Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's crazy trip just watching as us so many go things to Septs Gas.
Well, good morning. We are glad you're listening to Garden Line today.
We're here to talk to you about I don't know what's of interest to
you. What do you want to talk about? House plants of vegetables,
herbs, your yard. Is it going to rain next summer? Is it
go over one hundred degrees? He answered those two is yes and yes.
Maybe not as much the first as we like, but hey, that's the
weather. If gardening was easy, then you would just drop a pencil on
the ground, it would root and you'd have a pine tree. Right,
So we're not going to worry about easy. We're gonna worry about getting informed
and figuring out how to do this. It is not rocket science, and
it is something that you learn the principles and you keep learning as you grow,
and it just gets better. Your garden, that is, just gets
better each time your landscape can become more beautiful. Nature throws us its ups
and downs. And there's sometimes it's a three step forward, two step back
thing when it comes to certain aspects of gardening, but in general, it's
always going forward. One of the things that I think makes gardening such a
therapeutic benefit to all of us is the fact that there is a hope to
it. There's a get up and try again. We recognize that sometimes things
just don't go the way we want, and it's okay, we can you
know, Let's say have a flower bit and it's flowers aren't thriving, they
don't look good, just on and on, and so you decide what am
I going to do? Well, you're gonna rip it out, you know,
put another one in in its place, Rip those plants out, put
a new one in. Maybe the soil needs amending, we can do that,
we can fix that. Maybe we need to bring more soil in and
raise the bed up a little bit because it's staying too soggy wet, and
very few plants that we grow want to be in a swamp. They just
that's the exception. So in general, good drainage is important. But that's
why we have rototillers and hose and spading forks and things. We can we
can turn a bed that's struggling into a bed that's thriving. That's just one
example. Same thing's due of a lawn our Lawns are probably the single most
common feature as we go from home to home to home across the country.
Lawns and of course shade trees. Hopefully everbody has a shade tree in the
summer here, But the same principles kind of hole for a lawn. It's
a plain, it has leaves, it has roots, it needs sun,
it needs moisture, it needs nutrients, and we can provide all of that.
And we will try to simplify things here on garden Line just to give
you some things to think about and make it a little bit easier for you.
And here is an example. We're going to be planting this fall.
Fall is the best time to plant woody ornamentals, that's tree shrubs and woody
vines. And it's the best time to plant perennials too, cold hardy perennials,
which I guess saying cold hardy and perennial. If it wasn't cold heart
it wouldn't be a perennial with it. You see what I'm talking about.
Now's the time to get that done. But first you take care of the
soil. And when you're blending the soil where we're riding compost in, we're
raising the bed, meaning making it taller so water can drain off the surface
and get away from the base of our plants. And we're amending it,
of course with compost and with shale. If it's a heavy clay soil.
Shale. Think of shale is like kitty litter. It looks a lot like
the old gray kitty litter, you know I'm talking about. Comes in different
sizes, from small to quite large. Pebble sized chunks are bigger, but
expanded. Shale is great for clays because it holds them open. Think of
a it's a rock. It's a little clay material that has been fired at
such high temperatures that expands and gets all pitted and pock mark kind of like
the lavarock on the barbecue pit kind of look and when visibly you don't see
that, but that's what's happening if you've got up rural close and looked at
it through a hand leanser microscope. So anyway, the bottom line on shale
is it keeps its structural integrity. So when it says, okay, I
got this space, and you know the clay has moved apart, this is
shale space. When you get enough of it in there, it just creates
in internal passageways through the soil where water and nutrients and oxygen and other things
can move. It's very helpful. But that's not tossed in three flexes shale
out there on a flower bed. It's putting it considerably deep. When they
did the Antique or not the Antique the earth Kind Rose Trials up in Dallas,
doctor George and others working on the project, they looked at different ways
to improve the soil, and they found that mixing a lot of composted material,
bark and things in made it easier for those roses to get established.
Doctor George also did some studies where they looked at expanded shale and found that
if you can put three inches down on a bed and mix it in as
deeply as you can, that makes a significant change in the health of the
plants. The root zone of the plant going forward. Now three inches that's
a lot of shale. If you're into a large area, that's a lot
a lot of shale. But the idea is just don't throw a flack or
two of shale in the soil. Let's get enough in there. Or do
it over time. Maybe you add an inch and then next year when you're
renovating the beds, you add another inch and so on. You can build
it up. Compost is great, Compost is essential. Nature uses compost,
that's the whole design. Now, on the other hand, compost breaks down
and goes away. If you've ever had a container pot on your patio and
it was full of potting soil or whatever you were growing in and two years
later you look in that pot's half full of soil, where'd it go?
Well, it oxidized the way. That's what compost does. That's what organic
matter does, and so it's great to add it. But just know you
need to supplement periodically to get more into the soil, more mixed into the
area. And when you got something like a rose bush, you know you
don't pick up the rose bush every year and rotortil the soil with new compost
and put the rose bush back down. That's where expanded shale really really can
shine. If you're asked me which should you do, I would say you
should do both. Because both of them have their each has their own benefits,
and together both of them is a very advantageous combination. When you're looking
at nutrients. Microlife fertilizer, for example, Microlife has a wide variety of
nutrient products. They've got the old green bag. That's the one we're so
familiar with because it's good for everything. You know, we say it's for
your lawn. It is, but it's also for fruit, trees and herbs
and anything you want to use it for. They also have the by the
way that if you haven't put on your brown patch five to one three,
that's the orange Microlife bag. If you haven't put it on your lawn yet,
you really need to do so. Where I say you can put it
on late, but you know, the later it gets, the less benefits
that you're going to enjoy. Although you're still adding some organic matter, you're
still providing a product that is enriched with microbes and is going to help a
lot. If I were planning a tree or shrub, I'd probably use the
blue bag though. That's the Microlife Ultimate. It's an eight four six and
it really gives a good boost for plants. You can mix any of these
into the soil and they'll do just fine. Consider though the humates the hum
mates plus. In fact, I you know, if I were to say
what is the best organic overall lawn care combo product in the fall, Well,
if you're going to put two together, I'd put the brown patch that's
the five to one three, and then I would put the Microlife's hum mates
plus that gives an extra boost of four percent, so four percent potassium.
So what you're looking at is a five to one seven essentially when you do
that. Anyway, you can find Microlife everywhere. Just go online Microlife Fertilizer
dot com and you can find out more about these products and where you can
get them as well. We're going to take a break. Our phone number,
let's see, I tell you what. Let's just go ahead and take
a break. I'll be right back in just a moment. Welcome back to
Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are looking forward to
visiting with you today. We're going to open up the phones here our phone
number if you would like to give us a call seven to one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four it's always easy to if you're trying to get through and get in,
it's always easy to get in early in the show, real early. It
tends to the early bird gets the worm. I guess if you're interested in
visiting with us, this is a good time. I am going to talk
a little bit today about holiday gift plants. I wanted to go back into
that. I mentioned some things so a little while back on it. But
when when you think about holiday decorations, there's some plants that are just the
standards. I mean, like point SETA for example. More that the point
SETA is the answer to the question what plant species is sold more in the
United States, more numbers of plants than any other, and that would be
point SETA. Point SETAs are popular. They come in now so many different
colors and versions and variations. It's it's really cool. Every time I take
a look at the next year's crop, I just go, oh, there's
something I haven't seen before. That's kind of cool. But point settas are
a little finicky. You let them get dry inside there by a heat vent
or something like that, but especially drying out that heatvent just makes it dry
it even faster. As a matter of fact, then they wilt and then
they drop older leaves. You water. You know, they perk back up,
but the older leaves gonna turn brown fall off pretty soon. Your point
set is pretty sticky looking, you know, just a bunch of long shoots
or stems rather without leaves on them. You can avoid that just by keeping
them moist. Point set has come often with a little sleeve around them,
plastic or some sort of a foil like sleeve. Just take them out of
that, put them in the sink. By the way, when you pick
them up, notice how heavy they are. Put them in the sink,
water them oil, and then pick them up and notice how heavy they are.
