Kat r H garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's crazy trip. Just watch him as us. So many good things
to see that crazy not sorry, incredible good Sunday morning. Glad you got
Yeah, I'm glad you're up. I hope you got a cup of coffee
or something to help your eyelids open up. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and guess what. We're here to talk
about gardening. If you would like to give us a call, maybe ask
a gardening question, here's the number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. I
don't know how many of you have actually are actually active on Facebook and follow
garden Line on Facebook, but you should. We always posting different things on
there. A few days ago, a couple of days ago, I posted
some stuff about what to do about the freeze after the freeze right, and
not just protecting before, but what about after? Well. I gave a
number of different steps and I'm going to go through some of those this morning,
just to kick us off. You know, you you look at your
plants and they look dead. Of course, a dorma plant kind of looks
dead anyway, couldn't any leaves on it. So what do you do?
You? Number one? You assess the damage by scraping some spot on the
stem. You can take your fringer nail, you can take a knife and
scrape back the outer bark. And when I say a stem, i'm talking
about you know, things that are the size of a pencil or even smaller.
You can do that on a little larger branch too, size of one
of your fingers. But the goal is to just get back behind that outer
brown bark and look just right underneath it. And if the branch is still
alive, it's going to be a green to light green to creamy color underneath
there. If the branch is dead, it's going to be papersack brown.
It's pretty pretty clear and easy to tell. Sometimes it's a grayish brown color.
Just depends on the plant. It takes a while on some plants to
really show the full extent of the damage, and so I usually say wait
a few days, let it warm up for a couple of days, and
then do that I've noticed already, though some plants I've checked. I was
looking at some fireman's cap the other day and some others that are not that
hardy, and they definitely took a major hit. So anyway, that tells
you, tells you whether it's alive in that spot or not. And you
can work your way back, going further and further back and see if you
find some green. If you find some green, then stop there. If
you're going to prune, prune out the dead, not the green. When
you cut off dead wood, it does nothing to stimulate growth. When you
cut into green living tissues, pruning is a growth stimulating process. You begin
to get bud break below it. Should we go into some nice mild weather,
let's say it gets in the seventies and stays there for a few days,
which it can do. Of course, you may start to get bud
break, and then if we have another hard freeze, which is possible,
that would be severely damaged, and you would just increase the damage you have.
So I try to get people to tolerate some ugly. That's right.
If you can tolerate ugly, just wait before you cut things back. If
it's a lower lying plant like a Mexican heather or perhaps some succulent growth on
perennials that sort of melted down and turned a mush. That's a protective cover
over the base of those plants. And a lot of plants can reach sprout
from near the base. And so just if you can stand to look at
the ugly, just leave it. It's fine. If you have to print
it out, then go ahead and throw some compost or mulch over it just
to kind of protect it. If we have another hard freeze, that that
little coating of mulch over the base of the crown, the base of the
plant will help protect it until it gets through. And then if you want
to pull that back as growth begins, you can do that. So those
are a couple of steps. I'm going to get to some more here.
I want to continue to kind of walk through the different options as we go
through assessing. So what I prefer to do on plants, and again,
you got to tolerate a little ugly out there is let the plant tell you
word of prone. Sometimes you know, one branch maybe die back further than
others, and it's kind of hard to tell unless you just scrape the heck
out of the plant all over the place right word to prone. But when
new growth begins, you're going to see break wherever there's a living tissues.
And so when you do that, it tells you exactly where to print and
you can go ahead and remove all the dead wood then because it'll be actively
growing. Chances are by then we're kind of past the dangers primary danger of
a hard freeze for sure, and it's just a better time to do that.
So I like to let the plant tell me what to do. That's
kind of the bottom line. Some plants are going to be slow to come
out. One of my favorite summer flowers is redbird of Paradise also called Pride
of Barbadoes, and it doesn't want to wake up until it really warms up.
It's going to be May even a little later before it's really wanting to
grow. And so that one you may think, well, it's dead.
No, just give it some time. It's going to come. It's probably
going to come back from what we had, especially if you had it somewhat
mulched around the base, it should come back. But anyway, that's just
a fact on that. Sago palms are also slow. Oh gosh, and
we had our February twenty one freeze, there was segos. It was way
into summer before we started to see some new growth on those plants. And
so just be patient on certain kinds of sleepyheads like that before you go into
it. Whenever you see fresh new growth on the plant showing it's coming out,
it's going to need some extra nutrition and that's where you would jump in.
If on the new growth you can do a folier spray. Something like
Microlife's Ocean Harvests or Medina Plus are both good for that seaweed. Both Medina
and Microlife have a seaweed product that works very well on that new growth.
And then I just drenched the soil with those first two Ocean Harvest and Medina
Plus to strench the soil, let it soak into the soil, and take
care of the roots because there's a nutrient and other things as well that are
beneficial with the plant in those products. So then also consider a dry fertilizer
application. I like to use a term called scratched kind to try to figure
out a way to describe how do you mix fertilizer into the soil. And
when you have a bunch of roots. You're not going to spade it in.
You're not going to chop it in because you damage roots. So just
imagine like your fingers or one of those little hand tools. It has the
essence of metal fingers out there, and you're just sort of scratching it into
the surface inch or two just something like that to work it in. Then
water it in really well and that will give you an ongoing nutrient availability to
the plants. And so that would be stuff we're doing as there's new growth
coming out and we're supporting that new growth. Very very important to do that.
So those are a few tips, and again that was that was off
of Facebook. We post things all the time up there that can help guide
you. Also a few things that might entertain you as well. And if
I'm going to be doing an appearance somewhere, there's other other programs activities going
on we want to tell you about. It'll all be there on Goldline Facebook
page, so I hope you will take advantage of that. We're going to
take a break. Our phone number is seven one three two one two ninety
eight seventy and I'll be right back. Welcome to garden Line. Good morning,
still dark outside. We're glad you're up. Glad you're listening to garden
Line. If you got any gardening questions. Here's a number, by the
way, if you try to dial the number I gave before break, I
don't know who you ended up with. I was looking at one number and
in saying the wrong one seven one three, two one two, five,
eight seven four. If you will write that down, then no matter what
number I say, you know where to go about that. That would work.
Seven one three, two one two five eight seven four are just k
t RH. You can't go wrong with that. That's also another way to
dial. Uh. Do you like dialand letters or do you prefer numbers.
I'm curious. I prefer the number because I know right where it is.
When I look at the letter, I have to go find that letter on
the on the dial pad. I don't know that. That's not like a
super hard thing to do, but it just I don't know. Just prefer
the numbers myself anyway. All right, So hopefully you got the right number.
You can give us call. We can talk about what you want to
talk about. One thing I like to talk about is is the songbirds in
our landscape? I've told you before about some of the feeders that I have
and some of the birds we attract and whatnot. It's just it adds another
another element to gardening. And that element is not only beauty watching birds,
but also the element of sound with their songs. And I think that's cool.
You know, gardening we think of a garden as visual, right you
see flowers or whatever plants you're looking at in the landscape or a garden,
and so that's visual. Gardening also has a textural standpoint to it. For
example, the big bold leaves of an elephant ear, the fine lines of
ornamental grasses. Gardening has a movement aspect to it, watching things wave in
the breeze like an ornamental grass wood. There's a movement to the way things
are. And there's also sounds. If you've ever sat underneath a clump a
large clump of bamboo, not the running bamboo. Don't blunt that one unless
you've got a very good system to keep it from running, but a clump
of bamboo, and listen to the breeze blow through the leaves. It sounds
like a light rain falling. The leaves are kind of stiff and almost papery
in a sense. And as they move around that you hear this sound of
a light rain. That's kind of cool. The sound of water in a
garden or in a landscape or on a patio is a very soothing sound,
and that is nice. The sound of songbirds is another and I think that
that is just an element everybody ought to have a part of. Unfortunately,
here in the Greater Housonary, we've got the wild Birds Unlimited stores, six
of them around the area. They can get you fixed up on everything you
need right now. Bluebirds or this is a time when they begin to get
out there. They're looking for a place to live, and if you have
a house, they may decide, hey, that's where I want to be.
They're certainly not going to stay if you don't. But bluebirds are beautiful
little birds, and they also excellent it capturing the insects and things in our
gardens. But bluebirds are just a wonderful, easy bird to enjoy. And
bluebird houses need to go up. Now. Purple Martins. About February,
we're going to start seeing Purple Martins arriving looking for a place to set up
shop. And if you don't have a purple Martin house and you want one,
you need to get one. And wild Birds Unlimited has an incredible selection
of all kinds of bird houses, bird feeders, and bird seed. In
the wintertime, we really talk about the need for proteins and fats for our
birds, and the winter super blend by Wildbirds provides just that. Wildbirds doesn't
just put a sack out there and say here's bird seed, as if all
birds all the time need every You need the same thing if you want to
attract certain kinds of birds. They have a variety not just of seeds,
but things like suet and other things that attract the birds you want to attract
in the season that you want to attract them with the kind of food that
is best, most helpful for those birds. And I like that. I
also like the fact that their seeds are not they're not wasted. A typical
cheap bird seed can have over fifty percent of the little red bebes that birds
don't like to eat. That's a milo in there, and it's just not
it doesn't make sense like you pay X dollars for a sack and if half
of it or more is not something the birds are going to eat, you
just paid twice that much for that bird seed, because if you look at
what you actually got for birds, you see what I'm saying. Wilbirds isn't
that way. They don't put that stuff in there, and they do have
the specific blends for different groups and kinds of birds. And I would encourage
you to visit a wild bird store today. You know that today'd be a
day to just get out in your yard, look around and say, hey,
do I want to put a Martin house up? Where could it go?
And so on. Go into Wilbert's, talk to them, let them
guide you through it, and you will find a lot of inspiration, a
lot of assistance to there. Wilbird's unlimited. If you want to find one,
just go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash
Houston. We're going to go out to the phones now. In fact,
we're going to head to Katie and talk to Hank. Hello, Hank,
good morning, sir. I have a question about I've got two live oaks.
I want to put weed berrier around them, but they're about eight to
ten feet from a pool. They don't seem to be a problem there,
but I just wondered what the problem would be. There's not really a problem
with doing it. One thing about weed barriers is initially they're okay, and
then over time, as you get decomposing organic matters and things like that on
top, we'd seeds start to land, and now you got weed seed down
the roots kind of sticking down into the barrier, and it becomes a little
bit of a management issue. But you know, there's not something that's going
to hurt your tree to put the weed barrier out there. What about putting
gravel or you know, one inch grave on top of it. You know,
it's kind of the same thing whenever, Well, you can do that
on top, but still you're gonna eventually there's gonna be weeds that start to
appear, that the seeds fall into the top of it. And if you
like the aesthetics of the barrier with gravel on top, that's fine. The
only thing is some live oaks roots brout really bad, especially ones that the
seed sources are more like from central Texas and along the Gulf coast, and
those things are sending up suckers everywhere around the base, and so they're kind
of lifting up the cloth and if you have a little gravel on it.
Sometimes it sort of falls off to the side and now you got barriers sticking
up through the gravel. But probably you don't have that kind of oak here
posture. Thank you very much, all right, Hank, good luck with
that. Appreciate that call. Yeah, live oaks are you know, they're
really an amazing tree. I guess they say what familiarity breeds contempt sometimes,
so we have a whole lot of something just planted everywhere. We sort of
don't appreciate it as much. But if you think about it, Houston is
basically a live oak forest. I mean it really is. Drive through town,
look around, there's just a lot of live oaks here. And there's
a reason for that. Live oaks. When we went through the February twenty
one freeze, very little damage. I saw a little bit up further north
of here, but in general they're incredibly hearty. When we went through this
past summer's drought, they're doing really well. Unless it was a very young
live oak that hadn't established roots, they do well. They're just resilient and
they're beautiful and they cast a very dense shade, which for a gardener it
can be a little bit of a problem because you know, you like to
grow things underneath them, and the plant palette options under a live oakre are
more limited just because of that dense shade. That's pretty much twelve months out
of the year, except maybe a little during the transition of leaves in the
spring. But anyway, I think they're a great plant there, and again
there's a reason that they're planted everywhere anyway. Kind of cool live oaks.
For those of you out in the Kingwood area, you know, you've got
two great garden centers. You've got Warrens and you've got Kingwood Garden Center out
there, and they're both a great, great place to visit. Right now,
they are stocked up on Microlife's three step freeze recovery system that includes that
Microlife Ocean harvest. By the way, the three steps is the ocean harvest,
which is a drench that we're going to do that to get the plank
as the plant begins to get going, and then they follow that. Excuse
me with the green label bag. The sixty four we think of it is
lawn fertilizer. It's really fertilizer for anything you want to use it on six
four, and then then about a week later they'll do another durnch of the
ocean harvest. That's the three step. Well Warrens in Kingwood, they let
me know they are stocked up on that and ready to go. So all
of you who want to take care of your plants and help them out of
the cool weather, we just went through the cold damage that would be.
They still have frostcloth, by the way, and frost cloth if you take
care of it, you can use it year after year after year, and
that way when a freeze is forecast, you're not scrambling around trying to beat
the other gardeners to the supplies of frost cloth around the area. So no
problem with going and habing it, folding it up, take care of it,
get it out of the rain, you know, don't leave it out
all year where it just sun and rain are on it, and it'll last
for years for you. Also. Warrens, oh my gosh, they have
a really nice little toasty area where they have all their houseplants and a great
supply, great supply house plants looking for a good home. And I think
houseplants are something we need to be doing more of. And with all the
new plants that are out there now, the new houseplants, a species and
varieties. You should go take a look and just see some of the really
cool things that are on the market now, really nice well. Warrens and
Kingwood both again out in the Kingwood area, easy to find, and I
would encourage you to just go check them out and make sure that you are
not only visiting periodically, but also subscribing to find out information, check the
website, get the newsletters and things so that when new events come up,
you were the first to know. That's important. I love our mom and
pop garden centers because so much of the time they're having different events out there.
The things you can go to a class or a speaker coming out,
a workshop. I know Warren's in the past had those container workshops where they
show you how to combine a container. That was last last year they were
doing. I bet they'll do that again someday. And that's just fun and
it helps you to create beautiful, beautiful things. Nice to have that kind
of a garden center. And that's why we're always well, it's one of
about ten reasons we're always bragging on our just an incredible amount of really cool
mom and pop garden centers, north, south, east, west, Central
here in Houston. No matter where you live, there's two or three you
can get to and really enjoy. Well, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions.
About to take a little break here for the news with Nikki. Our phone
number, and I'm going to give you the right one this time. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. We'll be back in just a moment, and
when we come back, I want to tell you about some things going on
here in the area that I think you might be interested in. Welcome back
to guard Line on a early, early on a Sunday morning. We're glad
you hear. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and here is a number
if you'd like to give us a call. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. I have been talking about the freeze a lot and
freeze recovery a lot. That seems to be what everybody's interested in right now,
and for good reason. We just went through a pretty good one for
this area. But this is the kind of thing that happens from time to
time. We just have to prepare for it and be ready for it.
