KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skip rictor smell, just watching
to sei. Good morning, Good Saturday morning. On a day this is
gonna be a good day for gardening. I can say that with confidence.
It's still dark outside, but that won't last long. We're gonna be getting
some beautiful sunshine coming out today. Good day to get out early on,
hopefully and get a few things going. Knock out a few of those outside
tasks, and we got a few to do. By the way, this
is you know, this is the time of year when it's so hot.
It's been hot for so long that people kind of don't have a lot of
motivation, you know, to get outside and do some stuff. But morning
time is a good time to do it. I still, you know it,
just being outside early in the morning, I don't know, the bird
songs and all kinds of other perks that I think are worth luring you outside
for I can get a lot of things done and we need to. And
here's why fall is coming. Now is the time to get tomatoes planted if
you have them already. In fact, we're getting a little bit late on
the tomato planting, but we can still get some in. If you get
a fast win going, don't take don't plant a brandywine. It's gonna take
eighty days or something to get get to harvest. But something a little bit
faster you can still do that. We're coming up on the time with planting
potatoes and planting green beans and squash, cucumbers, all those kind of things
are coming up. If you want to have you if you want to grow
your own vegetables for a cool season, like broccoli or cabbage or things.
Now is it time to plant those seeds and get those ready to go.
So when we get further into September, we'll be able to have a good,
strong transplant that we can move out into the garden. So we'll be
talking about some things like that as we go forward. Hey, I'm your
host, Skip Richter. Thanks for listening this morning. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Let's start off by going to Tomball and talking
to Mel. Hello, Mel, Yeah, I got a problem with some
poison oak coming up at the edge of our property. You underneath some pine
trees, and I'll just wonder if if I spray that stuff with a brush
killer, is that going to affect the pine tree? Can not if you
just get it on the poison oak and not on green parts of the pine
tree. And then second, don't drench it so that you get it washing
down in the roots of the tree. But you'll be fine with that.
How big? How big is the poison argument? Are the branches are excuse
me, are the trunks small or are they like as big as one of
your fingers? There they're buying like my fingers. See, they keep There's
not a whole lot of grass going down there, but it comes up.
And every time I walk by there, and I've been just bowing them over,
you know, Okay, now, I mean I haven't. I haven't
done that lately. And I noticed they're they're sprouting up, so they're small
yet, and I just didn't want to, you know, anyone, My
pine trees are like we've been We've been living here for forty years in this
place, and the pretty big anyhow, I just didn't want to affect them,
you know what I'm saying. But they're they're real small, so okay,
well you can spray the foliage of them as as it comes out.
You do want to do that now and you and if anything shows back up,
do it again, uh sometime in August or early September, early to
mid September if you can, because they're going to be going into fall storing
all their carbohydrates and getting ready for spring. And that that is a good
time to have poison ivy when it's you know, pulling down carbohydrates getting ready
for the upcoming winter. So you really you can do it all through September
and still get pretty good control, better than many times of the year.
Well, I appreciate, thank you much. Have a good day. Thank
you, mel I appreciate that. Let's head out now to Navsota and we're
gonna talk to Dennis. Good morning, Dennis, Good wring Skip. I
have a question. I have a shrmid oak about three years ago. It's
currently the about two inch diameter. It's a good twelve fifteen feet tall.
It's been doing really good. However, I don't know what The leaves have
turned yellow with some round spots on it, and I don't know if it's
the water at least once to twice a week. Okay, I may have
really done something wrong. I have to admit this. I I don't like
weeds, and there's weeds growing year around the tree and I hit it with
some um it's like, uh, what do you call the killer um like
anyway? Like a round up kind of thing or yeah, okay, eraser
h anyway. I try to be very careful. You have to get on
the bark of the tree at all. All right, Well, Dennis,
I can. I can cut in there and put your mind at ease.
You symptoms you describe are not the symptoms of glyphosate damage. Good. Yeah,
you didn't You didn't do that. Um So tell me again how long
the tree has been in the ground. About three years ago? Three?
Okay, I think you need to um, I probably. I think you
probably step up the watering a little bit. Are you using an automatic system
or a hose end or what? Um? Well, actually I put an
automatic system out and I use a little feeder twice a week for about an
hour. Okay, and well you haven't done. I took a piece of
a PBC pipe about two foot long with holes in it, and they drive
it into the ground from the tree. Yeah, and I take a dripstick
and I can tell how what the water level is. Okay, So sometimes
if I feel a little bit the liquid I had with the garden hills,
But most of the time I use the drip system and it it usually keeps
pretty good level of water in there. Okay. Well, I'll tell you
at this point in that tree's life, and especially with the weather you're having
up there, I think it's better to water more soil volume than a drip
will do. Unless you just have that drip system covering you know, like
three square feet or something. I would get I would grab a tree hugger
sprinkler. You've probably heard me talk about those before. Oh yeah, but
it's a little hinged thing. You can put it around the tree. In
fact, you're over in Navasota if you just you know, head over to
Grimes County feed which over over toward Carlos. They got them there. They
carry tree huggers over there, and and it's really easy. You hook it
to the hose, you can turn the valve on the sprinkler, and then
you go over to the you know, to your valve on the house your
spigot and turn it on and you can set it to water, you know,
like a one foot circle. But in this case, for your tree,
i'd probably get that thing cranked up pretty good. Where you're watering,
oh, let's say fifteen twenty feet across. Uh, I kind of have
to see the canopy. You want to water the whole canopy underneath. So
imagine imagine at noonday, you're the sun is shining down. Where would the
shadow of the tree be. You want to water that area plus a little
beyond that. Okay, the soil here is pretty bad with the with the
clay, yes, and trucks of people of Arborgate. I dug the hole
of at least two foot in diameter or two foot deep, and I treated
it. I mean I put good soil and I added to the uh what
do you call it? It's like little little stones in there. Okay,
And so I think I did everything right and planting. It's good soil there.
Now, well you may have, and you know, I think the
tree's fine. It's just the demander through the roof right now. I mean,
you know, you've been how many days above one hundred degrees and it's
one hundred as far as we can see looking forward so you just need to
get at the volume of water. But again, you can't get enough roots
around a small area to supply a whole tree, you know. So even
if you had a bunch of little drippers for a tree that's hit your tree's
size, then you got it wet a larger volume of soil. That's the
bottom line. And that's why I like that tree hugger because you can control
that whole thing, how wide you water and everything and you start. So
that's that too. Fo Yeah, yeah, go over there, talk to
talk to Christen, those folks over there and they'll they'll get you set up.
Hey, I appreciate that call. We are going to take a break
our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well,
good morning on a great Saturday morning for getting some gardening done. It's
too dark to garden outside unless you got headlights. So let's just talk radio
stuff this morning, and hopefully before long you'll be out there getting a few
things caught up, because boy, this is the time of day to be
outside in the summertime. We're gonna head over to League City and talk to
Rob. Hello, Rob, say, good morning morning, how can we
help I've got I got a tree in my front yard what the builders put
in their house, about twenty years old. But it's putting up a ground
route that's bigger than my arm, and it's headed towards the foundation and it's
actually where the water comes in the house and the BBC. I wondered,
if I cut that with the chainsaws, they're going to kill the tree.
Well, it's a percentage game, and it's also a tree conditioned game.
So here's what I mean by that. Uh, you know, if you
take just like one root off that isn't a huge percentage of that tree's root
system, it's probably okay. Uh, the doing more than that is a
stress. But I would hold off on it until we get to fall if
you're going to do it, because right now that tree needs every available route
to bring up ever drop of water it can get. And so I wouldn't
do that to it now for sure. Right Yeah. Yeah, it's a
it's a big enough fruit and the way it's grow and it's going to be
underneath the foundation, okay, and that a root that side could crush the
fight, Yeah, yeah, it could. And those kind of things happen.
Something you might want to consider m Martin spoon Moore over an affordable tree
there there are tree service guy and Martin can do something called an under It's
an underground root barrier. So imagine just putting a wall underground. It's basically
what it amounts to. And you just have to hit it and go down
and and and so by the time if they do go under and come up,
which they probably won't, uh, it's not going to be a problem.
So you know, cutting roots is a short term thing and it's stressful
to the tree and you lose you lose the anchorage of that root on that
side. So you might want to look at a longer term solution, like
having a root barrier put in to protect your foundation, sidewalks, driveways,
whatever whatever might be at rest. Okay, yeah, one more treat question.
Um, I've got a tree in the backyard that my neighbor's bushy trees
kind of approached on my side and it's still and half the tree. Okay,
you know what it is it legal to trim is tree on my side
of the fence. Well, I don't know that. You'd have to talk
to a lawyer on that tree. Get I'll stay, I'll stay in my
yard. When and that's called horticulture. If I cut off the dead part,
I mean it half the tree, you know at branches at the top
and a good half of the tree on close to his side is dead.
Yeah, it's a pretty good sized tree. Yeah, if I cut that
off as I mean, well that I guess I need to talk to a
tree person. But yeah, I want to say the tree if it all
possible. Yeah, and uh, you could you know, went if you
were to call Martin that that would be another thing to ask him. You
know, he probably he lives in that world. He's probably not a lawyer,
but he's probably familiar with you know, kind of us. What's what's
service? Hang on just a second, it's an affordable tree service? Just
one moment. Okay, all right, I'll look it up. Let me.
I'll just give you the well but I had it here, I'll find
it here and i'll say it on the air and just a little bit.
Okay, okay, all right, thank you three? All right, you
bet, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah,
you know, we're talking all kinds of things trees to day. I
mentioned tree Hugger a little bit earlier. You know, they have them out
at Grimes Canny. Tree hugger sprinklers are all over the place throughout the Houston
area. You're going to find them at at our home, mom and pop
garden centers, You're gonna find them at as hardware. They're just they're just
all over the place. And it's an excellent way to savior trees. I
mean we're going through a period of time now where the demands on trees are
intense. I mean they are they're having to pump a lot of water to
get by, and we got to take care of them. And you need
people that know what they're doing. And I mentioned you know, Affordable Tree
martin Spoon Moore. And by the way, the phone number for them is
seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Right now,
deep root watering is pretty important. It's the same as deep root feeding,
but it's basically injecting water down in the tree. So whatever kind of tree
you have that's important to you know, those big beautiful oaks, pecans or
elms, those kind of things. You want to keep them healthy now.
And it's not just looking up and saying, oh my trees dining. By
the time you see that it is hard to turn that thing around. You
want to keep them healthy. And so that's why good deep soakings are so
so very important. That's why I brag on the tree hugger sprinkler, because
it provides that kind of soaking. You are in total control of how big
of an area you water and how much water you put on, and you
can get that water in the soil, not running off down the street.
That's the beauty of the of the tree huggers, you know. But if
you if you're interested in giving Martin a call seven one three, six nine
nine twenty six sixty three, they can do the deep root watering for you.
Of course, they do everything else in the world. You know.
They do pruning, they do trimming, they do stump grinding, they do
whatever kind of services you need if you need. You know, if you
need some old limbs taken off. You know, we're just just visiting there
about a neighbor's tree, and you know, here's some dead limbs hanging over
the property. Those are all shoes Martin knows how to do it with.
If you go, if you want to go online instead of a phone call,
it's a fftree service dot Com aff treeservice dot com. They are really
good quality folks that know what they're talking about. I'm going to head now
over to Tomball and we're going to talk to Rose Marie. Hello, Rose
Marie, Yes, I'm here high Skip, good morning. Hi. We
recently had two create myrtle trees removed and they replace them with some type of
holly trees. And these trees are you know, it's in a bad so
I have this reoccurring problem with the create myrtles keep trying to pop up and
I keep trying to dig them up. Okay, My problem is it's just
so close to other things around it. You know that I don't want to
kill. So what do you suggest that I knew? What I suggest is
that you get an ingredient and if you have a pen or pencil, grap
of it here it's t r I c l o p y r trichlopier t
is time try is in tricycle clo p y r. That's ingredient. You'll
find it. It'll be called things like brush killer, poison, ivy killer.
But what you want to do is you just want to dab it right
on those crapes that are coming up. You can wipe it on the stems
as they're coming up. I put a little bit of a vegetable oil with
mine if I'm doing a wipe on the sides of the stems, because that
helps it stick and soak in better, not for spraying it, but for
soaking it into the stem. But if you want to squirt it on the
foliage, just don't drench the foliage. All you gotta do is barely get
it wet. I'll use a sponge with a concentrated form of it, and
of course a glove on your hand or some other way to do it and
wipe it right along those those stems and it will move down down and it
will get them nip. Now, probably not all with one treatment. You
may have to do it more than once, but it is very effective and
that'll shut them down and it won't hurt anything else. As long as you
don't just, you know, take a watering can and drench the bed with
it. That would be a huge mistake. Okay, okay, well,
thank you so much. You bet, and you're gonna find that you're you're
up in tom Ball area, they probably have, you know, a tricolo
pier. You've got several places up there know that carry it. You're gonna
be able to find it out at A D and D. You're gonna be
able to find it at Arbor Gate. I bet so. It's not gonna
be hard at all for you to find. Okay, well, thank you
so much and I really enjoy your show. Well, thank you. I
appreciate that call. You take care. Oh, okay, you too,
bye by. Yeah, there's as it's tree time. I guess it's a
tree calls a tree's turf and tomatoes. Those are the three things. Fact.
I'm gonna give a talk this afternoon at Obapalooza, which is at the
United Way down on Wall Drive. I'll be giving my talk toward the end
of the day. They're they're gonna be getting go in here pretty quick.
That's gonna be an all day program, really good one. But I'm gonna
talk about two things that make phone ring. That's trees and turf. And
that is for sure. And if you're looking for a quality tree, Verdant
Tree Farm is a place you need to check out. And I you know,
one convenient thing about Verdant is wherever you live, there's one not too
far away. They've got one over in Barker, Cyprus for all those folks
on the west side of town. If you're kind of central, there's one
where I ten comes together with Yale Street in the Heights, the Heights area.
There's one down also in Parlin on Broadway Street. But Verdant Tree Farm
they have all the different species you would want to grow that need to be
grown here. They're not going to say you trash trees that should not be
grown anywhere, or trash trees that shouldn't be grown here. Maybe maybe they
fit some other place. They've got palm trees a selection like nobody else's business,
and they have all sizes and you go pick your tree out Union shop
through and I like this one, put a tag on it. They'll bring
it your house. They know how to plant it and how to advise you
on how to get it established. And you're just not going to do better
than that kind of service. You can go online to Verdant Tree Farm dot
com and find out more information. Walk in, talk to him, take
a picture of your place, say hey, I need a tree for this
area. What do you guys have? What do you suggest you got something
that flowers? Do you want a shade tree. They're gonna be able to
take care of that. Well, what I want to do is I want
to talk about a couple of other things this morning, regarding where we are
and getting ready for fall. But first, well, actually let's go out
to Pasadena and we're gonna talk to Anne. Hello, Anne, how are
you this morning? Good morning, I'm fine, except for my yard need
some help. I think I have takeoff patch out in the grass starting in
the middle of my yard. Okay. I say that because when I looked,
I was looking for chinch bugs. They am I not watering enough,
et cetera, et cetera. But it looks The main thing that makes me
think that is it's blacks from the roots coming up to the grass. Okay,
And I understand that compost. Applying compost is about the best thing you
can do well. Composts can be helpful. There's a number of things that
you do for take all root rot. First of all, you need to
get it diagnosed specifically that that would be the best. And I can suggest
things to do. But if we're wrong about it being take all and I
can't see it so I can't tell you, then you're just wasting time.
