Welcome to KRH Guarden Line with Scamp Richter. We're gonna be talking about a
lot of things regarding gardening right now. We've got a lot going on,
you know this, we've kind of been through a lot of rain lately and
that has brought some interesting things to our gardens, good and bad. And
as a matter of fact, it has helped in many ways our plants to
just really thrive. You know, plant, there's no such thing as too
much water with a plant. Hold on, hold on for you. What's
the problem with too much water is lack of oxygen in the roots. So
if you, for example, here's a good example, you put a plant
in a vase of water and drop on those little aquarium stones in the bottom.
That's bubbling the water up, the air up through the water, and
that plant will do just fine. I mean, as long as the roots
can get oxygen, they're going to be okay. But when you sit in
stagnant, not moving, no oxygen being added water in the ground in a
clay soil, plants struggle. And a lot of our plants have been that
way. And what does that What does that mean in terms of what does
a gardener do and what do we learn from that. Well, one thing
we learned from it is to say over and over again the mantra brown stuff
before green stuff, and what that means. Basically, for those of you
who are new to garden line have heard me go on and on about it,
brown stuff before green stuff means get the soil right and then put in
the plants, and the plants will thrive. That's how that works. So
what does get the soil right mean? It means raised beds so excess water
drains away. I'm going to put a couple of peach trees, which hate
soggy wet feet. I'm going to put them in a spot in my yard
that is notoriously poorly drained, but I'm putting them in raised beds. I'm
getting them by a foot up off the ground, and then I'm going to
work with amending the soil around there, and I'm going to do a little
bit to improve drainage. But I'm getting the plant roots up. At least
a majority of them I can up out of that out of that water,
and they'll do fine drainage. That's important. Secondly, the content of the
soil when it comes to organic matter, the more organic matter you have there,
The soil tends to go from just a sticky mass of clay into something
that's crumbly when it's moderately moist, and that is good. Crumbly soil has
structure. Air can move down, water can move down. Your plants are
going to do well. So that's organic matter, and that would be also
expanded shale. Expanded shale. If you don't know what it is, the
easiest way I can describe it is remember the old gray kitty litter, the
dusty stuff. Well, imagine that gray kitty litter that's been fired in an
oven with steam and the little particles swell up and are very pitted in portous
like lava rock on a barbecue pit. That put in the soil at a
decent rate, not just a sprinkling, but at a good amount of it
mixed in holds the soil particles open and it creates an ongoing benefit there.
Now with the compost that adds the nutrients, it helps stimulate microbial activity because
they love organic matter. They love carbon and decomposed organic matter. There's a
lot of carbon in it, and that helps your soul structure as well.
It decomposes over time, so you have to continue to add some But what
have we fixed? We fixed the drainage with a raised bed, and we
fix the soil itself internal structure with expanded shale and organic matter. And then
finally it's the nutrients. Nutrients are critical and nutrients are essential for the plant
to grow, but in order for it to be healthy and for it to
perform well, they're absolutely essential for that as well. For example, with
your lawn, Nitrofoss Superturf is a quality fertilizer that gradually feeds over time.
And if you haven't fed your lawn by the way, now's the time to
get the slow relief summer application on. If you go to my website gardening
with Skip dot com, there's two free lawn care schedules there. One of
them includes about fertilizing and what to use and the products we would recommend.
Now, Nitrofos Superturf definitely on that list. You're going to find it in
a lot of places in Chanty Forest down to Richmond, Rosenberg Growers Outlet up
in Willis and RCW Nursery on Tombo Parkway. They all carry the Nitrophos superturf.
You put it down now and it will feed your lawn for three or
four months to come quality product. So we've improved the drainage of the soil,
we've improved the internal structure of the soil, and we've improved the nutrient
content of the soil when we add the nutrients as needed, and after that
you get you a good quality plant. Take decent care of it, and
you're going to have success. But to PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared
plot, yes, that's a tongue twister, is just it's amount to plant
abuse. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants needs to have officers
stationed at all plants sell counters, and they need to follow you home and
make sure you're you've prepared your soil before you put that poor little plant in
the ground. Okay, I'm joking, but you get the idea. I
can't over I cannot over emphasize because it is so important to get the brown
stuff right before you do the green stuff. What was the last time you
went up to Arburgate. Arbigate Nursery in Tomball is one of the premier nurseries
in this whole region and Arburgate is the kind of place where I like to
say, just make sure and allows some time because you're going to want to
wander through there. There's so many kinds of plants. There's all these little,
you know, gift shops and buildings you can go through. There's lots
of landscape bling, but plants, plants, plants and staff that know what
they're talking about. And Arbigate knows about brown stuff before green stuff because they've
got their one two three easy system. The one two three easy system is
a fertilizer for anything that has roots. It is a soil that also includes
some of the expanded shale, and a compost that also includes some of the
expanded shale. And when you take those three together and then you bring your
plants home with it, you're setting yourself up for success. Now, Arbrogate's
got a brand new parking lot in the back. I've been talking about it
for a while, but you need to try it out. It's easy to
get in and out of. All you do is turn down Trisha Road either
before or after Arburgate and swing around the back. And that all weather a
lot. I could rain ten inches and you just drive right in there.
It's a really cool new porous design that absorbs the moisture. But oh gosh,
that back access that's all I use now. I used to drive it
front all the time. Nope, not anymore. Back access is so easy,
easy and easy out at the arbor gate. And you know when you
get in there, you're going to find people that know what they're talking about,
that won't steer you wrong. It'll make sure you get the right plants
that are going to thrive where you live. We're going to take a little
break on a garden line. You know it would help. Since this is
a call in show. If I gave you our number seven one three two
one two KTRH, go ahead and call now, get on the board and
you'll be first up. Pierce Capes. Pierce Caapes, they're the professionals that
can do it. And Pierscapes not only will do landscape renovations, they can
do hardescapes, they can do landscape lighting. They can improve poorly drained areas.
Yes, they will make sure that water goes somewhere else. They know
how to do that. They can also check your irrigation system so it's running
efficiency efficiently. We're about to start and needing at big time, so now's
the time to give them a call. You know, if you go ahead
and get on the schedule. Listen, a good landscaper stays very busy,
so give them a call. Don't delay, even if you don't want the
work done right now. I mean, just give them a call and get
on the schedule. Piercescapes dot com two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty
pierscapes dot com two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero and ask
them about their quarterly maintenance service. That also is a really cool thing that
takes the worry away from you and they make sure it keeps looking good.
We're going to head out to talk to Jeff. Now, Hello, Jeff,
Hello, how are you? I'm well, sir, How can we
help? Well? I grew some tomatoes in ten gallon pots from sea.
They you know, all the green parts grew very quickly, got some nice
tomatoes on them. But I would say the top three quarters to about five
six to the tomato is red. But the bottom of the tomato just looks
like it has a black cap on it, right, almost like if you'd
taken a little bit of black paint and put it in a saucer and dip
the tomato. It's black and I'm wondering what has caused, what do we
do wrong? And yeah, how to fix it going forward? The most
common cause, especially as you this may progress into full fledged decay what you're
seeing, but a blossom androt is what we often happen on our have happened
to our tomatoes, and it's caused by a lack of calcium reaching the end
of the fruit, which is the bottom of the fruit. Uh. And
so typically it's water level fluctuations like very dry to wet or soggy wet to
dry. Those fluctuations will cause that. There's also something that can happen internally
where cells begin to break down and you start to get that darkening and collapse
on the inside. That shows up as black on the out side as well,
And that's more physiological in general. If I would I would check the
water levels in the swot they're staying too wet to soggy, wet or fluctuating
like I described, Then if you can fix that part, that would be
step one. There are sprays that help get calcium to the tomato, but
they're not by the time you see the problem, it's a little late.
Really for them, and it generally fixes itself as we move on into the
season. However, right now you're talking about a lot of fruit that's already
been lost, and so there's just not a magical wand to take care of
it. Did you tell me if this isn't a container or not it is,
it's a ten gallon container. Yeah, So the problem with the containers
the roots are limited to that spot and they dry out easy, they drive
fast because it doesn't have the extensive root system, So fluctuating soul moisture is
almost inherent to growing in a container. You've got to be a little extra
careful with that. And then secondly that the container drain holes drain properly if
they're plugged up by sitting on the soil, you know, and the drains
in the bottom. You can get a backup of water logging from that as
well. What would you recommend as far as consistency of water? How many
times a week and how much water for you know, like I said,
it's in a ten gallon container. The plant itself is probably about yeah,
three feet tall, you know, Jeff, I can give you a while
stab at it, but it depends so much on the kind of soil mix,
is it chunky or is it mucky? The certainly the volume, the
size of the tomato plant, because the bigger the plant, the more water
it's going to pump. The location, How many full hours of sun,
I mean, the very the options are so endless when it comes to recommendations.
In general, all things being pretty normal, a good amount of sun,
a good mix, and so on, I would say you ought to
you probably ought to be one uttering those about every other day with about a
gallon of water. But it's it may it may be that you have to
water more often than that if there are in a lot of sun and the
temperature really gets high. Okay, okay, I don't think. Well,
Skip, I appreciate, I appreciate the advice, all right, enjoy your
share chartle listen every week. So thanks, thank you so much. I
appreciate that. Appreciate that very much. Thanks for call. Nature's Way Resources
is having a summer sale. In fact, I was just talking to Ian
yesterday. They have thirty percent off of most of their plants. Now that
excludes one thing, that is the native sun perennials. Native native plants that
are perennials for sun that is excluded everything else thirty percent off through July first,
So this is the month if you're going to get them. If you've
thought about putting out native plants or pollinator plants, they've got a huge selection
of those. And every time I walk through there and I was looking at
their plants of the day, and I'm always surprised at some of the things
they carry. They have just some plants that's like, Oh, I didn't
know that was even available on the market. That is really cool. Now
what they really are about it, Nature's Way traditionally has been soil, but
don't forget that they have those plants. They also have twenty percent discount on
all composts, mulches, and soil blends twenty percent off. But listen,
you have to tell them that you heard about them on garden Line in order
to get that twenty percent off. Now, the twenty percent off is for
bag products and their bulk products. Nature's Way is up there on Interstate forty
five where fourteen eighty eight comes in almost all the way to Conro forty five.
It's real easy to get to get in and out Nature's Way resources.
You need to check them out their materials are high quality and you're not going
to go wrong. I'd like to go out to Jersey Village and now we're
going to talk to George. Hello, George, Yeah, good morning,
Skip you again. I love your program man, Thank you. So I've
got some squash that's really going good, except that the vine borders that digging
into them pretty well. So is there any hope to saving the plant?
And if I start over again, there is a way to prevent them from
coming back on new plants? All right. So depending on the degree of
damage, you know, you may have like three or four vine bores in
a vine. I mean, they can attack that heavily, and when you
hit that point, it's very difficult to keep the things alive. Some types
the squash will root at the node wherever the vine goes and there's a leaf
coming out, they'll put a root out there, all right. And so
if you can cover that up with just a little bit of soil and get
them rooting down the vine, then when they are disconnected from their own root
system, they still can keep going. So's that's one thing. Beginning to
spray regularly with BT and getting it, making sure you're getting it on the
vine around the base of the vine and a long the vine. That is
important. If you don't have a lot of squash, you can check them
over for vine bore eggs. You're not going to find them all, but
I was in a planting the other day and I probably found six or seven
vine bore eggs on one plant. And when you find you can just pick
those little things off and smash them with your fingers. I mean they're tiny,
bout size ahead of a pin, but that would be an option if
you're going to grow some more, I would grow it underneath a netting.
There is a garden netting. Think of it as a windows screen that's soft
as a bedsheet, very tiny squares and garden netting. Some people use roe
cover fabric. I like the garden netting a little better. But if you
can't get it, get the roe cover fabric, cover it all the way
to the ground, and the mama viin boor can't get to them to lay
eggs because they've been out laying eggs. Well now as you know, terrific.
Yeah, And then what happens is watch your squash. They typically start
with male blooms and then begin to also add the female blooms, leave the
cover on until the email balloons appear, and then you have two options.
You can pull the cover off and the vinebergers you're going to find them,
but you're going to get a decent harvest. Before those vines are the eggs
laid, the larva hatch out, they tunnel, they do the damage.
The vined eyes. You got a little window there. The other thing you
can do is lift them up. If it's not many plants, just take
a little brush hand pollinatum, a qute tip and pollinatum. Sometimes I'll pick
a mail bloom, pull the pedals off and use it as a dammer to
pollinate, and then put the cover back down again. That's a little more
work, but it's a higher percent success. It's a worth it all right.
Thanks t Hello, appreciate it. Good luck with that, George,
appreciate the call very much. A and A plants and produce. Those of
you who live up in Montgomery, you know about them. You got dry
pass it practically every day. It's right there on the east side of Montgomery
on one oh five, so it's really close to all the lake neighborhoods.
Just your backyard basically, not just a short drive from Conro as well.
They always care a good supply of everything you need, including the fertilizers I
talk about on Gardenline. So if you're looking for a product from nitrofost or
Nelson or Microlife, if you're looking for a soil from Heirloom Soils or Nature's
Way resources, they've got all of that up there. Their landscaping crew also
serves the area around Lake Conroe. You might want to contact them about getting
some work done. If you'd like a little help with some of the things
you're doing out there, they can help you with that as well. Seven
days a week from nine to five, So basically they're always open. That's
one way to put it. A and A plants and produce up in Montgomery
Shed. Give them a good hard lookover. They really do a good job
and they have that the Microlife, Yeah mentioned that, that's one of the
things they carry. They have that purple bag. That's the humans plus.
And when we're fertilizing, we always think about the three numbers Nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium. Those are important and they're the three numbers on every fertilizer
bag. Sometimes you get an extra number two for some other things. But
basically ever bag has got those three numbers, and with microlife it's a six
' two four, which is a three one two ratio. It works excellent.
