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. Just watch him
as up a sign. Good morning on a great Saturday morning to get out
and do a little bit of gardening. Maybe certainly to start off, listen
to a garden radio show, and I know one that I would recommend.
Welcome to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor. We're here to
answer your gardening questions. Here's the phone number. If you'll write this down,
and while you're writing, by the way, keep a pen and paper
handy, because as we go through the shows, inevitably i'll give out a
name of a product, maybe an ingredient that you need to go looking for,
or perhaps a website or something like that, and you want to be
able to jot it right down so you'll have it. If you don't happen
to catch something, you can always catch us on a podcast after the fact,
kind of go back and listen to what was that he said on that
time. Well, there's your chance. You do it with your iHeartMedia or
any other podcast at app that you have. You find our gardening show,
garden line. There's a couple of garden lines on there by the way,
one somewhere else across the country, strangely enough, but anyway, this is
the one you want to listen to. I wouldn't recommend getting gardening advice from
New Jersey or Oregon or Kansas or something like that. If you've lived here
very long, you know this is a unique place. And I guess,
to be honest, every place is a unique place in its own way.
Our heat, our humidity, the kinds of winter fluctuations and temperatures that we
often have, just a lot of factors. Certainly soil is a big factor
down here. And when it comes to timing. I was in my work
as an extension horticulturist. I would often get calls from someone that said,
I, you know, it was like some time in May, and they
would say, well, is it time to plant tomatoes now? And because
they had moved here from some farther northern place where May it was a good
time to put tomatas in And yeah, definitely not. Now's the time to
harvest a tomato and wait for fall if you want tomatoes again, because in
the heat of summer they just don't set well. The heat affects that.
There's a physiological effect, and maybe I'll talk about that a little bit more
today. There are some interesting things to understand when it comes to wire Plants
function the way they do, and when you when you start understand some of
the basics, a lot of things start to make sense. Instead of just
do this because I said so, it's kind of like, oh, okay,
I get why that why that is the case. And I think that
helps a little bit till what We're gonna go ahead and start off by going
right to the calls again the number seven one three, two, one,
two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to head out to clear Lake and
talk to Brady this morning. Good morning, Brady, do we have Brady?
Good morning? Hey, good morning. Last week you had announced a
Pudmari a society. Yes, I think meeting, a show, seminar or
whatever. When is that. I'm gonna hunt that down for you. I
don't have that note in front of me. Let me just one second and
we'll be able to tell you that. Do you have plumarius already? We
do? Good? Good, well, um, They're a wonderful plant to
grow I think that it's amazing, you know, how beautiful the flowers are
and a lot of fun to grow. Okay, here's the deal. The
Pomaria Society of America. Their show and sale is June tenth. Hey,
I know a June tenth. That's today, nine am to one pm at
the clear Lake Bay Area Community Center on Nasa Road in Seabrook, Texas.
So you set out Nasa Road and when you start seeing the water on the
right hand side, just a little bit past that on the right, it'll
be it'll be the Bay Area Community I believe it's on the right bay Area
Community Center, right. Okay, thank you so much. All right,
thank you for the call. Appreciate it. Yeah, we had to someone
from the Plumaria sidey on and just really had a good time talking about Plumarius.
That they're some of those hours that just look they they almost look fake,
but because they're they're so perfect. And you know, there's that's almost
like a wax sea you know, uh, nice satin finish kind of beauty
that is really cool. Hey, I'm gonna be going today out to the
wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. That's from eleven thirty to one thirty after the
show. But if you are interested in birds at all, you need to
check out a birds store. I hope you'll come out and see me in
Kingwood today. But if you live somewhere the else intown, there's there's Wildbirds
stores all over the place. You can go to WBU dot com forward slash
Houston WBU as in Wildbirds Unlimited dot com forward slash Houston and find a wall
Birds wild Birds near you at Katie, Kingwood, Cypress, parlamb bel Air,
West Houston, clear Lake, all wild Birds Unlimited locations. I will
be at the Kingwood store today. They're gonna be given away some cool stuff
too, by the way they are today out in Kingwood. They're going to
be given away a free eliminator. This is a squirrel eliminator and a free
twenty pound bag of their quality seed. And they do have a seed,
a quality type of seed that they sell there. And I don't mean they
have a quality. The seed they sell there is quality seed. It can
be directed to our specific types of birds. But it's also that trash free
stuff, so that if you've ever bought cheap bird seed, you know what
I'm talking about. You put it in the feeder and you come out later,
it looks like half a visit on the ground. The birds or they
ignore those little red babies in the seed. They don't care about those.
And so buy a quality seed so you get one hundred percent of what you
purchase in terms of something that the birds are interested in coming in and eating.
But again i'll talk about later. But Saturday to June tenth, today
eleven thirty to one thirty, I'll be out at the Wall Birds in Kingwood.
One of my one of my go to garden centers, I mean,
the places I love to visit, the place I enjoy just talking to the
folks. That is RCW Nurseries. You can go online find RCW Nurseries dot
com. They're the one there. It's where tom Ball Parkway comes into Beltway
eight, so you're going kind of flying over the overpasses and it's down below
you there. But RCW Nurseries dot com they have really really cool stuff.
One of my favorite things that they have at RCW Nurseries right now is their
Cajun hibiscus. And you may have seen hibiscus before that was colorful and beautiful,
but you have not seen anything until you've seen at Cajun Hibiscus I have.
The colors are just all over the place, a beautiful, beautiful color.
If you like multicolor, they got that. If you like single colors
but different hues and shades, they've got that. They also have Brugmancia's which
is the angel's trumpet right now and this is a good time. They like
warm weather and they're going to bloom a lot in late summer and fall.
So you need to get those in now, get them growing, get them
healthy, so you have the best bloom that you can on them. But
check out our CW nurseries. They are a source of many things beyond what
I just mentioned, and you will you will not be disappointed when you visit.
Well, we're gonna take a break right now. Let me give you
the number again and call Josh. Get on the board seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Good morning on a great day to talk
about gardener can get out in garden to go visit a garden center. This
is here's your inspiration this morning. We're gonna be talking about all kinds of
things related to the garden, talking about talking to you about things that you're
interested in. If you'd like to give us a call, the number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. In the meantime,
if you look next door and the lights are off, go bang on the
door. Tell your neighbors are missing garden line. They will rise up and
call you blessed and thank you. It may take a while start to become
a listener, but hey, it's worth a try. Right, We're gonna
head out to League City and talk to herman next Good morning, Herman,
good morning. How can we help today? I'm well, thank you?
Okay, Well we'll build all right, so flower bed and it's about eighteen
inches high and maybe sixteen inches wide. And I needed to know how much
soil does the flower bed League like? How deep? Can you be?
All right? Do you have a pen or pencil handy? Yes? Okay?
I want you to write down airloom soil soils of Texas dot com airloom
hi r loom soils with it soils with an US on the end of Texas
dot Com. And when you get there, right at the top of the
page is something called a calculator and you can go in there and you put
the length, the width, the depth. It'll tell you the area and
square feet that you need of a loot cubic yard, the area that you
have in square feet, and then it'll tell you the qubyards you need to
buy. So if you're buying one pound bags, it'll tell you how many
need to buy. If you're buying two pound two sorry, one pound,
one cubic footbags, two cubic footbags, how many wheelbarrows, how many five
gallon buckets, whatever, it'll tell you exactly what you need for that area,
and then you can go get your soil and you're good to go.
Okay, what do we require like regular pout soil or no. I would.
I would definitely put a quality soil in it. That's gonna do a
lot better for your plants. Top soil. You know, I know plants
grow in soil, but when we're talking about a little raised bed, we
want the best quality soil that we have at drains well and so on,
and so I would what are you going to grow in there? Just flowers?
Plants? Yeah? Okay, well, I mean you could use you
could use a rose soil. You could you know, there's soils if you
go to a if you get from Heirloom you know, they sell in different
garden centers and things. But or you can just order bulk, which if
it's a larger area, it's better at order bulk. If it's just a
smaller area kind of like you described, it's fine to just get the bags.
But I would they have a rose and veggie mix. They are not
not roseen veggie, veggie and herb mix. Well my brain didn't click in
this morning. But a rose soil or a veggie and herb mix, either
one would work work fine for the flower beds that you're doing. Don't don't
let the word rose throw you off. That's just a good all purpose Okay,
alrighty well, thanks for your advice. I appreciate it. Yeah,
and have fun because that I'm telling you it sounds like you've got a real
cool area there. Yep. Should appreciate it. Thank you, Herman.
Appreciate the call. You take care. Yeah, we you know, we
talked about Heirloom Soils a lot, but I mean the quality of the mixes
and stuff that they have is unbelievable. That calculator is worth a visit in
and of itself. But you know, they have a lot of different things.
I mean I mentioned the Veggian herb mix and the rosemex. I mean
they have they have indoor potting soil mixes. They've got you know, if
you've got outdoor containers, they got blends for that. They have a fruit
berry and citrus soil. They'll sell your leaf mold compost. I mean I
could sit here really just all day talking about the different kind of materials that
they have. I like their potting soil called the Works. It's a it's
a really good overall potting soil for just quality results. And it all begins
with the soil. You know, you you really have to do it right
when it comes to the soil. That's the foundation. I mean, you
know, just as an analogy, I mean, would you build a house
just on a sandy foundation, or would you not put a good solid foundation
to hold your house through the decades to come. It's kind of like that
when you're dealing with plants. If you put plants, let's just say you
use just a top soil. And by the way, when you when we
say the word top soil, we're thinking something nice and special. But that's
not always what you get. When when someone sells you a top soil.
Often it's just it's not top soil. Topsail is a very very thin layer
up at the top of the ground. After that you get into subsoil.
And sometimes we start getting that kind of material when we're purchasing something supposed to
be called top soil. But when you just put a plan into that,
the array ability, the drainage ability is not there. And we're not just
trying to keep applying alive, we're trying to have it grow. I mean,
if you're planning flowers, you want flowers. If you're planning vegetables,
you want produce. Right, if you're planning roses, what do you want,
well, roses? Not a living bush, but a blooming bush.
And quality soil is the beginning. I've said it before, say it again.
Seventy five to eighty percent of your success is determined. After you plant
a plant, you are already essentially set for seventy to eighty percent of success
or failure. And here's what I mean. Here's what I mean. When
you put the plant in the ground, you either put it in an optimum
quality soil where it can thrive, or you haven't. And it is very
hard to change soil after you've already got plants in the ground. Let's say
it's roses. You know, what are you going to do? Dig up
the rosebush and rework the bed. Well, it can be done, but
oh my gosh, you're determined. You've already chosen a sun or a shady
spot, and any plant you put in the grounds is going to have a
very strong opinion about sun or shade. The area either drain, swell or
it doesn't. That's why I always recommend raised beds because you know, welcome
to the Houston area. When it rains, it pours, and you can
always add water, but you can't take it away. And so that's already
been determined. You've picked the variety in the species you're going to plant.
You see what I'm saying, All that stuff ahead of time, beginning with
the soil. That's how we get to success. If you happen to live
down in the League City area and you haven't been to League City feed,
you need to check it out. The Thunderbergs have a wonderful place there.
It's an old time feed store. You know, carry the bags out for
you. They carry all the stuff we talk about that you know, the
fertilizers and soils. Like I was just talking about airloom soil, They've got
airloom soil there, as well as other options for fertilizers and for soils.
They have premium pet food. If you're into backyard chickens, the supplies you
need are gonna be right there now. Wes and his sister Madison have really
done a great job making that place something that is a one stop shop.
They're open Monday through Saturday, nine am to six pm and closed on Sunday.
But check out League City Feed. It's on Highway three, just a
few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So those of you in l Camino
Real and Lamarck and San Leone and Dickinson, it's your feed store. Go
check them out. You will. You will really enjoy it. I love
going to a great feed store. The the I don't know, there's just
something that that's kind of unique. I guess it's because growing up, you
know, I would go to feed stores and and just I don't know,
there's a there's a fragrance in there, and it's the fragrance of the feed
I know. But it's just a fresh, earthy, healthy fragrance. To
me, I love I love doing that. I mean, everybody wants to
have a good, a good, beautiful place. Right. The feed stores
we talk about carry the things that we're talking about. And you know,
if you, I know most of you are doing yourselfers and that's great.
You can do a good job. But if you ever looked at your landscape
and thought it just needs more, I'm that way. I'm great at plants.
I love a thousand million different kinds of plants, right, But when
it comes to putting them out and it being just right, I'm still a
big time learner in that. But Peerscapes is the kind of place where you
come in and it's your one stop shop and you may need a small job
done. You may need a total complete landscape build or landscape restoration and renovation
done. Maybe a new garden or a hardscape or a rock border. Maybe
have drainage problems. Welcome to the southeast Texas area where it rains and we
have a lot of clay soils. Drainage is an issue. They can fix
that for you. Peerscapes has the designers that have the eye and the unders
standing that when they get through It's like, yes, that that is what
I wanted. That I couldn't have known that. It's like me trying to
draw. You can give me rem Brands canvas and rim Brands paint, and
when I get through, it's going to look like a four year old with
finger paint got through right, I'm not rem brand there. They're the Rembrandts
of the landscape. They can create that kind of beauty. You can call
them at two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero RC. Go
to Pierce Scapes dot com to find out more. I love to see the
work that they do, and by the way, you will too if you
need to take it up that extra notch. Talking about the soils, while
ago I mentioned you know how important they are. And when it comes to
creating that kind of quality soil, you've got a couple of options. You
can take an amendment like compost or a rose soil or whatever and mix it
in. Maybe it's leakmo com mix it in and improve the soil that you
have. That's option one. Option two is to bring a soil in and
just grow in that. And when I do a bed with that, what
I'll do is I'll lay a couple inches or maybe three or four inches of
the new mix down and I'll mix it in with the surface of the soil
I have, so then I put the rest of the new mix on top
of it. So the roots are going down and they're going through the special
new mix. It's wonderful. Then they get into that transition zone and then
they get into the regular soil and they'll go down into the regular soil below
if it's an open bottom bed. But create that transition. Don't just go
from perfect composte, potting, soiled eye, beautiful stuff just suddenly into the
hard clay. Roots have a hard time, and you end up with what's
called a perched water table, where basically it means the water goes down and
hits the clay. That's called a farm pond by the way. They're lined
with clay, and that's what happens. The water hits it and it just
stops going down and the water holes there. So that transition zone helps a
little bit for it to be doing better there. Uh. You know,
when I talk about transition zones, I think about the transition we do every
every half hour music for this. It's always a fun way to try to
how do I transition into Nikki giving us the news. By the way,
Nikki, I still get these emails and stuff, or phone callers will call
in and they'll say hi to Nikki, or you have a fan club out
there. Oh well, thank you so much. There you go the voice
of the news. And I have to tell you something. I'm going to
bring in my laptop um and show you a picture of what you inspired in
me. But we'll do that in another transition. That scares the heck out
of me. I have no idea what that possibly would mean. But it's
a great, great Saturday morning. Look outside. The sun is starting to
peek through, and they're going to have a good day to get outside.