And I find that as you go through, you know, the year's gardening
and becoming better and better at it, that as we learn, we just
kind of figure out how to do things like what is the best way to
protect our plants, take care of our plants? What's the best ones to
plan here? How do we take care of them properly? That's that's all
part of the deal, and that's what we're here about on Guarden Line.
We can provide you with the kind of guidance so that you can have a
beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden, because that is one of the best hobbies.
In fact, I'll just be biased and say the best hobby. But
remember just because I'm biased, I don't mean I'm wrong. I'm happy to
be right and biased about that. Gardening is a wonderful hobby. I brag
on gardening all the time because there are very few things where you can get
the mental benefit, the peace of mind benefit, just the physical benefits and
just overall well being that you can with an activity like getting out and enjoying
plants and enjoying the garden. So there we go. That's what I think
about it. If you are wanting to get out and do some planting in
your beds, now's the time to do it. You know. I wouldn't
say this is last calf. No, we can plan any time of the
year. But the sooner you get planting, the better off your plants are
going to be when summer comes. That would be true, especially with tree
shrubs with vines. But it's all also truth. Perennials, perennial grasses,
getting them in. Now. Roses there's another one. Don't wait till Valentine's
Day. Just go ahead and get the roses and get going. I mean,
you can plant them on Valentine's Day, but you don't have to wait
until then to be able to plant roses. Our garden centers are stocking up
on those things. They look good and when you do get a quality mix
to put them in. That is the single most important indicator of success is
soil that is in good shape for plant roots. It's as simple as that.
So for example, Landscaper's Pride, they have a rose soil, a
premium rose mix and it's got composted pine bark, it's got sphagnum moss in
it. It's got a slow release fertilizer too, that's put in there,
it's going to take about three months to fully release those nutrients. So as
your roses or whatever you plant it in and by the way, rose soil
is for a lot of things, not just roses. Any kind of shrub
or tree or perennial can do well in that. But as you put it
in there and those roots venture out, they're going to find that slow release
fertilizer, and so Landscaper's Pride, you know, they're local, their top
quality resources through here throughout the southeast and east part of the Unit of Texas.
Just a really really they've been around for twenty years, since two thousand
and two, twenty seven different products. You can also buy bulk from them,
by the way, if you want, But you go online to Landscaperspride
dot com Landscaperspride dot com and you can find out where the stores are where
you can purchase Landscaper's Pride products. And this is the time when if you're
gonna do some planting, you need to get a good quality product to be
able to do it. First, fix that bed and then go get you
some roses and shrubs and things and get them in. Let's get those roots
going before it heats up so much. This is, by the way,
they also have black velvet mulch. It's a composted mulch. It is not
dyed. It is naturally very very that's why they call it black velvet.
We hate dyed mulches here on garden Line, but this one is not a
dyed multi it's naturally that color. And it's always a good idea to have
mulch on the soil surface to protect the soil moderate temperatures as we just went
through, and also to keep those weeds from taking over and becoming a problem.
I want to talk a little bit about vegetables for just a minute.
We don't do a lot of that on guard Line, and I love growing
healthy things to eat. By the way, there's another benefit of gardening,
grow your own healthy food. But this is the time of year when we've
kind of gotten We'll just say we're in the middle of the winter season,
but we're really kind of late in the winter season, because you never know
when spring's going to arrive here this far south. But I'm planting some broccoli.
I've got some kale. We've got lettuce. All the cool season greens
can still be planted out in your garden. Carrots, you know. I
guess you could get a little brave and start off with some radishes and things
right now too. You'd be ready to cover them up. We have a
good hard freeze. But those can all be planted inside the house. I've
got eggplant and peppers and tomatoes that are growing in little cells underneath a quality
light, and they are going to be ready to go. When we get
a little further along, I'll be putting those out in the garden, but
I'm starting them inside for that head start. And one thing you need to
remember is we have here in this area. The way I like to put
it is we don't have a long growing season. We have two short growing
seasons. And that's partially inaccurate, but it makes a point. If you
were to go up let's say, go up halfway up north in the country,
Kentucky, somewhere in there Kansas, you've got a very long growing season.
It gets hot in summer, but not as hot for as long,
with nights that are also hot, so you can grow things that take a
long time. Like a brandy wine tomato, for example, It takes about
eighty days for that to come to harvest, and you have time to do
that in that zone. You go further north than Minnesota and what is the
last snow melts? What in June first and it starts snowing again on September
first. I'm joking, but you get the idea. They have a short
growing, shorter growing season. But down here we have this blasting inferno called
summer, and so we have a spring season and we have a fall season
for a lot of the things that we grow, like a cucumbers and tomatoes
for example, And so we want things that move fast and we want to
get them in early so that we can get the best harvest time we can
out of them. Taking that brandy wine tomato as an example, it'll grow
here. And I mean if you plan a brandy wine that already has fruit
on it because you've potted it up to about a one gallon pot over time
and try to go out, you get some harvests, but you don't get
as much then you get as many tomatoes as one that's faster that maybe matures
in Oh, I don't know. Sixty five days or something along those lines.
So we want to get a head start, and that's why we do
it with transplants. It's also a plant a little bit early. Put a
cover over the plants to help them on cold nights. Those plants that are
in your house that you're growing as transplants, they're living the life of Riley.
I mean, you keep it really comfortable in there for them. When
they go outside. It may be a seventy five degree day, but that
night there's a little breeze and it's fifty eight degrees or fifty five degrees or
whatever. The temperature even lower sometimes and that is a shock to them,
and so we have to give them some protection for that. But anybody can
garden, and anybody can start transplants. There's all kinds of tools and supplies
that will help, like seed starting mix and certain kinds of trays. Bego
makes a really nice seed starting tray with clear domes that go over them.
It just makes it real easy. You can do it in a dixie cup
if you just want to grow a few, punch some holes in the bottom
and get busy. I encourage you to try it. This year, we're
going to take another little break here. Our phone number is seven to one
three two one two five eight seven four. I'll be right back. Welcome
back to guard Line. We're glad you're listening in today. Hey, I
was telling you earlier. I'll tell you about some things going on in the
area that I think you might be interested in. Next Friday, yep,
Friday the twenty sixth, at the United Way Greater Houston, Downtown Houston from
eighth in the morning to three point thirty is oba's annual Organic Science Day event.
Organic Science Day Event, now what that is. It's a day full
of learning from a lineup of speakers who are really leading experts in the green
industry. The author of the Teeming series, Jeff Loewenfelds. And by the
Teeming series, I'm talking about teaming with bacteria, teeming with microbes, you
know that that sort of thing. He has all kind of teaming nutrients.
Another one excellent author. He's going to be their chance to meet him and
get a book, a sign book. As a matter of fact, lots
of other great speakers. Again, if you want to attend, you need
to register, so go to OBA online dot org slash register. That's OHBA
online dot org slash register there, there's a couple of snack breaks. There's
a meal in the thing, so you know you have to pay to be
part of the program, but mainly what you're getting is just a full day
of learning. I'm going to be there visiting with folks and enjoin the program
as I always do. So I hope you can join us February or Friday,
January twenty sixth from eight am to three thirty pm at United Way.
But remember, go register first so you're ready to go. Another thing that
you need to know about if you are a vegetable gardener, if you're a
vegetable producer, if you want to be a vegetable producer, the Fort Bend
County Extension Office Agro Life Extension Office is having their thirty ninth annual Regional Vegetable
Conference. Again a full day of learning. They're gonna have topics on bees
and honey production. There will be backyard gardening and alternative techniques or be building,
soil growing, mushrooms, integrated pest management, a lot of different kinds
of things. Now, if you want to go, what you need to
do is register and to register, go to thirty ninth th Annual Vegetable Conference
dot event Bright dot com thirty ninth Annual Vegetable Conference. Another way to do
it. Here's the phone number. It's probably easier. Two eight one six
three three seven zero three three two eight one six three three seven zero three
three. That is in for Ben County. It is at the Fort Ben
County Fairgrounds, the Fort Ben County Fairgrounds. Uh. And it's out there
just south of Rosenberg a little bit, just cross a highway fifteen nine from
Rosenberg, so the Fort Ben County Fairgrounds on. By the way, I
should tell you that February eighth, that is a Thursday. A lot of
our activities are on the weekends. This is a Thursday, and again it
is going to be a lot of information, lots of good information eight am
to three thirty pm with a lunch included. By the way, the registration,
if you do it soon before the twenty six it's thirty bucks. If
you wait until after or January twenty seventh or later, it's going to be
forty bucks to attend that. No want to miss out on that for sure.
Talking about gardening this morning and growing transplants and getting those out there,
making sure that you've got good, healthy transplants. If you've never grown vegetables
before, try it. Try it. Here's something. If you're listening and
you have never grown a vegetable garden, but you would like to grow something.
Get a container that is about ten gallon, or it could be larger,
but about ten gallons in size. Make sure it has holes in the
bottom. Fill it full of a quality mix for growing things, a quality
mix, and then transplant a tomato into it. Put it in a sunny
spot. Make sure you water it adequately. Now I've grown tomatoes in five
gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. The problem with that is tomatoes
get pretty large and you got to water it a lot in order to keep
the soil moist and keep it out of stress. So can it be done?
Yes, what I recommend it. I would recommend getting at least ten
gallons if you're going to grow a tomato, and have it a little easier
to manage, because those things dry out. You don't have to be watering
them twice a day just to keep them going. But just as simple as
that. You want to grow a pepper eggplant, you can do that.
If you want to grow right now you want to to day go outside and
plant something. You can also do a container doesn't have to be as large
as for a tomato, and sprinkle some lettuce seed on the surface, moisten
the surface and let them sprout. Don't bury let us seed. It needs
light to germinate, but try that. Get some spinach seed, plant those.
You can cover those up just a little bit and help them get going,
keep them moist Typically for seed, by the way, I will soak
it overnight. If it's something like, for example, Swiss charred and lettuce
and okra sweet peas, things like that, I'll soak them overnight in warm
water and that helps to start that swelling of the seed which initiates germination.
You can just plant dry seed nature plant to dry seed and it gets wet
on the ground and it begins to sprout. But if you want to speed
it up a little bit, an overnight soaking and warm water would be a
good way to do that. By the way. Finally, now we are
seeing we have seen a break from the drought and we're about to see a
lot more rain. This week is going to be a doozy some lot of
areas about four inches of rain is predicted. That is a lot. And
what happens when it rains here, well, one thing that happens is the
soil absorbs water, and our clay soils is Houston black clay. It swells
up, it actually expands in size. When it gets dry, it shrinks.
That's why you get the big cracks in the backyard, large enough to
lose a small toddler in in the backyard. But when it swells and shrinks,
that wrecks havoc on our foundations. If you see cracks in your sheet
rock, or cracks in your brick exterior on your home, if your sidewalks
are buckling, or your driveway, call fix my Slab Foundation Repair. Ty
Stricklan's been doing this since twenty ten, over twenty three years. Fix my
Slab. Now. The nice thing about hiring Tie to do your work is
that it's going to be on time. In other words, he tells you
and he shows up, and it's going to be a fair price. He
prides himself on that, and he's going to fix it right. And those
three are the main things you need. And that's what he provides on time,
fair price, and fixed right. Fix myslab dot com. It's a
website fix myslab dot com, or you can just give him a call two
eight one two five five forty nine forty nine two eight one two fy five
forty nine forty nine for fix myslab dot com check check out around the house.
Look, you're going to see this kind of thing because it's just part
of what we live with here where we have the shrinking and swelling of our
soil. It's amazing how much power those kind of soil movements have. You
see broken water lines down in Houston all the time in the summertime when it
gets really dry and cracks that A really powerful force is soil when it's shrinking
and when it's swelling back up. I was talking to you yesterday, you
know about this is the time to use some landscaping redos. Maybe you got
plants that died from the freeze, plants that died from last summer's drought,
and you want to redo it. Apes is your company to do that.
And Jason Garrity and his team there at Peerscapes, they know what they're doing.
They've been doing this since nineteen eighty eight. Peerscape has been around now
two eight one three seven fifty sixty two, eight one three seven fifty sixty.
That's the phone number. The website is peerscapes dot com, and I
encourage you to go there because when you go there, you're going to see
pictures of the kind of work they can do. And it doesn't matter if
you have a giant, beautiful home and you want the whole thing redone,
or if you've just got a modest place and you just want some work on
an irrigation system. Maybe you want some landscape lighting, maybe you'd like to
add a water feature. I was talking about the beauty and the sound and
comfort of water in the backyard, back patio environment. They can do all
of that. They can fix areas with poor drainage so you don't have standing
water anymore. Pierscapes. Give them a call. It's time, because you
need to get set up and you need to be ready to go when the
time to get in there and get that work done arrives too. Eight one
three seven fifty sixty. Well, we're going to take another break. I
hear the music. That means I have to shut up pretty quickly. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I want to remind you that
if you are looking for good additional gardening information, I'm putting together a website.
It's been up for a little while. We are really working on a
lot of things right now to go up and enhance it. But what you
will find there right now is my lawn care schedule. So if you want
to know from January to December, when I fertilized, what do I use?
Organic and synthetic? What about trace minerals? If you want to know
about aeration, mowing, proper mowing, guess there's such a thing as mowing
right, watering right. It's all on there. And also my lawn pest
disease and we'd management schedule again January through December, organic and synthetic, it's
all on there. E T r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Casey r H
Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy Trim just watching as so many things
to sets well. Welcome back to Garden Line. We are talking all kinds
of things gardening. This morning, it's still dark outside. If you see
your neighbor's lights are not on, you need to go bang on the door
and tell them they're missing garden Line. They will rise up and call you
blessed. This morning, they'll rise up and call you something else, but
eventually they will rise up and call you blessed and appreciation for you turning them
on to garden Line. Hey, we got to have a little bit of
fun here right I wanted to mention I was talking about growing some transplants inside
a little bit earlier, and I'm going to be posting something to Facebook today,
the garden Line Facebook page. You need to be checking this out if
you're interested in learning about growing transplants. And this is a like a I
could say a course, but it's like a one hour lecture that covers all
kinds of aspects of growing great transplants. I would recommend you take a look
at it. If you're not interested right now, maybe book market for coming
back to later. But it's a training that I did online and it's part
of a Gardening in the Gulf series we did as I was a horticulturist with
agrolife extension, and it's called growing Great Transplants, and it gives you the
tips for all of it, the soil, the lighting, the temperatures,
taking care of them. Do you know that you're supposed to pet your transplants?