And you just can kind of walk by ironwalk byer punseetas and just lift
one up and it's like, yeah, that one's about neating some water here,
just based on the weight, because waight is the biggest part of the
water is the biggest part of the way of that plant. So points that
are easy. I like to give mine some bright light just to kind of
keep them perky, and going through the cool season, we move them inside,
or at least through the holidays, we move them inside and it's a
much much lower light environment, and they may not do as well. If
you are looking for your hometown feed store and you happen to live up in
the Magnolia area, well on FM twenty nine seventy eight is Spring Creek Feed.
A Spring Creek Feed. It's just minutes away from ground Parkway as well
as Highway to forty nine. You're going to find the fertilizers I talk about
at Spring Creek Feed. They carry those lines. You're going to find a
wide variety of things to control weeds or to conrol pasts or diseases in your
law and your vegetables, your flowers. They have friendly and curtious staff.
That is that alone is just worth the price of permission when it comes to
going and shop, just to be greeted and treated in a way like you
know, we're here to help you instead of like you're bothering me. I'm
sitting back here playing video games on my phone. Go find it yourself.
Have you ever been in a shop like that? I have, But they
carry it all there. They have discounts too, by the way, for
senior citizens, for military and if you are youth in FFA and four h
raising animals that discounts for that as well. They'll even special order products for
you at Spring Creek feed feed Center. We'd love to talk about feed stores.
We have so many great ones here in the Houston area. Wherever you
live. We got a feedstore not too far from you. That is a
very good thing. I was going through my garage this past week, and
that's always a revelation, you know. It's kind of like if you ever
move and then you go up into some high cabinet in the kitchen or something,
and it's like, oh, that's there. You've got to rediscover that
you have it, or at least now I know where it is. Well,
in my garage, I found two bird feeders, and I guess I
had taken them down at some point and stored them and everything. And I
got one of them all cleaned ups. One of the ones I got from
Wallbirds Folks h and it is it's just an excellent little feeder and it takes
all you can take it all the way apart and clean it out, which
is what I did because they'd been there for a while. I got any
old seeds sticking to the sides out and put it all back together, not
ready to go back out again, and I'm telling you will Birds Unlimited.
If you want a bird feeder, every kind you can imagine, and ten
kinds you hadn't even you didn't know existed, they've got it. If you
want things for helping your birds provide water, water's really important, even in
the cool season. The birds have to have to have water. And if
you want quality seeds, it's hands down wild Birds Unlimited WBU dot com,
forward slash Houston. If you want to go check them out, find the
one near you, WBU dot com, forward slash Houston, and what you'll
find is that there are some high quality blends where you don't waste seeds.
Cheap bird seed in the store. Next time you walk by it, just
look. You're going to see a lot of red bebes in there, and
those are not something the birds like to eat. They just don't. You
can make a big bag of seed, a feed with it or a bird
seed with it and sell it for a cheaper price, but by the time
you extract what they don't eat, it's not a cheaper price. While Birds
Unlimited has excellent feeds for all groups and types of birds and seasons. Right
now, I would be talking about the winter super blend just because it's got
the fat and it's got the proteins in it that are important for the birds.
Going through this season. Our phone number is seven to one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy.
So it's going through the holiday plants. And I mentioned points settus and
how we take care of them. Just make sure you take them out of
that sleeve and water them thoroughly, let it completely run out. Maybe let's
sit there five minutes and just make sure it's all out of there. It
didn't take that long, but just to get it all out of there and
then put it back in the sleeve and put it where you would like.
We just brought some in yesterday that I had out on the front porch,
and we brought them in because it wasn't yesterday. A couple of days ago
we had a family coming in and so we wanted to use them decorate around
the fireplace things like that. Next plant is the holiday cactus. Holiday cactus
is not a cactus. It's a different type of plant. And the reason
I point that out, whether it's Thanksgiving cactus, Christmas cactus, the reason
I point that out is because if you treat it like a cactus and let
it get too dry, it'll kind of shrivel. It's not good for it.
It can take a little bit of dry, but because it has succulent
plant parts, those little pads that make the stems very succulent, the whole
moisture. But you got to water them some. And when you have one
full of blooms, don't do anything to shock the system of the plant or
it'll drop blooms. I had one last year and I let it get too
dry, actually twice get kind of dry, and the blooms just dropped off.
It aborted all the little buds that haven't even grown out and opened up
yet it aborted them all. And so make sure and keep it moist.
It is a plant that likes light, so I wouldn't leave it sitting in
the darkest area in the room for extended periods of time. I'd get it
some light and just watch the temperature extremes. That's another thing on the holiday
cactus. We're gonna now head out to Montgomery and talk to Jim. Hello,
Jim, Hey, good morning. I wanted to ask you. This
is not a holiday kind of thing, but I'm trying to find some devil
gord seed. Devil's gord? Will you describe that to me? Okay,
Well, it's a it's a gord that kind of has like horns on it.
I guess sometimes they're called horn gorge or something like that. But it's
a it's the name of it's a Devil's gorge Seeds, and they have it.
They say they have it on Amazon, but every time I check it
just says it gives me something else. Okay, I think I think I
know what you're what you're referring to. Uh gee, there are a lot
of Johnny Seeds has a wide variety of gords. You probably will find it
there. They're pretty extensive. Off the top of my head, I can't
say, well for gord seeds go to this company just because I don't know.
I just never have have. Who'd you say was the first one Johnny's
j O H N N Y A posture for us? Okay, Hey,
I'd like to also tell you that I talked to you here a while back
about air layering fiddle leaf ficus. Yes, huh, I was successful.
It's putting on new growth now, wonderful. And yeah, I was surprised
and it actually worked. So next spring I'm going to do it again.
Okay, Well, I think it's a great idea. It's people that get
lanky, kind of outgrown house plants. It can be super easy or a
little bit challenging, but depending on the plant. Actually, fiddle leaf is
not the easiest one in the world to airline. Right you did Evidently you
did it right. Well. I tried to do it by cuttings and that
didn't work. So I did the air layer and actually this one worked.
So I thought I was going to be a little late this year, but
it actually put on roots and I repotted it and it's putting on a new
leaf. Just curl them out of it. Well, good luck, congratulations
Jim. Hey, I appreciate I appreciate the call very much. And uh,
good luck fire. I'll take that. Johnny's gorge, Yes, Johnny,
Johnny's yeah. Check with them. There's yeah. I would start with
that. I don't know that they have it, but I would. I
would begin with that one. Okay, all right, Yeah, it's talking
about the fiddlely fig. My daughter showed me, send me a picture she
had done what's called notching to her fiddley fig. And when you do that,
you go above the bud and you just remove a little notch of bark
tissues down to the wood. So think of it as like a little chip
taken out sort of above the bud. And what that does is the hormones
that are coming down the stem that inhibit bud growth, they are blocked and
that bud is set free if you will to grow. And yes, they're
hormones that do that. In fact, when we come back, why don't
we talk about that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. We'll be right back. Welcome back to garden Line.
We're glad you've joined us today talking gardening. If you'd like to give
us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four. So
when we went to break, I was talking about the fact that my daughter,
one of my daughters, had a fiddlely fig that had got a little
larger and it was like a long, straight, you know, fishing pole,
not hard any hardly, any if any branching, and that's happened a
lot. I've got one like that. They can do that. So she
went you went in and did a process it's called matching. And above the
bud at the stem, you you just take a notch out of the bark
so that the the hormones that are flowing down the stem that are inhibiting that
bud, that line is broken. They kind of would have to go around
it or something as stuff moves up and down through the bark. Uh And
when that happens, that bud is free to grow. And I do mean
that free to grow. The buds, especially the terminal buds. When you
look at upright shoots, they produce hormones that flow down the branch and inhibit
the buds below them from growing. They're the boss bud there at the top,
and that that's just the nature. Actually, those hormones are going all
the way to the roots, and in the roots they help root growth down
there as well. But this is getting nerdy, I know, but it
is interesting. And so by making the notches and the buds starting to grow,
her straight single pole fiddly fig is now beginning to put some branches on.