I hope somebody you'll come see me today at wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood.
We look forward to seeing you. By the way, if you got a
plant sample you want to bring in, put it in a zip lock or
some kind of closed bag and bring it on in. Or if you just
have some photos on your phone, that's another good way. Make sure they're
in good sharp focus. Show me what the whole area you're asking about looks
like. Show me what the close up of the plant or the problem or
the bug or whatever you got, and we'll take a look at it and
see if we can help get you off to a really good start. If
you live up in the Tomball area, you need to check out D D
Feed. D and D Feed is about three miles west of Highway two forty
nine. It's on the left as you're going out that direction, and the
Dover family had been in business since nineteen eighty nine. This summer they did
an expansion. They got a lot more areas. If they didn't already have
tons of great product, now they got room for even more. And it's
filled up too. By the way. You're going to find the fertilizers and
the soils that we talk about there. They also carry plants, and they
carry the kinds of products that you need to take care of your pleasure insecticide
or or a fun decide maybe you've got to deal with pests and rodents you
know that are bother They can fix that too. They carry the mosquito dunks,
and they carry a pool cleaners. If you've got a pool and need
some of those supplies, you're going to find it all there at D and
D Feed, And that is again three miles west of Tomball on Highway two
forty nine. Just look for it on the left as you're heading out that
direction. You need a really good quality dog food, and they're going to
have that. The high end line stuff like Origin, Diamond, victor Starpro
all of that's available out there at the D and D feed. I was
talking earlier about the idea of plant, how plants function and how certain kinds
of problems happen in them, And I mean, that's like a fifty show
description, but just to give kind of a something I've been thinking about lately.
When it gets hot, a lot of plants don't do well. And
you think about, well, why why do some plants do well when it's
hot and some plants don't well? As things get hotter, For most plants,
they're not able to carry on the physiological functions. I'm nerden out here.
I know, bear with me, the physiological functions that it takes to
keep a plant healthy. So take a tomato for example. Now, tomatoes,
the plants will grow in hot weather, but when it gets up well
into the nineties, they some of the processes start to break down. They
don't they don't go forward like they're supposed to. Photosynthesis would be an example,
and tomatoes are taken in sunlight and they're making carbohydrates, and then they're
also respiring or giving off the gases that the oxygen is one that comes off.
That's we talk about plants providing us oxygen, but there's a period of
time in the day where they do the opposite. It's to a lesser degree,
but they're taking in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide. And if night
times are really really hot, rather than the little openings in the leaves the
stone mates where moisture can go out opening up during the day, they close
up. And when the stoemates close up, it shuts down that metabolic system
for the tomato. They'd like to open up at night as well and then
close down to whole moisture you know, during the day, but it messes
that process up, and so it's almost like a factory and you shut the
doors and nothing can get enter out. And when that happens, we see
a breakdown. We see not good production. We see the plants struggling and
they just don't do well. And for plants that aren't set up genetically to
handle that, they don't grow here. That's why we don't grow a lot
of the plants that do so well further north, they just can't take it
down here. But even the plants that can take it here, like a
tomato plant for example, they even struggle when it hits those kinds of stressful
conditions. So that's when we want to make sure that they don't lack for
water, for example, because they're pumping a ton of water out of the
leaves just to maintain their temperature. I mean, think about it. Why
don't plants get as hot as the sidewalk does in the summertime. Well,
it's because they're evaporatively cooling themselves by sending water out through the leaves. So
that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get, you know,
the plant what it needs in order to be able to function and do really,
really well. And speaking of that, there is a program called water
my Yard. Water my Yard is it's actually it's an app. You can
go online and you can download it and it's free. It's on Apple Store
and it's also on Google Play. But go to water my yard dot org.
Can't get simpler than that water my yard dot org. And here's what
happens. When you download the app or when you go to the website and
you use this really cool technological tool. They have weather stations all over the
place. They measure solar intensity, they measure humidity, they measure temperature,
they measure wind speed. You see what I'm talking about. So they can
tell you how much water does your Saint Augustine grass use based on all those
factors, and they go through the day measuring that. So they can tell
you at the end of the week your lawn has used eight tenths of an
inch of water and you know how to replace ship. It keeps you from
overwatering, keeps you from wasting water, but it also keeps you from not
watering enough. And it's free. You can sign up to get an email
from them. Water my Yard is a really really cool thing. When we
overwater, we insite disease problems. For example, when we underwater, we
know the problems with that. But it's really easy to get signed up water
my yard dot org. I think everybody ought to do that. I mean
it's like it's like, if you want the email, it's a free email
reminder of Hey, this is how much water your plant us you need to
water this much, and so you are watering with the latest technology scientifically rather
than you know, we say your lawn needs an inch of water a week.
Well that's a good average, but it's almost always a little off,
right, because the weather is always changing. Water my own. Hey,
we're going to go out to East Houston and talk to Paul. Good morning,
Paul, good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you.
I had a question about systemic fertilizer. Is there such a thing as
a systemic fertilizer that doesn't harm pollinators? There are no fertilizer fertilizer will harm
pollinators. Those are just the plant is only taking up the nutrients that it
needs and it has pardon, I was gonna say, you know, the
ones like you can get like fertile home fertilizer. Was systemic insecticide? Okay,
now we're talking about it. Insecticide, yes, right, And the
systemic insecticides that there's more than one type, and they've studied them a long
time and they have found that there is some of that insecticide that moves into
either pollen or nectar, and it may be depending on the product, and
it's at a very low rate, so it's not like a bee drinks from
the flour and just croaks right there on the spot. But by weakening the
bees, you can weaken the hive. And when you weaken the hive,
you know, you start all kinds of problems that that follow from that.
So you'd rather, I would rather not use a systemic insecticide on plants that
bloom when you know, at a time when they can pick it up and
then they have the blooms with that in it. If you do it seasonally,
like let's say you you know you've got something that's flowering in the fall,
but you do this product in the early spring, that's different. But
other than that, I would avoid those. One would be the like the
peak times when you should not use that product. Well, anytime you're gonna
you have blooms on the plant, or anytime you're gonna have blooms on the
plant in the next few months, that that's probably the case. All right,
Hey, Paul, thank you so much. A good day. You
bet you two. Yeah, those products can stick around for a while.
Hey, we're gonna take a break. Our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four, big happy, good, good morning,
speaking of feeling good. It's a good day to feel good. My goodness,
I am really impressed. We got some storms that are coming up here.
I was just looking at the weathers during the break and it's gonna be
an interesting evening, I believe. But for now, it's good time to
get outside, good time to enjoy the weather. You're listening to garden Line
and our phone number if you'd like to write this down seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Have you found your little dream piece of property? Maybe you're living
on it now. We're talking about you know, the little five acres ten
acres even more. I mean it could be a huge place. You need
to check out the landsdown Moody, Texas edition could boat twenty five o one.
That's the L twenty five oh one. It is a Cadillac. It
is cool. I grew up with tractors that you ground the gears. This
one's got a hydrostatic transmission. It's got the package. Like I say,
I like to trick them out with things like a front end loader. Boy,
those are great for moving all kinds of things, from feed sacks to
soil around the place, landscaping box played or rotary cutter for doing some of
that, you know, mow in depth things down The Lansdowne Moody, the
L twenty five O one, I can't even say the numbers on it from
Lansdowne Moody is the tractor you're looking for. And this is the time.
And here's why. Zero down, no money down, no interest for eighty
four months, seven years, no interest. Now it's only gonna last till
June thirtieth, that deal. But go to l M tractor dot com.
LM tractor dot com found find the Lansdowne Moody near you, but at least
go buying check out this tractor. I think that you will enjoy it very
much. I think when I had my midlife crisis, I need to get
to get two or three of these. They are a lot of fun to
drive. Every time I'm on one of those kind of tractors, I just
feel like, where was this when I was a kid trying to get by?
Oh my gosh, super super cool. And we're talking about gardening things
and physiological things. This morning, I was discussing the fact that when the
temperatures get high it shuts processes down in the plant and it becomes critical.
It hits a point where you can actually start to see plants decline and die.
I mean, if they can't move water through their leaves because it's so
hot, the stone mates are closing up and the evenings are also hot,
and they're not able to go through those processes. They just go downhill.
And that's the why, that's the why. I mean, you know what
it looks like when a plant wilts. You know what it looks like when
to makes quit producing well in the summer. That's for whole other reasons.
The way the pollen clumps and doesn't pall beneath the flower, right, But
that's the why behind it. If you if you don't have a garden,
maybe have access to a community garden. And if you do, you should
take advantage of that. Community gardens are a great way to have a little
piece, you know, a little piece of property where you can grow the
things that you want to grow, because not everybody has a room for the
size of garden that they would like to have. Well, the folks at
dell Web, they're put by the way they're putting in a new community out
in full Shore about two miles from downtown Fullshore on FM three fifty nine.
And they are also adding a community garden. They've contacted me and I'm going
to be assisting them getting this garden set up for the residents. So you
know, dell Web has been building these quality communities with innovative designs for active
adults age fifty five and better for over seventy years, and so all the
things you would expect from Delleweb in terms of quality building and the lifestyle programs
that are designed around you. You know, beautiful greenways to walk through and
bike through and enjoy. Now in addition to that, as a gardener,
you have a community garden where you don't have to dig up your backyard.
You can go there and you can do all the gardening that the produce,
growing and herbs and things like that that you want. Go to dellweb dot
com slash Houston for more information or give them a call to eight one four
to five nine zero six zero nine. You need to discover this Dellweb difference
for yourself. You're listening to garden Line. If you want to get on
the boards Wi Josh, give us a call seven one three two one two,
five, eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. I'm going to move over to the boards now and we are going
to talk to Judy. Good morning, Judy, good morning. I have
two questions about watering. Okay, I recently planted a peach tree. How
much water does that need? Well, it depends on the weather. A
mature peach tree in summer can pump forty gallons a day through out through the
roots and up out its leaves. So that's that's what Yeah, okay,
I'm just saying. So the temperatures and you know, and and the age
of the tree and the size of the tree, that's all going to affect
it. In this first summer, I would put a little burm around the
tree, or even better yet, I would get me one of the uh
sprinklers goes around the tree that waters the tree right where the root zone is.
But if you if you do the burn version, you want to fill
it up with water and put about maybe a gallon or two every let's say,
three times a week for the first month or so of summer, and
then you can move back to twice a week and then move back to once
a week, but you're gradually weaning it back early on. It needs to
get the water right at that spot, and putting it at that spot is
important. That's why I mentioned the tree hugger sprinkler because it's an easy way.
You just turn it on real gradually, so it just waters that little
area and then you turn it on more, and then you turn it on
more, and as that root grows, it's always got good moistle. You
never want it to get drought stressed because your goal, h Judy, in
this first year is to grow the biggest, fastest tree you can's okay,
oh okay, And I just planted some knockout roses. How much water do
they need? The same thing, exactly the same thing I just described.
All the all the roots are in that cylinder, and you just do the
same thing I just said, take care of them, gradually help them,
all right? Can I trim them now? You can trim them a little
bit, but for a while, just let them grow for a little bit,
and because they need those leaves, they need the leaves are needed to
do the roots. All right. Oh okay, all right, well,
thank you you bet. I appreciate that call. If you happen to live
up in the Montgomery area. You know, we're talking about the whole Lake
Conro region. You need to know about your back yard. A nursery and
that's A and A Plants and Produce. They're right there in your backyard.
They've got everything we talk about in terms of products. They have all the
kinds of plants you want, seven days a week, nine to five.
They're open. They are the place where you get all the additional things,
the talavera and the terra cotta and the chimineas and on and on and on.
Just go buy and check it out. It's just on the east side
of Montgomery on one oh five. A and A Plants in Produce, really
really fun place to visit. Well, we're heading to break. We'll be
right back if you want to give us a call. Seven one three two,
one two five eight seven four is a number. Seven one, three,
two and two. Katrh Joshu gets you on the board and you'll be
first up when we come back from the break. I hope you're enjoying the
day so far, got that cup of coffee in hand, perhaps, just
want to remind you eleven thirty two, one thirty two day I'll be at
Wahlbird's Unlimited in Kingwood. So any of you up in that part of the
world, Yeah, I don't care. If you're maybe down in the opposite
part of the world. You want to drive over, We'd love to meet
you. I'd love to see what's going on. And it's I always say
this about the appearances. That's a spot where we can sit eye to eye
and really talk. I take the time to go back and forth, answer
your questions and just help get you off to a good start. My goal
is for the listeners to have success. Everyone should enjoy gardening and everyone should
feel like they know how to do it. Katrh Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy
our h Garden Line with Skip Rictor. So just watch him as so many
Good morning. We are here talking about gardening. You're listening to Garden lin.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call. We
will visit about whatever you're interested in regarding gardening and see if we can help
you have a more beautiful garden. And a bountiful landscape. That's why we're
here. We're gonna start off going out to Willis and visiting with Stephen this
morning. Good morning, Stephen, good morning. UM. My question is
I just killed three ant hills in my yard. There were those little thinking
super ants with little black ants. Okay, Now, can I just rake
those mounds away? Or do I need to put some kind of nutrient down
where those mountains are act because you know it leaves a bare spot. Uh
yeah, no, no nutrients needed. They have not changed the nutrient content
of your soil in any way that would require you to fertilize. Okay,
So I can just rake those mountains away and kind of spread it out,
all the mounted out a little bit, right, then it'll be fine.
Yeah, that'll be fine. What are you going to grow there? Grass?
It's on my it's my saint Augustine law, okay, all right,
and I have an absolutely gorgeous lawn except for these got these little ant hills
that start popping up. So I want to get rid of them. All
right, Well, very very good. Then, yeah, that that should
do it. It should crawl right back in just fine, excellent, Thank
you very much. I appreciate you hope all right, thank you for the
call. Appreciate that we uh. You know, ants, there are different
kinds of ants out there in the environment, and most of them don't bother
our plants sometimes just you know, they just create their space like that.
But most of the time they don't. They don't rebother our ants that much,
and they'll be just fine. If you're looking for a quality tree,
you need to check out Verdant Tree Farm and you get it's really easy to
get to them because they got three locations. There's the original location which is
in West Houston on Barker, Cyprus. They now have the Parland location not
it's really easy to get to too. It's on West Broadway done in Parland
and then up on Yale Street where it comes into I ten. The Verdant
Tree Farm and the heights is up there and they do the turnkey service.