You are. Here's why. Whenever in nature something gets stressed, it
can get stronger. For example, you go to the gym, you work
out, You wear your muscles out, and they get stronger. Give them
time to recover and they bounce back, and then do it again, and
do it again, and do it again, and you just build and build
and build your muscles. When a tree trunk is out there in the wind,
a young tree, and that wind is moving the trunk and bending it
a little bit like it, that would happen. Those trunk tissues literally get
stronger. The same thing happens with transplants. Have you ever grown little tomato
seedlings and they're spin ly and thin and they just break so easily. Growing
in still air, that's gonna happen. Growing in low light, that's going
to happen too. So what we do is what I do. I go
over in my transplants. I need to talk to them every day anyway,
right, go over there a couple times a day and just take my fingers
and just kind of brush through them. People. Sometimes people use your hand
or a pencil over the top. Some people set up a little oscillating fan
to go back and forth, and each time it does so, it moves
the plant a little bit and the stem gets stockier, stronger. That is
just a fact of nature that that kind of effect has had when we when
we do that to our transpants. One little tip there that's also in the
training. By the way, growing Great Transplants. Look at Facebook and we're
going to have it up there. I'm also going to be adding it to
the website this week for those of you who want to do seeds starting or
won a book market for future seed starting. Let's head out to the phones
now. By the way, our number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. We're going to talk to Tammy and Tomball. Hey,
Tammy, let's see. Let me try again. Now do we have
toil? Hey? There we go. Hi, Sorry I didn't have you
the first round. Oh, good morning. Hi. My question regards read
using potting soil for tomatoes and peppers. I know in the garden you're supposed
to move them around. How does that work with potting soil? You can
reuse potting soil. The times when I would not reuse it is if the
plant that was growing before had some sort of a disease, especially a root
type disease, then because then you would be reintroducing that to the new planting
you're putting in. But otherwise you can redo it. I use mine all
the time. As you notice in your pots, after a year or two,
the potting level sinks down because that potting soilt is continuing to compost away,
and so I will take it out and mix it with fresh new potting
soil to extend it a little bit. But there's not a problem with reusing
it other than the disease issue. Okay, awesome, thank you. Yeah.
The one time I probably wouldn't do that, Temmy is with seedlings,
like if I had some potting soil outside and then bringing it in to start
seeds. In seedling environment is very warm, very humid, and it's a
disease heaven, and so there could be spores and things out there that that
would be a problem for all right, Okay, thank you, Yes,
thank you. That's a that's a good question. That tammy head right there
there. There is a way to pasteurize old potting soil or old potting mixes.
Uh. Some people will do that, you know, they bring in
composts and they're going to mix it into a potting mix. And in general,
yes, you can do that. Nature plants seeds in rotting composting materials
and doesn't You don't have to worry about sterilizing the forest floor. So a
seed can come up, right. But in that environment where we start seeds,
we can have things called damping off. And that basically is your seeds
come up and they just fall over and rode at the base. Uh.
And that's called damping off. And it's due to rise actni epipium. There's
different disease organisms that will do that. What you can do for those of
you who care to do this, most people are going to say, I'm
gonna do that, But if you want to, you can put potting soil
that you want to make sure is let's say, cleaned up, no bad
stuff in it. Put it in a turkey bag. Remember those bags.
Slip a turkey and a bake in the oven. They can take the heat.
Well. Take moist potting soil it needs to not be dry, moist
and put it in a turkey bag. Set it in a big long like
brownie dish or something large like that. Poke a few holes in it.
That's important, suffer air to escape, just a few little holes, and
then put it in the oven. I don't have the temperature at the top
of my head. Maybe I should post that too, But anyway, you
take it up to a certain temperature. I think it's about one eighty,
but I'm not sure on that one. Anyway, if you don't heat it
hot enough, it won't kill anything. If you heat it too hot,
it will run you out of the kitchen and your house will smell horrible when
you overheat that stuff. So be very careful with it. But you heat
it up to a certain temperature for a certain amount of times, not very
long, and that reaches that temperature that kills the bad stuff, and it
would be like a pasteurization type thing, not a complete sterilization hopefully. But
anyway, then when it cools off, you can reuse it. Some people
will go through that trouble. I would just say, get some nice,
fresh new potting soil. It's probably the best thing to do if you have
concerns over disease and whatnot. But that is an option that you can do.
Let's see here we are. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We love to talk about our feed stores here on garden Line and
League City feed down in the League City area is just a great place.
It's one of those old time feed stores where you get person service to carry
the bags out for you. The Thunderbergs have been running League City Feeds since
what their grandfather built it forty years ago, and now Wes and Madison's sister,
they are basically running the place and it's I love going in there.
When you go in there, you're going to find all the fertilizers that I
recommend on Guardenline. You're going to find the pesticides, herbicides, bunge sides,
things like that. Of course, you're going to find premium pet food,
quality pet food. They're going to be supplies for all your backyard chicken
needs. And it's a feed store, right, you get the idea.
But when you when you go in there, you're going to have everything you
need to have a successful garden in terms of fertilizers and pest management. And
the phone number is two eight one three three two sixteen twelve two eight one
three three two sixteen twelve. They're open money through Saturday nine to six pm
nine am six pm and they're on Highway three, just a few blocks out
of ninety six. So if you live in Santa Fe, Clare Lake,
Webster Baycliff, San Leone, O, Kamina Reality, that whole area,
League City Feed is your hometown feed store. We're going to take a break
right now and we'll be right back. Welcome back to garden Line. We're
glad you're listening this morning. Hey, here's a phone number, give us
a call. We can talk about whatever your questions are regarding gardening. We
want you to have success. Just dolls seven to one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, seven to one three two one two five eight seven
four and we can talk about the things that interest you speaking of and we
can talk. I'm going to be heading out to the at to Fort Benk
County next Saturday. You know, we do the garden Line show here until
ten am, and I'll jump in a car next Saturday, twenty seventh and
head to the Fort Bend Epicenter for the Brasses Home and Garden Show. The
Brasses Home and Garden Show is a great opportunity to get out and see a
lot of cool products. And I'll be giving a talk on plant tips for
spring, dealing with coming out of the freeze thing, just all kinds of
things. I'll be answering your questions too. By the way, I'm gonna
set up at a little table there, and just as you come by,
let's meet. Bring me some samples of plants or bugs or questions that you
might have. If you got photos, check them, make sure they're in
sharp focus so I can help with them, and then bring them by.
We'll take a look and we will help. And whatever kinds of questions you
have, vegetables and herbs and flowers and lawns and trees and planting landscapes,
you know what might be a good plant for this area, all those kind
of things. Again, that's a Brasses Home and Garden Show next Saturday.
I'll be there from about eleven eleven thirty for about two hours. They're at
the show, so I hope you'll come by. I always like to meet
and visit with folks that listen to Garden Line. That's an opportunity. All
right, I have a garden line quiz. It's the same quiz almost all
the time. That is, what is the most important thing you do have
success with plants of any kind. The answer is if you said, improve
the soil. First comes brown stuff, then comes green stuff, ding,
ding, ding, winter winter chicken dinner. You got it. That's right.
And Heirloom Soils has a variety of different cool soil mixes that just work
very well. I like their Heirloom Soils rose soil. I like the veg
and herb mix. In fact, I just just about to fill one of
my vego beds with some veg and herbmex here coming up soon when I can
actually get back and do work at my house instead of talking to you about
what's going on at your house. They also have lead mold compost. Now,
these are all available in bags all over town. If you are trying
to help a plant that's recuperating from the cold, they would suggest, for
example, that you take some of those products like the vegiane ner, mix
the heirloom rose soil and mix it in real carefully around the plant, all
through that area. Just gently mix it all in around that area. Maybe
mix it. A little of the MICROLFE sixty four is with it as well.
They've had good success with that as well, of course, and then
watered in really well, and as that plant begins to send out fresh new
roots, it's got a really nutritious soil mix to be able to survive,
and not just survive, but thrive. That's most important. The beneficial endo
and ectomycurza in the heirloom sols mixes is just an extra boost. You know.
That's part of nature. That's how nature takes organic matter and turns it
in to stuff that's rocket fuel for plants. It's the endo and ectomycroiza and
other microbes that are out there, and you're going to boost that when you
put down a quality mix like the airloom cells Rose or airroom cells Veggie and
Herb, or even their leaf mold compost by the way, airlom cells.
Folks, if anybody's listening, you knocked it out of the park on the
new bag of leaf mold compost. I mean that just pops. I love
that new design really clear. I mean halfway across the store looking up you
can see what that is and after and it's a super super quality product.
We're going to head out to Parland now and talk to Kay. Good morning,
Ka, Good morning. How are you doing this morning? I do.
I'm doing well. K. I'm inside and I'm not freezing to death,
so all is well me too. You may have already addressed this.
I don't know. I overslept and I've just been up about fifteen minutes,
so I missed the first part. But I was wondering about how long can
you keep plants covered because I don't know what are we going to get another
freeze spell? I know they need to have fresh air and so forth,
but I didn't know how long. Well, it's you're not supposed to in
pairline there, you're not supposed to get another freeze, you know. If
it's not so much the air that they get, it's just getting back to
the sunlight again. Sunlight helps the plants make carbohydrates, carbohydrates or sugars.
They're like anti freeze for the plant. So far to support growth, to
support health, you can't leave them in the dark too long, So I'd
go ahead and pull the covers over. I mean, if we're gonna have
it, doesn't hurt to leave them on a few days. If you need
to but I would pull them off as soon as you can, and I
think now is as soon as you is. Fine. Okay, very good,
Thanks so much. You have a great day, all right, you
two, Kate, you take care. Yeah, go ahead and get those
covers off. You know, it's just we're gonna have some chilly nights,
but we're not gonna we're not gonna be looking at the free stuff like we
just went through. That's a good thing. That's a very very good thing.
Uh. You probably you know, when you go out and you're you're
trying to cover and protect your plants and take care of them, you probably
think, Okay, what maybe I just need to plant things that don't freeze.
Well you can do that, but let me let me just offer my
perspective on some of these kinds of things. And this includes the heat and
drought from last summer, and includes the really good hard coal snap we just
went through. Gardening is a process, and gardens and landscapes evolve the idea
that you're gonna you know, you buy a house, you put in a
landscape, and you're set to go for the next twenty years. I wouldn't
think that way. You can plant things that are like that. They don't
freeze, they don't have drought heart problems, but there's a moderate amount of
water. But that's a rather boring landscape. I like to change things out.
You know, containers on the patio with color, that's a great thing.
Well, you're changing those out all the time. So if you have
a plant that gets too large, it needs to be cut way back or
replaced with something that gets smaller. As plant breeders keep coming up with better
options, maybe it's a plant that is more compact so more people can use
it. You don't have to have this giant space for it to swallow up.
You need to do that when it comes to plants that die from a
freezer drought, get out there, pull them up, and plan something else
in that spot. It's part of the transitions of nature and in nature,
but it's also part of gardening and landscaping, and I personally, I think
that's a lot of fun. Now. I wouldn't want to have to replace
a bunch of very expensive shrubs every year, of course, but some transition
is okay, and just you know, occasionally you just lose something. I
just had a patch of strawberries. I got through the first freeze. I
left town forgot to cover them up for a left and when I come back,
I'm going to have some problems. The second freeze where I live was
a little bit a little bit too cold to that. Probably lost lost the
initial crop, but I'll get more. But that's just part of the deal.
It's okay, don't be discouraged. Just enjoy. Just enjoy. That's
important. You know, we just came through that freeze and a lot of
you are out there transitioning your plants, and I've talked about products and things
and how we help them come back out of the freeze. Well, Ice
Hardware has got you set up on all of that. For example, do
you need a new set of prunters loppers for example, a saw, a
pruning saw. Do you need some of the products for fertilizing for the sole
amendment products that we talk about in bags, Ace has got that. Did
you have some pipe damage during the cold, Well they can get you set
up on that. Any kind of plumbing repair part, they've got it.
Insulation for your pipes, by the way, going forward, they've got it.
Why not have some of that on hand so next year when you have
issues, you're good to go the little covers that go over your outdoor faucets.
For example, do you need repair on your sprinklers? You know,
people came over to visit and they as they backed out of the driveway,
they kind of cut the corner ran over that sprinkler right at the edge of
the grass and driveway. And you'll know it when you turn it on the
first time and you get a guyser there. Just go to ACE. They've
got the products you need to fix it. Ace is a place for that.
Also, you can find ACE Hardware is all over Houston. Go to
Ace hardware dot com and look for the store locator and find one of the
forty Ace Hardware is near you. In fact, you're going to find three
or four that aren't too far away. Cool thing for the ACE Hardware discussing
plants and plants starting don't forget. I'm going to put that on Facebook.
I'm going to put the link up for It's about a one hour lecture on
all aspects of starting seed. Lots of good pictures and it's me doing it
on the on a website and I'll put a link to that up on Facebook.
I would encourage you know, you may go one hour. Well,
that's fine, you bookmarket if you don't want to watch it now, but
the next time you want to learn how to garden. This is like a
gardening seminar in your living room, okay, And it'll tell you all aspects
of how to plant seed, how to take care of seed, how to
have success, the kind of lighting that it takes, and why that's important,
and on and on and on down the line. So be looking for
that on our Facebook page. If you don't join us, if you don't
follow us on Facebook, please do because there's always good information that's popping up
that we're putting on to our Facebook page. Important. I think learning is
important. What do they say that what I can't remember how they put it,
but basically what it amounts to is if you've got you know, if
you're if you're cutting down a forest, if you're a lumberjack or whatever,
you got to stop every now and then and sharpen the saw because at some
point the saw gets dull and you're just not getting the job done well.
The same is true with gardening and learning. You got to sharpen the gardener.
In terms of sharper I know more, I know how to do things
more I've learned about new issues that are going on. The gardening is a
learning process. That's one of the things that makes gardening keep us young.
Nikki just came in here. We're about to do the news, Nikki.
Gardening keeps us young. It does even your house plants. It's a fountain
of youth. Absolutely, so quit looking for some water somewhere from the gardening
is a fountain of you, it really is. It brings hope every season.
I mean, you look out and it's bleak. There's gonna be bulbs
coming out of the ground. In blooming, there's gonna be seeds, and
it's my best garden always is the next one that I'm gonna s Yes,
that's the way I like to look at it. Well, it's a chance
for you to get out and exercise without doing anything strenuous. But you are
moving. You're moving a whole lot of muscles, You're getting the sunshine,
the benefits of that. So lots of reasons, lots and lots of benefits.
Yeah, even now sitting in offices, say hey, get up and
walk around every few minutes exactly. Well, gardening is that on steroids?
All right, we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. I'll be right back. Well, come back to garden
line. We are talking about all kinds of things timely regarding your garden.
Here on guarden that's what we do, you know, kind of give you
the idea of what what should we be doing? Now, how do we
do it? If you've got any questions you'd like to ask of me seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
k t r H. That's another way to go about it. We'd be
glad to visit with you about the things that are of interest to you.
I was talking earlier. We were mentioning the the airlom soils, and I'm
saying that they were, you know, suggesting like a sixty four, a
Microlife sixty four to put in there and mix in with it. It's a
it's a great product. Microlife has a number of great products. As a
matter of fact, right now, you know, the focus is on the
freeze recovery, and that's the three step that they recommend would be the Microlife
Ocean harvest. It's a four to two three fish based fertilizer as a drench
over the plant. I would say also as new growth comes, spray it
on as a folier feed. It's not going to burn. It's not salt
based. It'll be just fine. Uh. And then follow that with their
sixty four, the green bag that we normally think of as lawn fertilizer.
But I'm telling you the sixty four is a general use good for a lot
of different things, including just helping plants get off to a boost. It's
got a little higher nitrogen level that first number. That supports the vigor and
the growth and nice green growth. And then following that about a week later
with the ocean harvest again as a drenched the four two three the liquid and
that's just a one two three easy if you're planting, why not the ultimate
that's the blue bag Microlife Ultimate. You can again mix that in the soil.