But in addition to doing the fertilizing, I would suggest you begin a
regimen of at least once a year. Once a year'd be fine. The
purple bag microlife humts plus. If you take composts and you concentrate it down
into little granules, that is what humts plus is stimulates. Microbial activity helps
with soil structure. It's basically a very high carbon material and microbes just really
really go nuts with that. They need an external source of nitrogen to survive
all from microlife. If you want to know where to get it, I
will go to a NA Plants and Produce or go to Microlifefertilizer dot com and
find out all the places you can find it here in this area. We're
going to go now to Paarland and talk to Mary. Hello, Mary,
bye, good morning, good morning. My question is several months ago I
had in my backyard resold and when I'm mowing it, I'm seeing the moths
fly out in this in the evening when I'm mowing and I know that that's
not good. That's not a good sign, and I don't know what to
do with how to treat them. Well, we are way on the early
end of sid webworm. We can start getting them. If you look at
my schedule, I have the side webworm. It's something we're watching for starting
in June. But it would be a little unusual for that to be what
the moths are right now. I'm not saying it isn't. But if you
could capture some and put them in a little jar, stick them in the
freezer, freezer, and then take a picture of one and send it to
me, I can tell you if that's what you got or not. I
need a moth to be able to see it. There's a lot of different
kinds of moth that you'll find. So I tear what Mary, Let's hang
on. I'm going to go to a break and I want to continue this
discussion with you if you don't mind hanging on just a moment. All right,
here we go. We'll be right back. Let's see we got you
live here? Mary? Are you there? Yes, sir? All right,
there we go. Thank you. Well, we were talking about moths.
There are other moths that could be flying up, so if we could
identify it, that would be very helpful. If they're little tiny moths and
they as you walk across the lawn, they fly up out of the lawn,
stay down low, and go back down into the lawn. That sounds
a lot like sideweb worms. But it's not the only moth that can do
that. So if you notice that habit, that flight habit of them as
you walk through, they're probably more on the larger side. And then they
fly away. Okay, they don't go back down. I would put about
an eighty percent chance you don't have sodwb worms out there, but I'm happy
to look at one. If you can catch one. They're flying away.
It's gonna be hard to catch anyway. But yes, if you get my
schedule, if you go on line to gardening with skip dot com, there's
a free schedule called the Lawn Pest, Disease and Weed Management Schedule, and
it takes you January through December through insects, diseases, and weeds. What
happens when and if you look June, July, August, and September or
potential sod web worm months very unusual to happen. This early, but it
could happen, okay, And so what do you recommend it if it is,
Yeah, if you're going to treat for them on the schedule, I
have it color coded so insects are yellow. So you go to the bottom
and if you look at yellow, it says chinchbugs and sodweb worms. And
there's a couple of products on there for those. There's a nitrofossbug Out max
us bug Out Max, and there's another product called Cyanara. Like what is
what a cyanari means? See you later? I don't I don't know I
should know that, But anyway, Nitropos bug Out Max is one you might
want to try. It's a granule from Nitrofoss and basically you spread it out
there and within forty eight hours it's doing what it does and taking taking out
the insects that would be that you are your target, and that could be
fleas ticks. I mean, it could be chinchbugs, it could be you
know, any kind of a pest insect that is out there in your lawn.
And that would also include the you know, the sod web worms as
well, and would that heart frogs and lizards and all My good stuff.
Well, it is. It is an insecticide, and used properly, we
don't worry about that. But there is always the potential with an insecticide to
have damage to something. If you wanted to go with something that is more
organic on the sod web worms, you could use either BT or spinosid.
Now, bt LA's only a day or two, and so you're gonna spread.
You're gonna probably spread a week later, probably spread a week later,
you know, just continuing to stay with it. Spinocid is going to last
a little bit longer. But don't apply those until get out there in your
lawn. You may have to drop down on your knees and look close.
When you see leaf blades being chewed up. That's when BT and spinosid should
be applied, because these pests have they have to eat the BT. Okay,
yeah, so if yeah, if you spray it on, the mad
is not going to do anything, right, Okay, that's true. You
know, I mean I have so many good little critters. I don't want
to get rid of them. Okay. Well, I mean, you know,
people range in their thoughts and opinions on all of it, but that
I can respect that. That's fine. You have, you have many options.
Okay, yes, sir, all right, thank you so much.
I enjoy your show tremendously. I think you're doing a great job and I
appreciate it. Thank you, Mary, thank you, cal You take care.
Yeah, that night, Fusz bug out Max. It's it's it is
an insect to site. If it's an insect that's going to kill it,
that basically is what happens. And it and it sticks around at last,
it'll it'll basically work for the entire season out there. Now that would include
you know, if fire ants crawling through it, they're gonna they're gonna get
controlled by that that it's not going to go down in the mound, but
it's going to kill the ones that crawl across that product out there in the
thatch. Uh and then chinchberks and side web worms too. Uh. And
you can find it like all are Microsoft products. I mean, they're available
just about everywhere you would go, especially like places like Ace Hardware stores Katie
Ace Hardware for example, Ace Hardware City and Memorial. Uh. You're going
to find them at Stanton Shopping Center down in Alvin as well. They carry
that. All right, Well, we had somebody on the line there was
about to click on it. They disappeared, so they who knows what happened.
I had been talking about soil this morning, the importance of getting that
right and everything that. The issue with water and why too much water is
a problem on our soils. We complain about rain, too much rain,
and then next thing you know, we're complaining about not having seen rain for
three weeks, and it's one hundred degrees every day, and that's just kind
of how the weather goes. If it was easy, anybody could do it.
But actually gardening is not that difficult. You get you well prepared soil,
you take care of it, you make sure that you know it has
the nutrients it needs, and you're going to find it. It's not that
difficult to guard here. Let's go to the woodlands and talk to Warren.
Hello, Warren, heyre you do Skip? I'm well, thanks, say
Skip, I've got a I put in much of a sod for those rain
floord square feet whole palette and it's this. It's this shade tolerant s Bermuda,
not Bermuda. And I did everything that practiced right. I killed tail
till they all all your prescribed procedures, and I watered it every day and
it just took all through it really well. Then then we had those heavy,
heavy rains, and I think it must have gotten over water because it's
starting to dine back. Okay, and now I've got sprigs. There's a
lot of little streaks growing up that it really wasn't that full lush coat.
So I'm wondering. I put some fertilizer in some also some roots stimulator.
What else can I do? All right, I've got about thirty seconds for
a break if I need to carry over, if you're willing to wait.
Basically, if the shade is too much, that's not an unusual result.
I've got some zoiza. It's the same kind of thing and sun it looks
great, and in shade it's getting that spriggy sparsely to it. It could
also be a disease take all root rots possible a little fast for take all
after sodding, but it also could be something called gray leaf spot. If
you would like, I'm going to put you on hold here for our commercial.
If you would like, the producer will pick it up and give you
my email and then you can get up real close to it and take me
some good, well focused pictures and I'll be happy to, you know,
take a look at them and see if I can diagnose the disease there.
But for right now, I'm gonna have to put you on hold and run.
I'll come back to if you're still around after break, all right,
folks, we'll be right back, hey, Warren. So we're talking about
your siding and the issues that you've had with it. Gray leaf spot is
it loves shady areas, and it loves moist moist conditions, and especially excessive
fertilizing too, it makes it even worse. That's one that rots the leaves
of uf. Generally the grass will come right back. The problem with shady
areas is, you know, we pick a grass that is shade tolerant.
That doesn't mean it wants to be in the shade. It just means it's
more tolerant than others with the shade. But the less sunlight you have,
the less energy you can get into the plant. And so therefore regrowth and
density and filling back in is a lot slower. Are you there, uh,
warrant, you are cutting out a lot on us here. Let's let's
try to get we may. Let's go ahead and try again. Yeah,
I tell you what we're not. We're not I'm not able to I'm not
able to understand it all. Uh just hang up and call back in and
our producer will put you right up the top here. Okay, thanks,
all right, sorry, but oh wait, are you there still? I'm
here? Okay, suddenly you got clear as of Well, go ahead,
let's continue this. So what I reach, stimulator, No, because it's
not a lack of roots that's the problem. I think if you want to,
you know, take those pictures and send them, email them to me.
Let me look up close where I can see as if you know,
my eyes were like six inches away from the grass runners or something that that
kind of or maybe a picture of the whole area too, would be very
helpful, And let me look at them because I can sit here and guess.
Because there's a lot of possibilities, but we need to get you nailed
down to the specific cause and therefore the specific treatment to get out out of
that situation. I got your email dress now, okay, good, all
right, Warren. Well let's take it that way. I think that's going
to get your better answer. No, I thank you. Appreciate it,
you bet, you bet, yeah, that something to think about the when
it comes to grass, Saint Augustine is about as shade tolerance you're going to
get. And there are some Saint Augustine's that do a little bit better than
others in the shade. It's not night and day, but it's you know,
it's a little bit better. We say. You know that palmetto,
for example, is one that's touted is being a little more shade tolerant.
But the bottom line is light intensity, you know, because think of it
this way. Think of grass leaves as solar panels, and think of the
energy that a solar panel produces as the carbohydrates the food that drives the grass
plant. So if you take a solar panel and you put it in fifty
percent sun, you're going to get a lot less electricity out of it.
Right, if you take a grass blade and you put it in fifty percent
shade, you're going to get a lot less carbohydrate production, which drives everything.
It drives growth, it drives density, it drives health. And so
we can get launs to hang on in the shade. But how shady is
shade, you know? Is it full sun? For six hours and then
it goes completely pitch dark shade or is it a dapple shade all through the
day that's very bright. You see. Again, it's just like a solar
panel. The more light that you get, if you can get a decent
amount of light all through the day, then you can grow in quite shady
areas because the shade is so bright. And that's how that works. So
you know, it's not we like to say, well your grass needs six
hours of sun. Well that's a good guess for Saint Augustine, but in
general it really there's a lot of different kinds of shade, as I just
pointed out, So when you can't get enough energy, it's not going to
fill back in. It may look okay, it may hold on, but
when something starts giving it problems like foot traffic or disease or anything like that,
then it declines and it just isn't able to come back to where it
was. That's been my experience with it. When shade is too much,
so you can brighten the shade removing a tree, removing limbs. The problem
with pruning to brighten is the treatise regrows again and so you end up pruning
your tree in ways that are not the best way to prune, and oftentimes
but also you end up with it just being a temporary fix, and it's
not inexpensive to go in and do enough pruning to actually improve the light levels
down at the ground level. All Right, some things to think about there
while Bird's Unlimited is it is absolutely my favorite place to get things related to
birds and whether it's a quality feeder, whether it is you know, a
book to learn more about birding, whether it's just walking in and talking to
the folks there and getting good advice on birding, it's the place to go.
But I tell you, when it comes to the seeds, the feed
for the birds, they have blends for every kind of bird. They even
have seasonal blends. The nesting blend is one we've been putting out a lot
at our house. The nesting blend is a product that is going to help
them when they're trying to raise young, when they're trying to, you know,
go through that process. And what I find is that Wildbird's Unlimited Seed
is all bird feed. It's all bird feeding. It all goes in a
bird unless it has a sunflower haul on it. They're going to kick that
on the ground, but they're not going to pick through the seed and kick
some they don't like out. It's all going into the bird. So when
you buy a pound of wild bird seed, you get a pound of feed
that goes into a bird. That's kind of how I like to look at
it. Wilbird's unlimited six stores in the greater Houston area. Just go to
WBU dot com forward slash Houston you can find the one that's going to be
closest to you. We're going to go now to Tomball and talk to Ken.
Hello. Ken, Hey, Skip, Hey, morning morning. You
were just talking about shady areas. I've got an area like that that I
have difficulty getting anything to grow there, and I've noticed that I have had
like a little bit of moss that has grown there. Is that something that
you've heard of. Yeah, moss often grows in a shady area, especially
if it stays moist moist it does well, and you know it's in the
way of grass trying to root in and stuff like that, so there's a
little battle going on between the two. But if it's so shady moss is
growing, I think you're gonna have a little difficulty getting a good dunse lawn
in that area. That's offer. It's a very uh, it's not travel
traveled area. In other words, people don't go there on that side.
So is there a moss that I could get to grow over there? Oh?
So you're looking for moss? Yeah, it was. I was just
wondering since I've got something that is surviving there. Yeah. Ken, to
be honest, I think I've seen things like that for sale and garden centers,
but I am not a not a good moss expert. In other words,
moss you would want a plant you're in Tombol, just give them a
call over at the Arborgay talking to Beverly or Kennon and just say, do
you sell any kind of a little moss material that could be used in the
ground. I think they might or they're going to have plants like that that'll
put up with a lot of shade, But as far as which particular one,
I wouldn't be able to tell you that. All right, Thank you?
All right, Ken, thanks a lot. That's good. That's turning
lemons into lemonade. We love to visit new garden centers new to us.
That is not necessary brand new gardens, but new to us, and I
just like going and seeing what's new at a garden center. You know,
in Chanted Gardens is one of those kind of places. It's a destination.
It just absolutely is. When you go to Enchanted Gardens, you know you're
going to have an outstanding selection of quality, quality plants. You know you're
going to get people that know what they're talking about. You know that whatever
kind of gardening you're interested in, they're going to be able to show you
and sell you and provide advice on that kind of gardening. That's how that
works. Do you want summer color plants, they got it. Do you
want containers? And you should want containers. There's so many beautiful container options
and you can change them out. They can show you how to put a
container together. They can give you a selection, like here's an idea for
four or five plants. Give it a try. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
They're on the Katie Folscher side of Richmond. You got to get out
there. You got to visit it. Today wouldn't be a bad day to
go do that. Well, you've been listening to garden Line. We're going
to take a little top of the hour break here. We will be back
with your gardening questions if you would like to give a call now. That
way, when we come back from the break, you'll be the first up.
That's always a good way to go. Things tend to get kind of
busy once we get rolling again. Appreciate you being a listener. We're going
to turn it over to the news right now and I will be back.
Oh, I want to remind you one thing June fifteenth. I'm going to
be at the Wall Birds Unlimited in bel Air bel Air, Ye, Southwest
usteron June fifteenth, two weeks from now eleven am to one pm. You
need to come out and see me. We're going to have some giveaways and
we always have a good time. Entering our seven o'clock hour, second hour
of the day, ready to answer your gardening questions. Always enjoy visiting plants
for all seasons up on two forty nine on the way to Tomball Tomball Parkway.
