KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy.
Just watch him as woo us so many feast to set the clubs back kicking,
but they're not a sign. Good morning, on a great Saturday.
We are going to have a good gardening day today, as every day is
well. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
And what are we here for to answer your gardening questions? To answer
your gardening calls. We might even tolerate just some gardening bragging on what did
you grow the biggest tomato this year in the whole neighborhood? Whatever you want
to talk about. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I think what I'm gonna
do off. I usually start off with a little bit of a kind of
monologue. I'm just gonna go straight to the phones this morning. We may
have talked about some other things I got in mind in a little bit.
Let's start by going out to Lake Jackson and talking to Walton. Hello,
Walton, Good mornings. Yere morning, I have a problem, and I
have lost all of my Saint Augustine in my front yard, and I would
like to know how best to start over again and to kill kill in sad
do yard. Okay, well, I'm sorry to hear that, first of
all, that you're not the only one. As you know, it's been
been a kind of a rough year for a number of reasons, because of
past years as well. I would you know, you want to start off
by getting everything out of there so you can like or you want you're wanting
to put new sod right and is it new Saint Augustine, New Saint Augustine?
Okay, So you want to get everything out of there, and that's
your chance to see if you got any low spots where you know a little
bit of a dip or a hole you want to put a little soil in.
It's okay to do that. Don't want to add a lot of soil
over the whole yard at one time. If you got trees around, but
kind of get it like you want it and try to use soil that's as
close to what you have as possible. If you just put like composts in
low spots it's just going to decompose and it become a low spot again.
So anyway that would be number one. Get rid of what you have.
If it's just Saint Augustine, you know, I can just be kind of
scraped up. But you can also spray it and get rid of it that
way if you wish, and then level it out and kind of rake out
all the debris on top. So when you put the new sod down,
the soil that comes in with the sod, which is just a little thin
layer, contacts the soil in your yard. That's very important. When you
hit that point when you're ready water your yard pretty well. I would give
it, you know, maybe three quarters of an inch or so of water
and get it to soak into the soil and then put your sod down a
couple of days later. And when you put it down, you want to
roll it or press it so that it contacts the soil below it. You
don't want a gap of air between the sod and the soil, and then
you begin watering very often. Normally we say a good soaking on an infrequent
basis if you have a lawn, but when you're putting in a new lawn,
you can definitely in this weather you could water it twice a day.
Water in the morning, you water a little in the afternoon. Now,
this isn't an inch or anything. This is just a little bit of water,
just third of an inch, half an inch, just to keep that
going. You've pre watered the soil. Means when the roots come out,
they're going to move into soil that already has moisture in it, which is
important. I'd water it. I'd probably water twice a day during this heat
for about a week. But just watch things. If it starts to get
a little bit like a swamp. Your water in too much of volume,
okay, And so after you get through a week, there's gonna be some
roots moving down. Then move it to once a day watering or every other
day at some point until you're back to you know, watering once or twice
a week, and over a period of about three weeks. Okay. I
have had small spots in my yard to die in a pass and I have
done that. I have replaced the grass and I've done you know what you
said, But it this fungus, so whatever it is keep coming back every
year. Is it's some type of a treatment I can do before I put
these sod down. There's there's no pre treatment for fungal problems on the law.
And like if you're you're talking about soil, you know, or dirt,
you you could put down a fungicide after you've laid your side and it's
had two weeks to root in. If it's had two weeks to root in,
it's going to be established and you'll know that you kind of grab a
piece and pull on it a little bit and it doesn't just come right all
right. But after two weeks that's when we think of, okay, if
you want to fertilize, and that would be the next step that I hadn't
talked about. But a good moderate application of fertilizer would be fine to give
it a little boost. And uh yeah, as far as fungicides you can.
I just want to be a little careful because some of the fungicides have
a growth regulating effect the grass growth rate and stuff. It's just not what
it could be, and so early on I kind of hate to do that.
If you if you can get in about three weeks, then I would
just you're good to go. This fall. It's possible you could have like
the large patch, the brown patch big circles appear. That is a pre
treatment that you would want to do in late September, more like early October
to get ahead of that. But I hate to just spray without knowing that
you're going to have that problem. You see what I'm saying, right,
Okay? I get my composts from Sienna March and they have lots of different
Yes, they have lots of different types like the organic are the most room,
the leaf mode, the rich top stared landscape of mix, right,
and so what particular types should I I would just tell them you were wanting
to put down some sode. I now you're talking about to put down before
the grass or are you talking about something as a top dressing or what are
you're thinking there to put down before the sod? Okay? Yeah, I
would ask them for something that's got a lot of soil content, not just
all composts, and I would use that because all you're doing is you're leveling.
You're not putting it everywhere that you have a spot. Okay, So
the and rich top sol would probably be the best one that would be good,
that would probably do good, yes, And then after the grass to
get started come back in with the organic or the leaf mode composts of one
of those. I would do that probably in late September because it's going to
give you a little bit of an organic material on the top your new grass
has some bare spots and to keep the cool season weeds from germinating as well.
Hey, Mel, I'm gonna have to take a break. If you
want to continue the discussion, you can stick around. Give you a couple
more tips or if you if that's enough, thank you, and I'm gonna
go ahead and had to break. All right, you're listening to garden Line
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call.
Josh will get you on the boards and we'll be right back. Just
one bank and well, good Saturday morning. Thank you for being a garden
Line listener. Let's talk about things that you're interested in and gardening. You
know that last last call we just had with Walt with Walton, he was
talking about getting some some soul mixes down at Sienna Maulch and boy, I
tell you fortunate to live down in that area because there is they are an
outstanding supplier. I mean, they have all the mixes you would talk about,
you know, if you just want compost, if you want some enriched
soil materials to put down, if you're looking for certain bed mixes, they've
got it all. And they can sell tea in bulk. They'll deliver within
about twenty miles of their location and with a small charge, of course,
and then they also have it by bags. And they have all the fertilizers
we talk about here amazing. First time I walked in there, I couldn't
believe the selection of fertilizer just in the shop. And then we get outside
and oh my gosh, and rock, their supplies of rock or they are
just flat gorgeous. I had no idea there were that many kinds of beautiful
stone out there. But that's at Siena Multch. You can find them on
FM five twenty one near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together.
They're north of Rochheron, or just go to the website Cienamultch dot com Sienamultch
dot com and you can find them there now. They're open Monday through Friday
seven thirty to five, today seven thirty to two pm and close tomorrow.
So today's a day to get out there, take a look. Go out
and take a look at the material you're about to buy, and you'll see
that quality that I'm talking about at the end of malch. I just I
love going out there to visit. In fact, I'm gonna be out there
this fall. I'll mention that a little bit later as we get closer to
it, but I'm going to be making appearance out there a little bit later
on. Well, let's head out to tom Ball and we're going to talk
to you Mel. Good morning, Mel, Hey, good morning Skip.
Well, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not. We'll find
out. I guess I'm losing my azalias to the heat, and I've been
watering them like every morning now, but there's some that are pretty far going,
and I don't know I should just take my losses and replant, or
is there something I can do to revive them. Well, I can advise
you on what I would do for the azaleas if it is a root disease
that's going on, the only way to know that would be to dig up
a plant before it's dead, when you know, you know this one's barely
anything left different and dig it up and send it to the state Plant Clinic
at A and MT It's Plant Clinic dot TAMU dot edu uh, and they
can tell you what the disease is. Then we'll know which product might be
needed to combat it. In the meantime, watch the watering, maybe dig
down and feel the soil because if it stays soggy wet, a lot of
those fungal diseases of the roots just proliferate. In fact, there's there's a
couple of types of disease and the soil that is kind of interesting that have
little spores that swim like a tadpole And I mean they literally when they have
water, they just swim through it and get to roots and infect them and
do that. So you definitely need moist soil, but you definitely don't want
soggy soil. So okay, yeah, all right, I'll give that a
ship. Yeah, what's going on? Hey, hey, mell, are
you noticing the problem occurs more in the areas that get more sun or more
late day sun or yes, late day sun, late day Yeah, yeah,
there there, there, there's a lot more. There's a lot more
of it going on where I've got three plants, especially that get a lot
of sun, like in the really hot part of the day. Yeah.
Well, another thing is the demands are so high that even with you adequately
watering, uh, those plants, the demands just it's more than they can
keep up with. And that's probably part of what's going on. If it
wouldn't be you know, so darn hot for so darn long, Uh,
it might be different. But uh, just just stick down and feel the
soil. You may need to water a little more, but you won't know
until you feel what it's like in the root zone because a lot of factors.
You know, if you say I'm watering once a day or every other
day or for X minutes, it still comes down to what's what's the soil,
you know, because a lot of things can cause the can can make
your your best watering schedule vary, you know, in order to keep up
and maintain moist soil. So I hope that helps. Uh. Yeah,
if you want to pursue that disease thing, that would be another option.
Based on the location of the plants and what you just said about the late
day sun. I'm leaning away from disease and I'm leaning toward moist soil and
just demands that are too high for that those azaleas. If I if I
would one of those in particularly like in the before the sun hits him,
Is that a good thing? Or can I do it with all of mine
water early in the morning. I I'm fixing to go out there here in
a few minutes. Yeah, But is it would it help to delay wading
those like later on before the sun gets to him? Or only maybe if
your soil was just so well drained that the water just runs right through.
But I doubt that's the case, so I don't think it's going to matter.
Early morning is the most efficient time to get water out, so I'd
go with that. All right. I appreciate your skip. You have had
good date. I appreciate the call. Thank you very much. You know,
I have often bragged on Microlife liquid fertilizers, some of those products that
I just find to be very effective and very very efficient. My excuse me.
Biomatrix, the orange label, Well, I love that they do colors
because that makes it easy. Microlife Biomatrix, that's an orange label. That's
the one I use on my house plants. That's a seven one three ratio
liquid fertilizer. It's organic. It has lots of beneficial microbes, very useful
outdoors. The Microlife Ocean Blue Harvest label four two three ratio. Now it's
called Ocean because basically it's made with a lot of fish materials. A lot
of you are familiar with fish based fertilizers. This one you can use as
a fold of your spray, or you can just drench it in. Put
it right down on the soil, drenching into the root system. Do a
dilute solution. Follow the label every time you water. Go to Microlife Fertilizer
dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out about those two
products and more Microlife products and you can find out where to get them in
your area. We're gonna head out to Crosby now talking to Joe. Good
morning Joe or miss Skip. You're doing a fine job on garden line.
Well, thank you. I've got a red oak that I've planted old Timer's
calling water rope because they grows the fasten the water and its red open.
I planned it out of a pot twenty years ago and on sucker fixed and
foot tunnel. That the coolest tree to sit in there and the best thing
I ever did, and then in the black stat I'm not that smart.
However, I'm worried about it. It's dropping green leaves like a lot?
Is that? And I wanted it last night or on slow ordered all not
long, but I need to do or just leave it alone light it's because
it's baby pretty hardy. Are the leaves coming off as individual leaves? Are
you getting kind of the end of the twig with several leaves on it?
Now it's an individual league? Okay? That is a lot? Yeah,
yeah, No, can any changes in the in the landscape, like did
you trench? Did you bring in soil take away? Nothing like that?
Well, I'm going to say it's just a water stress and the tree,
you know, if it has to, it'll drop leaves. The fact that
they're not browning on the tips or the edges is kind of peculiar because if
it were water stress, I would expect some of that, not just a
pin. Let me check that because I didn't look at them all that hard.
They may be brown on the tip. If you're seeing that, I'm
going to lean toward water stress. Trees have extensive root systems, but when
we go through high high heat for a long time. They just use up
the bank account of water. And sometimes it's hard to water deep enough to
be able to get that water in. And so I'm not going to hurt
it. I started water day. Oh no. But when you water,
don't water like you're watering a lawn. Put down at least an inch of
water, an inch and a half, maybe even better. As a rescue
treatment, you're going to soak the soil deeply, the entire area beneath the
whole branch, spread and even beyond that if you can one good cooking and
that's not even a weekly that you do that, and that'll carry you at
least seven days, could be ten days before you need to water again.
And hopefully we're gonna get some rain in the meantime. I hope, so
we'll. I appreciate you, all right, sir, thank you. I
appreciate that call very much. You know, I brag on Vego garden beds
all the time, and I just got a new bed. Vego bed.
It's one of the ones that's on rollers. Yeah, that's right. Vego
makes a bed that has a self watering pan underneath it, and so you
fill that with water and it's on rollers. So it's up high where you
don't have to stoop over to work in it. It's really cool because you
know that way you don't have to water every day. You can give it
a good soaking and then just kind of watch your soul moisture. Really cool.
You know, Vego beds are made here and here's they're a Houston company
that they're actually the first metal bed that I know of in the United States
like this. But these are beds that are treated so the metal doesn't ruster
corrode. Then they're painted with the USDA certified paints, also tested at Texan
m University, and these beds are the original you'll see. You'll see others
out there, other kinds of metal beds. There's a million of them out
there. Don't be fooled by that. This is a super high quality bed
that will way out last treated wood in a bed in your garden. And
if you're an organic gardener, you'd probably would rather not use the treated wood
anyway. You can go to vegogarden dot com v Ego garden dot com and
find out more, find out where you can get them. Several of our
local nurseries here an hour carrying the vego bed. But go online and check
them out. You will. You will see that and you'll say that is
the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. That is how I want to put
in my vegetable beds. By the way, you can grow flowers in them
too. We're gonna head out now to Willis Mike. I've got about one
minute, and if we need to hold over past break, we'll do that.
But I wanted to try to get to you as fast as I could.
They answer, good mornings, gift, I appreciate it. Good question.
I try to go buy some microfloss last week, and the place I
was buying it from told me not to fertilize because it was going to burn
the grass it's so hot. I worry to get your take on that.
You will not burn grass with any fertilizer that I talk about on garden Line,
if you use it at the right rate and water it in. That's
that's the bottom line. Some fertilizers are salt based and yes, concentrated during
a drought time, they can they can burn plants, But when you use
them right at the right rate and then watered in, absolutely not gonna not
gonna burn your plants. Do you recommend doing it now? Then you could
do it now. You know, it's always if your law needs nutrients,
it's always a good time to do that. Or you could hold on.