You're not going to turn it into this big bushy plant overnight, but
in general it just kind of helps because you know, you get a real
tall, lanky one and that's you know, that's where you go in like
we're talking about before the break, and you do an air layer on it
to get roots and just cut it off and now you're left with this naked
stump of of a trunk from your fiddly fig. Anyway, I thought that's
pretty cool, pretty interesting you might be interested in. That's not something we
talk about. Is not something we generally talk about a lot in horticulture and
gardening. Well, our phone number if you would like to get us call
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four for those of you
out in the Kingwood area. But both Worns seven Gardens and Kingwood Gardens Center
are outstanding local garden centers that you can find pretty much everything you need right
now. The plant of the month, the native of the month is Texas
beauty berry. Beautiful old native plant loses its leaves in the fall and leaves
clusters up and down the stem of purplish berries. Really nice. They also
have three bags of heirloom aged leaf compost for thirty bucks. Three bags for
thirty bucks of heirloom aged leaft compost. Memory. We're saying it's a good
time to compost. It's good time to put some mulch on top of the
soil, and this would be this would be a suitable product for that as
well as mixing into the soil. Now, this is only a November sale,
so hey, time is running out. Don't mess around. They've got
wonderful Christmas trees and cactus and all kinds of things in there. And I
noticed, you know, each garden center has things that are going on around.
I think at Kingwoo Garden Center they're having the Twelve Days of Christmas that's
November twenty fifth through December sixth, and each day there's something some kind of
deal for you. So I think day one was like five dollars off any
candle in the gift shop, and it goes on and on. But it's
worth going to check out. And the Kingwi Gardens that are gift shops just
outstanding. If you have a chance to head out to Warrens there, they
are constantly bringing in new color, they're bringing in new plants, They're always
having something going on. You need to follow them on social media, by
the way, so that you can know when things are going on. Let's
head out now we're going to go to Cyprus and talk to Sandy. Hello,
Sandy, good morning. Get I have a question. I have an
indoor craton that I've probably had for almost a year or a year. My
girlfriend has a croton that she's had for years. Hers branches off like into
big branches. Do I need to do something to mine so that it can
start branching off? Don't do it on it? Well, when you top
off a branch, you tend to get bud buds that break out and begin
growing below where you topped it off. And I don't know if you were
listening while ago want to talk about the fiddle e fig, but that that
flow of hormone and nutrients is keeping the buds down the stem from the end
of the branch down the stem from taking off and sprouting out and being bushy.
So you could also just top the plant, and you're going to get
branching from below that point on the side. It'll branch off on the side
instead of keep going tall. Yes, you know there branch is probably an't
going to like just go horizontal. They're still going to grow upward. But
now you have two or three and so you have a thicker dunser plant and
then you can do it again, should so? Should I trim off some
at the bottom, the ones closest to the soil. Why are you?
Why are you wanting to trim there? I'm not following. Because the plant
that my girlfriend has at her house, it's so beautiful. It's tall that
it's got one branch that goes off to the side, and then it's got
branches on it too. It's got leads on it too, And I'm trying
to make mind you that, but it's just getting bushy. Oh okay,
I thought, I see. Yes, you could trim off anything you want,
and as you do that, the growth, the supply from the roots
is going to go into the remaining branches and shoots and trunks and everything like
that. So yeah, you can prune esthetically that plant however you aesthetic,
however you aesthetically want it to look. Don't be afraid, and it won't
hurt anything. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't cut off, you know,
eighty percent of the branches all at once, you know, remove one
and give a little time, or maybe one or two. I can't see
the plants, so it's kind of hard for me to be specific, but
in general, yes, just just do some printing here and there follow following
those principles that I was talking about. Okay, maybe I'll send you a
picture and you can just email me back. Okay, sounds good. You
take care, Thank you for the Yeah, thanks for the call. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We put in a refrigerator
in the garage this past week and uh, you know it's just family coming
in and different things going on the holidays. It just kind of gives you
that backup, right, it's been the leftovers and whatnot. We're going to
put them. Well, I was thinking about it when we put it in.
I was saying, yeah, what if the power goes out, because
that's happened to me before. By the way, I cannot describe the smell
that comes out of an abandoned freezer well sometime after the power goes out.
Anyway, that's why we have generators and Quality Home Products is the company that
will provide you a very very effective, well matched for you, by the
way, generate generator for your home. They are the leaders by far,
I mean second place isn't even close. When it comes to customer service.
Eight times they've won the distinction for customer service from the Better Business Bureau and
they seven times they won the Pinnacle Award. I think that's eight now,
which is their most prestigious customer service award. Now right now till the end
of December, there's a holiday blowout ten percent off your purchase up to twenty
five dollars off total. And so it's for new generator customers only. You
can't combine it with other promos. Just go online to QUALITYTX dot com or
call them seven to one to three Quality and you can find out more about
this deal. And trust me, if you're thinking about a generator, you
have to go with quality, quality Home products of Texas. There's there just
is no comparison. Let's take a little break. It is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Will be right back. Well,
good morning, and welcome back to garden line. If you've not done your
fall fertilizing on the lawn yet, you still can, but don't delay.
The longer we delay, the less of the significant benefits it comes from fall
fertilization, The less that we get to enjoy. So we want to get
that thing down now. Nelson Plant Foods carbol Load is an outstanding product,
and it's kind of a two for, or it really is a two for.
You get a wonderful blend of nutrients designed for our lawns in this area
in the fall season, late fall going into the winter season. Now you
also get a pre emergent reside that prevents germination of weed seeds in your lawn.
And when you put both, when you put the fertilizer product down and
watered in with a half inch of water, you get both. For every
bag now of carbo Load that's sold this fall, Nelson Plant food is going
to donate two dollars to Randy's memorial scholarship. Now you think about a lot
of bags sold across the Greater Houston area in the fall, that's quite a
donation. And I know Randy would be would be thrilled and proud to know
that his legacy lives on in that way. So I said it was a
two fur, the fertilizer, the weed prevention, I guess I should say
a three fur and also a good donation to a great cause and remembrance of
a wonderful, wonderful person who did garden Line for twenty seven years. He
held this seat down. He in many ways created what garden Line is today,
and we're grateful for that too. They'd go out to Flattnia now and
talk to James. Hello, James, No, it's Jane. Oh okay,
hy Jane, I'll still talk to you, okay, well good,
well, sorry, I've been dealing with this cough, allergy whatever something for
a while, so I'll do my best so you can understand me. I
have a very very big Christmas cactus, you know, the traditional pinkish,
dark pink kind. It's full of buds. It's huge, and what I've
done is I don't know if I took two put them together. It's about
a couple of years old. It's full of buds. I can't deal with
it anymore. The best window I have is in an upstairs room that can
just do daylight as it happens naturally, because I don't I understand you put
on a light middle of the night. You might mess it up. But
I would like to donate it to a charity auction coming in a couple of
weeks. And it's got buds anywhere from the size and maybe the tip of
a ink pen. Let me let me, I'm sorry, let me instead
of the detail on it. I how can I help? Do you have
a question the buds fall off? I don't want the buds to fall off,
Okay, and that's what happened to it last year. I got you.
I want them to stay on. How does that? How can you
do that? Well? Christmas cactus, when it goes through a dry spot
with the blooms or buds on it, it will abort those buds. And
that's one thing that can do it. Major changes I would think in light,
but especially in temperature could also have something to do with it. And
so you just need to kind of apparently it was pretty happy where it was,
and so you just need to kind of recreate those positions or conditions rather
and that is the best way you can prevent it. Most people, it's
due to drought. Sometimes there's a combo with the temperature to okay, And
the other question I have with sweet potatoes, how do you know when to
harvest them? Sweet potatoes don't ripen, so you can harvest them anytime you
want. Now they get bigger as the fall goes and they get bigger and
they store more carbohydrates, so people leave them as long as they can.
