Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this
program. Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with Skip Ricord's shoes,
crazy Gashrim just watch him as so many girl. Thanks to see Botasy gas
not a sound credits Gas Sun Beamon of tweet are welcome back. Welcome back
to garden Line. We're glad you're with us this morning. Congratulations by the
way on getting up right and early. Joe and I hope you got a
cup of coffee in your hand or whatever whatever it. Get those eyes open
and get ready to go. We got another decent day today. I'm looking
forward to getting some things done after the show that I got to get done.
It's a little warmer by then. But the way it is on weekends
we do garden Line, we don't do gardening in the morning, at least
not early in the morning. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and hey,
our show is a call in show. In other words, it's for
you to ask the questions you might have. If you like some advice or
direction or ideas or identification of something, give us a call seven to one
three two to one two KTRH seven one three two to one two k t
RH. A little tip too, by the way, that usually first thing
in the morning, especially on Sunday morning, the boards are a little quieter,
so it's easy to get through. And we have a question, you
have to wait very long, So just a little tip there if you're interested.
I was driving by some neighborhoods and noticed a common in the yards that
I'm starting to see and that's a yellowing in the turf. And some of
you probably have had question, well you have had called into garden line about
things related to this. But you look at a green lawn and you just
see sort of some irregular yellowish areas, you know, where it's not round,
it doesn't have a shape or anything. And what that is is iron
deficiency. Now, if you want to see it up close, you just
grab a blade that's yellow, pull it up, pull it off, and
hold it up kind of to the sky, and you'll see green and yellow
stripes going up and down through the blade that's iron. Because iron causes what
we call intervenochlorrosis. Okay, that's too that's too much, too many words
for this hour of the morning. But my point is that the parts of
the leaf that get the iron last have the least, and so that would
be between the veins and veins being the supply lines. When you see that
in your lawn, you can say one thing that grass doesn't have iron in
it, like it needs iron in it. But then the question is why
is it because there's no iron in the soil? Most likely not. It
could be true, but usually it's not a lack of iron in the soil.
Well then why, Well, it could be because something is tying up
the iron and making it unavailable. Iron changes form in the soil. Some
forms of plant can get, some forms of plants can't get, so it
could be that the iron is tied up. On the other hand, it
could also be that the plant lacks roots. Iron is taken up at the
tip of the roots. So when take all root rot or drought die back
causes that grass plant to lose its tender, new, fresh, active roots
system, then you're going to see iron deficiency on the plants. So it's
gonna be one of those things you kind of have to work your way through
it. A soil test will tell you if there's iron in the soil.
A soil test will also tell you if you're like your pH and phosphorus are
both very high, then that means you're going to have an iron efficiency.
So that in and of itself would explain it from a soil test. So
you can get your soil tested by going to soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu.
Soil Testing dot TAMU, dot edu. Choose the urban soil test.
I don't care if you're listening on your computer and Marfa, Texas eighty miles
from the nearest whatever urban sooil test. All the urban means is it's for
your yard and garden. They should have called it that, not urban,
but anyway, it means it's for your yard and garden. In other words,
here comes the sample from roses or vegetables or a lawn or whatever,
and not from a pasture where I'm growing grass for cattle or something. That
urbanoil test. Okay, put it out, send it in, see what
they say, and then we take it from there. If it is take
all root rot, then you have to deal with that disease. And that
is on my schedule at gardening with skip dot com the pest disease and we'd
management schedule has that information on it and you can decide or look on there
and see what products are my options and what time do I make the applications.
But anyway, iron efficiency, that's something that we often deal with.
It's pretty common, especially on Saint Augustine, a lot of other grasses that
don't have it. Well, let's do this. Let's go on out to
the phones and we're going to head out the fairfield and talk to Marty.
Hello, Marty, Martin Skip. I wondered if it's too hot to repot
some plans. I've got some really pretty pots and I wanted to, you
know, I'm just concerned about the heat. I know we're having a little
bit of rain today tomorrow, and thought it might be a good time to
redo them. I'm sorry what it was you were redoing. I'm repotting some
plants on my patio and I wondered if it's too hot. Oh, okay,
no it's not. If there's going to be significant root damage in the
process, then I would pot them up, immediately, water them in,
and move them to as bright of a shade as you can so the direct
sun doesn't bake down on them, and just give them a week or so
to kind of recover and get their roots back going Again, if it's just
a matter of pulling it out of a pot, maybe teasing loose a little
of the roots on the outside that are circling around, or minor damage,
then you can just do it as you would at anytime. Is there a
better time to do that to do repotting, Yes, sir. It depends
on the plants that you have. Some things, you know, if they're
more tropical, I'd probably do them in the spring or in the summer season.
You can really really redo it time you want. You know, if
it were something that we're going to die down to the ground in the cool
season, I'd try to get it done then because it's easiest, or go
into some sort of a dormant state that that's the easiest time, there's the
least stress on the plant then. But I just repotted several We just repotted
a little indoor ficus tree the other day, and we've repotted several other plants
recently. About to do a rosemary that needs to have a new home.
Okay, all right, Well, these are firecracker plants and they're out in
the sun sun, but I wanted to put them in this prettier pot.
They're a little bit bigger as well, and those usually go into the landscape.
Right. Yes, fracker plant is a very heat and humidity tolerant plant.
It does need water though it's not you know, it's not a succulent
and some people assume because it thrives in the heat that maybe it's a little
drought tolerant and you need to keep it adequately moist for best results with that
one. Okay, all right, well, thank you very much, have
a good day. All right, Marty, thanks for the call. Thank
you. How you get thanks you're listening to garden Line. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two k t r H. If you'd like
to give us a call and talk about some things that are of interest to
you. Just a reminder I was talking about oron efficiency. Well agouh.
Nitroposs Superturf is a fertilizer designed for year lawn in the summertime. And what
do I mean by that? Well, number one, it has a three
one two roughly three one two four one two ratio is what we're looking for
in our fertilizers. This will be more like a four one close to a
four to one two ratio. So that's got a lot of nitrogen, but
it's half of it at least is in a slow release form, So you're
going to get a gradual release of the nitrogen over the coming months. You
do the super turf, now you don't need to fertilize again until we get
to the phone fertilization. The nice thing about feeding gradually is it doesn't create
this sudden increase in your mowing frequency because your grass has grown so fast,
you get a nice, smooth, even growth. Another thing is you get
a good root system development. Did you know that if you overdo nitrogen you
get a lot of green top growth, but at the expense of root growth.
Actually, an overfertilized lawn with nitrogen will have less of a root system
than an adequately fertilized lawn. So that is one of the things I like
about these slower release products. They gradually feed over time, because I'll tell
you that's how grass eats, if I can use the word eats for talking
about grass. In other words, it takes up a little nutrient every day,
just like we eat every day. We don't need a month worth of
food and then not eat for thirty days. And so gradual release products like
nitropos superturf or excellent for the summertime. You're going to find Natropass supertur if
it Bearings. We're both the one on this and out the one on West
Timer. You're going to find it out at Enchanted Forests down in the Richmond
Rosenberg area, Kdace Hardware and Ace Hardware at Sinco Ranch. Lots of places
you can find this product. Remember it's easy. It's the silver bag that's
the one you're looking for. You're listening to Garden Line. If you like
to talk about gardening, maybe ask a question seven to one three two one
two kt r H. Right now we are going to take Bumper music.
I have trouble staying in my chair. I just, you know, love
to get up and move around a little bit. Hey, listen, we
were talking before we went to break about a couple of things. I was
talking about lawn fertilizing and dealing with lack of nitrogen or lack of iron in
the soil. The things that cause grass to stay green are nitrogen and iron,
and sulfur is a big part of that too. Magnesium has a huge
function in plants, and because it's part of the chlorophyll, molecule fun fact
there. But anyway, our goal is to make sure plants have all the
things they need in order to stay healthy, to perform well, to do
well. There are things that are very tiny that are needed in very tiny
amounts, like iron, and that's one reason why you hear me talk about
azimite. Asmide is a nutrient product that is mined out of the ground in
Utah and it contains all kinds of trace minerals. So here's the deal with
trace minerals. They are about twenty minerals that are essential. If the plant
does not have any one of those, then it's not going to be able
to function and grow and do some of the things that plants do in terms
of their physiology and fruiting and flowering, all that kind of thing that it's
essential. But some are needed in huge amounts, and that would be things
like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, the three on the fertilizer bag, the
three numbers. Then there are some that are needed in medium amounts like sulfur
and like magnesium for example, calcium. Then there's some that are needed in
trace amounts. That's what azemite's all about. Things that you never think about
like, who have you ever heard of someone say I'm going to go out
and put some molybdenum on my yard. I'm going to go out and put
some selenium on my Those tiny little elements zinc and iron and all of that
essential and asamite is a product that you can put out and I recommend about
once a year do a soil test and see exactly what you need. That
would be the best way to go. But in absence of that, about
once a year an application of asmite. You don't use much. You don't
want to use much. It's a trace mineral. Don't overload the soil,
just use the amount recommended. You can find more information at azimite Texas dot
com and learn more about it. But I can tell you this, you
can find azemite pretty much anywhere you would go and shop. It is widely
widely available. Let's head now out. We're going to go to the phones
and talk to Sun in Missouri City. Hello, Sonya, Hi, good
morning, good morning. I have some aztec grass in my front bed and
it shares a bed with the boxtail ferm and it's just not doing anything.
It's you know, I water them just a little bit, because I know
they don't like a lot of water. Some of them have been there a
year from last year. Some of them are new plants, but they're just
not growing. Is there anything I can do that I need to fertilize them?
Or Well, that's actually a pretty darn tough plant. You sure it
needs water, but I'm amazed at how well it does under less than ideal
water conditions. If you overwater it, you will get rots and decays.
But you just see the plant declining and dying when that happens. If it's
just sitting there, I don't know. Do you think your soil could be
very compacted and tight in that area? It could be, yes, Okay,
well maybe if I could look at a photo of it and see if
I see anything else on it. But it just doesn't have major problems.
I've grown that plant for a while, and it's an excellent plant, and
it's a good combo with your ferns, A boy, the foxtail fern.
I think you said us an excellent plant for going along with those. The
only thing I would do, maybe is, assuming there's no other symptoms on
this plant other than just not thriving, I probably would take a little spading
for it and go straight down in the ground, just kind of wiggle it
a little bit and do that in a different places kind of around the plant.
Sprinkle a little compost over the top, and watered in maybe a little
bit of fertilizer or two to just give it a boost, and then try
to try to give it a good soaking about once a week. That ought
to be sufficient. How much sun is this in? It gets about five
hours morning sun. Okay, well that's eight to one. That's almost ideal
to have it can grow in less sun than that, but to not have
that afternoon sun. Yeah, that's that's what I think there, Sonya from
based on what you're telling me it's doing. Okay, I'll give that a
try. And then I had one other question thanking to the fall for gardening,
I would like to do container gardening for like some tomatoes, like cherry
tomatoes and some pepper plants. What's the best soil to get for container gardening
for that? I would get probably a vegetable and herb mix. How big
is your containers going to be? Let's see, they're like two feet across
about two feet high, and then they narrowed down at the bottom that okay,
all right, yeah, I would get like a vegetable and herb mix.
Heirlin Soils makes a vegetable and herb mix that is excellent. You are
in down a South Missouri City area, You're going to find it at your
ACE hardware stores down there. They generally will carry it. Missouri City.
I'm trying to think of who else would be the next closest to you for
done in that area. You're not too terribly far away from Sienamult. They
have it as well there. But anyway, that's the one that I would
use for that particular situation. Okay. And what was the name Heirloom Soils
vegetable and herb mix. I think they say veggie and herb mix. You
might find also, you might find one from Nature's Way. They sell it
by the bag too. They're up in the toward Conroe area, so on
the other side of town from you. But they also have a vegetable and
herb type soil mix. Both of those will be excellent, excellent products.
Okay, all right, thank you very much. All right, thank you
appreciate that call very much. Let's see here, Yeah, I uh,
this this past week I've been doing some things just to kind of enhance our
birds in the backyard, our collection of birds, and I'm telling you,
they just keep coming. We put in a little bit of a little kind
of a bird bath type of fountain, and the birds they hear that sound
of water and it brings them in because look, it's hot outside. Can
you imagine hanging out all day, flying around the neighborhood looking for water somewhere
to get a drink. So you put it in your yard, especially when
there's some sound with it. It doesn't have to be birds figured out,
they'll be there and they're going to hang out there. And the other thing
is to have a quality feed for them. It is season one still we've
got birds that are nesting, birds that are molting, two different things that
both require a good special quality blend, like nesting super blend. That's the
one that while birds makes. I use that one myself sometimes I'll mix it
in with some of their other mixes just to get a little bit of sunflower
some other things in there. But it is packed with sunflower, chips,
peanuts, dried meal worms, bark, butter bits, tree nuts, sapphlower,
calcium carbonate, just all the things that a bird needs, and warbirds
feeds are high quality. They are the kinds of seeds the birds want to
eat. And you buy these cheap bird seeds full of the red bebes,
and yeah they are cheap, but take all the bebes out because they aren't
gonna eat those hardly at all. Maybe some doves will. And what do
you got now? How much did you pay for that food? And that's
why I love warbird feed I love their seed cylinders. If you're going to
take a vacation and be out of town for a while, you can just
put one of those up. It takes them a while to get the little
seeds pecked out of those little solid, hard cylinders, but they do it,
and it gives you a chance to watch them a little longer too.