You know, the one way I like to think about things is when
it comes to plants for all seasons. That is is that if you have
a brown thumb, if you walk in there, they'll make it green.
How about that? Meaning now you've heard me say before, there are no
such things brown thumbs. There's only an informed thumbs. That's how they make
it green. They give you the advice that you need, they sell you
the plants that will grow here, and they give you after the sale service
that is worth its weight in gold. Right there. Plants for All Season
has been around since what nineteen seventy three? The Flierty family. They know
the area, they know the plants. They are experienced in every way,
shape and form with how to have success with things. They're gardeners themselves.
For crying helloud, you can take a picture in there for diagnosis. You
can take a sample in there, putting all a plastic bag, especially if
it's got some creeping crowd on it. But Plants for All Seasons dot com
is their website if you'd like to give them a call. Two eight one,
three seven six sixteen forty six. If you've never been there before,
crawl out from under that rock and go up Highway two forty nine, exit
Luetta and just pass Luetta on the way toward Tumble. You'll be right there
at Plants for All Seasons dot com. We're going to go now to Baytown
and talk to Steve Hello Steve, Good morning. I have a question.
I've got some live oaks in my yard that are twenty five years old,
and I have the aero of Exceptic system. Two of the trees that were
sprayed pretty i mean like daily by this system. Now I have a bark
where the bark is deteriorated and rotting off where the waters hit them constantly.
Yeah, I've obviously moved the sprinkler heads when I've discovered the problem. I
found it on the first tree four or five years ago, and I removed
all the rotten bark and you know, there were ants living under it and
that stuff. Yeah, it seems to have kind of recovered and it's healed
over on the leading edge. But once I continue to kind of rode away,
and now I've got another tree that seems to be having the same problem
developed, even though I've stopped the water it years ago. What do you
recommend you just feel back the rot and help it comes heels. Yeah,
you know, you just get the old dead material out of there so that
that interior wood that is now exposed to the elements can dry out after a
rain when it gets wet. That'll slow down the rotting. If it's allowed
to fully dry out between rains. Just keep pulling it back. Well,
take back the loose bark. There's no funge side or anti canker spray to
put on it if it were a canker going on in there. Generally,
a healthy tree with some health to it will start to create callous to close
that area back over as I think you refer to the leading edge. It'll
start closing it back over in time. Now, if a tree is very
weak and is not able to do that, or if you got an active
canker that is continuing to eat away, the only thing in your power is
try to get that tree healthy. And that would be you know, during
summer extensive drought in terms of lots of hot, lots of dry for a
long time. You're giving your tree some rescue treatments with water would help.
Certainly nutrients can help too. But now they're super healthy, they are great
shape except for this issue. Well then they auto callousat over again. What's
the trunk diameter roughly on that tree? The biggest one the diameters probably two
feet and the other ones probably twenty inches. Okay, well, they're getting
kind of where they're reaching they're closer to their full size than they were when
they're planted, for sure, so they're slowing down a little bit. And
that is okay, that is an okay thing. I think your trees ought
to wall it off and be fine. A good healthy tree just has a
way of shutting that down, as we say, walling it off and then
beginning to call us back in to close over. Should I go ahead and
take it back to where there's solid good growth? Are just the loose?
Well, take take the loose back. The only my only hesitation in saying
yes to that question is don't rewound the tree in taking it back, you
know, yeah, just be careful not to significantly overdo it. Yeah,
okay, okay, okay, thank you very much. All right, Steve,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that. And you know,
talking about trees, Affordable Tree Service here in Houston, that is the one
that we talk about all the time on guard Line. That is the one
that I'm happy to have as our sponsor. Affordable Tree Martin Spoon Moore.
They know what they're doing. And listen, today starts hurricane season. When
the wind blows, we have havoc on our trees. And you need a
good, strong, well pruned tree to do that. Any dead limbs for
crying out love, those have got to come out, but also just good
pruning to create a structure that holds up well during the wind. You don't
want a tree to fall on anything valuable. I can't express enough the importance
of proper tree care going into the season. We are now entering the storm
season doesn't even have to be a hurricane. Call Martin spoon Moore at seven
one three six nine twenty six sixty three. Say that again seven one three
six nine nine two six sixty three, or go to Afftree Service dot com.
Martin's a professional, he does good work, and he stays busy.
Don't delay. Go ahead and call him now. Get something set up so
he can come out and give your trees a lookover. He's gonna charge one
hundred and fifty bucks to come out and look at a tree. But if
he says, well, this is what I think you need and you hire
him to do it, that one fifty goes right into that. So essentially
it didn't cost to have him come out. Martin spoon Moore at Affordable Tree
I'm going to head out now to Alice. Hello, Alice, good morning
morning. I have a well, I've kind of had a white old tree
about thirty years old in our backyard, and when Harvey came, it kind
of damaged that little and I kept it prune really good where the air would
flow through it. And but yesterday I had part of it just salves.
Okay, so I'm having I'm having it, yeah, taken down completely today.
All right? Do you want to replace it? Right? I want
to replace it, but I don't want a big tree like that. Well,
I'm seventy eight, so I said it's time to be it. Yeah,
don't have to worry about big trees. It was beautiful shade in my
patios. And I'm going to have nothing but done out there. All right,
let me let's do this. I'm gonna put you on hole. We
got to run a little break here. When we come back, I'll give
you some suggestions for trees that would do well for that area. Thank you
so much. All right, Oh, we're gonna go back to Alice and
Alice. Let's see, we were cutting we cut on it. We're cutting
down an oak tree and we need something a little smaller to replace it for
shade on the patio. Is that correct? Yes, alrighty, well you
could. There are a number of crape myrtles that achieve a pretty good size
actually that will spread out and provide a shade. Plus you get the blooms
when they're young. You get them when they're older, but they're up high
and you don't see them. But Craig Murdle be a possibility. There is
a tree called Chinese fringe tree. Chinese fringe has beautiful white fringe john like
the like friend f r that's it. That's it. Chinese fringe that has
beautiful shaggy white blooms in the spring that have a nice little fragrance to them.
And it doesn't grow real fast, but it doesn't get big either.
You know, it's gonna probably if you get around twenty five feet in time,
but that that's that's in time. There's certainly a lot of other trees
we could put out there, but if you're you know, it's kind of
here's the trade off. We're trying to get you some shade soon, but
we're trying not to have a big tree, and that combo is a little
a little hard to come by. You know, grow fast and don't get
too big. But my neighborhoods create myrtles, and I was thinking about that,
but I don't know how. Yeah, you know, well I'll probably
go with that. Yeah you can. Here's what you need to take.
Go online and do your Google or whatever search you use, and write and
type in type in crape myrtle, and type in Skip Richter all in a
Google search, and you will find a chart that has crape myrtles from three
feet to thirty five feet high. Is that a little picture? I mean,
Skip Skip Richter like the earthquake scale. That's my name, Skip Richter,
Hatch and also put I just went blank. There a great myrtle and
Skip Ricter. You're going to find a chart and it'll have all sizes and
have a little picture of them. It'll tell you if they're disease resistant or
not. And you just want to get one that's going to get big.
Natchez is a good one. Natchez has white ballooms. It'll get thirty feet
in time, but it has beautiful cinnamon colored barks, so when you're sitting
on the patio looking at the tree trunk, it's even pretty. Okay,
okay, all right, thank you there all right, Thank you appreciate it.
Thank you for the call very much. We're going to go now to
Mike in the Woodlands. Hey Mike, Hey, good morning Skip. I
sent you some pictures of a grassy weed that I have. Yes, looks
it looks a lot like Saint Augustine, but it's not. Yep, that's
right. That is called doweed, doveweed. It loves wet conditions. Welcome
to Houston. Just infiltrates in the grass if you use a pre emergent herbicide,
and if you go to my schedule on my website, the website's Gardening
with Skip dot com, there is a two free, two free schedules on
there. One of them is the Pest Disease and Weed Management schedule. That's
the one you want to look for. It tells you about the pre emergent
herbicides and the post emergent herbicides. So a pre emergent herbicide like barricade by
nitrofoss would be something you would put out to probably. I would do this
in mid February mid February in your area to prevent the doveweed and other weeds
from sprouting. The post emergent which is where you're sitting right now. You
want to get a product called celsius. Celsius like the temperature celsius, and
you can apply it when the weather is a little warmer like it is getting
now, and it is effective against doveweed. And if you shop around you
should be able to find it. Okay, Yeah, I did a pre
emergent back in February or March, and then I called you and you told
me to wait probably till still like Jude or so, to reapply. Yes,
but it didn't seem to help much, so okay, yeah, I
just need to kill it now. Yeah, kill it now. The thing
about pre emergency is, you know, you got to get them on at
the right rate. You got to get a good even spread of them.
You got to get them watered in and stuff. And not every weed is
equally controlled by any herbicide. You know, there are some some weeds that
a particular herbicide may not work against. But anyway, celsius will knock it
out. But do so soon before it starts going to seed, because then
you just have a whole lot more seeds for next year. Yeah. Yeah,
Also, I've got a crate myrtle that probably I've probably planted it six
or eight years ago and it's still not blooming. And I heard you a
couple of weeks ago say, you know, just wait, but I'm not
seeing any type of bloom blooms on it at all, you know, where
it's even sprouting out. So yeah, I'm just wondering. We get that
on crapes every now and then. I always, first of all, start
with is a getting full sign that they want lots of sign in order to
bloom. Well, some varieties are a little slower to start blooming than others.
That's a factor, but you know, by now you are to be
seeing at least it's putting buds out where it's going to open up and looms
pretty soon. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not go ahead, I'm
not seeing that at all, but yeah it probably it gets sun from early
morning till probably three o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah, well, I don't
know. Time is really the only thing I know to say on that.
There's not something you put on a crpe myrtle that makes it bloom. It's
not lacking some nutrient. You know, if the plant is growing, it's
getting the nutrients it needs. So yeah, it looks real good. You
know, it's very green and no problems. But it's just not there's no
seed pods coming out yet, right or pods. Yeah, I get that.
Well, so I guess my my suggestion is just kind of wait and
give it some time and see if time heals a wound. Hopefully it would.
Should I should I try to put some crate myrtle fertilizer on it.
You could do that. It wouldn't hurt. Yeah, you could. You
could do that. Yeah, I've done it probably two or three months ago.
But oh okay, we reapply it. You know, it's probably okay.
I it wouldn't hurt to add some I just wouldn't overdo it. You
know, we're not trying to push it with too much nitrogen and so on.
But hopefully that that'll give you an idea. Yeah, I used a
crate myrtle food, so hopefully that'll that would help. Okay, well,
I'll give that a try. Try to find out Celsius. Do you think
ACE would have it? Uh? They probably would, most ACE hardware stores
do. Yeah, okay, yeah, I would, I would try.
I would try ACE all right, Mike, thank you? All right?
Yeah, for those of you out there listening. You know Ace. We
say ACE is a place. It's a place for you fill in the blank.
It was a place when we had storm damage and we were looking at
cleaning up. It was a place when we had Christmas lights to put up.
It's a place all the time right now. It's a place to get
your fertilizers and your herbicides. They if I talk about a fertilizer on Guardline,
they carry in at ACE. That's kind of the arrangement we have with
them because you need to know when you go there, you're going to get
what you want to get. And if it's on the schedule, they should
have it there at ACE Hardware stores. And Celsius, by the way,
is on my lawn pest disease and weed management schedule, and ACE is going
to have that. There's like forty stores here in the Houston area. Ace
Hardware dot Com. I would recommend just bookmark aceharbord dot com, look at
the store locator and bookmarket because then you can see all the little red dots
all over the area. It's easy to find an As fact, if you
walked out in your front yard and throw a rock, if you got a
halfway decent arm. You probably could hit an ace from wherever wherever you are.
We're going to go now to Westbury and talk to Anthony. Hello Anthony,
Good morning, sir. I have a sago palm. It's about four
feet high four feet wide, and it came with a home and the little
palms used to come out of the top in bloom, not bloom, but
you know, grow really nicely. However, right now, just notice there's
this pine cone looking thing growing up out of it, and right now it's
about twelve inch tall and looking to take over the area where my palms palms
will come out. What can I do about that? Is that? Okay?
Or all right? Tell me about Yeah, so it's I assume it's
kind of narrow and upright, like a rocket in its shape. Right,
it's not a round bowling ball, okay. That's the male pollen structure of
the sego. Segos are male or female. Their separate plants male and female,
and the females get this little like a bowling ball type round thing in
the middle. The males produce that cone. Basically, that's a cone,
pollen producing cone on your sego. Nothing to worry about, nothing to do
about. It'll do that and it'll keep growing. Okay, you can do
once. Once it dies or whatever goes away, you's got it. Prongs
will continue to come out like it used to. You should Yeah, you
make it. You may end up getting a multiple bud split up at the
top where you have more than one trunk come out like a side shoot or
something. You just have to watch it and see. It depends on several
factors. But I'll just tell you this nothing to worry about. Your Sego
palm will live on super Thank you for your time, SRK you bet,
thank you. I appreciate. I appreciate your call a lot. Nelson Plant
Food has a couple of products that you need to know about in summer.
Bruce's Brew. We normally think of it as their faster release fertilizer, and
it is faster release, but it has two different kinds of slow release also
in it. So it is let's say it's front loaded with Bruce's Brew.