We're getting close to the fall application, which will come. I get well,
actually we're still a little ways away, but yeah, you could you
could go ahead and do it right now. Hey, I'm gonna have to
go to break. If you want to hang on, just hang on.
We'll come back to this. But thank you for the call. Well,
Nikki, it's time for the Nikki News Network to kick into gear and let
us know what's happening outside. Eighty five degrees outside just getting folk me so
good Saturday morning, on a great day for gardening, absolute great day for
gardening. If you live out in the Kingwood area, again, you are
wealthy with garden centers because you have Kingwood Garden Center and you have Warren's Garden
Center in the same area. I mean that is that is like I don't
know, I don't know anywhere else in town where you got two right close
together like that. Warren's Garden Southern Gardens that's on North Park Drive, Kingwood
Garden Centers on Stone Hollow drive for those of you out there this week,
they are you know, what we're really featuring and talking about is the soaker
hoses. I mean, it's a good time for soaker hoses right Well,
they've got some really quality hoses. You can put down water and precision,
and water needs to get on the soil. When you spray it with you
know, with a sprayer a sprinkler, you're gonna get on the plants and
things and you lose a lot of your water. But when you put it
down on the soil, that is the most efficient way in a in a
soaker hose will do just that. I think one of the cool things that
they've got going on out there now is the house plants. You know,
we're not wanting to be outside when it's one hundred degrees outside, right,
well, why not bring that fresh green nor indoors. You can transform your
home into a cool oasis, a beautiful tranquil area. Like look around your
warrant, your room, your living room, wherever you are in the house.
What would be good in that corner. Maybe it's certain kinds of houseplants,
tall and upright, Maybe you need something trailing. There's many beautiful,
beautiful types of houseplants. They even have some hard to find exotic houseplants,
or maybe you want a plant for a container outside, like a vibrant succulent
that fits the weather we're having. For sure, it's all available Warren's Garden
Center Kingwood Garden Center out in the Kingwood area. If you would like more
information, just look them up. You can find them online. You can
find their Facebook pages. Both of them have really excellent Facebook pages to keep
you up to date on what's going on. But I don't think you're going
to do any better. And again I'm jealous of those folks that live out
in the Kingwood and West say Kingwood area. I mean the overall area out
there. You know, everything from Porter to you name it, Humble all
through that area. I need to get back out there that it's been a
little while since I've been out to check out what's going on on those excellent
centers. I always love to really swing by both of them and get to
get to check out because they're both quality, but it's each is a little
different in its own way. Well, we're going to head to the phones
now and we're going to talk to Archie out in Paarland. Hello Archie,
Morning Skip. I talked to you a couple of weeks ago, and I
sent you some pictures, but I don't know if you ever got those pictures
or not. Where I had the browning in my yard, weren't sure whether
it was take all patch or whether it was something else. I'm looking right
now. How long ago was this? That? Two weeks ago? Oh?
Gosh? Uh? Well, I have two pictures, one up close
and one from a distance. And since then it's spreading even more. Where
it's turning out even more. All right, I found I found it open
comes up here. Yeah, that's it. I think what's going on there
is. I'm sure drought is related to it, but it probably is a
root disease called take all root rot. Just the pattern of it, the
way the grass kind of yellows and then goes dead. It's because the roots
are dying and iron is taken up at the tip of the root. Interestingly
enough, not all along the root, but out at the tip. So
when you start getting root tips dying, you start getting iron deficiency just because
the plant can't get it, And in this case that disease is pretty bad.
I would I would probably start with a good quality fungicide to try to
shut things down. We're really in the time of the year where we don't
spray for take all root rot as much. That's something that most important would
be done. Let's say late September early October, that is entering the period
where new infection occurs. Right now, you're looking at plants that have had
it for a good while and they're just going downhill because they can't keep up
with summer. So I would I would use a funger side. The ingredient
that is best for takeall root rot is azoxystrobin, and I'll spell that out.
I hope you got a pen or pencil handy there. Yeah, I'll
spell it out for you. And then I would follow that up after you
sprayed with a compost top dressing of high quality leaf mold composts to just uh,
you know, create that environment on the surface where there's lots of microbial
activity to compete with that take on. So azoxystrobin has a z o x
y azoxy st a z o x y huh st r o b i n
a zoxy strobein. If you just even get close to that and go to
a place that you know out in parallyn. You've got Ace hardwarees and great
Ace hardwarees out there in Parna. They're going to have a product like that.
Just tell them that's the ingredients you're looking for. Who knows what it'll
be in John, Yeah, okay, you bet while you're out there.
Okay, all right. And one other thing I've got in the front bed.
I've got a whole oh hundred score foot bed of the angelonia. Okay,
and they're they're green, but they're not blooming. Okay, they're just
green plants. And they haven't blooms in spring. Oh, they haven't bloomed
at all. Well, then spring they bloomed a little bit. Wow.
Then since then they haven't boomed at all. And I've been feeding them with
color Star and everything else. Holy cow, I know, boy, you
got me there. I don't. They're getting plenty of sunlight. I guess,
yes, they brought up in full sunm but well, I don't know.
You know, it's it's a stumper because you're not telling me the plants
are wilted or stunted or anything like that. Would maybe, Hey, they
need water, they got plenty of son you're putting a super quality fertilizer on
with that color star. I just guess keep wordering them for right. Now,
go ahead and send me another picture and I will take a look at
them. If you can get up close, maybe I'll see something in the
photo, Okay, because I'm and they're going to read a bit. Yeah,
I don't know. Yeah, that's why I said it's a stumper.
Everything that I would look to and go to, you're already doing right,
So I'll give it my best shot. All right, thank you for that
call. Archie. By the way, for those of you who have been
emailing, I am inundated with some emails, and I try to keep those
related to show calls. So if you're gonna call on Saturday or Sunday,
send me an email. If there's a picture I need to see to help
you answer the question, or if you call the show and I have Josh
send you an email. Do that. But as far as just general entering
all the emails that people would have, I can't keep up with that,
So make sure they're related to the show. If you would. You know,
out at the Arbourgate you're going to find everything that you would need.
And that's one of the garden centers that I call our destination garden centers here.
There's really none like it. They have everything for your plants. Right
now. They are stocked up on vegetables and it's time. They got tomatoes
and peppers. They even have ochre plants, and if you hurry up and
get them in, you can probably get a little bit of ocra out of
those things too before it gets too cold, because we live in a far
South and that's a good thing. They have eggplant and squash, cucumbers.
They just have everything that you would need for your garden, and that's just
the vegetables. While you're there, check out their one two three easy system.
That's a food it's a four four three plus cow organic fertilizer, and
then they have a soil that has expanded shale in it, but also a
quality a type of sand that helps also provide good drainage. And then an
organic compost that again has the expanded shale and two kinds of composts in it.
So those those three products one two three food, soil, composts.
Check it out when you're out there at the Arbor Grate Nursery and they are
on FM twenty and twenty in Tomball, Texas. We're gonna take a little
break our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
Josh a call, get you on the board, and we'll talk to you
when we come back. Wants the way you need want? Well, good
morning. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we are here to answer gardening questions. Our number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Hey, now's the time to be getting ready for your
fall fertilization. And one of the things that I like for folks to do
is to have their soil tested about every three years. And I know most
people don't do that, but it's the best way to fertilize according to what
your soil needs because you and your neighbors may have slightly different nutrient levels due
to a history of different kinds of fertilizing, and so soil testing is always
easy. You can go to Soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu. There you'll
find the form, choose the urban soil test and if you need it's best
to take a vertical core six inches deep, same amount of soil one inch
deep, two inches, three inches, four inches, five inches, six
inches all the same. One way to do that if you'll go by Southwest
Fertilizer, Bob's got a soil probe that he actually will loan out. You
got to leave a deposit because these things tend to developed legs and walk away,
if you know what I mean. But it didn't cost you anything to
use it. And Southwest Fertilizer has everything, I mean, every fertilizer I
talk about, and then some every possible fungicide, herbicide, insecticide, synthetic,
organic, you name it. It's all at Southwest Fertilizer. You can
go to south West Fertilizer dot com. By the way, they're located in
Southwest Houston on the corner of Bissonette and Renwick. Corner of Bisinett and Renwick.
Southwest Fertilizer dot Com. While you're there, ask them to see the
kneeling benches. They have a great stock of really nice kneeling benches and you're
gonna look at them and think, no, I'm not old and decrepit.
I don't need that. You need that. If you've ever woken up in
the morning in the prenatal position, wondering why you're so sore. That's what
you need is a kneeling bench. I love mine. They are excellent,
and Bob's got some in stock there. I just noticed them a little walk
back anyway southwest for Alizer dot com. You're gonna find everything you need there,
that's for sure. In a special good way to get ready for this
fall fertilization that's coming up. You are listening to garden Line and our host,
our host, our phone number, I don't know who our host is.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I mentioned fertilizing
your lawn. It's also important to water your lawn. But it's important to
water your lawn right. What most people do is they put little squirts of
water on and every day or every other day. And that is not how
you water it. That wets the thatch at Whatt's, the grass blades a
lot, and all that evaporates and contributes to the humidity of Houston, thank
you very much. And when you water longer and put more down, you
actually soak the soil better and a good deep soaking once a week or at
the most twice week. And the absence of rainfall is about what you need
to do, and so you need to water properly. Now. The easiest
way to do this is to go to this website write this down water myyard
dot org. Water my yard dot org. It's free. You can find
the app for it on the Apple Store and on Google Play. But you
put in your location and it automatically finds the closest mini weather station and they're
all over the listening area here, and it feeds that data into a computer
that sends you a weekly email. And I just got one this week and
my lawn. It said, you've used point nine inches of water in your
lawn this week. That's how much you need to put on. And so
you know some days you're cloudy and you don't use as much. The temperature
varies, all that kind of stuff. Water my Yard gives science based free
watering recommendations, and that way you don't have to guess. You do it
according to what we know. Your grass is used based on temperature, windspeed,
etc. Etc. Etc. I was out in the backyard the other
day enjoying the birds. And I always enjoy the birds in the backyard,
and you know it, thinking about all this heat, I just want to
remind you birds need water. They really have got to have supplemental water,
and there are you know, without rainfall, they're not only a little puddles
around or drink out of. And it's hot and dry. So provide your
birds with plenty of water and that will bring them to your place. And
we talk about bird feeders and birdhouses. Those are all good, but water
alone is going to bring those birds in. And mine come in early in
the morning. I see them also, especially late in the day, but
they'll come in at different times. You need to check out wall Birds Unlimited
though. They have got some really cool bird baths and other watering devices.
They've got the food that you need to be feeding, which right now is
still the nesting super lend for the birds. Go to Wahbird's unlimited website.
Here's how you find the Houston stores. We got a bunch of Houston stores
WBU dot com, forward slash Houston. WBU dot Com forward slash Houston.
By the way, it's a great place too to buy gifts. You know
you've got somebody. I don't know what to get them. They would so
enjoy a hummingbird feeder. And Wahbirds has those little high perch feeders that are
so attractive to hummingbirds. Anyway, just to tip there, I've got one
myself. In fact, I've got to get mine cleaned up and put back
out there again. I got a couple of hummingbird feeders. Just love bringing
those little bookers in. Well, you're listening to Gardenline our phone numbers seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one
two five eight seven four. Hey, if you're looking to do some fertilizing
on your lawn nitrofoss Super Turf nineteen four ten. Great blend gradually over time.
You're not going to promote the brown patch that is such a problem that
we would call it large patch. Now in the fall season of the year,
you're going to smooth out that mowing instead of the feast or famine,
you know, where you put a bunch of fertilizer, get a bunch of
growth, and have to mow a lot. It's going to gradually feed out
over time. Nineteen four ten. Here's the way to remember it silver bag.
Now night Fuss is everywhere our great garden centers, our feed stores,
our ace hardware store. Just look for the silver bag. Tell them I
want the silver bag for my lawn, and go ahead and get that down
and it'll give you a number of months of quality feeding. As a result,
you are listening to garden Line and our goal here is to help you
be a better gardener. We want your gardening to be a pleasure. Not
I tried it and everything died, and I have a brown thumb and all
that kind of stuff. There are no brown thumbs. They are uninformed thumbs.
And we're here to inform your thumb. And once you know to do
and you know how to do it, and you know the kinds of products
that help you do that, you're on your way to having the greenest place
on the block, or the way I like to put it, the most
bountiful garden and the most beautiful landscape. That combination is what we're looking for,
and you can have that here. We have all kinds of challenges right
now. We're dealing with no rain and lots of heat. We've got pests,
we've got diseases that we deal with. Those are all challenges, but
there are ways to minimize the pest and to minimize the disease, and there
are ways to go in and use the right product and the right rate at
the right time to fix it and be done with it. If you need
to resort to spraying for things, we can advise on that. But I
want you to just if you will, just believe me that we can help
you have a beautiful garden, and it is possible. If you're listening to
the show and you've never gardened. I understand that we have a lot of
people that just our gardeners, they just I don't know, enjoy listening to
the show, and we have other people who listen a lot. Don't call
in, but feel free to call in. We'll be glad to help you
with your questions because I'll tell you this, if you've got a question,
somebody else has that question. If your lawns dying, a lot of somebody
else's that same question. So give us a call. We're going to take
a break here in a little bit, and when we come back, Josh
will have you on the boards and you can be first up as we begin
to move forward with the show. I appreciate the fact that people care about
their lawns and they listen in to the show, and that they really want
to have more success. For those of you who moved in from outside the
area, our schedules and years are very different here, and so we plant
tomatoes at different times. For example, we have different types of plants that
we often use. Listen in, tell your neighbors, your friends about it,
and we'll try to guide in every way we can for you to have
a good success. Again, if you feel like you have a brown thumb,
trust me you don't. We'll fix that. Hey, We'll be right
back and continue with fixing that. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden
Line with Skip Ricord so crazy. Just watch him as us so many fables
for good morning. I hope you're having a good morning. It's gonna be
a good day for gardening. I can tell you that for sure. One
of my favorite things to do on a Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon is get
out and visit garden centers. I'm telling you I've been doing this for over
thirty four years. Advising people on gardening and whatnot. And I still when
I go to our quality garden centers here, I still see plants it's like
I've never seen that plant before, or that's a new variety I hadn't seen.