At the feeder. They don't just grab a byte and fly away. Hey,
go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston and that's where you'll find WTU
dot com forward. It's sleash Houston. That's where you'll find all the wallbirds,
six of them here in the Greater Houston area to choose from. It'd
be a great day to get out and just check out some of our wallbirds.
We're going to take a break now it's time for the news. I'll
be right back. The number if you'd like to call in seven one three
two to one. Maybe you'd like to give us a call and talk about
things related to your garden, your landscape. The number is seven one three
two one two kh RH seven one three two one two k t R H.
Well, we've got a hurricane sitting out there in the Gulf, and
for all apparent assessments, it's going to be bringing us a little bit of
rain. That's something we certainly do expect. Hopefully it'll be a moderate amount
and not too much. We've been there before. I remember I was in
Houston during the Tax Day flood way back when, and certainly during Harvey.
Uh, and wow, that's rain. What we're looking for, though,
is some relief for our summer landscapes. We've been water and trying to keep
them going, and a good soaking would be really good for setting us up
for at least a week or so of not having to just turn the water
on every day trying to keep things alive. Remember that if you get a
gradual rain over a period of time and get that water in the soil,
it does last a good while. And most people when they water, they
water too little, too often. The sprinter comes on, it squirts for
a while. What's the grass? What's the that starts to wet the soil
and then goes off, And so everything that's in the thatch and everything that's
in the grass can evaporate off and contribute to Houston's humidity. Thank you very
much for that, by the way. But what goes in the soil is
what's in the bank account to be drawn from. So what if instead of
turning it off at some point of irrigation, you let it go longer,
and now all that grass and thatch are wet, and now the water's run
down into the soil more. And so it's in a sense it's the end
of the irrigation cycle that's doing you the most good, right if you think
of it that way, because once the water goes off again, whatever sitting
there with that's going to dry off anyway. Just something to think about.
If you can get a half inch to an inch in the soil, then
it'll soak in like an inch of water will wet a clay soil probably six
eight inches deep, a sand soil even deeper than that. But once you
have that in the soil, now you cannot worry about water in for a
while, and it will gradually dissipate as plants take it up, but it'll
provide you a nice long feed and then oxygen comes back in the soil as
the soil begins to dry out. Just makes sense to water that way.
It's a water efficient way of going about things. Let's see. You know,
I was I was talking about soil the other day with somebody and we
were just we were discussed organic matter and particle sizes and things. They had
a lot of questions about, well, what's the best kind of compost And
there's a lot of answers to that, you know there. In other words,
that leaf mo compost is awesome. It's it's absolutely high quality stuff.
If you get a quality made compost that is blended properly into something like a
veggie nerve mix or a rose soil uh, then those are also excellent blends.
The idea is to get organic matter back down into the soil, and
that's what nature does over a long period of time, and that's also what
you can do when you contact Nature's way to get some of their products.
I was talking to Ian Ferguson out there a while back about some of the
products they have and things, and I believe in their products. They work,
They absolutely work, and Nature's might have been a leader in this for
a long time. You know, when I when we use terms like rose
soil and leaf mol composts, those are things that were invented Nature's Way.
Not that no one ever had a leave more compos that they made before,
but I'm talking about the concept of making that and using that and the benefits
of that and everything. They perfected it. And you know, Nature's Ways
you can go They're closed on Sunday, but they're open Monday through Friday from
eight to five and Saturday from eight to two. You can find their products
and stores. You can go to Nature's Way and you can buy bag by
by bulk or you can have them deliver it to you. I mean,
there's a lot of ways to reach out and to get information at Nature's Way.
So all you got to do is just give them a call. Go
by there. They're on Interstate forty five or just off Interstate forty five as
you head up north toward the Conroad direction. The actual address is one of
one's Sherwood Circle, but they're basically where fourteen eighty eight comes in to forty
five there. If you'd like to give them a call, the number is
nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety. Let's go back now,
we're going to head to the phones and talk to Debbie and Northwest Houston.
Hello, Debbie, Hi, Yes, I just sent you an email.
I have a tree. It's not very old and when it was planted it
was during the drought that I watered it and the bark it's just falling off.
I just sent you an email. Okay, I can get over here
too. Three pictures. What kind of tree it looks like. It looks
some kind of oak, Okay. I don't know if it's the water of
the leaves or some small So if you can get your compass in your head
out and go stand by that tree. Is those for those gaping splits and
openings where the wood is exposed, Are they on those southwest side of the
tree or on the east side. On the east side, Okay, that
may be a freeze crack from a long time ago. Uh, it looks
like that because it's a vertical. But The goodness is it's a young tree,
it's got good vigor. And if you look at that really thick rolls
of kellus coming back, it's going to close back. It's on the process
of healing. There's nothing to apply to it. We certainly didn't want that
to happen. It's not good to have the innerwood exposed to decomposing microbes.
But I think it's going to be okay. Just continue to give it good
care and that the bigger of a multary you can give it, the happier
that tree will be okay. Great, Thank you so much, appreciate it.
All right, you take care. Thanks for the call, you two.
Thank you boe by bye. All right. Well, hey, do
you need supplies for your garden, for your landscape like I'm talking about,
let's say some fertilizer, or let's say you need something to kill insects or
to kill diseases or pass Maybe you are fine with synthetic products and that's what
you want to use. Maybe you are an organic gardener and you're only going
to use organic products. The one place you all can go and accomplish all
of that is Southwest Fertilizer. They're on the corner of Abyssinett and Renwick and
Southwest Houston, and they stay stocked up. If a new product comes on
the market, you're going to find it as Southwest Fertilizer. They just they
stay on top of things and talk with Bob all the time about Hey,
what do you think about this product? You know what? We just we
just talk shop when it comes to the different things out there, what's working,
what's not working, what's new? Uh, And it's it's really a
one stop shop. You walk in there with a sample, with a photo,
just with a question and Bob or his team are going to be able
to help you and point you to the product you need to do the job.
If one's needed. They won't say you something you don't need, but
if there is a product that'll do it best, they'll not only say here's
the one you need, but they'll tell you how to use it and any
specific things you need to know. And that is important so you go home
home, you use it properly and you have the results you need. Southwest
Fertilizer, corner of bus Nutt and Renwick UH seven to one three six six
six seventeen forty four, or just go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
See, we are gonna I'll tell you what. I am really close
to a break here, Bunny. I'm gonna come to you right after the
break because I want to be able to have adequate time to handle the question
you might have. Uh just remind you that my my website, Gardening with
Skip dot com holds both of my schedules, the lawncare schedule and the lawn
pest Disease and we'd management schedule, as well as a few other timely things
I've posted up there over time. Working on several new things to go back.
I'll tell you more about those later when we get them ready to load
up. But the website Gardening with Skip dot com. All right, here's
a break. I'll be right back your summer get away from the huge dat
We're going to head straight out and find out from Bonnie in Spring. Hey,
Bonnie, good morning, get back. I've sent you some pictures and
I wonder if you can diagnose a crape myrtle that has some white spots to
howdery mildew Oh, Bonnie, I've got uh, Saint Augustine, is that
yes, that's one of them. I have three different pictures there. Let's
see if I can find the rest of them here. They're they're kind of
embedded in. It's hard for me to it's hard to see. But we
could start with the grass. Let's do that. So uh on your turf?
What what I see there? Then? You know doing describing pictures over
the radio? Is I know? Uh? Yeah, You've got little spots
on your grass blades. And the spots have a border with a tan center,
and that's called gray leaf spot. Gray leaf Spot's a fungus are taxing
augustine, and it lovest humid and moist, very moist conditions, and it
likes shady area. It seems worse than shady areas. So I've told people
before, if you don't know what gray leaf spot looks like, go throw
a piece of plywood over your lawn, leave it there for a week,
pick it up, and you'll see gray leaf spot because it's everywhere. It's
as you created the perfect environment for it. So from our standpoint, from
your standpoint taking care of the thing, you need to not overwater. While
ago I just kind of went on a spiel about give it a good soaking,
let it dry out, don't squirt it every other day. Yeah,
and the more often you wet it, the more problems with this you have.
If you overdo nitrogen, it makes it worse. Also if you overdo
the nitrogen. And that's it. Now. One other observation earlier, and
for those of you listening this morning, I talked about how iron decency shows
up because if you pick up a leaf blade and hold it up to the
sky, you see vertical stripes of green and yellow. What it means on
your grass is speckles of green and yellow all over. They're not stripes,
they're just speckley spots. And that is Saint Augustine decline, which is a
virus and it attacks older types of Saint Augustine. So the new improved types,
the varieties and things are all bred to be resistant to it. And
so what do you do, Well, you can do nothing. A lot
of people have had long This lon's been here for a long time. I
guess, yeah, And so you could do nothing. It's just it weakens
the lawn a little bit, but it doesn't kill the lawn. Secondly,
you could plug in a resistant variety, so if this one gets weaker,
the other one has a chance to kind of fill in. I'm about that
option, but that is an option that you can do. But there's no
cure for the Saint Augustine. Now, as far as the take all undertake
all gray leaf spot, that one, it's very fungy sides and that will
help bring that into control that you can stove that from happening. But again,
don't overfertilize, don't water too frequently, and most lawns don't have to
be treated for gray leaf spot. Most don't. Okay, So there's a
time when it's wanted to spray, but not just because the disease exists,
because it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. I also sent a picture as a weed
that is driving me crazy. It's growing up on my neighbor's side at the
fans and over the fans, and now it's coming in the yard and my
flower beds as well. It's just bustop. I don't see a weed.
I just have to turf and a crepe myrtle. The weed is inside the
turf meat well, not to get in the yard. It's a little bitty
It has a reddish stem and little be pointy leaves. Oh I see it,
okay, all right, so that is that is called peppervine. Pepper
vine. A lot of people see it and they go, oh, I've
got poison ivy. Now you don't, uh, the poison ivy looks quite
different. Pepper vine has uh these that pattern to the leaves, but it
has it has more of the leaves than poison ivy does than they're they're smaller.
Pepper vine is very difficult to control because things that kill it may hurt
your Saint Augustine as well. If you can get a product that contains trichlope
here tri I c l O p y R, and just wipe it onto
the pepper vine and let it translocate down and kill the vine itself. And
wherever it's coming up, it'll be coming up in your lawn or your flower
beds wherever. Yeah, it's everywhere, but everywhere it's coming up. You
just stay with it every time the shoot comes up, and then you wipe
some triclope here right on it, and it will it will kill it.
Okay, just now that it's on the lawn, it's gonna be a little
more tedious. Is there any way to handle it? Because it's coming up
over the fence in the backyard. It will. Yeah, it hangs over
the fence. So I've cut back those parts so it's not hanging over my
side. But it's a neighbor lives over there. It's a neighbor. Yeah,
okay, Well, if they won't control it, you're kind of just
get left with cutting it back and then the shoots come up underground unless they
will entertain a conversation with you about Hey, this is a problem for both
of us. Yeah, okay, well we'll have to deal with that.
And the white spots on the crepe myrtles, yeah, that is powdery mildew,
and powdery mildew is a common disease of crape myrtles. It shows up
as a little like a white dust on top of the leaf. Listening,
they can't see this picture and it causes deformation of the leaf and stuff.
You can do a couple of things. You can ignore it, you can
spray with a product containing belaton belaton to control it. Or and you don't
want to hear this one, but I have to say that you can get
rid of that crape myrtle and put in a variety that's resistant and then forever
more going forward, you don't have to worry about it anymore. So those
are your well, it's a fairly new quite myrtle. I got it from
the Arbor Foundation. They just well, you send the money and they send
you trees, and so that was one of theirs. So I really don't
know what trying. It's a pretty Boston Well. Those are your options,
bunny, and you can decide how you want to go with it. If
you go to a good garden center and say I need a great myrtle that
doesn't get powder, and they'ldew, they can put one in your hands.
All right, thank you so much, I think spine you bet you take
care in Channa Gardens out in Richmond is one of those garden centers that I
like to call destination garden centers. In Channa Gardens is the kind of place
you want to go and take your friends and family when they come visit in
town, and a lot of people do that. In fact, people drive
for a very long way Austin and other places that far away to come over
to Richmond to see this place, because it really is outstanding. Their selection
of all kinds of plants is wonderful. For example, if you like the
tulip gingers the kirrkkuma. They have an awesome selection of those right now,
and that is an amazing plant that is very beautiful. The blooms can be
cut as cut flowers and last a long time. It is you just have
to go see one. It's called a tulip ginger or a curcuma ginger.
They do well. And Chantic Gardens just got in their stock of tomatoes and
peppers the Herst shipment for fall. Do you know now, I know hot
outside, but now's when we're planting our tomatoes for the fall crop. This
would be midsummer tomato planting season. Scott of water and they'll be fined.