Normally I would say, do not put fertilizer in a planting hole.
Well, this is not a salt base. Not going to be a problem
with that. Anything that's going to release slowly, it is not going to
burn like that. So Microlife eight to four can be mixed in to the
soil around the plants, and then as the roots go out, they'll just
encounter it pretty quickly. Actually, the new roots will begin to grow even
before the top has a lot of growth going on because roots can grow and
temperatures when the soil is like fifty to fifty five degrees, you're going to
get some root growth there. And that's pretty much all season long in our
location. Now, you can find microlife all over town. But if you
want to, if you want to look for local places, just go to
microlifefertilizer dot com and you can find out specific places that have the microlife fertilizer
available. I want to mention that reminds me too, want to tink a
microphone. Think about the the OVA Organic Science Day event. Now, the
Organic Science Day event is Friday, January twenty sixth. It is from eight
am to three thirty pm. What is this event, Well, it's a
day full of lectures by professionals in the horticulture Injoy. Some of the best
professionals and experts in the green industry will be there. Now Jeff Loenfels,
he's the author of a number of books. We call it the Teeming series
is Teaming with micros, Teaming with nutrients, Teaming with fungi, They're all
really interesting. If you want to nerd out on soil, this is some
pretty cool stuff. There'll be many other great speakers through the course of the
day. You have to go online register. There will be serving a meal.
There's a charge for this if you're a non member of Microlife a Microlife
of Oba Organic Horticulture Benefits alliance. It is one hundred and twenty five bucks
for the day, but that includes again speakers. You're just not going to
get elsewhere a couple of breaks to get a nice meal in the middle of
it. So I would recommend you check it out Oba online dot org,
ohbaonline dot org, Forward slash register. I'm going to be hanging out there.
I always like to meet gardeners and things, and this is a great
place to meet a lot of the leaders in the industry as well. So
I hope you'll consider joining us this Friday. That's just right around the corner
if you would like to give us a call. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Talking about seed starting this morning, talking about freeze
recovery. This morning, we're getting into the season pretty quick here where we're
going to be talking a lot about lawns. And when you consider the things
we do to our lawns, of course, we've got we fertilize, we
may have insect control, we may have disease control, we may have weed
prevention, we may be killing existing weeds. All of the above you're going
to find on my schedules online. My website is Gardening with Skip dot com.
So when you hear me on guardline, I'm talking about these schedules.
That's where you get them. Gardening with Skip dot Com. And there's a
fertilizing schedule, and there is the weed disease or pest disease and weed management
schedule. You can print these out. You can stick them on their refrigerator
if you like, and you got them there and you can just kind of
look, oh, it's mid March. What should I be doing now?
What should I be looking for right now? It's all on the schedule.
If you want synthetic options or if you want organic options, they're all there
on the schedules. Makes it really really easy. You can bookmark them and
go back and check them. I just say, just print one out if
you're going to go in and maybe you want to purchase a product for some
disease pastor weed management. You just pronount and take in the store with you
and go down the bottom and say, I want one of these right here?
Do you got this? And that way you don't have to remember what
the name of it is. It's all right there on the schedule to make
it really really easy for you. I was out visiting Plants for All Seasons
not too long ago, visiting the sherry out there and just talking about the
season and the season we've been through and the season coming up and things,
and if Plants for All Seasons is always something new going on. Right now,
we are just on the edge of spring. We're just trying to figure
out, you know, what is it going to quit freezing to get those
tomatoes going and other things like that. And they are set up. They're
going to be trucks lined up a mile long bringing all kinds of plants in
there. Probably already some deliveries have started. But Plants for All Seasons is
a great place to get plants that belong here, tents that grow here,
from a family that's been here a long time in this business. You know,
they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. Just recently been doing this since nineteen seventy
three now, the Flowerty family. The thing I like about the business they've
created there is not only do you get plants that grow here, but you
get people that know here, They know what it is to garden here,
and you get good advice. You can take them a sample, you can
take them a picture. You can walk in with a question and say,
look at this. I've got this area here. It seems like every time
I plant something there it just doesn't get enough sunlight. What what would be
good there? That would you fill in the blank. They can do that
for you and they won't steer you wrong. Plants for all seasons. Dot
com that's the website, or just give them a call. Two eight one
three seven six one six four six two eight one three seven six one six
four six. By the way, if you haven't been there before, they're
on Highway two forty nine. As you're heading from Houston up towards tumbul direction,
just you exit for Lueta and just cross over Luetta and they're right there,
not too far on the right. Get your grown, get your green
on is how they like to say it at Plants for All Seasons dot com.
A little bit of happy music for a Sunday morning. Welcome back to
garden Line. Let's talk about what you are interested in regarding your plants.
Uh. I like to kind of in my mind, I sort of go
through the yard and think about, Okay, what's what's in front. There's
the lawn, the shrubs, the trees, the flower beds, and then
there's a garden and vegetable garden and all of that, and just talk about
things we do in all of those areas. One big thing is our trees.
Trees are the most valuable part of your landscape. They they make the
most. Uh, they add most to the value of your home. Number
one to have big beautiful trees. Are beautiful blooming trees as well, very
valuable for that. They're valuable for the sense of shade. You know,
there's this thing called summer down here in the South, and it can be
rough, and trees that provide shade make it more habitable to be outside.
There are also trees that shade or location of the tree may shade your house
or a western wall. I've got a western brick wall in my house,
and I was surprised. I walked by one day and I literally could feel
the heat coming off that wall. I mean I was walking about two feet
away from the wall, and it was like there was a fire burning over
there, and just the radiant heat hitting my face. It was just I
put my hand on the wall. I was like, Wow, that's hot
and interesting. I went in that room that evening, sunny gone down a
good while. I mean it had been down for probably an hour, and
I put my hand on the sheet rock of that wall, and I could
feel the heat still, the warmth from that wall radiating into the house.
Now, guess who got to pay for the air conditioning to cool that room
off? Me? What about a tree that would shade a wall like that?
What about a vine that would shade a wall like that? You know,
we talk about energy efficiency, we talk about saving on our utility bills.
Plants can do that for you, and trees can do that for you.
Trees are very very important, and you need to choose them carefully and
wisely. You want a tree that's going to do what you want it to
do and keep living fast, grow fast, die young. Remember that,
grow fast, die young, or fall apart young. Trees that are not
long term or just trash trees, and we don't need that. We need
something that lasts and then we need to take care of them. That's one
of the reasons why I'm always sending people to Martin spoon Moore an affordable tree.
Martin's been doing this for a long time. He knows, he knows
what he's doing, over thirty years now in the business, and as a
result, people line up to get Martin to come out and do their work.
That's why I would say, if you're thinking about any tree work,
or if you need your trees looked out, go ahead and get on the
schedule now, don't delay. We're in the big peak of tree pruning season
right now on one three six nine, twenty six sixty three seven one three
six nine nine two six six three or go to the website. This is
easy. Hope you got a pin afftree service dot com, aff tree Service
dot com. Tell him you're a guardline listener and that'll get you the front
of the line because a lot of people want Martin to come out and do
the work for him because of the kind of work he does. But this
is the time to get on get on the line. And get a hold
of them and make sure they come out and check things. If you're going
to do anything around your trees, maybe you're going to put in a sidewalk
or a patio or a driveway, or maybe you're going to do some trenching
to run a water line or a power line or something. Call Martin first,
have him come out. Once the damage is done. There's not a
whole lot that they can do to help the tree. Once you've cut all
the roots off one side of the tree, for example, call him first
for a consultation. Or if you're going to plant a tree, call him
to come out and what would you recommend here. Listen, this is a
long, long, long term investment worth a lot for your home. Don't
just shoot from the HILP. Get an expert that knows what they're talking about.
We're going to head out the phones now again the number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're going to talk to Carolyn.
Hello, Carolyn, Hey, I was reminded yesterday when the lady called
in about her amarillis that I need to ask you. Last year I bought
a waxed amarillis from Brookwood and it still has a leaf coming up. Should
I now break that wax and plants plant the bulb? Oh? You,
Oh, it'd be too late. You can You can do that if you
want. And no, it's not too late to plant. I think if
you've waited this long, I I might a couple of options. You could
get us started inside and some soil, or you could go ahead and put
it out. Amarillas are fairly hardy, and most of the time we get
away with them. Here there's one type that's quite hardy. But uh,
and I'm just thinking about setting it out. We get around another hard freeze
as it begins to try to grow, But I think that'll still be fine.
Just be ready to throw a bunch of mult over it when you put
it in the ground. But it's always it's always good. Went in doubt.
Just get those bulbs out there and get them in the ground, and
okay, let them get Yeah. I don't have a lot of options for
where I plant it. Okay, Well, does it require full sun or
do it towel race some shade? Actually, I like to put them in
a deciduous shade, so in the wintertime sunshines through and in the summertime.
They have some shade, a nice bright shade, but some shade, and
they'll okay, they'll do that. Yeah, I have a live oak,
so if if I plan it, say twenty feet away, it'll have shame,
but it'll still get some sun. Yeah, some son. Ideally,
if you could do morning sun, that'd be good. But you know,
just try it out, see how it does. It's gonna survive. And
if you just don't get the performance, the blooming out of it, you
can always try moving it somewhere doing something a little bit different. Okay,
great, And I wish you had another hour for your program because I really
enjoy it. Well, that's kind of you know, we go to ten
am, so we got four hour. Yeah, but i'd like you to
go to eleven. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna call you on Saturday
and Sunday mornings when I actually get up, start to get ready to come
over here, and we'll see how you like that extra hour. Thank you,
Carolyn, that's sweetie to say that. I appreciate very much. Good
Luckily, you're good lucky boy. Oh my goodness. Let's go to Spring
and we're going to talk to Chris. Hello, Chris Nip, how are
you today? I'm well, thanks very well. Hey, I just we
just had a lot of paperwork done in our backyard over a thousand feet and
there's a lot of dry cutting going on, and there's a pretty good coating
of his paper dust all over the lawn and the shrubs and beds. Do
I need to do anything as far as any offsetting of treatments or just let
it soak in and not worry about it. I wouldn't worry about it.
If it's a it's a If it's a drifted dust from some paper cutting,
I think you'd be fine. I don't think there's a practical way to worry
about it. I don't you got it? You gotta clay in there.
I'm trying to think of what else might be in pavers. I'm not sure
about how those get made. I know it's a fired clay product, but
no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry about it. Okay, all right,
A really quick second question if you got to say, sure, are
you familiar with a something called a root quencher or O T q U E
N C H E R No, what does it do? It's a product
Mada it's from California, but it's a it's a true that you are going
to the ground and then allows you to deeproot your trees on a regular basis
just by pouring water into those tubes. Yeah, I wouldn't do that.
Here's why nature waters from the top down. That's how trees everywhere, that's
how they grow. They get water. It soaks down from the top.
Now, in drought conditions, you can make a case for hiring someone to
come in and do a deeper watering where they put water down in the sew.
But they're poking that thing in all over the place. They're wetting a
large volume of soil. And you know, one or even three or five
of those tubes down in the ground is just not going to make It's not
going to support it. And I know you would think, well, the
roots will gather there, that's dependable water, but it just it doesn't work.
It doesn't work that way. Okay, Okay, Well I appreciate that
because I've been looking at it as wells tree rings, so like you're still
ring fan, Yeah, tree ring's fine. Now we're talking about a brand
new tree or are we talking about an established tree? Are established Okay,
yeah, I wouldn't worry about that. You know, when I was originally
when I came out with my master's in horticulture, I was a fruit specialist.
That was my focus. And with peach trees, we would start off
with drip irrigation and that just what's a spot that gets a little bigger,
but it's a spot right shape, like a turnip underground typically, and you'd
put three to two drips, and then four drips and then six and at
some point that tree's root system is so wide that you can't give the tree
enough water in those few spots to support the top of the tree. So
we switched to microsprinklers in the orchard where it wets a much larger volume of
soil to support that tree. So the same is true with your landscape trees.
You can't in a few spots, you know, supply everything that a
large, large growing tree is going to need. Again, hiring someone to
deep root and a number of spots to rescue during a drought, that's a
little bit different. But just having a stationary one, two or three spots,
it is not even come close. Great, great, it's great information.
Thank you. How often do you do I mean we have deep root
feeding done once a year as it sufficient. Well, yeah, I mean
it depends on what you use. What they use. You can go in
with, you know, putting some material down in the soil. You can
also I'll tell you something else too, when you fertilize your lawn, a
lot of that nutrient is washing down into the soil and is also benefiting the
tree. So it kind of depends on the situation. I think the ideal
for a tree would be to have a nice thick mulch all around it that
decomposes constantly over time. Essentially, it's equalling the forest floor in our landscapes.
You're not going to turn your whole front yard into a mulch bed.
So coming in with some top fertilizer or with putting some fertilizer down into the
soil by somebody who knows what they're doing and has the right blend of nutrients,
the right ratio of nutrients to support that tree, that that would do.
That got it? Okay, great, thank you very much. All
right, thank you. I appreciate the call. Chris. Yeah, you
know, the uh whenever you're looking at something like that. I was talking
about Martin Spoon Moore from Affordable Tree. I was looking at some videos of
watching them do their work, oh gosh, several months ago and just pushing
that deep root down in the soil releasing the water. This was a watering.
It wasn't adding the nutrients in this particular video, but just doing it
in a lot of places to create the volume. That's the key. And
during droughts, you know, if you turn on a sprinkler and you're underneath
your tree. You know I talked to you before about the treehover sprinklers and
you water the whole area underneath the branch spread of the tree, that'll get
them through a drought. Their roots go way beyond that. But we can
We can't go to your neighbor three houses down and knock on the door and
say, hey, some of my tree roots over here. Can I water
your lawn? Actually they would say yes, but you got to use your
own water to do it. But seriously, joking, aside wedding a volume,
that is what is really important in order to have success. We're going
to take a break here Leo and Missouri City. You will be the first
up when we come back. I want to make sure that I have plenty
of time available for you. Uh. The I want to mention to you
before we go to break if you need to give us a call. Seven
to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four is the number. Josh
will get you on the board and we'll come to you after Leo when we
come back. If you're interested in the lawn care schedules, don't forget the
website Gardening with Skip dot com. I've got the lawn care guide that tells
you everything you need so when you go in to get the right products,
the ones we recommend here on guardline, the right products for your lawn,
you just have it right there printed out in your hand. The weed disease
schedule the same kinds of things you know, for example, when do chinch
bugs typically occur? How about side web worms? If we have a year
with those, it's on the schedule. When do you treat for grubs,
It's on the schedule. What about brown patch or large patch as you call
it. Now, what about take all root rod? What about gray leaf
spot? You see what I'm saying, It's all on the schedule. Well,
we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back and we'll
answer your questions. Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h.
Garden Line with Skin Rictor. It's so crazy. Just watch him as
Good morning, Good Sunday morning to you. I am glad you're listening to
garden Line today because I like to talk with you about what's going on.