You pick out your tree, you tag it, they install it, they
plant it right though. Trees all the way up to seven hundred gallons.
If you want the instant pizzaz that will do it. I mean, it's
really it's really the way to go if you want to make sure that you
got a quality tree, a quality species and it's planted right And by the
way, tomorrow I'm gonna have Patrick from Verdan on for a little interview.
We're gonna talk about palm trees. So if you are interested in any way,
shape or form about palm trees, maybe you got one, maybe you
want one, you need to tune in tomorrow on the show, and I'm
gonna spend a little time visiting with Patrick about some of the secrets of success,
you know, for those of you who have a palm tree. Let's
head out to Missouri City and visit with Lauren next. Good morning, Lauren,
Hey, good morning, Skip. How are you. I'm well,
thank you. I have probably a dumb question you answered many times, but
I haven't hurt. I got a great patch of tomatoes, and right when
I start turning red, something will eat a minute. It looks like I've
seen a combination of little snails, you know, the worms, the tomato
worms, caterpillars. The garden place that I go to out here said try
and seven dust. I've tried that, and I've only gotten two ripe tomatoes
out of quite a few. Lauren, can you describe to me what the
feeding damage looks like, where is it on the tomato? Is it a
hole that goes into the tomato? What are you seeing? Well, combo
from the top, I'll see. Yesterday I pulled off a couple that it
was from the bottom. And you know, at first I thought maybe it
was birds, because we have a lot of birds, and so they poke
a hole in it and then the boats come. But I keep seeing I've
pulled off quite a view of the black fuzzy worms. I don't know if
they're tomato worms, are okay a future butterfly air wood? You know,
if they're black and fuzzy, they shouldn't be feeding on the fruit of the
tomato. Perhaps on the leaves. I can't think of one that feeds on
the leaves. But there's not one that feeds on the fruit that I know
of that's black and fuzzy. Oh good, that makes sense because that's where
I'll find them, is on the leaves, and I get rid of them.
But they're not the ones eating the brute huh, No, they're not.
I doubt that it's slugs or snails. Besides, you'd see their slimy
dried trails the next day from their evening feeding. It's probably a caterpillar,
you know, without seeing a photo to be sure, you know, I
a bird pack is just a gash out of the tomato. You know,
it's ragged. It tends to be kind of deep and and irregular. When
tomatoes caterpillars are feeding, they eat more of a hole. It may be
a little round hole and that's all there is because they're drilling straight down,
or they may be feeding around the surface a little bit. But either way,
you know, if you want to go with something, probably the least
toxicity would be a BT Bacillus thringiensis. That's the sprays just asked for BT
where you shop for gardening stuff. Uh, but you're gonna have to spray
that about ever three days for a while, just because BT doesn't last and
you want to make sure it's out there. So if it feed, they
feed, it's going to kill them. Uh. The the alternative that would
be going a direction like you went with seven that'll kill just about anything,
but it also kills the things that eat spider mites, and tomatoes get spider
mites, and so seven dust can cause a spider mite outbreak on your tomatoes.
So I generally don't don't recommend that unintended consequence. Yeah, that's okay,
sot boy thomasot BT. It's a caterpillar disease. It won't affect any
other insect. It's a caterpillar disease, the one soul for caterpillars. All
right, well, I'm always to the point now where just you know,
I'm part of the ecosystem and letting the caterpillars turn into butterflies and other store.
There you go, there you go. All right, Well I have
fun though. Tomato groans a blast, so enjoy it. Thank you,
Lauren, appreciate that call very much. Hey, do you ever have trouble
sleeping or trouble relaxing or do you deal with muscle aches and joints? Just
the mood issues general wellness. The Trusted Lab is a supplier of organic CBD.
It's extracted from the highest quality hemp grown here in under USDA guidelines in
the United States. They use a CO two extraction process, so that's never
touched by chemicals. It's lab tested for anything that you would not want in
a product like a pesticide to solve in a heavy metal highest quality that you
can get it in oils, you can get in soft jails. You can
get it in guomies, you can get it in creams, wide variety.
It's a Texas company. Go to trust the Trusted Lab dot com and find
out more, and I think you will find a product that works well for
you. I've myself to use that for some muscle ache, some joint aches,
and things like that well worth checking into. Hey, we are hitting
on a hard break, so our number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call and get on the boards.
And David and Adolph I see you. You will be the first two up.
So good taking it easy? Would I got some good that lived down,
got a good mama, Don give a small time. It is a
good barn, now I got You are listening to the garden line and we
are here to talk about garden all. Any kind of questions you might have,
give Josh a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We'll get you on the board. If you've not done your summer fertilization
yet, you need to get that done on the lawns. That's the one
we put down that we hope to carry us through summer. That fertilizer,
along with the clippings, which contribute heavily to returning recycling nutrients in the ground,
is critical and one of the fertilizers that I would consider a go to
for the Houston area, and that would be the Microlife green bag, the
six two four. Now the combination of the green and the purple. I
love the colored bags because it makes it easy to say which is which.
But green six two four purple that's humates plus humates plus. Think of it
as concentrated compost in a bag. These will improve your soil. They will
help loosen the soil. They will provide beneficial microbes. And not just the
three numbers on the bag, the six, the two, and the four.
They have sixty three essential minerals to push naturally moderate growth rate, good
root growth, and to provide all the things that your grass is going to
need. Grass needs more than nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. You can
go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out exactly where you can find Microlife
in town. By the way, it's not hard to find. It's everywhere,
But go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out where you can get
some. I want to head out to southwest Houston now and we're gonna talk
to David. Hello, David, good morning, Thanks for taking my call.
Yes, sir, So, what I've got is a pretty good size
in my front yard that's trying to take over our Actually it's taken over to
Saint Augustine my friends. Itself was fertilizer. They said it's some type of
bermuda, and it's the size of about twenty to twenty five feet long and
about ten feet fifteen feet wide. What I did I killed it off about
two weeks ago, but it's starting to green. Cormuda is starting to come
back through, okay. And I got out there with the tiller and I
tilled it all up. But the roots are they go so far down?
What do I need to do before trying to resought? And then it taken
over my resaw it? Okay, very good question. David. Can you
remember what product you used to killed it? To kill it? Well,
I didn't you use round up. I use m I use a mixture of
vine like vinegar, salt and dishri turget. Okay, there we go,
and that killed it for about two weeks. That I'm starting to see even
after I killed it, some of it started BURNU. The brain is starting
to show up. Absolutely, you didn't kill it. You burned the top
with those products. That's what that did. Okay, So uh yeah,
would you rather not use round Up? Am I hearing that in your statements?
No? I can't. I just I use it when it's not windy
or anything like that. Oh yeah, because anything gets on it's gonna kill.
So yeah. Always when you use any pesticide, you want a course
herbicide. Do you want a course droplet spray, not high pump, high
pressure fine mistressing everywhere, so watch for that. So round up would would
translocate down and kill it if you'd rather not use that. There are a
couple of grass killers. They kill grass, not broad leaves, and so
that would be things that if you go in talk to Bob and the folks
there, I'm rather than reading out the long ingredient names over the air,
just say I need a grass only killer, and they have. I was
in there the other day visit with Bob. I think they have two or
three different grass killer products, maybe more. I mean they Selfwest Fertilizer carries
a lot of everything you probably have noticed that. But get a grass only
killer and let it sprout up so you have something to spray the product on,
because you don't spray it on the so you have to get it on
the leaves of the grass. But put a surfactant with it just to be
sure, just to be sure that it sticks well to the leaves, and
then kill it again. And I would wait because here's the thing. You're
you're giving up a big section of your yard to fix this problem, and
so to just spray it, even with these good quality, translocated products,
it's still going to be a few sprigs that it didn't quite get to and
they come back up. And so if you hit it twice with these grass
killers, maybe two three weeks apart, just kind of watch how they grow.
The rototilling just chops up the runners, so now you have more runners
to sprout and come up. So there's nothing wrong with the rohado telling,
but don't do that again. And then just but give it time because you
want to make sure. You want it to get moist and wet and it's
nice and warm. You want all that bermuda grass to sprout, so when
it sticks its head up there's your chance to send something all the way down
to kill the whole plant, and then that's what I would recommend. Okay,
Well, I haven't edged and probably a month because I was going to
use the runners along with solid it's so expensive nowadays. In fact, well
with home Depot they didn't even have any. Okay, so my neighbors are
all asking me when you're going to edge, when you kind of imagine now
now it sounds like I need to wait another month to edge. Well,
yeah, because I was going to use I've got over like ten inches to
a foot long, saying Augustine runners that are running over the h the sidewalk
and the curb. Us going to use those after killed all this stuff off,
get some good top soil to kind of level it off, and then
put these plugs in there and okay, give it, you know, six
months, seven months to kind of take it all over. Okay, Well,
I mean, if you want to go that route, you could cut
them off and then take them and just put them somewhere. These are just
Saint Augustine, right right, Put them somewhere where you have a garden flower
bed whatever I mean. Saint Augustly's not going to invade and be a problem
and just let them grow there for a few weeks and get the root down
while you're waiting to then pull them up and take them over to put in
those bare areas. So you could also do it that way. Hello.
All right, well, I appreciate it. Last week you two, thank
you for the for that call. You know, Southwest Fertilizer. I was
out visiting the fact yesterday. I was out there talking to Bob looking at
the products, because they just have one of everything. I mean, if
you're an organic gardener, you're going to find more organic options there than any
place I can think of. I mean, they have a huge eighty foot
wall of tools, lots of and the quality kinds of tools that you need.
They're going to carry all the fertilizers we talk about and then some.
I mean they've got composts and mulches and soil amendments and everything, and they
know what they're talking about. I was listening to one of the employees out
there on the aisle over while I was out there talking to a customer,
and I mean they were they were nailing the problem right on the head.
They're not going to steer you wrong. They're not going to say something you
don't need. Southwest Fertilizer has been a Houston tradition since nineteen fifty five.
If you don't know where they are, there at the corner of Bissonette and
Renwick, or you can just go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. It's a
kind of place it's worth driving. If you don't live in that region,
it's it's worth driving too, because they all the reasons. I just said,
Well, let's head to Manville and we're gonna talk to Adolf. Hello,
aid Off, hire you this morning? All right? Aid Off?
Are you there fertilizer? All right, we're gonna get off. I need
you to turn your radio off and I'll come back to you in just a
second. Here, let's go to John and Willis. Good morning, John,
Good morning, Skip. Uh. I want to pray Exprace some we'd
killer some bonn eyed for Southern Land or we'd beat her Southern Land. Okay,
But it's supposed to rain tonight and I'm not sure, and I can't
find anything on the label. How long is before it's waterproof? But should
I'll wait till it's more. You know, there's nothing on the label there's
not. I'm surprised it should be on the label, and it is on
a lot of products. I was gonna say my wild guests would be if
you didn't have at least three hours, you shouldn't spray. But I want
to tell you something. Those products, now, they're good products, but
when we get up into the nineties, you're they're hard on the grass,
and when you wake Saint Augustine, you invite a lot of problems. There
is a product. There is a product called Celsius, and you just buy
a little packet of it makes a couple of gallons. But Celsius you can
move into hotter weather. And I'm not talking about ninety eight degrees, but
you can move into hotter weather with Celsius. And I would switch over to
that and it'll do a good job on broad leaf weeds as well. Celsius
like the temper. Okay, that's it, That's what I would do.
I mean you might get away with it. You know, we get a
little upper eighties and stuff, but even upper eighties is it's kind of pushing
it when you read the label on these products. Yeah, I always understood
that this we'd be there for southern lawns. You could do it in the
summertime, but maybe it's too late, you know, I don't know.
I'll try to see if I can find a salesius well in Willis somewhere.
Yeah, you can go to uh go to Ace Hardware dot com, Ace
Hardware dot com and they're there. You can find the store near you.
There's a store locator up at the top of the screen. Right, yeah,
thirty pardon there's warning Willis. Okay, Well, there's thirty nine I'm
in the Greater Houston area that are part of the Houston Area Group, and
they're gonna have a kind of product you can imagine, and they are going
to have that kind of thing. And if they don't have it, they
can probably order it for you too. So that's a kind of thing.
All right, thanks skip you bet, thank you. Yeah, we want
to be we want to be careful with these uh with these products at this
time. Uh, but you know, it's it's always an easy thing to
say, you know, go to Ace Hardware because no, where's some ice
calling from thirty nine stores in a Greater Usecenaria. There's gonna be an Ace
Hardware and I know Ace is going to carry the fertilizers that we talk about,
you know, the soul bags, we talk about, the products.
Plus I mean, when you're in there, you're going to find household items.
You're going to find all kinds of wonderful barbecue equipment and products and everything
you need for barbecue and being the grill master of the neighborhood. And it
is barbecue season, by the way, as well as everything else should get
from an ACE hardware, but you should always always look for an ACE hardware
near you. Let's head out to let's see, We're gonna go now to
South Houston and talk to Louise. Hello, Louise, Hello, good morning,
good morning. Oh hey, how are you doing. I'm doing well.
I'm doing well. How can we help? Quick question? All right,
so we just did a major remodel on home and then we're looking at
redoing the backyard and I'm looking at putting black bam boo as a barrier around
the perimeter. What do you think about that? Black bamboo is the kind
you chose, a clumping or running type of bamboo. The well as far
as like seeds I want to plant, like have bamboo grow. That's what
I'm talking about. Well, you have to start the bamboo from plants rather
than seeds. But I mean I would just German like I was looking at,
uh this black bamboo, just planning it and just letting it grow along
the fence line. Okay, And well here here's the thing on bamboo.
They're basically two types, clumping and running bamboo. And if you get a
running type of bamboo, you and the neighbors will regret it forever. Clumping
spreads, you know, just like grasses bermuda grass, it runs everywhere,
and then we have the clumping grasses, the maiden grass and pampas grass.
They stay in one spot in the spot just gets bigger and bigger, but
it's more controlled. And so you need to check with the kind of bamboo
you're looking at and make sure it's a clumping type. But also you want
to make sure that it's going to do well. Here a lot of the
clumpers are not super coldhearty, and so we get those certain kinds of winners
and you can lose them. So that would be the only other thing I
would add, Louise, So do you think you should build I'll put it
like a planner, a box along the line. I mean I could,
yeah, build a low level I'll tell you what that would be best.
I'm gonna have to go to a break. If you want to hang on,
I'll pick you back up right after break. Lewis our phone number if
you would like to give a skull seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. We're listening to garden Line. We're here to answer your gardening
questions, and we're going to go back to Lewis and talk about this bamboo.