They're not gonna fruit until things cool off. But if you don't plant them
now, you won't have a good sized plant. Then it does cool off
enough to start setting fruit. So anyway, just something to think about.
Lots of selections of really nice milk weeds there and one of my favorite underutilized
plants. I was just has this spicy any Welcome back to the yard line.
Good to have you with us today. We've got more talk about.
If you like to give us a call and talk about something of interest to
you. I have a question or something, give us a call it seven
one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one
two k t r H. As simple as that. We're going to go
out to Tumball now and talk to Mel. Hello, Mel, Hey,
good morning. I have two about fifty foot tall magnolia trees growing side by
side in the county yard right up to the house. One of them is
looking kind of sick, got some dead limbs on the things. And I
guess that what a treat ord he called what an arborist. I was wondering
who you might recommend. I would recommend you go ahead and call Martin Spoon
Moore. He's at Affordable Tree Care of Affordable Tree Service. Uh and do
you have a pin or paper pen and paper handy. I just give you
a couple of things to reach out to him. I'm writing it right now.
Well I can hardly hear you. Hang on old all right, okay,
go ahead, all right? Set seven one three six twenty six sixty
three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Martin knows trees
here, and without a doubt, he would be the one you want to
have come out there. A F F tree service dot com is his website.
Okay, Magnet, Okay, I'm sorry, go ahead aff tree service
dot com. Start. I'm still writing, hang on it, o' get.
Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. Okay, go ahead, Tree
Service dot Com. So Magnolies took a big hit last summer. We flat
lost entire trees during the heat and drop in the summer, which is not
something that happens a lot around here. Now, there are other issues.
There's genetic differences from one treating another. There are usually there is always the
possibility that perhaps there's something strangling the roots of the tree or the trunk of
the tree at the base, maybe a root going around it, or something
that can cause it to be set back. The leaves are smaller, the
old leaves fall off and whatnot. But I think in general, probably it's
just some late results of that cold damage or the heat damage rather that they
suffered. Right now, what have As far as expensive goes, When he
did what he did, he charged for coming out, and then yeah,
I think he'll charge you like one hundred and fifty to come out. And
that's just from running all over town because people are curious about a bug in
a tree. Or something. And then if you if he is able to
do something, whether it's a deep root treatment or whether he's doing some printing
or whatever is needed, then that one fifty would just go into your cost,
so you're not out the one fifty if you have work done. All
right, well, I feel like I'm going to be spending somebody because I
hate to lose it. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. The
one right next to work to it is pretty doing pretty good. All right,
I appreciate it. Thank you, skip all right, good luck with
that, Mel, Thanks for the call. You take care of them,
all right, bye bye, all right, tree for sure, bye bye.
All right, there we go. Yeah, trees are they're the most
valuable plant in your landscape. They really are in terms of what they can
do. Number one, takes a long time to grow a big tree,
so to start over, that's going to take a while. On the other
hand, or in a to that, whenever a tree, whenever someone's going
to buy a home and you've got beautiful trees, it adds value to the
house. But it also helps the house to sell. In other words,
you know, the people come and they look at it, and they I
want this house because you've got that beautiful set of trees, and so it
is worth taking time to do several things. One thing is, if you're
going to plant a tree, plant one that is a long term investment,
not grow fast, die young. You know, the grow fast, die
young. The old Arizona ash, the Arizona ash we used to have in
neighborhoods everywhere that just pretty much ever build or seem to stick one in the
yard when he built a subdivision. Then we get three decades in and they're
falling apart. We're having to take them out, and now those homes are
starting over when they should have the most beautiful trees in the world if they'd
had all those thirty years to grow. So pick a tree number two planet
right. Make sure it's planted properly. That is important. And then the
third thing is take care of them. And basically taking care of a tree.
Ninety percent of treecare is early pruning in a train in a way to
train the tree so that later pruning doesn't require a chainsaw all the time.
The second aspect of it is it creates the form that you're looking for in
the tree, and then provide that tree with adequate water during extended summer droughts,
that's important. Now we can fertilize our trees, that's fine, that
will help with growth, But nothing is as important as during an extended drought.
Alleviating the stress with an occasional good deep soaking. That that's important.
And that's the secrets to success. You plant the right kind of tree there,
and don't be like I want the fastest growing tree you have. Remember
so fast, die young. That's that's the thing with trees. Now we
do have some pretty fast growing good trees and moderate growing good trees that we
can speed up with proper care. But a tree is so valuable. Take
care of the ones you have, and if you're going to plant one,
now's the time to make the right decision. They say that society grows rich
when old men plant trees under the shade under which they will never set.
I think that's interesting. I probably butchered that that. That's the gist of
the of the sentiment. You're listening to garden line, and I am here
to answer your gardening questions. How do we make you have a more bountiful
garden and a more beautiful landscape? More bountiful garden or beautiful landscap. That's
our goal. You know, gardening should be fun. We really it shouldn't.
It's not rocket science, and we need to not stress over it.
And don't worry if you plant a plant and it doesn't survive. Listen,
you gotta you gotta kill a lot of plants to be a good gardener.
That's just the way it is. I say it that way to kind of
give you permission to try things and if they don't work, well, now
you learn something. Don't do that again. But there's a lot that we
can learn to avoid loss of plants. But at the same time, just
have fun. You know, it's a plug and play deal. I know
we think of landscapes as you know, you put in this landscape and now
you're done well for a while, maybe, but landscapes evolve and there is
no shame in the world in changing things up. I mean, have you
ever like got to maybe you moved into a house that was built in I
don't know, nineteen sixty or something and the hold decor and everything just wasn't
right. And you know, you pull out paneling and you put up this,
or you put up you know, you do all the things. You
paint inside because you want it to look different. You can do that in
your beds and your landscapes and things. You know. You pull up trees,
of course, but you landscapes are a forever changing palette. And don't
be afraid to change some things out. If your landscape is twenty years old
or older, I guarantee you there are some better plants to fit some of
the spots currently in your landscape, because we're constantly coming up with new wonderful
plants to use to use for that. We're gonna take a little break right
now. That was my little soap box. I guess uh seven one three
two one two k t r H. Give me a call. We'll talk
when we come back back to garden line. Good to have you with us.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to help you
have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape. If you got any
questions you'd like to visit with me about, just dial seven to one three
dial See that, I just I just aged myself right there. Call just
call seven one three two one two kt r H. How many of you
out there listening know what a dial telephone is? Remember those I mean some
of you probably know, but you've never stuck your finger in one before.
Well that's yeah, it's still in my head. Sorry. I was at
an ACE Hardware store the other day looking at some of the products that they
had for things currently going on in the lawn and garden, and they there
was a supply of things that are effective against take all root rot, and
that is a big deal we're dealing with right now. There was kelated arm
products for your soil. They had fire ant baits and individual mound treatments both
there. They had mosquito dunks, the ones you hear me talk about on
Garden Line. They had the mosquito repellents. They had fogging machines for you
know, knocking them out of an area of the backyard. Just everything you
could think about. Maybe we were just yesterday out on our patio and we
got this little string of I call them beer garden lights, but it's a
little you know, black cord of lights with the little bulbs hanging down,
very dim bulbs, and it's just so nice and you can get out at
Ace Hardware too. It creates such a beautiful outdoor on beyond setting. Because
you know it's not safe to go outside until it's almost sundown or because it's
so hot these days here, but oh my gosh, in the evenings.
What a nice, enjoyable place to create. And ACE hardware will help you
do it. And if you need to fertilize your lawn, maybe you're an
organic gardener and you're looking for microlife. ACE hardware stores are going to carry
microlife as well. As you know microlife is. It's a widely available product
and it's a wide range of products. It's not just the green bag that
we put on our lawns for fertilizing. It's the humans plus the purple bag
that is concentrated compost in a bag. They have a Microlife acidifier six two
four. I've recommended that I recommended somebody for a lawn this weekend because one
of the things takeof Patch does not like is acid conditions, and so anything
we do to push this surface of the soil, the runner zone into more
acidic conditions is helpful for that. Of course, it's good for azelias,
camellias, blueberries, acid loving plants. There are many many microlife products that
are out there on the market. I like some of the liquids, the
super seaweed the ocean harvest. You know, organic gardeners for a long time
have had the words fish emotion and seaweed come out of their mouth. That
is the if you want a liquid feed product for your plants and your gardens,
whether you're raising seedlings or whatever, that is the version for organic gardening
is fish emotion and seaweed. Microlife also has one called Biomatrix that is excellent.
It's a seven to one to three liquid. I use it a lot
for my houseplants. It's not because it's just a houseplant fertilizer, but I
like to use it because you know, if you use a fish based product
indoors, you often can smell that, and so I for indoors, I
would use the Biomatrix for example, But it's excellent. You can use it
outdoors. I use it in transplanting. You get the idea. Microlife products.
Go to microlife for laser dot com. You can find out more about
microlife products where to get them near you, which is pretty much everywhere they
are. They are very widely available. Let's do this. Let's go back
out to the phones now again. The number seven one three two one two
k t R h we go all the way to Beaumont and talk to Gordon.
Hello, Gordon, Hello, sir. Uh, my question is about
Nema toads, especially on the okrah roots system that causes knots and uh then
the plant depleinishes from Then what is the best source that you have for the
destruction of these nema toads. Yeah, well, Gordon, I got I
got bad news for you and for me because I just pulled up a bunch
of plants in a bed that I had Okra in and uh, there is
nematods all over the roots. There is not a magic bullet for nematodes.
There are things we can do to suppress them, and I'll say, manage
them if you will, so the damage isn't so excessive. And there are
a couple of products out there that I've not seen the research on to know
that they work. But Monterey has one for Nema tod control, and then
I'm trying to think of the name of the other one. Anyway, they're
supposedly suppressive. They're based on saponins or soap like substances from yucca and other
things. I'm trying them this summer to see if they work. But I
don't know that they would. We're going to find out. What I do
for nematodes is number one. When I know I have them in area,
get the roots out as much as I can, and I do not plan
anything that gets nematodes back in that spot. There are a few plants that
are resistant to them, and that's what has to go in that spot.
If you allow the soil to dry out, like you roto tillot in the
summer and the sun bakes down on it, and then you rote a tillo
it again the sun bakes down. That's not great for the soil, but
it does cause a lot of the nematos to desiccate and die. There's also
the ability to put in a trap crop the little tiny French marigolds, not
the big pump pum types, but the small flower types. Yeah, i've
got drop crop. I've got them, yep. Yeah, But you got
to plant them wall to wall, not like a marigold beside your chucker plant,
tomato plant. Yeah, just a solid path. You want every cubic
centimeter of soil to have a marigold root in it. That's the way you
need to think about that. Then in the cool season, switched to cereal
rye grass, the rye, the grain type of rye, not the lawn
overseeding rye, the grain type of rye. And that is a trap crop
in the cool season. And then so the crop rotation, if you can
give it at least three years before you come back to that spot with a
susceptible species of plant like okra. Yeah, that's what I went. I
went years without planning anything there. And yeah, a thing like their producing
I you know, thirty plants. So they produced me about four hundred pounds
of okra per year, and I was just was looking for something to get
rid of the nematode. Okay, that's a lot of okra after my own
heart. Uh yep. Well, yeah, so that the crop rotation,
the trap crops, you could try some. They just know there are products
there that are you can give them a try. I am not recommending them
because I don't know yet for them. No, thank you very much.
I appreciate your time. All right, thank you for the call, Gordon.
I appreciate that. Those nematodes, I tell you we we've got them.
I've got them. I posted something to our Guardline Facebook page a while
back. I dug up some boxwood that were in a spot I did not
want them. Remember I talked about redoing gardens. Is okay, Well,
I redid a bit that someone else had planted. But anyway, when I
pulled them up, Nema toad's all over the roots. There's a lot of
plants to get fig trees. Oh my gosh, Nemo toad'sil walk a mile
to get to a fig tree. They love those things. So you got
to just watch the plants that you put in, and once you got them,
it's a matter of managing, not eradicating. The one thing that I
did not mention and I should have to Gordon if you're still listening, Gordon
is solarizing in the summer season, Putting clear plastic over the soil and solarizing
it for about four to six weeks will also reduce the nematode numbers. Not
eradicate, not control nematod six inches deep, but in the top three or
four inches. You ought to be able to get pretty good control with solarizing
too. Let's see, I'm gonna go now to who's next up here garden
oaks, and we're gonna talk to Pat Hello, Pat Inning I've got a
question on my asparagus. They've been in for about four years, and each
year I seem to get more of them, but then they start putting up
a little small, not the asparagus sized plant, and then they bush out.
Do I cut those things down or do I just leave them alone?
And yeah, so asparagus, we're a little far south for the best results
with asparagus. I'm not saying you can't grow asparagus here. You absolutely can
grow it here, but a further north it grows those fronds all summer captures
lots of sunlight, puts a lot of carbohydrates down in the root system,
and then it goes dormant because it gets so cold there. And then in
the spring when the new growth begins, you have these nice thick spears coming
up, and they lost a while before they start to dwindle in size.