You can give us a call if you got a question. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Right now, I'm going to head
out to Missouri City and we're gonna talk to Leo. Hello, Leo,
Hey, how you doing this morning? I'm good? Thanks? What's up?
Man? Yeah? I want to answer about the magnoga trees. I
mean, you know, I have a magnoga tree. It's probably about twenty
five to twenty eight years old. So you know, my wife she's saying
is dying. I'm saying, I'm gonna give it a chance and everything.
You know, Yeah, is it all brown or what what are you seeing?
Who is it? Yeah? It got some brown, it's still got
some green, but it got some brown. But I know that you know,
we're going into the fall. So yeah, yeah, so a lot
of leaves are going to probably fall off when you come into spring and new
growth comes. That's just kind of how magnolias do. So that in and
of itself won't be a sign. The magnolias took a heavy hit this year
during the heat and drought. It just all over town. We saw complete
death of the trees. Right, But if you got green on it,
then whatever's green has a chance of taking off and growing again. Now when
if you look at the tree and like all the tops brown and there's a
green branch off one side or something, well that's not gonna be a very
pretty tree. When when it keeps going dead, is dead. But I
would give it a little bit more time and see. But but depending on
the extent and how disfigured that tree is going to be, I would make
the decision on whether to keep it or not. Hopefully it'll be okay,
yeah, yeah, yeah, spring is Spring's gonna be your answer. Let's
let some growth get I probably let it get to about you know, April
or May before I really make a full assessment. Okay, all right,
Dan, that works. I appreciate it, Yes, sir, thanks for
the call. Leo. All right, you take care. I appreciate that
very much. Let's see, we're gonna go out now to Richmond and talk
to Jenny. Hello, Jenny, Oh, good morning. How are you.
I'm well, thanks, Yes, I have a question for you.
So, my good old leaf and my snake plant have both kind of been
struggling indoors, and I'm wondering if I need to fertilize them, and if
so, what should I use. Okay, snake plant is easy and so
it shouldn't be struggling if you forget to water it. If it gets not
quite enough light, it still does. Okay. It may be in an
area that is just absolutely so dark that it needs more light. That's a
possibility. Fiddle leaf being a ficus, they can be kind of persnickety.
They get a little dry, and they get big brown spots in the leaves
or leaves completely fall off, and you just need a more consistent moisture.
You may want to look at the pot versus the plant size, and if
you have a little bitty pot compared to the size of the plant, maybe
it would help to put it in a larger pot just so it has a
little more soil volume. So it can get nutrients from a larger volume of
soil, it can get moisture from a larger volume of soil. But also
with it, it needs a decent amount of light to do well. Okay,
is there is there a soil in particular that you would recommend for snake
plant, Not a particular one, just a good quality indoor potting mix would
do that, and so you you know you yeah, it doesn't. I
wouldn't put them in roase soil, for example. I would find something that's
made for indoor plants. And we got some really good quality ones out there
on the market. Uh, depending on you know, we're okay, you
shop, they're gonna have. They're gonna have one of the ones, one
of the ones I talk about here on Gardland wonderful. Yeah. I've over
watered my snake plan a little bit and I've lost a lot of the you
know, the leaves from it, and there's about three that are still surviving
and it's dried out and they're standing tall. Now I'm thinking it's time to
put that in a bigger pot too, and I need to give it some
new soil. Sounds like it might be. It might be. Can you
turn that radio off in the background for me. Uh. The it what
you will find. Snake plants often get lanky. In fact, I've got
one that's too lanky right now. Uh. And there's a thing called notching,
and so you just got to go online do a little search. But
basically, a notch is cut just above a bud. Wherever a leaf attaches
to the stem, there's a bud right above that. So everywhere a leaf
has fallen off, you can see those spots on your stem right above it.
A notches cut above that bud, and it helps force that bud to
take off and grow. I can't describe it fully on the air. If
you do a look for it, you may try that a couple of places
and maybe that would help put some branches in a little bit lower end that
it'd be worth a try. Wonderful And may I ask you one more question
sure regarding meme oil. So when my fiddle leaf was getting some brown spots,
I tried to, you know, do some self diagnosis on the internet,
and so I started spraying or down with mem oil. Is name oil
beneficial route like on a routine basis? Or should I only use it periodically?
Yeah? Nem oil. It is primarily used for smothering small insects like
spider mites or like young scale crawlers and wipe flie people the plants and things
like that. That's that's its primary use. It has a little bit of
an insecticide in it. If you wanted to use Name as the insecticidal ingredient,
it's not the name oil. It's a compound called ASA directin And when
you go grab a bottle of Name and you look at the label, the
ingredient is either going to be Name oil or it's going to be as a
direct and begins with an A, A Z. And the second one is
more of an insecticide to spray on the planet. It's a growth regulator,
natural growth regulator, but the oil is more of a smothering. So they
killed differently. They both can do that, but different kinds of pests.
One or the other may be better. What was the problem again that you
were having that you used it for? Well, when I saw those brown
spots and I was thinking that there was something attacking it, But now I
think it's not getting adequate light. I guess yeah. Probably the only disease
for I see for nem oil is it helps with powdery mildew. It's pretty
good on powdery mildew, which is a surface fungal growth that also gets into
the leaf. But other than that, Okay, okay, thank you so
much, and I love listening to y'all. Well, thank you, thank
you. Tell your friends. By the way, I'm going to be out
there in Richmond at the Home and Garden Show, the Brasis Home Garden Show
next Saturday after the show, so hope y'all can get out. Oh,
I'll have to see bring me one of your leaves. I'll take a look
at it, all right, Okay, thank you, Jenny. I appreciate
that very much. We're going to take a break. Our number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. When we come back Archie
in Pairland, you'll be first welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're
listening this Sunday morning. We are talking about all kinds of things gardening.
I was talking about earlier about making sure that our plants that went through the
freeze struggle, that had damage and things like that, that we give them
I'm a boost when they come out. And one of the things that works
really well for that would be Medinas Medina plus specifically Medina seaweed is another good
example of that. And as these plants begin to try to grow, providing
a good drenching to them with Medina plus and or you can do both if
you want. Medina seaweed works really well. The material soaks down in the
ground, it's got the nutrients. How's are the compounds in it. They're
very helpful to plants as well and kind of helps them as they're trying to
get that growth started and get them going. I would use those both as
a folio feed too. By the way new growth coming out, you can
provide a spray for that foliage. It's not going to burn them, make
them according to the label, and that works really well. One of the
many are too. Actually, of the many products by Medina they're helpful and
can really help you turn a stress landscape into a healthy one and if you
have a healthy one, to make it even more beautiful, more productive as
well. Medina Plus and the Medina seaweeds specifically in this times where our plants
are going to be coming out and recuperating from what we just went through.
I'm going to go down to Paarland now and talk to Archie. Hello,
Archie morning, Skip morning. I have a bed of archangel angelonia out in
my front. It's about ten foot by ten foot. It's a raised bed.
And last year when we had that really bad freeze, I went out
and got a couple of yorks of composts and just you know, shoveld it
all on the top of all of them. And afterwards, you know,
I removed all the composts from around them and cut them back, and I
saved about eighty percent of them, but I lost about twenty percent of them.
And there's about seven flats of those out there. And this year,
instead of going and getting the compost and covering them, I put blankets and
frost blankets on top, and then I put a tarp on top of that
and waved it down all the way around so the wind did and get up
under well. I went out there yesterday and removed all of that, and
they look deader than the door nill. I mean, they're just brown.
And I don't know if I can cut them back and you know, get
some from the from the surface of you know, from the ground up.
Uh. You know that I was impressed that you did what you did last
year and got through it. Angelonia is not a coal weather plant. It's
just not happy when it's cold, much less freezing to death. I would
take my thumbnails straight back on those little stems a little bit, and you're
gonna tell underneath it's gonna be mushy brown gray, or it's gonna have a
little creamy, creamy to green color underneath. If you see that, then
they can sprout from the base. But they're not gonna do anything until it
warms up. But chances are you lost them. If I had to like
roll the dice and say what I think, I think they're gone. But
do the scratch test, and if you find green near the base, there's
a chance that they can bounce back. That's a wonderful plant. By the
way, our angel angelonia just and when it's hot, it just laughs at
the sun. It's it's a good one. Well should I cut them back
now, you know, to the base? Or should I wait? I
would wait. I've been saying I learned to like ugly. That top growth
that's all dead is somewhat of a covering over those plants. And if you
do have to recover something, maybe we have a lighter freeze at least it'd
be a little bit of a protection for you. The compost. What it
did is it got all around the base and truly warmed up those stems at
the base. Uh. And that's why last year worked a little bit better
than this year did. Yeah, I was thinking that, you know,
the cotton blankets and and the frost blankets on top of those, Maybe I
maybe I maybe I covered them too much. No, I don't think you
did. Uh. You know, I'd have to see the situation to see
what might have gone wrong on it. But you can't cover them too much
when you're protecting against coal. Some good should I put some ocean harvest on
there or some medina plus when the new growth begins, give a good drenching
of those other words, we're doing that right now. It's not going to
help anything. Right. Well, you'll get the nutrient from it and the
soil, but right now they're number one, you don't know if they're alive.
Number two, they're definitely on hold, being a warm seasoned plant in
cooler soil than they want, cooler tempson they want. Yeah, I know,
I know. Randy always said you can't bring back dead, So that's
a good that's a good point. Yeah, all right, well, thank
you so much. Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that we get
here. There we go trying to operate my computer. At the same time,
I'm talking a good thing. I wasn't trying to chebe gom at the
same time. Out there, you know, he's calling them from Pearland.
I was about to tell you run over to Pearland Ace because Ace. ACE
has got all kinds of stuff like that, all the supplies we're talking about,
you know, a lot of the products we're talking about in the conversation
that we had right there. ACE Hardware is all over town, and it
doesn't matter you know what part of Houston you live in, there's one close
enough to go find the things you need. And Ace, we say,
ACE is a place where, you know, ACE is a place for in
other words, of course it's a hardware store. It's a place for plumbing
and lighting and all that. Of course it's a place for your landscape too.
ACE Hardware carries all the fertility that I recommend on guarden line. What
forty Ace Hardware stores around the Greater Houston area is not hard to find one.
Do you need pruning equipment they've got that there. Do you need covers
for your plants, They carry that kind of stuff there. But they also
are the place for coal damage to your home, to your pipes, any
kind of plumbing repair part you need, they've got it. If you've got
a damaged sprinkler head, you know, we run over them. Different things
happen. You can go to ACE. You can get the supplies you need
just to get out there and get that thing fixed. And by the way,
if you don't know if you have damage or not, you will when
you turn it on the first time. That's when the geysers show up.
But ACE is just the place that's kind of the way to look at it.
Go to Acehardware dot com. They have a store locator. You can
find the ones near you, and they're all over town. And I think
when you walk in, if you haven't been in an ACE recently, you're
going to be pleasantly surprised. They really have a wide right. I'll tell
you this. I promise you you go into an ACE Harder, walk around
for a while, and at least ten times you're going to go I didn't
know they had that, Yes they do. Absolutely. ACE is a place
we're talking about all kinds of things for your home, your garden and whatnot.
I want to talk a little bit about the house plants. For just
a little bit. I realized they didn't go through the cold. That's nice,
isn't it. I encourage you to add more house plants to your home.
Now. I'm kind of a place that I'm in right now where I
do not have good lighting except in two rooms. There's two rooms that have
really good lighting, and the rest of the house it's for a variety of
reasons that's just not very bright. And remember, our eyes can adjust to
the light. So if it's low light, our eyes adjust and we can
see again. And if it's highlight, our pupil's closed down and we can
see fine again. Houseplants don't really do that, and so what may look
okay to you is probably much less light than the plant needs. But there's
houseplants where every kind of lighting situation just about and there are things we can
do to improve on lighting. I've got one area where it's in a living
room where I really really want to have some beautiful house plants, and they're
all crowded over by a window right now, trying to get light I'm about
to put in some plant lighting in there. You can buy nice plant lights
that are just an attractive feature in the home, and you can also just
buy standard plant lights like you would start seedlings for a new crop of annuals,
perennials, things like that. But consider where you might use some houseplants,
because there's a lot of new cool ones out there on the markets.
Plants make a home feel more comfortable, more livable. We were made to
be around plants that you know. I always say that it wasn't the cubicle
of Eden, it was the garden of Eden. We're made to be around
plants, That's what that is. Just part of the connection between humans and
nature out there. And when you change a somewhat sterile indoor setting into one
where you have a lot of plants, it really affects just the mood of
the room. Plus they're fun to mess with, you know. I just
got through making a bunch of cuttings that have rooted, and now I need
to pot them up again. I had a vine that was just taking over
the world. I just cut it way back up, chopped it all up,
put some I put them in water because it was fast and easy it's
not the best way to root, but you can do that. And I'm
going to pull them out and put them in a plant, and here we
go. I got a brand new hanging basket just ready to happen on the
way. So I hope you'll take advantage and enjoy that. If Buchanans,
I always like going to Buchanans and the Heights for that reason. They have
a house plant house. You know, it's a big greenhouse area where they
have all kinds of things and they I promise you you walk into there and
you're going to see house plants you've never seen before. You're going to say,
what is that? Because they have that kind of variety. And the
Heights Eleventh Street in the Heights is where they are. If you haven't been,
you ought to go go today. It'd be a good day to get
out and do that this afternoon. Buchanans Plants dot com that is the website.
There's always something going on. Educational programs at Buchanan's Plants. I think
there's a there's one I'll tell you about in just a minute. But it's
a oh my gosh, I can't think of the names. It's basically a
Valentine's Day. I think they call it Gallantines, like for it's for ladies
to come in there. And that's the Buchanan's Plants. But that stuff's going
on all the time. Every kind of plant you need is going to be
there at Buchanan's Plants. Now they call I keep saying Buchanan's Plants, I
need to say Buchanan Native Plants, because that's the name of the place.
That is their specialty, that's their strongest point. But don't be mistaken.
Begin in test house plants. They've got shade plants, they got fruit trees,
they've got all kinds of things. But if you're looking for natives,
you're not going to find a better selection of all kinds of natives, including
They even have a table where they just put natives to the immediate Houston area
right there on the table. Makes it kind of easy and it's always fun
too to go by and visit Buchinnans. We're going to head out now to
southeast Houston and talk to Julia. Hello Julia, Hello, Rick, how
are you doing today? I'm good. I'm not sure this is a question
for you, but I don't know where else to go or if it's a
pest control, how do you deter mudbugs from making their mounds in your yard?
Well, you can import some natural enemies. If you know anybody from
South Louisiana, they probably come in and eat them all up for you.
Right. Sorry, that was uncalled for. When I was a kid,
we used to drop bacon on a string down in there, try to pull
the crowd heads out of the hole, because, yeah, you can meet
those things. Uh there, I don't know of a good labeled way to
do it. There are some products that will control mud bugs. I'm just
not going to spout out things that are not labeled that are not essentially legal
for use. If you will on the air, you probably do a little
search and find some of those kinds of things. But there there's not a
mudbug aside. If you will on the market where you flip the label over
and it says use this at this rate to control crowdads or crayfish in your
yard. They like a high water table, so if it's possible to fix
that through subsurface drainage or something else, that will help. But wherever they
can dig a hole down and have a water table down there, they're going
to do that, and you're gonna have a lot of problems with them.