Once we're going to have a frieze or even a frost that's going to kill
the vines, I would go ahead and get them dug, because when they
heave the soil up, it sort of cracks open the soil at the base
of the plant, and the tops of the tubers could be exposed to a
good hard freeze temperature and cause damage to the tubers. That they're not at
all a tropical plant, I mean a cold, hardy plant. So when
the vines start, my vines are starting to look puny. Yeah, they've
lost a lot of their luster. And so I wondered if that's a sign.
Yeah, you could do it. I mean you could have done it
a month and a half ago and wouldn't have near the yield. Or you
could do it now, or you could wait until after a frost and then
go do it. Then. I would probably just I don't know how many
you have, but I would just go ahead and get it done. Oh
okay, go ahead and pick them up, all right. And that plant
that girl was talking about while ago, what did she call it? I
couldn't understand Croton. Was it Croton? Yes? Yeah, yeah, okay,
big old, large multicolored leaves. Yeah, I've got one of those.
And I kind of let them do their own things. Sometimes they don't,
you know. So anyway, Okay, well, thank you for your
help. I appreciate it. Thanks for the call, Jane. I've talked
about Star of Hope before, and Star of Hope is a local organization that's
been here for a very long time that changes people's lives. Yes, they
feed the hungry, Yes they clothe the homeless. Yes, they provide a
place to stay, as we say, two hots in a cot where you're
fed, you have a place to stay. But what they really do is
they take the whole person spiritually, mentally, physically, every aspect and they
provide a pathway out o where that it's a pathway out. It may be
a mom who for no faulter of her own is now taking care of two
kids and living in a car. There are a lot of faces of homelessness.
They are just a lot of different stories out there. But the thing
that's consistent is with Star of Hope. People come in, they spend time
there, they get training, they are provided what they need to actually get
their feet under them and to make a life. To just throw money away
and not really help somebody, well that dn't feel great, does it at
all. It's not a good call. Star of Hope is a good call
and they know how to make every dollar go as far as possible. And
I hope this Christmas season that you will consider donating toward that. You know,
for two dollars and eighty cents you can provide a person a meal.
I mean, that's just chicken feed right now. You go online to Star
of Hope Mission, it's sohmission dot org and you can find out more and
you can find out how to donate to help. And I would ask you
to consider that if you would. It is a good cause of my wife
and I've worked with them in the past and I can just tell you it
is definitely money well spent or provided in the case for someone else's help and
benefit. Well, we're about running out of time here, got about a
minute so left. You know Buchanan's Plants and the heights. They're on East
eleventh Street, by the way, and the website I should give you this
up from Buchanansplants dot com. They're very dedicated to Texas natives, but they
have every other thing you can imagine. I mean even their houseplant collection.
Walk in there and I promise you you're going to see things like you've never
seen. What is that species? They've got everything from native plants to houseplants,
and right now they're Christmas trees. Oh my gosh, they're wonderful,
wonderful lot of Christmas trees, decorations. A gift shop is awesome. Bottom
line is Bucannon's Plants. Just go check the out. Drive over there.
A love East Eleventh Street in the Heights, walk through and see what I'm
talking about. It is always a good time to be around the folks at
Buchanan's Plants. I love. I love to go in there to visit,
talk to the people. That boy, they got great, great people that
are working for them there as well. I was just thinking about them earlier.
Oh by the way, there is a let's see let me come back
to that when I get back, I want to tell you about a little
upcoming information here. Well, we're going to take our break, if you'd
like to get on the board for when we come back. It's seven one
three two one two five eight, seven, four, seven, one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. I hope that you had a wonderful
Thanksgiving, a break, holidays, time spent with family, and now what
do we do We? I think try to recuperate and digest everything that was
consumed over the weekend. Well, we're glad you're listening to Guarden Line.
We'll be right back and we will get right to your calls. 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
Skip Richter's just watch him as well. Good morning, What is going to
be a beautiful Saturday? If you don't mind a little rainfall? Perhaps you
know I actually enjoy rainy days. If we had too many of them,
wouldn't. But I occasionally just sit inside. I don't know, there's a
calming thing, read a book, do whatever interests you. But that that
kind of day I don't always see is a bad thing at all. In
fact, I'm happy gonna get a little bit of rainfall in here. I
was mentioning talking about Buchanans before I went to break, and I forgot to
mention they're having their a huge event. This is a holiday open house.
Now. The holiday open house is going to have light music, It's gonna
have beer and wine and food. Santa will be there, There'll be crafts
for kids to do. Other local vendors also will be there on site at
Buchanan's Native Plants on this coming Saturday, December second, from ten am to
three pm. December second, ten am to three pm. Holiday open House
at Buchanans. And I just know every time they put another event, it's
cool, it is fun and we really we really enjoy I've been able to
participate in things like that. I've talked to you about the be supply before
out there in Dayton. Uh. You know, do you have someone in
your family who has been thinking about becoming a beekeeper? They want to learn?
What a great gift you could you know? They could they have classes
out there by the way to teach you how to be bee keepers, to
make you better beekeepers. And what about a gift to some supplies and some
maybe just get the lineup for the classes from the folks that at the b
supply check out signing up for them. I think it'd be a great gift.
If you just enjoy going out and having kind of an outing, go
into the be Supply and seeing those bees. There's a huge hive, huge
indoor hive box and you can just walk right up to it and you can
look at what the bees you're doing, watch them come in and out and
everything like that. That's all at the b Supply. If you want more
information, go to thebsupply dot com. Bbsupply dot com. Contact them and
find out. Hey, the spring I'd like to start be keeping. Tell
me what I need to know, what I need to sign up for,
what do I need to do, and they'll get you fixed up. I'm
going to head now out to Kingwood and talk to Pamela. Hello, Pamela,
Hi there, skip listen. I have some questions about molasses and also
about asami. Okay. I had a product in my staff called Mother's Blooms.
Okay. I don't know if you know anything about that. It was
made in Montgomery, Okay, okay, and I used it and my plants
went crazy and I can't buy anymore. They don't make it. But I've
done a bit of research about molasses and it's fascinating. How if you use
molasses and r CW Nurseries did a little article. They have a lot of
articles under their website molasses and if you use it, the ants leave,
Okay, they go next door? All right? And well, so how
can I how can I help? How can I help today? Okay?
Well, I just wondered if you knew about that and that you make a
mixture of molasses and liquid garlic. You don't have mosquitoes. Now, there's
a there's a lot of different remedies and things like that and recipes out there
on the web, that's for sure. Uh So you wanted to ask about
asite. I believe also, yes, because I also at the same time
that I said this, I was using my rain water that I collect gallon
things. I had some as and mite sitting there that was like leftover in
the spread or so I'm kind of well, I'll put some water. I
put it in some of the water. How much of the this is poundered
asamite? How much powdered as amite? Can you use uh per gallon?
Oh? You know you don't want to, you don't want to use much.