Here we don't have the weather to kill it back to the ground and to
have that garmant period, and so it's like it's still burning carbohydrates and stuff
on into the winter time, and so we have a shorter harvest and sometimes
not as many nice, good sized spears. But that's just part of living
in this area, you can grow it, but it's a more limited production.
Okay, well, I didn't know if there was something I could.
Should I just let those continue to grow. Yeah, as much as you
can let them grow. You got to be able to keep the weeds out,
So keep it really well malted and stuff, because asparagus can become really
weedy. And yeah, that's it. If there are some varieties that are
better than others, but other than picking the best varieties you can get,
and that's that would be my advice. Okay, thank you so much.
Yeah, Pat appreciate that. Thanks to the call. Well, here we
are, it's time for taking a little break, Lisa and Seabrook. You're
gonna be our first up when we come right back from break. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. Give us a call. Chris
will get you on the board and we will talk to you when we come
back. You have you with us. You've got plenty of things we can
talk about right now. Hey, you the the one thing I want to
mention is if you are looking at your landscape and you see the sea of
green, I refer to it as a sea of green because it's green grass,
green ground cover, green shrubs, green trees, green green, green
green. That's fine. I like green. Green's a pretty color. It's
not the only color. And just because it's summer doesn't mean that we have
to give up on color in our landscapes. If you give the folks at
Pierscapes a call, for example, they can set you up for quarterly bed
maintenance and that means they come out. They do things like trimming and weeding
and fertilizing and irrigation inspection, make sure your irrigation system is working right.
And they just because they once worked right doesn't mean they still are. The
aeration seasonal color changes. You switch out those flowers that aren't thriving in the
heat and put some things that will thrive in the heat, mulching in the
beds. This is all part of what Peerscapes does, but it's not at
all all of what Pierscapes does. They do irrigation, drainage. They do
drainage systems so that when we have areas that are too wet, maybe a
natural stone river bed to just let it naturally drain out of an area.
Plus it's kind of esthetically attractive. I think, how about a subsurface drainage
system. They can do that. Do you need borders around beds or do
you want to go all out? Just have them redesign a landscape. You
will not believe the work they do. You got to go to pierce Scapes
dot com Piercescapes dot com and check out. Just just flip through there,
look at the pictures. See the kind of work they can do. Give
them a call seven or excuse me two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty
two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero, and let Piercecapes make
your place a showplace that is colorful in addition to green all through the hot
blazing summer season. You know, we got a long time until we start
planting cool weather things, So now's the time to make sure these things are
it's established effectively and taken care of and just I don't know, makes your
place a lot more beautiful. Let's go out to Sebrook. Here we're going
to talk to Lisa. Hey, Lisa, welcome to Gardline, Good morning,
Thank you. We have been using compost top dressing instead of mulch.
It was recommended because we had our home tweet for termites, but it seems
that the weeds they just go right through the compost. So I'm just saying,
do you have any recommendations or do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, you can use composts as a mult Usually we don't pile compost that
thick, you know, an inch of compost. There's a lot of composts
to be adding, and so what you would have to do is get a
little rake and kind of stir it up. When you see little seedlings just
starting to go, just kind of stir it up a little bit, and
that sort of takes care of them pretty well. Otherwise you're going to need
to go with maybe a maultch that the termites aren't as interested in, like
a cedar mulch for example. I'm not a termite expert. I'm not a
pest control operator either, but I would not worry as much about the multch
as I would be about covering up the wheepholes. If you have a brick
siding in your house, those little holes where things can go in, making
sure you can see access to those. So if termites tried to build a
mud nest or a mud trail, up there. You could absolutely know it
and move quickly. There's a lot of wood in nature the termites are eating,
and so every time a limb falls in the forest, that's a potential
place for a termite to get its next meal. And so I don't know.
I would still malt myself. But if you want to switch to one
that's less inviting, like cedar, than you could do that. Thank you,
you bet. I hope that helps. Thanks Lisa, thanks for the
call. All righty, well, yeah, I need to one of these
days. They need to get like a termite PCO or something like on the
show. We can kind of pick the brain and learn a few more things
about it. I think I'll make a note try to do that. I
like that idea. So out in the garden and out in the landscape right
now, the temperatures, of course are hot and there's a lot of stress
on things. Just remember that proper watering is so very important. You need
a moist soil so that you can have good root development and root health down
underground. You also need to make sure that the soil is not too soggy
wet, because when you are under high heat stress conditions to have the roots
excluded or oxygen excluded from the root system. Is it's just a recipe for
quick death and so overwatering in the hot, blazing summer season and continuing to
keep that soil too soggy is not a good thing. Let it dry a
little bit and think of it a good soaking. Good soaking followed by drying
up very important to do for all of our plants. Remember this too.
When you plant a container, maybe it's a shrub or tree, and you
put that in the ground, I want you to play a little mental game
for me here. Imagine that you put the whole thing in the ground in
the pot. That black, round pot goes straight down in the ground,
and then you bring up soil around it, mulch over the top, and
water it in. The reason I like that image is because for a long
time, that's where all the roots are going to be. If you knew
there was a pot in the ground, would you water two feet away from
that plant now there's no roots out there, You'd water where the pot is
because that's where all the roots are. So just because you take it out
of the pot and put it in the ground doesn't change the fact that all
the roots are still in the cylinder, and they're gradually going to move out
into the soil around and with each month, with each week, with each
month, with each year, that plant becomes better and better rooted in with
the resilient root system that you don't need to pamper along because it's resilient.
So if you just do that, I'm going to picture this as my roots
are all right there, and water that area where the pot is, or
was the area just beyond that a little bit. If you focus your water
on there, you can help that plant not only sustain and stay healthy,
but even grow faster and do well. And so when you water, just
in your mind with new plants, just picture that that plant is still under
sitting in a pot, but the pot's underground. And if you water like
that, that of course is a little bit of an overstatement, but if
you water like that, it will help you avoid losing that plant. Because
listen, in moist soil, that tiny cylinder root ball will pump dry in
a day, depending on how big the plant is and how big the root
ball is, and you've got to be able, you've got to be able
to have some resilience there. So take care of the roots that are there.
As it develops roots beyond there, it's time for me to take a
little bit of break here. We are going to head to that. I
want to leave you with the phone number if you want to give Chris a
call, get on the board seven to one three two one two KTRH.
Seven to one three two one two kt r H and welcome to garden Line.
Welcome back to guard Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and
we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape.
So how can we do that? Well, it starts with a phone
call seven to one three two one two k t r H. And we'll
be happy to jump in there and help in any way we can. Folks
at plants for all seasons. Stop about the Flowery Family. They've been around
since so nineteen seventy three, and it's the Garden Center on Tomball Parkway.
That's Highway two forty nine. As you're heading from Houston toward Tombol direction,
you exit Luetta and it's right on the other side of Luetta, just about
a block or so, not even a block up the street. There on
the right, you're going to find every kind of plant you can imagine there
they're going to have right now. Some of the baskets that they have are
just stunning, just really beautiful. But remember, just because it's hot outside
doesn't mean we can't be playing things. Go ahead and get them established.
If you got them here in the middle of a landscape renovation project and summers,
find time to go ahead and make some big changes that you need to
make. Well, go ahead and do that. Just pick some plants that
are going to survive the heat and do well. Remember, we got months
of summer ahead of us here, and there's no reason for us, not
for you not to have color in your landscape. Plants for all seasons can
help with that. When you have issues and problems, you can take samples
into them. They know what they're talking about and they've got a selection of
products for pretty much anything that you're going to encounter in your Houston area garden.
Now. For example, they also have fertilizers. They got sweet Greens.
Sweet Greens that product from nitroposs It is an organic type product, eleven
percent nitrogen made from a molasses base. That's where sweet comes in from the
name sweet green. Any organic gardener knows when you put molasses on the soil
emulates beneficial microbes, some of the bacteria the good guy at bacteria that help
plant roots to thrive. Sweet grain will dissolve away release into the soil for
a summer application. Here's how I suggest you do it. Get the sweet
grain, look at the labels how much you apply. I would cut that
in half and apply it now, and then about six to eight weeks from
now, do it again. Make another application of the other half of it,
and that's going to gradually provide those nutrients over a longer period of time
here in the summer. Swee Green's a wonderful product, smells wonderful, and
it's from nitroposs So it's going to be widely available places like plants for all
seasons. We're going to have it. We're going to head out now to
Magnolia, Texas and talk to Ronnie. Hello, Ronnie, how are you.
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. What's up? I guess I
need to turn it radio all. Hey, Google, turn off? That's
the pictures. Yeah, and you'd called me back or sent me a message
that there's cabbage worms and give you a shout. We could discuss them.
Okay, I'm having trouble hearing Ronnie and run he are you at a distance
from your phone or is this something on our end? Yeh? Better?
A little bit better? Yeah, okay. So the question was cabbage worms.
Yeah, I remember your picture of that. Uh, the cross striped
cabbage worm is what that is. And it's got the little horizontal black and
white stripes across its back. Those are really common for all the cucurbits or
cruciferous or cabbage family plants. So that would be broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower
and cole robbie and oh collars and kale. You know they like those kind
of plants. And the best pardon absolutely yeah. So the best way that
I'd recommend managing as with a spray containing bt B as in boy teas in
tom. It's a natural caterpillar killer. Now, it's only gonna last about
a day or so out there in the environment before it breaks down. So
if you were to spray it today, I would check back mid week and
look and see or did you miss any Are they still alive? And it's
not gonna kill them instantly? They eat it and they get very very sick.
And die, but don't be afraid to spray it again, and you
know, anywhere from maybe three or four days later or a week later,
and then you can do it a third time even if you need to.
But you can get ahead of them that way. But the sooner you get
it on them, the better, because young caterpillars are much easier to kill
than older caterpillars. Got you got another question for you for a run off?
My corn plants, man, they didn't grow and last for two years
straight, about maybe three four foot in the kernels about one inch of cross
and four inches long or not kernels, but the cobs any ideas on that?
So how long would you plant them? Right? Well, I planted
them the early part of this spring, and then last year it happened the
same way. Some boy small cobs. That's a that's kind of unusual.
What happens with corn is well, First of all, the varieties differ a
lot. There are types of corn that when they're three feet higher putting ears
on, which is not normal, and then there are types that gets seven
feet high the field corn and whatnot. So the size of the ears is
going to also be part of that genetic difference but when there's narrow and spinley
as what you're describing, that's unusual. The pollination that occurs as the pollen
falls on the silks of the ear sticking out of the end of the ear,
that helps all those little corn kernels develop on the cob. So the
kernels were fine. Pardon, the kernels were developed. They just wouldn't.
The ear wasn't very big at all. Yeah, that's very I don't know.
On the ear, some of the secondary ears down the stalk will often
not develop as far along as the primary ones we get up top. But
I would I would try. Do you remember do you remember what variety you
put motok or mon tap and a and a honey bun and then a hybrid.
Yeah, go ahead, that those that's the only three names I remember.
I went and ordered support and I've just reached this. I don't know
those I don't know those varieties. I don't know. My suggestion and based
on the fact that there's not some common thing that I'm aware of that would
cause the ears themselves just to be spend late but still have good kernels on
them. Uh So my suggestion would be to switch varieties. There is one
called gen ninety that does very well. If you can find that one,
get g ninety. There's one called Honey and Pearl that does well. So
you are up in the Magnolia area, I would you can do. You
can go buy garden centers and find packs of seed on these. If you're
going to need a larger quantity, if you're planting a pretty big patch,
probably mail order is going to be what you're into up having to do for
that quantity up in your area. Well, okay, my friend appreciate it.
Well, good luck with those. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna look
into that because that's a that's a new one. Well, you know,
and I'm out soul and now this is arbigate soul. It's a rose and
uh mulch and uh uh huh. So you know, I ever finding else
is just fluent. I mean, I've got tomatoes and beans and peas,
it all just flourishing. But this series got me stymy. Yeah, it
is unusual. I just want to blame it on the variety. But yeah,
arbigate soil is excellent soil, and obviously everything else is doing well in
it, so it's definitely not a soil caused problem in this case. Okay,
sound like you need to go on break. Yeah, they're playing the
magic sounds out there, so I gotta do that. All right, take
care. Well, here we are top of the hour. We will be
right back. I'm gonna do a little research on that one they for the
top of the hour and see if I can come up with some solutions.
That's a that's an You know, it's funny be in this thirty five years
I still run into situations, but hadn't come across that one. You have
to hunte that down. Thanks for listening. By the way to garden,
we're gonna take our low break from the news. Seven one three two one
two k t r H is the number if you like to call and get
on the board. In Charlie from Western USI are first time. Well,
probably not the problem. I mean, if it is compacted. I think
that's what you mean by when you're saying the DNS. It's going to limit
root development, and so aeration would be helpful, helpful. The problem with
aeration is you have so many tree roots in that area that you're almost gonna
have to do it by hand. You can't run a machine through there with
all those tree roots. Up at the surface. You could use a spading
fork and kind of wiggle it straight down in the ground and kind of pull
back on it a little bit and then pull it straight back up again.