It's always interesting and it's always so beautiful. I mean, that is
just it's amazing how gorgeous some of the plants that are being developed and bred
and release now are. I tell you a place where you can see that
kind of thing. By the way, that would be RCW Nurseries. That's
the nursery that's where two forty nine Tomball Parkway where it comes into Beltway eight
right there. They've got a selection of all kinds of things, I mean
a wide variety. So here, for example, you want a native flowering
tree that's small for your landscape, go to r CW and say, hey,
show me the Mexican plums that you grow. Because they are experts at
trees. I mean they have you know, they have the tree farm up
in the oh gosh, can even say the area anyway, Their tree farm
supplies a wide variety of species that do super well here, including this like
Mexican plum. That would be an example of that. If you want a
jujube, have you ever heard of a jujube? It's a fruit tree,
very unique and they just have an excellent supply two of those as well.
They got a new variety there. What's it called sugarcane. Sugarcane is the
name of it, and it is a just think of it as like a
little apple like fruit. We don't see them grown here much, but they
are their quality that when if you want something you don't have to spray a
lot, well that would be a jujuby. That's that is absolutely for sure.
But up at RCW by the way, here's here's their website. Right
let me give you this. Go take a look. You'll see what I'm
talking about. RCW Nurseries plural dot com. RCW Nurseries dot com. They're
gonna have roses. That's another example of me saying that they have everything.
They're gonna have. Oh, by the way, right now, lots of
cool fall yard art. Like you wants some metal pumpkins or jack O lanerns
that are metal and just really really cool stuff. Go by there and check
out their fall yard materials. The decorating materials that we put out there on
our portas patios and out in the yard. They've got it all at OURCW
Nursery. Can't brag on them enough. We're gonna head out now to Ralph
in northwest Houston. Hello Ralph, good morning, you're the best day we
ever head. Oh my god. He do appreciate your program. And it
is really in fall said to me, and I just sit here and listen
to it. But I got my pecan trees and my fig and all these
other trees and in my mom May halls and my gardener. What did I
do with my garden right now? Called? It's just what should I put
in my big garden? Yeah, you know you're talking about with the what's
kind of you said? Ok? I know I can get grow? Ok,
right now, that's right. That's right. So when you say garden,
you mean your vegetable garden. That's what you're asking. Yes, course,
Now it's a great time to plant some of the warm season crops that
we grow into fall. So squashes. They haven't been setting well this summer
because it's too hot. But if you plan them now, by the time
they reach a stage where they can bloom and set fruit, the temperature is
gonna be cooling off and you're gonna get a really nice little yield. Que
Comb is the same way, Ralph. You can do cucumber, you know,
if you if you get a good sized plant and get going, you
can get tomato. Get a little tomato crop. Just look for tomatoes that
are the fastest to harvest. There's a thing called days to harvest that's usually
own the label, and you don't want one that takes eighty days. You
want one that takes about seventy seventy five maybe, or even sixty five days
would be good to plant right now. Of course, you still plant peppers
and get them going. But pretty soon here it's gonna cool off enough.
When we get into September, we're gonna whether it's cool or not, we're
gonna have to start planning our blue leaf vegetables, a cool season stuff.
But we're still in warm season planning. By the way, Ralph, if
you grew potatoes before and still have some leftover small potatoes, plant the whole
potato. Now's a good time to do that for a good fall harvest.
So potatoes. Also, it's been set a bad year this year, and
I'm finky with my water okay, but all my trees I've been trying to
keep save them. I got all kind of fig trees, right, And
what well hell should I do where all of this? Well, you know,
just a good soaking on an infrequent basis. But make sure there's no
weed competition and the soil is not bare. So here's what I mean,
A big mulst area. Think that make that tree think it's living in a
forest with leafletter all over the floor, forest floor. So that means no
weeds to steal water. You know, you have to pay for your drinking
water putting it on the plants. I understand being sparse with that, but
you remove the water stealing weeds. You put a mulch on the soil to
whole moisture in and cool the soil off, and then you just water occasionally
with a good soaking, not every day, not every other day, once
a week, once ever two weeks even if you if you need to stretch
it out, and that would be the best device I can give you.
Pecan tree is gonna be all right. Oh my may hall did good and
everything, But my pocon trees, they all does. An pocon I had
a great crop and this is a shame. Well that's the that is the
uh, just the stress of a water you know, a water deficit in
the in this kind of weather. Uh I. All you can do is
try to give them a good deep soaking. Sometimes squirrels get in there and
do mischief, but we're too early for that. So if you're seeing pecan's
fallen and stuff, that that's just the matter of them trying to live with
the stress. H huh. All right, Ken, I do appreciate you.
You're the best. Thank you, well, you're kind. Thank you
very much. I appreciate that call very much. Uh. You know,
talking about trees, the folks at Affordable Tree Care, And when I say
the folks at Affordable Tree Care, I mean you know what I'm talking about
talking about Martin. I'm talking about Joe. They have been running this for
a very long time. Martin is uh you know, he's hands on day
to day with the company. It's that it's that old fashioned kind of service
you expect you when you hire somebody to fix your car, when you hire
somebody to take care of your tree, you want to know that they know
what they're doing so they do it right. That's Martin Spoon Moore an affordable
tree. You want to know that they're gonna show up when they say they're
gonna show up, which is Martin Spoon Moore an affordable tree. You know,
you want to know that they're gonna give you a reasonable price. You
know they're not just telling you, oh, you need this and that done,
and you know your alternator's falling off over here when it's not and that
kind of you know how that is with sometimes with mechanics, you don't get
that. With Affordable Tree, you get it the right way. Give McCall
seven one three, six nine nine twenty six six seven one three six nine
nine twenty six sixty three are call aff Tree Service dot com. By the
way, they are excellent at deep root watering and right now, just like
we were talking while ago with Ralph, that's what you need is a good
deep soaking. Call them, find out about having them come out and give
a good deep root watering. And while they're out there, look through your
trees and see what might be needed here we are in hurricane season, a
little bit of pruning maybe in order we're gonna take a break seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four we'll be right back. Well, good
Saturday morning on a great day for gardening. Yes, you're listening to Garden
Line and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Help you have a more
beautiful garden and a more bountiful landscape. Now, if you live up in
the Tomball area and you are looking for your hometown feed store, that is
D and D Feed. D D is about three miles west of Highway two
forty nine. On twenty nine twenty the Dover family opened that store. Gosh,
back in the late eighties and the summer they expanded. I was just
looking at some new stock that they had in it is they just have everything
there. I mean they're going to carry the fertilizers we talk about. Of
course, they have plants. If you want a high end dog food like
Origin, Diamond, Victor Starpro, those kinds of foods that they've got them,
Foods Forever pet of course for livestock, it's a feed store. Products
like horse care, products to care for your livestock. They've got that.
You got a problem with rodents, they can take care of that. Maybe
even pool cleaners. You're gonna find that kind of stuff at D and D
Feed check out to their little Doggie DELI. I don't know what they I
can't remember exactly what they call it, but basically, it's all kinds of
cool treats and your dog will be so glad that you brought them home.
My dogs demand that they get Doggie Delhi every time I come home with from
a trip to D and D feed D and D feed again. Three miles
west of Highway two forty nine on twenty nine twenty in Tumble. Let's see,
let's go out now to sugar Land and we're going to visit with Alan.
Hello Ellen, good morning, Scale. How are you doing today?
I'm good? What's up? I've got a RM and do the problem?
Okay, I'll put out in my flower badge. Yes, I'll put pepper
dick, I'll put the smold repellent out. Huh. And I think it's
become addicted to both of those. Well, you know with Armadilla's there's there's
really two options. One is fencing them out with a low fence they can't
come through. That's probably not practical in your situation, but that is an
option. Uh. There's also trapping them and you can do a live trap.
Uh. If if Basically what you do is you have a live trap.
You have boards shape like a V going out because these little bumbling idiots,
I mean you kind of have to direct them into the trap. They're
just bouncing along like pinballs there right into the heaven. I have a have
a hard trap of large ones there. That's it. That is ex me
what kind of bait would I put in there? Or just you just have
I generally recommend uh, taking like a little macaroni, you know, like
mac and cheese, those kind of little pastas and boiling them, boiling them
in like beef bull yond, uh what cooking them in beef bull yond that
way they have that flavor. And then just drop them, you know,
go out and drop one. Go a couple of feet and drop one.
Just you don't want to get them full before they get in the trap.
But lead them in that way. That is, if you can kind of
watch and figure out their pathway. Usually they'll hit like a privacy fence and
go along that or something. There's okay, there's a publication. You got
a pen or pencil handy. This is a This is a free publication online
through Texas A and m Agrilife Extension which is a great source for pretty much
everything you have questions about, including in this case, Armadilla's. The website
is called agralife learn a g r I l I f E l e r
m agrilife, learn dot TAMU dot e d u agrilife learn dot tmmu dot
du. Type armadilla in the search bar and you'll see there's some publications you
buy that are prep publications. Then there's one managing armadilla damage. It's free.
You click on it. I think you have to give me your address
or whatever, and so they can send it to you. And what they
do is they don't they don't like mail it. They give you the PDF,
so it'll come in your email as an attachment and you can see the
whole free publication. You can print it out or whatever you want, and
it is everything we know about dealing with armadillas and their damage. Okay,
all right, so just playing macaroni, macaroni, cheese, macaroni in Yeah,
just just the macaroni, and we want to give it kind of a
you know, armadilla's like grubs almost kind of like a meaty you know,
pro high protein, high oil, those kind of things, and it gives
it that smell and they seem to like that. And I don't know,
there are probably other things you could use. That's just the one over the
years that in talking with people, I think seems to be pretty effective.
Okay, all right now, if if all this fails, now I've you
know, I've been all over the South and I can tell you for a
fact that there are recipes for armadilla out there. If you've got a barbecue
pit, that would be your last resort. Well, I don't move out
of the country, that would be the best way to get rid of Okay,
I'm just having some fun with you. Hey, thank you so much
for the call. Ellen. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time.
I enjoy your show. Will say, thank you very much. I appreciate
that very much. You know Nelson Plat Foods. I was visiting with Dean
the other day just talking about some of his products and things. They've got
the color Star line. You've probably heard color Star. I mean, unless
you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard of Color Star. They've got
the Nutral Star line. They've got turf Star, which for your lawn of
course, and even Nature Star, which is organic for Eliza line. Now
in the turf, we're still recommending that's slow and easy. That's a twenty
two two ten, twenty two two ten slow and easy. It gives you
that gradual feed that I keep talking about all summer. We don't want to
just over fertilize and get a lot of nitrogen down, and you want to
go easy on it and you want it to gradually release. And that's What's
and easy does. The twenty two two ten. You need five pounds per
thousand square feet. That's all you need for now, five pounds per thousand
square feet. Put that down, watered in, and it'll feed your lawn
for a good time. And all the Nelson products are quality fertilizer. Dean
you know from the beginning he designed his fertilizers to fit Texas conditions, to
fit Texas A and M turf specialist recommendations. And that's exactly what slow and
Easy will do. Let's head out to Southwest Houston. Now we're going to
talk to Ellen. Hello, Ellen, good morning, How are you well?
I'm well this morning. What's up great? I have a couple of
questions about my vegetable garden. My egg plants are not doing well. The
bush is huge, lots of flowers. But then I'll get just a little
egg plant that won't grow and it's a funky color, isn't the heat?
Yeah, that's the heat and the stress. So just make sure the fact
that you have a big egg plant tells me you've been watering the thing.
Just continue to do that. We're going to get a break in the temperature
and you're going to get some more egg plants setting on that plant, all
right. And the same with my oakra that I planted from seeds are about
four feet tall, great stems, am I. But I haven't gotten any
flowers or any oak or yet. But I maybe jumping the gun a little
maybe do you This is probably hard to you know, recall back, But
do you know how long ago you planted seed of okra? It was probably
a couple of months. Oh wow, okay, well in sixty days you
should definitely have fruit on okra. Some some cultivars are slower than others.
I don't know. Just it's beautiful. Oh okay, if they look good,
then just let's let it ride. Don't add more fertilizer right now.
If they look good, they're okay, Just keep them moist and they'll they'll
start setting. Okra is not affected by the heat. It will set pods
even in the heat. So I would just give them a little more time.
And my fruit trees, my lemon and I have an orange leaves are
starting to get a little yellow set. Me need to fertilize them. A
light fertilization would be okay, but I wouldn't I wouldn't do too much.
That the yellowing could be due to, you know, the extreme heat and
having to pump so much water. The sail gets a little on the dry
side and it just can't get access to enough water to keep flowing. It
could be that. It could be a number of things. But you just
want to be careful when we have plants that are not fully cold hearty,
you know, not always cold hearty. That would be citrus, for example,
when you push him with a lot of fertilization. Let's say in September,
you gave him a good fertilization, and you would promote a lot of
late season flush of growth that would be very susceptible to the cold, compared
to a plant that went into winter and had time to slow down and prepare
and be it's hardy, heartiest that it can be for the winter. So
go easier on the fertilizing. Uh, you know, just that's my best
advice. Yeah, I may just hold off. You know, it's not
bad, but I just you know, they look they look pretty healthy,
so maybe I'll get a little bit more time. Yeah, I think I
would eat. Well. Thank you all right, wonderful, Well good.
I'm glad you plant. Sounds like you're having fun out there. I am,
and the heat as best I can alright, thank you. I appreciate
that call. Ellen, Thank you very much. You know, I'm always
bragging on ACE Hardware because they have everything you need. They literally do for
the lawn and garden or fertilizers or soils, the products you need to control
and deal with pests and weeds and insects and diseases and things. They've got
all that good selection to some gardening supplies too, you know, all the
things you need to the tools and whatnot that you need. It's going to
be at Ace Hardware. You can go to Ace Hardware dot com. That's
Ace Hardware dot com and do their store locator and when you tell them where
you live, they'll tell you where all the stores around you are. ACE
Hardware has thirty nine stores here in the Houston area, so there's going to
be two or three worth a drive to get to, if not across the
street from you. With that many, and you can find what we're talking
about here. I really, if you have not been into ACE, please
just go check it out. Maybe you need some fertilizer or something. They're
going to have it. But while you're in there, allow yourself some time
because there is an unlimited supply of really cool prod. It is not your
typical hardware store in terms of all we sell is electrical and plumbing and things
like that. No, they've got that, but they've got everything else.
