch down, But to give it a
good soaking and frequently helps develop a deep root system and a resilient grass.
If you need to go twice a week, do about a half inch with
each irrigation. As far as fertilizing, if it's been in a month,
you can go ahead and fertilize it if you feel like you know it needs
it. Just use a slow release product. A slow release product, and
if you go to my schedule. Have you seen my lawn schedule that's on
the website Gardening with skip dot com. I have not, but we are
definitely going to follow that with this new grass. Yeah good, We'll just
go there and do the lawn care schedule and it'll tell you the slow releases.
We have several options. Here are great companies here in the Houston area
that provide you with summer fertilization options. I would go with a slow release
and it's going to carry you gradually feeding the grass all the way in into
fall, and that's what you want. You don't want to overdo just this
giant flush of nitrogen all at once. That's not good. But you do
want a little bit of nitrogen over a long period of time, and that
they do that perfectly. These these for products do that perfectly. Well.
He's been they told him, when he put it down to water three times
a day. And because we still live in Conroe and he's traveling back to
Huspital, he's only done it once a day, but he's done a deep
soak every time. But it is struggling with his heat so he needs to
back off on the watering. Well this next week is oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Twice a week is often enough. Twice a week
is often enough. If it's been in a month, you don't need to
be watering it that often. But when you water it, give it a
good soaking. But just twice a week, and if you can move toward
once, that's fine. You know, in shade, it's not I can't
need near that much water. In sun it's gonna need that much water.
In a sandy soil, you're gonna have to water more often than you are
in a clay soil. So it's hard to have a one size fits all.
But what the advice I gave you on an inch a week is about
as close to one size fits all as I can give you. Okay,
thank you very much, Good luck with that. Did you say forty pallettes
forty palletts? It's an overachieaver, yes. And how many riding lawnmowers do
y'all own? Probably a new one? Yeah? All right, well,
I have fun. So I was like, you need to like start a
golf course or something. Hey, best, thanks to the call. I
appreciate it. Good bet, well the music means we're done with garden Line.
Thank you for listening. I'll be back in the morning six am all
the way to ten am tomorrow morning, four hours of gard Line. John
back with us again. In the meantime, go check out my website gardening
with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot Com. There you'll find the schedules
and you know, we're slowly building stuff. To keep building that website out
make it more and more valuable. I don't quit making promises as to what
I'm going to put up and just tell you when they're up. How about
that? I think that works? About that? Thanks for listening to the
guard Line. You guys have a great rest of to day. Hey go
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