You know, you're kind of creating holes that way. It's not the best
way to do it, but it is a way to do it. I
think probably what you're looking at though, when I when I see your scamp
your photos is it could be a combination of things. Number one, a
lot of shade and Saint Augustine just can't get the energy that it needs to
make good density when there's a lot of shade. Uh. That's a factor.
That's why you're seeing some weeds coming into it. The compaction of the
soil certainly is not helping, so aerrating would be helpful there. You may
also have take all root rot going on. That's really common disease in our
area. And I as looking at the the photos, I can't diagnose the
disease from from just the photo, but the way the grass looks the effects
of it remind me of what take all root rot would do. And so
that would be one where you would actually use a fungicide containing something called a
secesstrobo to be able to do that. But let me you don't have to
worry about writing that down. Go to my website gardening with Skip dot com,
Gardening with Skip dot com and on. There is the lawn pest,
disease and weed management schedule and the disease row Across the page you'll see when
to apply things. For take all root lot, I would go ahead,
even though this isn't the best season. I would go ahead and do it
now, but definitely come back and do it when we get it to October
again. Those are the things that are in your power in the meantime.
Because the plant is lacking a good root system, you're going to have to
water in more frequently in smaller doses. It's the opposite of what I've been
talking about today, where we try to develop this resilient plant by not watering
often, but watering well. When we do. This little shallow root system
is not going to go far between watering. So be ready to water a
little more often until you get your grasp back to good health account. Okay,
and the I guess as you say, it's a fung de side to
take care of the take all right, do I put that order or is
that on your website. It's schedule, my schedule on the week. It
tells you exactly when the plant. But I'm saying you won't see it it
listed for July. But go ahead and do it now in your lawn in
this situation, and then just get back on the proper schedule for it.
If you take, if you take compressed peat moss, spagming pete moss,
it comes and compressed they call them bales. It's a plastic wrapped but it's
been squeezed down so tight that it's shaped like a giant brick, I mean,
a very giant brick three point and break it up, loosen it up,
and put little piles of it everywhere and spread it out as thin as
you can, and then water it in. That will also help. We're
doing a number of things in this recommendation trying to help move the plant toward
health and away from the disease having the advantage. Okay, I'm saying,
what is the name that pete moss against staying him bagging and pete moss compressed
bals. You're out there west, you you know what I would just run
out to. I would give them a call itself US fertilizer best and that
yes, too far from you. And they they're going to have. If
they don't have it, they can get it. I bet they already have
it on hand, but just talked about or someone out there. A three
point eight cubic foot bag covers about a thousand square feet at the very shallow
depth. Ok okay, all right, good luck with it, and in
the meantime, try to keep the foot traffic off as much as you can.
Okay, A right doesn't get a luck, Thank you very much,
skipping. Yes, you take care well, I tell you, take all
the right. We need a miracle cure to come along for that. It
is. It is a difficult disease to deal with. And I've seen it
this summer, uh, just in many places and in many situations. And
the thing we need to remember, I'll use take all as an example,
but this is true of plant disease and to some degree human disease too in
general, and that is that when the patient gets stressed, diseases are more
likely to have the ability to go in and to cause illness and in some
cases of your low death. And so with our bodies, what do we
do we exercise, we eat right, we get plenty of sleep. All
those things right, that helps you be more healthy, so you're more resilient.
When it comes to a turf plant, when you stress it with compacted
soil, with shade, with damage from some sorts of weed killers, you're
gonna find take all root rot shows up. All right, We're gonna take
a little quick break here. I'll be right back in just a moment.
Maryl is in the Gulf of Mexico approach the Texas coast. Ue. Welcome
to have you with us today. We've got a lot of things to talk
about. I wanted to mention sometimes I get there's a common question I get
sometimes people wonder, why aren't my flowers blooming. I've had flowers, but
they're not doing well. Why aren't they blooming? And one of the reasons
is a lack of nutrient. One of the reasons could be stresses from lack
of water or whatnot. So another reason could be the flower doesn't like that
time of year. In other words, if you have a petunia outlet,
let's go all the way. If you have a pansy and you have it
out in July in Texas, it's not gonna be blooming. In fact,
it's gonna be dying in the heat that we have. But within our power
is making sure they are adequately watered and that they're fertilized well. I like
the products that Nelson Plant Food is put together that are in the Nutristar line.
For example, there's a nutri Star for hibiscus and really any flowering tropicals.
You know, there's lots of different kinds of plants icera and others that
just do really well with the hibiscus and flowering tropical version of nutristar. There
is an indoor plant Nutristar specifically designed for indoor plants. And whether you have
a Chinese evergreen agli anema, whether you have a Kalitha Diffenbakia drasina, all
those common houseplants, fiddly fig and on and on and on if it's a
houseplant. In other words, this is a quality plant food to help produce
healthy growth for it to succeed and do really really well. And then there's
a color Star line for our flower beds outdoors. Color Star itself is just
an outstanding fertilizer. All from Nelson Plant Food, All from Nelson Plant Food
and then remember too with your lawns. Turf Star slow and easy, that's
the season we're in. Carries you all the way to fall with a gradual
release and even a little bit of an acidifying effect, which is very,
very helpful for the things our lawns are struggling against. Right now, we're
going to go now out to Brazoria County and talk to Bob. But Bob
there all right, Bob, I think I have you. How can we
help the day? Are you the yes? Ree u? Two things?
Want to comment about your statement about the wheepholes, plugging them for because the
termite possibility, right. You don't want to plug them with anything that's not
poorous. You want to put something in there like fiberglass or a stainless stil
wool. Because those wheapholes are there to breathe. Oh yes they are.
Listen. If I said plugging them, I misspoke. No, you you
want to leave them open. What I was trying to say was don't pull
the mulch up over them, because then termites get in and you don't even
know it. I have a little exposed foundation below the wheephole. If I
use the word plug, if I said that, I'm glad you brought it
up, because I do not know do not plug the wheepholes? That was
question I have giving off that topic. Have a lot of volunteer oak trees.
They're like three inches tall and they're in clusters around the yard, and
I haven't been mowing over them. What is the best way and the best
time to try to plant transplant them? Should I do it now or wait
till they get a foot tall? Or you know what? Should we do?
What I what I would do is starting. You could start now,
definitely want to do this as we get into September October. But take a
shovel and go down straight into the ground. Let's say, what would you
say as a trunk diameter on these trees right now? Are we talking about
your thumb or we talking a pencil or what? What was that again?
You said, Diam, Yeah, the trunk diameter on the trees. Is
it more like a pencil or your thumb? Or how big? Is it
small? Half the size of a pencil? That they're just starters right now?
Oh? Tiny? Okay, Well, I'm going to take back the
shovel thing just so you know what I was saying. For in case you
have bigger plants to transplant. I will often cut the roots. Oh you
know, maybe, depending on the size of the plant, could be eight
inches away or foot away from the trunk in several places, not all the
way around, because that causes them to branch. So when you do dig
it, you have a more active root system right around the base of the
plant. But I would wait until November and would I would pull them,
dig them up and move them in November. Put them at the same level
they were growing before, water them and really well, put them in the
soil they're gonna grow in. Don't put potting soil in the hole or anything
like that. Just whatever they're going to have to live in, that's the
soil you put back in the hole. Very good. I appreciate it.
All right, sir, you take care, Thanks for the call. Thank
you, Yeah, alrighty, yeah, you're listening to guard Line. I'm
your host, Skip Ricker and our phone number seven one three one two fifty
eight seventy four seven to one three two one two five eight seven four.
As easy as that. I have talked about in the past, enchanted for
us that in Richmond a number of times, and I always mentioned several things
about it number one in the springtime. They got all kinds of programs all
the time. I ever seemed like every weekend there's something going on out there.
If you're looking for a quality, uh selection of things that attract butterflies
or birds or humming birds for example, things that attract pollinators, and Chanted
Forest has got you covered. In fact, I was joking with any a
good while back. It's it's funny. They they have these larval food source
plants like milkweed for monarch caterpillars, or passion vine for gulf fritillary, or
pipeline swallowtail like caterpillars like pipeline plants. And if you buy a plant,
they'll give you a caterpillar to say home. So you got your own little
kind of like a sour dough starter. You go home with it. You
got your own starter there to get you going in the butterfly business. Well,
they have a lot of other things. Do you're not enchanted forest?
They have got an excellent selection of every kind of plant that you would need.
I don't care if it's a vegetables, brand new vegetable thing they built
this year a vegetable structure herbs outstanding selection of herbs, really very impressive,
tree, shrubs, roses, no matter what it is, they've got it.
There. A nice little gift shop also very very nice. Now they're
on FM twenty seven to fifty nine, So if you're in Richmond heading toward
Houston up fifty nine, it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine
in Richmond again. Enchanted Forest, Enchanted Forest. The the nice thing that
I am One of the nice things that I enjoy about Enchanted Forest is being
able to visit with the folks that are there, that are there to help
you to have success. Very friendly, just very helpful in every possible way
that you can imagine, and that is important. You can go shop a
lot of places that plants are not what they're all about, but they got
some plants, and you are not going to find knowledgeable people like you'll find
at Enchanted Forest. Enchanted Forest. Excuse me, let me let me give
me one second. Here, just's track of something I'm looking for. All
right, there we go, Yeah, ententted Forest. The website. If
you like to look at the website, I suggest you do because you're gonna
find a really good selection of all the things they have there and you kind
of get some photos and a picture. When I talk about it being such
a cool place to go visit, you kind of get a glimpse of that.
If you go to the website and that is enchanted Forest Richmond, TX
dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Go buy there,
check it out and you'll see what I'm talking about. Our phone number if
you would like to us a call with some sort of a question you might
have about a plant or having success with a plant on garden line seven one
three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k
t r H. Ciena Mulch is our go to place here on garden line
for any kind of soil based products down in Siena, Texas. So if
you go down to Sienna, it's north of Road Sharon. It's on FM
five twenty one. That's the easiest way FM five twenty one, near where
Highway six and two eighty eight come together. Cienamultch is open Monday through Friday
from seven thirty in the morning till five Saturday seven thirty two. Closed on
Sunday. They'll be back open again first thing in the morning. And I
think when you go there, you will agree with me that it is one
of the well stocked, neatest places that you're going to ever see. They're
going to have things like, for example, they carry heirloom soils, Veggian
nermex They have Vegi nerm mix there. They have high quality mulches, high
quality bed mixes. What do you want to grow, They've got a bed
mix to put it in. Do you want to do some stone? Maybe
you want to create a dry creek bed for drainage away from the property.
Maybe you want to get some flagstones to create a little patio area. They've
got that every kind of stone. You can imagine things we never even dreamed
existed. And when you say I need some patio flagstone, they're going to
say which one because they got about seven of them different kinds of flagstone.
Maybe more than that. I just know there's a lot when I go visit.
Everything you need to make your plants thrive. Remember on garden Line I
talk about brown stuff before green stuff, right, brown stuff the soil.
They've got all the soil blends you need. Plus they have every fertilizer I
talk about on garden Line. So everything you need to set the stage,
the foundation, the soil. The success of plants is there at Ciena Mulch.
Check them out, go buy there cienamultch dot com website. I'll help
you find them, phone numbers and everything else you need. Ceenimulch dot com
super quality products and super friendly people too. By the way, we're going
to now go out to Sugar Line, Texas and talk to Bill. Hello,
Bill, good morning. I called you before about my sago palms with
with yellow spots on the leaves, and the apps and salts has solved the
problem looks great. Now I have clouds of white flies in my viburnum,
which is about eight feet tall and real bushy, and I'm calling to see
what should I spray with to kill the white fly. Well, there are
a number of insecticides that will kill white flies. If you wanted to go
with a little more organic type approach, using a horticultural oil, spray upward
from underneath the plant so as to coat the bottom sides of the leaves.
I will kill any larva and pupa larva or pupa that are on the leaf
and not killed the adults flying around. So you can do that and stay
with that you can also use a number of insecticides. Products like acifate,
which is our theene, for example, will kill white flies. A lot
of things will kill white flies. The problem is that when you do,
you kill their enemies, and you end up with a rebound of white flies.
I'm gonna have to take a break here for the news. Bill,
will you hang on and I want to finish this discussion because there's a few
more things that'd like to share with you about. There'll be fine, yeah,
And when we come back, we'll be back with Bill and Flint out
in Santa Fe. You'll be right afterwards, Baard line with us. We're
gonna jump right back into the phones here. I believe we were in the
middle of a conversation with Bill and sugar Land about white flies. So Bill,
the thing I just want to point out is that I've watched a lot
of people try to spray and control white flies, and then it's like you
get on a treadmill. When you kill all the things that eat the white
flies, now they're all your job to manage, and so you end up
spraying more to keep controlling them. I'm not saying don't spray. I'm just
saying to be aware that when when you take out the natural enemies, that
is a problem. Oftentimes white flies may have a flare up, but then
there's things will settle down as their natural enemies kind of bring things a little
more into balance. So that is also a possibility. You may you know,
maybe you wait and wait and you're not seeing that happen. But if
it were mine, I would do everything I could to avoid spray in and
if I had to, then any good insecticide of synthetic periphthoids for example,
are going to be effective against the white flies. Okay, you mentioned spraying
with the oil underneath the leaves, how how is that done? And what
kind of oil? Horticultural oil, not Dorman oil. So you get you
get a horticultural oil, and you're going to be able to find you know,
you're done in sugar Land, whether you go down to one of the
enchanted nurseries down southwest from you, you've got some really good ace hardware source
and the Sugarland you're right next to Southwest fertilizer business Renwick. I would turn
over there and just say I need a horticultural law and they'll understand. They
know that they've ever sween their oils and stuff. Here's the way that works,
though, is the white flies lay eggs that hatch out into larvae that
then become pupa, and the people look like little tiny fish scales under the
leaf. So if you looked and you see these little flecks that are the
size of a lowercase typed o, that's a white fly pupa in a plant
that's invested with wildflies. That's what the pupa look like. And the oil
coats them and smothers them just like it would do scale. Now you want
to it early in the morning. You don't want to put oil out when
it's sun blazing down ninety five degrees and whatnot. You burn plants like that.