You're going to get a lot of the nutrients out soon and then some that
are provided over time, providing for your lawn. Slow and Easy is the
one that's backloaded. You got some immediate nutrients, but slow and Easy is
going to give you four months or more of fertilizing over time as we go
through the summer season. When you do Slow and Easy now you do not
fertilize again until get my schedule in the fall. When we say fall fertilization
time. That's the next fertilization that you'll do, and that's going to be
way down the line. Slow and Easy from Nelson widely available, high quality
products, several different types of nitrogen in it, so that it does gradual
release over time rather than just dissolve and wash away like a typical salt based
for leisure wood and immediate release wood. This one's going to give you a
very extended release over time, gradual feeding. It's acidifying to the soil,
and it's just a quality product. I'm gonna set out here. I lost
track of all the time. Here, let's see, we're going to go
to Jim and Clearlay. Hello, Jim morning. I want to just I
wanted to ask how effective I had noticed some gray spot and a few places
on the lawn, and I got the ego out immediately and did that on
Tuesday of last week. Then I had some spots that were starting to brown
and I had some brown patch ncrofoss and I placed that. But we've had
these torrential rains since then. I'm wondering if any of that's left in the
long to do any good. Well, rain does wash these away. You
know, anything that can be dissolved in water is going to be able to
be moved away by rain. You know. I hate sending people out to
do and redo, you know, product applications, because you know, a
little bit is good, a lot is not good. And Egle is a
systemic fungicide. It's got Michael buttanill in it. It works very well,
but you don't want to overdose plants with it, or with any that's the
side product for that matter. So I would watch it a little bit and
see how long before the rain did you say you got the Eagle down.
I put it down about eight in the morning. I think we started getting
rain at about four or five that afternoon. Yeah, that's that is a
tough call. I think if it were mine, I think I would redo
it. I believe I would. That is an awkward question for me because
I'm not you know, I don't know exactly how much rain you got and
the rate that you put it out and everything, but in general, I
think I think that I would redo it. That that's not quite enough time
for it to fully soak in and do what it needs to do. And
then the brown patch I put down on areas where I've had brown patch before,
and I and I, rather than do more aggressive with the June feeding,
I was doing a white brown patch in those areas. I bought some
aged leath mole compost put down on top of that. Would I would it
be principle to lightly add the brown patch again before I put down the You
could do that. If you like to do that, you can do that.
Hey, I'm up against a break here. I hope that helps,
but that leaf more compost will also do you a world of good. Thank
you, Jim. I appreciate your call very much. It's time for the
news our number seven one three two one two K t R H. Give
us a call. We'll talk to you about what interests you. We're going
to head to Seabrook and talk to Lisa. Hello, Lisa, good morning.
I have a question about caterpillars. I was awake for a couple of
days and I came home and I was shocked some push starred was just destroyed
by caterpillars. So, I don't know, I've never had this problem before.
Is it something I need to put in the soil or what what should
I do? Okay? Uh? You cut out when you told me what
the plant was that they were eating. What was it? Okay? And
it was some kale okay? Uh. Those are going to be either cross
striped army worms or cabbage loopers. Could be both. I've seen them both
on the plants at the same time. Products that contain BT and products that
contained spinosad are both excellent organic options for caterpillar control. BT is probably the
less toxic of the two. You're going to need to spray it on the
leaves that they're eating because they eat it, and it's a disease. It
only affects the caterpillar. It doesn't affect lady beetles or grasshoppers or you know,
anything else. It's a natural disease of caterpillars, so BT, basilisther
and Gensis just it lasts about a day or two out in the environment,
So spray it and two or three days later check it for caterpillars and spray
again. If you need to but that is the simplest, safest way to
go ahead and knock those out. And are there any brand names you know
that sell that or what they have that at ACE? Oh my gosh,
they're going to have three different kinds of BT at ACE. Yeah, they'll
just go in and say I need BT caterpillar control and you'll see that.
Yeah, it's it's real easy, easy to easy to do. You just
know this that it's it's an organic So when the caterpillars are young, it's
very effective. When you get a cat a pillar that's so old it's about
to make a cocoon, the BT is not going to be as effective,
but it still is I think the best way to go. Someone had missed
seven dusts. What do you think about that? Seven dust is a synthetic
product that will kill the heck out of caterpillars and any other insect including beneficial
insects. So nothing, nothing, you know, seven has been used for
decades. It's an old time product, but it's going to last a long
time. I said, BT breaks it down in a day or two.
Seven dust a week later is still out there toxic and doing what it does.
So if you're going to bring that green and to eat the foliage,
you need to wash it really good. If it's all right. Seven,
yeah, thank you all right, Lisa, thanks a lot. Appreciate,
appreciate your call. RCW Nurseries, which is the nursery there where Tampa Parkway
Highway too for you nine comes into Beltway eight. RCW always has stuff going
on. They've always got great plants. They've always got I call it bling,
you know, the metal signs and the various kinds of things that you
got to add to add to your garden. They've got that. They're known
for their roses, I mean, gosh, pages and pages of rose options
that they can bring in for you. They carry the fertilizers I talk about
on garden line. Rcw's easy to get to. It's two forty nine belt
Way eight. If you went over the bypass there kind of went over from
one to the other belt wait eight to two forty nine. Privately, even
didn't see it. It's right down there underneath, easy, easy to get
to. Now. RCW is gonna have plenty of color plants. They're going
to have things like hibiscus, the beautiful Cajun Hibiscus series. They've got those
there Boogain Villas. They've had all kinds of things there, and a really
good selection of trees as well. Go to RCW nurseries dot com RCW nurseries
dot that's how you find out everything you need to know. Get the phone
number, give me a call, do you know, just main things.
Just go by. Now's a great time to stop by RCW Nurseries. We
are going to go to Chris in Jersey Village. Hello, Chris, are
you there? All right? Chris? I'm gonna put you on hold and
I'll be back. We're gonna now go to Dr Burke Williams. Hey,
Dr Williams, good morning, Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir,
how can we help Well, when I moved into the house that I'm
in six years ago, one thing that we noticed right away is the crape
myrtles were twenty plus feet high and they were growing in the shade of pine
trees and oak trees. Well, now two of those oak trees have died
and we're going to take them down, and those crape myrtles are gonna get
plenty of sunlight, okay, So I would like to cut them back considerably,
you know, so that they will flower and really look nice. How
far can I take them down there? And like I say, they're twenty
plus foot high and they only bloom at that height of there because that's the
only place where the sunlight gets tall. Yeah, I get it. So
what do you recommend? Well, and answer your question, how far you
can cut them off with the ground and they're going to come out sprouting with
multiple shoots if you wanted to start over, which is probably a legitimate thing,
because here's the thing. When you go way back and cut them,
let's say you cut them down to ten feet high or to five feet high.
Now you got this fence post flat top stump that is going to re
sprout, and it's going to be what we call a crow's foot. It's
just all these shoots growing upright. The top of the trunk is bare wood,
and it's easy for them to break off in a storm. You could
do that, but I would seriously consider taking it to the ground and if
you want to make let's say a three three trunk tree out of it,
cut everything off, but the three that are going out away from each other
in kind of directions, you like, that look good and healthy. And
then as they get up a little bit. You can tip prune those and
they'll branch, and so you end up a beautiful krete. Myrtle typically comes
out of the ground with one to three trunks, and then there's a y
fork in each of those at hopefully different heights. It makes it look a
little prettier. And then those each fork again, and so you end up
with a beautiful candelabra of branches that is nice and healthy, and you don't
have all those stubbed off dead ends and things. So I don't know if
that you just have to cut everything on when you cut the ones you're not
gonna leave off though. If you do this bert you need to you need
to make sure and cut them right up against where they attach, because you're
gonna have some suckering going on for a while. But you just diligently cut
it back like you're just doing surgery and removing the base of that, just
almost gouging it out of the of the place where it's sprouting, because you
don't want more buds to just re sprout right there. I'm thinking about cutting
them in January. Does it sound like an appropriate time? That's fine,
I mean you could do it then, or I mean you could do it
now and begin the process of starting to rebuild and give you a big head
start, because when you first do this, it's going to be a mess
for a while until you start rebuilding a plant. The trunks on these things
are three to four ranches, and there's three of them. Yeah, yeah,
they're about six six feet apart. Well, the alternative is to come
down to where there's a side branch if it's an acceptable height. But I'm
telling you they're just not a pretty way to get out of what you got
other than starting. Yeah, yeah, all right, well, thank you,
all right, you take care, appreciate appreciate that call time first to
run again, take a little break care. We will be right back with
your calls. Asmite is a mind product. It's mined in Utah out of
the ground, and it contains trace mineral elements. What are trace minerals.
They are minerals that are just as essential to plant growth and development and health
as the big ones like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Trace minerals are just
needed in tiny amounts. Trace You just need trace of them as might goes
a long way, and asmite, for example, you got a forty four
pound bag it'll cover six to twelve thousand square feet of your lawn if you're
using it in a garden, which I'd recommend you do by the way.
You want your vegetables to have a full complement of all the different nutrients and
compounds that help keep us healthy. Ten pounds per thousand square feet in the
garden. So azmite is not difficult to find at all. You can go
to azimite Texas dot com. Our sponsors carry it. You go to a
garden center, feed stores, ace hardware stores, you know, Southwest Ferdlight.
You're gonna find azmite at all kinds of places like that. Widely available,
easy to find. You don't need to apply a lot of it.
Just follow the label very carefully, you know, always follow the label.
I'm a broken record on that one. That's important. Follow the label.
Let's head out to sugar Land. We're going to talk to Greg. Hello.
Greg, All right, how are you doing. I'm well. I
had my two trees planted last Friday, and my watering schedule. I wanted
them Friday and a little bit Saturday. But being we had all this rain,
am I need to do? I need to back off watering? What
schedules I go from. Now, yeah, you do. So here's the
bottom line on tree watering. I don't like to recommend schedules because every soil
is different, every situation is different. But if you keep the root zone
moist, that's how much you water. So if you dig down, you're
going to take your hand and a little trowel or something, dig down about
three or four inches and feel the soil. If it's moist, you're okay.
Now that root zone, that cylinder that came out of the pot,
the roots are all still there, and so you could have wet soil all
around it, but it's not going to wick into the root zone fast enough
to supply it on a hot, sunny summer day, and so you have
to make sure and put your water in that root zone. Of course,
you don't want the soil around it to be dry. But if it were
still in the pot and you just put the whole pot in the ground,
that's basically what you got right now because you just planted it. And it's
going to take months, even years really to fully extend and make a beautiful
root system. So for the first summer, I would say in general,
probably a couple of times a week is what you're going to need to do
for the first month. First month, it probably is going to be a
little water in that area about once a week. Do you remember how big
the the pots were? How many gallons were the tree when you bought them?
Twenty five twenty five? Okay, I'd put about five gallons of water
on that twenty five gallon root ball. I would do it once a day
or every other day, and that gives it a good soaking. But just
watch that if it's getting too soggy, you back off because that's not good.
Okay. And how I measured at the water that I'm putting on me.
I noticed when I let the holes run on it, it feels all
the way up to the top, and then I'd say, about three or
four minutes later it soaks down. So is the tree drinking the water properly?
Yeah? I think so. I often will put a little doughnut of
soil around it, a little berm of soil, you know, fill it
up with a couple of inches, and then they all have to soak right
down in that cylinder. That's a good way to go because sometimes when you
use a hose runs off to the side. I tell something that affordable tree
folks do patrick in a tree, they put a PBC pipe straight down in
the ground beside the root ball. Make it as deep as a root ball
that was as deep as a hole. You dug and let that pipe in
there, and then you can put any kind of a stick, like a
yard stick or something down in that pipe. Go to the bottom and pull
it out and see is if it's like wet for six inches deep, you
got standing water and you need to back off. But that's right to make
sure you don't overwater. That's why I don't like the word schedule, because
you know clays oil, sandy, soil, full sun parts on. You
see what I'm saying, right right right, Okay, that sounds like playing
and I'll stick to it my saying Augustine that I put around it's already got
green all the way through it. So just good. All right, Okay,
thank you so much here, all right, thanks for call Greg.
Appreciate that Browns. The most important thing you do to have success with plants
is get the soil ready first. It is. It is the foundation.
It's like you want to build a house. So I'm going to go out
here on the beach in Galaston, and I'm going to start land two by
fours on the ground and start building a house. How does that turn out?
Right? It's the same thing with a garden. You create a foundation
for success, and that foundation includes quality mulches, It includes composts, It
includes anything it takes to help that plant have success, includes nutrients. Ciena
Mulch down south of Houston in Sienna area, just north of roach Sharing by
the way, they're on FM five point twenty one near Highway six and two
eighty eight. Ciena Maltch is the place where you get the brown stuff.
Right when you drive in there and drive out, you're going to bring out
things like quality soil blends. They have a wide variety of different blends.
You're going to find some of the Airlin soils products that they carry there as
well. At Cnmulch. Now you can find things in bags, you can
find things in bulk. You're going to find all the fertilizers I recommend on
garden Line, including that asimite I just talked about a minute ago. You're
going to find those there at Siena. Now, if you need a lot
of it, you don't have a way to bring it in. They deliver
within about twenty miles of their area for small delivery fee. But it is
a one stop shop for homeowners. You go in there, when you drive
out, you have everything you need to make a well drained, quality internal
drainage, raised bed, loaded with decomposing organic composts that are going to feed
your plants, and you're going to have the fertilizers to top it all off.
After that, you just get a good plant, put it in the
ground. This can be very very happy. Cienmulch FM five twenty one.
They're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five on Saturday seven thirty to two,
so after the show today you got four hours to get that foundation prepared
for success with your plants. At Cnmulch. By the way, they also
have some outstanding selections of rocks and stones. So if you need a little
river rock for a drainway, or if you need flat stones for a patio,
or you just fill in the blank, they've got a really good selection
there too. We're gonna go now to Jersey Village and talk to Chris.
Hello, Chris, do we have a Chris there? All right, I'll
tell you what I'm gonna put you on whole, Chris. I will be
right back to check on you. Southwest Fertilizer corner of Byssinette and Renwick is
a place where you can get everything you need to control pests, to control
diseases, to control weeds. The excellent selection. If I talk about it
on guardline, if I have it on my schedules, Bob's got it at
Southwest Fertilizer. Eighty foot long wall of tools. So what do you need?
You name the tool. Bob's got it for your gardening. It's there.