Lewis, we're talking about black bamboo. And by the way, that
is a runner. The black bamboo you're talking about as a runner, And
you know, I just emphasize for anybody just tuning in running, bamboos should
only be planted if they can be contained, because once they get a step
or a headache, Okay, okay, so make sure I'll put it in
some kind of plantuff. I'll go that route. Okay. Yeah, And
you can go it maybe for sale loca. I know, you can go
online and there's people that just do bamboo barriers and it's going to be something
that's like sixty mill I mean, this is a really thick, tough plastic
and you need to go buy it about twenty four inches in width, so
that deep, and you're basically going to create this trench and only let it
be there in the trench. Oh okay, all right, god dumay,
are you saying put a barrier first, nam, Well, you could plant
the bamboo. You got time to put a barrier in the first year you
plant the bamboo is just gonna sit there. The second year it's going to
grow a little bit, and then the third year you're gonna get the long,
tall shoots that you were waiting on all along showing up. So you
have some time. But just make sure that it is one hundred percent encircled
whatever shape you want to use, completely surrounded by a barrier that prevents it
from getting getting away. Oh perfect, perfect, all right, appreciate you,
buddy, You guys so much, Thank you. I appreciate. I
appreciate your call as well. If you live down in the Rose Sharon area,
down in the Sienna Plantation, river Stone, Quell Valley, Pomona,
you know you get the idea. We're talking south and lest a little bit
west, but mostly south of Houston. Sienna Mulch is your source for everything
when it comes to mulch when it comes to beautiful stone, when it comes
to river rock, and eight hundred thousand other kinds of stone type materials.
I mean, their selection is unbelievable. They also when you're there, you
can buy all the fertilizers we talk about here. You can buy mulch,
soil, compost, in bulking, buy it in bags. They've got it
all and CNA Mulch is open from seven thirty to five thirty Monday through Friday,
Saturday's today seven thirty to two thirty. Close Tomorrow and Sundays. But
it's on FM five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight near that
area. Go to Sienna mulch dot com and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Quality products, absolutely quality products, and they will deliver within a twenty
mile area. Of course, with any kind of a bulk delivery, there's
a little charge for that. But if you don't have a vehicle that can
haul at home, they'll take care of that for you. Let's head out
to talk to Jim. Now. Good morning Jim, Good morning Skip.
I've got a mature quite myrtle. It's a twilight color but it has not
ten pups coming off the roots. Now, I might like to keep one
or two, but it has three trunks to it. All of them are
at least a half inch in diameter. Okay, but should I get rid
of most of those pups are not? I took some pictures, but I
didn't know if you needed to see it or not. Yeah, I don't
know what are you? And you're not gonna be anywhere You're kingwood this afternoon?
Are you? No, sir? I'm down, I'm down close to
okay. You know, I've never tried taking a pup off. I mean
taking a shoot off of a crape myrtle. We wouldn't technically call those pups
like we do on a sago palm or something coming out of the side or
a bromeliad um. I don't know that you could get roots to go with
that. Usually those are coming right off of the trunk at the base,
even below the sword a little bit. But there. I don't think you're
gonna be able to get roots to go with it. Well, I'm really
you misunderstood a little bit. I'm not really interested in trying to get roots.
I'm interested in trying to let them go ahead and grow one or two
of them, But I'm concerned about whether or not I need to get rid
of the rest of them. Do I just I got full of dirt around
it and then cut them. Yeah, I would. I would get rid
of the rest of them. When you cut them, cut them back as
far against where they're coming out as you can. Even gouging out a little
bit helps because right at the base of a shooter or a whole bunch of
buds. So if you cut it off and leave a little one inch stub,
you're just gonna have a whole bunch more coming in. So try to
do that. There is a sucker stopper type product if you if wherever you
go and shopping, if you it's a quality place, Uh, they're gonna
place like you know, Southwest would definitely have it. But something that's like
a hormone that tells the plant not to send up a sucker right there,
and so I would probably cut them and then put that on them. But
yes, you think you can do that? All right? Thank you,
Thank you. I appreciate that call. Jim. Let's see we're gonna head
out to Pasadena. Good morning, Danielle. I couldn't even say Danielle how
are you this morning? I'm fine, okay, but my angel trumpets are
not. The neighbors had a big mulberry tree and they had the web worms
in it, and they have decimated my angel trumpets. A web worm eight
an angel's trumpet. Yeah there. I went out yesterday with my nephew and
he said, well, they're all over. My eyesight is not as good
as okay. So you're seeing webbing and you're seeing caterpillars. Yes, okay,
Well, then I would get a product called BT, or a product
that has spinosaid in it, Spio SAD, either one of those. Just
just tear off the webs, you know, your gloved hand or whatever you
want to use, and then they're just on the plant? Are they they're
eating the leaves though? Right exactly? It looks like when the tomato worms
just leave a little bit of lace on it. Oh okay, well in
that case, probably not a web worm. I would just spray them with
BT or spinosaid. If it's BT, you use spram again. Three days
later. I think it is the web worm because we've got them on the
patio, call them up the wall. Okay, Well, if it's a
caterpillar, BT or a spinosaid or your two options that are the least toxic.
Well, thank you, you back, Good luck with that. Appreciate
that very much. You know, I've talked about del Web before, but
if you're familiar with dee web, you know that they're community for active adults
fifty five and better. They're designs. The lifestyle programs that come with a
Dellweb community are unmatched. Now there's a new community done in full Shure.
It's about two miles from downtown full Shure on FM three fifty nine. I'm
especially excited about this one because they're putting in a community garden that I am
assisting them with. So if you're a gardener and you're looking for that lifestyle
that Dellweb offers, go to Dellweb Houston dot com for more info, or
you can call them to eight one four five nine zero six zero nine and
discover that Dellweb difference for yourself. Really really cool. Can I remember Gosha
years ago going to a Dellweb community out in Arizona and they really know what
they're doing. Hey, you're listening to garden line seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Give Josh a Colt. When we come back
from this break, you'll be first up zone today. And don't forget the
pot all right, you're listening to Garden Line. We are here to answer
your gardening questions. The number is seven one three, two one two five
eight seven four. Give us a call and we will look forward to visiting
with you about whatever is of interest to you. Hey, if you live
in the north central part of the Houston area, you need to know about
Quality Feed and Garden Supply. I've been going to Quality Feed and Garden Supply
for many years now. The first time I went, they were in their
old location. They moved just down the road a little bit there now at
Luzon Street eighteen thirteen l u z O N. Street. That's near the
intersection Equipment, Equipment and Allusion. Now, Quality Feed and Garden is going
to have all the feed things you're talking about. It's a feed store,
right, but they're going to have an incredible selection of the products we talk
about here, the fertilizers, we talk about, the soils we talked about
earlier, was talking about, you know, heirloom veggie mix or heirloom rossel.
They got that and many many more options. They have also got that
antique seed rack. If you like the old time, you know, you
go into an old hardware store, I mean a feed store and you see
one of those old seed racks on the wall. They've got one from nineteen
twenty eight stocked with heirloom seeds. If you're into backyard chickens, oh my
goodness, it's the place to go. They get regular shipments of chickens in
I think about ever two weeks. I'm not sure right now how many,
how often, but something like that. They've got all the supplies. Uni
they've had of a house special. It's a Grandies laying mix that's really cool
that you will enjoy. When you go to Quality Feed, say hello to
Ken and Chris. I mean they've been doing this for a very very long
time, thirty two years. In fact. They know what they're talking about.
They've got the products that you need. You can go online quality feed
co dot com and find out more information you know about Quality Feed. When
we're starting, if they show today, I was talking about some physiological things
that go on with plants and why they perform well, why they don't.
Well, we'll try to throw a little bit of that nerdy stuff in over
now, and then I think it just helps. Number one's kind of fun
to learn, but number two, it kind of helps you think through things.
And you know, when I go on social media, it drives me
nuts. You know, I think Pinterest is crack for gardeners. They just
say, no, gardening friends, don't let gardening friends get their gardening information
from social media alone, because you know, people can say anything, and
I'm looking at it, going, okay, but that's not how a plant
works. What you just said is bologny or yeah, there's one tenth truth
in that, but the way you've you've presented it, it is absolutely false.
You know, that's the way you know you sell something that's not true.
It's put a kernel of truth in it. But anyway, when you
understand more about how plants work, it helps you. It helps you to
do that. And for example, I'm gonna talk about nitro File. I'm
gonna talk about their Summer Essentials program. Now, this, the nitro File
Summer Essentials Program is designed with the super turf in mind to provide nutrients gradually.
Now, the chemistry of the product is that it is going to gradually
release that nutrient over time, So why not just dump all your fertilizer out
there and that takes care of it for the year. That's like a dairy
farmer going out and figuring out how much feed the cows need and putting it
all in a big poll and say and see you next year at this time.
Of course, that's ridiculous. When you gradually release nutrients, you cut
down on your mowing because you don't have that crazy flush or growth. You
cut down on disease problems because the grass is not weakened and growing so succulently
the diseases and by the way, things like chinch bugs just love your lawn.
That gradual release is how plants need to be fed in the summertime.
And with that, you know, release of nutrients like we're talking about,
you're also going to get a healthier grass with a deeper root system. When
you over fertilize a turf with nitrogen, when you overdo it, you end
up with top growth in the expense of root growth. And we want to
balance. And that's exactly the science behind nitro foss and they're nitrofoss superturf.
That's a silver bag. You're gonna find it everywhere. I mean nitro foss
is sold everywhere. But if you're out in Channa Forest or in Chana Garden
down in the Richmond area, if you're over in Katie at the Full Sure
Ace or the Acid Synco Ranch or the Katie Hardware Ace, or you kind
of get in the idea. All the aceres, really ace stores are going
to carry those nitro FoST products, and so check them out. I think
you will find that they're well well worth it. Let's go to Katie.
Speaking of Katie, and we're gonna talk to Mitchell. Hello, Mitchell,
how are you this morning? Yeah, I do, it's here. Well,
thank you called you guys, just want to call him and thanks for
the advice he gave me earlier this year. On my lawn. It's it's
very pleas and green, and I mean but it's actually a neighbor we compete
with the lawns. So yeah, we had a few people stuff there the
neighborhood and actually congratulates on their lawns. Well, good good. I'm glad
to hear it. I'm glad to hear it work. That's that's always good
to hear. Thank you, all right, thank you, all right,
you take care, take care. Match. I appreciate that. I want
to if if you are out in the lawn and you're noticing a problem,
like the lawn grass is sort of like the they're curling up their spots on
it. They're just overall kind of a i'll say browning, but the green
is there, but there's a lot of specially brown in it. That's probably
a disease called gray leaf spot. Gray leaf spot love is it when you
over fertilize, when you put too much nitrogen down, create that lush growth.
Great spot loves warm temperatures, and gray leaf spot loves wet conditions,
humid conditions. And here we are, you're in the Houston area in summer.
You got all the above except for the over fertilized, and that one's
on you. Well, when you look down at the grass plant and you
see on the grass the green grass blades spots that are brown, maybe some
yellowing around them, that's probably the disease gray leaf spot. And once you
hit that point, you're gonna have to treat it with a fungicide shut it
down. But you create a gray leaf spot problem by creating the conditions that
it wants. And I just mentioned those so if you don't know what gray
leaf spot is and you want to learn, take a piece of plywood,
lay it on your grass and leave it there for maybe four or five days,
and then pick it up and look under the plywood. You'll see gray
leaf spot. Now what happened, Well, you created a very sucked in,
humid, moist dark condition. Oh, by the way, it loves
shade too. It doesn't have to have shade, but it love shade.
And you created that that humidity, that moisture, and you predispose the lawn
to gray leaf spot. So, yes, you can control it with a
fungicide, but why not do the cultural things first that help avoid the problem.
And that's why we that's why we're talking about that kind of thing.
A little bit earlier, I was talking about the nitrofoss the super turf,
and it's a wonderful product, really really good. It does well. But
there's also a nitrofos Bugout Max that is the best consumer choice in Texas for
insect problems. It includes the ingredients that control insects. So if you're looking
at things like perhaps coming up, we're gonna have some a what is it
side web worm problems? This summer. Don't know. It's kind of a
roll of the dice on those. But Bugout Max would be a product that
would help work with that. It's an advanced form it because all kinds of
insects, So you're going to have things, even fire ants that are crawling
around in there, and it's going to get those. The chinch bugs when
they show up, it's going to get those. They also have the nitrofoss
fire ant killer. It works very quick. It kills the queen and the
colony, and so that's what you want to do. You don't want to
play whack a mole with fireants, just you know, dumping something on them
that kills part of the mound, but you don't get the queen. They
move over and they just keep going. You want something that gets the queen,
and that would be the nitrofoss fire ant killer will do just that.
I talking about diseases, you know, like the gray leaf spot and the
insects that attack our lawns and things. You know, lawns or they are
a very popular thing and they have their detractors. I mean, there are
people who don't want to have lawns. They don't want to go through all
that, and that's fine. It's your yard. That's a nice thing about
your yard. If you can get away with it with the homeowners association or
your spouse, you can kind of do what you want in the yard.
But there are people that like to have a beautiful lawn, and they go
for a beautiful lawn. And that's why we talk about these kind of products.
That's we talk about cultural practices. And I need to talk a little
bit more maybe today or tomorrow about some of the cultural practices that help a
lawn be just as beautiful as it can be. If you have not been
by the way recently to Buchanans Native Plants, you need to check them out.
They're on Eleventh Street and the Height Heights. If you want more information,
go to Buchanons Plants dot com and make sure and sign up for their
a newsletter. You'll get in your email box newsletters that talk about educational events
going on at Buchanans Plants. You'll find out about the plants that they just
got in they're restocked on. You're gonna find a great supply of herbs at
Buchanans. You're going to find all the products we talk about the fertilizers,
the soil products, they're all there at Buchanans, so definitely need to check
them out. If you need native plants. The native plants selection is wonderful.
Maybe they feature they focus on native plants, and they also focus on
the native plants that do best here in the Houston area. Where're listening to
garden Line. I just want to remind you that today at eleven thirty I
will be at the wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. That's one of the seven
wild Birds stores here in the Greater Houston area. There's always the wild Birds
near you. If you can get out there to Kingwood today, I'd love
to meet you. If you've got any bugs, diseases, plants, samples
you want to bring in, bring them in, let's take a look at
them, we'll talk about it. If you've got photos of things going on
in the art or maybe it's just you know, here's a flower bed,
you had any ideas on what I could do to make this more beautiful,
or a shrubbed, you know what I'm talking about. Bring those photos.
Any photo you can bring that is of anything to diagnose or identify. Get
up really blows. Give me several good, well focused photos so that I
can do an accurate diagnosis or do an accurate identification for them. But that's
at the Kingwood wild Birds Unlimited story. You can go to WBU dot com
forward slash Houston to find it. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden
Line with skip Rictord. So just watch him as woolnys Well. Good morning,
what the sun has come for. It is a beautiful day outside.