And money. What I would what I would do if it were mine and
you're you're just wanting to do some things in the meantime, is I would
have it deep time narated. Get one of those core narrators that pops.
They'll soil out and open up that lawn. Put in a leaf mold compost
top dressing over the top, and water and in really good that is that
will get you off to a good start. And then as you fertilize using
a fertilizer that's a little more accentifying. That will also help. The time
to treat for the take all is going to be in the fall. That
season is coming up right now. Treatments that you put down spray wise are
not going to be that effective. Hey, I'm gonna have to go take
a break. If you want to continue this, Anne, after break,
I'll just hang on and I'll be I'll be glad. Okay. An important
question on the first All right, very good. Well, you're listening to
Garden Success our number her garden success garden line. What is today's show?
Garden line? Seven one three two one two five eight seven four La,
all right, look next door, dark outside your neighbor's lights aren't on.
Go bang on the door, wake them up, tell them they're missing garden
line, and they will rise up and call you blessed. Actually they'll rise
up and call you something else today. But eventually they will appreciate the favor
that you did for them. You know that when it comes to success with
plants, when it comes to getting through drought, it's all about the soil.
If your soil is plain, little hard clay, no improvement whatsoever,
you're gonna have a limited root system because the oxygen doesn't move very down far
down in the soil. You're gonna have other struggles that your plants are going
through. And that is why airloom soil products are so successful. Heirloom soil
has a wide variety of things. I mean they all the different mixes.
I could sit here all day just reading all the different kinds of things that
they have available. But I want to tell you they have a sale going
on a new lower price actually of their rose soil, which is the standard
soil mix for pretty much anything you want to grow, but especially things like
roses and shrubs and certainly perennials and things. Rose soil is just a good
mix ninety five dollars per qubic yard. Now, if you want to have
a one qb yard supersack delivered to your house, imagine this big old sack
that holds a whole cubic yard of soil. That's one hundred twenty four dollars
dropped off on your property, and it's neat, it's clean, you don't
have to own a pickup in a trailer and all that kind of stuff you
just haven't brought right there, and you can just shovel out of it as
you're doing your projects and getting beds made and soil improved or whatever you're doing.
Now that's going to be available starting today. You were listening on the
right day, because this is now the new thing. I mean, you
know, the quality mixes and making your soil right. It's it's just so
important, and it's exciting to see the different technologies and opportunities like the supersac.
I really love that. I mean, that is so convenient, so
absolutely convenient. Now they're open Monday through Saturday from seven am to five pm
for their bulk sales. They also have their cocktail mix for seventy five dollars.
I got about forty yards of that available now. It's just a great
opportunity. It's a good deal, it's a good opportunity, and it's definitely
a good quality mix. And they deliver all over town. Heirloom Soils of
Texas. You'll also find their bag soils and a lot of garden centers,
a lot of different ace hardware stores, different places like that, wherever good
quality products are being sold. Let's head back out. We're gonna continue a
conversation we were having with any any We were talking about your takeall root rot
and I think you had another follow up question you mentioned on the fertilizer.
It was time I wanted to put down some more slow and easy release fertilizer.
Sure, should I avoid that with the take all patch? No,
not at all. No, A moderate amount of fertilizer is always good.
And the good thing about slow and easy is it's going to give you a
gradual release over time, so you just don't have this, you know,
this dump of all the nutrients that are all put out there at once.
And by using slow and easy, you're gonna that grass is going to have
an adequate supply of nutrients gradually released all the way up into the fall at
this point in time, if you put it down, yeah, it's an
excellent product. Okay. And when you say diagnos that take all patch for
sure, how should I do that? Well, I can look at pictures
of it, but that's not the most accurate diagnosis, you know, because
other things can look like take all root rot. If if the areas are
irregular, if they're truly dying out not you know, then then there's a
good and you know you're getting it watered adequately and it's not starting right next
to a curb or driveway or something. Then I'm going to say we're probably
about eighty percent sure it's take all re rode, just based on all the
things I've been seeing in the way of samples. H Well, that's my
situation. I was watching for, you know, as it started turning,
I was checking for chinch bugs. Water's accurate, it's good. I go
out and I, you know, get down into the bottom, new to
soil and okay, gotcha, d it's not dry. Yeah. Well,
and and do you have a pen pencil handy? I do? Okay,
I'm going to spell it out. A z O x y azoxy A z
o x y s t r O B I N strobin azoxy strobin. Now
you're over in the Pasadena area, you're closer to Deer Park, Galena Park
or Hobby Airport or which direction are you Deer Park? Clear? Okay,
Well you've You've got an ACE Hardware store out there. It's Deer Park Lumber
and Ace Hardware. It's on Center Street and Deer Park, and they will
probably most likely have the azoxy strobin. Because ACE carries a lot of a
lot of things like that. I would recommend you go check them out and
get some. And once we get into the fall season, well let's say
we get into late September October. I would apply it then I not apply
it again four weeks later. Okay, I'm gonna have to run, but
I hope that helps, and good luck with it getting that lawn turned around.
Okay, Okay, thank you sir. You bet. Yeah. Yeah.
You can go to Ace Hardware dot Com and find ACE anywhere near you,
I mean, wherever it is that there's AE. We only have thirty
nine of them, so I mean, I know it's going to be hard
to find one. Close your eyes, throw a rock and you hit one.
Ace Hardware dot Com. Go to their store locator and find one near
you. You know, That's the thing I like about ACE. They're all
over town and people call, I know, hey, you need a product,
They're gonna have it. I might recommend a fertilizer, they're gonna have
it. Herbicide, weed control, you know, for the fungicize, pesticide,
anything you need for your lawn and garden. Is even the soils that
we talk about here. ACE Hardware is going to have those. It's just
it's that one stop shop. I mean, while you're in there, and
of course you're getting all your gardening stuff there, there's a lot of other
things that you need that are an ACE when if you haven't been in one
in a while, go check it out and you'll see what I'm talking about
out I mean from inside the home to your outdoor living to ever kind of
repair you can think of for your plumbing, your pipes, your electric I
mean, it's it's it's AS Hardware. They have everything. That's the one
stop shop. One of the things I really really enjoy about about AS Hardware.
You know, the season, because of the heat, it kind of
keeps people from wanting to get out and do things. But now's the time
to get stuff done. Now's even a time to get some kinds of planting
done, getting ready for the fall. But now's the time to make sure
you've got the supplies, whether it's it's fertilizers, whether it's soil mixes that
you're going to put down. Now's the time to get set up for all
that kind of stuff. If if we're going into the fall season, you
got to take all root rot, go ahead and get your products, or
you're ready to go when that time comes to take care of it. And
Plants for All Seasons is one of those family owned and operated garden centers that
is just it's just a destination that you have to go to. And here's
why I say that. If you go to a place where they don't know
what they're talking about, where people that they hired to work have no knowledge
of plants, you are wasting money. You're buying plants that will die,
You're getting bad advice. That's not how it is. The Plants for All
Seasons. The Flowerty family has been doing this since nineteen seventy three. They're
easy to find. They're right there on two forty nine, on two forty
nine, right there about where Louetta comes in. If you've got a brown
thumb, they will turn it green. They're knowledgeable. You take a picture
in, you take a sample in, you need a diagnosis. It's all
their Plants for All Seasons. Go online to Plants for All Seasons dot com
and check out what I'm talking about, or give him a call. Two
eight one three seven six one six four six. I was in there just
a while back, and I'm telling you the color they have, the containers,
the beautiful containers. It just makes you what makes you want to buy
another pritics of land so you can plant more plants? You know. That's
That's the thing I look at is we have so many plants and so little
time and space. When I go into a garden center like Plants for All
Seasons, it's like, oh my gosh, I wish I own more property
because I've got more things I want to do. If you haven't live out
in the bomb Bellvue area that's on the east side right, Texas Feed Stop
is your home. Doown feed store now. They're on Highway one forty six,
just north of ten. So I ten had one forty six just a
few minutes and Texas Feed stopping right there. Brian Hope Rhodes have just created
a beautiful, wonderful store. And again it's a place it's easy to brag
on because they're going to carry all kinds of things. From that we talk
about the fertilizers, the pest control products, they're going to carry, the
soils. They even had plants seasonally coming through. You need some tomatoes and
vegetables and things like that, they'll have that too. Of course, they're
an outstanding feed store. I mean they're going to carry every kind of feed
and an animal related product you might need. Fact, right now, I
notice they got a really good selection of various kinds of hunting things. Those
of you who are out there getting the lease ready and you need, you
know, various supplies for feeders and stands and supplements for the deer and other
thing. They got it there too, Texas Feed Stop. Perhaps my favorite
thing about it is Brian and Hope have created a place when you walk in,
you feel like family. And I just love that and you will too,
and their customers do too, a very loyal customer base because they have
learned that when you go there, you get the kind of help you need
and you get the friendly service that you're looking for as well. Texas Feed
Stop. Let's take a break. We will come back. Our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh call,
he'll get you on the board. Well, good Saturday morning on what is
going to be. In fact, it already is a good day for gardening,
good day to get outside. Hey, if you are interested, perhaps
you'd like to retire. You've been thinking about where what would be a good
place to get a home and retire and just really enjoy life, haven't continue
an active lifestyle? Well that would be Dellweb. Now, Dellweb has been
building communities for active adults age fifty five and better for over seventy years,
and now they've got a community down there in the full Shure Areas, a
couple of miles from downtown full Shure on FM three fifty nine. Now,
this community is unique, and that first was unique in that it's Dell Web.
So it has all those quality lifestyle programs built around you, quality homes,
beautiful walk areas. It's just it's a gorgeous place. But it also
has a community garden that I've been assisting them with and You can go to
dellweb dot com slash Houston for more information or give McCall to eight one four
or five nine zero six zero nine Dell Web. This new community garden means
that not only do you have the beautiful Dell Web community, but you have
a chance to gather together enjoy gardening with your friends. You know how it
isn't a community garden. You visit with folks, you have a good time.
And I just can't think of a better combination than Dell Web and in
that community garden around. Let's hit out to Cyprus and we're going to talk
to Rick now. Good morning, Rick, Good morning, Hey, thank
you so much for taking my call today. I've got a question about gardening.
My mother could find a stick on the ground and planet and it would
turn into something beautiful, and fifty years later, fifty five years later,
I'm trying to get into gardening. So I've got about a twelve by twelve
spot where I put railroad ties, okay, and it's where a shed used
to be, So there's no grass we're on there in my backyard, and
I put four rings about fourteen inches high and about three inches in diameter inside
of that square and their metal rings. And my plan is is to put
herbs in there and some vegetables, so mostly like rosemary, basil, some
chives, and then I want to put in also like a serrano pepper and
little cherry tomatoes possibly, and then around it I want to put lavender.
The reason I want to do that is I'm trying to keep farmers out.
Okay, those are all the things that I think we'll keep farmers out.
But what my question is what type of soil? What type of soil should
I put in there? I heard your commercial earlier about the company that delivers
a soil. What would be good gardening soil for that? And when do
I plant those things? Even garlic? Possibly might put in garlic good good
question. That would be Airboom soils I was talking about, and I would
get their veggie and herb mix. Now, it doesn't sound like there's a
lot of volume of soil that you need. If I heard the numbers right
on the size of everything, so you could just buy a bunch of bags
and use that to fill it in. But if it's going to be a
pretty large area, then you might want to get that cubic yard supersack delivered
for that. But the veggiean herb mix is absolutely outstanding for what you're trying
to do. As far as planting time, it kind of depends for the
garlic that's going to come a little bit later, But right now would be
the time to plant tomatoes. Now would be the time to plant peppers and
eggplants and things like that. When we get into later into September or mid
to September and on. We're looking at all the cool season vegetables like broccoli
that are beginning to go in at that time. They can be in October
as well. But yeah, you got you got a lot of options,
and you're fortunate there, you know, being in Cyprus, you're not very
far from plants for all seasons just down the street that they can they can
get y'all set up for the kinds of plants you're talking about. Gotcha?
What about like for a rosemary and basil? When would I plant those things?
I would do that right now because once it cools off into the fifties,
Basel's going to be very unhappy and heading out. Rosemary is a tough
perennial. It's a subshrub and it'll just keep going I would get it planted
anytime from now on into the fall would be good. Also, when you're
when you're doing that, you want to when you put these plants in these
transplants, you want to water them in really well, and you want to
use a soluble plant food for it. And you probably have heard me talk
about Microlife's Ocean Harvest Blue label. It's a four two three fertilizer. It's
in a little quart bottle. It's a blue label. You just take it,
follow the label, mix it in a watering can, and each time
you do the plant, you water it in, and then five or seven
days later do it again, and then five to seven days later do it
again. And what that does is it gets that plant root system ready to
go because it's got you know, it has the fish type fertilizers in it
that it just it's really stimulating for the root system. He's not going to
burn or anything. And by doing that, you get your plants going.
Because right now it's a demanding time to get anything planted, but it is
starting this time where we're doing all our fall planting. So like tomatoes,
that needs to be done soon. I'd do it this weekend, but you
know. It's funny. My mom used to put my dad with a big
fisherman and so all the fishheads and stuff. She would they would put a
compost pile and they would put all the fisheads in there, and then he
would get his tiller and till it up into her garden. Oh man,
that's all for her. I'll work well, you know, Rick, I
hope, I hope that helps. But yeah, grab that. It's the
blue label Microlife Ocean Harvest and do it about three time. You can do
it more, but at least three times, because you want that plant from
the time it hits the ground, for the roots to be stimulated and growing,
and for the nutrients to be there and whatnot. And then you'll curse.
You'll do other fertilizing as you go forward. All right, well,
thank you very much. I appreciate your help today. All right, Rick,
thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I love that. I
love the blue label. I also like the orange label. The orange label
is a seven one three. That's a that is a fertilizer that actually has
beneficial microbes additionally chalked into there. It is really outstanding. I use it
for my house plants now. There's no reason you couldn't use it outdoors as
well. It's just fine for that. But I use it for my house
plants because I I just think it's good. It's got that seven one three
ratio of nutrients that makes for a really really nice start for a plant getting
going and for ongoing growth. At seven one three, got a lot of
the nitrogen in there to really give it a boost and get it going really
really well. Hey, if you live down in the League City area,
your hometown feed store is League City Feed. Now when I say League City
Area, I mean Santa Fe, Dickinson, Lamark Bay Cliff, Clear Lake
City, you know all that area now West and Madison Funderberg. They are
now operating the place that there I believe grandfather started forty years ago. They
carry all the products we talk about, the fertilizers, the pest control products.
They have premium pet food. If you've got backyard chickens or any kind
of animal, they can get you set up. Give them a call to
eight one three, three two sixteen twelve, or just go to the place.
It's Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. Well,
here we go. We are winding up our first hour of the day.