They have fertilizer spread there is that everything you could possibly need. Like
I like to say, if Southwest doesn't have it, you don't need it,
because that is exactly the truth. And they're gonna have it. Southwest
Fertilizers on the corner of Businet and Renwick. Businet and Renwick. So when
you go there, you just swing in, you grab what you need and
you're off to have success when you're in there. By the way, ask
Bob about the kneeling bench. That's the product probably the best new prile let's
say, top three best new products I've seen in the in the last three
years. Outstanding outstanding. You can use it for kneeling, you can use
it for sitting. You can when you flip it over for kneeling. You
got two handles. It makes it easy to get up. And if you're
north of forty you know what I'm talking about there. But they've been around
since nineteen fifty five at Southwest Fertilizer the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. We
are gonna now go, Chris, We're gonna if you're there, are you
Hello? Hello? All right, we're going back on hold. We're going
to have to take a little break here. We are just hitting the time
where I should start hearing music about now, I believe. Anyway, we
are going to take a break for the top of the hour. We will
be back. When we come back, we'll be back to your gardening questions.
Chris will be the first up. If you're around at that point,
I want to remind you that two weeks from today, I'll be at wild
Birds Unlimited in bel Air. This is your excuse to come to Wallbirds Unlimited
in bel Air and let's talk about gardening. They're experts on everything bird.
I mean you know that you hear me brag about them all the time.
You can see these feeds that I keep talking about that are so quality when
it comes to bird feed, just super high qualities. But also bring in
plants, samples, bring in photos on your phone, will diagnose, will
identify well, answer your gardening questions and help you have success. Wildbird's Unlimited
in bel Air Saturday, June fifteenth, two weeks from today, eleven thirty
am to one pm. I hope you can make it out. I always
love to visit with listeners. Welcome back to garden Line, entering our third
hour of the day. Looking forward to visiting with you about the things that
interest you. Listen. If you have not tried Sweet Green by Nitrofoss,
you ought to give it a try. Sweet Green is a product made from
a molasses base with microbial activity that has turned it into eleven percent nitrogen natural
fertilizer. It's going to dissolve away like you would expect from molasses based product,
move into the soil, and microbes love it. That's why organic gardeners
use molasses in their gardening practices because they know it's a stimulation for the microbes
that need carbon. They need that source of carbon, and Sweet Green provides
that it is going to give you a good green up. It's not immediate
fast, fast release, but it is a quick release fertilizer. It's not
going to lock last around for a long time. So you can do a
light fertilization now. You can come back in another month or two or three
do another fertilization if you feel like your law needs it. With the Sweet
Green Sweet Green being a night frost product, it's gonna be widely available.
You're gonna be able to find it in a lot of different places here around
the greater Houston area. For example, you're going to find it at all
your ACE hardware stores. You're going to find it at Southwist Fertilizer. Southwast
Fertilizer carries the Sweet Green as well. We're going to run back from out
of the phones and check in on Chris. Hey, Chris, are you
around all right? I'm gonna put you back on hold here. If you're
talking, I can't hear you. Let's go to Richmond and talk to Pat.
Hey, Pat, Hi skip, thank you for taking my call.
I have a question about an oak tree. The tree in my yard is
a five year old I'll say builders grade live oak. I have no idea
what kind it is, and it's doing very well, beautifully shaped, but
it is full of those little bee round galls. And now there's started to
be moss on the tree. Okay. And the second thing is when you
look from under the tree to look up, it is just so full of
branches you can't see anything. Okay. Is it okay to get it thin
down, trimmed up, Yes, it's a young tree. Trim out all
the twiggy stuff inside, kind of focus on the branches, leaving the branches
that are going to be permanent parts of the tree. It's hard for people
to do this pat because your tree may have two branches that are like six
inches apart. Well, think about when each of those branches is almost the
size of the steering wheel of your car. They have long since grown together
and are pressing on each other own stuff. So you kind of have to
look at it with the long term. That doesn't mean you need to only
leave branches a foot of part right now, but just realize that what is
going to be a permanent branch, You know, if it's if it's head
high, that is way too low for the long term permanent branch. Because
you're not gonna be able to mow under it by the time it reaches out
and SAgs down. So I would anytime a branch gets i'd say bigger,
any before it gets as big as a golf ball. If it's not permanent,
I would remove it. Okay, So you're you're you don't want to
prune every branch off and take you know, seventy five percent of the foliage
off. It needs that foliage. But as things get about the size of
a before they get the size of a golf ball, go ahead and take
them off, and that way that'll heal up quickly and the growth will go
back into the other branches that are out there on the tree. But yes,
you can as far as the low balls. Are these the ones on
the leaves or are these the ones on the twigs? It's on the branches
themselves, and then sometimes on the underneath of the leaves there's a little fuzzy
thing. Yeah, those are all. Those are two of several kinds of
gulls that we see on live oak. In general, they're not a problem.
And if the tree were super weak and we're just overloaded with them,
well yeah, they're probably bothering it. But trying to control them is difficult
because a little wasp is laying an egg inside the leaf or inside the twig
or whatever that those grow into, and so by the time you see them,
there's no sense in spring them. It's not going to accomplish anything.
I would print out the branches that are overloaded with them. Those wasps have
natural enemies. As long as you're not blessed in the tree with insecticide all
the time, those natural enemies will bring it back under control. You know,
the oak Houston is one giant live oak for us, It really is.
And no one is going around spring galls on all these live oaks.
Okay, so don't worry about that. Okay, all right, thank you?
All right. One last thing. You want to measure the trunk diameter
about chest high, and for every inch of width us the trunk, you
want to give it one or two cups of a good quality lawn fertilizer,
not anything with wheat controlled, just fertilizer, one to two cups. Okay.
That's going to help and inspire the growth for it to kick in and
grow a little better for you to. You want to hang a hammock in
it soon, and we're trying to help you do that, Okay, to
spread this fertilizer around through the drip line of the tree. Yeah, well
yeah, the whole area. If you imagine the tree, you know,
if the sun was at high noon, where would the shadow be evenly spread
the fertilizer through that area and watered in? Really good? Okay, all
right, okay, thank you, all right, appreciate the call. Thanks
a lot. All Right, Well, I think we've lost track of Chris.
Chris, if you for some reason are trying to reach us and unable
to just just try to call him back in, we'll give it another shot.
You know, we have really a lot of good gardens in the greater
Houston area. This is just I think it's the best place in Texas for
finding an outstanding, an outstanding selection of garden centers, places that are just
something to write home about. And one example of that would be our West
Houston Garden center that is the Nilson Water Garden and Nursery. They're not in
Katie, which is just a stone throw outside of Houston. Nelson Water Garden
and Nursery is an outstanding place for all kinds of plants. Their plants selection,
you'll be surprised when you get out there. It is. It is
really really good. Pretty much everything you can imagine you would want, they're
going to have it there, or they'll be able to get it there.
When it comes to water, oh my gosh. The plants for water like
a lily pads, that's the one everybody thinks about. But a lot of
other plant species, the fish that go in water, as shabunka and the
koi, for example, they've got those there. The beautiful disappearing fountains,
you know, those giant ceramic urns will walk flows over the side, so
beautiful. By the way, the birds and beneficial insects will appreciate being up
to get a little drink of water from those as well. But anytime you
have moving water, you have that sound that is so soothing. And Nelson
Watergarden and Nursery has been a national and i'm not exaggerating, a national leader
in quality water gardens for a very very long time. As far as the
nursery itself, it's it's a destination place and you need to get out there
and see it. It's in Katie. You just head out ten turn north
on Katie Fort ben Road. Here's the website, Nelson Watergardens dot com.
Go check it out. You'll be very impressed. We're going to go now
to Southwest Houston and talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning morning.
I need to know what's eating the leaves so my Chinese broccoli. It
looks like if they're eating what I call the soft part of the leaf,
okay, not the spam and not what I call the rib, that is
a caterpillar. And it could be a inch worm, a what we call
cabbage looper attacks broccoli or all that whole family of vegetables. It could be
something called a cross striped army worm, but it doesn't matter what its name
is. You want to spray something that has BT or something that has spinosid
in it BT or either one, and you want to spray upward from under
the leaves. Those pests like to hide under the leaf, So what you'd
want to do is you want that leaf to get wet with the spray,
and then when the caterpillar takes a bite, it's like given the caterpillar the
bubonic plague, it kills them and it doesn't If a grass operate the leaf,
it wouldn't kill it. If a be del eate the leaf, it
wouldn't kill it. If a beneficial insect runs around the leaf, it won't
hurt them. It just goes after those caterpillars, which is what you want
to do. But don't delay. The bigger they get, the harder they
are to kill. Okay, and now that's to the BT in this spinosa
is what you use for the for the webworms too. Yes, you could
use that for webworms, and then you know, for the webworms, you're
not eating the things that webworms are on by and large. If we're going
about trees and shrubs and things, yeah, on those you could also switch
over to. There are a number of synthetic piretheroids that will also work on
webworms. They're not organic, and so I wouldn't I'd rather not spray those
on things I'm eating, like the like the broccoli or coal crops and things.
Oh okay, but they're not hard to go. Just got it.
For the webworms, you got to get the spray of whatever you choose.
You got to get it to the plants leaves and the webworms web will block
sprays from getting inside to the leaves and they got to eat it to get
sick. So take a pole, break it up, take a strong stream
of water. There's some little hosing gadgets that'll shoot a straight stream a long
way. And if you can break that web up first, then any of
those sprays are going to work. Well Okay, okay, great, thank
you, Thanks Carolyn, appreciate the call. Thanks a lot. Well,
it's been a wet spring. And when we have a wet spring, our
clay soils soak up water and they swell that they literally get bigger if you
will. Then when it gets dry, they shrink. And we have cracks
in the backyard large enough to lose your little fufu dog or toddler in I
mean the giant cracks in the yard. Well that shrinks. Well, Rex
havoc on your sidewalks, on your driveways, and most importantly on your home
foundation. Fix my slab, Fix my slab. That's the company you need
to remember. Fixmslab dot com. Is it? Can you get any easier
for a website than that? Fixmslab dot com. You need to call Ty.
He's been doing this twenty three years. He knows how to take care
of things. Walk around the house. Do you see cracks in the brick
running up through the brick wall. Go in. Do you see cracks and
sheet rock? Do you have doors that are sticking? Those are all signs
you need to have somebody come look now fix my slab. Tell them your
guardline listener, and they'll give you a free estimate as a result. The
thing I like about him is, first of all, Tie is a native
Ustonian. He's fifth generation Texan, and he built his business about showing up
on time, giving you a fair price, and fixing it right. No
hesitation at all to tell you fix my slab. Foundation repair is who you
need to call. Two eight one two five five forty ninety nine two eight
one two five five four nine four nine. With all this rain and boys
that ever rained at my house, when I go outside, I tell you
the mosquitoes come, and I swear if they would all flap their wings in
the same direction, they could lift me off the ground. There's a danga
many of them. Mosquitoes love rain, They love standing water. And do
you know that in a teaspoon standing stagnant water, mosquitoes can breed and complete
complete that part of their life cycle, the larva, and come out as
adults. So you have a if you have a saggy gutter, the little
drain basins underneath your plants, the dog bowl, the bird bath, you
got to you gotta wash that out and get that out of there, or
put a mosquito dunk in it. You know, Mosquito dunks cover about one
hundred square feet of water. It's a little doughnut, floats on the water,
dissolves away for about a month. It's a disease of the larva of
the mosquitoes. Just like bet, the regular BT kills caterpillars, Mosquito dunks
are a different BET that kills mosquito larva. Is that cool or what I
mean? Birds can drink out of the water. You can drink the water
if you want your dog, your cat. I mean, it's not toxic
to us. But the mosquito larva it shuts down. So when you have
stagnant standing water, maybe you got a little pond out there, Maybe you
have a tree with a hole in it and it's got you know, water
gathers inside there. Just toss a dunk up in there. Let the take
care of it. Rain gutters, all kinds of things. Mosquito dunks very
safe and by, by the way, they are so widely available. Every
independent garden center I've been in, that's part of our garden line team.
They carry them. Feed stores, they carry them, ace hardware stores,
they carry them Southwest Fertilizer, they care them. Mosquito uncture easy to get.
But you need to get ahead of it because I'm telling you they are
breeding right now and they have a meal planned and that meal is called you
don't make them happy. Don't make them happy spot. I need to I
tell you I need to get also, just be a good thing to pick
up as a fogger, to get out there and just knock down the ones
that are already out and about flying. Just have a chance to sit outside
and enjoy that area. Well, we're going to go now and talk to
Jenet. Hello, Jenet, hi, Hi. I have a new mulberry
tree. It's a young mulberry tree and it has to tiny white worms in
netting hanging on some of the branches. Looks like you know, tan netting
in the in the wormed are little white wormed. Okay, what should I
do about that? It is called the fall webworm, and even though its
name is fall, it occurs starting now really all through the summer season off
and on, but especially in the fall it gets really bad. The ones
you have now aren't as bad as it can get. What you need to
do is if you can break the webs apart, use a pole, use
a stream of water, a little blast of water out of a garden hose
or one of those little applicators. It'll shoot water like a pencil straight up
into the air. Break the webs apart because they're feeding inside. When you
break them apart, wasps will get in there and start hauling them out.
Wasps love to eat those things. Birds some birds will eat those too.
But breaking the web apart is step one. If you want to spray,
there are a lot of different insects sides that will kill webworms. You got
to get it to the foliage inside where they're feeding and then that web.
If you just have a little mist of a sprayer going out there, it's
not going to get inside the web. Oh okay, okay, So if
we take them out, we've already done it, really, but now it's
starting again. Yeah. Yeah. When you first start to see them,
they don't have those big webs. They're just little caterpillars out there. On
the leaves and they're start spinning the web to protect themselves. And when you
first start seeing them, just just have some have some BT or spinosid on
hand. That's the safest stuff you can get for controlling them. You can
also use a lot of other insecticides that are very effective in controlling them.
They may not they may be organic, they may not be. But I
like to just suggest BT and spinosid as being Okay, well, BT or
what is the next Yeah, I'm saying it fast s p I N O
s A D spin O sad. That okay, all right, but remember
they got to eat the spray, so get it on the leaves where they're
feeding. Oh okay, all right, all right, okay, good,
okay, thank you very much. You met yep boy. We've got a
lot of questions on those. In fact, I did a post. If
you don't follow garden Line on Facebook, you need to do that. Sign
up guarden Line on Facebook, follow us. I did a post yet to
scroll down a little bit because we put quite a few posts on there.