But and also coverage is critical because well it's not a poison. So
to the degree you coat every underleaf surface is the degree you're going to shut
down that those two stages of the whitefly. Yeah, it seems like it
would be difficult to spray on the underside of the leaves because if this is
a real bushy plant and I can hardly get to the imperior, well in
that case, then it's just not going to be practical. Tell me remind
me, did what type of plant did you say it was? I burn
them, burn them. You know, another option it would be to put
a systemic in there, like something that can contains a meddo cloprid or dinotepheron,
And I'll spell those out if you want me to. You, Yeah,
I am, I am, I d O c l O p are
id. So I'm gonna it's spelled like it sounds, and I'll sound it
out. In mid dough clow prid, in mid dough glow prid, and
drench it on the soil. It's taken up by the roots and it goes
through the plumbing and things that suck the juice is out of the plant,
like white flies and soft scales, for example. They're at that poison and
it kills them. It makes the plant of bait station in a sense.
Okay, So you just want to remove any blooms that might form. There's
several different types of I burn them. Some of them we see the balloons
on them, and you don't want bees and butterflies coming until next summer,
because yeah, I've never seen any many blooms. I've never seen any blooms.
So then I'm gonna take back some of the other things I said,
and just suggest that I think that would be your best approach to these Okay,
okay, And how about well, if it's a systemic we're going to
have these big rains coming, should I wait until Wednesday or so? You
know, I would. Uh. You're just wanting to wet the surface of
the soil, not the surface, but a few inches down so the roots
pick up the product and you don't have to spoil far and wide. You
follow the label. The label will tell you exactly how to do it.
There are is another product. If you end up going into Southwest Fertilizer,
Bob or just tell them, tell them what we talked about, and that
there is another product, the one that's dino teferon. Just think of dinosaur.
That's how it starts off. Uh, And it also works for this.
But they may, they may, they probably have both of them.
Okay, excellent, Okay, all right, sir. I really appreciate your
health. Thank you very much. You bet, you bet, Bill,
thank you. I appreciate your call very much. Let's see here. Why
don't we run out now to Santa Fe, Texas and talk to flint Hey
Flint Hey, Hey, My question for you is, I've got a garden.
It's about forty by fifty is in size, and we've been planting there
for many, many years, and it's got to be a bowl. Well,
I elected to bring in some sand to raise the level up, and
now I'm having real trouble getting anything to grow there. What would you recommend
as to add to it to maybe help the nutrients for the garden, or
what should I do? So about how many inches of sand do you think
you brought in? Ooh? I would say at least six to eight inches?
Oh wow, okay, a lot. And it truly was sand,
not sandy loam or top soil. Least I bought half and half. It
was half and half. It had quite a bit of clay in it.
Okay. The first thing I'd do is the plants that aren't doing good,
I would go pull one up here and there and look at the root system,
get a shovel underneath it, kind of shake it so you don't break
all the roots off when you pull it up, and look for nematod symptoms
on those roots. Nematods love sandy conditions and they that since it was doing
okay, and then you did this and now things aren't growing. I would
check that first, just to make sure, because if you have that,
you need to deal with those. But assuming that's not the problem, I
would get a high quality compost material. It could be a bed mix like
a veggie and herb mix, or it could just be a finely screened quality
compost and you can just run. Basically, all you have to do is
run across the street to see in a mold, so they're not far from
you and they have it. They'll deliver within twenty miles. If you want
a bulk a delivery of it, or you can go get it with a
trailer, or you can pick up bags of stuff. But I would get
a quality compost, put it about. I'd put it two inches deep,
maybe a little deeper and mix it in as deeply as you can to try
to add a lot of organic materials into that well. I think that will
be enough to help things do better. There are a lot of reasons plants
would might not be growing, from droughty conditions to poor drainage, which I
don't think you have that uh, to certain kinds of root diseases, the
particular species of plant, and the season that it's in like, for example,
broccoli in this heat is not going to be very happy. So there's
a lot of reasons plants wouldn't do well, but for a whole bunch of
different species to not be doing well, it come sounds like, you know,
you planted this whole garden and a lot of it is just not doing
good. That's probably okay. Yeah, it's everything comes up like I'll get
everything coming up and everything looks like it takes off really good, and it
just like it fizzles out. They just like run out of gas. And
there we were just concerned. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna says around
the guess, let's dig one up. Let's look at the roots. If
you see it and you're not sure what you're seeing, get your camera,
takes pictures of it, and call back in here to guarden line and you
can send me pictures of the plants, the samples showing look at this sick
plant, what's what's going on. Here's a picture of the roots or whatever.
And I'll be happy to take a look and maybe i'll see something that's
not occurring to me as we're talking about it. Okay, And what was
the name of the place, you said for the for the soil Sienna Mulch
Bienna mulch okay, and where they at of well there they're in Siena,
Texas, heying. I'm gonna give your dress. I don't have the actual
location. They are A ninety six fifteen FM five twenty one, so they're
they're nearbur Highway six and two eighty eight come together north of Rose, Sharon.
If you go to here's the website cienamultch dot com. Go there and
there you can learn all about everything you need to know from where they are,
that the phone number and everything else. All Right, I'm all right,
sounds good. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, appreciate the call.
Flin all right, we're going to take a quick commercial break seven one
three two one two kt RH. I'll be right back. Yes today,
you know, the hurricane's coming looks like it's kind of bending over, making
a little bit of a b line for our direction. So the good news
in that as you get some rain, we hope we do. The bad
news is we don't need the wind. That is for sure. If you
are wanting to do any kind of a treatment to your lawn. The thing
about rainfall is you don't know how much is going to occur. So if
you're going to put down a fertilizer that's not a slow release, then it
could easily dissolve and wash away if we get excessive amounts of rain. If
it's just an inch, well then that's perfect, but you know who can
predict exactly how much you're going to get. If it's a slow release,
it tends to stay in place unless you just literally get so much water sheeting
across the lawn that it picks up the particles and carries them away. That's
the nice thing I like about slow releases. It gradually releases, that it
doesn't just dissolve away in water. The other thing to keep in mind about
all of that is if you put on a pesticide, the same kinds of
things can happen. And so I would recommend letting this rainfall get by,
just so we know where we are, because otherwise, you know, I
get the calls that like, hey, I put it on such and such
and I got three inches of rain or three and a half inches of rain,
and do I need to reapply it? And that's always a tough call
because whether it's a weed killer or insect side or fungicide. Usually you would
have to reapply it, but not always, and so it's I would rather
just wait once we get past this hurricane. Let's put that down now.
And that'll include things like Nitrofoss bug Out Max. That is Nitroposs's product for
insect control in the lawn. It's a granule. You put it out and
then you want a little water on it to hit those granules and wash that
insecticide off the granule and into the surface area of the soil that that and
the runners in that zone right there. It's very effective. It works on
a lot of things. If you've got ants and fleas, do you know
fleas have a larval stage that lives in your lawn. So when that larva
becomes a pupa and then an adult, the adult jumps on your dog when
it's heading back inside, and there we go. Well, nitro Foss bug
Out Max will help control that. It also works well on chinchbugs too,
by the way, which we're getting into chinchbug season, we're just waiting to
see when we're actually going to have the outbreak. If we do have an
outbreak this year, which many years we do, and You can get all
these products from nitrofaus at ACE Hardware stores. For example. You know,
there's what forty Ace Hardware stores in the Greater Houston area, so it's not
hard to find them. Nitropous bug out Max is widely available at ACE Hardware.
And while you're at Ace Hardware, you're going to find all the other
things that you need. You know, when you've got to. When you
got forty stores in an area and it's easy to get to, it's just
a no brainer sense that whatever you need to for inside the house but also
outside you know, your patios, your lawns, your gardens, fertilizers,
pesticides, herbicides, do you need to quote control fire ants? Do you
need to manage other pests in the garden? Ace Hardner's got it. They've
got the equipment you need. A sprayer, for example. They can get
you fixed up with that and they know how to do it, and they're
so easy to find that it just makes it a no brainer. They also
have mosquito products, like a repellent or like maybe a fogging machine. And
they also have and this is one that I think everybody, just if you
live in the Greater Houston area. Let's just say all the south east Texas
you need to have on hand some mosquito dunks. Mosquita dunks you may have
heard. I had Bill from Summit Solutions on the other day on the show
Some Responsible Solutions. It's a little doughnut about side of one of those little
white dusted powder sugar little debbies kind of deals, you know, about that
size. You throw it on to a body of water, It floats,
It lasts about a month, and it covers about one hundred square feet of
water, releasing a disease that only affects the mosquitoes in your pond. It
also works, by the way, on fungus gnats, and so you can
buy it also by granule, buy little bits of mosquito bits, and you
just toss a few of those around the surface of a plant where you're having
problems with fungus gnats and watered in and then now the disease is in the
surface of the soil, and fungus gnats eat that moldy stuff at the surface
of the soil that's kept too wet, and it'll get them. It works
well. Mosquito dunks are widely available too. You're gonna find them at all
the ace hardware stores. As I said, you can find them also at
independent nurseries and feed stores. Not hard to find. Go ahead and grab
some. Have them on hand. If you don't have the granule and you
need some little pieces, just take a dunk and a hammer and break it
up into little pieces and use it that way. Toss it up in that
gutter that's sagging you haven't gotten around to fixing yet, but it holds water
and breeze mosquitos. Toss them into a bird bath wherever they're standing water.
Mosquito dunks, you're not going to get a better way to control them.
And listen the birds, the beneficial insects, the butter, you know,
the the gosh I just went blanket, Oh your pets, your cat and
your dog, and know everything like that wildlife. They won't hurt any of
that. They're not a disease of anything but mosquito. Larva and fungus not
larva. That's what mosquito dunks do. So that makes it real easy.
Yep. You gotta keep those on hand. Got to keep them on you
because you never know when you're gonna After this hurricane goes through, you're gonna
need them. We're gonna have some rain, they're gonna be some puddles and
things like that. We're listening to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Give us a call
if you'd like to visit. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're coming
close to our break and so you may need to get on the board and
when we come back, we'll answer your questions as well. If you haven't
been to RCW Nursery, you need to run out there. RCW Nursery has
an outstanding selections and an unbelievable self. It ends today. Listen. RCW
opens at ten o'clock when garden Line is over. RCW opens twenty five percent
off Cajun hibiscus, I love my Cajun hibiscus, fifty percent off select roses,
fifteen percent off all citrus trees, ten percent off all the trees in
general, and boy did they have an excellent selection of trees that grow ore.
Go to Rcwnursries dot com. They're the garden center that's there at Tamba
Parkway to forty nine where it connects with Beltweight eight. Easy to get to
and lots of good stuff. Today's the last day of that sale, so
from ten o'clock today you got to get over there and get to the best
on all those things. Jar it just watching many things to set again,
not a sign. All right, let's get going again here. We're entering
our last hour of garden line this weekend. Be done by ten o'clock.
Remember a garden line. For those of you who aren't familiar, haven't been
listening for a while. I know a lot of you been listening for a
very long time. But if you're not, we start at six am and
go to ten am on Saturday and on Sunday mornings, and you can call
in and ask whatever kind of gardening question you would like. We're here to
help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful, a beautiful landscape.
And that's what's all about. So give us a call of seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Well let's see here. We're going to go straight out
to the phones and talk to Mike and Brenham. Hello, Mike, Hey
skip now you don't I appreciate the callback? Sure's u Uh? You sent
me an email to I can give you a call back on the ground on
the email I sent you yesterday on the what I thought was Johnson grass and
my my courtyard. Okay, yes, I'm uh. Did you have a
pick? Was there a picture? Yeah, there was a picture with this.
So let me let me get that opened up here in front of me
so I can comment on it. Okay, you had you had a couple
of different kinds of weeds. There's not johnsngrass in the picture. Uh.