I hope you are planning on taking advantage of that today. Good time to
get out and get some of your yard care done. Maybe plants some plants,
or go get some plants. I'm going to be stopping buy a nursery
much later today. I've got several things going on before then, one of
which is going out to Kingwood to the wall Birds Unlimited from eleven thirty to
one thirty. By the way, when we're out there, they're going to
be given away some cool stuff. There is a squirrel excluder that they're going
to be giving away and also a twenty pound bag of their high quality bird
food. When I say high quality, I mean you know that you can
choose your bird blends depending on the kinds of birds you want to bring in.
Not all birds eat the same thing, you know, finches don't eat
the same thing. It's certain other species for example. But also high quality
in that the bag you're buying is one percent stuff the birds are going to
eat. You buy a cheap bird feed, and I've done this before and
they just kick it out or you look at it a few days later,
there's still seed there, but now it's all those little red babies that most
of the birds don't want to eat, you know, the babies being the
I guess it'd be a sorghum kind of seed in there. But anyway,
high quality feed, that's what our birds seed. That's what you'd expect from
all birds, and limited that's exactly exactly what you what you get. I
want to head out now. We're gonna go ahead and get started on the
phone here and we're gonna head out to Spring and talk to Rich. Hello,
Rich, good morning, Skip. I'm trying to help a neighbor with
his Saint Augustine lawn and unfortunately he hasn't treated and has Virginia button weed.
Some kalinga and doveweed, and I know I have some MSM turf blindside and
celsius. I know celsius is probably better in the warmer temperatures, but now
is it even getting too warm to use celsius? It is not too warm
to use celsius. That's a that is an interesting mix of weeds. Kalna
is going to be a sedge type weed that is going to require something kind
of specific for that, just like nutsedge would require something specific. And then
the doveweed is another challenge. I'm going to need some time to go look
and make sure that the range of what celsius controls how many of those it's
going to hit. You may have to have a separate application of something else
on the Yeah, I have some pro sedge that I could put on the
kalinga. Okay, good, well, that that would work. I just,
you know, rather than sitting here and doing a Google search on the
air to some of the sites I use for that kind of information, like
pulling up a label on celsius, I just I'm not sure if it does
the doveweed. It may. It may, But doveweed and basket grass,
they're a little bit kind of unique in what we used to go after those.
Yeah. The only thing I found for basket grass is grass killer.
Is what kind of grass killer? The agra lawn, the with the cinnamon
in it? Oh yeah, and that that does work? That does work
on that well. Um, I gosh, I wish I could think of
the ones I'll find out and I'll say it on the air today. Great
a thank Yeah. I know. I know some people just use they target
the doveweed with just an all killer, you know, a glave state type
all killer. But then you got those dead spots, and I think there's
probably something that we could we could get a hold of that would do a
better job. But it's just not coming to mind right now. All righty,
thank you, good, thank you, sir. I And I will
mention it as we go forward. Uh, this is a season, you
know, once we get into June and now we're we're looking at the start
as we go forward into hurricane season, and when the storms come through,
maybe you don't have a full fledge hurricane, but maybe you just have a
tropical storm. It's got some good, strong, gusty winds. Our trees
are definitely going to be a concern for us at that time, and now's
the time to get trees prepared for that. You know, do you need
some limbs removed? Is there a deadlimb up there? Is there a limb
that's it looks like it's starting to split, or it's hanging over a roof,
or its hanging over the power drop or the lines that come into your
house to supply the power. Maybe you've got a dead tree that you need
taking care of, or something hanging over your neighbors that you definitely don't want
to fall over. There. You need to give Affordable Tree Service a call.
That's Affordable Tree. Go to the website aff Tree Service dot com.
You can give him a call seven one three, six nine nine twenty six
sixty three. Either Martin or Joe his wife will answer. And if those
don't answer, hang up. You've called the wrong company with affordable in the
name. Seven one three six ninety nine two six six three. They know
what they're doing. They're honest. When they tell you they're going to show
up, they show up. Boy, don't you wish more service type companies
would would do that. They can do everything from deep root feeding to the
pruning. Maybe you're going to do some construction. Haven't come out and take
a look and advise you that is money well spent construction injuries. Once it's
done, you can undo it. And a tree that's worth thousands of dollars
to your home could be ruined by not starting with the professional coming out and
telling you you know what you need to do, what you need to get
done out there our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking
about some fertilizers earlier on Medina has a has to Grow. It's a liquid
fertilizer. You it's a twelve for eight. That's a good ratio. That
is a four let's you know a three one two ratio four one two three
one two. Those kind of ratios are really good for your lawn. Now,
Hastra Grow is going to give you a nice quick green up. It's
you hook it up to a garden hose. It takes about ten minutes,
spray your lawn and it comes in about a quark size. Works for well.
I did it from a lawn the spring. Just tried it out on
a section of my lawn and I was impressed. I always like to experiment
with these things because before I talk about them, I need to know that
they're going to work. Be last thing on Earth I'd want to do is
send you someplace or to a product that I don't believe firmly in my heart
that it is. It is a good product and it's going to work for
you. Hastra grows. That way, you can do light feedings several times
a year. You know, you do four times through the growing season.
But just just keep in mind that it's going to give you not just the
nutrients the twelve four eighth that we talked about, but it's going to have
the Medina soil activator. It's got the humor eight liquids humus in it,
so you're going to get a lot of the micros as well in that process.
But you ought to check out the Hastra grow. If you want something
quick, you need to get out there. You want to get something down
on it and see a response. Maybe your lawn has died back. Someone
called earlier and they were going to be plugging some grass in and trying to
get it to fill back in. That would be a good a good application
for a Medina soil hastra grow has to grow. My gosh, I'm having
trouble saying words this morning. Well, we're hitting up on our first break
of this hour. Our phone number seven one three, two one two five
eight seven four or two one two KTRH. You give Josh a call,
let him get you on the board and you'll be first up. I will
wait for you, and I will wait. I will wait for you.
All right, you are listening to garden Line this morning. We're here about
talk about whatever you're interested in. When it comes to gardening. We always
love to visit with folks. And I tell you one thing, I realize
this, most people who listen don't want to call in that just like it's
like a public speaking thing, you know, if you're a public speaking I
don't want to be on the radio. All those people are gonna hear me.
I'm gonna ask a stupid question. I wish that I could just promise
you not to worry about that. You give me a call, we will
we will respectfully answer whatever kinds of questions you have. We'll help walk you
through it. And other people will have the same kind of question. And
even if you feel like it's going to be a stupid question. Don't worry
about that. There aren't stupid questions. And I know what you're thinking,
well, yeah, i've heard stupid quick. Well that is not the way
to look at it. The way to look at it is like worry about
stupid answers. That's on me. Okay, it may be to you,
it may sound like, well that's a stupid question, but it's not going
to be to other people people. We've got listeners that are very experienced,
educated gardeners. We have listeners who've never gardened before. They've been thinking about
it or they like to hear about it because it's a dream, you know.
It's kind of like someday I want to have this garden. We've got
the wide range, and we're here to help everyone from one end of the
range to the other end of the range. So I invite you to give
us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If
you had have not been out too Enchanted Forest now, enchanted Forest is if
you're in Richmond and you're going to head up sugar Land Way, but just
south of fifty nine, that's where enchanted Forest is. I encourage you by
the way, go on Facebook and find their Facebook page. Lots of really
good information. You can sign up for more information from them as well.
You know, to talk about everything in enchanted forest carries would take us ten
days to do that. I just want to pick out a couple of things
here. Here is something that it's a plant that is not planted nearly enough
because they are stunning. And that is the proven winner's line of Salvia nemerosa.
Salvia nemerosa is a plant. You may think, what in the heck
is Salvia nemerosa? Well, Salvia nemerosa is a woodland sage. It's what
it's called. But it stays down low to the ground, so you know,
I don't know. The plants are going to be about eight inches high,
and then the spikes of flowers that cover them will come up maybe even
up to almost eighteen two feet, you know, high, depending on the
conditioner. Growing in unbelievable colors. They have a violet riot, and that
is a good name for it because that's exactly what it is. A riot
of violet color, pink, dawn, beautiful light, pink, snow kiss
all white. And then one of my favorites is I like blues. Blues
are a hard color to come by in the summer. Endo Globe Girl is
a blue version. When you see these, you will know what I'm talking
about. You put them in a pot. They look awesome in a pot.
They're very their stature fits container growing very well. You can use them
to line a walkway and I'm telling you it'll it'll be the show stopper.
You can put a bunch of pink flamingos behind them and you won't notice the
pink flamingos because the Salvia Namrosa, the meadow Sages, Woodland Sage say that
Woodland Sage, they they it just does does, does so absolutely well.
I love I love Woodland Sage, and they've got them out there along with
a bazillion other things at Enchanted for us. We're gonna head out now to
pair Land and we're gonna talk to Don. Good morning Don, Good morning,
Skip. How are you doing. I'm well, thank you. Good
look. I was going to put awesome line on some liquid that's gonna be
poured in my yard and out then it's gonna be smelling. I was one
with a line killed a smell. And also when I put the lime I'll
do. I watered it in. So you're talking about a smelly liquid going
into the yard and then you're gonna fall the lime. Yes, Um.
The concern I have about lime as it raises the pH and down in your
area. Some of the phs can be a little bit high to begin with,
and so I'd worry about doing too much of that. A light application
would be fine you. I would. I would lightly water it it in,
just lightly. If you're going to do that, I'm just, uh,
you know, without drilling down to find out the source of the odor,
you know what what is going down and and how long is that going
to stink and stuff? I don't know. I don't know that that would
be my first choice, but I'd need more information to be able to to
really know for sure. But you couldn't, sir, what could do it?
Do you suggest? Then? How long do you think is liquid is
gonna stink? No? Well, I wouldn't ignore one in a week or
so? Well, I don't know. I think if he reminded, I
probably just live with it for a week h and go that route? Uh?
Is it something you could then just put some more water on to wash
it down in the soil or not. That's one of the options that I'm
looking at. Yeah, I think that's probably what I would do. Again,
you know, I don't know exactly what you're trying to accomplish with it
and everything, but I would I'd probably water it in really well, if
that wouldn't prevent it doing whatever you're wanting it to do. Okay, Okay,
that makes a lot of sense and it's safe. All right, thank
you, So all right, don thank you for the call. I appreciate
that. Yeah, that's a that's an interesting, very interesting question. Let's
see, We're gonna go to Northwest Houston and talk to Ralph Fellow, Ralph
good More, And I sure appreciate your program and you to find it.
I've ever had on here anyway. I had a big old storm come through
here one bit of the year Friday and he just wiped my pecan tree,
big old chunk of it off and it all fell on my garden and uh
and it was a big miss. I have a year large. I've been
here for years. But anyway, well, what you said, I know
what one and only as I'm getting I forget what should I do with that
tree? Yeah, because they got a big split. He took a toll
limb big ye. And what should I do to the tree that the marks
is off of it? Never think a good question. You know, I'm
not gonna be able to fully describe to you if you're doing yourself or what
to do to the tree, you know, without seeing it and walking out
and pointing at this and pointing at that. If ever me, I just
call it the sun Affordable tree. Uh. That there, they know what
they're doing, they can come out because when you do pruning cuts, you
need to make them properly, or you you lead toward a long term problem.
You know, you get the decay and the hollowing on the interior and
things like that. Yeah, Martin, get Martin a call at seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. That's seven six nine nine twenty
six sixty Make sure and tell them you're from or you you hurt them on
guarden Line because they put garden Line listeners to the front of the line and
they so pretty busy. It's a lot of tree services do. But tell
them you're from Guarden Line. That'll make sure you get up there in the
line to get this. It's not an emergency. Ralph. You know,
it's not like you got to get them out next week. You got time.
But I definitely would would have them look at it because they're gonna see
some things I can't picture right now talking to you on the radio. Huh.
All right, appreciate you bet you, you bet. You take care.
Let's go to Garwood. We can go to Garwood and talk to Esther.
Hello, Esther, Hello, good morning, how you be. I'm
well, thank you. Look I went out of my door that I can't
thank you named this old tree. But anyway, I planted years ago,
and when I walked out to do and look from the you know, the
bottom of the ground own up that tree do it looked like thousands of spiles
had covered all that truck. The web. I know what it is.
I know what it is. That's called bark lice. Now there are no
problem at all. Think of them as little tiny vacuum cleaners, just chewing
and sucking up all the debris on the outside of the bark. That's all
they do. They make that web. They make it to protect themselves.
So you can do one or two things. You can get a strong stream
of water and blast it away. But there's no reason to do that.
I would get you some lighting on the ground esther, I'd shine it up
in the trees, and I'd invite the kids over for Halloween because it looks
like, you know, one of those Halloween decorations. Loot. But guess
what, two or three days later, people go, yeah, well that's
right there they come and go nothing to worry about. Pretty interesting. I
never saw one like that. What in the world is this? And I'll
wait then, looking kind of touch the lead tiny bit there you go.
Well, it's just eating up in the tree, just chewing on the like
the algae or lichens or junk on the bark and stuff. They're not they're
not eating the tree. They're just thinking. Think of him as low vacuum
cleaners cleaning up things. Yeah, yeah, thank you for that call ester.
Yeah, it's one of the cool things about about nature that we deal
with. Listen, with the rain we have had, the rain we're gonna
have. You need to be grabbing some mosquito dunks. You need to always
have them online or on hand. I would keep the little donut dunks on
hand. I would also keep some of the little granules that they have the
donut dunks. You throw them in water, they float, they slowly dissolve,
They last one month, one dunk per hundred square feet of water,
and they release a disease of mosquito larva. Is that cool or what I
mean? So if a bird gets a drink, if your dog runs over
there and drinks that water perfectly, okay, you put fish in the water,
they're okay. It's very say, very organic. You can find them
at all independent garden centers we talk about here, all the feed stores we
talk about here, all the ace hardware stores we talk about here. Mosquito
dunks is just a it's a it's a quality product. We have the guy
on talking about them the other day and really fascinating that world of mosquito dunks.
You know, the nature, the world of nature that we live in.
There's just there's just a lot of different organisms, and there's a lot
of critters and stuff, and not everything has to be sprayed and killed.
In fact, the vast majority of insects are not pests. They're either beneficial
or they have nothing to do. Like if a housefly lands them your tomatoes,
it's not a pestive tomatoes. It's just resting for a minute before it
flies away. So don't We don't need a panic with everything we see.