Educated, helpful people that greet you and take you to the product you need.
What more can you ask for it? Well, that's as hardware for
you. Well it's time for NICKI News Network. We need music like Good
Morning on a Saturday morning that is made for gardening. I hope you're out
there with the radio, of course, getting a little bit of work done
out in the garden while it's cool. You know, you don't take care
of yourself. We we've got some incredibly high temperatures and things like heat stress,
seat stroke, heat exhaustion. Those all sneak up on you. And
I've been the invincible guy who yeah, I can take this. I'm doing
fine. And one time, many years ago, I learned my lesson.
I didn't have a heat stroke, but I did definitely have a heat exhaustion.
And it just made me realize. When they say drink water, drink
water, whether they're thirsty or not, keep drinking water. They're right.
Trying to stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day.
Of course that's nice. Just take care of yourself. Also protect your skin.
I sound like your mom, I know that, but hey, just
bear with me on this one. Skin damage is cumulative and it's really true.
And I know you get away with it. You know, when we're
young, we're invincible. I used to run around with our shirt on and
shorts and without shoes too, remember those days when your kids, Well,
you get away with it then, but in time it catches up to you.
And so why not texture skin. There's some high quality sunscreens. I
like to wear big, broad brimmed hats. You've probably seen that if you've
ever seen me. And long sleeve shirt's a good long sleeve cotton shirt in
the summer is actually cooler than a short sleeve shirt. In my opinion,
I wear those all the time when I'm out and about. So anyway,
that's your public service announcement, not from mom, but from someone who you
know wants to keep you around. Well, you're listening to Gardenline, and
our goal here is to provide you with good quality information on how to do
things right. And you've heard me a thousand times say it all begins with
a soil. You've got to take care of your soil. That is very
important, and it's true. It's like when you plan a plant, you've
already chosen a spot that as sun or not. You've it drains well or
done. You've improved the soil or you haven't. And if you don't do
those those things right, if you don't take care of those things according to
the plant you want to grow, you're not going to have success. And
we want you to have success. So let's talk about the soil. Soil
is critical and a good quality mix for whatever you're doing is important. It
may just be you want to get some quality compost to mix into the soil.
That helps a lot an enter or two of composts mixed into the soil
will do wonders to really help your soil. I brag all the time about
the age leaf mold compost. We're talking not about just chunky pieces of wood,
like some cheap compost brands will try to send you that are just worthless,
really just don't even bother with them. But an age leaf more compost
that. Let's take heirloom soils for example. They know how to make a
good quality age leaf more compost, and so you're talking about a compost that
has had the time to truly age, not something that's rushed out, but
something that is made from leaves. By the way, when we see mold
leaf mold, we're not talking about like bread mold. We're talking about a
leaf that is decomposed to the point where it is still recognizable as a little
chocolate brown leaf maybe or bits and pieces of it, but it isn't fully
composted yet. It's it's almost completed as cycle. But and then they screen
it down. That's what we use to top dress our lawns. It works
really well. And airloom soils has plenty of that. I mean, they
have lots on hand. Now you can get them to bring maybe a supersack
out to your place. They drop it in the driveway. It's a cubic
yard of whatever the material is that they will deliver in a supersack to you
right on the driveway, real clean, real easy. You don't have to
rent a pickup or own a pickup to go get it. I think that's
a great way. You can buy airloom soils by the bag, and they
they're everywhere. I mean, they wide distribution. Not hard to find airloom
soils anywhere. Now that they're open for bulk sales Monday through Saturday from seven
am to five pm out at the porter location, you're going to find the
bags everywhere else. And then you can order the super sax. I mean,
there's a lot of ways to go about this. But whether you need
a leafmo composts, it's quality aged. Whether you need a compost itself.
You want to soil for vegetable gardens, you know there they have many,
many mixes that are specifically designed to promote the most plant growth. That's airlimb
soils. That's why we trust them. That's why they're so successful because you
know, when you produce a quality product at a reasonable price. People are
gonna They're gonna catch on and it is going to become a thing. And
that is that is true of Airlimb soils. I've used their soils, always
have good success with products that they produce. Our phone number is seven one
three, two one two five eight seven four seven one three two and two
fifty eight seventy four. Well, what are we gonna do? Talk about
one hundred and three temperatures, no rain and plants that are just hanging on
by a thread. I guess we can keep doing that. That's a little
bit depressing. I'd rather talk about something positive, and that is that we've
got really tough plants here that do well if we just hydrate them a good
watering as needed, not frequent and light waterings, but good deep soakings infrequently
that will get them through. And fall is coming. I'm just talking a
minute ago, you know, with Ellen about all the vegetables and things that
they're growing out there. I have another discussion with someone about fall planting,
the things you can plant here. This is the time it's beginning. When
we get into set late September, there's gonna be a lot of new things
that we're putting in and then October and then November. So prepare your soul
now, begin planting now if you want to get a warm season crop in
and when fall comes, you already have plants. They're growing well. And
here comes that cool front when everybody suddenly discovers that there are a gardner again.
But you'll be ready because your garden has been well prepared. It is
on its way to success. You did things at the right time, and
I just can't I don't know what else to recommend beyond beyond that, Let's
go out to Friendswood. Now we're going to talk to Jack. How's how's
it going, Jack? It's going good. Appreciate you being there. Well,
thank you. How can we help? By the way, Jack,
I've got about a minute, and if we need to hang over pass break,
I'll do that. But I just want to let you know, thank
you. I've gotting mealy bugs on the hybiscus that I'm having a hard time
getting rid of. Okay, well, they're a problem mealy bugs are you
know it? When they're small, things like soaps and oils can help with
the young ones, but they get that protective mealy fuzzy coating on them,
and it's hard to get a product to them. You said they were on
hybiscus, Yes, okay. You can use systemachs and the soil that go
up in the plant and then meatly bugs sucking juices out of your plant so
they get the poison. The poison not sprayed all over the plant. But
any plant that is attracting pollinators, you'd rather not do that with because the
content of that insecticide can get into the into the nectar or pollen you know,
that that area and create a problem. So if you're if you're not
doing pollinators, that would be an option. Otherwise it's a matter of just
spraying directly on them. It is really hard to get them all because you're
gonna have to spray, and then later on you're going have to spray again,
and later on you're not to spray again. But just diligently staying on
them and not letting them build up their numbers is a good thing. Now,
they do have natural enemies, which often don't do the job, as
in your case, they're not doing the job for you. But if we
can build up those natural enemies that can help kind of keep them in control,
keep them from being just an overwhelming kill your plant outbreak. All right,
okay, so what this shouldn't I spray them with? What kind of
systemic? I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on hold. I'm gonna have to
go to break and I'll come right back with that answer. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good
Saturday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are talking gardening.
What a coincidence we're visiting with Jack out in Friendswood. Come back to Jack
here on the media bed question. Jack, I'm gonna thinking about your call
during the break and the I'm gonna tell you the name of the products that
would be used on your hibiscus for mealy bugs, and then I'm gonna talk
you out of it. Okay. So the the systemic would be in middo
clo bred I AM I D A clo pr I D and there's many brands
of that in mid o cloprid. The problem with it is it's so good
against sucking insects, but mealy bugs it's partially good on them. I mean,
you're not going to knock them out. With it, you're gonna have
to repeat. And just that concern with pollinators, I just it just makes
me uncomfortable to use that one. Then they're just the spray on insecticides.
You know, synthetic perrethroids and things will do some good, but not a
lot. And the negative of those is meaty bugs have a lot of natural
enemies. And every time you you basically knuke a plant to kill the mealy
bugs, you partially get the mealy bugs. You wipe out the natural enemies,
and then the mealy bugs become even more of a problem. So what
I would do as I would get a hand gun on the end of your
garden hose, I hand gun sprayer, and I would just blast everyone you
can off, I mean literally physically knock out everything you can, and then
follow that up with you could use neme oil, you could use horticultural oil,
or you can use even in secticidal soap sprays and just really get them
on what's left in there. Those work best against the younger nymphs. So
if you can blast a lot of the adults away and then be ready to
do that and do that, just don't do it in the middle of the
day when it's a hundred degrees, you'll burn your plants. So I would
do it really late in the day or really really early in the morning with
any of those three. The horticultural oil, neem oil. I'd probably use
kneem oil or maybe even insexticidal soap, and then just be ready to do
it again, because if you use the synthetic chemicals, you're gonna be doing
it again anyway. But then it's going to be you and the mealy bugs,
because when you kill a beneficial insect, you inherit its job. Okay,
gotcha, gotcha, I'll do that, all right. That's they're a
problem bug. That's one of those bugs we don't just have great silver bullets
for. But that's okay. You can you can get them under control.
Yeah, all right, sir, thank you, you bet, thank you
for the call. I appreciate that well. I was driving down Houston streets.
I always talking about this, but you know, it feels like you're
going across the top of the Rocky mountains because the streets have heaved and shifted
in the streets have you know, become real bumpy going down the street.
That's our soil here, it shrinks in it swells. It breaks our water
pipes. You know, the city works department is always when it's during an
extended drought, go in and deal them with busted waterlines. Ever, because
the soil is shifting around, well, it does the same thing to your
house foundation. And we're fortunate to have a quality company in town that knows
how to fix foundations properly. And that would be fix my slab foundation repair,
Fix my slab foundation repair. Ty Strickland's owner. You can give him
a call two eight one two five five forty nine, forty nine, or
go to fixmslab dot com. That makes it easy. They've been doing this
for twenty three years, I mean maybe. And here's what you look for.
Is the door sticking. Do you see cracks on the brick outside?
Do you see cracks in the sheet rock? Those are all signs you need
someone in there quickly to take a look at it and tell you what's going
on and what the procedure would be to getting it fixed. Now, they're
committed to a fair price. They show up on time. Oh my gosh,
that in and of itself is worth anyone in a service business. Oh
my, that is so helpful. But they know what they're doing. They
fix it right, they give you a fair price, they show up on
time. Maybe it's your driveway or sidewalk to fix myslab dot com. Check
them out. Don't delay. The problem not going to get better. It
will get worse if you don't take care of it well. You're listening to
garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We love
to brag on our feed stores here on garden Line, and I just think
of them as our hometown feed stores. You know, whatever part of town
you live in, there's a great feed store there to provide the kinds of
service and the products you need. For those of you east of town,
your hometown feed stores Texas Feeds dot No. They're they're out there on North
Highway one forty six in mont Bellevue. So if you're out on I ten,
go north on one forty six just a few minutes and they'll be there
on the right hand side. Now, Brian and Hope Rhodes, first of
all their delight and they really have created a great feed store. All the
products you're going to need. Products we talk about here. You're going to
find them there and more. Hey, if you're a hunter and you're looking
for getting ready for the deer leash or something, boy, do they ever
have a selection of equipment and livestock, food, different things like out all
out there, Texas Feed Stop. They're going to have all our fertilizers,
as I say that, all our products, are going to have the pesticides
you need for various kinds of issues. And they carry it out for you.
I mean, they treat you like family when you go in and go
in there and don't just you know, pass through to grab a product.
Talk to the folks. They you will find out why I say. They're
just such a delight and they make it fun to shop. They make you
feel welcome. And that's the kind of business we like to go into.
And that's exactly what Texas Feed Stop is that kind of business. Well,
again, we're in the season where we talk about oh it's hot, oh
it doesn't rain. And you know, when you're a farmer or a gardener,
you always have something to complain about. Too cold, too hot,
too dry, too wet, too much pestilence, too much disease, whatever's
going through. But we can overcome all those things. You know, good
cultural practices, making sure that you prepare the soil, buying plants that want
to grow here. That is important. And you know, I don't want
to sit here and just trash national companies by name. I'm not going to
do that. But you know who we're talking about. They get in plants.
They sell the same plants all throughout a huge region because headquarters is ordering
them from everybody. And you go in and you find things that shouldn't be
planted here. Well, a quality mom and pop feed store the kind or
garden center, the kind we're talking about here, that's not what happens.
They get plants that grow here, and they have staff that know how to
direct you. And an example of that for those of you living up in
the Montgomery area, Lake Conro, even Conro, all through that region,
your hometown nursery garden center is A and A Plants and Produce. They're on
the east side of Montgomery. You've probably seen them as you're driving up down
one oh five on north side of one oh five, just outside of Montgomery.
If you live in Lake Lake Conro, if you live in Walden or
April Sound, any of those neighborhoods, even at you know, Woodlands,
Magnolia, the whole area. This is a place you need to check out.
They just keep getting better. I mean they've been doing this for thirty
years. But now you want to walk through three acres filled the shade trees
and fruit and nut trees and vegetable herb plants. Oh my gosh, hundreds
of types of perennials and annuals, palm trees and so on. Do you
need some stuff let's call it petio petio bling, you know what I'm talking
about. Maybe at Chimeneia or maybe some arches, a gazebo, topiaris all
that kind of stuff. Whimsical yard art. They've got that too. Seven
days a week, nine to five. You can't beat that. Seven days
a week, nine to five. A and A Plants on Produce again in
Montgomery, just east on Highway one oh five, just east of Montgomery.
Go there and see what I'm talking about. When you drive up, you're
going to see color everywhere. That's color that grows here, that does well
here, because that's what they do at A and A Plants and Produce.
Well, we're gonna take a little break. I am so glad you're listening
to garden Line. I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you'll tell your
friends, your neighbors about it too. We need more folks listening. When
I go out and I see horticulture malpractice, you know, like somebody that
why on earth did they plant that? Why did they why did they do
that in their landscape? We get calls like that, and it just makes
me Rex Mahart, if you will, because I realize somebody has gone out
with enthusiasm to garden and they've not been well advised and now they're discouraged.