Okay, hold im just saying you sent me more than one picture, didn't
you? I sent you to All right, let me get get here where
I can them the little weed with the tiny leaves, the mouseier looking leaves
on it. It's a warm season. It's a warm season annual, and
it's just one we have to deal with in the gardens. Leaf flower is
one of the names for it. But you can do one or two things
if you just have a little of it here and there, just hand pulling
them getting them out of there as the simplest. If you have to spray
it you're gonna have to use a broad leaf we control product. And the
danger with those is when the temperatures are above the mid eighties, which the
mid eighties already today, so the the products can stress your Saint Augustine and
really really weaken it. And so I would you know, there's a product
called Celsius that is not as bad. You still you want to use it
earlier this morning, coolest time of the day. Yeah, but that'd be
the one you'd use for it. The other I see these nuts edges in
the lawn, and then I see some other grasses. There's more than one
type. Looks like orchard grass, but it came in with the sod.
It just really disappointed me when it came out. But yeah, no kidding,
no kidd. So you've got at this point this is a serious infestation.
And I would you could just mow and ignore them and just do the
watering and fertilizing and mowing regularly to help your sod. If you mow,
the sod's going to get light. If you don't mow often enough, these
weeds come up above the sod grass and shade out your Saint Augustine. So
you gotta regularly, so the get light the well St. Augustine crowded out
or in time. But what's happened is there was a lot of gaps in
there and where sunlight hits the soil, the seeds come up, and so
that's what's happening. So too. Two ways just to cut to the chase
on this MIC. You can mow regularly because it's an annual keep working on
getting denser and denser Saint Augustine. Then next spring, follow my schedule at
gardening with skip dot com. Okay, skip dot com the lawn weed disease
management schedule. That particular schedule tells you when to put the pre emerging out.
And there's a producoal barricade that nitroposs makes you right, you know,
follow the label very carefully, don't overapply it, don't underply it, make
sure you water it in after you apply it. But anyway, the barricade
will help prevent these from coming up next year, but it's not going to
kill the existing plants. The second option is to put a wiper applicator over
the top of the lawn because these grassy weeds are coming up above the lawn
right and so any kind of a sponge like applicator that has either a grass
killer only or a glycys aid round the equivalent round up in it. It
wiped over the top. It's going to get on those weeds and go down
in and kill them and give you your mass a little bit better head start
than just mowing. Okay, I meant to tell you something yesterday that you
might get a kick out of. I had. I got a beautiful white
fresh peach tree that I had. The squirrels have written me off about two
five years in a row when they're about half grown. This year, I
took a paintbrush and painted a bonaro sauce in the trunk and at the base
of large branches. I had a great crop this year. Really, the
squirrels cannot handle the albanaro sauce. Well, I know they don't like the
heat on stuff they eat. I didn't know they wouldn't even crawl through it.
That's they're not. They did not crawl through it. I was giving
peaches away, all right, there you go. I'm not sure if Peter
liked it, but well on, but then I think they get it on
it. They get it up, Yeah, yeah, they get it on
the on their paules, I think, and and if they lick it or
you'll try to clean it off, it's but it kept them off the peach
trees for about months. That's good. Good to know. Hey, Mike,
appreciate it. Hey, thanks a lot, take care you bet good
luck with that. Yes, folks, remember wherever sunlight hits the soil,
nature plants of weed. That's how it works. If you can just get
that etched into the brain, then a lot of things make sense. I
put in a flower bed and it's just full of weeds. Did you moultch
the flower bed after you put it in? If you moltched it, those
weeds coming from seed shouldn't have been able to come up. They can't.
They gotta have sunlight. When when a weed seed germinates, it's a tiny
little baby plant that barely has a root and hardly has a leaf on it.
And if that's in a shaded environment, it's gonna die before it ever
gets established. And that's why mulching is so important. And we got all
these quality mulches available here in the Houston area, we ought to take advantage
of them. They're excellent. They work, They absolutely work out. If
you've got a weed that's like a perennial like nut sedge or bermuda grass.
Well, there's probably three options for when you have a major nuts edge or
bermuda grass infestation. First option would be to call your realtorn move. That's
the easiest way to get rid of all of it, and that's option one.
Tongue in cheek. Option two, hand dig it. Oh, you
don't hear that. But if you get all the nuts, all the rhizomes
from bermuda grass, all the nuts from nutsedge out and you may have to
rehand dig because you're not gonna get it all, they're gonna break off,
but you can get it out that way. That would be an organic,
no spray way. And the third is spray spray. It was something that
will kill that weed. There's things that kill nutsedge and other sedges and kaylinga.
There's things that kilber metographs that work. But those are the three options
really. First one being kind of a joke, but seriously, getting ahead
of things is so important. If you wait until the weeds are well established,
it takes all the fun out of gardening because you're out there in hot
weather, the fire ance are crawling up your arms, while you're pulling weeds.
It's just no fun at all. Right, get ahead of it.
Avoid it. What if they say a stitch in time will save nine boy,
I need to come up with a horticultural version of that, because that
is absolutely true. The earlier you start, the better off you are.
I say this about insects all the time. If you want to use the
least toxic ways to control insects, you need to be doing that when the
insects are very young. Bet On young caterpillars is deadly by the time they're
old enough to just about go into a PUPA not very effective, if not
nearly as effective at that stage. And with stink bugs, the things we
can do when they're in the nymph stage are much better than the things when
they're in the adult stage flying around. That's just basically what I'm trying to
tell you. Hey, we're going to take a little break here. I'll
be back with some more of that. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Or if you liked a da by
letter KTRH what once was forbidden? What did you say we now encourage?
Don't you talk back to me? You now have permission to don't talk back.
Tap the talk back mike while listening to news Radio seven KTR on the
iHeartRadio app about today before we wrap things up. If you're up in the
Montgomery area or Lake Conroe, that whole region, Ana Plants and Produce is
your hometown garden center. They're just right there on the east side of Montgomery.
When you go to Ana Plants and Produce, you're going to find all
the kinds of plants you would need for your garden, for your life landscape,
and you're going to find an excellent selection of soils and fertilizers. Every
fertilizer and soil I talk about here on Guardline is at A and A Plants
and Produce. So it's a one stop shop organic synthetic. You can get
it all right there. They have it right now. They've got a Hot
July sale that's a good name for it. Takes thirty percent off of all
the plants that you purchased there now Hot July cell. That would include all
kinds of plant material, like maybe you want to put in a little gem
magnolia, maybe a Sunshine lagustrum. That's the lagustrium with the yellow leaves.
On. It really sets itself apart in that sea of green that is our
summer landscape. Loriopy agapanthus, many other shrives and shrubs and perennials, A
and A plants and produce again. On Highway one oh five on the east
side of Montgomery, easy to get to. And don't just drive by,
I know, going up and down one to five all the time. Just
pull in check it out. Today'd be a good day to do that.
We are going to now head to the phones and go to a task Asida
to talk to Thomas. Hello, Thomas, good morning. Two quick questions.
One overnight, there's tons of gnats on my figs of purple figs,
and I've never had this problem before. I don't know what to do with
it. I don't want to put a poison on them. Gnats on figs,
I don't. I don't. They look like ant I don't know what
they are, but they're really small. Yeah, I don't know a fig
pest that that's that description. So maybe they're there. Well, are they
on other plant parts or just on the fruit? No, just on the
on the on the fruit itself. A couple of years ago, I lost
the green fig tree. Overnight there were these small, small boring insects just
bordering into the trunken and in two days the thing died. That's unusual.
Well this is not that for sure, right, I would wait and watch.
I don't see a need to do anything. I mean, if I
guess, if you wanted to, you know, to apply like a soap
spray early in the morning, before the sun comes out and starts baking down.
You could probably knock most of them out with that. But in general,
I think i'd wait and watch. There's not a fig pest I know
of that. That's that description. Okay, great second question. I have
three climbing plants in my ad my backyard. Most of them they're in the
chasmin family. They've got the white jasmin that look like little stars. I've
got orange trumpets and I've got a red one and none of them are blooming
right now. And I've got quality soil. They get said the right way.
I'm using a great liquid. What's the sunshine level of where they're growing.
It's abtinute, well, late morning and early it gets pretty sunny out
there, but they can't take that much sun. No, they can.
They need they need somen. I think the trumpet orange trumpets is probably called
trumpet vine. That is a common orange trumpet type vine we have here.
Very vigorous too. By the way, the jasmine could be one of several
different types, so some types may not be blooming right now, others might.
I think just avoid overdoing the nitrogen. I would do that because that
pushes a lot of vegetative growth. You'd rather them settle in a little bit.
They're vigorous or not, both of those as it is. I can't
remember what the third vine you mentioned was. Was it? Did you say
purple? No, it's red, bleeding hot red. Oh, bleeding heart,
Yeah, bleeding Heart's a little persnickety here. I've had some problems with
getting that thing to bloom. I'm using the Medina uh liquid, and I
use it about every four weeks. I use about I'm doing roots feeding at
two ounces of gallon. Okay, okay, whatever the label is on whatever
product you pick. There's a number of Medina liquids. There's a has to
grow, there's has to grow lawn. There's super grow. Uh, there's
super It's it's a Supergirl. I'm using Supergirl. Okay, that is that
a hookup to a garden house. No, no, it's it's a quart
or or a gallon. Okay, continue to do that, But just anything
with a nitrogen content, I would hold off. So if it truly is
the only super Girl I know has a hosing connector, I need to check
on that see if there's another one. It might I might be I might.
Okay, But but Thomas, if you look at it and it has
three numbers on it, then it's a fertilizer And if I got the first
number is a little higher, let's hold off on that one. If it's
just a matter like it has to grow, typically is not going to have
a big fertilizer charge in it. It's got a lot of ncrogen is about
six I think it is. I think that's that's not too much. But
you might just hold off a little bit, and let's let's watch and wait.
Plenty of sunlight is essential for blooms on those plants. Good plant health.
It sounds like you've got good plant health, right. The plant is
healthy the healthiest can be. Yeah, So that's that's why I was thinking,
maybe they're too healthy, Maybe they're just been pushed into vegetative state.
Other than that time. Uh, and it should be some of those should
be blooming by now for sure, so that that would be my suggestion for
those. All right, I appreciate it. You have a great show.
Keep it up. Thank you, Thomas. Appreciate your call very much.
Let's see where are we here? We're going to go now to James in
Is it carry Wood James H. Kingwood, keenwood Wood. Yes, well,
good morning, and uh, well I've noticed that beside my driveway and
a couple of places, I had this little uh on my Saint Augustine grass.
I just noticed this little brown dead spot and it almost seems to be
spreading a little bit. And then I know it's another one, and so
I've got about three of them. I'm not sure if there's some kind of
fungus or what. It's just uh, you know, it's just suddenly it
just appears dead, you know, and then uh, it might be spreading
a little bit. It's not going real real fast. But you know,
I'm is there something I need to do with that? Or do you know
what that could be? Is the sun or shade? And uh, how
long ago did it start? It's it's you know, it's in the full
sun and uh, and it started probably about two weeks, three weeks maybe
three weeks ago when it started going back south. Did it start by turning
yellow and then eventually dying out or did you suddenly just have a very soon,
almost sudden browning of that area almost just kind of all of a sudden,
it's just brown. Yeah, it just kind of came up all of
a sudden. It was a small place and one of them looks like it's
getting a little bit bigger. Okay, I could take a look at it.
If you don't send a picture in that may be the best thing.
If it's if it's sudden and it's brown, that makes me think about things
that are maybe toxic to the foliage. So for example, of course this
is not what your situation is, but some people have leaky lawnmowers, and
so wherever it drops a little gas when you stop for a while. Now
you got this dead spot. Well, that that's that very quick dead spot,
right. I don't think we have a couple of we have a couple
of golden retrieve that have become very good at creating brown spots in our yard
where they go to the bathroom because one has to go and then the other
one has to come comment on what the first one did with its own.
And so we just have all these little brown spots as a result of that,
but that those are the kinds of things that would cause the fast browning
it. Let's do this. I'm going to put you on hold and have
Chris pick up the phone and give you my email. And what we'll do
if you'll send me some photos of the overall picture of the lawn, and
then some up close in sharp focus. And when you send them, don't
embed them in the text, but attach them using the little paper clip to
the email attachment. Attach them to sure, and I'll be able to see
them better and take a look. And if you're if I see any if
you get them soon, you know we're running out of time here, but
we'll definitely be able to talk about them maybe next weekend, or if I
have a thought, I may send that to you. Sure. I appreciate
that, Thank you so much. All right, well, good luck.
I appreciate the call of thank you. I really appreciate it. All right,
take care, okay, bye bye. Yep. See, seems like
it's always something when it comes to our lawns and gardens and landscapes. There's
a lot of things that can get in the way of success. And part
of what I do is play Sherlock Holmes right. But what does that mean?
That means basically, I get all the clues I can and I try
to figure out who done it right, who done it? And so that's
what we're about to do here. Photos are good for that. By the
way, for those of you who are For those of you who listen to
Garden Line and want to know, well, how do I get you a
photo? How do I send things to you? You can call the show
and get an email to send that to I generally don't just give it out
because there's six million people that live around Houston in our listening area, probably
more than that, and I can't even begin to answer emails. So what
I do is I try to ask that you send me a picture with a
description and then call the show and let's talk about it. And there's time
to be able to do that. You can tell it pretty sure, Hey,
I just sent a photo to him and we need to do that.