I've not gone through the mixing thing on it. But these are these
are micronutrients that can be out of whack. And if you were to like
mix a whole bunch and some water and then pour it on a plant,
you would be really doing one hundred times a thousand times heavier application than is
prescribed with a spreader. So can you do the molasses now, you know,
because you want the higher you can? Well you can, and it's
especially the sugar and molasses is also something that a lot of the beneficial microbes
in the soil, especially certain bacteria will will appreciate. So, Hey,
I'm going to have to run, but I appreciate your question and hope you
have a great day out there in Kingdom. She was talking about. Amite
is a crush mineral and it comes from actually up on mine up in the
Utah area. The ASMI Texas dot com website can tell you more about it,
if you'll learn more about it. We consider it a supplement for our
tur for our soils to make sure the trace minerals we might need are inadequate
supply, and so as might has a lot of different trace minerals, and
it put it out a very low rate. A bag goes a very long
way, but still those are nutrients that are essential for plant growth. So
I'm gonna head, let's see, no not to you what I'm gonna I'm
going to finish talking about the holiday gift plants. The point settas we talked
about we talked about the holiday cactus, Thanksgiving Christmas cactus being the main one
soul this time of year, and how to take care of them, how
to have success with them, and especially when it comes to these things the
drying out too much or soggy wet, overwatering. Also, I've often said,
I think we may feel more plants by overwatering than underwatering when it comes
to our house plants especially, But that is all very important. Now you
also have the tupiary rosemary, the rosemary that is sheared to look like a
little miniature Christmas tree. And those are excellent because when you're done, you
can plant them outside and they just add a fragrance in the air when you
brush past or if you you know, purposefully pet the Christmas tree to and
smell that wonderful, wonderful fragrance. The key to those is getting them out
each day as much as possible, at least not you know, if you
can't do it, every day. That's fine, but get them out in
good sunlight so that they will stay stocky. The growth gets really spindly when
it comes out, and they've been sitting inside for just too long. But
that is a very good tough plant. It needs excellent drainage, and so
when you plant it out, make sure that those roots do not sit in
water, no matter what how much it rains, and there'll be a very
happy plant for you. I enjoy those. I like those a lot.
There's a lot of other plants now that are kind of put into the mix,
and I'm going to talk about some other plants, holiday plants when we
come back from break. Right now, we're going to head to some commercial
will be back if you want to call seven one three two one two five
eight seven four is the number. Josh will get you on the board.
Welcome back to garden Line. We are glad you're listening today. What are
we talking about? We're talking about holiday gift plants right now. I've kind
of been going through a bunch of different ones. You know, a holiday
plant, the big famous ones. You know, when you see that plant,
you think of the holidays. I've kind of gone through those by and
large. There are a lot of other types of plants though, that are
out there that are often pulled out and utilized during the holidays. I was
I was talking about, you know, kind of have a wide variety of
options, but the care that you need to provide these plants, and so
I'm going to add into the mix. There are intheriums that have beautiful red
reddish colored bracts. They look like a leaf, but it's a bract on
the plant. There are plants that bloom like forcing bulbs indoors. That's always
a good thing. You have to do that start ahead of time because it
takes weeks to get those roots in and have the bulb come out in bloom.
But that's another option that you could do during the holidays. Cyclomen normally
planted outdoors, but boy, they make a beautiful table decoration, and so
you can kind of keep them in their containers, water them outside and then
bring them in when you want to do that, or just plant them out
in the Landscape's real easy, easy, easy to do. When you're looking
for supplies for your gardening activities, you know, Ace hardware is the place.
I mean the fertilizers I talk about on garden line and just to everything
everything you need to have a beautiful garden, a bountiful landscape, that's Ace.
Do you know they're also the place for Christmas lighting and decorations. That's
right both inside your house outside your house. Do you need a perhaps a
wreath for the front door, some other kinds of swag, you know,
like I don't know, maybe garland to go around and certainly lighting and ACE
has a wide variety of lights, box sets, you know, large and
small, different light configurations and colors. They also have the thing they call
custom lighting by the foot, and custom lizing by the foot allows you to
build a system that fits exactly what you need, Like, hey, I
need something that's so wide or long to go across the mantel. I like
some lights up in there. They can do all that kind of stuff.
It's easy to find ACE Hardware because they're everywhere. But if you just go
online to ACE Hardware excuse me, yeah, Ace Hardware dot com slash store
dash locator, or just go to ACE hardbur dot common look for the store
locator button and find the one that's nourished you. Let's go now to Spring
Branch and we're gonna visit with Betty. Hello, Betty, Hello, how
can I help? I've got pine veal and I want to know, uh,
Docta rivers about? I guess twenty some years ago had a systhetic that
he treated with, but I can't find anybody that knows about that. Yeah,
and the pine bart beetle hits so fast that you don't have time to
get a systemic up in there to stop it. I don't know anything that's
labeled for pine bark beetle. Now, they used to use a product that
actually harmed your eyes a lot, and people are squirting way up the trunk
of the tree and that wasn't a good thing. But I don't know what
the current is. I would find a good quality arborist and talk to them
about what they have access to. All right, yeah, okay, thank
you, all right, thank you. I appreciate that call, Betty.
Yet, it's no fun to have pine bark beetles, that that is for
sure. In fact, there are several different ones that attack the trees.
Have you ever Have you ever been to Enchanted Forest out in Richmond? Now,
if you haven't, you need to go. You need to go see
the place because it is really really cool. Of course, like every great
nursery, they've got staff that knows what they're talking about. And Danny and
Clay are out there. They are very, very very knowledgeable the mindset.
And I was there a while back and just kind of watching these people at
work, and they are just they're all about helping you find the plant you
need and telling you how to take care of it, and just watching them
take people around or point this out or that. It's worth a lot to
just be able to go and enjoy good customer service. And that's what you
get it. And Chanted Forest to Richmond. Of course, it's the holiday
season, so do you need points out is? Do you need other holiday
gift plants? Do you need Christmas tree? They've got it. They've got
all of that there, and it just like I said, it's time to
plant in general. So why not wander through Enchantedforest, dot and Richmond and
find out about all the things that they carry and get you the plants to
go home. You know, do you need vegetable garden plants? They got
them. Do you need herbs? They got them. They're on FM twenty
seven fifty nine outside of Richmond. As you're heading toward Katie direction. It's
off to the right and that's Enchanted Forest Richmond, which is the website if
you would like to just you know, go directly there. Enchanted Forest in
Richmond is Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. I know I'm forgetting something
at the end and Chanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. We have really
enjoyed getting away from hot weather and being able to be inside and on a
rainy day like this, it's a good time to talk about house plants and
talk about holiday gift plants. And that's kind of what we've been doing,
just talking about the different things that you can use. I want to make
a just give you an idea. If you're getting ready for let's say a
dinner party and you are wanting to create some sort of a planter, like
a living foliage planter, and you can use all kinds of things to do
that, but I want to give you a quick tip on how to create
one that continues to live on a lot of times when you plant plants together,
they don't grow at the same rate. They don't want the same amount
of light levels in order to be you know, very happy, and so
that planting that you just created just sort of outgrows itself. Plus where you're
going to set it, you know, you've got to find a place of
plenty of light keep the plants happy. So what I would do is go
and purchase these plants and small containers maybe you know, three or four or
five inches whatever sizes they come in, and put them together in another container,
but leave them in their pots, and then just fill in with moss.
So think about this. Imagine one of those little oval galvanized trays that
has you know, handle on each end. Maybe the old washtubs, that's
what that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. But the small ones maybe
you know, two feet long and I don't know, eight ten inches wide.
I've taken those before, put some stuff in the bottom to support the
plants because the plants aren't as deep as the planter is, and then just
staggered these plants around in it to create the look I want. Then just
get you some moss, some just some Spanish moss, whatever, and put
it around the surface. And when someone walks in and looks at it,
it looks like they all grew there, but they're actually in their individual pots.
So you can take them out after that water the plants, keep them
in good bright sunlight, and bring them in and do it again, and
then put them out in your garden. It's it's so excuse me. If
it's if it's an herb type plant, you can put it on in the
garden. If it's the ones I was talking about house plants, and no,
I would not put this out in the garden. But that little design
trick, it really works well. It's easy to do. I had a
daughter, one of my one of my daughters, that created a garden,
a container garden for you know, an event, for a competition. And
she used a big basket with his giant handle going over the top, and
the basket of course very porous, you wouldn't hold water. So she took
some plastic lining, put it down in there, hot gluted to the sides,
and then cut it all off so you didn't know the lining was in
there. But when you put water in, it's not going to ruin the
basket or the tabletop. And then she put her plants in it together,
but found some vining like ivs and wove the vines kind of up over the
handle as far as they would go. And when she got through it's just
beautiful, very very pretty. So those kind of containers are also worthwhile,
and you could include things that have color in them. Just remember that low
till hopefully that helps. Hey, our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. I've talked to you about Peerscapes before. They are the landscaper that
we just believed does the excellent job, that has the excellent skills, the
trained employees, everything that you would want when it comes to hiring somebody and
making sure the job's done right. That's Peerscapes. And they can do pretty
much everything you need outside. I mean they do. They do hard escapes,
They fix drainage problems, they install and take care of irrigation. Do
you want landscape lighting? You know? Do you put in a whole new
garden? They can do all of that. After this summer, if you
lost some plants, give call, show them a picture of the beds and
say hey, what can I do here a little different? They may redesign
the bed a little bit. They may I don't who knows. But and
they can provide plants that are more drought tolerant as an option if that's what
you would like to do. Piercescapes dot Com is a website. The phone
number two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh
five zero six zero. I give them a call. We are talking about
house plants and I was just talking about some way to design in a container,
especially containers that are not far plant growing, but they're really really cool.