Boy, if time is flying this morning, I'm gonna be heading out
to Obapaluza, which is at the United Way on wad Drive. There's talks
going on all day. I think they're about to kick it off over there
this morning, and I'll be the last talk of the day. But I
think he's about two thirty. But anyway, i'll be there rat Aft Show,
I'm gonna hit over that way. I'm gonna be talking about how we
can learn from nature in creating more healthy lawns and more healthy trees. Really
it applies to every kind of plant we would have. But a lot of
time we're the problem. The way we water, the way we do or
do not prepare the soil, and a lot of other things are Maybe we
can blame it on an insector a disease, but really we're the one that
predisposed him for the problem. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden
Line with scared rector smell. Just watch him as well. Good morning on
a beautiful, beautiful Saturday morning. Looking outside, I see the glow of
the sunshine on the big buildings downtown. You know, the weather we're having
is making it difficult, I know, to be out in the middle of
the day and doing kind of things. But think about your plants, and
your plants are out there, and can you imagine I mean just I think
sometimes we take trees and other plants for granted, but can you imagine standing
out in the direct one hundred degree hot sun all day as the soil moisture
content goes down a little and a little and a little more each day,
you know, one hundred degrees and just blazing hot sun. It's amazing that
they're able to keep going. You know, if you were to go outside
and just touch any surface that the sun is shining on, I mean,
it gets blazing hot by the time, especially if we get to two to
four in the afternoon, really hot down. But think about the tree leaves.
They would literally cook if that tree was not pumping water fast all day
long to every leaf on the entire tree. So think about that. What
if those leaf temperatures went up to like one hundred and forty degrees, which
they could easily do. You know, if you were just talking about the
sun shining on them. But they're essentially doing the equivalent of our perspiring in
that they're transpiring water. But what happens when the water runs short, then
they can't do that, They have to shut down their processes, they begin
to overheat. There's a lot of issues that happen. It's a wonder any
tree is alive at all, in my opinion, just based on when you
really consider the amount of stress and what they're having to go through. And
that's why we want to take care of them and make sure that they have
what they need. And the number one thing in our power right now is
to make sure they have water. When they have adequate soil moisture, they
can get by and even in these temperatures as tough as it is. But
when they don't, the tree systems begin to shut down, including photosynthesis and
other things, and that tree goes into stress us and when it's in that
stage, then comes things that we can't stop, we can't control. When
you get hypoxial and canker in an oak tree, there's no spraying for it
and making it go away. It's going to take it down, and so
our job is to avoid that. And you walk out and look at your
trees this morning, and they'll look okay, most of them. They'll look
okay. But what you're not seeing is the stress they're under. And that's
the stress we're alleviating. So don't think about watering as just keeping a tree
alive in the sense of drought. Think about watering as keeping the tree healthy,
because in the weeks and months to come, the problems from the drought
we're going through now, the hot weather we're going through now, that will
take its toll. And that's when we start to see problems again that you
can't just have somebody come in and fix. Well, let's head out to
Leak City this morning. We're gonna talk to John V. Hello, John
V. Good morning, and garden wine. Yes, question this morning is
on the crepe myrtles. We have one crepe myrtle. We have a two
story house. We've had it since nineteen eighty nine, and it grows all
the way up to the second floor. Yes, and open your windows and
look at the blooms. Yes. And so recently we had one of our
gardeners come and prune everything. So I'm just now looking at that and I'm
wondering how long it'll it take to have the blooms bloom again. You might
get a little more bloom out of them, you know, when you take
out all the little spent blooms of seedheads and you get some vigor. Make
sure and give them a good watering, give them a little bit of fertilizer,
not a lot. We're getting to the point where we don't want to
fertilize our trees and shrubs a lot. Okay, going into fall. They
do need nutrition. But I'm just saying, you know, if it's September
and you're still pushing them on nitrogen, that's probably not a good thing,
you know. But but a little bit of water and some vigor and you
may get some more blooms out of them. I love. That depends to
be on the on the cultivar of the variety that you have. Some are
better than others. Yeah, it's a light pink. I don't know which
which a species name it is. It's truly lovely. Yeah, good,
well, that's the thing. Normally we don't prove crepes at this time of
the year. I would in the future hold off and have them told.
I told my father specifically, do not touch this crape myrtle, and do
not touch my night jazz or jazz and the do not touch them. I
even told a garden er not to. But again, this is not my
property. I just live here with a guest, okay, so you know,
and so it is theirs and their under it's their ownership. So I'm
a guest. All right. Well, I'll leave the family matters to you.
I don't worry about that. It's all of a good troll. I'm
the oldest. That's no big deal. But y'all have a blessing, wonderful
Saturday Saturday, and thank you so much. Have a wonderful Saturday as well.
You take care, you take care. You know it is it is
blazing hot, and folks at this time of the year thinking, oh my
gosh, I don't want to get on plant, but now is the time
to get out and plant. There are a lot of good things going on
at our garden centers around this area, you know. Swinging by RCW for
example the other day, Highway to forty nine where it comes into Beltway eight.
RCW Nursery is a nursery where if they don't have it, they can
probably get it. I mean, they really are good about attending to their
customers and making sure they have on hand what you need. I notice that
has some really beautiful crape myrtles on hand. And you know crape myrtle is
just what is it blooms for like ninety days or something during the summer.
Varies a little bit between varieties, but they have all that. Of course,
they have trees, have really good supply of trees and shrubs. They
are really really stocked up and have a nice supply. Is still of a
lot of quality shrubs. Maybe you've thought about doing a plumeria but you haven't
done it before. Boy, plumarias love Houston heat and humidity. That would
be another good one from r CW. You know they're open today from eight
to five. It'd be a good day to get out there and check them
out. Tomorrow morning from ten am to five pm they'll be open as well
at RCW Nurseries. And listen, fall is coming and that is the prime
time to get your roses planted. You can plan them now, but you
know, make sure you get the supplies that you need. They have a
selection like nobody else at OURCW nursery. Just go by there, you see
what I'm talking about. I mean, it's color everywhere. Really cool.
Hey, let's hell out, head out to bel Air and we're gonna talk
to Mark. Good morning, Mark, good morning. Question about some eagle
stone hollies. I've got about twenty of them or so in the backyard and
there's all of them are doing great, except for one is on the edge
of kind of the row. And the reason I say that is because it's
next next to some star jasmine and that one is not growing near the rate
the others are, and it's looking a little light greenish, okay, almost
yellow. And I've been real I say it's next to some star jasmine because
I've been reading online that that could be the soil in that area, because
that star jasmine is showing some red leaves. Yeah, okay, curious you
have any thoughts on that? And if I need to fertilize, what when
and what do I do? Right? When did you plant that? Oh?
Probably about three years ago? All right? Well, Mark, I
am hitting on a hard break, so I'm gonna have to put you on
hold. But when we come back, let me pick it up from there
and we'll talk about some things to keep in mind for the Eaglestone. Sorry
to take the call and have to go, but I do want to come
back all right. I'll be here all right. Thank you appreciate that.
Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Why
stock op time on garden line. Hey, we are glad you're listening today.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one fifty eight seventy four. Hey, if you're thinking about getting some
landscape improvements done, you'd like to have somebody who is a professional designer who
knows what they're doing come in and I don't know, turn that backyard that's
a little bit blah right now into a place where you can't wait to bring
people in for entertainment, for sitting outside and enjoying it. By the way,
the temperatures for sitting outside and enjoying it are on the way, so
don't delay. Well. Peer Escapes, Peerscapes, Jason Garrity and the whole
team there. They are exactly the kind of place that I'm talking about when
I say professional designers who know what they're doing, and pretty much whatever you
need to they can do it. Maybe your irrigation system needs a little bit
of work done, a little improvement, a little repair. Perhaps you need
to walk away put in or maybe the drainage is bad in an area.
I know, remember when it used to rain. Well, it will rain
again and when it does, and we have those soggy spots. Our plants
do not like that, at least most don't. They can fix that,
they can put in landscape lighting. They can do anything you need to get
done pretty much. Peerscapes, the designers are visiting with Bob I Candice.
Those folks know what they're doing, and so if you want to give them
a call, it's two eight one three seven h fifty sixty two eight one
three seven h fifty sixty or or you can go online to Peerscapes dot com
peerscapes dot com and find out more information. Now'd be the time to go
ahead and get them booked up. Let's go in, let's talk to them
about. Here's pictures of what I got. What do you think you can
do? You know, what are the plans? Because it takes a while
to get everything in process, to get things drawn out and to get them
installed. And fall is on the way and that is prime time for getting
a lot of things established and planted. Right now it's a little dry,
it's a good time to get out and get some soil work and things like
that done out there. So don't delay if you if you want to turn
your place into a show place, I would get pier Escapes a call or
check them out online as soon as possible, so you're ready whenever the weather
is such that you can't wait to get outside and enjoy the beautiful little eden
that you're you've created for yourself. Let's go back to Mark in bel Air
Mark. We were talking Eagleston Hollies and you had one. Did you say
it was three years on the ground about I'm going back thinking it's closer to
two clo. Yeah, the other nineteen are doing wonderful. Okay, well
Holly is just an overall holly comment. First, the first year or two
or three that a holly is in, you really need to be taking care
with the watering on the roots. They once they're established, they're pretty tough.
I mean they're not like cactus belong in West Texas, but they're they're
pretty tough. But that first two or three year it's kind of touching.
Go so I would check the one that's not doing good. Is there.
We're we've checked the water. You're doing good. So not too wet,
not too wet, and not too dry, right I think, so okay,
it shouldn't be too bad. I mean the other ones are doing great,
That's what I mean. Yeah, Well, where I was heading was
sometimes you've got a sprinkler or a drip thing that's clogged, that's blocked,
and the spray isn't hitting the root system, and just make sure that's right.
Other than that, just adequate moisture during this heat, and moderate amounts
of nutrition. You know, with a with a fertilizer, primarily nitrogen is
the ingredient that they need, but they don't need a whole lot at one
time, So you want to go gradual with that. Okay, when can
I If I want to do a little more fertilizer, I've read that you
shouldn't do that this time of year. Maybe do I need to wait to
the fall to start that? No, you don't want to wait till fall.
I would go ahead. If you're gonna if you need to do something,
I'd go ahead and get a little bit done. Now. It's if
you have plants that are marginally hardy plants that often will freeze when we have
a bad winter. Uh, you know, bottlebrush can be that way,
Japanese blueberry can be that way. Fig trees can be that way. You
know, they're they're they're good plants, but they just they're just not that
that fully hardy. I don't like to fertilize those after about the beginning of
August because I don't want to encourage any late season growth and then we have
another like last December when it got so cold and our plants weren't ready for
it. That would be the only thing. Hollies aren't prone to that.
But you know, if if if you feel like it's lacking some nutrients,
I would give it a light application of some fertilizer. Well at this point,
yeah, it would led me that to that is it's next to some
star jasmine that's showing some some red leaves, which is next to another star
jasmine that's doing great. So it's like that. I don't know if that
little area where the patio meets the kind of the side yard, if I
don't know, maybe some soils not right there. It could be, Yeah,
it could be. I mean soils in our yards or not uniform.
You know, once you get into a neighborhood, things can get weird in
the soil from the time when they were building the neighborhood. You know,
who knows what they did, but yeah, I would do that. I'm
going to make a suggestion for you on that holly. And this is an
un unusual one, but Nitrophos has a product called sweet Green. It's an
eleven percent nitrogen, zero phosphorus, four percent potassium. I would put some
of that down. Now that's we think of it as a lawn furlizer,
and that's what it is. It's great for lawns, but for your hollies,
it would. It will be available quickly and it'll really stimulate the microbial
activity having that molasses content that it has. And I would do some light
applications, you know, for a let's see eleven percent, I would probably
put two cups of the sweet Green around your bushes and a big scattered evenly
through an area about six eight feet wide and then watered in. And you
could do that again a little bit later if you need to. But it's
a light application. It's going to be good for the roots system as well
as far as the microbes and stuff, and I would do that one.
And again that's the first time I've ever suggested it for a shrub, but
I think in this situation that would be a really good, a good choice.
The name of it is sweet Green. Yeah, it's sweet Green.
It's a it's an organic from nitro foss uh and it's you know where you
you're in bel air, so you know the the ace hardware's nearest you are
going to have it. That's probably the closest place that you're going to find
it to you. But it's it works well. You know, I promote
it for lawns, but you know, hollies are a foliage plant, and
so are lawns, and so a lot of times things that make the lawn
green and give vigorous growth and stuff that will do it. And I like
the fact that sweet green is is gonna be when you apply just a small
amount like that, it's going to be a stimulant for the for the plant
without it just pushing it into lots of long, long term growth, which
we'd rather avoid that at this point in the season. Okay, great,
Yeah, I'll give it a try. Thank you so much, And then
do the do the Colombo Sherlock Holmes thing, walk around, look, say
what's going on here? You know, is there a downspout or is there
anything that it hasn't appeared in our conversation that you might notice. Okay,
awesome, thank you so much. Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate
that call very much. Yeah, Nitrofuss, you know, have a number
of great products. But that's Sweet Green that's there. Their organic lawn fertilizer
and in the past, uh, you know, it's real popular and last
year kind of running into some shortages trying to keep it stocked. And boy,
this year they got a great supply on hand and you know, an
anticipation of a great demand coming up. And it's just a good one.
It's good for the lawns. That's what you name mainly recommended for. But
I think in this situation that was another good application of the Nitrofuss. And
they're they're easy to find, you know, all these hardwares have are most
of our garden centers are going to carry the Nitrofoss feed stores. You're gonna
find Nitrofoss products in our feed stores. We'd like to brag about. So
just a really good choice, really good choice. Hey, if you have
you got a piece of property and you've been thinking about getting a tractor.
Now, you know, maybe you've got a few acres or maybe a lot
of acres, but you'd like to get out there and you need something,
you know, to carry the mulch around, to haul the compost in for
building beds or bringing in sacks of feed. Who knows what. Kuboda,
that just really fun, cool tractor. I think it a prettytail of those
orange tractors. Kuboda from the Landsdown that is that combination. You're not going
to do better than that, I mean Landsdown. They've got places all over
the greater Houston area here and you can go to LM Tractor dot com as
in LANSDOWNE Moody Lansdown Moody Tractor, LM tractor dot com and you can find
out more about it. They got a deal going on that they have extended.
And I was stunned when I first started about this deal, because let's
into this zero down, zero interest for eighty four months, seven years,
I mean, and with cabodas you get that whole package. I'd recommend the
L twenty five oh one that is that is one impressive tractor. You can
trick it out with all the kinds of equipment, the front endloaders and everything
that you need on it. But go to LM tractor dot com. Or
if you just want to learn about more about Caboda, can go to Cabodo
USA for more information. Landsdown, Moody and Caboda. That is a combination
and you will be set up. In fact, you may not even want
to come back inside watch football this fall. Then once you get it out
there and enjoin your new tractor, your new ride heading around the property a
lot of fun. Hey, let's go up to Tom and Kingwood and find
out what's going on in Kingwood. Hey Tom, Hey, good morning.
I've got some double knockout roses cut back. Would that sweet green be good
for them? You know it could with usually with roses, we're putting in
more ingredients than just primarily the nitrogen, with a lottle potassium. Uh,
there would be. It would be good for a stimulation of growth and blooms.