I need to talk to him about it and we'll take care of it that
way. But that's that's how I'd like to handle it to help as many
people as I possibly can. It's time for us to take a little break
for the news. The phone number if you'd like to call for as we
move into the next segment seven one three two one two kt r H seven
to one three two one two k t r H. And we'll be right
back here in just a second with more of your gardening questions and Mike and
Hockley, you will be the next one up Old Houston's News. Why they're
traffic plus Breaking News twenty four to seven. This is use Radio seven forty
kt r H Everywhere avoids IRF. More of what's happening now from the John
Morris Services Studios barrel on its way. I'm sure, Lewis. It's nine
thirty on News Radio SEVENH. Welcome back to guard Line. Good to have
you with us today, that is for sure. Listen, we were talking
a while ago about has to grow and supergrow and different things like that.
The Supergrow Plus that's a new product by Medina. It's part of the has
to grow line. There's a regular has to grow, there's has to grow
for lawns. There's now supergrow Plus. This is a green bottle green label.
It hooks up to a garden hose and it's a sixteen zero two fertilizer,
so a part of that sixteen percent nitrogen is slow release. But then
the thing that I think is really helps make this effective. In addition to
the fact that it's got good nutrients and a low phosphorus number, which is
very helpful, it is that it has also contains molasses which stimulates beneficial microbe
activity in the soil, humic acid, which we know is good. That's
humic acid from leonardide is in this product. And then it also has a
iron that's in a keylated form so that the soil doesn't just tie it up
like it has your other iron. You probably have enough iron in the soil.
The plants just can't get it. So when you put this to your
garden hose and what are your plants with it, you're going to get it
into those plants. You're going to get into the root system there where it
can take it up. Seaweed extract also present in Supergrow Plus. It's one
of the many products from Medina and that work. And although it is sold
primarily as something you'd put on your lawn, you can look it up to
a garden hose and spray your flower bedch, your shrubs, your herb gardens.
I mean, whatever you want to spray with. It's going to work.
I've seen pictures of someone that did it on their tomatoes and oh my
gosh, really good results from Medina has to grow supergrol plus. Just remember
souper grow plus from Medina and the green label. That's what we're looking for.
I mean, head out now to Hockley, Texas and talk to Mike.
Hello, Mike, how you doing. I'm well, Thank you good,
great question. I had some hydrangeas on mutual them. Am I supposed
to dead head the spent blooms or just let them fall off? You can
do it either way. They're gonna dry and be kind of tan colored there,
and so you know, if you don't like the look of it,
just deadhead them, take them out of there. Uh it. It really
can can go either way. It doesn't have to be done, but you
can. So if I dead head them, will that make them bloom again
quicker? Or on a hydrangea they're probably not setting many viable seat in there,
so I don't see a lot of energy going in to that point,
I would just say, you're for good bloom production. You just want good
nutrition in the soil and consistent so of moisture. Don't let them dry out
for a period of time. Hodringes are not built for that. Okay,
good enough, there's my answer. I appreciate it, all right, thank
you. I appreciate that too. Good luck with those. Let's run,
let's see, let's run out to Pearland and talk to Pat. Now,
Hello, Pat, Hi, I have what was gorgeous high viscus tall plant
and it was producing really pretty coral of flowers, and then all of a
sudden it's not and there's like a white dust on it, and I cut
several of the branches. I didn't know what it was, but it just
keeps coming and now it's flowering very well at all. Is this I didn't
know if is this tropical discus or is this the perennial hibiscus. You know,
honestly, I really don't know. Okay, Well, let me that's
okay. Let me. Let's do it this way. When you look at
the blooms are the size of a dinner plate, and they're either pink or
red or white, or are they smaller, furlier, with a lot of
other colors. Uh. Yeah, I've got two high discus plants. You
know. One of them is like the size of the dinner plate, but
this one is just thrilly and smaller. That's the tropical. It's leaves are
going to be a little darker green usually uh, and sometimes a little bit
not shiny, but a little slicker. The other ones are very dull,
not colored leaves that are much larger on the perennial. So uh, if
it stops, if it stops blooming, well it's going to be due to
some stress. I have some in a half whiskey barrel sized container, and
if I forget to water them for a while, bloom production goes down.
If I start watering again, bloom production comes back up. Good nutrition is
important. The white on the leadens sounds like powdery mildew. That's about the
only thing I know that creates a white kind of almost a dusty looking white
surface on the leaves. Would that be how you would describe it? Yeah,
you know it's on the branches too. Yes, mostly it's on the
branches, and it is on some of the leaves, but mostly it's on
the branches. I thought it was like a worm at first, but it's
not. When I think you do it, I think you're seeing mealy bugs.
Let's do this. Let's not we guess and waste your time and money.
I'm going to put you on hold. Chris will send you an email.
I need some good close up, sharply focused pictures that show it as
close as you can get, and also one of the overall bush, and
then attach them using the paper clip attachment for the email, as opposed to
embedding them like cutting and pasting them into the text. So attach them and
I'll take a look at it and we'll find a way to get you some
help on this one. All right, thank you, all right, Pat
appreciate that very much. You know, I've been been doing garden advising from
being a Agrolife Extension horticulture agent for thirty five years with Texas A and m
Agrolife Extension, and now then I did radio and college station for a long
time, and then now radio in Houston area. And in all of that,
one thing I've learned is as someone describes something and I picture it,
it's not always the same thing. And I'm not you know, it may
be the fault of the describer or the fault of the listener me not picturing
or to conclusions, which I try not to do. Uh. And oftentimes
I'll get a question and then I take a look at things. It's like,
oh, yeah, well that's such and such. But my brain was
going in a different direction when I was talking to the caller. And so
that's why I do like to see photos. It just makes it better.
And gosh, you don't need to go out and buy stuff you don't need
and waste your time and money applying it. We need to get you the
right stuff. So that's what we aim for. Hey, we've got one
more break here and then one last segment before we wind things up at ten
o'clock. If you'd like to give us a call two to one three,
two to one two excuse me, seven to one three two one two KTRHL
be right back. Thanks, welcome back to Ouardline. Good to have you
with us, Great to have you with us. As a matter of fact,
listen, we've been hearing the hurricane, the hurricane, the hurricane.
Okay, we know we're gonna get wins, we know we're gonna be dealing
with that, but listen, hurricane season starts in June goes through November.
We're gonna have other storms, and there'll be storms that aren't hurricane related,
like the one that knocked out power a few weeks ago, devastating to our
trees. You need to give a call to Martin spoon Moore at Affordable Tree
and just have him come out and take a look at your trees. See
what might be needed. Do they need pruning? Is there are there some
dead limbs up there that need to come out, some narrow angle branches that
have no good future. As far as being storm worthy, do everything you
can. I cannot express enough the importance of proper treecare coming into this storm
season. It doesn't even have to be a hurricane, of course. Call
Martin spoon Moore seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three, or
go to the website Afftree Service dot com. Tell him you're a guardenline listener.
Martin stays busy because he does a good job and he has been for
a very long time, and people know that his customers come back and so
tell him your guardline listener, get up toward the front of the line so
he can schedule a time to come out and do that for your trees again
the phone number seven one three six' nine nine twenty six sixty three.
Whatever kind of tree work you need, from pruning to deep roof feeding to
planting, proper training of shrubs or as trees as they're getting started. Martin
does all of that, including advising you. You know you got to put
a trench in near a tree. Oh my gosh, do not do that
until you call Martin, have him look at it and advise you on what
to do. And he knows how to handle that kind of thing. Makes
it easy. We're going to now run out to clear Lake City, I
believe, and talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, good morning, sir.
This may be one of the questions that's not a stupid question, but
it's a stupid person asking it again with respect to I can no longer use
my alias of Steve. You blew it for me a while back with Saint
Augustine runners if they are if left unattended, just merciless it across the sidewalk
or and anything get into flower beds and stuff like that. Can you pull
those and scratch a shallow trench and lay them lay it in the trench fill
it up with dirt water and expect it to actually produce grants. Yes,
yes, you want to do that. I would do it in the morning
where the grass isn't already stressed, and maybe a little at a moisture deficit.
Uh, and then get them in the new location, water them in
really well and that'll be fine. You just have the water pretty often for
a little while, just to make sure they have plenty to keep them adequately
moist But yeah, you okay, Well, wasn't expecting a good answer like
that, but thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we
call catch and release. Augustine. Thanks take care or something you take care.
Appreciate the call mark. Yeah, thanks a lot. Uh. If
you can't as native plants in the Heights, they're on Eleventh Street and the
Heights and you've probably been there before you can. Is just an outstanding place
to visit. They specialize in native plants, but they don't just have nati
plants. They have everything. One of the best houseplants selections I've seen anywhere.
For example, plants for shady areas, plant of flowers for sun,
vegetables and herbs and fruit trees and all kinds of things. Buchanans Native Plants
in the Heights something I thought about. They had to post the other day
their social media which you ought to follow them. You also ought to get
their newsletter. You can sign up for that on the website. The website
is Buchanansplants dot com. They have a thing on rain gardens, and here
we come with more rain. I mean there're like nine inches in some areas
and on down to little or nothing. But when you get too much water
and that area stays soggy and it's kind of slow to get dry, well,
you can install subservice drainage, have someone come out and do all that.
Or you can turn lemons in a lemonade by picking some plants out at
Buchanans that love what condition and such as a Louisiana iris for example. That's
a good example. A button bush can take that kind of thing, and
there's many many others. Cannons can help you pick out the plants to do
well. So take that area that occasionally is a little too wet for too
long and plant something that can take it, or maybe even that loves it.
There Cannons, for example, do you know cannis can grow in standing
water? They can. So if you've got an area it takes a while
to drain, that's kena heaven, you can put it right in there.
Pappers plant or various sedges and things, lots of good options. If Buchanans
has those Buchanansplants dot com on a least East eleventh Street in the Heights.
Well let's see here, we are getting a little short of time here for
a call. If we got a quick one, real quick, we can
probably get to it. But otherwise I'm going to just discuss a few things
that I've been wanting to get to and talk about today as well. Remember
when you're putting a new plant in, give it adequate water in small doses
to the area where the container was, and don't stop planting just because it's
summer. The morning times are cool. First of all, the sun's not
up very far and you get a lot of work done without shining on you.
It's still cool. You can water a plant in and if you just
give it regular water, take a little extra care of it, you can
keep it going. Remember we have three months of summer left. We got
July, we got August, and we got September. For those of you
who've moved here from further north. September is a summer month in Texas,
especially in this part, and so what are you going to have for color
until it gets late enough in the season where we start to put in cool
season color. Why not plant something now? Many plants. Your garden centers
that we talk about here on garden Line are just outstanding. Welcome to the
Houston area for those of you who moved here from out of state, by
the way, and you are in a place with more great gardening options than
any place I've seen, North, South, East, West, and central
whell great garden centers here in the Houston area that have plants that right now
could go to your landscape and give you easily three months of color to carry
you on through that season. Let's do that. Let's not have a sea
of green. Let's break it up. Let's keep things flowing and rolling out
in the garden so we can enjoy that. And you know, for those
of us who are gardeners, we need our facts, right. I mean,
you just got to get out, you got to enjoy, you got
to get your hands in the dirt. There is a therapy to that.
And I say that and I know sometimes when I go, you know,
gardening is good for your health and stuff, people are like, Okay,
come on, man, but it is. There's the physical activity, and
we have so many ways that we can help as people get older. Maybe
a kneeling bench would be a good gift to help with that. It's helped
meet a garden with les pain. I'll tell you that for sure. You
can sit on the seat, or you can flip it over and kneel down
on it. That's just an example. Ergonomic gardening tools, raised gardening beds
so you don't have the stupid as far to get down to the plants.
Many many ways to keep gardening going. But gardening is good for your health.
It's physical activity. But I think the best part of all is just
the way it feeds your mind and your soul. The peace that you get
as you get out in the garden. You're working in the soil, you're
dealing with nature, You're enjoying seeing things grow. You're getting healthy produce and
wonderfully smelling flowers to bring into a vase indoors. That is good for the
soul. It really really does work. And I'm serious about that, and
I've talked to people that do research in this many times over. Doctor Charlie
Hall at Texa A and M University is a leader in that field. And
the number of trials, the number of studies that have been done is amazing.
Kids in school with ADHD issues seeing plants out the window makes a difference
in their test scores. Seriously, people that are in a hospital recovering from
surgery. The difference between looking out a window at a parking lot and another
building versus looking out a window at a forested area and nature area. Things
like that absolutely just wonderful, absolutely wonderful, huge differences, and those are
the differences you'll enjoy too. And when you give the gift of garden,
when you take a child out and teach them the garden and grow things,
and you're setting them off to a life of healthier eating and certainly a peace
of mind. I'm telling you Nature has a way of doing that. And
there's so many ways that that is happening that some parts of the area they
talk about forest Baby and just walk through nature and enjoy that. However you
go about it, enjoy it. There's garden centers right now that are your
therapy centers. Therapy centers that are waiting for you to come out and walk
among the planets. Hey, have a good rest of your weekend and a
great week. We'll see you again next weekend. You're on guard.