But if you scroll down a little bit and you'll see the webworms read it.
I wrote out quite a bit on it, but it gives you the
whole picture and tells you what to do. That is what we try to
do when we have problems pop up around here. Landscaper's Pride is a purveyor
of quality mulches and quality products for the soil. Really twenty seven different products
that they carry, so it's it's easy to find Landscaper's Pride products and it's
easy to find them near You go to Landscaperspride dot com and you're going to
find all the places where you can purchase their products. They sell by the
bag. They also have bulk as well, but they have things for summer,
for the heat that go on top of the soil. That's called malt.
And when I'm talking about that, I mean the black velvet that is
a beautiful, velvety black molt. It is not dyed. I hate dyed
mulch. I hate dyed malt. Landscaper's probably black velvet is naturally dark,
very beautiful hardwood malts, hardwood based. I was in a store I shall
not mention that sells hammers as well as garden things, and I just happen
to look at some of the mulches and I could tell when you look into
the bag. It's like they ground up palettes to put in there, and
people do that. They do that, not Landscaper's Pride. This is true
hardwood ground up mulches. They have a pine bark mult one of the most
popular ones, very pretty pine bark moltch decomposes very slowly. Their pine based
blend called Gardener's Magic Soil has humus and screen, pine accomplished rice holes,
and a chicken pellet fertilizer that will last up to three months. All of
these places, all of these products rather you can find as part of the
Landscaper's Pride selection of products. Again landscaperspread dot com find where you can get
it near you. We're going to go now to Ralph in northwest Houston.
Hey Ralph, good morning, a good day. Well, yes, my
Gordon, I have my tomato plants and I've tried not to spray them,
but but then think bug got all over them, and what is the best
thing to hit tim thing with? You know, Ralph that once stingbugs become
adults and have wings, they're hard to control because first of all that you
may spray, and then later in the day they're flying back in from somewhere
else and there are If it's an organic product, it's going to be a
prairethrine based product to knock them down. Synthetic it's going to be there's a
number of products that are labeled for vegetables that are synth parihrooids that will kill
the stink bug. You got to get out early in the morning when they're
a little bit more sluggish and spray them. Then by in the heat of
the day. We number one, you don't want to be out there.
But number two it's it's it's harder to catch them all there. Uh,
at this point in time when you got the adults are difficult, very difficult
to control, and they are hard to get that thing. I always got
the right thing, but this year and it's just terrible when you let them
get the best of you. Yep, that's that is true. That is
true. Uh. It's good talking with you than being on. Thank you,
Ralph, appreciate your call very much. Appreciate that very very much.
We're going to run up against the news break. Here our phone number if
you would like to call and get on the board with our producer. You'll
be up when we come back. Seven one three two one two kat r
h and first two up when we come back will be Mike and Marty.
Mike in Magnolia. Hello Mike, good morning to Skip. How can we
help? I played the nitroposs Imperial. Okay, in that four weeks were
some weeks ago a benches of rain. I was wondering if would be beneficial,
but maybe reapply some sweet greened about twelve year. Yeah, you could
do that now. The rain Imperial is a salt based furliz Imperial is a
cell based fertilizer, which you know we do for our quick greenups and things
like that. You can do it on through the summer in small doses and
you know, gradually apply the nutrient like that. But when you get a
good rain, it's gonna dissolve and you are likely when it's a heavy,
heavy rain, to get some washed away. So I would go ahead and
do the next application. If you want to use the sweet green, that
would be fine. All right, Well, good after it? All right,
Thanks, appreciate your call. We're going to go to Fairfield now and
talk to Marty. Hello Marty morning, Skip. I killed all my bermuda
or not my romita, all of my net grass and yay, with that
image and behind it in my flower bed, I found a bunch of bermuda
grass against the width of what can I need to kill that? Can I
do the same thing image? Because I sprayed it? But I'm not seeing
any reactions. Yeah, that not the image. Can you tell me what
kind of flowers you have in the bed? Well? I pretty much killed
everything, Okay, okay, so nothing to worry about. Well, okay,
what I would do if you got desirable broad leaf plants? You know,
flowers, most of our flowers, as long as they're not grass type
plant, you can use one of two ingredients that will kill grass and not
kill the broad leaves. Uh. And the two I'm gonna make it easy
by just giving you the first few letters of them. Uh. And it's
one it begins seth the boy's name st h and that the ingredient is athoxidym.
But don't it's only if it kills grass, and it begins with seth.
That's it. The other one that kills grass begins with flu ass f
l u a z f l u a z. Actually it's flu as a
flop beautle. I believe it is a full name of it, but it
looks for seth or flu ass, and that it will give you a grass
only killer. Uh. And as long as your flowers aren't a type of
plant that's too closely related to grass, you'll be fine. No, it's
for it's no the other thing. I have a Peggy Martin back there and
some speranza. Yeah, and you can use those two on those plants.
Oh, very good. And if I spree it in an area, can
how fast can I put down some in a in a grass area in the
lawn? How can how fast can I put down some zortia and some planted
stay in August? Team? Okay, So if we're in a lawn,
I would leave those things, give them about five days of good, good
sunny weather to move down into the plant and start doing the work before I
would take the tops off and plant something else. In that situation, you
could also use a product like a glyphosate, which is round up brand.
Everybody knows when you spray it again, give it five days, but then
it's not there and the soil your new side will not be affected at all
by it. But that might give you a little better control of it of
the bermuda that's out there. But I tell you bermuda is insidious, and
you spray it and you kill all the top and all of a sudden,
a week or two later you look and here comes a spreag out. So
if you can be patient enough to kind of wait and watch, that might
be worthwhile too. Absolutely, with the number of years that I've lived with
the nutgrond, hey it's dead, it's so dead. Well good, I'm
so excited. That's good. Thank you so much. All right, Well,
you know, Marty, you can you can eat the tubers from yellow
nuts edge I have there. They'll teach you that edible and palatable are two
different things. Chew on them. They taste a little bit like an almond,
h and then you have sawdust in your mouth. So all right,
Marty, than fun facts. And you heard it here on Guarden Line.
We're gonna go now down to sugar Land and talk to June. Hello,
June. Hi. I was calling for two things. One is, I
have some family coming in from Louisiana and wanted to know of some different purty
nurseries to go to. And of course I go in Chanet Forest and in
Chane Garden all the time. Okay, but would you recommend what are the
would you recommend? Oh my gosh, huh, I know that well number
one, I don't. If you got those two next door, that'll keep
you busy. And those are outstanding, beautiful nurseries. I mean, they're
a lot of fun. As you know, if you need to drive away
to go someplace else. We have a wide range, you know, And
I'm not going to think of them all here, So here I go.
I always hate to be kind of on the spot because I'll forget somebody.
But if you go down to the Heights as Buchanans and it's a little hide
away in the heights, very different, very different than the two you mentioned,
but a great nursery. If you go way down to Seabrook Keema on
the boardwalk down that area Seabrook, Seabrook has got Moss Nursery. That's eight
acres, a seventy year old nursery, eight acres to wander around on.
It's very different, very unusual. Unuse. You can go and go get
you some seafood down there while you're at it. Uh oh yeah. You
can go up to the Arborgate Nursery up in Tomball. That's another good one.
That's a drive up the wad. Oh that's a good one. Okay,
that's enough. There is keeper busy. Yeah. Also, I have
a lot of nutgrass in my flower bed and my yard guy, my landscape
is said to use sledgehammer. I did twice, two applications and it's still
hadn't killed it. What else could I use? You have? It's nutgrass?
Yes, sedgehammer kills nutgrass. I don't know something is going wrong either
it's not nutgrass or I don't know what else to say that it's sedge hand
that's the only thing. It's sed help because it's nut said right, right,
said yeahedge? I got okay, Well what's it growing in again?
My flower bed? But I just planted like dwarf bottle brushes and stuff,
and they're still small and I can work around them. Yeah. And also
I made a little homemade weed wiper. It's got sponges on it that you
can squeeze it over the nut sedge and pull it up the nutsedge plant and
it wipes the product and it keeps you from getting it on your desirable plants.
Because some things like image. There's certain plants that you get a lot
of image on the soil and wash it in and it'll mess with those other
plants. But such hammer is good. There's one called sedge ender. There's
image, there's you know, there's several product options we have out there,
but just stay with it. I don't know why such hammer would not have
given you results because it's very effective. Well, it's turning brown. Okay,
they are turning brown. But it's been like a month and a half.
Yeah that's too long, but I could see it taking a couple of
weeks, you know, to really feel like, oh it's dying that month
and a half yeah, too long. But anyway, try those make you
a little homemade wiper. I've seen people take the little like barbecue tongs,
you know, but yeah, real cheap okare and cut a kitchen sponge in
half and I don't know, bolted or grew it to the two sides.
However, you can get it to stay on there and just put your product
down the sponge. And this is hands and knees, you know, but
you can get on right. Oh that's okay, because I was almost hands
and knees with my sprayer. Okay, all right, so I didn't mind.
Okay, Well, then I'm using the right product if it is not
good, but it is it has the nut in the middle and then the
shoot goes around and okay, I think for sure my landscape guy said it
was okay, we'll assume. Okay, okay, thank you so much for
your help. I appreciate it. Bye bye, Thanks for the car.
Appreciate that. You know, we're talking about garden centers, and you know
we had to call June and Sugarland. I want to tell you about a
little bit about some garden center here. In just a moment, it's time
for us to run take a break. I will be right back ed.
You'll be first up when we come back. Talking a while ago about garden
centers. Had to call from June and sugar Land looking for someplace to go,
and just it kind of cracks them up, you know, they say
that from what what is the deal where you're around something all the time and
so you almost don't see it anymore or whatever. Anyway, living done in
the Richmond Rosenberg area, you just have these outstanding garden centers and it's it's
interesting, and I know, you go to a place and you've been there
before and it's beautiful and you see it and you won't try something else.
And that's good. But I tell you, if anyone, maybe maybe we
got someone on the other side, the other side of town that wants to
drive somewhere, you should go to Jenne and Forest out there in the Richmond
Rosenberg area. It's the If you're in Richmond Rosenberg area and you're going north
towards Sugarland, it's off to the right. It's on FM twenty seven fifty
nine. Now, if you were to interview one thousand different butterflies because you
want to get a good sampling, and you were to say, where's your
favorite place to go? What's your favorite place, They're going to tell you
Enchanted Forest and Richmond. They have got every kind of plant that butterflies like
to be on. And I'm talking about all kinds of butterfly plants. So
you got your swallowtails and golf fritillaries and monarchs and queens and everything like that,
the buckeye and all those butterflies. And then what about their larva,
Well, that's a different set of plants. That's a different set for golf
fredillary. It's the passion vine that they love that monarchs we know like milkweed,
for example, so on and on down the line. They've got all
those plants, and if you go there, you're going to see these butterflies.
In fact, most of the time, if you'd like to take home
a caterpillar with your plant, like a pipeline swallowtail with your pipeline plant,
they'll just let you put a calpillar on there. If there's not already one,
take it home. It's kind of like having a sour dough starter to
get gone. You got your own butterfly farm beginning. Well, they do
much more than that, you know, I was noticing recently. They have
an outstanding selections of yarrow, and yarrow is an underutilized plant. Yarrow makes
a ferny mat on the ground, which in and of itself is a beautiful
different kind of texture, and then these blooms rise above. They can be
white, or they can be gold and yellow, or they can be kind
of a rosy pink color or just yellow. Yarrow's a great plant, and
those blooms, being simple, little tiny blooms, are very popular with many
of our beneficial insect pollinators, like little tiny parasitoid wasps and whatnot. You
always want to include plants like this in your landscape because you're keeping the good
guys around, keeping them happy, and in turn, when you have pest
problems, you've got benefits there. And Yerow is just a good plan for
doing just that. All of that. Of course, Enchanted Forest Garden Center
they have an excellent supply. They are on FM twenty seven fifty nine just
outside of Rechmond. Here's the website Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
Enchanted Forest Richmond, t X dot com. We're going to go now and
talk to Ed and friends Wood. Hello Ed, Hi ski All, I'm
good sir. How can we help? We have about a six foot Sla
Maria. It's a tin gallon bucket and some of the leaves are turning yellow,
and the yellow is turning to brown on the on the on the leaf,
and eventually they're falling off. Is that normal now? It sounds like
a disease or a you know, I can't quite picture. Is it happening
in spots that the yellow or is it just a general yellowing of the leaf.
It's happening on each heat branch of the plumeria. Okay, but when
you look at an individual leaf or you seeing spots of yellow on the leaf
or is it just a general yellowing of the leaf. It's a general general
yelling. But I'm looking at some of the leads. I'm looking at it
right now, and there's uh, some of the leads there's white spots,
white spots. Yell, that's strange. I don't know what we create a
white spot. We have plumeria rust which you see on the undersides of the
leaf. You rub your hand under there and you get kind of an orange,
rusty looking powder on your hands. That's one possibility, but that doesn't
sound like what you're describing. There's some other fungal leaf spots that will often
have yellow halos around the fungal spots, but that's a brown spot. Ultimately,
Uh, there, you know it's white. I'd almost need to see
it. I tell you what, let's do. I'm gonna put you on
hold and I'm gonna get you to send me a photo. Take some good
photos up close where I can really see the spot, maybe the top of
the leaf and the bottom of the leaf. Will you email those to me
and let me look at them, because, uh, it's not sounding like
any common plumeria problem to me. With the white spot is what threw me.
But anyway, send me a picture. I'm gonna put you on hold.
The producer will give you my email and I'll look forward to seeing those
pictures. Okay, thank you so much, Yes, sir, thank you.
I appreciate very much you providing those photos. That always helps. We're
gonna go now to John in the Woodlands. Hello, John good More.
Yeah, I got some honeysuckle vines on the back wall, four of them.