Another thing, by the way, that a little miniature watering can on
a on a stick that like it's pouring out, but they put a vining
plant coming out of it, so it looks like green water flowing out of
the flowing out of the can. Kind kind of cool stuff, you know.
RCW Nurseries talking about them while back I was out there for their spring
fling or fall fling. It was awesome. We had a really good time.
But r CW is a place that you can go and you can get
everything you need for your plants. I mean, we're talking about a quality
set of fertilizers, the kinds I talk about here on guard Line. They
carry that. They carry that for you, and they carry also advice and
wisdom and patience, so it's patient when people are asking you questions just all
day and sometimes the same one. But they carry that and that means that
when you go there and you talk to them, they tell you what plant
will or won't do well in your area. They don't just go, oh,
here's a holiday, put it right there if that's what you want.
No. They they find out about what you need and they design the the
instructions they give you accordingly. They also do design by the way in there.
But you can go all the woody ornamentals that you find lots and lots
of woody ornamentals that are available at RCW Nursery. Again, it's our nurseries
dot com. They are the nursery that is on Tomball Parkway. I have
Way two forty nine right where it comes in to Beltweg eight, and I
like to call them to get it. Got it nursery. If they don't
have it, they will do their best to find it at RCW. Well,
you're listening to guarden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. I uh. The other day I saw an ad I don't know,
an ad for the movie The Little Shop of Horrors. I don't know
if you've ever seen that outline, boy, that goes back a few years.
Yeah, but can you imagine how valuable that plant, those plants would
be right now in terms of I got I got relatives coming over. I
need one of those. Yeah, walk by it and get eat or something.
But that was a weird movie. That was a very strange move,
very straight. I don't know why, but I've just thought about those plants
in there, and I thought, Yeah, that puts a whole new level
to venus fly trap when you've got something that will eat your uncle Joe when
he comes walking by. Hey, you've heard me talk about Southwest Fertilizer before,
and they are the place that has everything. If they don't have it,
you don't need it. And you can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com
to find out more. You can also go just down to the storts at
the corner of Byssinet and Runwick and Southwest Houston and everything you possibly could need,
from fertilizers to pest control, even tools are available there at Southwest Fertilizer.
Bob's done a great job. Remember the best Christmas gift on Earth for
the gardener a kneeling bench. Go ask Bob about it. They got plenty
of them. That's where I got all my plants. Oh yeah, well
that's cool. Yes, that's it. That's a fun place. Love love
to go there. That's a Thanksgiving song, pre Thanksgiving song. You're listening
to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number
if you would like to give us a call is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. If you live down south of Houston. If
you live in our color Iowa Colony, Siena Plantation, Quell Valley, Riverstone,
anywhere through that area. An even out near Bras has been state Park,
you have Ciena Maltch is your backyard compost, malt and rock supplier.
And in addition to that, they carry all the fertilizers that I talk about
on garden Line. So remember brown stuff before green stuff. First we build
a soil. Then we make those plants very very happy when we put them
in and they're ready to go. That's the secret to success. That's also
the order of how you go about it. Fix the soil, plant the
plants. CNA Malts has all of that. They're down on FM five twenty
one, near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together. Their website
is cienamlts dot com. You can go check them out. They're open Monday
through Friday from seven thirty to five and Saturday from seven thirty to two.
They're closed today, but they'll be back open seven thirty tomorrow morning. Uh.
You should check out the bulk materials that they have. They can deliver
within about twenty miles of the location, and I think when you go by
there you'll be impressed. If if you're thinking about doing kind of a stone
patio, you got to go see some of the stone that they have.
Excellent and beautiful stuff. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Someone had called earlier talking about gourds and gorge seeds and things like that.
During the fall season, there's all these beautiful, very unusual looking decorative squashes
you know that are just I don't know. You look at them, you
go that looks like an alien from another planet. And a lot of people
want to know, well can I grow those in my garden? And yeah,
yes you can. You just in the varieties that you want. You
can also take seeds out of them. Now, when you do that,
you're going to get a mixture. Who knows what they're going to be.
They're not all going to look like mama, let me just put it that
way. But that can be done. You take the seeds out, you
let them dry. Those, by the way, are fully mature squash fruits
and gourds as well, so the seeds are viable. They can grow.
I put mine on a little screen, let them dry out, you know,
for about a week or so maybe to just get good and dried out,
and then put them in a jar. Store them. Make sure put
a label in there. Trust me, you will not remember the voice of
experience. You will not remember what you put in that jar. What are
these seeds? You plan them and find out. But anyway, I think
that's kind of cool. People often ask about that. If you need any
kind of tree work, you need to talk to the folks at Affordable Tree.
Martin Spoon Moore has been doing this for a long time. Reason this
is the tree company that I recommend on guarden Line. The reason for that
is because they know what they're doing, and they do their business right,
So if you want to get some work done, you need to call them
because they stay busy. That's what happens when you do a good job and
treat your customers right. Call them at seven one three six twenty six sixty
three. That would work well. Get on the schedule though, seven one
three six twenty six sixty three, or you can go to the website aff
tree service dot com and Martin sure can do that. Somebody called earlier about
some pine bark beetles up in the trees. You know, having somebody knows
what they're talking about, take a look at them, make some some observations
and come back and say, okay, here's what you can and can't do.
And I tell you with pine beetles, it it often is so fast
that a tree infected. The chance of ridding them or it's it's it's very
difficult. So basically we try to prevent them. That's the main thing.
But that's just an example of you know what what can come up when it
comes to I've got these trees, I need I need questions, I don't
know what to do. Don't let anybody touch your trees with a chainsaw.
That's not affordable tree service. That's that's easy, that's the bottom line.
But always be skeptical about some of the things people tell you about trees,
because just because you own a pickup and a chainsaw does not make you a
tree expert at all. But why not just hard one affordable tree service Martin
spoon Moore, that's what you need to know. I've been discussing some different
things today, like the houseplants and the holiday plants. I want to talk
a little bit about some cool season color. Cool season is an easy time
to have color because the weather is not so demanding, especially on our container
plants. The weather. You know, in the summertime, you're watering container
once or twice a day, sometimes trying to keep it hydrated. But when
it comes to cool season, the evaporation and the water use slows down considerably.
And I would encourage you to do some multicolor containers like I like light
blue violas, violas and pansies. Pansies have the little monkey face. Violas
just have the blank flower without all the markings on it. But I like
light blue violas with alyssum, which is a white blooming plant, and dusty
miller, which is a silver plant, and that combination just looks really good.
The white could also come from stock. Stock is another cool season plant
that will provide you some white flowers. I was visiting earlier. I guess
this was yesterday, talking about A and A Plants and Produce. They're a
full service garden center up there on Highway one five in Montgomery. They're on
the east side of Montgomery, on the Lake side, so all the lake
neighborhoods out there. This is your hometown, this is your home town garden
center. They do delivery, they do some landscaping around the Lake Conroe area
as well. Seven days a week, nine am to five pm. And
anytime you go in there, you're gonna find lots of cool plants. Plus
you're gonna find a lot of great garden bling too. To enhance that patio,
maybe you need a chimenea for sitting out on some cool nights. How
would that be? They could be pretty good. You're listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and I'm gonna let's see here.