They just spent money on things they're probably gonna have to redo. That's why
we're here on garden Line. That's what we're like for you to tell you
your family and your friends to listen. We gotta folks that listen all over
the area wide area, even out of state. But you can also listen
to us by podcast, so check that out on your podcast out KATRH garden
Line. It's not necessary early endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to ktr H garden Line with scarp Rictor. It's all
crazy trip, just watching as a wood, so many seas in fibers comes
back taking a well good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning, that is a
good day for garden. You know, I think every day is good to
take for garden line because it is whether you're gardening indoors or outdoors. Indoors
is not a bad way to garden either. I think a lot of people
when they when they think of gardening, you know, of course they think
I'd be an outside, But hey, you can start plants inside. In
fact, if you want, right now be a good time to start broccoli,
cabbage, cauliflower called Robbie russell sprouts, all those kind of blue leaf
vegetables that we will be planting as we get into the early part of fall.
So go ahead and get those things started. You can have a beautiful
old transplant that's ready to go in. One advantage of starting things from seed
is you can plant varieties that you can't find locally. Now that doesn't mean
the ones you find locally aren't worth planning. They don't. They are,
But it's just saying, you know, maybe there's some new tomato that you
just heard about and you want to try it out. Well, it may
not be available yet in the transplant market locally, so you can start them
yourself. That's one advantage of it. Plus it's just fun. I know
a lot of people like the convenience. I'm just gonna go buy transplant.
That's fine, Absolutely fine, go for it. Do that a lot of
plants. That's just the simplest way to go about it. But just remember
it's still a time for gardening because we're getting ready for fall. You know,
when it comes to a quality piece of equipment for a small piece of
property that you own, we're talking about equipment. I'm talking about a tractor
and the things that go along with it. You're not going to do better
than a Cabota from Lansdowne Moody. The nice thing one of the nice things
about Lansdowne Moody is there's a number of locations around the area, so you
don't have to dry it at Timbuct two to find one. I mean,
there's a number of Lansdowne locations. They are a prime dealer of the Caboda
tractor. The excellent selection and supply. They've got that L twenty five O
one that I've been bragging on lately, that particular tractor is just a it's
just a gem. I like to call it a sweet ride if you know
what I'm talking about. That if you need to haul bags of malts,
fence posts, you know, anything like if you need to maybe brushhog or
mow through an area, all those kinds of attachments can be put with your
Cabota a tractor to create exactly the package that you need. Now, they've
got a special deal on the Caboto twenty five oh one and that is zero
down, zero interest for eighty four months. That's seven years, folks,
eighty four months, and I gonna last forever. It's going to take it.
They're gonna carry it in to Fall for a while. But don't delay
on that. You can go to Lansdown Moody. You can go to the
website and go to LM tractor dot com. Or you can go to Caboda
USA just to learn more about cabodas. But Caboda and Landsdown what a combination.
As we say, hands down, it's Landsdown and you go drive by,
do me a favor, go by, drive by, stop and just
ask to sit on one. Just ask and they'll let you do that.
Just kind of get a feel for what I'm talking about. You'll see why
I say it's a sweet ride, and I'm so enthusiastic about the quality and
in this case, the unbelievable deal that they're offering out there. We're gonna
head out. Let's see, let's go out to Southwest Houston and we're going
to talk to Alicia. Hello, Alicia, Hello, I am so glad
that you are there and reminding me about the co Robi. I had some
wonderful growing one year, so I'll go get some immediately. That's right,
Alicia. Do you know that in thirty four years of doing gardening advice,
radio writing and all that stuff, I've never once had someone call me about
their co Robbie. Well, that's why I called. At least you mentioned
it, so go ahead with what you call for. I called because I
was feeling bad about the man, the gentleman that was distraught about his pecan
tree and it's shooting. I have three pecan trees. I live in this
in Southwest just outside the Loop, and I have a paper show and two
regular both. All three of them are about eighty feet tall, very mature.
They where I am, the water table is about thirty feet down and
these guys put their tap root down and they're happy as anything. They got
leaves coming everywhere. But they are shedding. They're shedding these little bitty black
the cons and that's from last year, the ones that didn't mature last year.
So yeah, I took some binoculars and I looked at both trees because
every year they don't make, you know, they do when they want to.
And I looked at the paper shell. I don't see any beacons on
that one. But the other two are loaded. We're going to have a
bumper crop this year. And my neighbor on the back on my back door
neighbor has another tree in the front. It's the same variety as the large
ones that I have, are not the paper shell, and hers is only
about twenty five feet tall and it's making also, So the shedding is shouldn't
be. You shouldn't be sitting, you know, said, take some binoculars
and look at your tree. You'd probably be surprised. If the leaves are
are dead and crumpled up, then it is suffering from water. There's a
problem. But mine, they're just solid as anything. I love them.
Well, good sounds like you've got you know, at that age of tree.
Wow, what a prize. Oh well, I bought the property because
I've never owned a property it, never owned a tree in a factory of
them. I am happy as a clam. Well, good, well,
Alicia, I'm glad to hear that. And uh, I guess you're set
up ready to have some holiday baking going on. But you know you're gonna
you're gonna you have to deal with the squirrels. I'm sure you're familiar with
that. Well, I got a trick for that. I bought some roof
roof flashing two feet wide and fifty feet long, and I had some professional
tree person wrap it when it started right by my roofline so they can't jump
from the roof on, wrap it all the way up to where it was
too high they couldn't get in it. And one time I've got two cats
that had little privileges. In the morning when I'm having coffee in my back,
Jarge and my two pwin cats cornered a squirrel and he tried to run
up the tree, and I got videos and screaming at the cats. They
double They sat there and triangulated him and wouldn't not let him down for at
least up till they got Oh, man, I bet he use language that
no one should have to hear, because squirrels will really fuss at you if
they don't like what's going on. Oh, he's first and first, But
I laughed. I was laughing and laughing myself as the work. Well that's
great. Well, thanks for that's a that is a good information. And
really enjoyed visiting with you. Thank you very much for your colleagues. I
appreciate that. We let's see, we are gonna believe we Yeah, let's
go out to Cyprus and talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, high skip,
good morning, Good morning. I have a couple of questions. The
first one is my halapinions and bel Peppert aren't growing big as they did at
the beginning of the summer. I'm fertilizing, I'm regularly. Maybe I'm doing
it too much, okay, But and then I switched fertilizers. I don't
know if that's it, but my local ace didn't carry the one that I
was using at the beginning. Hey, Sandy, and I'm not Sandy.
I'm gonna have to cut in. I am horrible at watching o'clock and I'm
just looking now and I've passed when I'm supposed to take a little break.
Will you hold on to that thought and let's come right back and we will
we will dive in. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Ricter seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well,
good morning on a Saturday morning for gardening. We are going to go
back now to Sandy in Cyprus. Hello Sandy. Sorry we had to cut
off there. That's okay. I was wondering why my bell peppers. They
at the beginning of the summer, they were getting real big and you know,
staying green and stuff. Now they're so small. I've got a lot
of bell peppers, but they're small and they turn red. If I don't
pick them while they're small, then they get that root rot. And I'm
not sure I fertilize them. I've switched fertilizers because the ACE hardware didn't have
a fertilizer I was using, So I'm not sure if that has something to
do with it. Okay, Well, so fertilizing is good. Sandy,
do you have your radio on in the background. I'm getting somewhere I would
okay, now. So bottom line is it, peppers are going to do
that in the summer. It's just too hot and as plants get stressed.
As pepper plants get stressed, it having smaller fruit is not unusual. They
will resume making nice large fruit when we get a little bit of a break
in the weather here in about a month. So hang on to them.
A nice sized plant is going to set a lot of fruit, and if
the frost will delay, you may have peppers all the way up into Thanksgiving
and who knows, probably later than that. So just stick with those.
You said you did fertilize it. You didn't find the fertilizer you want it,
but you did fertilize them or not, I fertilize them. Like at
the beginning of the summer, I was fertilizing m probably once a week or
once every ten days, and I got a lot of fruit. But I
switched because Ace hasn't had the fertilizer that I had, okay, been using,
and so I had to buy whatever they had, Okay, And I
think it's heat combination. Say that what combination? Like the heat and meat
switching? Oh, fertilizers. Yeah, I don't think the fertilizer is a
big part of this change. I think that you know, if you bought
a fertilizer dace, I'm going to believe that it was a good fertilizer.
I could recommend some to you if you want to start fertilizing again going into
fall. There's not a bad it's not a bad time to go ahead and
give them a little bit of a boost, a very light dose, and
then you can do another light dose a few weeks later and just continue to
encourage those plants to stay healthy and to continue to grow. And water is
the most important thing, more important than fertilizer, believe it or not.
But but adding good nutrition would probably help. So, okay, what do
you recommend? I would say number one, Nelson's makes a very good quality
vegetable plant food. They make one that's organic, and they make one that's
synthetic that would do well. We have a lot of good fertilizers around here,
but I would I'd probably look at one of those. They'll produce them
in a little plastic jar you know where you you just scoop it out and
sprinkle it on. Yeah, And my gardens, I often use a turf
type fertilizer too. I mean it it's got a good boost of nitrogen.
That's one has in a little higher middle number. And so whether are you
particularly looking for organic or synthetic or does it matter? Now? But I
was using that job tomato and vegetable. Uh huh, I don't it's it's
it's spell job e s Yes, I know it. Are using the spice,
was it spice? No? I was using that now, I was
using their little granules. Okay, Well, I mean that's fine. I
I happen to think a little more highly of the Nelson fertilizers for vegetables that
we're talking about here. But you know it, we got a lot of
good quality ones, and so I don't I don't think the problem is is
fertilizing, but I do think you should do some fertilizing now. Uh And
in a small can I ask you another question? My blueberry? I haven't
seen a blueberry in like two three months, but the plant is just getting
used. Can I prune it? I would wait until winter, you said
blueberry? Right, Yeah, you're you're talking about the fruiting blueberry. I
just want to make sure I've got the right plant. Okay, So what
we do with blueberries is in the winter time we remove all the little twiggy
growth and you'll you'll know when you look at it, you know, you
have some the normal size of new growth, healthy growth, and then you
get this little twiggy stuff. Remove all that. If your plant is more
than four years old, I would remove one fifth of the canes back to
the ground. Okay, so after about five years you're you're getting some older
canes that tend to not be as vigorous and productive, and so you would
just go all the way to the ground and cut one out. And I'm
not one fifth, you know, so you're not doing more than a twenty
percent reduction of the whole bush. But that's after it reaches that age.
In the meantime, just prune out the twiggy growth. If they're getting too
tall, it's just the species of blueberry. You probably have a rabbit eye
in that case from the if it's getting tall, that's probably a rabbit eye
type. And you just have good soil and you're taking care of it.
Right. Yeah, it's in a pot and so I can't even see my
pot to good night. Well you you really you must have two green thumbs,
So that's good. Yeah, blueberries in a pot can be a challenge,
obviously, you got that nailed down. A lot of people forget to
water them and they get dry and that stresses them and so on. All
righty okay, thank you so much, Thank you, Bet, thank you,
Sandy. I appreciate that very much. Yeah. Up up in the
Cypress area, there are a couple of excellent, excellent ACE Hardware stores.
I know the M and D supply up there on Luetta is a good one.
I used to live a little south of that, and we went to
the Jones Road Cypress. Ace Hardware two good ones. But hey, with
ACE, you only have thirty nine to choose from all over Houston, so
it's not hard to find one in your area. They carry a wide variety
of these fertilizers, a lot of the ones we talk about here. You
know, they're gonna have your microlife, You're Nelson's, your your nitrofoss.
They're gonna probably also have a pretty good supply of the Medina products as well.
And you you just can't go wrong with ACE. I mean, go
to Ace hardware dot com, look for their store locator and find the one
near you. But if I talk about a fertilizer here, if I talk
about bags of a mulch and compost and things like that, they're going to
have them at ACE and everything else. You need to make your outside really
a fun place to be. And believe it or not, this hundred degrees
is gonna go away and we're gonna want to go hang out on the patio.
I don't know. I you know, it's so hot. I've been
doing a lot of grilling lately, and I'm looking forward to getting back outside
and doing some more grilling before it gets cold. And ACE has the supplies
for that as well. Not hard to find quality products and lots of them
when you go into an ACE hardware store. Our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. I was sitting with my wife in the living room the other
day and low and behold, from around the fireplace, which was not on,
by the way, I'm not that crazy, it comes a cockroach runner
across the floor, and of course our two Golden retrievers immediately went right into
battle. Well, for them, battle means playing with its, sniffing it
and watching it crawl all over the house. I need to teach them how
to retrieve cockroaches and put them in the trash, but they don't do that.
But I'll tell you who can't help you with your cockroaches. That's Scott
McGrath. You know McGrath pest Control. They've been around a long time.
They know exactly what they're doing, and it's that old fashioned service. It's
the stuff I keep bragging on. You call Scott McGrath, they don't say,
well, hold your whole Saturday afternoon, we may be there. No,
they say the time they're going to be there and they show up at
that time. That's why they're so highly rated. In addition to the fact
they know what they're doing, they do a good job with McGrath. With
McGrath pest Control, you know you're going to get what you paid for it.
That's two eight, one, four, six, nine eighty two forty
or MacGrath pest Control dot Com. They service a whole entire Houston area with
McGrath. It's their modern technology and techniques with that old fashioned customer service.
That's what you need and a pest control operator and that's exactly what you get
when you have McGrath pest control. Well, Nikki, we were talking about
Nikki's walked in here were we were talking last week about gardening kinds of questions.
We need to get into some of that today. We have to do
it right now. But some of the gardening questions for idiots, well I
wasn't going to use that kind of line. Okay, all right, for
the how about this help for the gardening challenged? There you go. Okay,
there you go, And I will just preface this. We'll get into
this later. But for the health benefits of plants, I went out and
bought all kinds of house plants. They're in the the same pots that I
bought them. Man, Yeah, I have to transplant them. I have
to put them into real, real pots. I need to know how.
All right, we can. We can get into that a little bit later.
Okay, that's a good question. Don't let me forget that. We
need to talk about that. I've been haunting you for the last two weeks.
You know. Sometimes doing the show, the horticulture parts easy, but
the mechanics of the show. I tell someone the other day, sometimes I
feel like a I'm herding cats on roller skates on an icy pond, juggling
steak knives. How about how's that for a visual? Here you go,
It's like, hey, you're supposed to go to break dummy, so oh
yeah, yeah, Well I'm just having fun. Cool cool, Okay,
I'm gonna line up my questions and at some point we will go through that.