But it is kind of cool when we see some of the unique things about
nature and by the way, and any kind of a product like the mosquito
dunks and things we're talking about, you know you can find them an ACE
Hardware. And you know you've got an ACE Hardware near you go to ACE
Hardware dot com thirty nine stores, it's easy to find them. Every fertilizer
I talk about. ACE Hardware has said they will carry them when you need
soils, when you need any kind of a pesticide product. Incredible line of
pesticide products that are available there, just really really cool place. Plus when
you go in, you're going to go wow, I didn't know a hardware
store could have this, because everything you can imagine for your home is also
going to be available there in the ACE Hardware. Hey, Nikki, I
was looking at those house plants that you have, and I think we inspired
you to go buy a few house plants. You were talking last week about
all the varieties in the colors, and I had this poor old aloe on
my back deck that had been neglected that needed a friend, so I went
to the Cornelius on Voss and the oh, the selection is amazing. That's
right. So now I have a whole little neighborhood. I love I love
house plants, and you know, at some point it is addictive. By
the way, I should warn you that it's not quite light crack, but
it's close, and you just have more and more, and then people are
going to start telling you you got too many plants. And you need to
hear this. You need to get those people out of your lives. You
don't need that kind of negativity. There you go. I like the way
you think I ain't as good as I want. Lolo, how the years
half flong? But there was a town back in my friend when I could
read them on my own. If you want to fight, to guess those
boys go a little colle times as good as I want flow Tobe Kibei tracks
behind. What a Oh my god, what a character. Hey, you're
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to answer your gardening questions. Give Josh call seven one three two one two
five eight seven four that's two one two k t r H. I was
visiting with a friend the other day and they were talking to me about,
um, you know, gardening and getting started in gardening and what's the best
way to do this and what's the best way to do that. You know,
there are eight hundred billion ways to garden. I mean, there is
definitely no one way to skin a cat. When it comes to gardening,
you do a lot of things. You got to your yard, and you
can bring in a quality mix, put it down, mix it in the
soil, make beautiful raised beds. I've gardened that way before. That's good.
You can get sender blocks and treated lumber and stack them up and make
you a box and fill it with soil. I've done that before too,
both of those as a matter of fact. But I'm talking with a friend.
I just kind of realized that there is one way to do a garden
bed if you're gonna grow flowers, but especially vegetables and herbs. I mean,
you can put anything you want and what I'm about to describe, but
primarily folks do this because of vegetable derbs. And that is a metal raised
bed that is treated so that it doesn't corrode. And you've heard me talk
about vego garden beds before online, and it's the premiere. Vego was the
first in the United States to make the metal codd raised garden business. When
I mean coded, I'm not talking about metal that's just going to rust away.
You can do that with a piece of tin. It's not gonna last.
But this metal isn't galvanized. It's a it's a special treatment, a
dip in a combination of zinc, alumium, aluminium, and magnesium that really
shuts down a corrosion on those exposed surfaces. It then is spray or it's
painted with a USDA approved food safe quality paint that's going to code it.
And you can get them in beautiful colors. You know, you can get
them in a cream color or a green color or gray. I mean,
there's different options out there. The Vego beds are modular. That's another reason
I like them. So maybe you don't want a big rectangle a bit like
a typical raised bed would be. Maybe you want to curve around. Maybe
you want to make a C shaped bed that you can walk into the middle
of, you know, even have wheelchair access into like that. You can
get them in eleven inches. You can go up to you know, higher
and higher all the way up, so that you have those options available to
you. So this is a bed that's gonna last forever, and unlike cinder
blocks, it's not gonna take up half the garden just for the bedsides themselves.
You know, one bed with cinder blocks on each side, you just
lost sixteen inches of your limited garden space to just those blocks. So the
vegobeds are so versatile that I would say for anybody that you want to put
in a new garden, this would be the way they do. And they
look good, they look pretty after a while, that treated lumber is not
gonna look pretty. It's gonna be twisting, it's gonna be buckling, and
eventually will decay too with that exposure to the metal. Plus people have concerns
about the treated lumber. I just don't know what else to say about vegobeds
except their website is vegogarden dot com. Vegogarden dot com. It is a
Houston company. If you're an organic gardener, I can't think of any other
option that works so well for a contained raised bed than vego beds. But
for all gardeners, uh, super super product. Let's all have to West
Columbia. Now we're gonna go ahead and talk to David. Hey, David,
how are you this morning? Welcome to Garden Line. Yes, sir,
I've got an avocado tree that like, every once in a while,
something starts to eating the leaves on it. Okay, And I've been out
there at night, I've been out there at day, and I can't never
find nothing, huh u or the leaves they have holes in them, or
do they chewed from the sides from the side. Okay, Well, I'm
gonna guess that it's a caterpillar. That's that's the most likely. Uh And
So you've got a couple of options. You could go first after it with
a caterpillar spray like BT. Since we're not really sure, I would probably
use something containing spinosaid SPI n o S a d spinosa that is an organic
product. It is a spray. It is an organic product. The nice
thing about spinosad from what we're talking about, is anything that eats the leaves,
it's gonna get so it'll get beetles and it'll get caterpillars both. Secondly,
it soaks into the leaf tissue, so it doesn't just wash off with
the rain. Then you've got some of the spinosad in the leaf. So
when something comes along and choose on it, it's gonna get it. I
think that's probably your best bet. My My only thought though, in addition
to that, David, is look at how much damage is being done.
You know, a few leaves here and there with some chewing on them.
It's not worth spraying. It's not going to in any way, shape or
form, take away from your production. Now, if you're losing a lot
of foliage, yes, then you need to spray. So that would be
the only thing, and you'll have to be the judge of that, yes,
sir, all right, thank you, all right. We're happy to
help. And the only thing you gotta do is anytime you call for advice,
you have to bring half the produce from the plant you ask about and
drop it off at KTR. That's all I ask. All right, take
care, have a good have a good day. That's funny. You know,
if you are interested in having a beautiful lawn and taking care of your
lawn and you're concerned about some of the bugs of summer, you need to
know about Nitrofoss Summer Essentials. Two products, the bug Out max, which
is an insect control kills up to one hundred and thirty different species of insects
in your lawn. And the nitrofoss fire ant killer to the fire ant killer.
It works pretty quick, but it does kill the whole colony to prevent
new mounds. You don't just play whack a mole when you're using it.
It's going to be very very effective. Now you're going to find nitrofost products
like these and others at Ace Hardware City and Memorial Area down in Kingwood at
the K and m Ace. You know, you can go up to Porter
and the R J J and r Ace Hardware up and Porter is going to
have them nitro rush products all over the place. But check out some of
these summer insect control products for a little bit extra success and protection for your
lawn. You're listening to garden line. I'm gonna take a break, and
when we come back, we will be happy to visit with you. Seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Who's gonna let us play
for a sake? It's okay to be game s all right. You're listening
to the garden line. By the way, that was flattened scrugs. Anybody
who's ever heard of banjo definitely knows who flattened shrugs are. We're here to
answer your gardening questions. Give Josh you call seven one, three, two
and two fifty eight seventy four. I'm going to head out to Nevasota and
talk to Ray. Hello. Ray, Well, good morning. How are
you this morning? I'm well this morning. How are you doing? I'm
doing good except for our roses. Oh, I've got like seven different types
of roses, and I noticed them. They're doing great because I used Neilson's
Rose food on them. There you go. And I walked out this morning
and one of the rosebush all of the buds and have been cut off of
it, just like somebody would have taken every limb, snapped off every bud.
H. Well, that's interesting. None of the leaves or any of
the shoots or anything or bothered. Just the buds. No, just the
very top of all the buds, like somebody would have taken some shears and
pop and shear them all. All right. Well, I'm gonna need somebody
from the Roast Society call me up here next hour and tell me what what
they think is going on. I bet it's probably some kind of insect,
I guess, but I don't. I don't want to send you out to
buy a product unless I know what I'm going after. So let me see
if we can get some information on that. I have heard of that before,
but I cannot remember what someone said it was. I wanted to think
it was an insect. But that is very very strange. Uh, you
might ask go ahead, they didn't just had one rose bush. You didn't
hurt any any of the other ones or not. And then problem with no
name ben't touched that is that is very unusual. Well, I'm gonna have
to leave that a mystery. Ray. I will um uh see what I
can find out, and I will say it on the air when we do.
All Right, all righty okay, I appreciate, all right, thank
you, sir, appreciate that. H's head out to sugar Land. We're
gonna talk to Sam. Hello, Sam, Skip, I got a fantastic
avocado tree. I guess it's about a year and a half. We're going
into a year or two right now. And um, the leaves are turning
brown on some limbs and and falling off, and some limbs even kind of
have a more of a yellowish rather than than green looked to it. And
I'm, you know, wondering what's going on. What I can do to
fix this? Yeah, I would first of all, check those branches and
see if you see any damage to the stems and the branches going out there.
You know, something that's chewing around the branch, or holes in the
branch, or any kind of thing, a split in the branch. See
if you see that. I think probably what we're looking at is a root
issue. Roots tend to feed certain branches and leaves and typically on the same
side of a tree on a plant that the trunk doesn't twist as it goes
up. But you you saggy wets, oil conditions can cause problems like that.
I'm assuming you didn't use a herbicide around it that would have caused damage,
or that you didn't like dumb okay oh in a container all right,
well, then then we have the issue of as a container draining well,
or the holes plugged up or sealed up in some way, or could it
have gotten too dry, you know, once it heats up trying to grow
something that wants to be huge, like an avocado, and a container it's
going to fill that container with roots, and you got to really work at
keeping it moist and also fertilizing it well in that area. So maybe one
of those kind of things that what you're describing does not sound like some leaf
disease you would spray for though, right right, so focus on on the
route. It does seem to do well. Right after a fertilizing order,
if by you know, throw like a liquid fertilizer on it, it seems
to do well. And then yes, should I perhaps try to think about
moving it to a different location because it is on the west side it does
get quite a bit of sun. Well, yeah, I mean you want
a lot of sun to be able to produce the fruit, of course,
so you don't want to in too much shade, but least at least six
hours preferably more than that of light. If it had morning rather than evening,
then that would you know, that would be a good thing, you
know, because you want to you want to make sure and get it in
a little bit milder temperature. You know, the avocado itself can take it.
It's just I don't care what size container you have, an avocado tree
will fill it with roots. Where you're having to water maybe twice a day
and the heat heat of summer, and so that would just be the thing
I would I would try to focus on, maybe even consider putting a little
drip system in it. You can have drips on timers that come on and
you know, go on for so long and then go off. That would
be a good way to ensure you're getting the water you need on the schedule.
You know, I have one of those, it's a hose end and
I just said it to water harvormine times, Harman days, whatever that you
want. So you think it's more of a lack of water rather than too
much water. It could be either, yeah, it could be. I
mean when when when you a tree or when a plant that's not made for
the swamps staves water logged roots can't get oxygen and they die. And when
roots die, then you see the same symptoms in many cases that you see
when it's too dry. You know it's and so fluctuation of watering will cause
the yellowing two gets a little dry and then it gets a good watering gets
a little dry and gets a good water that that can also cause you see
that on your paphus ivy in the house. You know, it gets a
little dry and water it and it perks back up, but then the old
leaves turn yellow and fall off. Okay, thank you all right, Sam,
thank you. I appreciate that call very much. Let's head out to
Richmond and talk to Perry. Hello, Perry, Hello, Skip, got
too questions for you. One. I've got crepe myrtles, my all my
crepe myrtle uh back in the past, I think they did uh, you
know, the old massacre, you know, but I I trimmed it back
this year after I had some scale issue and I've treated for that early.
But a couple of my um, I guess arms on there, it's not
it's not growing or anything. So do I just need to just cut it
all the way back to the blocks to the knot to just cut it off.
Yeah, this beast December did a number on our crepe myrtles. It
was kind of a freaky thing where they weren't ready for the freeze they got.
Uh. And we've I've seen crepe myrtles that almost the whole thing a
top is killed back and it's got suckers coming up. I've seen a lot
of them that certain limbs died are died back, and there's there's nothing like
the whole shoot. The whole trunk is bad. Uh. But you gotta
just let the crepe myrtle has told you where it's alive and where it's not
come down from the dead until you encounter a branch that has leaves green leaves
on it, and cut it off right there. Do not leave a stub,
and don't make this long slanted cut because you want it to heal fast.
So cut it perpendicular to the branch you're cutting off, if that makes
sense, but cut it right where it joins the other branch. Okay,
So if it's if one's dead all the way back to the knot, just
cut it off right at the knot. Yes, that would be the case.
And the more you can kind of thin them out, I mean,
the notch are always going to be there, but you can get rid of
most of them and just let the growth continue and it kind of makes them
go away a little bit. Okay. My second questions about how drange you.
My wife got a gift of one that's beautiful. We've never had any
luck with one, and so look into planet do I in this good old
clay soul. Do I dig out a massive no area? No, go
go up, Yeah, don't go down. You're you're right about what you
wanting to add. But go up, like spread some quality like a rose
soil or a good quality bed. Mix mix it in with the soil you
got, add more or create a raised bed. Keep it moist, keep
it moist, and give them some They need some morning sunlight to do good,
but they don't want to be in the full brunt of the sun all
day. All right, okay, so build it up pretty high. That's
it. Well, yeah, I get it up about a foot because it's
gonna settle down. Yeah, okay, all right, great, thank you,
yes sir, good luck, good luck with that. Hey, if
you're interested in a community that for active adults fifty five and older, that's
Dellweb. The Dell Web community going in New down in full sure on FM
three fifty nine is a community that is also going to have a community garden
in it, and I'm helping them design that. If you want to learn
more about it, go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or call two
eight one four five nine zero six zero nine to discover that Dellweb difference.
We're about to head do a break again. Our phone number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Give Josh a call. Let him
get you on the board so we can talk to you about whatever kind of
things you're interested in. Lawns, trees, vegetables, flowers. We can
talk about house plans. Everybody's got houseplants, right, don't you need to.
I'm gonna be out at wild Birds Unlimited out in Kingwood. Wild Birds
Unlimited in Kingwood, and I hope you'll come out to see me out there
today. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty, eleven thirty to
one thirty, be there to answer your gardening questions. If you go to
a wild Birds Unlimited, you can go online by the way to WBU dot
com slash Houston and it'll tell you where those seven stores that we have in
the Houston area are. Now. By the way, the Kingwood store is
on Kingwood Drive. It's forty five twenty three Kingwood Drive. I hope you
will come out. 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 dictor smell the crazy trip. Just watch him as wood mood got us
so many crazy ticket s. Well, good morning. You're listening to garden
Line, and if you haven't looked outside yet, wow, what a day.