Yeah, the web worms are sitting in. Just want to know if
there's a simple remedy for that simple thing is on something like that. You
can reach break up those webs with a broom, with a stick, with
whatever, break them up. You're gonna see wasps coming in taking web worms
out. Now that's I mean not gonna be enough in and of itself,
but they will be a beneficial predator of webworms. I would squirt those leaves
with something containing either BT or spinose said, those are the two safest products
to kill caterpillars on the foliage. But you got to get it on the
foliage because the caterpillars will build webbing around it. So you break up the
webs, go ahead and spray it because that night they're going to rebuild webbing
to protect themselves from predators, and if they feed on a leaf that's been
sprayed with spinosid or with BT, it will kill them. Okay, great,
yeah, that sounds sounds good. I'll get that done, Thank you,
sir. All right, thanks appreciate that call. All right, we're
putting another hour in the books. Just a reminder, I've got two schedules
online on the website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot Com.
I need to go on there and add some more stuff. I always add
a few timely things to it. But the longcare schedules there, the lawn
test disease and weed management schedules there January through December. It's a big old
chart, big old checkerboard chart. And for example, on the lawn care
schedule, fertilizing, mowing and watering and air raiding and doing trace metals,
we're all on there. For the other one insects diseases, preventing weeds,
killing existing weeds the bottom or a list of products organic or synthetic, you
got options, They're all on the schedule. We are going to take break
for the news and we'll be right back our phone number seven one three two
one two kt rh. Nice temperatures today. You know it's a little warm
side, but hey, it's okay. It's okay to get outside, get
a little work done, catch up on some things. This is a great
time to be doing a lot of things out there in the garden. It's
a good time to be making sure that your lawn has been fertilized for the
summertime. A good slow release probably the best way to go. You can
use an idiot release if you cut it in half and do it twice.
That's one way to look at it. So you just don't put as much
down. You don't put all your eggs in one basket and then get a
gully wash of rain, have it wash away. Just put a little bit
out and later put some more out. Maybe put some more out. Do
that about once ever six weeks, and you can go on through the summer
with an immediate release. I think it's easier to take a slow release and
put it down something that's been designed to graduate release over three or even four
months. These products are they're excellent, excellent products, and they cut down
on a lot of the work. You don't worry about getting this flush of
growth, and now you have extra mowing to do. And also, when
you overdo the nitrogen at any one point in time, your grass grows top
heavy. You get a lot of big green growth, mommo, and your
root system actually is less. Did you know that when you overdo nitrogen you
end up with top growth at the expense of root growth. Now why is
that important? One? In summer? Don't you think we need some roots
to take up water? Absolutely? What if some grubs come along and chomp
off a few roots, Well, you had fewer to begin with. You
see what I'm saying. It's gradual fertilizing. And whether you do it by
taking an immediate release and you gradually applying it over the months, you can
do that. Just make sure you split it up or taking a slow release
easier way to go, I think the better way to go, and just
applying it and being done until probably we hit the fall season works pretty well.
Night Frost, by the way, has a product called bug Out Max.
I talked about a little bit earlier today just in passing with one of
our callers. But bug out Max is an insecticide that within forty eight hours
of putting it down. It has killed the insects that you put it down
for. It works very quickly. Also, it's going to last all summer.
You apply it once and it's going to carry you through chinchbug season,
sod webworm season. If there are any crawling around up there, it's going
to get those as well. If you've got fleas or ticks. By the
way, do you know fleas go through a pupa a life cycle in your
thatch of your lawn, and then when they're adults, they just hop on
the pit as it comes outside, so they can take a free ride into
your house. Well, night Truss bug Out Max helps the fleas as well.
You're going to find it at place is like Ace Hardware at Single Ranch
You're going to find night Fuss Bugout Max and a Tasca Sita, Ace Hardware
and Lake Hardware include as well as Jim's Hardware in Montgomery. Yep, Easy
Easy works very very well. We will go now to the phones. We're
going to talk to Andy. Hello. Andy, Oh hi, I've got
a quick question for you. There's a there's eighth coon trees only a lot
and the seven in the front yards are constantly dropping big limbs. I mean
big limbs. How big what's the diameter of the bottom of the lomb?
Oh no, no, much bigger than that. Okay, the last by
we're probably about three inches across. Okay, wow, all but the one
in the backyard doesn't drop any limbs at all. Oh that's interesting. Well,
Pecans are notorious for dropping little branches, and it's not unusual, especially
if we go in the summer season, to have a large limb just fall.
And it's weird because it's like there's no storm the night before, it's
dead still, and all of a sudden you go out and they call those
widow makers for a good reason, but they just boom. It comes out
of the tree and hits the ground and there's nothing you can do about that.
There are different speculations as to what's going on and why that spot would
be weak and cause it to break, but it's just the way it is.
I have heard of difference in the varieties of pecans when it comes to
the branch dropping, but I don't know as to why it's happening in the
front and not the back. I would just have to speculate and I'd probably
be wrong. Yeah. No, these are definitely widow makers. No if
ends the bots about it. Yeah, but okay, well, you know,
I don't mean to make light of it, because it's a serious thing
when they fall. But the good news is you got you can do your
summer barbecuing. Now. They're just putting the branches right down there. For
we went through that breeze about three years ago. It's going on the firewood
pile. But there you go, there you go. Yeah, well,
and the truth of matter is those branches that fall have too much juice in
them to put on a barbecue bit. They need to dry out a little
bit. Yeah all right. Yeah. We went days without electricity and all
we had was the tar place and we were down to our last piece of
firewood. There you go, there you go. Well, nobody wishes for
the branches to fall, but I guess you can make lemons out of lemonade,
as they say, that is great. You knew if there was some
kind of possible disease or a treatment. Not a disease, not a treatment.
Sometimes when you get up there, you'll see that the branch was wounded
and decay got into the wood, and that is the more and there when
you look on the end of the branch it fell. You'll see some brown
decaying in there, but a lot of times it's not. It's just like
it's snapped off. And again you can read about it, and they go
into these things, but none of the what they go into has any bearing
on what you can or should do or anything like that. Yeah, we
got a tree service coming out next week to clean up the canopy and maybe
take some weight off the limbs. Okay, all right, Well, you
know, Pecan's our state tree. They've been around here along time doing really
well. That is one of the things that about Pecan that makes it not
the best in the top ten yard trees. But I understand why we want
to have them. That's true. Thank you, sir, appreciate to call
you. Take care Buchanans Plants and the Heights. When was the last time
you went to Buchanans. Oh my gosh. They they just stay stocked up.
They are always something cool going on when you go to Buchanans. Love
to go visit it. By the way, I've said this before. Go
to the website Buchanansplants dot com and look at the educational materials that are on
there that you got videos, you've got lists of plants. I mean,
you're looking for let's say you need annuals and you need them to be a
shady area, and you need them to be I don't know, so high
or tall or whatever. You can select those things in Buchanans list will pop
up and it'll tell you all these good plants that you can plant. By
the way, right now, June second, June second. It is the
what they call the Gardener's Reward Point redemption period. So when you go to
Buchanons, when you buy for every dollar, you get a dollar for every
thirty dollars you purchase, and you can redeem points from up to half of
what you purchase during a particular purchase you make. Get the newsletter. Sign
up for the newsletter, find out what's going on. We're in that period
right now. Excellent house plants to Buchanans. Just I could just go on
and on and on. No matter what you're looking to grow, no matter
what, you're gonna find what you need there at Buchanans Plants, and you're
gonna find people that can advise you and that can guide you. And if
you're looking for natives, it's the best place in the whole region of the
state for native plants. They have an outstanding selection and it just keeps on
coming. I'm always surprised when I see, Oh, I didn't know you
could buy that plant on the marketplace. Yep, I should just go to
Buchanans. That's where you're gonna find it. Let's see, we are now
going to go to trying to find the next person up. We're gonna go
to Buddy. I tell you what, Buddy, I'm sorry I pulled up
the call. I'm gonna have to put you on hold because we went a
little late on that particular read, and you will be the first up in
Lorenzo, you'll be second when we come right back. Hey, you know
how they have those emergency alert systems where you have that horrible sound that gets
your attention. Well, I don't think they'd like me using that sound,
but I have an emergency alert. Heirloom Soils has a fifty percent off clearance
sale and it only goes until tomorrow. Today and tomorrow is all the two
days that are left in it. Here, here's the deal. You like
cactus and succulent mix, Do you like the Works? The Works is an
excellent potting soil. They also have them available both in the half cubic foot
bag and the eight court bag. You know, if you're doing potting soil
and you're not doing a bunch of plants, a little court bag is really
nice. So instead of fourteen for the half cubic foot bag, seven dollars,
instead of ten dollars for the court bag, five dollars each. Those
are high quality soils. Whether you're growing cacti or succulent, you need a
good draining mix and cactie, cactus and succulent mixes out for the potting soil.
The works, it is an outstanding I've used it on my pot plants,
my houseplants. Well I shouldn't say it that way. Wow, okay,
scratch, can me go back my pot plant my house plan. I'm
sorry, that's funny. Well, they're in pots five dollars each for the
a quirk. That is an excellent mix though, really for both the works
and for the cactus and succulent mix. But today and to morrow only.
That is at IIRLM Soils, Warren's Rock and mult out in Porter Texas on
Highway fifty nine up there in Porter Texas and here's the phone. Just give
them a call to eight one three five four nineteen fifty two eight one three
five four nineteen fifty And the reason I'm giving you the phone number is I
want you to call them because this is as supplies last, so just make
sure they still have some available. I mean, this stuff is going like
hotcakes, and so Heirloom Soils of Texas, and of course go to airloomsalsof
Texas dot Com and find out about all their other great products, both in
bulk and in bags. All right, buddy, we're coming back here.
Let's see here. You had a question about cleaning out underbrush. I believe,
is that right? I have about ten twelve oak trees throughout my yard,
and I'm having a real problem with the oak small oaks coming up and
growing up underneath and cut them back. I don't know how to keep that
from happening. I haven't done a good job of maintaining that tree bit,
and so I kind of need to know what I need to do to keep
that, get that all cleaned out, to keep it from having that roaths
back, and what the best way to okay, you know, topped it
out. Do you know if this tree was planted or if it just came
up from an acron there any I believe it was planted because I'm a second
homeowner there. So it's all in line, okay, And you're getting a
whole bunch of little sprouts pretty close to the base of the tree. Is
that it correct? Okay? So there's two things that can make this is
a live oak, yes, okay. Two things that can make sprouts on
a live oak. One is the acorns. They come up, and those
things are dropping the acorns obviously underneath the tree canopy, so you're gonna get
a lot of sprouts under there. The other thing is root sprouting, and
there's live oaks are not all equal. There's a live oak along the southern
Gulf coast that tends to just make single trees. There's a live oak over
in the hill country area that is called the escarpment live oaks, and it
tends to do clumps of trees or what they call them motts out there in
the country out west of Austin. You'll see these. Well. Tree growers
can get acorns from me the place, and sometimes if they come from the
source that's more in the hill country, you end up with a tree that
tends to do a lot of root sprouting mot forming, and that may be
what you have. And if that's the case, you just have to kind
of dig down as far as you can cut them off and keep them cut
off. I've seen people put a very heavy landscape cloth down and then cover
it with something with weight, not just a loose light mulch, but like
almost a gravelly kind of material. But you need a good fabric that's going
to last to do that. That will kind of hold them down, keep
them from coming up and getting light, and they just won't thrive. If
it were just acorns, you could spray them or dig them either one and
get rid of them. But if it's attached to the mother tree, and
from the description that you gave me and where they're located, I think they're
probably attached to the mother tree, right, So if you spraying that would
that would harm the mother tree because they're connected, it would translocate down in
the roots, and to some degree, depending on how many sprouts and how
much you sprayed, it would have a very negative effect on the mother tree.
All Right, I appreciate it, Thank you so much. Thank you
appreciate the call. That's a little bit of a complicated one, but hey,
it is what it is. Unfortunately, we're going to go now and
talk to Lorenzo. Hey, Lorenzo, Hey, good morning, Good morning.
I have a river birch tree with two trunks kind of split in two,
kind of like in a ornamental kind of way. With some branches are
dried up and on either side, on both sides, i should say,
with some are higher, some or lower, and one of the one of
the trunks has broken off at the halfway point with some winter storms or windstorms
and money note, is that tree on its way out? Or is there
kind of a remedy for this situation? You know, river birks is a
little persnickety in our area. Sometimes you see them doing really well. They
like to be with a consistent supply of moisture. That's why have a name
river birchs, because that's where you find them growing. And when you're growing
on a river bank, you get your reached down, there's gonna be a
water table right there to get moisture. When we get them in a landscape
and they're allowed to dry out, and boy, last summer was a brutal
one hot hot for a time, but almost no rain sprinkler systems were broke
last last summer, So I did it suffer? Yeah, that alone could
explain what you're seeing. There may be more involved, but that's possible.
Also, they are hardy trees. But what's happened to some of our plants
here is two decembers ago, we went into a cool season and had a
freeze that was early, the kind of hard freeze. It was early,
and the plants weren't hardened off yet, and so we saw damage on things
that should have been adequately hardened off, but they weren't. So that might
have been a play in there too. But I'm thinking the lack of dependable
moisture, which is what they really need. If you've got a split trunk,
it may or may not heal back over, depending on how big the
split is. Uh, there's nothing to do to treat it. You just
watch and at some point you may have to saw it off down low.
They tend to reach sprout up. You may get some more trunks coming up
from around the base. Its possibility. Uh. And as far as dead
limbs, when they're dead, just prune them out where they join another limb.
Okay, and some of the dead limbs is con that have a smaller
leaves, whereas some of the other you know, other limbs have larger leaves.
Is that part same problem too, But that could be due to a
limited flow, could be a limited flow, something weak in it like that
other possibility, just to throw this out there. Uh, sometimes when they
use we control products around the base of the trees, there can be damage
to the roots or it could be you know, in a case around up,
if there was a little sprout or coming off the base of the trunk
and you killed weeds around it, that round up could get into the tree.