But I would I would consider one of the rose fertilizers that are out
there on the market, and we've got some some really good quality ones that
are designed for roses. Uh you Nitrofoss has a rose fertilizer that's specifically for
that. Okay, okay, yeah they do. And what's the ingredients the
numbers. I'm gonna have to pull that that up. I don't have those
three numbers in front of me, but I can. I can cut that
down for you and find it. Just go where you would buy your Nitrofos
stuff. You're up in Kingwood, so you're you're fortunately, yeah, you've
you've got you know, you've got a number of ones in your area.
The K and m Ace, go up to Porter, there's the the J
and R's ace and yeah, no proble, I'm finding an ace up there
and they're going to carry those things. Okay, awesome, thank you you
bet you take care. Appreciate that call Tom. Well we are gosh,
we're covering a lot of ground here today. If you're in the Tomball area
and you are looking for your hometown feed store, that is D and D
Feed and Supply. I love to go out to D and D. The
Dover family has been running DND since nineteen eighty nine. You've got a newly
expanded store and when you go in there, if I'm talking about a fertilizer,
it's going to be at D and D. If I'm talking about soils,
they're going to have those bags of soils for you. D and D
carries a high quality line of dog food, of course, all the other
foods you'd expect for your animals at a feed store. If you need other
kinds of unique products, maybe you need one of those sprinklers that I keep
talking about that wraps around the tree, you know, the tree huggers.
Maybe you need stuff for controlling pests, rodents, things like that are cleaning
the pools. D and d's got all of that kind of stuff. DND
Feed is on twenty nine twenty West in tom Ball, about three miles from
two forty nine. Easy, easy to find, and when you go in
there, you're going to get the service. We wouldn't brag about them and
recommend them if it wasn't that way. And that is DND Feed for that
whole area. That is your hometown feed store. Well time for news our
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four not well good Saturday
morning. Look outside, the sun is out. It's a beautiful day.
It's a good day for gardening. Good day to talk about gardening. Two
And if you'd like to talk about gardening, give us a call. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four three two one, two,
five eight seven four. Now, if you've heard one show that I've done
here on garden Line, you have heard me talk about the importance of soil.
Soil is everything when it comes to plants. By the time you plant
a plant, whether it's a seed or a transplant, and you walk away,
you are already eighty percent of the way to success or failure. Right
there. It's done. Now are there are other things that are important after
that? Of course, you got to water, and you got to fertilize
them. You got to take care of them. You've got some issues you
may have to deal with. Eighty percent is already decided. And why do
I say that, Well, you've picked a spot that's sunny or shady.
You've picked a spot that's well drained or not. You've chosen a species and
a variety that is suited to that spot in this area or it's not.
And those are all important, But even more important is the soil that it's
in. Plants need quality soil to do well. And if you you know,
I mean, if you're going to grow a plant, you need to
create that soil environment that it needs and that we are fortunate in the Houston
area to have some really quality soil providers in our area. We really are.
If you live down south of Houston in the Sienna area, you know
we're talking about north of Roscheron, So this would be Cena Plantation, this
would be Manville First Colony or pair Land even over by brass beIN State Park.
CNA Mulch is your soil supplier. Now. They're open Monday through Friday
from seven thirty in the morning till five pm today seven thirty to two pm,
So when this show's over, you need head right over there, and
then they're closed on Sunday. They are on five twenty one near where Highway
six and two eighty eight come together, just north of Rocheron. You can
go to Ciena Mulch dot com to find out more about them. But when
you go there, I mean, it's not just like you're going to buy
malls. They have. First of all, they carry all the fertilizers we
talk about, and then they have mulch in bulk. They have mulch in
bags. They have compost bulk compost bags, or the soil mixes we brag
on, and oh my gosh, when it comes to stone and rock and
all those kind of hardscape types of products, they have got an unbelievable selection.
They'll deliver within about twenty miles there for a small delivery fee. So
if you don't have a vehicle that can haul all that in, don't worry.
They'll bring it to you. But CNA Malt is one of those places
that, let's just put it this way, they're your foundation for a successful
garden. You take care of the brown stuff first, and then you will
have success with the green stuff. How about that? Does that make sense?
First the soil to have success with the plants. That is a secret
and that's why we love SNA Malts so much. Here on Garden Line,
we're going to head out to northwest Houston now and we're going to talk to
Charles. Hello, Charles, Hello, Hello, How can we help today?
I have a good growth of dove weed in my backyard. How do
I get rid of that doveweed? There is a there's a cinnamon type of
product you can sprinkle down that does a pretty good job on it, and
I am trying to remember the other herbicide that I'm Charles, I'm gonna have
to come back and talk about that in a minute. It is not coming
to my head off just the top of my head. Doveweed is in the
same kind of group as like wandering jew weeds, and they're they're kind of
caught. They're not grasses really, and they're not broad leaves really, and
they're caught in between, and it makes it kind of a challenge. Number
One, the wetter you keep the area, the happier the doveweed is.
So when you water a good soaking but then letting it dry out considerably before
you water again, your grass does well under that regiment. The doveweed is
not as happy as when it's being kept wet all the time. So that
would be a cultural thing. But Charles, I'm gonna have to come back
to you on the other ingredient. I know there's a cinnamon type product that
you can sprinkle on it, and the other one is just escaping me.
So I guess we'll have to have to come back on that one. Okay,
Okay, I'll listen to your program and find out all right, thank
you. I apologize my brain has drawn a blank on that one. So
let's see. Let's head out to the hobby area right now. And is
it Phinisee is? Actually is fannis name Phis? Okay? I like to
find out who would you recommend for trying to grow watermelons next year? So
I want to prepare whatever it is for next year. Okay. So what
you want to do is you want to get a good, well drained soil
area. So if that means bringing a soil in, creating a raised bed
and whatnot, it needs to be well drained, but it needs it needs
to be able to hold adequate moisture. Most watermelons are in sandy soil and
they water them a lot to keep to keep them moist they need full sun.
You need good sun, So find a spot that's going to get at
least six hours of sun, preferably more than that to have good success with
the watermelons. And then finally, just plant them at the right time.
So once we get into about you know, April, you can begin planting
your watermelons and they'll they'll do just fine. Here, all right, sir,
I do have my backyard that it gets at least ten hours of sun
there you go. All right, Well sounds like it sounds like you're well
on your way to having success with those. Well, I probably would need
to raise the bed. Maybe it put a place bed, but I mean
it's rained pretty well back there. But yeah, it's probably better because of
our neighbors. You know, they're I don't know what they're but I mean,
really we've never had any water the spaces they're back in the back yard.
Who really brains towards the front of the house. Let's get along the
site. But yeah, yeah, I'll wait it either way. Yeah,
appreciate. Yeah. The one thing the watermelons don't want is a heavy clay
soil that stays saggy wet after a good hard rain. They just don't want,
all right, So you keep them out of that area and they'll do
good for you, all right, sir, appreciate your help. Thank you,
sir. I appreciate that call. Hey, if you're thinking about retiring
and looking for a place for gardeners at want an active lifestyle, that would
be the dellweb community in full Shure. Why do I say that, because
the fullshre delweb community that's going in has a community garden that I am assisting
them with. And so not only do you get the beautiful dell Web homes,
the beautiful dell Weeb community, the lifestyle programs built around you. You
get the chance to gather together with friends and enjoy a garden without having to
dig up your own black forty and so I think that's just a win win.
You can go to dellweb dot com slash Houston to get more info or
give them a call two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine.
If you are thinking about a move to a nice, beautiful community, that
would be a great idea. Oh my goodness, we got a lot of
things we're visiting about today. One of the challenges this time of year,
of course, is the heat. But despite the fact that it's hot,
you gotta remember fall is coming, and therefore we have to take care of
our plants to get ready for fall. And we have to do the things
now that we need for fall. For example, you're gonna plant maybe broccoli
or start putting in some cool season flowers coming up. You got to get
the soil ready. Now's the time to do that. Early in the morning,
it's cool. Let's get those beds made. Let's get it ready to
go. Our turf grasses. We are coming into the fall season. Once
we get to about October, all the cool season weeds are germinating. What
can you do now to make that turf as dense as possible? And that
would include things like fertilizing, mowing regularly, watering deeply but infrequently. So
see what I'm talking about. I mean, I can go on and on
with the list. Now's the time to begin getting ready our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we'll be right back.
The Devil dance Daddy, he'd have a ball in line. We're the
nine Good Ground, the DNDS band in will group that Raisin lou man A
three B two one dance for the night. Well, good morning. You
are listening to guard Line on a beautiful Saturday morning, and we're here to
answer gardening questions. So if you're interested, give us a call. Seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna hit out now to Tumball and talk to
Ken Ken. Thanks for hanging on sure, M appreciate you taking my call
was wouldn't to ask you. I've got a colony of leaf cutter ants that
have moved in and I was wondering if you have a suggection on how to
get rid of them. There is a there is a product called amdro ant
block that is pretty effective against leaf cutters. The problem with the you know,
the regular some of the regular products that we would use for ants,
they just don't work well, including regular ambro just the standard old amdro is
not But andro Ant block it's got the ingredients in it are a little more
effective. The problem of the leaf cutters is they cut the leaves off your
plants and then they haul them down and stick them in a cave underground and
grow fungus on them to eat the fungus. So it kind of makes it
hard to you know, get the pesticide to the ant. But the andro
ant block is a bait that should do a pretty good job for you.
Okay, I'll give shot still as oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you
know you're up in the in the tom ball, are you might? I
would try, I would, I would try. Um, I think you're
gonna find it at Arbergate. I believe that they have it there for if
not, you did call them, you know, call them first for you
run out. But I think they would have it there. A. D
and D might have it out there too. I can't remember seeing it there.
It might be there though, but you know, just just kind of
check around. I just off the top of my head, don't don't know
all the all the places it might carry that specific product. All right,
Well, thank you. Yeah you're what what part of which direction from tom
Ball? Are you? North? South, east, west west? Just
west, like about two and a half. Okay, so well those two
places I mentioned or just kind of in your backyard, Yeah, I would
start there then that that's probably gonna be your best bet. All right,
good luck with those man I had. I had those things on a farm
that we had up in Willis, and I had a peach orchard and I
went out and overnight three peach trees that had full leaf canopy the next morning
had no leaves on the I've never seen things like it. They did that
to our red buds. It took every within the spring and they took every
bud that we had. Yea, took all the color off of them.
Yeah. I don't know if you've seen Caddyshack, but I was Bill Murray
and the ants were that gopher. I was stuffing stuff down the hole.
I was ready to put dynamite down there and blow them up. I mean,
that would have been the movie. It would have been the movie.
All right, all right, thank you very much, bad take care Ken,
Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Well,
you know, your lawn is still growing and it still needs nutrition,
and now would be a good time to put out some microlife fertilizer. And
we're talking about the green bag. That is like that's kind of like the
universal of the microlives. I mean it is you can pretty much use it
on everything. I mean, we know we have products were fruit trees and
roses and azaleas and all kinds of different things. But the green bag is
just kind of like an all around great product. I mean, if you're
in a vegetable gardener or an herb gardener or whatever, you're going to use
it. Well for the lawn. That's a six two four the three one
two ratio. It's going to release as the microbes get ahold of it and
start to break those nutrients out. Now we say the three numbers six,
two, four. But what's in a bag of microlife fertilizer is all kinds
of beneficial microbes plus over sixty three minerals that are part of that whole group
of things that plants need. You know, plants don't just need the big
three. They need that, but they also need the second group of three,
the secondary nutrients, and then they need the micronutrients. I mean,
you get down to things like molybdenum and zinc. Do you know that if
you could take all the molybdenum out of the soil, you could not grow
a grass or any plant because they have to have molebdu Well, you can't
take it all out. But my point is that plants need more than the
big three, and that's what the microlife provides. If you'll top that off
with the humates plus, which is the purple bag that's concentrated compost in a
bag, there we are talking about all the things that are benefits of composts
with the humic acids and the things that prepare that soil. You know,
when you're fertilizing with microlife, you are putting on nutrients, but what you're
trying to do is you're trying to build that soil so the grass just thrives.
And that includes more than nutrients. That's microbes, that's everything else that's
involved in good healthy soil. Microlife's sixty four and that's a green bag and
the purple bag humates. Plus we're about to put another another hour in the
books here, man, that time flu this morning, that that's kind of
going fast. I'm going to be heading out to Obapalooza, which what is
Obapalooza. It's the OBA event that's going on at the United Way Building on
WA Drive here in the Houston area and Oba Paluza. What is OBA,
by the way, OBA is the Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance and there's a group
of folks gotten together to promote the benefits of organic horticulture, both the benefits
of healthy eating, healthy loving. And the Oba Paluza today is going to
have a whole bunch of speakers. In fact, they are already rolling over
there. I'll be joining them after the show today. I actually given a
talk today at two thirty and my talk is going to be on two of
the things that make the phone ring. That's trees and turf. Why is
my tree dying? Why is my grass dying? And how do we take
care of that? And what I'm wanna do is I'm gonna give a look
at it from the standpoint of why did we get here? How did we
get here? You know? So what we there's different ways of approaching problems.
And when you call garden Line, you know you're you're hearing me talk
about answers to specific problems like I have fiance, how do I kill them?
Or I have this disease? How do I prevented? Or how do
I kill it? And I'm going to take a step back from that,
and we should You've heard me talk before about the importance of cultural practices,
picking the right plant, doing all the things right. Remember how when you
walk away, you're eighty percent of the way to success or failure. What
are the things we do that predispose a plant? You know, maybe your
tree died of hypoxilan canker, but your tree died of hypoxillan because it had
stresses that led to hypoxillin coming in. And we're going to take a step
back and look at what does nature do to keep plants healthy? You know,
think about the beautiful forests around the world that just live without us running
through there with fertilizers and rhoto tillers and exercise and pestis. How do they
do that? What's going on there? We're gonna look at some of those
principles that I had two thirty and I'll be talking about them as I am
right now on the air as well. Hey, it is about time to
take our next news break. But I do want to give your phone number.
It's seven one two one two five eight seven four. If you would
like to be on. Maybe you have a gardening question, give Josh a
call and let him get you on the boards. We'll be happy to visit
with you about the things that might be of interest to you. We always
try to, you know, point you to the kinds of answers, the
kinds of resources that are helpful. If you've never checked out the Aggy Horticulture
website, it's Agge hyphen horticulture dot TAMU, dot e du, or just
go online whether you use Google or whatever your search engine and type in Aggie
and horticulture. When you get there, you're gonna find a lot of good
stuff. There's a section on vegetables, where there's a little free fact sheet,
full color multi page that you can look at on line or download on
every vegetable that you can imagine. You go to the fruit section and there's
everything from avocado to I don't know what's a fruit that begins with Z.
There's everything from A to Z when it comes to fruit that's also available.