I love days like this. I mean, we need rain, we
get rain, but this is just chamber of commerce weather outside. Good day
to get out and visit a garden center for sure. Hey, let's go
to base City and we're going to talk to Mike. Hello, Mike,
Hey, how you don't skip? Hey, I have a question. It's
more a curiosity thing because it's all gone. I'm not gonna bid do anything
about it now. But I had some onions out here, Okay, I
had to give you a little scenario. I had four rolls onions, all
right, and they're all in the same bed. And I had two rolls
of ten fifteens, one of Texas Legend and one of Texas White in that
order. Every one of the Texas Legends died on me and got mushy.
I have no idea what kind of disease that was, or if I got
it because the batch of onions I got, we're bad, or he couldn't
have been in the salty or all in the same bed. I'm thinking you
got any expertise on that. It's my curiosity as whether I should get those
onions in any Moore, those Texas legends. But yeah, well ideas,
that's definitely in the category of things that make you go hmm, you know,
so it was the same. So we're gonna limonate that, Uh,
Texas legends a good onion. Uh, We're gonna elimonate that it has to
have been I don't know something that came in. Our onions do have diseases,
They've got root diseases and other things. Uh, just unless there's some
other aspect that isn't you know, you're not mentioning or not aware of.
You know. I can't think I can grab it straws and say, well,
was it a matter there or was it you know? But I think
the enter that's going to be no R So I guess. And I'm at
a bloss too. I mean, I can't. I'm tried in my mind,
and it's been a little while. I just I kept thinking, oh,
I should call in see if he's got any ideas other than some kind
of disease guided I guess what it did they they started, you know,
gradually, like three or four and it would be all down in one role.
So it was that onion okay, and uh, and I had another
role on the other side, and two on the other side. They all
did fine and this one role and they gradually. But I kept thinking,
well, maybe if a few of those got something and then the others old
pick up that whole role, just one after another. When you said there's
others that find there weren't any Texas legends that were fine though, right,
No, no, no textual Oh, I think I ended up with one
real small and will he wasn't even good. Well, almost saw our onions
around here come from one place, yeah, down in Crystal City, and
they grow good quality good the onions. I that that's all came from the
feed store. Well, but that's where the feds kid, I'm kidding with.
So I just I guess that I'd have to leave it at that,
that they came out of the disease. I have not run across that before.
You know, I'm trying to check. Yeah, I was trying to
check it to feed Stoor. I went in to ask them about it.
Anybody else samething about this? You know what else. They had no answer
for that. Well, we're gonna put that in the category of things that
make you go hmmm. That's about as far as I got. Okay,
I guess it's not helping anybody else either, so I guess I'll get off
here. Appreciate. The only thing would be next year, and you probably
don't spend the money on it, but you grab it one when they're sharpened
to go downhill like that progressively, you could send it into the plant disease
lab and they can tell you what it was, so then at least maybe
you'd know. But I don't know if that's worth the investment just for some
onion. Well sure, okay, hey, appreciate it. Thank you,
Mike. I appreciate appreciate that call. If you are in on the east
Side a few snover in Mott Bellevue, U, you need to know about
Texas Feed Stop. Texas Feed Stop is the old time feed store in that
area. It is a absolutely wonderful feed store. I mean, all the
products we talked about are there. You know, all the fertilizers and things.
They occasionally have some plants in front as well. They've got all the
feed you would want, and you know that service that you remember from days
of old, where people actually greeted you and waited on you and carried the
feedsacks out with you and stuff. That's the kind of feed store we like
to talk about on garden Line, and that's the kind of feed store you'll
find in Texas Feedstop. It's on Highway one forty six, just a few
minutes north of A ten. So, I mean, if you're down in
the Baytown area, this is your feed store as well. Brian and Hope
Rhads have created a nice community place and by the way, they're members of
the community. They support the community out there. If you want to go
to a place where you walk in and get treated like family, Texas Feedstop
on Highway one forty six and Mont Bellevue. I want to head out to
Tumball and we're going to talk to Danielle out and Tom Ball. How are
you doing, Danielle, I'm doing well. How are you this morning?
Well? Thank you? Well. I planted some zucchinis from seed in my
raised bed and it's been a while and they're beautiful. The leaves are beautiful,
the bright yellow flowers are beautiful. But I would have thought I would
have had some zucchini by now. I've run them before, and I don't
know if I have enough pollinators in my beds or in my yard. But
okay, there's just not yielding anything. And I just I do compost.
I add things. I have real good soil. I don't know what.
They're beautiful, the leaves are you think there'd be some zucchinis in there?
So flowers fall off and then there's nothing. So, Danielle, have you
grown zucchini before I have? Okay? So are you familiar with the difference
between a male and a female bloom on a zucchini? Somewhat? Okay,
Yes, I've never come across this, so I don't. Okay, Well,
here's the thing. Go out and look at your plants and anything anything
in the cucurbet family, from watermelons to cantelopes, to cucumbers to zucchini and
other squashes. The flowers are separate, male and female, and the male
flowers are on a little stalk on a zucchini. It's going to be something
about the size of a pencil, and it's just this long stalk coming up,
and then the bloom on a female bloom at the base, there's not
a stalk. There's a big, fat green zucchini at the base of the
flower, and it's small because it's at that stage. But if you look
at the base of the flowers, a lot of times our squashes will produce
male blooms, especially initially for a while before they start producing female blooms.
It varies with the variety, it varies with the weather conditions even but especially
with the age of the plant. Or you seeing any things that have a
baby zucchini at the bottom of the bloom, or is it all those skinny
stalks. No, it's all the skinny stocks. That's the problem. That's
the problem that you're not It just hadn't started producing female There's nothing you can
do to make it produce female. Usually time takes care of that. But
as we get into hot weather, you know, they don't want to set
well, they don't want to pollinate. Well, you end up with either
not setting or you have misshapen fruit as the weather gets hotter. But that
would be the thing to watch for next time. You might want to try
maybe a different variety as well, maybe more than one variety, and that
may kind of cue you to this variety is not acceptable to me, you
know, it just doesn't. All varieties should produce acchini, but sometimes they
don't all perform equally. Well okay, all right, yeah, all right,
I appreciate it, Thank you so much. All right. Another thing
you could do is walk out there and just get a jug around up and
show it to the plant and say, I'm coming back next week and I'm
going to use this if I don't see some squash and you don't have to
spray it. But they say talking to your plants help. So that's just
a tech. Hey, I do with my indoor ones and it seems to
work great. I love about these zucchinis. That compliance very good, Danielle.
Thank you. I appreciate that call. Hey, we're gonna go to
break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four s. Don't much
about the front up. All right, you're listening to Guardline. Here is
a phone number to write down. Give us a call. We are in
our last segment today, so this is your chance. Don't wait till the
end of the segment. That's when things pile up and may not be able
to get to all the calls at that point. Seven one three, two,
one two, five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Just want to remind you that I'm going to be at
Wahbird's Unlimited out in clear or Kingwood today. Clear Lake was a previous day.
Wabird's Unlimited on Kingwood. That's a forty five twenty three Kingwood Drive.
You probably have been out in that area before, but it's close to where
Kingwood Drive and West Lake Houston Parkway come together. There's a big heb on
West Houston Parkway and Wabbirds Unlimited is sort of behind that. So I hope
you come out and see me hey by the way, either before or after
you come over to see me at Wabbird's Unlimited. I would hope that you
would stop by Kingwood Garden Center and or Warren's Garden Center out there in the
Kingwood region. Warren's Garden Center is on Northport Drive in Kingwood, and they
just got in a shipment, a new shipment of citrus, and that is
that in and of itself, is a good reason to go a lot of
other reasons to go to Warrens, but they got a new shipment of centrius.
So if you would like a citrus plant to put in a very large
container or to plant in your yard, here's your chance. While you're out
there, go ahead and check it out, because they also have the fruit
berry and citrus mix from Heirloom Soils. The Heirloom Soils fruit berry and citrus
mix is perfect for that container or for just putting on the ground and mixing
in to grow your citrus tree in. We're in the big summer season now
and citrus loves warm weather does very well, and warm weather with good drainage
and good sunlight. And this would be one more good reason to go out
to Warren's Garden Center. Way there you can pick up all the products we
talk about. By the way, if you have the Microlife or the Nelson
plant food jugs, you can refill them there at Warren's Garden Center in Kingwood
Gardens. They have those refilling stations. Saves a little bit of money and
especially also it's going to save on just more plastic out there in the environment.
We're going to go now over to sugar Land and we're going to talk
to on Hello, don are you doing skip? Got a eastment next to
my property and these guys mowing blow all the Behala grass seed and that's a
nefarious weed. Well it's a grass, but anyway, I don't know if
there's anything to control it. The only thing I've been doing is getting my
hands and knees and pulling that stuff out. But I thought about just clipping
the top off and putting it in a bag and then taking some straight round
up and just dipping it in there with some gloves on and see if that'll
take care of the stuff that's blowing on here. I try to get those
guys to discharge it going the other way, but you know the wind will
carry it too. Yeah, And then I have a question about a citrus.
Yeah, yeah, that that is a problem. Beha grass. You
know, it actually is used as as wild lawn areas where you're gonna park
cars and stuff in a pasture and whatnot. But blow when it gets in
law and it's a problem there. There is a product, uh, and
the ingredient is met sulfur on methyl but the brand name is Manner M A
N O R. And it will kill Behea grass. Now when you you're
going to have to really hunt to find Manner. It's not just in every
garden. Center for sure, but manner will do it. You just want
to be real careful. Manner is very hard on ornamental plants, so do
not overapply it. Just barely get the behagrass wet. It is labeled for
use in lawns. Uh and it works. It works well. Uh,
they won't kill the St. Augustine. They will not kill the Saint Augustine
if you don't mix it too strong. Okay, now you're talking about spraying
it on there or just or just like touching the piece sign it comes up.
Well, no, not the not the seed heads. You got to
get it on the leaves for it to work. Now there. Another option
is the grass only killer. And if you just had spots of the behea,
you could dab it on those spots. You may kill a little bit
of Saint Augustine's. It's kind of intermixed right at that spot, but it
just real carefully get it on mostly the behea. You can use a grass
only killer and uh, there's a number of products. One is called sethoxy
dem set h O x y d I M and it'll kill the behala.
But they're you're spot treating, you're gonna have some dead spots and the Saint
Augustine crawls back in. Well, can't you just mix it up and then
take a brush and kind of brushing on the behala whatever? Yeah, you
could. I have a little homemade deal. It's got a sponge on a
stick and I just use that to do it. I guess you could.
You know, if you can get on your hands and knees, you can
use those little foam brushes that you paint with, But they they dribble out
a liquid like a spray mix. You know, they're made for paint that's
thick and viscous. They drip, They drip all over the place if you
try to use them on on a spray mix like that. So that's why
I would go more of a kitchen sponge that's meant to whole water in and
not drip it out, and you just get it moist it Is it going
to be bad around any kind of citrus plants if I don't if you don't
get it on the citrus plant. Yeah, if you don't get on the
citrus plant and you don't apply it right before a rain, so it washes
into the soil and you don't over apply it, so it drenches down okay,
and then on the citrus trees to I'm getting those kind of the film
white film with the insect that just you know, kind of makes the leaves
look bad. Is spino sat the one to use or would you use?
Uh? I think Randy said you alternate that was something else. Just spinosa.
Yeah, the spinosa will work. And the good thing about it is
it soaks in. It's also an organic product, and that's when you see
the little trails in the leaf. Sometimes there's so many trails that it kind
of gets a silvery white look to it. But if it's something that's on
the leaf that's silvery, that could be there are different insects that create a
cottony like material and it could be that that you're seeing too. But the
spinosa will work very well on centrist just on the new growth when you have
flushes of new growth. In other words, you don't just spray it because
you're spraying it. When you have a flush of new growth. You protect
it once the growth, once the leaves get older and a little leatherer leatherier
is that a word. More leathery leaf miner is not going to bother them.
And also just keep in mind the leaf miner is mostly an esthetic problem.
It's not going to kill your tree. Just a little here and there's
not going to significantly affect your production. I mean, if you have a
real young tree and almost all the foliage is being affected, yes that's a
concern. But know that just kind of tolerating them and living with them is
also one of the options. But I would start with the spinosad. You
just don't want to overuse it. Use it all the time and X can
build up resistance. Okay, all right, very much, Thank you very
much for the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey, if you're
looking for a quality lawn food that will gradually release the nutrients over time,
you need to consider the Nelson plant Food their turf Star line. That turf
Star line has I think like a half dozen products in it neural good but
the slow and easy Slow and easy twenty two two ten it's going to prevent
that. That's development that comes from excessive nitrogen fertilization. I know that first
number is high, but you don't use as much. If you want to
know how much of a fertilizer to apply, divide the first number into one
hundred and that's how much you apply per thousand square feet, So twenty two
two ten five pounds twenty goes into a hundred five times, so five pounds.
Don't overdo it. Take it a little bit easy, but it will
feed your lawn over time, for a very long time. It's got the
nitrogen chemistries in it that gradually release. They'll cut down on your water consumption
because you have a deeper root system in the process. I want to go
out here to College Station and we're gonna talk to Jeff. Hello, Jeff,
Hey, Skip, I really appreciate you take him a call. Yes,
sir, I heard a couple of questions about avocados earlier and it got
me wondering. I've planted seeds, you know that. I've wanted the grocery
store and got a nice tree, but never kept it very long. Yep.
I always heard it took a long time to grow avocado fruit. Yes,
here's my question. Is there a difference between that seed a harvest from
the grocery store. Should I go buy a plant at a garden store that
maybe we'll produce fruit? What difference? You should absolutely buy one from the
store that's a named variety that's a Mexican avocado, not the bumpy black kind
that the seed came out of that you planted. Those kind are very coal
tender. They won't grow here. Plus, when you plant any fruit tree
from a seed, it takes. It has to go through a long time
of grow with years to mature before it starts bearing fruit. And with a
store bought grafted plant, it's already got the mature wood on it and it'll
start bearing very quickly. Now the college station that it's going to get a
little cold for avocado, so you need to come up with a plan that's
going to include the pruning of it to make more of a bush with a
bunch of trunks than a long tall one, because avocados want to get real
tall and you can't cover a long tall one, and then being able to
in the wintertime as needed, put a structure over it with heat underneath it
because you're you're a little cold for avocados. But you know how it is,
when we want to grow something, we can find a way. Absolutely
absolutely appreciate that advice. Thank you very much. All right, I appreciate
that call very much. That it's a fun thing to be able to grow.
You know, if you're in the Tomball area, you need to know
about Arburgate. You probably already do. I mean people everywhere know about Arburgate.
Arburgate dot COM's website to go on there you can find out where to
find them. They're on twenty nine two forty nine out I'm sorry, twenty
nine twenty west of two forty nine. There we go. I've only been
there ten million times. They've got a one two three system. It's a
food that feeds anything with roots, an organic plant food that is a four
four three plus ten percent calcium on it. It's got microbial activity. You
know you're gonna get the microbes because it's an organic product. There's going to
really release that nitrogen or slowly over time. Plus all the other things.