All right. Well, in the meantime, here is the Nicki News
Network. It's old John still lotting gold in me A good morning on a
great day for gardening, and you're listening to garden line. So let's talk
gardening. What are your questions? How can we help? Seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I was out in the garden doing a little bit of planting
this past week and one thing that I would recommend you do, and that
is when you put a transplant in the ground watered in with a dilute fertilizer
solution. Now, there are a lot of products out there, a lot
of a lot of good products are good for kind of a watering in solution.
But the one that I use, the one that I liked the best,
is has to grow. It's a six twelve six fertilizer. Now that
is a liquid that you mix in water. I put mine like a watering
can or something where I can mix it up at you know, a dilute
rate, and then just drench it over the plant as you're watering it in.
That new plant going in is it just think of it as a little
baby. It doesn't have a good root system. It can't really reach out
in the soil. It's gonna have to You need to keep that root moist,
and you need to keep it well fed, and with a drench of
has to grow six twelve six. You're gonna provide that. I'll do it
again five to seven days later, and five to seven days later again three
times. When I put in a transplant, I don't care if it's a
rosebush or if it's a broccoli plant. A water men with a good quality
liquid plant food like that. Now the has to grow six twelve six by
medina. It's got Medina soil activator in it, it's got humic acid in
it, and it has seaweat extracts in it. So it is a real
cocktail of things that help a plant to thrive. They have versions where you
can have a hose in sprayer. I just like the quarter quart bottle.
It's got a little measuring cup and it's really easy to do. You're not
going to burn your plants with hastrogrow six twelve six, and that high phosphorus
content will really help with roots, and all the other ingredients in it,
including the seaweed extracts, are really going to help that plant get established and
hit the ground running, which is important. Let's head out to Dan in
Brenham and we're going to talk about some roses I believe, Is that right,
Dan? Yes, I have some knockout roses that I've had for a
number of years. They're very healthy looking. With this year for some reason,
they have real small blooms. Okay, the small blooms are telling me
the plant is stressed and it's weak and the foliage isn't able to make as
much carbohydrates, which are important with both setting blooms and developing good blooms and
fruit on fruiting plants. Yeah, I want to prune them, but I
told I was told not to prue. This time of the year is too
hot. You prune your knockout roses and other roses, No, I have
not. No, I'm saying you do. You should when we get towards
the end of August, shearing back by about a third, right, I
normally do that. Well, I would do that, So it's not okay.
Is there anything in the interim that I can use to feed them?
Yes, you want to put you you can buy a quality rose product.
I know Nitrofist provides a food specifically for roses. You can you can certainly
do that there, you know, there's some other If I talk about a
fertilizer on garden line, it's a good fertilizer. I will not promote a
fertilizer I don't know and use and know is a good. First they're they're
well, they're they're established, they're probably fifteen years old, and they've always
bloomed profusely. All right, So so here's what I tell everybody on roses.
When you get towards the end of August, let's shear them back.
You could do it in early September if you want, but late August,
early September, shear them back. Fertilize them, water the fertilizer around.
I often will kind of scratch the fertilizer into the soil surface. If you're
able to get around roses and do that, that just gets it kind of
in the soil where volatilizing the nitrogen is. You put it in the soil
and that on the plants. Right right, we're talking about a granular dry
fertilizer and that we're doing here. We're sprinkling it all around the bush at
a rate that's appropriate for the size of the bush. I've been using in
the past. I've been using the Nelson's Color Star. That is an excellent
fertilizer that there's no nothing wrong with that at all, and it will give
you good a good boost. But you're sprinkling your fertilizer around the rosebush.
I scratch mine into the multure of the sail and then watered in really well.
You want to get a good soaking on there to get it get They
getting water three times a week for about fifteen twenty minutes the sprinkler system.
Okay, if you could change that to twice a week and give them a
little more water when you water, I think it's better. And here's why.
Now, knockout is about as disease resistant as you're going to get.
But most blacks the more often you weet the foliage, the more disease problems
you have. So I like to go that root. But again it's it's
shear them back, fertilize them, scratch it in, water the area very
well, to soak it in, and you're going to give responsing growth from
water, fertilizer and shearing that is going to have. You're gonna have the
most beautiful October of blooms you've ever seen. That's very good. Thank you
very much. All right, sir, thank you. I appreciate that call.
Good luck with things out there. And Brunham, well, let's see,
why don't we when we go to Elizabeth here in Burton, Elizabeth,
how's it going and how can we help high Skip? I emailed two photos
to you this morning of pineapple qua the plants. I have three bushes planted
on either side of my front porch walkway, and for some reason, I
keep getting one stem of the bush that keeps dying. About fourteen days ago
I cut off a dead stem, and then just yesterday I noticed another dead
stem. And I am watering with a spray hose for several minutes three times
a week. So I don't know if it's I thought I was watering adequately,
or if it's something else. Yeah, it's not a lack of water.
I see your photos. I would follow that dead branch back. You
have to kind of crawl into the bush to see, but look look for
splits in the bark, or look for sap coming out of the stem of
the plant. Something is affecting those shoots and there are you know, we
have all kinds of things that can cause the flow of water and nutrients to
be disrupted. Typically it's a canker or you know, a borer could do
that. These particular plants don't have borer problems typically, but something is going
on back in there. And if you can figure out see what you see,
I see your email, just reply back with maybe a photo if you
if you can get a good close up, sharp focus photo, or just
let me know what you see. I think the bottom line is going to
be you're gonna follow it all the way back and prune that one branch out.
But if we if we can determine exactly what's causing it, look for
a little pinholes in the trunk. There are some boards that could affect that.
It's not common. Again, cankers. Cold damage will often do that.
But it maybe too that your plant is just is just struggling, you
know, with the hot weather and trying to pump enough water. I think
that's the least likely though. All right, well, thanks for your advice.
I appreciate it. All right. Hey, I love pineapple guava.
Those beautiful blooms are worth alone. The process they are and they smell great.
They do, they sure do. Yeah, And if they get older,
some people will not just keep them as a little bush. They'll let
them kind of become a multi stemmed mini tree. You know. When I
say mini, I mean like six seven feet tall at the most. And
that's another attractive feature is their barks. So glad you have that's true.
Thanks, And I wanted to also mention your last caller who asked about roses
if they consider joining the Houston Rose Society. I'm on the board and we
actually put out a great newsletter that has, you know, tips for what
to do with your roses every month. I received that newsletter. Well,
why don't you just go ahead and give a quick commercial. When does a
rose society meet and how does somebody get involved? The road Society meets on
the second Thursday of every month at seven pm. You do not have to
drive into Houston. All of our meetings are virtual, so you can just
dial in to hear the speaker. Our next speaker is going to be talking
about growing roses and containers in the month of September. All right, there,
you got it. Give me the date in time one more time.
Yeah, the second Thursday, which is going to be September the fourteenth at
seven pm. Alright, and Houston Rose dot Org is a web unt.
Well, thank you appreciate that call very much. Thank you. Yeah.
Rose Society is a great thing, good information. Hey, we're going to
take a break. Here's the number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. How about a peary sidewine? Is that a bride on them?
Well? Good morning on a great gardening day. You're listening to garden
Line. We are glad to do Also, I tell you, I uh
it's fun getting to talk with gardeners and and help people with their plant situations.
Gardening is such a fun hobby. It's just I just because I'm biased
doesn't mean I'm not right. Okay. It is the best hobby that there
is. And I could go toe to toe with someone all day, bringing
out research projects, bringing out you know, personal testimonials, and just the
obvious. I mean, we are we are made to love aesthetic things,
and we are made to live in nature. That's just a fact, folks.
And gardening provides all that and a lot lot more. You know,
if you're driving around, maybe you're looking at your yard and you're kind of
just seeing this sea of green green grass, green trees, green ground covers,
green shrubs, and green green, green green. That's what happens in
the summertime if we don't take steps to you know, plant things that flower
through the summer. One thing I like to do is drive runtown and look
at yards and make note of things, like I love the look of that.
I mean, you take a picture. I've taken pictures of things before,
just because I want to come back and look and go, oh,
how did they do that? Wow? Look at how those colladiums that are
kind of white, that are very light and bright colladiums just brighten up that
shady area over there. That's an idea I could try. You see what
I'm talking about, Well, do that and then give Peerscapes a call,
because the folks at peer Scapes can recreate or they can even enhance something that
you have down in a photograph. Now, you may not know exactly how
to design. You may not be able to walk in and go here's what
all I want. They know how you know, Bob and Candice. They
can create a design for you. There are Peerscapes that is just show stopping
and you kind of have to give them an idea what you're looking for.
Let them create that design, and maybe you're wanting to turn that backyard into
a better outdoor enjoyment area for barbecuing, for sitting with friends, maybe got
a little fire table or something going on. They can do the heartscapes,
they can do the walkways. They can improve drainage in areas that need it.
They can fix your irrigation system when things go wrong, which they always
do. Peerscapes can do all that and more. Go online, It's peerscapes
dot com. Find out more about them there or just give them a call.
Two eight one three seven h fifty sixty two eight one three seven zero
five zero six zero. But do your homework, get out there and check
things out. I mean, there's going to be a lot of wonderful things
that appeal to you. You like the look of that, why not have
some version of that created for you and your home landscape. I'm a I'm
a plant collector. I know a lot of us are, and I've said
this before, but what happens with plant collectors is if we don't have a
plant, we need one. I mean, that's how it is. There's
so many plants, so little time, and so little garden space, so
we end up having yards and it looks like a bomb went off in a
garden center and everything rudy where it landed. You know what I'm talking about
maybe talking about you, I know I'm talking about me. Well, having
professional design guidance is is really really helpful, and then having good plants.
You know, we I see things for sale. It just frustrates me when
I go into certain places where they just are selling stuff they shouldn't sell here.
It's not going to do well here, or it's just going to be
one long disease problem. They ought to say if five bottles a fungicide when
they say that plant, because all it's gonna do is suffer from diseases of
the foliage. You know that we don't want that. So how do you
avoid that, Well, you go to a garden center that is a mom
and pop one of the ones we brag on here on garden Line, and
we brag on them not because there are sponsors. We brag on them because
they are awesome. They're awesome. That's also why there are sponsors. The
places I was griping about before, I wouldn't take as a sponsor on garden
Line. But a place like Plants for All Seasons. You know, they're
on two forty nine, right where Louetta comes in, So if you're going
up Tumbole Parkway, they're right up there. They've been around a long time
since nineteen seventy three, and the Flyherty family that many folks are involved in
that business, including family members and well trained staff. When you walk in,
you're going to have selection, You're gonna have education. As you visit
with people, they're gonna say, look, this plant would do well for
that situation you're looking at. Or here's a new variety we have. Take
a look at this one. Bring them in a plant sample, bring them
in a picture. If you're needing help with stuff, they know what they're
talking about. They can direct you to a product that works and the safest
option that's available Plants for All Seasons dot Com that you go there two eight,
one, three, seven six, sixteen forty six. However you want
to go about it. When you go home from Plants for All Seasons,
you're gonna have quality plants, quality advice. By the way, they also
deliver, and you're going to have that follow up help that as you start
to have problems, they're there to help you. Their goal is not just
sell your plants. Their goal is for you to have success. Because when
you have success, you're going to come back. You're going to see what
I'm talking about. But what Plants for All Seasons can provide love going into
a garden center that knows what they're talking about, that alone is worth the
price of admission. Let's see, we are going to go here to Rick
in League City. Hello Rick, good morning, Good morning, Skip,
Thanks for taking my call. Yes, this is probably a very basic question,
but I did a sour sample with A and M from a place in
my front yard and it came back that said that I'm extremely low in nitrate
and extremely low in sodium. Okay, and I'm wondering what's the best way
to treat that, and what how often and so forth. All Right,
that's an easy one. Don't worry about the sodium. That's okay. I
mean, I've never known anyone or heard or recommendation for someone of sodium down.
But the nitrate. What I would recommend you get is sweet Green.
That's a nitrofost product. It's an eleven eleven zero four. I believe it's
it's one of the highest percent nitrogens of any organic. It smells good,
it's easy to use, and it's going to be available. It's going to
improve the microbial activity in the soil because it's a sugary product. But I
would follow the label on that. I don't know what your soil test said.
If you want to send it to me by email, I'll take a
look. But in general, I would use ten pounds of sweet Green per
thousand square feet on the lawn and in garden beds. I would increase that
by fifty or even double for the gold. Okay, I did some,
but I didn't obviously didn't do enough. Yeah, the recommendation on the sauce
apple says one pound per thousand square foot of nitrogen, So therefore eleven percent
times dam pounds is one pounds of nitrogen. Yep, that's it. I'll
do it. And how often should I do that? I would kind of
watch if it's a lawn, see how it looks see you know what you
know, if it looks like it's needing a little extra boost of nitrochen in
growth, I would do it again. But in general, we're gonna have
a gardening schedule up here real shortly, and it's going to tell you exactly
how often to apply. But I would do it in the spring, after
you've mowed the lawn twice. I would do it in the middle of summer,
and I would do it towards the end of summer, all three times.
Okay, So there's nothing I should apply it now. Well, you
could go ahead and apply it now, yeah, you could. This will
be we'll call this towards the end of summer, and then the next application
will be a fall fertilizer, which is something different. Okay, okay,
okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. You bet, I appreciate
that call. Hey, you're listening to guarden Line Surprise Surprice. We're here
to answer your gardening questions, So give us a call. Seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two k t
R. Some people like to dial by the letters. It's easier to remember.
It slows me down. I don't care for that. But seven month
three two one two KTRH or fifty eight seventy four, whichever way you want
to go about it. We're going to take a break now. We will
be back and if you want to give us a call, Josh will get
you on the board. Butch out there in Laporte, Terrence in Lake Charles
will be the first two up when we come back from break, and just
hang on with us in the meantime, get to hear a little bit of
news. We'll come back with some more gardening advice as well. We always
like to give you a few tips to help you have success. KATRH Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Ricord. Just watch him as a
wooden clubs back ticking. Well, good morning. We are glad you're listening.
This is garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and what
are we here for? We're here to help you have a more beautiful garden
and a more bountiful landscape. That is the goal. If you planted a
tree in the last twelve months, especially if you planted in the tree in
the last couple of months, you need to know about tree hugger sprinklers.