We're gonna go real quick to a call before we have to take a break.
Hey, Bill and sugar Land trying to get you in for a break.
Okay, great, thank you Skip for taking my call. Yes,
hey, I've got some native oaks out in the front yard. I'm out
in sugar Land here, and for the last three four years they've been putting
out a ton of a carns. Yes, and they're hard to keep up
with, and I'm just wondering if there's anything i can do about it.
The fast answer or do you have a recommendation on a better way than raking
on how to get those off the ground? Yes, I have used like
a certainly raking is one option, but it's hard to get them out of
the ground. I kind of ignore the ones that are in my grass.
I just do and that's okay. They'll be fine if they try to sprout
and the mower hit them and they're not going to make anything. But that's
probably the fastest thing that you can do to just get them raked out.
I've tried some vacuums of different types. You know, there's there are some
vacuums, but that is so tedious and you end up pulling up a lot
of your organic matter and stuff, and so I don't I don't recommend trying
that. Unfortunately, it's where we are. I'm gonna have to go to
break, but I'm gonna make some comments about it coming after break. If
you'd like to hang on, that's fine. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, come back to Garden
Line. We are glad you're listening. As always, we look forward to
visiting with you about the things that you're curious about regarding having a successful landscape,
a beautiful lawn, that's a challenge, but we know how to help
do that. Having a bountiful garden, flower, garden, vegetable gardens,
herbs, fruit, trees. What do you want to talk about? We'll
talk about that today. All right, So going through some of the different
different topics this morning, you know, the houseplants, Christmas tree, Christmas
plants and things. Now we come to the call we just had about acorns
and acorn production. And I am I wish I had a nickel for every
question I've had at the Agrove Extension Office and here at Garden Line about acorns
because people just keep asking about where'd they all come from? It is never
liked this before, and so on. Well, the fact is it has
been like this before. But acorns are different. Oaks are on different schedules.
White oaks tend to produce our acrons in one year and red oaks tend
to take maybe two years or And it's not an exact where I can just
make a sweeping statement that everyone does exactly this, but they're on different schedules.
Secondly, some years are just heavy mass years. Masts is what the
word we use for All those fallen acrens are produced on the tree that's the
mast. And so when it's a heavy mass year, and you combine that
with maybe two different kinds of oaks also being on this is the year of
their schedule, whatever, then you just end up with a lot of acrons.
And I'm seeing them everywhere. I think I said yesterday on the radio.
I went to visit family in San Antonio and driving down their driveway felt
like running over bubble wrap. I mean it was just solid acrens, just
crunch, crunch the whole time. And so what do you do, Well,
there's nothing you can do, really nothing practical that you can do to
try to alleviate that. You just have to wreck them up, you know,
vacuum them up. If you've got a vacuum them. They're on some
hard escape that you can use it. The bottom line is just it is
what it is, and it'll be different. Next year will not be the
same as this year. But combining the genetics of the oaks with the natural
cycles and then the vicissitudes of nature, which I'd like to use that word,
because nature can throw us a curve a lot of times, and plants
respond to things in the weather, the climate, and the soils and so
on. So there's a lot of things that can combine for this. But
I think that I don't know maybe this year's drought had anything to do with
it. I don't think it did because the no, in fact, it
couldn't. The acorns were pollinated and started way back in the spring. So
anyway, that's that's what it is. It's too bad that there's not a
good market for acorns, because that may be the number one not producing tree
in Texas this year only. But it's been that kind of year where you
listen to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter, and I want
to tell you about in Channi Gardens done Richmond in Chenne Gardens is on the
Katie fullsher side if you're heading north out of Richmond toward Katie that direction on
FM three point fifty nine, you will find Enchanted Gardens and the website's really
easy Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com in Chennigardens Richmond dot com. The Lindemann family
has been around the community since what nineteen ninety five when in Chenne Garden first
opened, and they just excel at providing a wide array of plants in awesome
condition, by the way, and a group of employees that knows what they're
talking about. You can walk in, you're going to be greeted, They
are going to be able to direct you and to point you to the plants
that you're going to have success with based on what you're telling them you're looking
for. That's in Channi Gardens Richmond. Now. They carry all the fertilizers
that I talk about as well. Of course it's the holiday season. They've
got a wonderful selection of the Christmas trees as well as some of those beautiful
houseplants that help decorate. They also have a great gift shop, so just
another reason to go out to Engended Gardens and Richmond, by the way,
they're open today from ten am to four pm on Garden Line. We sometimes
get folks who don't want to be in the air, and there's a lot
of folks who want to email in, and I just want to say about
the first one not being on the air, don't worry about it. It's
nobody but you and me on the air. That's all. That's only people,
it's just us talking. If you've heard this show many times, you
know that there's no such thing as a stupid question. They're just stupid answers.
I'll worry about the stupid answers and you know, so that's on me,
all right, don't worry about it. Other people will have the questions
you have. That's the thing. People don't realizes you may have a very
unusual question. You think nobody else has this. Yeah, they do,
Absolutely they do. And that's why we are here to help answer whatever questions
that you have. We want you to have success. I want you to
have success. I want gardening for you to be as much fun as possible.
I want it to be as bountiful and create landscapes that are as beautiful
as you can. And that is why we're here for that success. So
some people, again don't want to be on the air, but don't worry
about that. It's okay. Just sume me. The other thing that I
often run into is the email backlog. And right now I'm just and it's
probably not to continue this way, but I just am not able to sit
in type answers to each email. If you can send me a photo,
if you can send me to describe something and then call in on Saturday or
Sunday, you know, we can tackle it then and and solve it then.
And it does help to have a photo and stuff ahead of time.
But in general, just overloaded on the email. And you can imagine that
there's a lot of people live around here, and so I do my best
that I can. Occasionally I may answer one that is just I feel like
this is not good to try to cover on the air. But in general,
please understand, and we will give you permission to send a photo and
we can take a look and be happy to help. Let's see, I
was discussing the benefits of soil and the brown stuff before green stuff just a
while ago. Nature's way resources is the I don't know the epitome. I
guess of the brown stuff you've got malts. You've got compost, you've got
all kinds of soil, amendments, bed mixes, all the brown stuff it
takes to make plants grow. They can provide you fertilizer too, there by
the way. They keep some of that on hand, you know, Nature's
way resources. They've added the large nursery area now a couple acres that have
quite a bit of plants, especially a real good selection of native plants.
I would encourage you to go out and take a look. If you've got
a way to haul at home, haul at home. If you need to
order have them deliver, then have them deliver or just by by the back.
That is a little more convenient way for people that aren't needing a lot
of soil. But you can call them it nine three six three two one
sixty nine ninety nine three six three two one sixty nine nine zero. We're
listening to garden Line. I'm going to give you our phone number. We're
about to go to a break here, but the phone number is seven one
three two one two KTRH. If you want to get on the board with
Josh, we'll visit with you when we come back. This hour seemed to
kind of go a little bit quick on me. That was kind of fast.
I want to remind you that if you are interested in my lawn care
schedule, if you're interested in my lawn pest disease and weed management schedule,
those are both online. If you go to Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening
with Skip dot Com, you get both those Skip wilt the colored every month
of the year, what do you do? What are the things you're facing,
or you're fertilizing, or you're fighting chinchbugs? What's going on? And
what are your options with organic and synthetic. All on those schedules, as
well as a lot of a lot of other helpful information, including the Protecting
Plants against Frost and Freeze's publication nine color pages tells you everything you need to
know about how to minimize cold damage to your plants, whether it's for a
frost or whether it's for a freeze. It's all in there. So I
hope you check that out at gardeningwith Skip dot Com. We'll be right back.
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 Skip Richter's crazy trim just watch him as well. Stay well, Welcome
back to Garden Line. We are glad you are listening today and got some
calls on the board. We will be getting to in just one second here.