That's just part of the part of the deal. Okay, I understand that
my sister is the one that has the problem. She lists in Texas City
behind Moses like okays a problem. Yeah, yeah, I hate to hate
to turn it loose that way. I just on the air not going to
give home remedies that I don't have a label on them. There's a number
of reasons for that. But you can find stuff like that if you want
to go that route. Would it be possible a pest control person would take
care of that? I bet they could. I sure, I sure would
talk to them and see see what they can do. You know you,
Yeah, I think so. I was trying to think if I've ever talked
to one of our pcos about about that sort of thing, and I can't
remember doing it. They may have a product that they can use that they're
able to use when it comes. Hey, do you have a number for
McGrath pest Control? I remember you talked listening to him on the air one
day. I don't have the number, but I will take it down all
right here here it is. You can go to the website Metgrathpestcontrol dot com
or here's the number two eight one four sixty nine eighty two forty two eight
one four sixty nine A two four Oh. If you talk to Scott he
can tell you whether or not he can do it. I appreciate your help
so much. Thank you, Thank you today, by bye bye. All
right, time for a break. NICKI is in here for the news.
If you would like to give us a call, our number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Nicki, Uh, every time
you do the news, I keep waiting to hear no. I was dreaming
last night. Actually the Texans won. Well, you'll keep breaking my heart
over and over again. Keep listening. Miracles happen. Just keep listening.
It might change. Let's be an optimist about things. Right there, you
go, All right, we'll be back. Here's NICKI. We're gonna move
to the news and talk to you in just a minute. Welcome back to
Guardline. Glad you're listening this morning. Our phone number seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Someone asked me the other day, when
when is it time to start applying asmite fertilizer. Well, first of all,
yes, Azimite has nutrients, but don't think of it like a fertilizer
like the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, the big three we need a lot
of or fertilizing all the time. This is a supplement to build trace minerals
in the soil, and so the time is anytime. You know, putting
azimite down doesn't like push all this new growth out of the ground like a
nitrogen fertilizer would, but asimite provides the trace elements that are essential for plants.
So you can do that anytime you want to do it. You can
do it right now if you want to, you can wait and when you
fertilize, then just finish fertilizing, turn right around, put azmite in and
do that at that time. You can go to azimite Texas dot com azomite
azom it Texas dot com and you can find out more about azumite there.
But remember, asmite isn't just for lawns. Vegetable gardens are great. Do
you want to make sure your produce has a good, nice, full,
complete stock of all the different things our bodies need as we consume the produce.
Well, Asmite is a great way to provide that as well. It
one takes about ten pounds per thousand square feet in a vegetable garden. It
goes a long way because you're not putting a lot down. You're just putting
a little because it's a trace element, but it's also an essential element.
That's how that works. By the way, if you have not had a
soil test done, now be a good time to do it. You know,
early before the season gets going. It's always a good time to check
on things now. If you've had one done in the last two years,
three years, that probably don't have to do that again, but it's a
good way to monitor where you are now. You wouldn't want to put on
fertilizer and then sell test immediately because what's your basic going to get is what's
in that fertilizer too, and that throws things off. You want to sample
when you haven't fertilized for a while, and now's a good time to do
that. The best soil test is one where you go down in the soil
vertically about six inches deep, and you take a core out of the soil
that represents the top inchs all the way down to six inches deep equally.
Because some nutrients tend to tie up in the surface after your phosphorusus that way.
But when you do the vertical core, you get a good example of
the whole the majority of the primary root zone of like your turf plant,
for example. And you just do that in several places. Try to avoid
the little green spots where the family dogs stop last week, as you can
imagine that or last year. That would throw things off a little bit.
But do it in several places. Mix it together. Nicle in a bucket
that hadn't had fertilizer in it, and put about a pint into a Ziply,
I take a court bag and put about a pint of soil in it
and then send it off to the lab. If you want the website,
I need to put this on my website. But the link is Soil Testing
dot T A MU, dot E d U. And one reason so testing
is important is you'll hear me say, and it's on my schedule. Put
a three one two type fertilizer or some blend of nutrients that's out there for
lawns. Is typically that put that out there at this rate. And I'm
telling everybody in the Greater Houston area and further to do the same thing.
Well, that's a good average. You're not going to go wrong with that.
But let's just take you and your next door neighbor. If your next
door neighbor has been using triple thirteen for the last ten years, they're going
to have a really high phosphorus count. They really are, and they don't
need any And so you could fertilize with almost a real high nitrogen high potassium,
and you wouldn't You wouldn't need much the phosphors. Maybe they have high
magnesium and you have low magnesium. Maybe they have high potassium and you have
low potassium. So one size doesn't fit all, but it's it's a good
way to go, and you're not going to go wrong using the things I
recommend because they are that Basically, the fertilizers I recommend are based on what
the turf scientists tell me are in grass. So we're feeding the grass with
the ratio of nutrients that are in grass. Does that make sense? And
a lot of plants are that way. I use a three one two for
a lot of different things, a four to one two for a lot of
different things. But I use a varied variety of fertilizers, and there are
situations where you want a different blend, and so you can do that.
That's just fine. But remember a soil test is the way you know where
you're starting so that it can guide what you choose to add. Does that
make sense? I hope it does. We love FEAT stores and just in
fact, just what was it a couple of days ago. Yeah, a
couple of days ago. I was passing through and stopped at D and D
feed out in Tomball there out west of Tombaal. D and D is one
of those feed stores you used like to walk into and see what they have
because they have everything. You know, if I'm talking about a fertilizer,
They've got them all there. If I'm talking about things like leafmol compost,
heirlooms, rose, soil and fruit, berry and citrus or veggie and herb,
they've got all of that there. And occasionally they're bringing through different kinds
of plants. In fact, there's usually plants there too. They got fruit
and citrus coming in the middle of February. They were telling me about that.
If you're interested in backyard chickens, chicks Week, I like saying that
chicks Week is February sixth, they're gonna get a bunch of chickens in and
if you would like to try some backyard chickens, and you need supplies for
the chicken, including the feeds and the chickens themselves. They have a great
supply there coming in. They also have red, white, and yellow potatoes.
By the way, that's three different kinds of potas it is not one.
It'd be cool if you had a potato that was red, white,
and yellow. But the red, you know, thele soda, for example,
is a real common red. It's proven. I grow it all the
time myself. YU kind gold is the one that's it's golden color, yellow
colored, almost looks buttery even before you put butter on it. All of
that is that D and D feed and more. Just check them out again
just west of Tomball out there on the south side of twenty nine to twenty
at D and DE feed chicks week for crying out loud, All right,
So what are we going to talk about on guard line now? I want
to mention a little bit about fruit trees. Late winter, midwinter, late
winter is a great time to plant fruit trees. You can plant container grown
fruit anytime, but a lot of our garden centers are going to be getting
in their stock of fruit trees here. Some of them are already stocked up
pretty good on it, and now's a good time to do that. And
when you get them in the ground, you want to make sure number one,
they have good drainage. Fruit does not like swamps. I don't care
if it's apples, pears, peaches, plums, even figs. They don't
want to just sit and drag with the roots are drowned in constant moisture.
In fact, I'll you know, I saw that. I knew that,
but I saw it visually. I want to tell a little story about figs.
I want to come back from break right now. Need to take a
break. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight
seven four. I'll be right back with a fig story and your calls.
Welcome back to garden Line. Weird to take your calls, answer gardening questions.
That's what I've been doing today, plus throwing in some just general tips
things you need to be aware of, things you need to be doing right
now, preparing for right now. It's always a good time to prepare the
soil. It it's always a good time to prepare the soil. There's not
a season for doing that, like there are seasons for a lot of things,
getting good quality mixes, making sure your soil. Here's what soil needs.
Number One, you need good drainage. And in our Houston Black clays,
we typically don't have good drainage. So we add well, we do
two things. Number One, we build up a raised bed. The water
runs off that to a lower area in the bed. The roots of the
plants that are in the bed are up a little bit higher, and they're
not in anaerobic conditions, meaning they're drownding underwater. They can't breathe. And
do you know roots have to breathe. If I can anthropomorphize a little bit
on roots, basically they have to have oxygen in order to do the respiration
processes that go on in the root, and so you put them underwater,
they can't breathe. A few plants have adapted a mechanism for doing for surviving
that way, but in general, almost all without almost without exceptions, your
plant roots have got to be able to have oxygen. So raise beds help.
The typical soil in the area predominantly is kind of like a Houston black
clay soil, and that is a very thick, heavy, sticky color that
shrinks and swells and does not drain well. It doesn't let water in very
fast. I heard one time soslicidentists told me that a Houston black clay without
any organic matter, without any roots, just the clay, it can take
absorb water at one eighth of an inch an hour. Now, Nikki was
just saying, well, Ago, it's about to start raining and we're going
to have days where we get four inches of rain. Well, it can't
take it in that even close to that fast. So what do we do.
We add organic matter we had compost, and that massive clay starts to
break apart into clumps, if you will. I like to use the analogy
of a bowl of popcorn as an example, because that's the visual. People
can imagine that you've got these clumps of popcorn and there's space in between the
clumps because of the way it's clumped together. When you take clay with organic
matter and you create a structure we call it structure to the soil, it
helps it absorb water, it helps it to drain internally better, and then
the organic matter itself is a place where microbial activity is very high and you
get a lot of the things going on that roots need to thrive. That
that's the fast, easy way to put it. So we need to improve
our soil. That is very important, and it's always a good time to
do that in my vegetable garden. When I finish a crop and I'm gonna
put in another crop, I'll mix in some organic matter or mix in some
nutrient, whatever is required at that time, and just keep getting it better
and better and better. Listen, when we don't take care of soil,
when we strip off all the plant growth and it's hard, and the sun's
making down on it and we're walking on it and compacting it, it becomes
a place where plants just struggle at best. But if you turn it back
over to nature, like a think about this, a tropical rainforest out in
the middle of nowhere. The tree leaves are falling, little parrot poop here
and there, and it just hits the ground and it rots and it rots
and it rots year after year, decade after decade, and that soil just
gets richer and richer and richer because nature builds soil naturally, and the meadows
nature bills soil naturally. Do you know that grass? Think about the Great
Plains. When the settlers were coming across the Naconastoga wagon, they said,
grass as deep as a horse's belly. Well, those grass plants, their
roots live about a year and then they die, and not all at once,
but there's a process of living and dying that's going on in the roots.
So a root pushes into the soil. A root is organic matter.
It dies, it rots, it leaves a chamber open. Earthworms follow those
chambers because they like to eat the decaying organic matter. Water then has a
way to infiltrate, and the soil gets richer and richer over time. So
why am I going into all that description. Well, if you learn to
think like what nature does, then we know what to do in our gardens
our landscapes to have more success. And it's as simple as that. It's
always a good time to build your soils. In fact, I did not
plan this. We're gonna We're gonna go to the phones and talk Lewis Luise,
I was just talking of about soil. What's happening? So I I
just listen to your conversation. Well, you're you're talking about about soil,
clay, organic matter. Yes, and when I when I present the topic
at garden centers or you know, some gardening groups that want me to talk
about soils. The best way I can describe this is clay are sticky particles.
They bond so as a parent. Imagine you have teenagers and you have
a girl or a boy, and the girl or the boy has somebody that
they like. As a father of daughters, I already know I'm gonna like
this one. Yeah, and so they're gonna like they're they're trying to have
a kiss, right like the first case or a make up session. Yeah,
we can't let that happen, Louise, Okay, So compost in this
In this instance, compost and expanded shell does the disruptor, which is the
parent that stands in between the two kids. Okay, there you go.
It doesn't let those clay particles bond. Okay. Therefore it starts creating more
porous space, and it starts creating a softer, looser environment. There you
go. Keep in mind the organic matter and expanded shell is that this rupture
between those two sticky clay parties. And I'm glad you brought up the expanded
jail because organic matter is wonderful. I mean, it's the miracle cure for
also a problem. And we've talked about clay, but sand can't hold water
and nutrient. It runs right through and organic matter helps it hold water and
nutrients. So it works for all soil. But you mentioned right now,
you mentioned that expanded shale though, uh, you know, organic matter does
decay away, but expanded shail is like a little fired rock with with porous
air space into the rock, and it will help keep that clay apart for
an even longer time. Absolutely, And over the years I've gone phone calls
from you know, customers asking me, so I put it. I spread
this expanded shell on the compost, but the soil is not softening that the
clay compacted areas are not getting used. And I'm like, well, you
have to work it in, because if you don't work it in, you're
not creating that disruption in the structure within that environment. Right, That's good.
I like that. Anyways, thanks, Without analogy, I I and
the listeners will not forget that. Yeah, and nobody forgets that because you
always think about it. It's making out in the parenting the disruptor. Right,
that's that's I do think about that. Yes, I did a half
for years. Hey, thanks a lot, man, I appreciate I appreciate
that very much. Happy Sunday to you. Take care parent and teen analogies.
I've got a number of them as including one for per trees. Professor
of mine in college he used to say, when you have a tree and
it has two trunks side by side, both growing together, take one or
the other out. It's it's like a young man having two girlfriends and thinking
that's going to get better. No, that doesn't turn out. Well.
You gotta make a choice, buddy, take one or the other. Don't
leave a narrow forked double trunk tree. It just gets worse over time.
So for all of you with parents that are yelling amen out there, or
all of you with kids rather there you go. Oh my gosh, we're
having fun on garden Line today. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four garden Line where you get plant growing advice and apparently parenting advice to as
a result. Oh my gosh, I love this, love it absolutely.
Hey, don't forget that next Saturday, I'm going to be out End where
tell Me bras is Home and Garden Show and for bencount in Rosenberg at the
Fort Bend Epicenter. After the show, I'm gonna jump in a car head
that way. I don't know, leven them thirty. I'll get out there,
be there for a couple hours. I'm gonna talk about all kinds of
spring tips, give a little presentation, and then I'm going to hang around
for your questions. Do you have pictures? Do you have samples the things
you want to bring in, Let's take a look at them. Come on
out. Love to meet the listeners. And this is an opportunity, first
chance of the season when I'm getting outside and doing some things like that.
So I hope you join us out there. Hey, we'll be right back.
Kat RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt RH Garden Line with Skip Rict.
It's so crazy Trim, just watch him as the world. Welcome back to
garden Line. We're glad you're listening on this Sunday morning. Well let's see,
we got the coal behind us. Now here comes the rain boy that
sounds like some gully washing going on in these coming days this week, so
you're gonna have a lot of time to be inside while you're enjoying the indoors,
enjoying your housepend don't forget that our garden centers have got unbelievably good selection
of all kinds of things like indoor you need fertilizer, indoor plants. If
you need indoor plants, it's good to get out and do that. Bring
it home. If you've got house plants that need some care. I've got
a couple of them that need to be pruned up. I've got a vining
plants, a type of fellodendron that's vining, and oh my gosh, those
vines are like ten feet long. It seems like there are at least eight
and I need to cut that thing up. I'm gonna cut it up and
make a bunch more one of them, just wrap those vines around on it.