Now, treehears one of the It's a little device. You hook it up
to your garden hose and it goes around your tree. It's got a little
hinge on it. There's a seven inch, eleven inch, fifteen inch version.
When you have a brand new tree, you've got a little root ball
root cylinder right there that came out of the pot, and it takes those
roots of while to get out. You can turn your tree hugger on just
slightly to water that area. Then as the tree gets bigger, you water
a larger area. And you may have a tree it's been a ground five
years, it's got a nice canopy. You want it to grow fast.
You don't want it in stress. You want it to be healthy because you've
got goals of hanging a hammock in it, right, you want to get
shade out of it, or flowers or whatever. Just crank that tree hugger
up, water a wide area, the entire area beneath the branch spread.
It's a very targeted way to give a good soaking for your trees and to
keep them not just alive. I mean, certainly you can lose trees in
this kind of weather, but to keep them healthy and vigorous so they grow
fast and they just are beautiful. Go to tree Hugger sprinkler dot com.
It's real easy. Tree Hugger sprinkler dot com. They're available in a lot
of places. I don't know how many of our feed stores and garden centers
I've been in and seeing that tree Hugger Sprinkler, but it's well worth it.
Think of it as an insurance policy for the plants that you purchased.
We're gonna head out to Laporte and talk to Butch. Now, Hello,
Butch, Hello, Skip, how are you doing this morning? I'm well,
thank you? What's up? Well, let me tell you I've got
a baseball garden. I've got tomatoes, cowpeas and sweet potatoes right now.
My question is, you know, I'll work them out and keep them watered,
but I'm not sure about whether or not I ought to be fertilizing in
this heat. And I need to know what you think you need to fertilize
if the new if the soil nutrients are lacking, and the primary one we
would worry about would be nitrogen. That's the one that is the most come
and go. You know, things like phosphorus, you put them down,
they stick there forever. Nitrogen not the It's the other end of the spectrum.
So I would look at my plants. If they look like they could
use a little boost, I would give them that. Just realize that in
this heat it is so stressful that even with adequate soul nutritions, your plants
may look a little stunted. The green is a little less vibrant than it
should be. And that's just a matter of them. You know, all
hands on deck pumping water to stay alive. And you know, when it
gets hot, it actually affects the physiological processes, things like photosynthesis, which
are essential for plant life and good green color. They start to shut down
in super super hot weather. And so you know, the visually, I
was saying, look at it and see what it looks like. And then
I'm basically saying, well, it may look like it needs it, but
it really doesn't. But if you hadn't fertilized in the wall. I'd give
them a boost of it. Just remember on those peas, anything that produces
nitrogen nodules, like beans and peas, you don't want to push those with
a lot of nitrogen because they end up making vine at the expensive production.
Okay, I got another question, if you got time. Sure, I
grew sweet potatoes earlier this year. I dug them about a month ago and
got a good yield. But the runners and the vines that I cut off
after I dug my sweet potatoes, I replanted or I I you know,
I set out some of those runners. They're they're taken off. And my
question is will those produced sweet potatoes even though they aren't slips. H Well,
that's basically how they get slips. But how long ago did you plant
those? It's been about a month ago. I replanted them two months.
I don't know it's gonna be. You gonna have some little potatoes on them.
It takes about one hundred and twenty days on a sweet potato, and
as we get into fall, it takes more than one hundred and twenty days
because it's cooling, it's slowing down, and sweet potatoes or a summer crops.
So yeah, right, yeah right, Well maybe i'll have something to
dig up in November if it doesn't frost before then. It's a good idea.
Hey, by the way, but you know you neat sweet potato greens.
I mean, it was just a few years ago that I learned that.
I don't know how I missed that all this time, but sweet potato
greens are edible. You can go in line to learn how to do it.
But even if you don't get the potatoes underground, you ought to try
them out some different recipes if you like them, may do that, all
right. They make a pretty plant, you know, they sure do they
shure do. Well. Hey, I'm going to run to another call here,
but thank you very much. I appreciate your call very much. It
sounds like you got one heck of a vegetable garden going out there in Laport.
Now, Nikki's talking about a tropical storm coming in here at some point
and coming day. I would recommend that you always have on hand some mosquito
dunks. And here's the deal. It comes through and it rains, and
you know there's water in the catch basins under your plants. In fact,
you've probably already got that. There. The sagging spots in the gutters with
that decaying organic matter is mosquito heaven, and all they need is a thumble
of water to drop an egg and create a new mosquito. So you want
to use a mosquito dunk in any kind of stagnant water areas or a little
doughnuts. They last about a month, they dissolve away, and they release
a mosquito disease. It won't hurt fish, it won't hurt your pets,
it won't hurt birds or other wildlife. It is simply a disease of mosquitoes.
And they have granules as well. You can sprinkle those in areas where
you want to cover a large area. Maybe just throw a bunch of granules
out over it. You can put those in. Maybe you know a water
dish that's sitting out and tends to, you know, sit there for a
long time. It's real easy. When I go away off and put my
plants in like a little kiddie pool with water in it, just so they
can wake up water while I'm gone, I'll throw a mosquito dunks in there,
just to absolutely make sure I don't have a crop of mosquito doesn't want
to come back, easy, easy to find. Let's see, we're gonna
go out now to Well. I'll tell you what. I'm running out of
time this time. I'm gonna actually not take a call and go to break
Terence and like Charles and Jan and Beaumont, you were first up. When
we come back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. I can get into double, I can have my buddy.
Well, good morning. You are listening to Garden Live and we are
here to answer gardening questions. We've got a few folks on the board.
Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, years ago
I used to go to Quality Feed when they were at their previous location that's
kind of a north north central Houston. Actually the new location, which is
what's important. It's on Luzon Street l u Z O N. It's near
the intersection of Equipment and Alesion. But Quality Feeds have been around since nineteen
twenty eight and Ken and Chris have owned it since. I don't know,
it's been there over thirty years that they've owned the place. It is that
old time feature, and I mean really an old time feature. They got
an antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight stocked with heirloom seats. Ever fertilizer
I'll talk about. Is there the soils I'll talk about. Are there the
products that help control weeds, diseases, insects, on and on. They've
got them there. It's a feed store, so you're gonna get quality feed.
They make their own potting soil, they make their own granny's laying mix
for chickens. So if you've got backyard chickens, I don't care where you
live in town. Quality feed is a place you need to know about.
And here's why. About ever two weeks they get in a whole new load
of chicks, and so you can go buy there. Whatever time of year
it is and you're needing them, just give them a call because they probably
are about to get another another shipment in. Now. That's Quality feed coo
dot com. Quality feed coo dot com. Check it out. You'll see
what I'm talking about. It is a very cool old time feed store.
It's always fun to go in. We're gonna head out to West Houston now
and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hello, how can I help?
Okay, the speaker in the outs, I heard you talking about the
sweet potatoes, and my aunt's eye doctor just swears by the fact that sweet
potato greens are a good deterrent to certain kinds of cancers. Really, I
don't remember what kind he was talking about, but every time I take my
aunt in there to have her check up, and she's eighty four years old,
he always talks about eating sweet potato greens to try to help deter certain
kinds of cancers. Well, that's news to me. I did not know
that. And my uncle, her husband, who passed away about ten years
ago, when they got married, he had never eaten actual sweet potatoes before.
He was raised up around the Wimer area, and all they have right
when he was growing up was the sweet potenta greens, and so that was
a new thing for him. When when she made sweet potatoes for him.
That's cool. Well, thank thanks for that information. Yeah, I'm gonna
have to look into that one. Yeah it. You know, I don't
know how I grew up in the South and did not know that for fifty
years. A couple of years ago, when I was when I was told
about it. Okay, all right, well there you go. I know,
prey View A and M years ago they may still be doing it.
Was working on developing varieties of sweet potatoes where the shoots would grow upward for
a while so you could come in and do a mechanical harvest to make a
commercial crop out of it. I thought that was kind of interesting, you
know, because otherwise it be kind of hard to harvest sweet potato greens commercially.
But I did try to make you raising some sweet potatoes is past spring,
and all I got out of it was the shoot, so I didn't
get any potatoes out of it. Yeah, well there are some tricks.
Yeah, there's some tricks to that. It's number one, starting with a
good strong shoot as opposed to a spindley one, planning it at the right
depth, and then the watering and fertilized. There's some things you do along
there, and if you don't do them right, you end up with these
little finger sized sweet potatoes and not much to write home about. But if
you do do it right, you can you can make a good crop out
of them. But I appreciate that comment, Steve. Thank you. Very
much. Okay, thank you, good night, Yes, sir, you
take care. Uh let's see, I want to go now to tum Ball
and we're gonna talk to John. Hello, John, Good morning, skid.
I have a question about the arbit gate, the organic food complete.
Yes, I know it's good for everything, right, it's good for shrubs
in the yard. But would you is that a fertilizer. Should I just
keep it because it's a little pricey, just use it for my landscape and
my roses and shrubs. I primarily would use it in those kind of situations.
The ratio is a general good one. It's not what we widely recommend
for lawn application because of the ratio, but the products a good product,
and so when you're doing flowers, when you're doing you know, your herbs,
when you're putting in shrub or taking care of shrubs and a lot of
things like I mean, you could use it in the vegetable garden too,
would be great for that, but I would focus on those uses of it
myself. Now. I know some people will use it for the lawn and
they have good results too, but I would focus on that. And one
more quick question. I was a saying augusting guy. Now I'm out here
in Tabo Bermuda, right, So the question is I'm gonna if I can
get these runners out of my Bermuda, will the Bermuda eventually take over?
If you've got seventy percent Bermuda thirty percent saying augusting, and you want to
Bermuda lawn, yes, sir, okay, Yeah, So, droughty conditions
favor Bermuda. A very good sunlight favors Bermuda. Uh, and Saint Augustine.
There are a few herbicides that are used in lawns that are really hard
on Saint Augustine, and I'm gonna have to go look for an example of
that. But you can essentially look at Saint Augustine as a weed in your
Bermuda lawn and Berma buy a product for Bermuda to use for weed control,
and it will kill the Saint Augustine. And there's not a pardon, pardon.
It'd be a lot easier than pulling out all these runners. Would.
Yeah, it would. But you know, just as you as you mow
high, uh, you're gonna favor the Saint Augustine, as you mow low,
you're gonna favor the Bermuda. So I tend to not spray something if
I don't have to, and I might just try it culturally by maintaining a
low mowing height let's say about two inches high and as regularly as you can,
and just try to go about it that way. But if you do
want to do the spray, just know that there's some products labeled for Bermuda
but not Saint Augustine for a reason. Thanks you all right, sir,
Thank you appreciate appreciate that very much. You know, when it comes to
the lawns, A good quality product for a long term slow feed is the
silver bag of Nitrofist super Turf. That's the nineteen four ten. I just
like to call it the silver bag because you walk in the store, you
look across the room and you can pick it out from a mile away.
Nitrofist Superturf nineteen four ten. Gradual feed, you don't get up flush of
growth, which flushes a growth and about it. Two months from now are
going to be promoting St. Augustine's brown patch, which is now called large
patch disease. It avoids doing that by gradually feeding over time. It gives
you a good gradual release, which means your mo time goes down a little
bit. You know, you're not out there like you're fighting a hayfield because
you've overdone the nitrogen on something. It is designed by the requirements for southern
turf grasses determined long ago at Texan m University for what our lawns need,
and that would be nitro FoST superturf, which pretty much if I talk about
a sponsor on this show, you know Ace Hardware, feed stores, great
home, mom and pop garden centers. That's where you're going to find nitro
foss products. You can find it right there. Let's see, We're going
to head out now to Beaumont and talk to Jan Hello. Jan, Hello,
we have a water restriction. We have water restrictions in Beaumont. Before
that, my lawn and my plants were doing fine. Now they're some of
them are dying, especially the lawn. What should I do? Well?
Are your water restrictions like you can't walk water, you can only water twice
a week or once a week or what are they saying twice a week?
I mean in the middle of the night for one of them at least.
Okay, I would make sure when it's your data water that you give a
good deep soaking, A good deep soaking, that is important. It takes
about an inch of water to do that. So a good deep soaking twice
a week is more than enough water for a long in fact, eye water
mine once a week. Just give it a good deep soaking. I've got
a good, deeply developed grass root system. It's very resilient, and that's
what I would recommend for that. For your other plants, the same kind
of thing. Give them a good soaking in the garden beds, vegetable beds,
all of that good covering of mulch over the surface, at least a
couple inches of mulch that lowers the soil temperature, which reduces water loss and
water use by the plant. And in terms of you know, the roots,
when this all gets too hot, roots have trouble functioning up near the
top. When you mulch it, now you're holding that moisture in and you're
getting more use out of that water. So those two tips is where I
would start. I'm going to start now. Thank you, all right,
good luck, enjoy it. Thanks you bet glad, you're glad you're getting
out there and being able to you know, deal with the restrictions. We
got restrictions going in and a lot of parts of the area. That's what
happens when it gets hot here in the summertime. If you live out in
the Richmond area, maybe between Richmond and sugar Land, Enchanted Forest is a
nursery that you have got to go see when you drive down the road.
The first time I drove down the road and all of a sudden, here
I came upon Enchanted Forest, I could not believe it. I mean,
it is cool. You know, it has that country barn. Look,
it's got the big shade trees that makes shopping so easy when it's hot,
and they always have stuff going on out there. I'll talk about some of
these things in the future, but you know coming up this fall, there's
gonna be a program in September sixteenth on beneficial insects. Wow, that's fun.
Folks from Nelson's are going to be out there talking about their products and
how to successfully fertilize. I know the Andy for Medina is going to be
out there talking about some of their products as well. On October seventh.
Years truly, I'm going to be out there along with Pumpkin pelooza. I'm
not sure what that. I don't am I the big pumpkin out there anyway,
Lots of stuff going on and enchanted Danny and Clay. It's the customer
service, it's the knowledge. If you want to have beneficial insects, if
you want to have butterflies, they have a selection of plants. In fact
that you know this. They will if you need a like a monarch larva,
they'll give you one to take home and put on your milkweeds. So
they'll they'll even help give you a free head start. That is at enchanted
Forest out in the Richmond areas between Richmond toward sugar Land and off to the
right is where the enchanted forest is located. And by the way, here
is Nikki. And we were going to talk about potting up house plants,
house plants in general. What I say, and this is a general guide,
when the plant is three times the size of the pot, go ahead
and move it to the next size. Okay. So that way, you
know, if you take a little plant and put it in a big pot,
you tend to overwater because it doesn't have the roots system to pump that
soil dry, and it stays wet for too long, when it's in too
small a pot, your water and all the time, and it's confined.