That that I'm not just picking on that one product. I'm just saying
there's different ways sometimes that herbicides can weaken a tree. And you may see
some unusual coloring of the leaves, the development of the leaves, the size
of the leaves, and so on. Okay, and so again you know,
a spit trunk and I'm kind of looking at them as twins that one
is acting different than the other. That's yeah, one of my so yeah,
okay, well I'll keep an eye on I'll put some of the dead
branches and I'll keep an eye on it. Yeah, and when we get
into summertime, gets you a water out there. There's a little device that
goes around the tree and it's like a hinged sprinkler that goes around the base
of the tree, and you can turn it on and water as far out
as you want, but it'll wet that area through that region, and especially
on the side that's not doing as well, providing some extra water. Once
we get into hot weather and we've gone let's say, two weeks without any
rain at all, you might give it a good soaking, just one good
soaking about an inch or soil of water and just to kind of supplementally help
it out like that. Sure, okay, and it's called tree Hugger sprinkler,
the device I was talking about. Okay, yeah, pretty widely.
All right, Thanks Lorenzo, Thank you, Bye bye. Yep, yep,
yep. River birds can be a little persnickety sometimes I wish they weren't.
I love that tree. Gosh, the bark is beautiful. You know,
when we plant trees, we think about things like how big does it
get, how fast does it grow, what's the canopy size or does it
bloom or things like we think about all these things about trees, and we
should. But one thing we don't think about a lot is tree bark.
And you know, when you look at a river birch and the way that
bark peels off, papery peeling off, it is beautiful and so even in
the winter time, that is a very nice feature in the landscape. Some
crape myrtles, like Natchez, which gets real big and has white blooms,
and several other varieties have a cinnamon colored exfoliating bark. It's not just the
regular putty colored crpe myrtle bark. It's it's a beautiful cinnamon colored xfolioning bark,
very attractive. We have other plants that do things like that, and
so just another thing to think about when you're planting plants. Some of these
plants don't get so large, but they would be nice around a patio and
you're sitting there close by and enjoying, enjoying the beauty of the form of
the tree and the bark and the trunk. Just something to think about.
Time for news break. Here's our number seven one three two one two KTRH.
Right now, we've got open lines. If you'd like to get on,
here's your shot. To Carla in Richmond. Hello, Carla, it
seems like our neighborhood is just overnight and inundated by the webworms and the trees.
Yes, and I don't know what to do about it because some of
them are really high up where they can't be reached. I can't cut the
branches out, so looking for recommendations. Well, if you can reach it,
you can control it. If you can't reach it with a spray or
a pole to break up the webs or something, then you're not going to
be able to the good news is webworms don't kill your tree. Now,
if year after year you completely defolia, did the tree more than once a
year even, well, yeah, you're going to weaken the tree. And
there are the potential issues that could be contributing to the decline of the tree.
But webworms in and of themselves, trees bounce right back to them.
Just part of nature. They're ugly. I understand that, but I would
say everything you can reach, go ahead and protect it or break the webs
up at least let wasps in. And what you can't. It's kind of
like close your eyes and don't look at it because they go away. Yeah,
they go away. They have about three generations a year here in the
Houston area. South Texas has four, North Texas has two. It depends
on the year. But so we're getting a generation, you'll see them again
and then the worst generation is almost always in August September when they get the
worst. So that's that's where you wouldn't want to get ahead of it as
much as you can. But this seems to be a bad year, especially
for these early generations. We'll see how it pans out for the others.
Anything to spray sprays, you have options. The organic end is b T
and spinosaid are the two ingredients that are effective. If you want something that's
going to last longer out there, then a synthetic pirethroid. There are a
number of different things. The synthetic pirethroids can tell them. Because the last
four letters are t h R I n Thren. That's fine, that's five
letters. The last five three by by fen threns si Okay flu Thren resme
Thren. Those are all threns. Those are all synthetic. Now, the
one that's organic is pyrie Thren pyrethri. That's the only one. But I
would say if you want a little you know, if you're gonna have to
rent a sprayer or something like that. Then you don't want to use the
organics because a few days after you spray them, they're no longer working.
So I got you. Okay, well, thank you for that. At
least there's hope on the horizon. Yeah, yeah, there is. Well,
it's it's nature. Being nature doesn't doesn't always suit our taste. But
yeah, the good news is it's not gonna kill your tree. Okay,
thank you so much. You bet happy, happy to do that. We're
gonna go now to Glenn and Tomball. Hello, Glenn, good morning.
How are you? I'm good, sir. How can we help? I
was I just had some new landscaping put in in the front by professional landscaper.
They came in, they cleaned it all up, and then they put
in composted leaf, mold and new dirt, and then they came back with
a layer of well, they put the new plants in. It's about thirty
five different plants, and then they put in a natural mult around it.
It really looks nice. And two weeks two weeks later, here I look
and the nut grass is popping up around in the front part. And I
went to pull it and somewhere in my mind says, don't pull that nut
grass. And I've you in the past, I've used is it sledge swimmer,
sedge hammer, Yeah, sedgehammer with the yeah, with the surfact and
and right, I don't know what would kill that stuff? Yeah, And
I was looking for some it's a brand new bed and it wasn't cheap,
and I want to get that nutgrass out where it won't come back. Yeah.
Yeah, sedgehammer is good depending on where the nuts edge is growing.
Uh it. You know, there's different products that are labeled for use in
that area. Image we often use in the lawns, and you can use
it in flower beds. You have to read the label because there's some plants
you shouldn't use it around. That's the image. But sedgehammer, sedge ender
is another one. And I'm forgetting some others that are out there on the
market. But gun you're up there in Tomball. So if you head out
to Arbigate Nursery or D and D is a feed store out that same twenty
nine to twenty going out, they're going to have products like that for it.
Handy and plants for all seasons is right now on the road. I
mean, they have a very good selection. Of those two you're going to
find different stores. One may carry sedge ender and another sedge hammer, you
know. But I was just into plants for all seasons the other day and
Sherry had a whole bunch of things on the wall, and I noticed some
nutsedge controls there. So just go go talk to them, get a hold
of somebody there like Sherry that knows what they're doing, and everybody there does,
uh, And and have them make sure you tell them I want this
for a flower bed, or I want this for a lawn, or I
want this for a rose bed. To make sure they give you a product
for use in that area. Okay, good deal. I'm going there this
morning to pick up Nelson's fertilizer for the front. Okay, well they've got
that, yep. Good, Okay, all right, thank you very much
to day and just be ready on the nut sedge. Stay with it.
You don't get it all at one time. When it reached sprouts. After
it gets maybe three to five leaves, you need to have applied something to
it. Don't don't let it pull it. You can pull it, but
a nutsedge tuber has like seven to nine buds on it. So you when
it sprouts a shoot and comes up and you see the shoote and you break
it off, it just laughs and sends the next one up. I mean,
it's God that does not. The one thing that does is it prevents
it from getting sunlight and carbohydrates to replenish the nuts. So it's not that
it's bad, it's just that it's a false hope. So you gotta it's
better to get a product that will translocate down into that tuber you and then
the daughter tubers. But if you let it sit above ground catching sunlight for
four weeks, it's going to already have daughter tubers that are producing. So
you've just multiplied the problem before you got around to spray in it. So
don't three or five leaves, get some spray on it. Okay, all
right, I'll do that, Thank you very much. You bet. Sometimes
I feel like Patten. You know, we're at the beginning of the movie
Patent. He marches back and forth telling the troops how they're going to have
to win this war. You're you're up for a war with nut said,
and you got to face it the right way. We're gonna take a little
break we'll be right back. Patrick, you are the first up when we
come back. Our phone number seven one three two one two kat rh six
am to ten am. You can tell your friends and neighbors to listen to
garden Line. Maybe that guy that won't take care of his lawn, you
can get him listening. Who knows the neighborhood might be a little pretty your
place to live. Ice hardware stores are the place you go for all the
things that you need to have a beautiful lawn, landscape, outdoor patio area.
I mean, they've got it all, from barbecue pits to strings of
beautiful lights out there for the mosquito controls yep, the dunks and the mosquito
foggers and all the things that make life livable outside. Right now, with
the flocks of mosquitos that we've got, they've got fire in control, and
this is a good time to do that. Throw a potato chip out there
on your lawn and check back fifty minutes and check back whenever you find fire
ants on that potato chip. Is a good time debate now. When it
gets ro hot, fire ants will be out during the middle of the day
as much, but earlier or later they are they like that temperature time,
that's the time to put your baits. And ACE Hardware has the baits that
you need. Ace Hardware carries all the things that you need for your gardens,
for your lawns, all the fertilizers I talk about. Go to Acehardware
dot com find the store locator. There's forty stores to choose from in the
greater Houston area. You ought to be able to find two, three or
more not too far away from you. Certainly worth a trip over to get
stocked up. We're going to go now to Missouri City and talk to Patrick.
Hello. Patrick, Yeah, I've been seeing these big fucking account pillars.
Yeah, me inch and a half two inches long and about half a
dozen our plants all seen it. What are they do? The birds like
them? Well, there's a lot of caterpillars out there. The salt marsh
caterpillar somewhat fits the description that you just gave me, So it may that
may be the name of it. It kind of doesn't matter what it is.
If it's a caterpillar. First of all, there's a good chance a
bird might be willing to eat it. Typically a big fuzzy thing crawling on
the ground not as much, but that would be an option. But anytime
it's eating your plant, which is what caterpillars do. They eat foliage.
You just need to spray the foliage with spinosa or bt either one. And
when they eat it, they get sick and die. Yeah, what are
they when they grow up? Different kinds of different kinds of moths. You
know, we'd have to I'd have to know for sure what it is,
but you might. Why don't you do this? You write down salt marsh
caterpillar. Go do a search online see if that's your caterpillar, and when
you do that, you'll be able to see what the moth looks like.
Okay, and what do you know? What to pick cabbage anytime you want
from one. It's a size of a tennis ball. The one that's the
size of an almost bowling ball. It doesn't ripen. The heads just get
bigger depending on growing conditions and depending on variety. There's some types that stay,
you know, a little bigger than a softball size, and then there's
some that get on up much larger than that. So it doesn't any any
stage you want to pick it is fine. And what do a fireants eat?
They eat proteins and oils, so they love to eat caterpillars. Fire
ants are When they first arrived here, of course we all wish they hadn't,
but then we noticed that ticks and flea populations were lower because they're out
there eating the larvae of ticks and fleas or you know, fleas, uh
and ticks, and they were helping keep those down for us. So protein
sources, the afforts to efforts. Pardon it, freaks. They will not
eat daphits. Nope, they do not do that. Yeah, hey,
Patrick, I got to run. I got some callers and we're about running
out of time today, but thank you for the call. I really appreciate
that Medina has got a lot of quality products and their has to grow line.
There's a regular hash to grow, there's a has to grow for lawns,
for example. But they now have super grow Plus super Grow Plus by
Medina. It's a sixteen zero two fertilizer in a quart bottle with a hose
attachment. You hook it up. You can cover four thousand square feet with
that quart. Takes about ten minutes to do that whole area, and it
has got the nutrients that you need. It's got sixteen zero two, which
is a good blend for most lawns that we have. It's got molasses in
it, it's got humic acid in it. Part of the nitrogen is slow
release. It feeds the soil and it feeds the plant. Medina super Grow
Plus highly recommended. I love that ratio sixteen zero too, because most of
our lawns have enough phosphorus, and that's why our number in phosphorus are a
little bit low. We don't almost never need to add more for the lawn.
But supergrow Plus excellent product, easy, easy to use. You can
use it for a quick greenup. And it's got a little bit of slow
release action as well. We're going to go now to Carol in Sugarland.
Hey, Carol, good morning. I have a little apricot drift roads In
every couple of nights, something eats all of the leaves from it, so
it has bare stands except for the thorns. Okay, and there are roses
but known leaves. And I've tried Meme oil. It doesn't seem to help.
So I'm wondering should I try BT or spinosa? You know, you
could guess. Spinosa would be the best guess because it kills both beetles and
caterpillars. BT kills just caterpillars. So if you're going to do a wild
guess, I'd do spinosid. There are certainly some other more potent insecticides and
synthetic parihoids, a number of different ingredients like that that would would last a
little better. I would go out with a flashlight at night. A couple
of times. We got to catch these guys in the act to see what
they are, right, I haven't been able to see anything. Yeah,
the fact that they're nocturnal. I don't know. I'm thinking caterpillar. But
you know, there are a lot of things that eat leaves, but spinosa
should be a good a good first guest. Let's give that a try and
see if it shuts it down before you run out of leaves. I'll try
that. Thank you, Thank you very much. I appreciate the call.
Tim from Baytown. You're our last caller of the day. We got about
a minute left. How can we help? Okay, how are you doing
this morning? I'm good, sir. I think I have a Saint Augustine
lun and it's always been thick lust than green, and I noticed it had
a yellow spot. And what I did at rake it all out and put
some compost tops on there. And and I see some moreres did the same
thing. So I rate all it out and put some uh both so and
I put some sad there some there the other day. What what do you
think that was? Is it a fun us or if it if it's just
if it's just yellowing, it could be an iron deficiency and those are typically
temporary. But an iron keylated product would help with iron deficiency. If it's
literally turning yellow and then dying out. That is take all root rot,
and take all root rot is on my schedule. Since I'm out of time,
I'm just going to tell you go to Gardening with Skip dot com.
That's my website, Gardening with Skip. I've got my schedules on there,
and look at the one for pests and diseases and weeds. It will tell
you what to do for take all, what product do you use and when
to apply it and everything like that. Okay, Tim, okay, thanks
for all right, sir, Thank you for the call. Appreciate that.
WOA. There was a busy day. All right. We'll be back tomorrow
morning, six am. Don't forget two weeks from today, June fifteenth,
come to Wahbirds Unlimited m bel Air, Texas, Southwest Houston. Wawbird's Unlimited,
bell Air, I will be making an appearancer from eleven o'clock in the
morning to one o'clock two hours there answer your gardening questions. You can bring
me samples, you can bring me photos. Just come in and say hi.
I'd like to meet folks that listen to garden Line. If you haven't
seen me at an appearance anywhere this year, you need to come out.
I want to meet you. While you're there, you're gonna find lots of
cool stuff at Wallbird's Unlimited, always a fun store to shop there. All
right, we're putting it in the books. See tomorrow morning at six am.