I don't know. If you've grown a pothos ivy before, something where
it just gets long and lanky, you can just lift those up, put
them across the top of the pot. If it's a hanging basket for example,
which mine are, and let them, drape down as they get long
again lift them up and put them through the pot and you can just end
up with a really nice set of foliage that looks great. One of my
daughters actually actually attaches her pothos type ivy materials to the wall. She has
these little things you stick on the wall and you kind of clip the ivy
vine in there, the pothos vine in there, and so these things are
sprawling all over the walls and cross the ceiling and everything's kind of crazy.
But that's one fun thing about plants. We can kind of do what we
want, invent the kinds of stuff we enjoy messing with. If you're gonna
do some soil work and you can get out today and get that done,
get some fertilizer put down and mix down if it's needed. The we were
talking about compost and bed prep and everything. This just kind of helps settle
the soil in getting ready for planting time. One thing that a ninety two
year old gardener used to always say, mister Alden Colston up in Conroe,
Texas, he was at the community garden there. He would always say,
you can always add water, but you can't take it away. What he
meant was, you know, when it's soggy wet, you just kind of
stuck. But if it's dry, you can add water, of course,
you can water your plants. And the reason is he would get his beds
built in the fall for his spring garden in the community garden, and he
would get them all built, everything right whenever he had some reasonably dry weather
to work with. When spring came, he was ready to plant. And
it could be it could be too wet to rod, hotail or spade or
whatever the soil that his beds were ready so he could go right in and
get the planting done. That's a good advice that would hold for any time
of the year when you get a chance to get the all right, get
this all right, so you're ready to go. You're ready to plant.
Just a little tip of advice for folks that are new to gardening, and
it would like to have a few ways to have more success. You know,
our goal on garden Line is to help you have success. Uh.
And and when you call in or when you just listen to other people's calls,
you get little tips here and there, little things to avoid, little
things to do. Uh. And you start to accumulate those over time,
and you just become a better and better gardener. The way I like to
put it as your thumb becomes greener. People say they have a brown thumb.
You don't have a brown thumb. You have an uninformed thumb. And
information will turn that thumb green, if you want to think of it that
way. And that's what we're here all about. If you'd like to give
us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We're about to well, we are in our last hour
of the weekend here on garden Line. We're here every Saturday and every Sunday
from six am to ten am both days for you to call in ask your
gardening questions. So we're about to be hold up here for the week with
rain, and I'll be back again next Saturday. If you got friends,
tell them about garden Line. You can listen live, of course, on
the air pretty much from Louisiana to New Bronfels and North and South as well,
or you can listen online. You can listen to a podcast if you've
got a podcasting app, just you know, tune it to garden Line and
it'll you can listen to past shows. Maybe you forgot to write down the
name of a website or a product or something else that I gave out here
some event going on. You can do it that way. You can also
listen live online on the internet. So that's just another way. We have
folks listening from all over and I always wondering, how do you listen to
garden Line and Alabama or Porto Rico for crying out, And that's how they
do it. That's how you can do it too. We're glad you're listening
today. So I'm going to be talking a lot about a lot of different
things right now. I just want to make a few more comments about trees.
Trees are the most valuable part of our landscape when it comes to what
does it add to the value of your house? How does it help with
shade, How does it make your outdoor living more comfortable in the summertime,
how does it protect or how does it help with your your heating cooling bills?
For example? Trees can help with that. And Martin spoon Moore an
affordable tree. He's an expert in getting this done. Martin's been doing this
a long time, a very long time. He knows what he's doing.
There's a reason that Martin stays busy, and that's because when you do a
job right, people hire you. The word gets around, it builds up.
You know, in a business you never have It's never a good long
term strategy to cut corners. It's just not. And with Affordable Tree,
Martin knows how to take care of your trees. He can advise you,
can come out and advise you. He can come out and do pruning.
He can eat a planet a tree if you need him to, or tell
you what kinds of plant. If you're about to do a trench or if
you're about to put some kind of a concrete slab over the soil around the
tree's roots, call him first. Let him come out and do that.
In the summertime, he's doing deep root watering to help during those extended drafts
that we're dealing with. Af aff Tree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service
dot Com seven one three six nine nine six sixty three. That's the phone
number to give him a call. Hey, don't delay, He says,
very busy right now. I don't know how he's getting it all done.
I mean, lots of pruning going on lots of things like that. Call
him, tell him your guardline listener that gets you to the front of the
line for a thing. You know, wherever there's space that hadn't already been
booked, and let him know that. And that's important to let him know
too. Just do that and get him out there to take a look at
your trees. Trees are valuable and don't cut corners when it comes to trees.
When you make a mistake when you hire the guy that owns a business
card, has a business card, a pickup in a chainsaw I call it
the two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. To come out and just go
after your trees, you're gonna end up with hat racks and a mess that
forever marred and ruined the structure and strength and stability and everything of that tree.
Don't do that. Don't let anybody touch your trees that doesn't know what
they're doing. Let's go out to the galleria. We're gonna talk to Chip.
Hey, Chip, I've taken this call with about twenty seconds, so
let me get the question in and then we'll take a break and I'll be
right back. Hey, I appreciate it. Love the show. Hey,
we so we're building a backyard garden, and in essence, we're going to
be raised beds. And where best would you suggest to get the seeds and
or young plants that would be planted in there that's going to be grown correctly.
And then the tropicals when do we plant them? And where do you
get them? All right, that's all good. Let me let me come
back so I can devote some time to that. Thank you. Just hang
on a little bit here and I will come right back with your answers.
Well, it's time for a break. Seven one three, eight seventy four.
Well, we're about to good, call Josh. We are about to
see the rain. Hey, you're listening to garden Line. Our number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We're gonna head back
out to the galleria and talk to Chill. Hey, Chip, what what
are you wanting to grow in those beds? We don't have vegetables or flowers
or what or what you know, it's gonna be a vegetable and kind of
a family of four. So there's enough land that gives it some good sunlight
and they're just gonna basically steak off and and we're gonna build a set of
raised beds, and I've been kind of researching it to see, you know,
potatoes, cucumbers, edibles, basically little row of lemons and say limes
on the outer. And then you do have a real big back fence,
and we're trying to figure out how to populate that back fence in some sort
of artistic way. Okay, you know, because it's over there, you
know what I mean. So we yeah, hey, well, good idea.
Well, you've got several places they're kind of close to you. Down
on Bissonette and Runwick. You've got a Southwest Fertilizer which is down in the
Belly area that's real close to you. Up in the Heights, you've got
Buchanans Nursery, and they're going to both of those places. Is going to
have the fertilizers and the soil bags and things like that. I don't know
if you're going to bulk bring in soil or if you're going to get it
by the bag, but if it's bags, they're going to have it.
Up in the up in North Central, just a little to the east of
Buchanans, you've got quality feed and they have a great supply of seed.
They have actually an antique seed rack from the nineteen twenties. It's stocked with
heirloom seeds. So those are all options for you on all those kind of
basic supplies. And where sir, would you get the actual plants themselves?
And when would you put them in the ground. Let's say, I mean
it's a little cold this last weekend, but you know, I think we're
almost over it, right, you know, get the soil right, and
where would you source the actual you know, fifty five gallon the big boys
that might come in in the back, say row of setting in your garden,
well rather than watching it grow right right? Well, you know the
place I mentioned are both going to have the soils and the seeds for example,
and all of them will carry some plants, especially what we call betting
plants, the little annuals you put in. But Buananan's is going to have
the biggest selection of those. And if you're looking for citrus for example,
and stuff, Buchanans is the closest to you to be able to get those
kinds of things. And if you're willing to drive a distance, there's lots
of great places all over, but I think as far as somewhat nearby those
Have you been to Buchanans before. I have not been to Buchanans. I've
been to Southwest and others. Yeah, yeah, good, good. Well
you know how great Southwest is for supplies all kinds of things. You need
to go to Buchanans. Check them out. Maybe this afternoon you get chess.
Get out there where all this rain gets going. Uh, and just
see what I'm talking about. I mean a wide, wide variety. And
they always have a good selection of for trees too that they bring in for
planting. Oh good, very good. That's what I needed to hear.
I appreciate the show. All right, hey man, thank you sure,
thanks for the jail take care. Yeah, you know, we're fortunate here
in Houston. I've said this before, but we're fortunate here in Houston to
have just an unbelievable group of garden centers and soul suppliers. Really. Uh,
if you're looking for plants that people in a lot of big cities cannot
get, especially outside the big city, uh, you got it here.
You're fortunate. If you're looking for quality source, listen, I have been
I've lived in a lot of different areas and I've seen a lot of different
kinds of soil yards and to have places that produce quality mix that is not
to be taken for granted, because as I keep saying, that's the most
important thing in success with plants is to have a good mix. We got
it all here, So you're fortunate, North, South, East, and
West. I just I love to get out and just go visit them just
to see what's new. Because if there is some new exciting thing on the
market, they're going to have it. And every time I go to one
of our real great mom and pop local garden centers, I walk through and
they'd be like, what's that. I haven't seen that herb before, And
you know, go look at it and read about it and learn something about
it. That's the cool stuff. Real fortunate to have that. Hey,
our phone number if you'd like to give us a call. This is the
last forty minutes of garden Line for this weekend. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
He mentioned Southwest Fertilizer and Southwest Fertilizer has got let me put it this
way, I like to say this it they don't have it, you don't
need it. And I mean that. I mean, is it a fertilizer
that I recommend on garden line, They've got it. And more. Is
it a soil type, you know, a quality bag of a quality soil
mix or potting mult or something, They've got it. Do you need something
to control insects or diseases or weeds, They've got it. They have a
wider variety than anybody I know. They've got synthetic, they've got organic.
So whichever way you want to go, they got you covered there. They've
got plenty of tools if you need to get you know, your small engine
equipment, something sharpened or tuned up or whatever kinds of things. They're set
up for all of that. And Southwest is a one stop shop. And
you're not going to go in there and then tell you, well, we
don't have one of those. If you've got a problem, take a picture,
take a simple They're experts at that, they know what they're talking about.
And you know I bragged on our garden centers. I'll say the same
thing here. Knowledgeable staff, knowledgeable staff, friendly staff, helpful people.
That kind of service may be that you thought was long gone it's not.
It's not here in the Houston area, and it's certainly not when it comes
to Southwest Fertilizer. There are phone number seven one three six six six one
seven four four, or just go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. I always
like to go in there. We've talked about a lot of different things related
to gardening today. I haven't really mentioned much about herbs, but I think
that if you're a vegetable gardener, if you're a flower gardener flower beds,
you need to think about herbs too. And here's why herbs. Yes,
we grow them primarily. The reason people grow herbs is for culinary and absolutely
fresh herbs. Yeah, we were over the holidays, you know, we
were cooking at the house. The kids are in and stuff, and to
be able to walk out and grab a sprig or rosemary or something and just
bring it in and go right to cooking with it. That's cool, that's
fun. But herbs are also ornamental. The rosemary I just mentioned it makes
a beautiful little evergreen bush. If you give a good drainage, it does
well here. What about a groundcover? Have you thought about time or you
thought about oregano? For example, those are just two examples of herbs that
make good groundcovers. We got herbs that bloom like chives. A row of
chives down a walkway looks sort of like kind of ape, a skinny leaf
lariope. I guess if you want to use your imagination, but then it
sends up these blooms that pollinators just love. I've got onion chives and garlic
chives, and we just love those things. Lots of good herbs to grow.
Some are very ornamental pineapple sage. It's a type of salvia blooms primarily
in later summer in the fall, big long or skinny, tubular red blooms
that hummingbirds just love. It has a pineapple like fragrance to it, but
it's also a beautiful ornamental. So think about herbs this year. You could
do it just in a pot, or you could use them in your landscape.
I like at the end of my vegetable rows to plant some herbs,
especially the ones that bloom, to help support pollinators, because that's one of
the things that herbs will do. And hey, we need more pollinators attracted
to our gardens and supported by our gardens. Well there you go. Let's
head out to Baytown and we're going to talk to BJ. Hey, BJ
Hi. I was wondering, I understand that gravel is not very well for
when you read pot of plants to put in the bottom of your pint of
for drainage, would lava rock work? No, you don't want to use
either of those. Fast answer, you don't need it. You don't need
it. If your if your pot has adequate holes for drainage, you don't
need them. What I will do at the bottom is I'll put Sometimes I
use that little uh screen fabric, you know, not the metal window screens.
But then I don't know if I don't know what they're made out of.
I'll cut a setting in. Yeah, I'll cut a little circle the
size of the bottom of the pot and drop it in there, and the
soil doesn't wash out. Another thing I do is I'll put coffee filters,
a couple of coffee filters in the bottom that holds the soil and after it
kind of sets up, the coffee filter is going to ride away, but
it holds the soil in and it sets up and it doesn't wash out as
well. Here's what you do. If you put the if you put gravel
or other things like lava rock. In What you're doing is you're reducing the
amount of growing mix that that pot can hold. And we need every bit
we can to get through soil to get through heat, you know. And
it doesn't improve drainage. I guess sometime I'll drone on have time probably today
to do much of it on but just trust me, gravel does not improve
drainage. And either do styrofoam, peanuts or broken pot shards or lava rock.
Okay, thank you so much, dear. I appreciate it. Hey,
good luck. Thanks for the call. Appreciate it. I'm glad you
called because I I really do appreciate those kind of questions. That is one,
there are a lot of myths in gardening. In fact, one day,
one weekend, I should just do gardening myths one at a time and
go through them, because these do not die. They just keep going on
and on and on. So I would tell you that don't put stuff in
the pots for drainage. It doesn't work. And here's why water moves from
large particle size towards smaller particle size. Capillar reaction draws it. If you
want an example, put a little puddle of water on your counter and take
a paper towel and put the corner down in the puddle. And where does
the water go up? Away from gravity? Right, it goes uphill because
of the particle side called the fibers in the paper towel, it pulls it
up. So when you have a good potting soil and then you got better
gravel underneath it. The only way water gets in the gravel is when there's
so much of a water column in that potting soil that it literally drips out
of the soil into the bottom. So the bottom layer of your soil in
that pot we grovel in, the bottom is soppy, saturated, wet,
and water by gravity falls out of it. If you just fill the whole
pot with water, the bottom layer is always going to be soppy, wet,
and it's going to drip out the holes of the pot. But you
have more soil, and here in Texas we need bigger containers. We need
more soil for our roots to supply water through the course of a very hot
day, to supply nutrients, more nutrient room for more room for roots to
reach all kinds of nutrients in the soil. It you know, I can
just drone about the physics of it, but just trust me on this one.
It does not improve drainage. It does reduce the available amount of soil.
And all you do is you move the wet spot, the soggy spot
at the bottom of your potting soil in the pot. You just move it
up and instead of having root zone, now you have a bunch of air
and gravel in the bottom and you've lost the use of that area. So
that's my fast answer. One very fast. But anyway, that's my answer.