So in general, look for about three times the plant size compared to the
pot size. Okay, so does the pot size determine how big it's going
to grow? It can, But I mean theoretically, if you're fertilizing a
lot and keeping it constantly moist, it'll get too big for that pot because
you're supplying what it needs. You know. It's kind of like think about
hydroponics, where they're just got a plant in water. You know, there's
not a pot size. They're given those reach everything they need and therefore they
can grow plants. But in a home home landscape, home landscape, interior
landscape, if there's such a thing, we we like to make it where
we're not having to worry about it. I water my plants about once a
week, and oh really, yeah, some people twice, But more plants
are killed by overwatering than underwatering. Miles. All the stars in the sky
miles, And I'm pretty sure it's a law in Texas. And you can't
do a radio show with a little asleep at the wheel country suite. I
could listen to that all day it is, I'll shut up and just listen
to music. Well, you're listening to the garden line, and I'm not
going to shut up. We're gonna We're gonna talk about things that are of
interest to gardeners. Nikki, do you have a You look like you are
pregnant with questions of gardening? Is that I'm not even going to go Have
you ever heard someone say I'm pregnant in thought? Yes, I'm about to
burst forth with this new Okay, Well, first of all, I am
so indebted to you throwing off a comment about the healing nature of plants.
Yeah, my husband was sick and so I went to the grocery store.
I went to stores and I bought all kinds of plants. Yes, and
he ended up going to the hospital getting great treatment by doctors. But I
ended up with a house full of plants that I have to take care of.
And what I have found is they're healing me and the therapy that they
are bringing to my life. So now I'm at the point that I have
to get them out of the grocery store or whatever plastic things and put them.
So what kind of soil do the pots have to have good drainage.
Do you put gravel in it? Do I feed them? Do I put
plant food in them? Well, we can pretty much finish the show.
And I figured those are really basic questions. But I'm asking someone else probably
no, those are those are good questions, and yes they are. I'll
start with the easy one. Don't put gravel in pots. I can explain
why, but it doesn't do what you think it does, and it just
takes up space that soil needs to be. Okay, don't do that.
We talked about pots size. You know, a quality sail mix, and
we have a number of the folks we talk about here that make a quality,
a very good quality sail mix. I know, Heirloom Soils makes some
potting for indoor plants and some potting sail for outdoor plants as well. They
can, they can fix you up, and they're easy to find. They're
available everywhere. But getting a good quality mix, what that means when we
say quality is that it does and have big chunks of wood and it's screened
properly. It's gonna whole moisture, but it's gonna drain excess moisture, and
those drainage hoes you're talking about are essential. We kill more house plants by
overwatering than by underwatering. Why do they make pots that don't have holes in
them Because people don't want a saucer. They don't want a pot that leaks
out on their floor or their table or whatever. And sometimes we just plant
in things that are decorative, but they really aren't the best pot for plants.
I have a few that don't have drain holes, but I know that
I got to be real careful when I water. I'm not to overdo it.
Just a little tip and trick. Sometimes you can put a little charcoal.
You can buy charcoal at the garden center and put a little charcoal in
the bottom of your pot if it doesn't have drainage holes, and that way,
if it gets wet, it doesn't start to get that anaerobic decomposition that
causes problems. It kind of freshens or that people say it's sweetens. I
don't know what that means, but it sweetens up the water in case you're
forgetting over water. But yeah, drainage holes are better if you can do
that. I can't remember what else you threw out there. What is your
favorite house plant. Oh my gosh, uh aglionema called Chinese evergreen. It
does well and low light. It does well and more light. It's not
the most low light house plant, but it's it's on the bottom twenty five
percent for sure. The foliage. I like colors other than green. I
mean, green's fine, but everything's green. So aglionema will have some coral,
it'll have some reddish colors in the leaves. It's just really pretty.
And so I guess I've had to pick one. I would go with that
one. It's easy to grow. It's not the most indestructible house plant,
but it's in the top twenty five percent. The most indestructible one. Oh
my gosh, mother in law's tongue. Sense of area. It's the snake
plants. Another. You've got these longs things coming out of the ground.
Take sun, take shade, takes neglect. If you can't grow mother in
Law's tongue, don't call garden line because I can't help you. I mean,
if you this is like green side up type level. So do you
feed them? You know, there's like common food, Yeah, a good
A good quality slower leased food would be best because it gradually releases over time.
There are a number of products that can do that, or a liquid
food. A lot of people like to mix up the liquid. I use
Microlife seven one four on my plants. It's a liquid, it's organic,
it's got microbes in it. You give them a good drenching and you water
enough to keep them happy. If you put it according to the label,
it won't burn your plants. But there are other liquid good liquid options out
there on the market as well. Okay, all right, good plant.
I think we're I'm about to go to my first break. But hey,
that was fun. I've had a thousand people had those same questions that you
had, I'm sure, so that was definitely time oil spent. Well,
my goodness, we're get back in the show here. I'm gonna we're gonna
be taking a break here real quick. I just wanted to tell you that
if you are looking for a quality tree and someone who knows how to plant
it, that's for Damp Tree Farm Verdant Tree Farm, I should say,
because what does verdant Verdant means green? Verdant Tree Farm v E R D
A N T Treefarm dot com. They have everything you need if you need
a palm tree for outdoors. Oh my gosh, they are the leader and
all kinds of palms. They'll plant it. You get to pick it out.
Go there, you pick it out, they tag it, they bring
it, they plant it, they tell you how to take care of it.
They can grow. They can plant a tree any month of the year
because they know what they're doing. At Verdant Treefarm dot Com. There's the
location out on Barker, Cyprus on the west side. Down in Parland on
West Broadway, there's a location. And up in the Heights where Yale comes
into a ten yet another location of Verdant Tree Farm. Well, here we
go. We're gonna take a seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Gift Josh a call. He'll get you on the board and we'll
talk to you when we come back. As well as d I see out
there waiting. Just hang on as good as I want. I got a
few years now, but there was the time in my friend, but I
could really down. Well, good morning, and welcome to Garden Line.
We're glad you're listening today. We're entering our last little segment. By the
way, we'll be back at six am. Tomorrow. We're here on Saturday
and Sunday from six am to ten am. So tell your friends, tell
your neighbors that guy that won't take care of his lawn has a messy place.
You'd like him to clean it up. Man, turn him onto garden
line tactfully. Maybe we can help. We're gonna head out now to Oh.
Before I did the last break, I was talking about the Microlife seven
one three someone four excuse me with Nikki on house plants and Microlife has a
wide range of products. They have some excellent products for the lawn. I
always talk about the green bag, the six two four, and also the
humates plus. That combination of those two is really good. And here's why.
The humates. First of all, it's got a little bit of potassium
in it, and it has a wide variety of everything that you would expect
in a humate product. Humates are concentrated compost. And when you get humates
plus that's a purple bag, by the way, that's concentrated compost in a
bag. So you do your fertilizing with the six two four, you follow
up with the humates plus the purple bag. That combination is good going into
fall because in fall we're going to deal with things like brown Patch, large
patch, We're going to deal with take all rout rod coming back again and
doing infecting as it starts to cool off, and having a lot of that
microbial content, having a lot of the organic materials on the surface, all
of that works together to help minimize those as well as the fact that these
products are releasing a little bit over time and you're not getting that just super
flush of nitrogen for example, to promote succulent growth. Go to Microlife Fertilizer
dot com. You can find more information there about that seven one four I
was talking about the liquid, also their ocean harvests, the fish based outdoor
product alike. So much uh and these two long fertilizers that I was talking
about, as well as where can I buy Microlife. That's not gonna be
hard to find it. It's everwhere, but Microlife Fertilizer dot com will tell
you exactly where we've been to Head out to Port Arthur now and talk to
d Well. Hello, d Hey, good morning, thanks for taking you.
Bet. I've got two questions for you. The first one, I
have a certified monarchy way station and I'm really concerned about my pollinator plants,
especially the migration is going to start back up late September early October. The
only thing that surviving right now is Lantano indian blanket and cone flower. So
I want to know what I can plant now to kind of beef up my
pollinator plant. Well you can. You can probably still buy the various types
of milkweed. Uh. And I have plenty of milkweed. Okay. Well,
so if you're if you feel like you're stocked up on that. Monarchs,
there's a lot of different plants that they like the blooms of. So
it's not really that difficult finding plants that as far as a nectar source for
the monarchs, but taking care of their larva and that brings them in their
lay eggs go through the life cycle and push you send them on their merry
way and in the cool season. Uh, tell me again, what the
plants are you currently have that right now? Right now, what's reviving the
heat is the Lantana indian blanket and cone flowers. And then there's some wildflowers
that will pop up. It's it's a pocket prairie, So I just let
whatever flowers grow. Yeah, yeah, Uh well, zennias are fast and
easy. I mean, that's a that's an easy one that attracts a number
of different butterflies to it. That's an annual. You can buy them,
a blimbs on them, put them in the ground, and you're in business,
and they don't mind the heat. They will keep growing for you.
So I would probably throw that into the mix just to kind of get something
real quick out there, and then gradually over time, Uh, look at
the lists of the plants for for monarchs and begin to develop your landscape in
that direction. Makes it okay, you know, you kind of grow yourself.
Go ahead, Yeah, I've got some zenia seeds from another local gardener.
That are you suggesting that I get some plants that are already flowering right
now? Well, I mean if you want, yeah, if you want
to hurry up and get there faster, I would get the ones that are
already that are already blooming, you know, that look good. So there
and there's a number of them. You know, we always talk about milkweed
monarchs because that's what the larva like. But when it comes to plants that
just to attract them. In you mentioned cone flower, there's one called Joe
pieweed. It's not the tidiest of plants, but it is very attractive to
them. They will come in monarch. Yeah, monarda also called bee balm
will attract them. In Golden rod not There are some cultivated varieties that you
may be able to find in a garden center, but golden rod is another
one that you can bring the monarchs in with. You know, they're pretty
uh when it comes to nectar. It it's not that hard to please a
monarch. So butterfly bush, that's one for the long term. You've ever
grown boodlia, They love that and that is okay, really a really cool
one as well. All right, all right, My other question is i
have an indoor aeroponic tower garden and I've started all of my fall plants in
it. I've got broadly cauliflower, russels prout, cabbage, and I'm wondering
when it's going to be the best time to transplant those seedlings into the outdoor
gardens because it's so hot still. They're all about two inches fall now and
they've got a really good root system going. But I'm just concerned about the
heap. I would say about mid September, I would bump them up into
a I don't know, four inch pot or whatever size so that you can
move them outside to a shady spot, because it's going to be a big
change from your indoor temperatures. And even though you're bright, tower garden has
adequate light to grow things, it's not like sunlight. And so move them
out to a shady spot under a tree, on the edges of a tree,
maybe a little morning sun. You just don't want to suddenly burn them
with that overall exposure. Give them, give him a couple of weeks there,
and then put them on the ground. I mean you could even do
that. Maybe a mid September probably about the best. Okay, all right,
sounds great, Thank you so much. All right, good luck.
Enjoyed the call. I'm glad you are out there doing some gardening. You
know, gardening is a great hobby. Nikki was talking about the benefits of
it. And you know, they've hooked people up to monitors to look at
their blood pressure, to look at heart rate and other kinds of health indicators,
and they can actually show that someone who is in a plant setting has
a different response than someone who is not. That is amazing. It's amazing
to me that plants affect the add issue with children, plants affect dementia with
older adults, Plants affect your blood pressure for example, and many many other
things. It's it's just an amazing thing. And that's what we get when
we take our plants and enjoy them and engage with them and everything like that.
If you need some plants, I don't know a better place to go
down in Houston than Buchanan's Plants, Buchanan's Nursery. You can go to Buchanans
Plants dot Com, by the way, if you want more information. They're
on Eleventh Street in the Heights. By the way. They have an excellent,
excellent newsletter that you can sign up for and learn more. And there's
always stuff going on. I've got some special events coming in. If you're
interested in hummingbirds, they can really get you set up with the plants that
will bring them in. Now we know hummingbird feeders are important, right that.
I mean, that's fine. You can bring them right up to the
window if you want. But there's a lot of great plants like Salvia's and
other there's and Buchanans has them. I always say things like you know they
specialize in this or that. Well, Buchanans specializest and everything. If you
need shade plants, they got one of the best selections. If you need
hummingbird plants, Esperanza and Turk's cap and autumn stage. Oh my gosh,
it's so easy for hummingbirds when you go to a place like Buchanan's Plants.
So again East eleventh Street and the Heights Buchanans Plants dot com. But do
sign up for the newsletter because you can stay up to date. And their
website is a wealth of information. I mean, if you want articles,
gardening guides and things like that, how to videos, it's there on the
Buchanans website. Can't brag on them enough. Really cool. Gosh, I
believe I've run out of time today. It looks like I got about a
minute left here to go. Too late for a call, that's for sure.
We will be back in the morning at six am to answer your gardening
questions. And again, I do want to re iterate that you can listen
to garden Line after the fact. If you miss a show by podcast there
is whatever your podcast, you know, whether you have iHeartMedia or some other
podcasts supplier. Just look for garden Line. I think there's two garden lines
in the whole country, once a Lady and I'm not so the other one.
So garden Line is available by podcasts. Great way to listen folks that
lived in Houston and moved out. We get calls from them because they're listening
online or they're listen by podcast the show. It's it's just fun to connect
with people. And if you know folks you kind of like what you're hearing
on guarden Line, you think you know somebody that might be interested in that,
We'll tell them about the show. We always like to have more listeners,
get to visit with more people. And I don't know, if we
can't find the answer, or if we don't know the answer, we'll find
it for you, and that is what we aim for. For those of
you who've been emailing, I've been out for two weeks now doing some horticles
cultural traveling. I'm working on getting back to them. Just be patient with
me, but I will get to them.