It's all free. It's a resource that's available for you that can be very
very helpful. We have our fall season coming up and we'll be doing some
fertilizing, So if you haven't had your soil tested, I would recommend going
ahead and getting that done now so that you have time to get the soil
right before we go into fall planting. So that would be soil testing dot
TAMU dot edu, soil testing dot TAMU, dot DU. Let's get that
right so when we fertilize, we fertilize accordingly. KTRH Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to
KTRH Garden Line with Scip Director. It's just watch good morning. You are
listening to garden Line on a beautiful Saturday morning. I'm your host. Skip
Richter, and we are here to answer your gardening calls our phone number seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Now, if you live in the Houston area or
have lived here for very long, especially if you've driven downtown down some of
the streets, you know that we have soil that shrinks and swells. What
does that mean, Well, when it gets wet, it expands, When
it gets dry, it contracts. Our foundations have a heck of a time
with it. Have you noticed maybe that your doors are sticking, Maybe there's
a crack in the brick outside or even the sheet rock inside. You see
a crack forming in that you may need foundation repair and you need to not
delay, catch it early on and have Tie Stricklin. And he's the owner
of Fix my Slab Foundation Repair. Tie has been doing this a long time,
twenty three years here in the area. He knows what he's doing.
And if you're a garden line listener, if you tell them you're a garden
line listener, they actually give you a free estimate. The thing I like
about Fix my Slab and you know this tiees Hoole approach to this is they're
committed to a fair price and they show up on time and when they do
it, it's fixed. It's done. You know they're going to do a
good job of doing it. And that's the kind of folks that we like
to talk about on garden Line because we want you to have success. We
want you to have the issues that you need taking care of taken care of.
And that's exactly what you're going to get with Fix my Slab Foundation Repair.
You can go to fix myslab dot com, fix myslab dot com or
give him a call two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine.
By the way, they'll do crack driveways, they'll do crack sidewalks as well.
They know how to do it all. They are experienced and they do
quality work. It fixed my slab. You're listening to garden Line our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four and we're going to
head right on up to north Shore and talk to Sharon. Hello, Sharon,
Hi, Hi, how can we help? I have I have a
yesterday, today and tomorrow in my yard and it's in the finn it's on
the south side and it's not happy on that side. Okay, so I
was, and it's just not well. I used to have there used to
be a magnolia in the front yard, and it gave it partial shade and
it was happier. But now I'm not happy at all. Is it too
late for me to dig it up? I wouldn't do it to it now
because the demands are so high and you're gonna lose the vast majority of the
roots system when you dig it up. I would wait and do that in
the fall. Let's let it cool off a little bit, get into later
October, November or something, and go ahead and move it now. And
I know in the meantime, if you want to put some kind of a
little shady kind of cover of whatever you can do to kind of block some
of the sun over it, that would be fine. But oh okay,
they just kind of keep it moist. Yeah, yesterday to day and tomorrow.
Brun Felsi is a beautiful old plant. In fact, doesn't that name?
Do you know who Aban Costello is? Sharon? You remember? Yes?
Yes, I'm not that young. All right, Well, I was
no assumptions here. I'm just saying you remember the who's on first routine.
They should have had a yesterday, today and tomorrow. You know, the
picture's name was yesterday. Never mind anyway, Yeah, that's it. That's
it. That'd be a good one. Yeah. Just keep keep it as
happy as you can for now. Uh. It is kind of an understory
type of plan. It likes light, it needs some light, but just
the blazing too much blazing Sun's kind of hard on them. Okay, because
I was going to ask you what kind of light does it need? Because
it was my mother's and I can't find them anywhere in the nurseries. And
I think it's blue, pink and white. It makes all the colors.
Yeah, it'smell beautiful and it's getting very scraggly. It's not happy it is.
I'm trying to Wars North Shore get up here. I'm on the east
side off of Ubaldi and okay, on the on the sam Houson Toe Breach
over there. Yeah, okay, oh boy, trying to think of you.
You ought to be able to find them too locally. There are a
few. I haven't found one long time, okay, yeah, because it's
really sad. Yeah, yeah, well, let's keep this one alive.
And I don't think that'll be that hard to do. I just just give
it a little bit of a break and make sure the soil stays moist without
being saggy. That's the key, all right, Okay, and then it
just likes partial sign is that what it like. A little morning sun would
be good, or a very bright dappled shade through the day would be good.
I've seen them growing in more sun, so maybe there's something else going
on in terms of dry soil or saggy soil or something else. But check
for those things to be sure. Okay, all right, well, thank
you. I appreciate that call. Sharon. You are when you have a
really wonderful plant that I love those plants. It's it's kind of an old
fashioned plant. It kind of went out a fashion for a while and then
it kind of came back and it's really really popular. You might have you
might consider I was thinking about places you get these. I'm pretty sure they
would have those up in Kingwood at Kingwood Garden and Warren's Garden. I know
it's a bit of a drive for you, but as a drive well worth
it. Kingwood Garden Center and warren Southern Garden Center are really really cool places.
They have the plants you need, They the products you need. Yeah,
I was bragging on tree hugger sprinkle while ago. They got those up
there. I've always been bragging on the Cajun hibiscus. I just think that's
one of the prettiest hibiscus there is. And in fact, over let's see,
it's at Kingwood Garden Center. The Kingwood Center, they have the one
gallon Cajun hibiscus on sale. It's only today and tomorrow, well actually started
winds bit as far as you're listening now today from two to five pm or
tomorrow Sunday from two to five pm, while supplies last. You can get
one of the Cajun hibiscus. And when you go see them, you'll know
what I'm talking about. They are gorgeous that it's called their Hibiscus Happy Hour.
Only at the Kingwood Garden Center. They also have Mandevilla's there. In
fact, you can get Mandevilla's both Kingwood and Southern Warren. Southern Gardens they've
got Caliandra's, the pink powder puff, Oh my gosh, beautiful little wispy
blooms, very very unique. Maybe you have a shady area and you need
something beautiful for that. How about a Kirkuma ginger. They do really well
in a bright shade. Super super plants just excellent at Kingwood and at Warren's
Garden Center by the way, coming up, write this down. It's two
weeks from now, August nineteenth, from nine to ten am, Warren Southern
Gardens is going to have their cultivate a harvest of abundance. They are going
to be talking about fall garden prep from nine to ten am. It's free
Warren's Garden Center August nineteen. You need to go ahead and register because space
is limited, and so you want to make sure and get in there for
it. That will be the one thing you learn that is the most helpful
thing in all of your gardening endeavors is getting that fall garden prep ready to
go. Really really important. I just can't sing praises about that enough.
Well, we're about to take a little break here. Heard up. You
will be first up when we come back. If you would like to be
on garden line and ask questions talk about gardening seven one three, two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Just give Josh a call and he will get
you on the board. All right, We're giving away a free bag of
fire ants and nutgrass. Where anybody who can tell me who about that song?
That's the mystery question of the day. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
If you have heard me talk about Dellweb, then you know exactly the kind
of quality program or quality community that they put together wherever they build, and
they've been doing this for seventy years. They design their programs, they design
their communities around active living adults age fifty five and better, folks that are
out there and enjoying the best time of their life. And part of the
best time of your life is enjoying a garden. And they have a community
garden in the new facility. The new community going in near fulsher On FM
three fifty nine. It's about two miles from downtown fullsher On three fifty nine.
Give them a call at two eight one four five nine zero six zero
nine to find out more information, or go to dellweb dot com for word
slash Houston and find out about that Dell web difference that I've been talking about
for yourself. We're gonna head out now to spring Break or spring Break Spring
Branch and talk to Herda. Hello, Herda, Oh, good morning,
Skip. Thank you for being there for us. My questions about Rosemary.
I want to bring a plant in the house. How much sun would it
need like on windowsill? And is there such a thing as a dwarf Rosemary
whether I don't know of any true dwarf Rosemary? And I tell you you
might if you've got one heck of a sunny windowsill, you could probably keep
one going. But Rosemary needs a lot of sun and moday my just you
know, being the bearer of bad news, I don't think you're gonna be
happy with Rosemary and a windowsill. Just the perform right, all right,
you will. This doesn't face east or west, so yeah, there would
be more shade than I probably would need. Yeah, well, thank you
very much. All right, you have a good day. All right,
Well, thank you for the call. You take care out there in Spring
Branch. Well, let's see we've been we've been talking about things getting ready
for fall this summer, and now's the time I realize, you know,
we listen to the weather and it's discouraging to hear the temperatures and stuff like
that, But hey, you do it now. If you wait until it's
cool enough outside where you want to go out and just play around all day
in the garden, it's too late for doing a lot of the things we
need to do now. Getting the sore ready is important to get that done
now. Taking care of your lawn, getting it ready, you got to
get that lawn as dense as you can because come October, the hen bit
and chickweed and carpetweed also call cleavers the what am I forgetting annual bluegrass?
All kinds of winter weeds are going to be coming up in October that will
sit there all through the winter and then give you headaches in the spring when
they take off like our blue bonnets do and bloom and set seed. And
so if you have a dense lawn going into October, it greatly reduces the
number of weed problems you have. So making sure you take care of your
lawn. One way we do that is with product by Nitrofoss called Superturf.
Nitrofoss is nineteen four ten. Silver bag. It's easy to remember Silver bag
superturf is gradually releasing. It's going to release over a period of several months
as a matter of fact, so it's gradual. So the issues with like
brown patch are the large patch circles that we get in the cool season are
going to get reduced. The issues with these late season chinch bug problems that
we have are going to be reduced. The grass is going to read root
deeper because when it gets too much nitrogen at one time, you end up
with top growth at the expensive root growth. Nitro file Super Turf has that
covered. That's a nineteen four ten. And where do you get nitro files
everywhere? Garden centers all over the place that we talked about have nitrofiles.
Ace hardware stores what are They're thirty nine of them all over the Greater Houston
area they have nit nitro fis products. And our wonderful feed stores that we
brag on all over the Greater Houston area are also going to carry that product
for you as well. Let's head out now to north Shore and we're gonna
talk to Donnie. Hello, Donnie, Hello, that skipper, what's up?
I had email you about a week ago at your request of take some
pictures of my yard some brown spots up close a little far away, and
also some recommendation on some planting of some flowers, but look color for this
time a year and I hadn't heard back from ye. All right, I'm
sitting here flipping through my emails. I must have missed yours. There it
is. I found it good, all right, we got it here.
So you got a sprinkler system and you're watering either after nine pm or seven
am, and you what you're basically looking for? What some advice on what's
going on with that lawn right right? Well, parts of it looked like
drought, but parts of it looked like chinch bugs to me. I don't
know if you're familiar with chinch bugs, but they typically start next to a
curb or a walk sidewalk or a driveway, and then they work their way
out in the lawn. It looks like the lawn needs watering, and they
eat, They suck all the juices out of the lawn and what they lay
behind, and I can see this in one of your pictures. That's that's
some fall aster. By the way, they leave behind certain kinds of weeds
that they don't like at all. So you got these big blue green weeds
right in the middle of your dying lawn. But that really looks like chinch
bugs if it's not, or if it's something in addition to that, it
could also be take all root rot. So you got your hands full there.
I would probably grab some bugout Max from nitrofoss and I would just go
ahead and treat that area and try to shut them down because they've already done
a considerable amount of damage. And let's go ahead and and shut them down
now. But the bugout Max is a bifethern product that can be drenched down
into the soil. And because the chinch bugs, they just flat kill kill
grass as you can seem. Okay, okay, okay. So now if
it would you recommend for plant any colorful flowers at this time of year,
you know, when we get to towards up your yards a little bit.
Yeah, when we get towards the end of summer, I start thinking about
some of the warm seasons that do what warm season flowers that do well in
early fall, Angelonia would do real well. Right now, let's see the
little compact types as any as little budding plant types, as any as will
do well, now, I will often plant marigolds, the big old pom
pom type, not the little flowers the size of a quarter. But I'm
talking about the things that are size of a tennis ball. Uh. Those
orange and yellow beautiful. When it goes into fall, the spider might populations
go down and they just glow. They look really good. They'll carry you
all the way up to the first frost. They cannot take frost, but
they'll take you to there. That would do good. Petunias would be a
good one for the summer. You just need to get uh oh, you
know about shrubs too. Azalia is not so much in the fall, but
getting those planted this fall for coming out and having a beautiful spring bloom,
that would be. That would be a good choice for that. Now,
if you just want if you're thinking more in a shrub type terms, you
know, bougun vs look good this time of year. The hibiscos I've been
you know, I was bragging on the the Cajun hibiscus that they have up
at Kingwood Garden Center or war in Southern Gardens. And let's see where are
you calling. I'm you're up in North Shore. Okay, sure, yeah,
So you're not too far away. Uh, those will all be good
options. There's just a lot of good things out there. I don't know
if you have a preference for a certain size of plant or color of flower
or whatever, there's a lot of options. Yeah, if you see my
flower bed, I've kind of cut out in that email. Okay, oh
yeah, that's that's the kind of format that I want to kind of put
something in there. Yeah, go to the contour of that, I would.
I would go with something a little smaller stature. Then that's an awful
lot of sun and which is good. You can get good blooms in the
sun. There's some good salvias. I think the Angelonia would be one you're
gonna really like. I would. It's also called summer snap dragon. It's
not a snap dragon, but that would be one you might want to consider
too. Yeah, because the sun rives in the last Yeah. Yeah,
if you got a favorite gardens or you like to go to, they're gonna
have They're gonna have a beautiful, beautiful color options right now. Okay them
chink bugs you thank god? Me. I think it's chinch bugs mostly,
you know, And I'm looking at a picture, but just the fact that
it's often starting next to your your masonry. Uh, I think that's what
it is there. There could be some takeall root right in there as well,
but I would first make sure and get that chinch bug thing under control.
And again the bugout Max had probably probably would be a good quick quick
choice for that from nitrophile. That's a Is that a granular law? Yes,
yes, it's a granule. Follow the label. You're gonna put it
down, You're gonna water it in and it'll do the trick, all right,
all right, thank you, yes, sir, you take care appreciate
that call. Uh you know the the um whenever it does rain, and
it will it does rain or run here mosquite has become such a problem,
especially with standing water. It doesn't take them long. What do they say,
like a thumbleful or a bottle capful of water is enough for mosquitoes to
lay an egg and grow some larva and to hatch out and become adult mosquitoes.
Again, that's why we need to dump out all those little water things
underneath the underneath the catch basins on the pot. If you've got a sagging
gutter, oh, that's mosquito heaven organic matter decomposing in water that isn't moving.
That is what mosquito heaven is. Well. Mosquito dunks can be thrown
into any body of water and they will float along and for about a month
they will kill mosquitoes naturally. Now it's not a poison that's gonna hurt birds
or wildlife or your family pet if they drink out of it, or maybe
it's a coypon you got fishing. It's not gonna hurt that, but it
will work well against mosquitoes. Each dunk covers about one hundred square feet of
water unless, as I said, about a month. So anytime you have
standing water and you can't fix it or you don't want to fix it,
then mosquito dunks would be the way to go. Mosquito dunks as simple product,
and they're everywhere ever lace you hear me talk about, from garden center,
stays, hardware storees to feed stores, you're going to find mosquito dunks.
We're gonna head over to Deer Park and talk to Stephen. Hello,
Stephen, Hey, good morning, Skip. How you doing any morning?
I'm doing well. I've got a Schumart reddo and it's probably about three years
old, maybe four years old. It's a pretty good sized tree, been
a super great tree. It grows real dip leaves. But my front yard
right now looks like late August. I mean it started shedding leaves, and
uh my thought is that it's because I haven't probably watered it enough and this
heat is making it shuts oars or something and it's grown off leaves. Yeah,
that's probably I'd feel better if you told me that probably all it is.