That's why I would recommend that you not do that. Please please don't
do that. But yeah, the tip about a window screen just to keep
the soil in that works really really well. I've used. I've also used,
like some gardeners by the Organza bags to slip over fruit to protect them
against pest. Organzo works really well. It's a synthetic fiber. Put it
in the bottom of the pot over the whole works just fine. Did one
the other day, just like that. I've also used the coffee filters.
They do decompose away. But that's just another thing that you can do as
an option. Free tips from garden Line. You heard it. I don't
know if you heard it first here, but you heard it here. Just
something to think about. Hey, I want to remind you again that the
Organic Science Day event by OBA the Organic Horticulture of Benefits Alliance is going to
be this Friday, January twenty sixth from eight am to three thirty pm at
the United Way. So what is this event. This is an event that
brings in some of the best speakers that you can get on all aspects of
gardening and organic horticulture. They're going to have a number of speakers. I
think the keynote guy is Jeff Loenfellows. He's the author of a number of
books like Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Bacteria, Teaming with Fungi, Teaming
with the Nutrients. And you hear me droning on about soil. He'll take
it down to the level of the microbes and talk all about what's going on
in the soil and how these are helping. This is again eight am to
three point thirty. If you want to go, you got a register.
There's a cost to this because you're getting incredible speakers, You're getting a whole
day full of it. You even get you even get the lunch. They
always have a good healthy lunch there as well. Go to o HbA online
dot org slash register OHBA online dot org slash register to sign up. I'll
see you there this Friday, if you show up Friday the twenty six from
eight am to three thirty pm. Well, now it's time for Nicky in
the news. We're gonna see if there's been any movement on that Texans school
texts school. I can't get over that man, and I can't get over
at Niki. We'll see. Welcome back to Guardline. We are glad you're
listening today, and we're talking about all kinds of things horticulture. In fact,
we talk about what you're interested in when you make a phone call.
That's what we talk about. Five excuse me seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
If you'd like to be on the air and visit with me about plants.
We're going to go straight to Conroe and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol,
Hello, I have a question about all these down trees. Can they
be shredded or sanded down somehow to be put into the soil and all that
just spread it everywhere. Is that going to help airate and do something with
them? They're just going to be burned if we can't figure out something else
to do with it. Is that a good thing? Well, you can.
You can grind them up. There are machines that can do that.
If it's just branches. You know the folks that bring the little trailer around
with the truck and they grind them and blow them into the back of the
truck. That's one level. Another level would be having them go to a
soil yard one of our accomplished producers that puts them in. These giant machines
that can even take tree trunks and grind them up. Uh, And then
the stumps themselves. Stump grinders can do that. Chips are helpful. I
wouldn't put the material directly into the soil. I would put them on the
surface as a mulch. That's it's primary best use. It's not practical to
get it all down in the soil, and big chunks of wood that haven't
been decomposed really aren't the best thing to add directly to the soil in mass
amounts. All right, So do you just call one of these places and
see I got trees down and they come and get them or do I haul
them there? And they yeah, you would have to haul down and then
I bring them back to my house. Right. Well, you're in Conros,
so you got Nature's Way, which is right where fourteen eighty eight comes
into forty five across the railroad tracks. You could call them and ask them.
They don't go get trees. To my knowledge, I'm almost sure they
don't, but like landscapers will bring greenways down and things like that for them
to grind up and use. So that would be one option. Are we
talking about a whole bunch of trees, Well, there's just yeah, there's
several several and rather than just burn them, I thought, well, why
wouldn't that be organic material? It could be yeah, of recycled in some
way here on the property. Yeah, that rent a machine that would break
it down to you know, chop it up so that it would fit in
there. But we were just trying to do something other than burn it.
Yeah, not really. With the trunks, that's going to be a lot
of labor cutting it up and getting it in the place to haul over and
stuff. There are companies, there are land clearing companies that will come in
and aside from the logs, they will take all the branches and everything and
they just run over it. It's almost like, oh gosh, I was
going to say lawnmar but the blade doesn't go sideways. It just is like
a rototiller. Think of a rototiller, but with big giant blades that chop
up trees and they just mow over the drop limbs and things. They shred
it all and leave it on the surface as a mulch. And that's actually
very good for a forested area, you know, to do that. Okay,
okay, all right, I'm look into those. Thank you, all
right, Thank you, Carol. Appreciate the call very much. We're going
to head out now to Jeff. Hello, Jeff, Hello, Skip,
how are you. I'm doing good? What's up? Good? Listen?
Earlier you were talking about with the gentleman that was looking for seeds and things
like that. Yes, you mentioned a feed store seed store in near Buchanans.
Yes, that's Quality Feed Quality Feed Quality Feed. Couldn't find it on
Google maps. Okay, well they're there. They're so like if you take
forty five and sixty nine and I ten and six ten and make a box
out of them. Quality Feeds in the lower center of that area, just
above it ten almost due east of Buchanans as the crow flies. But they're
on Luzon Street l u z n uh and it's that old town, old
time feed store. But they have a lot of things. They bring plants
in, they've got soils, they specialize. It sounds like a good adventure.
Yeah, it kind of is. And they got all the products we're
talking about, kind of like the old wall bash. Well, yeah,
I mean that was a good I remember, that's cool. I've been going
to Quality Feet since they were in another location. This is a newer location.
They've been there a while, but uh, it's it's it's a good
stop. And when you're in there, they show me your nineteen twenty three
seed track. They got this old seed track from feed store. They put
their heirloom seeds in cool. All right, Well, thank you, and
that's that's all I really needed. But sorry to hear about Randy. Yes,
I think I think you've done a good job of filling the shoes.
Well, Randy, Randy was a legend and he held this place down and
built it for what twenty six twenty seven years. Yeah, and that was
I don't know if you know, Randy and I go back to college days.
We were in the same dorm together and really none a long time as
well. Okay, we're in Moses Haul up in the north west corner of
campus where things were a little bit rowdy up there. We won't talk in
case I got any kids. Listen, we're not going to talk about that
anymore though, Randy, you know, hey, that that was the side
of campus. It was really close to the Chicken and all that. Yes,
it was. That's part of was Yes. Hey, you know those
are the days before over Dixie Chicken, right man, you can just stumble
your weight. Well, see there, we were not going to go there.
Jeff, thanks a lot for the call boy. That's funny, plausible.
Deniabilic, thanks Josh, that's oh gosh. I just tell them I
was pure as the wind driven snow. I don't know what kind of college
stories you want to hear, but I ain't got any. I also joke
I also, yeah, that's right, I was studying all the time.
I also joked at Randy and I gave each other our twenty dollars bill to
never tell our kids someday about what was going on? All right, enough
of that, listen. I haven't talked a lot about lawns. But even
though it's a little early for lawns to wake up and get going, it's
not too early to use turf star weedinator. And the reason is turf star
weedenator is a post emergent broad leaf weed killer and a furtilisure so that chickweed
and hind bit and carpet weed and cleavers are also called velcrow plant. There's
a lot of those kind of weeds that are in your lawns. If the
lawn is thin and sunlight hit the soil, they're already growing. It's too
late for a pre emergent. But when you moisten the lawn with just a
little water to wet the surface of the grass and the weeds, and then
you put down the turf star weedinator, it sticks. Those granules stick to
the wet weed surfaces, and that's how it moves in and it takes them
out. Those weeds in about what is it, about four to eight weeks
from now are going to be already well on their way to blooming and to
setting seeds. And it's too late then to do much about them, and
you've just sentenced yourself to ten times the weeds, if not more, for
next year. So by doing the turf Star, we need her now.
It's a slow release fertilizer, so it takes about six weeks after application for
the ammonium and the urea, the urea end that product to release UH.
And then then there's some slowly available nitrogen water we would call water and soluble
nitrogen. Then release is slower over time, and that comes later on when
the turf is waking up and needs to do. It's turf Star we donators
simple as I find it all over the place from Nelson Products. Well,
it's time for a break. Here we go again. We've got one more
segment left today, if you'd like to call seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Guarden Line, our last segment of
the day. We are going to head out to Spring Branch now and talk
to Larry. Hello, Larry, Hey, good morning. Skip. Got
a question about the weed Nater. I bought a bag. I want to
know if it's a good time to put it down. I'm concerned about all
the rain coming this week. I would not do it right before all this
rain. The end of the week or whenever this stops. It's still okay,
time to put out the weed. Nat the weeds are not going to
be knee deep out there and it blooming and everything. Just get it a
little ahead of time. But yeah, it would be better just to wait
right before. I don't know what total of about four inches in some areas,
it seems to be about an average. That's just too much water.
So hang on, you good, you bought it, so you're ready to
go when you can, But just hold on. Yeah, I'll start it,
okay, Thank you so much, sir. You bet you too,
Thank you very much. I appreciate that call. Yeah, you know the
I know it. Here we go. I know that a lot of people
like to put out like their fertilizer before rain, because when you apply fertilizer,
you want to water it in. That's good, that's natural. But
you can't control how much it rains. And so if you're going to get
a half inch of rain or so, that would be a good time to
do it. It would wet it enough to move it down into the soil
a little bit, even an inch if it came slow enough to not just
gully wash an inch in an hour, but it's better to just turn it,
turn on your sprinklers and water it in and unless you just know that
you're not going to get too much rain, because four inches for an immediately
available fertilizer. Fertilizers come in different types of organic and synthetic, of course,
but among the synthetics there's some that it's just like putting salt and sugar
and water. It dissolves and it goes into solution, and there's a there's
a purpose and a reason though that it's very fast acting in everything. But
those kind can dissolve and you get you lose a lot to your nutrients when
we get four inches of rain. The slow release tend to not do that
because they release over time. There's different chemistries that cause them to release slowly,
but they release over time. But even then, when you just have
water sheeting off the lawn, it can pick up granules and move them a
little bit, and so I would just wait, don't do that wrap for
a rain afterwards, you know it doesn't take much water just to water mint
a little bet or maybe you know you're gonna get a little bit of rain
just a little, that's fine. But I wouldn't run out right before.
And that's true for you know your vegetable gardens and other things. It's gonna
be a lot, So just just hang on, Just hang on, it's
fine. Go ahead and get them now, while the supplies are there,
while you know you're there, you're shopping doing some other things. Get the
products you need. That's just fine. In fact, I've got several different
things in the garage right now that I'm waiting to put out there. I've
got them, I'm ready to go. First time I get a whim,
I don't have to run to the store and go buy them. I already
got them, and I can head out if I got an hour, hour
and a half time, I can run out there and get it done,
be done with it, don't have to worry about it. So it's always
good to be prepared. It's also always good to use your head a little
bit. I try to do that myself when I'm going to be doing any
kind of gardening activities. Just kind of think through this. One of the
challenges I like to give people every year is to try try something new in
gardening. Try a plant you haven't grown before. Try a type of gardening
you haven't done before. Try, especially with vegetables, Try something you haven't
eaten before. I don't know why it is, but the typical Texas vegetable
garden is going to have the meat and potatoes. Stuff like potatoes, like
tomatoes, you know, onions maybe in it. It's going to have a
lot of the basics, even broccoli. But there are so many vegetables,
especially from other cultures, other ethnic cuisines, that are wonderful. And if
you get to exploreing, you're going to find things you like. I remember
the first time I discovered Backchoi, it was like, man, this stuff
is great. There's another one here. This is going to be a little
hard to find, called chi Jemsi. I'll spell itch c h I j
I m I s ai. I believe that try. Baker Creek Seeds sells
seeds for it. There. It's a cross between two different Asian vegetables.
You can buy that cross from other places. They don't call it Chiamsi,
but it's very mild. If you are kind of not a fan of mustard,
that strong mustard flavor that's present in a lot of the cruciferous vegetables.
Chijemasi is very, very flavorful. Chinese cabbage that is an awesome one.
I remember doctor Jonovac who's now working with the gardens out at Rice. He
was my vegetable professor in college, and he talked told me about Chinese cab.
It just many years ago. But it's like if you imagine a head
of lettuce and a head of cabbage something in between. So it's mild enough
to use as a mix in salads. It's wonderful for stir fry. It's
just a great vegetable, easy to grow. Try some things like that.
I mean I could go on and on and on and try some different things.
I remember the first time I decided to do a hanging tomato plant,
an upside down tomato. Have y'all seen those? You can buy little bags
to grow them in, but you don't have to. You can get you
a five gallon bucket. It's already got a handle on it, and you
drill a little hole in the bottom so that you can take your tomato transplant
and push it up through the hole. If it's coming out a little six
pack or if it's like a four inch pot, you just kind of What
I'll do is I'll wrap the plant in a like a paper towel, so
you can create a little tube with the leaves instead of leaves and branches going
everywhere, and you just slide it right down through that hole. If the
root ball isn't enough to not fall out of the hole, I've just taken
like paper towel or something like that around it, just to kind of create
a little bit bigger thing there to hold it, and then fill the pot
full of potting soil. It helps to drill a hole or two also in
the pot, so all the water didn't have to drain out of that one
hole. But you don't have to hang it upside down. I've done that
before, and it's cool. You need to do it. I would suggest
doing it with like a vining type of a grape or a cherry tomato,
something with clusters. What will happen is the vines will hang down, but
then they'll try to turn and grow up, because that's how plant tomato plants
want to grow. And then with the weight of the fruit, it hangs
down. But it's quite a conversation piece. Then in mind, I just
thought, well, hey, we're gonna why don't we just do put some
plants that like to grow together, like basil. Right when you cook,
you want pesto, you want tomato sauce. You so I just put basil
in the top of it. Coming out of the top of the bucket,
you got a water it a lot that's five gallons doing everything for both plants.
But it gives the neighbors something to talk about. And they're already talking
about you. You know that, right, They're already talking about you.
Now they have something else to talk about. But that's different. Have you
ever done it? Try it this year. See how that works. You
just need to put it in an area that gets good sunlight. There are
a thousand other things you could be doing out in the garden, a lot
of different things that are different, that are new that you're trying something new,
And especially with flowers and the beauty and cut flowers. Have you ever
grown cut flowers? Try some zenias or the Gateway Drug for cut flower growing.
Everybody can buy zenia seeds, scatter mouts real easy to do. Sunflowers
are easy to do, but there's lots and lots of other flowers you can
grow for cuts, for making the indoor vases in your house, making that
a beautiful area, a nice little gift when you go visit somebody. So
think outside the box. Gardening is fun, and I know we have these
guidelines, you can call them rules, but don't worry about all the rules,
the ones that are good horticulture practices. Yes, but it's your place.
What do you want to grow? What do you want to eat?
What do you want to look at? What do you want to try?
You know you're not going to fail at gardening. You're only going to give
up. So don't be afraid to fail. Try some new things. Our
garden centers. I promise you every one of the garden centers I talk about
on garden Line, North, South, East, West and Central, they
are going to have something you've never grown or seen before in the garden center.
Go try it? Why not? Why not think outside the box?
Have I encourage you to do that? I hope? So I'm trying.
It is fun. Gardening is meant to be fun. So don't worry about
well I fail or not. J. C Ralston, North Carolina University,
North Carolina said to be a good horticulture, she got to kill a lot
of plans. Don't be afraid to kill it. Have fun. Hey,
we'll be back next week. Thanks for listening to the Gardenline. Talk to
you next Saturday. Mm hmm