It's got trace minerals in it as well. That's the food. Then they
have a soil that's a quality soil mix for any application that you come up
with. And then they've got the compost that will approve any kind of soil.
Now I could go in detail about all of them, trust me,
they're all three quality. It makes it simple, it makes it easy.
Arbergates one two three very simple system easy, easy to work with. And
when you're out there, you're gonna find knowledgeable staff and you're gonna find every
kind of plant that you would want to grow here. They do not sell
stuff that you should not plant here. I wish that all places that sell
plants were that way, but they're not. But it is the truth.
With Arbi Gate, we are going to be just a reminder at Wilbird's Unlimited
in Kingwood On at forty five twenty three Kingwood Drive today from eleven thirty to
one thirty. I hope you come out, bring me some samples. Let's
talk plants. Look forward to that. Right now, we're gonna talk news.
I got shaped for road. I said shape. I said shape,
I said shape. But you're not a do nothing say dog boys. There
you go where those present. We're not a dense at jitterbug that is that
is a lost art form. But boich, it's sure fun to watch listening
to the garden line. I'm your host, Skip Richter phone number seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. Now, if you're going to
purchase and plant a tree or a shrub especially, you need to have a
tree hugger sprinkler. Now why would I say you need to have it?
Well, when you put a plant in the ground, what do you ornamental
on the ground. That first summer is the it's touching go. It's when
it's gonna make or break it. Because here's why. A mature tree has
roots out two and a half times a branch bread in all directions depending on
species in the soil. But that's huge. They can draw from a lot
of water. When you put a cylinder of soil that you pulled out of
that pot and you put it in the ground, all the roots are still
in that cylinder and it takes a while for them to venture out and to
reach enough of a volume of soil that that becomes a resilient plant during drought.
With a tree hugger, they go around your tree. You hook it
up to a water hose and you can turn it on a little bit and
just water a real small area like that where that cylinder is, and just
beyond that, as the tree grows, turn it on more. They have
us seven inch size, eleven in size of fifteen, and each of those
can be done that way where you have the ability to water a nice wide
area so that you can give it a good soaking and keep that plant alive.
Tree Hugger sprinkler, It's not an expense, it's an insurance policy that
will save you a lot more expense. If you don't know more about trigger
sprinklers, go online tree Hugger Sprinklers dot Com and you can learn a whole
lot more. Let's head out now. I want to go down to southeast
Houston and we're gonna talk to Von. Hello, Yvon, do we got
it on there? Can you hear me? I can now, thank you?
Okay, I have an issue with weed in my flower bed. I've
tried putting down the barricade in February. I've tried it pended metal one.
It's yellow, it could be Uh. Nothing helps. I've got landscape fabric
down that helps for about a month and then it's it's crazy. So I
don't know what to do to prevent the weeds. I don't know what to
do to get rid of them. I've got very shrubs in these flower beds.
Okay, do you know what kind of weeds primarily you're dealing with?
They look like grass. I have soyser grass in my fresh yard. Okay,
they don't look like soyser grass, but they're thin blade weeds. They
look like thin bladed grass. Have you tried digging digging up the weeds or
not? Oh? Oh god, it's just constant non Yeah. So when
you try to dig one them, do they have kind of like underground runners
going along underneath the ground. Um? Yes, yes, okay, I'm
ninety percent sure. You're dealing with bermuda grass and that is a pain in
the neck to deal with. You need a grass killer and that because when
you've got flowers around something that kills everything like a round up type product would
do, you're gonna kill your your good things too. But a grass only
killer kills grass, not broad leaves. And there's a couple of types out
there. I can name out the long names of the ingredients. But if
you will just go to an ACE hardware near you and ask for a grass
only killer and the label name will say that, but it'll also have the
products on it that do that, and then follow the label you can spray
it on the grasses that are coming in. It's not going to kill broad
lea's. But the one year dealing with, I think is bermuda grass.
That's the grass from hell. And so you just spray that on it and
it translocates down. You probably will have to do it again because you know
there'll be underground runners that haven't sprout it up to get sprayed yet. But
where do you What part of southeast Houston are you in? Near forty five
South and Beltway Age, Like, okay, well, yeah, we're really
nearby. Oh yeah, the M, M and D Beamer is on Beamer
Road right there, and that's the closest one to you, so I would
go there. They will have more than one product. One of those two
main ingredients. The name of the chemical let me let me give you.
I'm gonna give you one. It's a foxy dim it's s E t h
o X y d I M. If you just look for s E t
h o X that that you have the right chemical. The other one,
the first few letters are it's a longer word, but it's f l U
A Z flu as. If you look for flu as of something, that's
going to be the other one. Okay, okay, okay, thank you
for your help. I appreciate you. Bet glad to help. And yeah,
when you go into an ice, they're gonna they know what they're talking
about. It's not like some of the big box stores where some of the
folks that hire don't know what they're talking about. I want to if you
have a lawn and you've been struggling with it, you can't get it dance.
You're trying to fertilize in things. Maybe you have a heavy clay soil.
Maybe it's a compacted area. We know where foot traffic has made it
impossible for the law to grow. Call the folks at green Pro. Now,
this is green Pro Texas dot com. Green Pro Texas dot Com.
It's a Houston company. Two eight one three five one four seven three three.
What they're gonna do is they're gonna come in. They're gonna aerate with
a deep tine aerator that pulls plugs of soil out and leaves them on the
surface. It looked like you had a small dog convention going on the previous
week in the lawn. But that opens the soil up. Then they're gonna
throw a high quality, finely ground leaf mold compost on it. It'll a
lot of it will fall down in those holes and that aeration, that compost
top dressing, it'll revitalize your soil. You may want to do it more
than once over a period of time, because you know, each time you
do it, it just more and more gets that organic matter down in,
gets the oxygen down in. Green Pro knows what they're doing. They're the
experts. Green Pro Texas dot Com two eight one three five one four seven
three three. I want to head out now and we are going to go
to Richmond and talk to Michael. Hello, Michael, Hello, Skip,
thanks for taking the call. I've had a pretty good year in growing vegetables,
and I've got a cherry tomato plant that's been doing really well. I
noticed, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I started getting one
that had a split either, you know, going vertically down the side of
it, and didn't worry too much about it, just picked it off and
so forth. But I'm starting to get more of those. Michael, My
bad. I took your call right before I had to go to brake.
I want to Can you hold for a little bit and let me come back
to you all right, Thank you very much, if you'd like to get
on the board seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. But
I'm a gone bus. I'm a going working all summer, just to try
to urge time a gold baby, try to get a dangeas, no diet
Son. You gotta work late sometime. I'm a garden to you, but
there ain't no cue all the summer time. Well, good morning, and
you're listening to garden Line. We're here to answer your gardening questions, and
we're gonna get right to it in just one second. I did want to
remind you that I'm gonna be out at Wahberg in Kingwood that's on Kingwood Drive
forty five twenty three, kind of behind the U HB. That's out there
where Kingwood Drive and Westyke Houston come together. Well, if you are interested
in a community where you can be a gardener and have a seriously prime community
to live in, the Dell Web folks are putting a new community out in
Full Sure. They have been building up a community out there on FM three
fifty nine, two miles from downtown Full Sure. The thing that excites me
about this community is well, first of all, it's a Dell Weeb,
so you've got inspired designs, you've got all the lifestyle programs at Dellweb brings
to a community for active adults age fifty five and better. The thing it
decites me as a community garden. I'm working with them. I'm putting a
community garden in so in addition to that, you don't have to plow up
the backyard have a garden. You can have a community garden right there where
you live. Go to dellweb dot com slush Houston or call two eight one,
four, five, nine six nine. Now we're gonna go out and
talk to Michael. Sorry about that. Up Ending to the start of the
call, Michael, The splitting of the fruit is due to getting a lot
of moisture when it went through a little bit of a dry period. What
happens is when tomatoes go through a dry period, the cells are still dividing
inside, but they're not getting bigger because they're not moisture. Then you get
moisture and those cells fill up. Think of a whole bunch of balloons inside
a cellophane package and you start to blow them all up, and it pups
that outer covering, and that's the skin on the tomato that doesn't expand fast
enough, and that's how you get That happens to cherries quite a bit,
especially when we get into kind of hot weather. Okay, so could it
be like the recent rain we had. Oh, oh yeah, it could
be that. It could be it could be irrigation. If they're in containers,
it's often even worse because container moisture levels can fluctuate even more so than
the soil moisture levels would. Yeah, it's a container. It seems to
be growing great. I've gotten a lot of you know, branches of fruit
coming off of it. Yeah. But yeah, so that's it. So
just you know, whatever it takes to get that moisture level moderated and consistent.
That would be the secret to get in ahead of that. So one
final question, how often do you feed fertilize what I'm using as microlife products?
Well, on a microlife product, on a tomato like that, I
would probably put it down about every couple of months. Now, starting from
the beginning. Those products are will last longer, but you they're going to
gradually decompose as you get you know, time and moisture, and so you
want to keep a boost of growth growing and microlife will feed gradually. But
the secret to a tomato, these modern tomatoes are they're racehorses. And I
mean for a racehorse to perform you got to feed it. Well, right,
it's not just keeping the horse alive, it is it's getting the productivity
you're looking for. And that is why I recommend about ever a couple months
putting some more microlife down in that soil. Okay, well, thank you,
all right, thank you. I appreciate that call very much. Good
to talk to you. Hey, have you ever been to Plants for All
Seasons? They're up there on two forty nine where lou Attack comes in.
Now, if you're a green thumb folks, I mean, you gotta go
to Plants for All Seasons because they're going to have all the stuff you need.
I mean to have success, the right plants, the right products,
all the stuff you hear is talking about here. You can give him a
call to eight one three seven six sixteen forty six, or just go to
Plants for All Seasons dot com. If you're on Facebook, you need to
follow them. They have a lot of a lot of good stuff, good
information going there. I know they have an excellent supply right now of plants
for pollinators, wide variety of plants for pollinators. You know that we're in
lantana season. You know, for example, that's a good one, but
they're out a lot, a lot more. When you go to Plants for
All Seasons, you're going to find people that know what they're talking about.
This is a family operated business. The dad, victor several family, some
of the kids, family members, now even grandkids are involved in the operation
of Plants for All Seasons. They know what they're talking about. You know,
you're going to get accurate information, accurate diagnosis. He bring in a
picture or a sample and they're going to point you to the product you need.
And they're not going to say stuff you don't need. So good education,
good selection, they'll deliver information on you know, anything you need for
plants and that selection Plants for All Seasons dot com you need to check those
out. Well, let's head up speaking to Plants for All Season. Let's
head out to Cyprus and talk to Sandy. You're not too far away from
Plants for All Seasons. Hire, good morning, Good morning, good morning.
I wanted to ask you. I had put down the wheat beater.
Okay, I got that aceh it wasn't a green bat. Okay, play
about I can't remember exactly when, maybe maybe five six weeks ago. Okay,
um, but the weeds that they the same. Augustine is going back
through it, but there's still so many. Can I put it out again?
Or is it too you said about six weeks five or six weeks ago?
Yeah, okay, I can't remember. You shouldn't have to that fast.
Um, And they're going into my I have, um, not the
palms that bush from the ground, but the ones that are more fucking palm
trees. Okay, are they the sago palms? It could be a sago
palm. I have two of those on each side of my flower bed in
the backyard. But those wheats are going into day or two, even though
I put soil and compost down, all right, so yeah, oh yeah,
good, Well they've if you've used some of the best stuff that you
can get, if you got that stuff from marbar Gate that well, here's
two options. Number one, if if you're looking for a little bit of
a galivant and you come out to Kingwood and wild Bird's unlimited, bring me
a baggy full of all the weeds you can find, and let me identify
them and talk about it. May be when I see the weed, I
go, yeah, we need to use this different product for that weed.
You know, that what you used wouldn't work on this weed, or if
you want, I can put you on hold. Let Josh give you some
information so you can send me some pictures, but they need to be close
up and then really sharp focus and I'll try to identify them if you would
in that email. You know, we did with a lot of calls each
day, so remind me of what it exactly you use. You mentioned weed
beater, if you can find the label as to which one there's a weed
beater for southern lawns, there's a weed beater altar and whatever. Just put
all that in there so when I look at the pictures, i'll kind of
have that background. Okay, all right, Yeah, I'll talk to Josh.
Yeah, let's get you the right one, because you know, I
can send you out for some generics, but right now it's getting kind of
hot to be putting out some of these products. If they're in a Saint
Augustine lawn, if they're in a flower bed, that's a little different thing.
But also include that in the information. Alrighty, okay, thank you,
well, thank you very much. I appreciate the call very much.
Sandy. Yeah, weeds are Yeah, they're a problem. We're always dealing
with weeds. I like to put it this way. Wherever sunlight hits the
soil, nature plants of weed. That's just how it works. Nature does
not like to leave a scar on the land because a scar on the land
means the soil is going to get erotored away, It's going to get crusted
and nature grow stuff there. So if you won't grow something there, nature
will. But it may not be what you like. And that's called a
weed. You know, weed is a relative term. It's not like some
plants or good plants, and some plants or weeds. You know, if
you've got I don't know, you have a peach orchard and you got Saint
Augustine growing in it, well that Saint Augustine's a weed underneath your peaches.
You don't want that under your peaches. You get the idea. I mean,
I guess you could have enough broccoli plants growing in a flower bed that
the broccoli would be a weed. We don't have to worry about them coming
up like that. But you get the idea. That's that is the thing
weeds are. I guess a weed is. In our opinion, it is
a weed. I like us saying I heard one time it says if you
don't know if something is a desirable plant or a weed, pull it up.
If it comes back it was a weed. Oh gosh, we are
going to be out in wild Birds Unlimited in Kingwood. We're about to head
out of town here right now, at least out of the Houston town That
is forty five twenty three Kingwood Drive. I hope you'll come out there and
see me today. While you're out there, we'll take a look at what
you got. We can point you to a product if you need one,
but maybe I want to get to meet you. I always love to talk
to people who listen to the show. And bring me some photos, bring
me some samples. Will help in every way that we can. Oh,
it's good to get out and meet some of the folks. By the way,
I'm going to be back again tomorrow. Oh. I forgot to mention
this. While you're out there at the Kingwood event, they're going to be
giving away a free squirrel eliminator, which is a very body product. Also,
they're going to be giving away a twenty pound bag of bird seed.
Now you can pick one what kind of bird you want to bring in when
you buy your bird seed from a wild Birds Unlimited, you know that you're
going to get a seed that doesn't have waste, and that we don't want
to waste our money. We want the birds to eat at all