Yeah, yeah, if it's if it's just dropping some leaves, and
especially if you're noticing like the tips and margins of the leaves or brown,
but the rest of the leaf is green for a while before it turns brown.
That sounds like water. Tell me, I'm about out a time.
But how long has it been in the ground, So it's probably been in
the ground a good four years alto sometimes you use about four or five years.
Yeah. I talk about the tree huggers a lot, but it's because
I believe in them. Because you put that around the base of your tree,
you turn it on, you can water the whole area beneath and beyond
the branch bread and give it a good soaking. You may take two or
three waterings during a day. To get that soil soaked well, you need
at least an inch of water for it to do good. And I'm gonna
have to run. But that kind of water, whether you use a tree
hugger or not, that kind of watering is what it's going to take to
get that tree back. Okay, all right, thanks, yes, sir,
you take care. All right, Here we go our phone number seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. We're gonna quit talking plants
and we're gonna go to news with Nikki. I get it one piece of
the time, and it wouldn't cost me a time. You lords me when
I got through your town, I'm gonna ride around in style. I'm gonna
drive everybody wild. Boz will have the only one larious round. So the
very next day when I punched in was my big lunch box. Let's helping
my friend. I left that day Johnny cash one piece at a time.
I didn't cost me a dime. Our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k t r H.
Give Josh a call, who gets you on the board and we will
talk about whatever you are interested in you know, I have I have folks
often ask me about, you know, what is the best way to create
a garden? You know, what do I plow it up to put on
compost first? Whatever. There's a lot of waste skin account and when it
comes to creating a garden, there's a lot of ways to do that too.
But I don't know a better way than to just do an above ground
raised bed, you know, because really the plant doesn't care what it's growing
in. I mean, it doesn't care if you've got you remodeled your house
and you've got an old toilet out at the street now you're waiting for somebody.
Halloway, that's a planner. Okay, I'm serious. Plant doesn't care.
As long as it has enough soil. That's number one. It's got
to have enough soil because when it's one hundred degrees and that plant is pumping
just as much water as it can to stay alive, if it doesn't have
a huge soil volume, it's not going to do well. And so I
like, my favorite type of garden would be to put a bed box on
the ground so that the roots can go down in the ground. But you've
got a quality mid up mix up in the bed box, and that is
exactly what a Vego garden is. Now you can go online to vegogarden dot
com, v egogarden dot com and you can find out what I'm talking about.
There are metal beds that have been treated with a material to prevent corrosion
and rusting, and then on top of that they put a USDA approved quality
paint. By the way, that corrosion treatment is one that was certified or
tested at Texas A and M University. And now the paints are beautiful.
I mean, the colors are beautiful. Vego is modular. So do you
want an oval? Do you want a C shaped bed? You know?
Do you how big do you want it? How why do you want it?
You put it together like you want and it is excellent. There.
It's a Houston company. Is this is our own hometown company. It's one
of the I think it's the oldest metal bed company here in the US.
And boy are there ever some fakes out there on the market. There's a
lot of pretenders, but nothing the quality of a Vego Garden bed. And
also a nice local company that does well. If you're an organic gardener,
you don't want to use treated lumber, you don't want to use your aerotize,
Well, here's your bed, Vego garden. But even if you're not
an organic gardener, I cannot think of a better product to go in to
be instantly into a garden. You take a Vego bed and you put a
quality mix into it, and you're gardening tomorrow. And they're not many ways
you can you can go about creating a garden where you're gardening the day after
you decide to do it, and that is Vego Garden. I can't brag
about those things enough. We're gonna go out to Rochera now and we're gonna
talk to Brenda. How's Brenda today? I'm awesome, good. How are
you? I'm well, thank you. I can tell I can tell.
Listen. I've got some trees that we had one of those tree farms come
out and plant. We bought about nine of them, and two of them
have what I think is a fungus. It was lea leaking sap. They're
nettles, nettle oaks. They're leaking sap. Had butterflies and everything attracted to
it, and so the tree farm told us to spread it with knee moil
and that didn't seem to be working right, So um, I read doctor
Google. Doctor Google said that there's nothing that can be done. You need
to dig him up. What do you say, Yeah, well, doctor
Google, he goes outside and he asks his neighbor, and some of his
neighbors don't know what they're talking about. Okay, so let me just tell
you about that. So yeah, there's the best and the worst answers in
the world on on Google. What that is is it's called slime flux or
bacterial wet wood and the trees they get maybe a stress crack in them.
It can come from like a physical injury. It can come from just the
bending and a cracking, you know, cold freeze, cracks, A lot
of things can cause it. But the sap is full of sugars, carbohydrates
that the leaves are making. And when you get any kind of sugary water
and you introduce microbes, you end up with alcohol you and up. You
know. That's how we That's how we make beer, that's how we make
wine, whiskey. I mean, it's all a fermented you need to tap
it. It's basically, I'm just a little sign. You know. It
can be Brenda's beer joint right there and all free. All the wasps and
the butterflies of the neighborhood will come over there. But there's no that's it.
It's a speakeasy. No, there's no there's no fix in it.
There's no spray in it. You just want your tree to get vigor so
that it can create the callous and close that area over. That's that is
the long term fix. And so water, proper watering, adequate fertilizing,
get the grass away so it's not competing with the lawn and everything. Let
it, let it get on its feet. That's the solution to back trial
wet way and slime flux both okay, okay. Fertilizer any particular. Should
I check the website you guys have for the tree? You know, I'll
tell you this. There are some really good tree fertilizers out there. I
know nitro Foss has one that is excellent for trees. I know Nelson's has
some that are excellent for trees. I mean they're they're they're good fertilizers.
In my house, I often because I buy bags for the lawn, I
often will just use that on the trees too, and there's nothing wrong with
that. So if you go no, I wouldn't do that. I'd do
look for one with a three one two ratio of nutrients. So you know,
like microlife has a six two four. I just talked about the nitrophos
is nineteen four tien. I believe it was, uh, you know Nelson's
has there's a um slow and easy. It's a twenty two two ten.
I'm throwing up. I'm messing up on those last numbers a little bit.
But anyway, it doesn't it nitrogen. That's the vigor. That's the vigor
nutrient, and so that's the main one you need. Yeah, it's not
for lack of phosphorus or really even a lack of potassium that the trees are
not growing more. But the main reason right now is it's so blazing hot
that it's just hard for any plants to do anything other than survive. And
that's when we summertime is when we see this problem most. But it'll be
okay. Just just take care of the trees, get them growing, keep
them healthy, and they will close that off and be fine. Thank you
so much, Thank you so much for your tips. Six to Yep,
you got it all. Right, Brenda, thank you for them. I
appreciate that very much. Yeah, the little Butterfly bear joints that we have
several calls this year on those, so I guess that's that's popping up a
lot out there. If you live in the north central part of Houston,
your hometown feed stores Quality Feed and Garden Supply. Now, Kenn and Chris
have been operating Quality Feed for I guess thirty two years now. I mean
Quality Feed goes back to nineteen twenty eight. How many businesses do you know
that are Houston traditions since nineteen twenty eight. Quality Feed it's well named because
they do have quality feeds. In fact, if you have like backyard chickens,
this is your place. They not only carry a wide variety of options
for your chickens, they even make their own Grandy's laying mix for example.
They're at Quality Feed now. They also get chickens in about every two weeks.
So if you thought about this backyard chicken thing, Quality Feed is the
place you need to go. I don't care where you live. You can
go online to Quality feed coo dot com. Quality feedco dot com. They
are on Luzon Street, which is near the intersection of equipment and alesion right
down there, and let's just say north central Houston if you think about it
that way. Monday through Friday nine to six, today, nine to four
pm, and Tomorrow eleven thirty to four pm. If we recommend a fertilizer,
they have it at Quality Feed. If you need a pasticide, herb
aside, fungicide, you know, bags of soil and compost, they've got
it all there at Quality Feed on Lozon Street in North central Houston. Quality
feedco dot com. Hey, let's take a break. It's time for one.
Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
The scene somewhere my love stands on. Nobody called in to tell me who's
sang? Or who wrote that thing? You do? Who can tell me
who's sang that? Beyond the sea you're listening to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Ricter our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well,
we got a lot of a lot of topics we've been covered today. Keep
trying to come back to the fact that even though it's hot outside, now's
the time to get ready for fall. If you for example, if I
mentioned earlier, but if you want to grow broccoli in your fall garden,
now's the time you would start seeds and little cell packs to get going.
So you have a transplant to put out come September, maybe even October gives
you plenty of time to get that done. There's just a lot of things.
Time to get your lawn dench you're lawn healthy. If you start to
see chinch bug damage. If you start to see your lawn dying in areas
and you're watering it and it's not perking up, that's probably chinch bugs could
be a little take all root rot as well, but jump on it early.
Do not delay. Don't wait until the weather cools off it's too light,
and take all in chinch bugs both kill grass. Now we have things
that don't kill grass. Gray leaf spot looks horrible. That doesn't kill the
grass. The large patch we used to call it brown patch. Large patch
makes a big brown circles in the cool season, looks horrible, doesn't kill
the grass. Chinch Bugs and take all root rot. Now there you're losing
lawn, and so you don't delay. You get on it right away,
find out what it is, get on it right away, and take care
of it. Even though it's hot outside, Get out there and get that
done, because just the cost of delay is significant. Let's head out to
Katie and we're gonna talk to John this morning. Hello, John, see
this journ I'm on schedule to be fertilized in my yard in August. Okay,
and it's what the capri as hot as they are. I was wondering
if I should go ahead and fertilize or wait. You can go ahead and
fertilize if you follow the instructions and don't overapply it. Can I ask why
you are fertilizing in August just specifically? Is it just got a little bit
lighter start than normal? Okay, all right, so that's why I would
be in August. Yeah, I you know, take a look at your
lawn, see what it looks like. The reason I ask is we've got
the fall fertilization coming up, you know, down not too far from now,
So if you're going to do in August, I would go a little
bit light on it, don't you know. Normally we put a pound of
nitrogen per thousand square feet, so whatever is there a particular fertilizer you'd like
to use. I've got the super curve supertur Okay, okay, well,
now that's a that is a nineteen percent, So five pounds of that per
thousand square feet is a pound of nitrogen. I might go a little bit
lighter than that. And I know it's gonna be hard to put down less
than five pounds per thousand because that that's already not a lot. But I
might go a little bit lighter than that because you're gonna want to put on
your your winterizers, your fall fertilizers coming up here. You may also want
to consider just going with, you know, not a slow release in some
time here in August, in a very light application, not much, just
a light application, uh, just to kind of keep it going because when
the fall comes, that's when we want to get that that product down,
uh, you know, for going into wintertime, getting our grass ready to
strengthen itself before we go into winter so it comes out better in the spring.
Okay, all right, sounds good. Yeah, if you got the
If you got the silver bag around, go ahead and use it. If
not, Nitrofus has a red bag that's also pretty good, Yeah, excellent,
Okay, super, thank you, all right, thank you. I
appreciate that call very much. If you live up in the let's say Lake
Conro area or the Montgomery area, your hometown garden center is A and A
Plants. Now, if you haven't been to Ana Plants, you gotta get
by there. It's on the east side of Montgomery. And you know,
it's probably been at least ten years that I've been going to Ana Plants off
and on through the time, and it's it's watching it grow and change and
develop and expand it's just been really cool. You know, they got three
acres. I mean, it's what kind of plant do you need? Do
you want a citrust? Do you want a shade tree? Do you want
flowers? You want vegetables? You on, herbs, on or on.
They've got it all. Do you need stuff to kind of, really,
I don't know, add a little bling to the landscape. Maybe it's some
outdoor furniture. Maybe it's a kind of a gazebo like cover or an archway,
or maybe a chiminea from the for the patio. They've got all of
that and lots lots more concrete statuary for example. So everyone out in Walden
Bentwater Lake Conro De Lago in Montgomery, in conro that whole region. A
and A plants on Highway one oh five. That is the place you need
to go. Check them out. They got some really good color right now.
So I'm going to Colin earlier. What are some color plants we can
plant? Well, A and A plant. Drive up, take a look
at it. See what you're talking See what I'm talking about. There.
You need some nice hanging baskets. They've got some excellent, beautiful ones.
And that's the way. Maybe you've got a garden party, your friends coming
over, you know, in the next day or two, grab some hanging
baskets, hang them up, and I mean instantly, the place just looks
better. It's just really cool. And A plants. I'm gonna head out
now, I think to Spring and we're gonna talk to Garrett. Hello,
Garrett. Yes, hey, thank you very much for taking my call.
How can we help? All right? So my issue is we just finished
the house about a month ago. Um, this is a acre lot.
I currently don't have any grass um and I'm coming up um to a point
where I want to but we have mandatory water restrictions, So I don't think
it's probably wise to do, you know, just given the amount of water
that we have to put on new grass. And I'm contemplating either sotting it
with Saint Augustine or hydro sating, and I don't know if you know you've
had experience with either or Definitely there's pros and cons of each, but yeah,
definitely do the side. It's just gonna be easier. There's chance of
success is just gonna be better. Uh. And you get it down and
you you don't need a lot of water on it. When you put on
side, you just need a little bit of water because it doesn't have a
root system. I mean, the root system is a half inch long when
it comes in the side, and so you just need like a little bit
of a quarter inch or so, just a little bit each day, and
then you move it to every other day, and by the time you get
about three weeks into it, you're only water in a couple times a week.
So I would use the side. It's not a quantity thing, but
it is frequent. And normally we're weaning our lawn to where we give it
a good soaking once a week and that's it. But in the absence of
rain. But for the early on for the side, just remember a little
small amounts, not much water the soil. Water the soil before you put
down the side too, okay, And that way, when the roots go
down, there's already moist soil down there. Garrett, I appreciate your call
and fortune. I might have to run, but hopefully get it off to
a good star. Okay, thank you very much. People often call me
and say, you know, where can I get this? Or where can
I get that? Or we're gonna find that fertilizer you're talking about. Well,
the inch every question that I just said is Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer
is the place to go. You can find them at Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
They're down there on the corner of Bissonette and Renwick in southwest Houston.
Do you need a herbicide, in secticide, fertilizer, tools, everything.
Bob and his team down there they have got it all. You got a
question, take them a sample, take them a picture. They will solve
it and they will point you to a product that works. Also, if
you need to do small testing, they have a loner soil probe. You
give give them something to you know as a deposit, so you bring it
back and they've got those and that wonderful kneeling bench. Should I keep bragging
on. They've got that as well too. If you are past forty,
you can't live in garden without a kneeling bench. I'll brag on that a
little bit when we come back from break. You are listening to garden Line.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
We've got one hour left today and after that I'm going to be heading
over to Obapalooza, which is an organic fair going on over at the United
Way on Law Drive. I'll be given a talk at the end of the
deal today. They got talks going on right now. I've been going this
morning. Lots more to come. If you happen to have a chance to
get out and about today, you might want to check that out. But
don't delay. You're missing You're missing some of it, so don't take any
more any more time to lay in than you need to. I'll be talking
about some cool things regarding how do we help avoid plant problems today KTRH garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Guarden Line with skip rictor so please just watching a anything
clubs Well. Good Saturday morning, on a beautiful morning out there. This
is a good day to get out, get a little work done in the
morning, and maybe do a little bit of shopping in the afternoon. Because
there are a lot of great nurseries in our area. I'm telling you,
if you know, if you've lived here a long time, maybe you just
don't maybe take it for granted, just how many great nurseries you have.
I was talking to somebody the other day about it, somebody that travels all
over the state looking at a lot of the big cities and and you know,
selling products in different cities and things. And they were just saying,
how I won't even name the towns, but they don't have any kind of
garden centers like we do in Houston. Well, that is true, they
don't. This place is unique. I mean north southeast West Central there is
an outstanding garden center worth traveling from outside the area. And do you know
people from Austin drive over here for garden centers? Do you know people from
college station. Drive down here for garden centers. I mean people come sometimes
even greater links. Talk somebody the other day from Tier that was down here
shopping at a garden center in the Houston area. An example of that kind
of garden center is Enchanted Forest. Chanted Forest is down there toward a Richmond
Richmond Rosenberg. So if you're at Richmond and you head up toward sugar Land
to the right, to the south of fifty nine is Enchanted Forest nursery and
enchanted Forest has an incredible supply of things. One of the plants that they
have gotten in that is just outstanding it. Now, I would say if
I were to pick like five plants that are just amazing, like check every
box just about you can check one of them to be Thriallis. Thriallis has
beautiful yellow flowers. Every terminal, every shoot ends at a cluster of yellow
flowers. So every time you shear Thryallis, it just gets denser and more
floriferous. There's your word for the day. Thriallis is tough. Deer do
not like to eat Thriallis. Now, I wouldn't say anything as deerproof.
Deer will eat a filing cabinet. And in fact, one time they came
into my office and they rummage through the filing cabinet and found my dear proof
list and they ate that. But they don't eat Thryallis. Thriallis is a
wonderful plant. And that's what they have there. You know, I add
an enchanted for us. They got beautiful trees, So shopping on a day
like today, no problem, you're walking through the shade. It's just wonderful.
Their old garden shed has been turned into a fairy house. What is
a fairy house. Well, if you've never seen a fairy garden, if
you think you don't have room for garden, if you've got room for what
a washtub on the ground, you've got room for a fairy garden. And
what is that Well, it's a little garden designed as a miniature scene and
it's really cool and they got all the bling that you put with it.
There. Just one of the cool things that they have out at Enchanted Forest.
If you need pollinators plants that you're not going to do better than Enchanted
Forest, incredible. If you want butterfly, larval, food sources or things
that attract adult butterflies. They've got it all there. They have an incredible
succulent selection too. And by the way, is this ever weather for succulent
plants? I mean blazing heat, they store their own water, they survive.
You're not going to do better in succulents. And boy that they're one
of those hot item plants right now. Again, Enchanted Forest has got that.
Go to my inchanted dot com you can find out more. They're on
twenty seven fifty nine FM twenty seven fifty nine. As like I said,
your head not a Richmond heading up toward Sugarland way, head out twenty seven
fifty nine. You get right to Enchanted Forest and you'll get when you drive
up, you just go, oh my gosh, this place is beautiful and
it is fun to shop. All right. I got quit hagon on them.
Let's see, let's go out to Roe, Sharon and talk to Steve.
I can I mean just Steve. I can just brag on these garden
centers all day because every time I go to one, I'm amazed. But
anyway, you didn't call to talk about that. How can we help today?
Well, I may need to go to Enchanted Garden. There you go,
Yeah, both in Chenny gardens and Enchended forest out there are good.
Yeah. I've had a two part question about a crape myrtle. Okay,
well, my first question is I have two crape myrtles that are probably fifteen
twenty feet apart, and at the base of one of the crape myrtles,
I have a a bind that grows around the base and on the ground kind
of like a crab grass, but it's but thorns on it, and it's
a five leaf I had an old plant that comes off of it or whatever,
and I'm trying to figure out what it is so that i can get
rid of it. It's only a round of one crape myrtle, and not
around the second. It has five leaves on the vine, yes, sir,
like in different spots, like excuse me, along the vine itself.
You know, may have like twenty of these five leaves pods. Okay,
but it's it's got it's kind of a reddish in color, and it's got
like sticker like you know, like almost like a mini rose bush thorn that
sounds like a it sounds like a cat claw mimosa in a sensitive bra When
you touch the leaves, do they fold up. Have you ever tried that?
Touch? Just touch the leaves and do they fold up when you touch
them? I never tried it. I'm wasn't sure what it was. Okay,
let's or what Yeah, let's do this, Steve. I want to
get you an accurate answer, not just my best guess. I'm gonna put
you on hold. Will you talk to um Josh and he'll tell you how
to send me a picture and get up real close, take a picture in
good sharp focus, and I can tell you what it is, and then
I'll reply with the answer what to do about it? How about that?
Okay? It sounds great? And then can I ask you a second question
about them too? Sure? Go ahead. So I saw a video where
we can take clippings of the crape hurdle and put them in some soil and
basically start rerooting them. Okay to transplant. My question is what soil?
Would you put that in? Just a regular potting soil or you can you
can use the potting soil. I just want to make sure it drains really
well. You want to have it in bright light but not direct sun.
So I usually put a plastic cover over a clip cover so it can get
some light in there, but no sun shining on it. Crape's not the
easiest thing in the world. So you're gonna need some rooting hormone and you
can get that at your local garden centers as well. Okay, okay,
all right, great, thank you. I appreciate the answer. All right,
I appreciate that call. Well let's see here, uh, you know
we I was talking earlier about the nitro file superturf, the nineteen four ten.
It is just one of those fertilizers. The chemistry of it, the
design of it is a gradual release, and that is what you want.
You do not want flushes of growth on your Saint Augustine lawn. You want
it to gradually be fed, and you're not gonna you're not going to have
the problem with a quick release with nitrofile superturf. That's a silver bag,
by the way, and so by cutting down on that, you're gonna cut
down on issues like the chinch bug issues. Some of the brown patch are
large patch in the fall issues. Those are really aggravated by extra moisture,
excuse me, extra moisture, extra nitrogen at one time. And so by
gradually feeding with a silver bag nitrofisle superturf. You can avoid that and you
can get nitrofiss all over the place. All the ace hardwares have it are
our home, mom and pop, garden centers, our feed stores. They're
all going to carry the nitrofiles. We're gonna take a break right now,
Bill and k you will be first up. Our phone number if you'd like
to get on the board is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. My Pabby said, son, you're gonna driving me to drinking if
you don't stop driving out hot rod Lincoln. Have you heard the stories the
hot rod race was the Fords and the Lencas was set in the face.
Set story is true. I'm here to say I was driving out in my
legs. All righty, you're listening to garden Line. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're gonna head
right out to pair Land and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Hello.
My question is on fertilization. I have you know, it's so hot
right now, and I try to keep things, you know, going,
I do a lot of hand water. And what my question is is I
would think that this kind of hate and stress. Something I've heard. Iron
helps this time of year, if you know what I'm saying, if you're
just putting it maybe around the plant water, and it is good and am
I anywhere close to you know, correct there as far as you know,
Well, that's a that's a that's a good question, Bill. Actually,
iron is not especially needed at this time of year, but iron is needed
every day of the year. I mean, the plant roots take up iron
at the tip of the root, and so they constantly need a supply of
iron to be healthful. So if your iron levels are low in the soil,
it's always a good time to add iron. If that wouldn't be able
to take YEA, yeah, yeah, if not, I would. If
you're looking at your grass and if you pick a grass blade and hold it
up to the light and it's green and yellow striped up and down the length
of the blade, that's an iron deficiency. That would be your que to
add iron. If not, I wouldn't worry about it. Just just do
the regular like my granulated slow release that I have for my plant material.
Just keep up with that. In other words, the iron just kind of
don't worry about it. I don't don't worry about it if you're not seeing
a symptom right now. Now, there are olderalizers that have iron in them.
Also, you know the NPK got some micros like iron. But uh
yeah, yes, yes, okay, thank you, yes, sir,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Now we're gonna we're just
gonna hang out in Parallen for a while. We're gonna go talk to k
now. Hello, okay, good morning. Thank you for taking my call.
Bet. I have a question on this monster ivy that I've had for
years and years and it's starting. It's been going down the past few months,
and I know it needs to be repotted. It's in a smaller pot
and it's huge. And what I want to do is just to cut off
the good parts and put them in water, let them root and then repot
them. Um, you can I put roots stimulator in the water. Maybe
I've got two pots. They're probably through four gallon pots to put put the
stems in. But I put like a tablespoon of no stimulator. Don't You
don't need to do that. In fact, I wouldn't do that. Okay,
So you got a couple of options. You can cut things off and
put them in water and root them. The kinds of roots that form and
water are a little different than the roots that they need in soil. You
may have noticed this before, but in the soil you got these fat,
fleshy roots, white roots, and you get them in water and they kind
of get long and stringy. It's a different kind of root. It's it's
still okay, it's just you know, if it were mine, if there
was any way if that like you could take a vine down and dip it
into a pot and then back out of the pot. So in other words,
like the vine goes into the soil and comes back out of the soil.
And when I say a pot, it could be a little four inch
pot. Oh kind of self rooting, and it would just root. If
it's a node on the mind, I think you said monstero was what you
had. If it's a nod, oh, it's a pothos Oh okay,
well then that just you just say the word root and root starts popping out
of those things. So yeah, wherever you got a node though, where
the leaf attaches to the vine, that's a node. And you may have
some little bumps there that are the starter roots. Oh, I've got a
bunch now. And I've also Pathos is so easy. I've even taken and
cutting it up into about twenty little pieces, you know, like one pathos
vine, and just stick them all in the pot. And maybe they don't
all root, but so many of them do. Used to have a beautiful
plant. Okay, Well, I've had this for years and years, and
it's it's in a big a. I live in a senior subdivision and they
have this huge jetted bathtub, which I don't use. I thought I could
drown in that thing and nobody would even know, you know, so I
put I let the thing grow in there, and I mean it just filled
that bathtub. It was huge. But it starts. I know. It's
because it's not in a good pot. It's not big enough. It needs
nutrition and it needs a new home. Oh my god. So that's what
I want to do. Okay. I've heard about people pampering their plants,
but I've never heard of anybody getting them a jacuzzi for their plant. So
you better be careful. They're gonna start asking you to bring them peanut color.
I might be in trouble. Okay, Well, thank you so much.
Skip enjoy your show so much. Thank you appreciate that call. You
know, it's blazing hot outside and I was out of my yard the other
day looking at my feeders, taking care of my bird feeders and stuff.
I bought a new little bird water. I got it at Wilbirds Unlimited.
Uh, and it's a It's just a tray that hangs underneath the eaves of
our little patio area that we have. I've also got a bird bath,
just just got one to those the other day as well. But because it
is so blazing hot, birds have got to have water. I mean,
they really do need water. And it doesn't matter what kind of bird it
is, they got to have something to drink and mine. During the heat
of the day they come around, but not as much, but boy,
early and late in the day they are there getting their baths and getting watered.
Wah Birds has all that. Wilbirds has anything you need for a bird.
I mean it. Every time I go in there, I get in
trouble because I can't go in there and come without coming out with something.
I've got. Their squirrelproof feeder is really really first class thing. If you've
never heard squirrels cuss out loud. You need to get a wild birds birdproof
feeder and hang out because they will give it their best. It makes them
mad, which makes me happy. They also have the nesting super Blend,
which is important for summer feeding. Our birds are molting right now. They're
shedding feathers, getting the new fresh feather plumage and stuff. They need to
be in top condition, so all the way through August, that nesting super
Blend is very important. Go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston. Why
well, you can find every wild bird store. There's seven of me here.
There's one in Katie Kingwood, Cypress, bear Land, bel Air,
West Houston went out the spring to one in clear Lake as well. WBU
dot Com Forward slash Houston. Find out what I'm talking about. Maybe you
know it's hummingbird season and now I was an important time to be getting your
hummingbird feeders out because they are arriving in our area. Wahbirds can get you
fixed up on that Wilbirds Unlimited. If you love birds like I do,
Wilbirds is exactly what you need. Really love going out there and just love.
I don't know, I'm kind of a I'm a bird junkie. I
guess Speaking of hummingbirds, Buchanans Native Plants in the Heights has got an excellent
set of information on their website and they sent this out in their newsletter too
on hummingbirds. What are the plants that are track hummingbirds? Do you know
that there's a lot of plants that you can grow here. Sure you want
to put out a hummingbird feeder, but what about the plants in your yard?
Some of the red tubular flowers, the lantanas and the lobelia is lots
of plants that are track hummingbirds. One of my favorite is a salvia.
There as a Salvia garanitica that just absolutely great. Well, Buchanans has that,
but you know, Buchanans has a lot of other stuff. One of
the cool things they've gotten in is is some of the insectivorous plants carnivorous plants,
plants that eat insects. That would be like a picture plant or a
sundew or a venus flytrap and some others. They have these plants that you
grow inside. They have some that are hardy that actually grow outside that are
insectivorus and that is cool. Hey, if you got a kiddo. Can
you imagine a little venus fly trap plant? And they can get a housefly
and turn it loosen there and watch what goes on. Buchanans Plants dot Com.
They're at eleventh Street in the Height and they have all kinds of good
things. I mean, you know, shade plants, houseplant They got some
really cool houseplants. By the way, I saw that they had, oh
the aeroid, the gosh, I can't even say the name of it.
A morphophallus, morphophallus microphallus. They have some of those blooming. They're amazing.
If you're a collector of plants and you need something unusual that you don't
have yet, get you a pickup in a trailer, because Buchanons has enough
plants to fill them both up that fit just that. Bill Love Love going
by there. You're listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. I mentioned that birds need water. Our lawns need water
two by the way, of course, but most people miss water their lawn.
In my new lawn care schedule that I'm about to put up online.
It's just almost done. I'm waiting on a little website work being done.
But once that's up, it's going to tell you how to water properly,
because people don't water properly. If you want to know when does your lawn
need water, I'm going to give you a simple freeway to know, and
that is my wall. Excuse me, water my yard dot org. Water
my yard one dot org. You can find the app on the Apple App
Store and Google Play, or you can just go to that website, water
my yard dot org. You put in your dress, you sign up.
It's free, cost nothing. A local weather station will take the data from
your community, the sunlight, the humidity, the wind speeds, you know
all of that stuff, the temperature, of course, and it'll tell you
how much to use. I do water my yard myself. It's free.
Last week I heard I need point four eight inches of water in my lawn
because that's how much according to weather data, my lawn is used. How
can you get easier than water my yard dot org makes it really really simple,
absolutely simple, super easy. Well, we're going to head out to
Pasadena now and talk to Mary. Mary. I've got about a minute left
can we get it done? I believe we can circod morning, saycho crete
myrtle tree cut down supposedly the roots grind year and a half ago. I'm
fanned in. We have a terrible problem with great myrtles coming up. Just
were around, all right. I can give you that goes out there and
tries to shop, but forget it. I know that's no fun. Here's
what you need. Got a pen or pencil, handy I do t r
I c l O p y R. T R I c l O p
y r. You'll find it and stuff called poison ivy killer, poison ivy
killer, poison oak killer. All you need to do is just mix it
up strong the strongest rate, and dab it onto the stems of those suckers
coming up. Put a little bit of vegetable oil from your kitchen in it.
That makes it stick. That makes it stick to the stems, and
it soaks right in and it'll kill them. And if it was a big
tree and you got a lot of energy and suckers coming out, you have
to do it more than once, but it'll work. And you yeah,
okay, can you spell that one more time? Huh? Tr I is
in tricycle tr I C l O P y R tril. That's what you
made and that'll fix it. And just be careful, don't get it on
other things. But when you dab it on like that, there is no
simpler, faster, easier way to do it. Hey, thank you so
much. I appreciate that call very much. We're gonna take time for news.
The Nicky News Network is next. That's four ends, riding along my
automo, be my baby beside me at the I stole a kiss at the
turn of mind, my curiosity running, why bruising and playing the radio with
no particular place to go. Well, we got a particular place to go
today, and that is to the radio to listen to Garden Line. I
was that for a transition, Oh my gosh. Oh seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Speaking of particular places to go, Arbourgate in Tomball, you know
it's it's one of those garden centers that people drive from all over the place
to get to Houston to go to. And I'm telling you I know what
I'm talking about. I've talked to customers out there before they came a great
long distance. That's not an unusual thing for our garden centers here, but
for any other place. I mean, for crying out loud, who drives
halfway across the state to get to a garden center, Well, welcome to
Houston. We got him here. And Arburgate is just that kind of place.
You can go online to Arbourgate dot com and find out what I'm talking
about. They're out there just west of Tomball on twenty nine twenty just about
a mile and a half west of two forty nine. When you're out there,
you're going to see all their plants, You're going to see the beautiful
gift shops. You're gonna see all of the yard things that you could be
beautiful, really attractive things to put out in the yard just to beautify the
place. But I want you to also take time to check out their one
two three completely easy system. Arbigate has a three point system, a food,
a soil, and a compost. Now, the food is an organic
food. It's a four four three plus temper sent calcium organic food that will
feed anything that has roots. I mean, if you are going to put
in some vegetables and flowers and trees and shrubs, just the whole nine yards.
It is exactly the kind of gradual release with the kinds of nutrients and
materials that you need for success with your plants. The next step is the
soil, the organic soil complete. Now this soil has compost, expanded shale,
and a very large particle sand all mixed together into it, and that
makes for a very quality mix. You make roots happy, You're going to
make the plants happy, and the plants are going to make you happy.
That's how that works. Third part is the organic compost complete. Two different
kinds of composts blended together. Lots of microbial diversity in this super super good
and it's got the macro and the micronutrients that are balanced in it as well.
And then it has expanded shale, as did that organic soil complete.
Expanded shale keeps our heavy clay soils apart. It keeps them open and you
need a lot of it. You can't just put a line a few sprinklings
of shale here and there. You need to put a quantity of it out
down. But when you use something like arbergates compost organic compost complete, that
is going to provide over time more and more and more of the organic matter
and also the shale that will make that soil easy to grow things in.
And that's what we're trying to do. You create the spot and then you
put the plants in, and then you have success. That's the order.
Not plants. Then oh my gosh, they're dyeing. How do I fix
it? First? Soil this one two three, organic food or goa soil
or gonna compost and then when you put the plants in, it makes it
look like you have a green thumb because you do. You're listening to garden
Line and we're going to head out to the phones now and go to North
Shore and talk to Janet. Hello, Janet, Hi, good morning,
Good morning. My question is I have azalias that should bloom three or four
times a year. They're on the west side of my house, but I
have not seen blooms in over six months. So I want to know what
type of fertilize or soil should I be using. Yeah, accumulate the blooms.
There's lots of good things out there to help your azalias. Certainly they
need to soil with a lot of composts in it, A lot of you
know, you can use pemas, you can use compost, whatever kind of
the organic matter. Make sure the drainage is good. You're you're essentially planning
them in a little bit of a raised area, so the excess drains away
a good ascidifying soil. You know, a lot of our good local fertilizer
manufact lectures have an acidic version of what they're doing. I don't know if
there's a particular brand you normally go with or not, but it's it.
You know, each one has its own soil for acid loving plants, and
those are going to do really well. You know. For example, uh,
you know we were talking about the Microlife product earlier. They have an
acid loving plant version. I believe it's in a pink or red bag.
I can't remember which of the colors it is. Anyway, I'll look for
it something like that. But let me tell you the reblooming azelias, they
aren't quite what we want them to be down here. They will do some
reblooming, but it's not like you just have like normally in spring when Azelia's
are just beautiful and blooming up a storm that it just keeps doing that.
They for us, they don't quite perform that way, so a little bit
of hey, it isn't doing so good, is not surprising that they should
come back in the spring and look good again for you. Okay, I'll
try that. Thank you, Janet. I appreciate your call very much.
Thank you. We're going to head out now to Pasadena and talk to Mary.
Hello, Mary, good morning again. Really quickly. I don't think
I have an issue, but I want to prevent the little white moths.
When we were mowing recently and when I was walking through the front yard,
I saw a couple and I just I don't think I have an issue yet.
Maybe I do and don't know it, but I'm just wondering if there's
something that I could go on and do to possibly prevent pack. Yeah,
yeah, there probably is. So it takes a lot of them to be
a real problem, you know. Oh, yes, I agree. There
are so many moths out in nature that when someone says, mas, I
don't know that you're talking about sideweb worms, you may be. But if
you walk through the yard and it's just like as you walk, they're just
flying up and they go a little bit land back down in the grass,
that sounds like a sideweb worm. Well, these are very very tiny and
they're white, and I do know what I do know the difference. I
believe because we did have them one time many years ago. So okay,
we didn't have them really really bad, but we were able to prevent it,
and I can't remember what we did. You have a lot of options.
You have a lot of options. There is there's a product from Nitrofis
called bug Mac bug Out Max, and it will control them. If you
wanted to go in an organic direction. Products that contain spinosid, SPI,
n O, sad spine no said will control them. BT products will control
them, but they don't laugh. Thet doesn't last but a day or two,
so you have to do it and then maybe later in the week do
it again, and then there or four days again do it again. But
also because these moths are dropping eggs and maybe you treat today, but the
eggs don't hatch out until tomorrow, so you know, you got to be
ready. But if you want to be okay, if you want to be
real, sure, get a tablespoon of dish soap like pomel it, you
know, whatever dish, and especially if it's a lemon scented one actually,
but put it in a gallon of water and a watering can and just drench
it over an area of the lawn where you think they may be and watch,
and that irritates bugs and they come crawling right up out of there onto
the grass blades where you can see them. And in this case you're looking
for caterpillars, a little bit of caterpillars. They'll be green, greenish colored
because they've been eating grass, and that tells you, okay, they're there.
I need to treat right now. So okay, if you want to
time in a little bit better, you can use a little soapy water trick.
Okay, what about the bug out you said, Max? Is that
the granular it's a granular bifenther and high. You put it down, you
watered in right, I got it? Okay, thank you so much.
All right, thank you. I appreciate your call. Hey, we're gonna
take a break. Terry your first up when we come back, if you'd
like to get on the board. Seven one, three, two and two
fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning on a beautiful saturday, and
as always a good day for gardening. You're listening to garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter and our number seven one, three, two and
two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, if you are thinking about retiring and
you would like to find a nice, beautiful home in a wonderful setting for
folks that are interested in maintaining an active lifestyle. You know, we're not
talking about going into pasture here, We're talking about continuing to live out the
most beautiful best years of your life. Well, that would be a Dell
Web community. They know how to build homes, they know how to build
communities, they know how to design lifestyle programs around you. And out in
Fulshure, about two miles out of downtown, Fulshure is a Dell Web community.
That particular community happens to have a community garden going in that I'm working
with them on. You can go online dellweb dot com, forward slash Houston
find out more information, or give him a call at two eight one four
or five nine zero six zero nine and enjoy not only beautiful home, beautiful
community, but also a wonderful community garden right there for you to enjoy as
well. Let's head out to Lagrange and we're gonna talk to Terry well,
hello, Terry, how are you today doing? Fancer? And yourself?
I hope I'm just as well. Yes, sir, good I got a
little bit of a head scratcher here. We've got a bunch of old post
oak trees and they get like a white powder on the bark, okay,
and it kills them and then it turns black. I mean we have it
here in the yard, didn't I also have some out in the woods that
has killed a bunch of them also, Yes, sir, I just wondered
what it is and the way is there any way to provent it or anything
we can do about it. I tried to all the extension agent but they're
never around, so okay. Well, so you your post oak trees.
It sounds from the description like you're talking about hypoxylon canker, and that's a
disease terry that's out there already in oak trees all over the place. But
when the tree gets weak, it's like their defense mechanism that holds back the
hypoxylon is compromised and the hypoxilum moves in and it kills the tree. So
we blame the hypoxilon for killing the tree, but really it was his tree
stress to kill the tree. And so when it's out in a pasture,
there's just not much that you can do because you know, I mean,
you can't run out there and water giant trees all over a pasture. But
if you, if you go into drought like you guys are having and the
temperatures you're having, you just have to occasionally give them a good soaking.
If not, then it's outside of your control. And up all the way
through the postal belt, you know, you go up from you up toward
College Station, it's the same kind of thing. They're postal trees. They're
just dying a lot, and other than it being in the yard where you
can do something, it's just part of that what happens in nature. And
unfortunately we lose some good trees. But yes, sir, I understand,
well the ones we have that I can get water two will start soaking them
down a little bit. And uh so, so here's here's what you want
to do, Terry though. You want to water the entire area beneath the
branch spread of the tree. So just imagine this big circle all around the
tree that goes out as wide as the branches do. And you want to
apply it at least an inch of water is your is your soil sandy out
there or clay or what it's sandy? And then the goods to clay.
But okay, it's sandy right on top. Yeah, well, an inch
of water will do it. But you gotta get it all down on the
soil soap deep. But you only need to do that about once ever week
or two and maybe even two weeks if you can give a good soaking.
When you do, you're not trying to supply the tree what it needs every
day. You're just trying to get it through this emergency with a couple of
rescue waterings. I see, Okay, good deal. Well, I sure
do appreciate it. Yeah, I'm sure the trees appreciate it too. Well.
Yeah, and just know that, you know, even though a tree
may look okay right now, it could be at that advanced stage of stress
where even if you water, you may not pull it out. But but
you're doing at least you're doing what you can, all right, sir?
Right, all right, Well, so thank you so very much, you
bet, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey,
if you're planning on doing any transplanting, and I hope you are.
This is a good time still. We can still be planning beautiful salvias.
We can be pulling perennial herbs, you know, false coming big planning season
there. Go ahead and get you some hash to grow six twelve six six
twelve six. That's a liquid. It comes in court, you mix it
in water, and then you drench your plants with It's I mean, there's
different ways to use it. You can use a fuller feed too, but
hast grow six twelve six has that high phosphorus content which is important for roots.
It also has biological activity from microbes, and it's got humic acid in
it, and it's got seaweed extracts in it. So that combo product has
all the things that that plant root system needs to thrive to get going.
Take up nutrients, stimulate fruiting, stimulate blooming. Whatever kind of plants you
have, whether it's a vegetable garden or flower beds or even just planting.
You know, some rosebushes in when you water them in with that, follow
five days later with another good soaking with it, and then five days after
another good soaking, and if it's seven days that's fine. I mean the
idea is at planting and twice more about a week apart, you want to
give a good soaking with Hastra grow, that plant will be on its way
to success. And that's the important thing. You know. You spend money,
you spend time, You have your hopes up putting plants in. You
want them to not just survive, but to thrive and to give you the
fruit, the produce, the vegetables, the flowers, whatever you planted it
for. That's why we use the Haspergrow six twelve six and it's just a
good combination lots of good stuff going on in one product. Well, you've
been listening to garden Line all day today and we are about to wind up
a show getting towards the end of it. We'll be back tomorrow. By
the way, from six am to ten am every Saturday, every Sunday,
six am to ten am. Tell your friends and your neighbors about garden Line.
Let them know. You can listen to pass shows by podcast. If
you've got an iHeartRadio podcast app or whatever you use to listen to your podcasts,
you can find garden Line on there. There's actually a couple of garden
lines in the USA. One of them as a lady somewhere else. It
does a show call that you want the one here in Houston, and you
can listen to pass shows to hear things we've talked about on that I would
ask even if you've got family and friends that live in other areas, I
have people that call from out of state that just love listening to plant information,
and we try to give the best most entertaining show we can here for
you on it tell them about Garden Line as well. In the meantime,
it's getting close to the end of our time. You be gonna head out,
I hope today and go visit some of our garden centers and get some
of the plants that we've been talking about, get some things go and get
ready for fall. Get your soil purchased products, soil products purchased and ready
to go as well. No matter where you drive, you're gonna drive past
an A's Hardware and when you go into ace, you're gonna find our fertilizers.
You're going to find the soils we talk about. You're going to find
one of the best selections on insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, both synthetic and
organic that you're gonna find around town that thirty nine hardware stores. Just go
to ACE Hardware dot com and find one near you. By the way,
it's a good day for barbecue and good weekend for getting out and doing some
barbecue in ACE Hardwork and fix you up on that too. I mean they'll
trick you out all the way up to the top of the line stuff you
know, like Trager and Big Green egg and and on. Im. I'm
personally a webber guy, but when I grow up, I want to have
a Big Green Eggs. That's where I want to go with that. But
they've got all of that. And then you want to beautify your outdoor area,
ACE will fix you up on that too. Just kind of cool having
places so everywhere so nearby that you can get ready to go. You want
to make sure and get those products purchased because fall is coming and we want
to have a beautiful lawn and a beautiful landscape. If you've got some plants
that aren't looking so good, go ahead and cut them back. Now is
a good time to cut plants back, fertilize them, watered in real good
and get them growing. So our rose show the next big rose show in
our land escapes. I'm not talking about the official bringing your flowers rose show
in your landscape's gonna be in the fall. Late August is when I cut
my roses back by about a third. I fertilize them. These are shrub
roses. Fertilize them, watered in really well, get vigorous new growth.
Every time a rose produces a new shoot, you can have a bloom on
the end of that shoot. They bloom on the terminals. Same thing with
your salvias. Do you have salvia greggy I cherry sage called sometimes it's called
greg sage. It's a subshrub, and it always has blooms on it,
but it eventually just becomes kind of a witty nuts so pretty shrub. Cut
it back, head it back in August and get it fresh, new growth
coming out again. It will look great in the spring. I cut mine
back three times a year at the end of winter. I cut it back
in May for summer, and then I cut it back in August again.
Do you have cast iron plants that are looking horrible right now just the ravages
of summer. End of August is a good time to cut all that growth
back to the ground, and it comes back fresh with a good fresh watering,
and it'll look beautiful again. I'll even prune my little rioty back sometimes
at the end of summer because spider mites and leaf spots just get it looking
ragged. Cut it back to the ground, give it some water, give
it a little fertilizer, and it just comes back looking better. Hey,
thanks for listening to Guardline. We'll be back at six am tomorrow. I
hope you'll be listening