You know I've talked to you about Star Hope before, and do you
know that they feed a lot of people, especially during this time of the
year. With your support, hundreds and hundreds of you, umeless of Houston's
homeless people can call it a home. They can find a place where they
can go and have shelter and food there at Star of Hope. They also
there will find long term recovery programs that help with employment, job training for
example, and life skills. Over five thousand people a week have a meal
or five thousand meals a week out there at Star of Hope. For two
dollars and eighty cents, you can provide one meal. Now, that is
a good cause because you're not just feeding someone and sending them out with the
well wishes. You're involving them and with your money providing food, you're helping
them and helping Star of Hope does what it does, and that's changed lives,
not just for those people, but for their kids too, who are
in this and no fault of their own. So I encourage you to sponsor
to some meals to provide that. Just go to sohmission dot org sohmission dot
org and you can find out information. We are now going to go out
to Lee and Baytown. Helloly, Hello, thank you. Yes, I
called to say something complimentary about your program. Yesterday I was listening to the
lady with the fig tree and the bores were getting into it, and she
had gone to a gardening center and they had made a recommendation to her and
she was uncertain about following that recommendation. And you were very judicious in your
advice and said this is an off label use and I can't recommend it.
And so I wanted to compliment you on that answer. I don't garden much
because I'm disabled, but I always call and listen in to the advice that's
given. And you do an excellent job of telling people how to do their
gardening, especially with food. You know, in my childhood, my grandmother
always had outside next to the garage. She always had a row of onions,
she had a row of turnips, and she had a row of collars
because and she was wealthy, but she wasn't going to get caught without any
food. There you go. So she always had that going. And we'll
get men. I just got to thank you so much. Those are kind
words. I appreciate. I appreciate that very much. I'm going to hop
and go to some of your fellow callers here now, but thank you.
I appreciate that. We're going to go up to Mike and Willis. Hello,
Mike, Yeah, skip in. I'm heading out to my orchard now.
And I've been using round up too weak controls on my blueberries, blackberries
and grapes and fruit trees. And I was just wondering because I'm just a
one man person using round up and then fertilizer and then moult all the same
day, you know, because sometimes I can't coming back up to the orchard.
You can, you can do a problem. You can do that,
Mike, But you want to if I spray the weed with with round up,
you need to give it some days for that to soak in and begin
to do its work. And if you just threw mulch over and it happened
to cover the the weeds, I don't think you're going to get the same
result. I could be wrong, but I think I would. The only
change I would have is maybe the mulching coming a little bit later. So
mixing the fertilizer and roundup is not going to be a problem. When you
say mixing, you're talking about a liquid. Yeah. I would spray round
up. The last couple of years I've been used around up to control the
grass around the planet. But if I spray and then the same day I
come back fertilizer, then you're saying wait for two or three days, for
which I could probably do that. Yes, And when you fertilize, you're
gonna want rainfall or irrigation or something to help move it down into the soil.
And with roundup, yeah, you're barely wetting the leaves. You don't
need much. And if you're drenching the soil then there can be some big
problems with that. I'm not I'm not touching the plants itself. There's you
know, I'm I'm going and we got trail, you know, we got
a hunter for long okay, brows and stuff that. Well. I hope
that. I hope that helps. And sounds like you're growing some fun stuff
up in Willis. I used to live in that airy long time ago.
Mike, thank you. I appreciate that call a lot. Uh. You
know, we're talking about lawn care for the last couple of months here,
and I'm just saying it's kind of getting to be last call for getting this
fall fertilization down. If the weather holes out, we can still get benefits
going forward. But if you haven't done your fall fertilizing, you need to
do it now. And Nelson plant Food carbo load is an excellent product for
that. It's got that higher phosphorus number and lower nitrogen number that is important
for providing what the plant needs to make carbohydrates in this presence of sunlight,
to get stronger, to get more cold hearty, and to come out better
in spring. That's what carbo load does. It also has a pre emergent
herbicide. You put that down, you water it in, and the additional
benefit to the nutrients is that you have that pre emergent herbicide now at the
soil surface, helping to prevent weeds. Every bag sold of carbo load in
the Greater Houston area this fall, two dollars sent to the Randy Lemon Memorial
Scholarship for horticulture students up at Texas and M University. You're gonna don't really
have time to get to a call right now, so I'm going to just
hang on one second. When we come back for break here, Ruth and
Donna, you'll be the first two up. I want to remind you guys
about the lone Star Yule Bald fundraiser that OBA puts on Organic horri Culture Benefits
Alliance. It's called an Evening with Shake Russell Shakes, the legendary Texas singer
and songwriter. You need to go online to get your tickets. It's OHBA
online, OBA online dot org, slash register. There's going to be a
delicious dinner. There'll be a silent auction, Fortune Tellers magician the da VS
Strings will be playing, as will Shake Russell. That's kind of the the
end of the evening, This nice long performance by Shake Russell at OBA.
By the way, it's going to be at the Balling Room at Tanglewood on
West Timer on Thursday, December seventh, five thirty to nine thirty. Don't
delay, go ahead and get your tickets now. Well, we're going to
take a break. We will be right back our phone number seven one three
two one two kt R H seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back. We're glad you're listening
and looking forward to talking to you. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. If you're thinking about planting a tree,
now's the time. Fall is the best time. Winter is also an
excellent time. Spring is a good time, but fall it just seems like
it's the best of all. When you go to Verdant Tree Farm, and
by the way, there's three places where you can find Verdant Tree Farm.
One is Barker Cypress and West Houston. One's up in the Heights where Yale
Street comes into it, and another one down in the Paarland area on Broadway
Street, not too far from Killing Steakhouse down there. When you go to
a place like that, by the way, they're open today from nine point
thirty to three pm, so good day to get a tree. By the
way, I'm just saying, you walk in, you can sit down,
they'll spend some time with you that look over things, look over your plans,
make some suggestions if you're needing help with what's the best kind of holly
for here. Whatever, whatever you're looking for, they can take care of
you. On that. You can go online to Verdant v er da nt
Verdant Treefarm dot com. You're going to find that they have huge trees as
well as smaller size trees. But some's so big it's just like instant tree,
like seven hundred gallons for crying out loud, that's a big tree.
Verdant Tree Farm Verdantreefarm dot com. Go check them out. They're open today
and this is the best time to get a tree planted. Actually they say
the best time fifty years ago, the second best times today. But let's
do it. We're going to head out to Bear Creek now and talk to
Ruth. Hello, Ruth, Hello, how can I help? In the
past, I've taken acorns to the Wildlife Cender and they put them in the
freezer and feed them to the animals all throughout the year. I did not
know that. That's very interesting. The Wildlife Center used to be on Hamley,
but they're in the process of moving. Okay, all right, well,
hey, good suggestion. I think people are having trouble getting them all
up. That's one of the biggest problems is getting them, getting them out
of the grass and smashing them the driveway and everything else. But hey,
thanks for that tip, Ruth. I appreciate that. Okay, sounds like,
yeah, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. So when life
gives you too many acorns, make rehabbing wildlife happy. That sounds like a
good plan. Fall is the time for planting, and once you've prepared your
soil, you want to pick the right plants to go in, and then
you want to plant them properly. And part of properly is after you have
put the plant in the ground at the same level it was growing before,
watered in with some hash to grow six twelve six six twelve six has those
nutrients in it. It also has seaweed extracts, humic acid, medina soil
activator. It's a concoction of a number of different things, but you mix
it in water and can just spread over the plant. Watered in really really
well. That phosphorus is really helpful, by the way, for the root
system. And I would do it again a week later and again a week
after that. It's as simple as that. Just three good waterings in with
a little bit of time between them to help get that plant off to a
good boost and has to grow by medina. Is that's the six twelve six
one. It is an excellent choice for doing just that. We're going to
head out now to sugar Land and talk to Donna. Hello, Donna high
Camp. Yeah, I sent you an email with a picture of a plant
that I needed identified. They have it in the landscape that papasitos here in
Sugarland, Okay, and I really like the foliage. I lost my shrubs
along my garage wall in the front the twenty twenty frees and I've been temporarily
putting things in the bed just to fill in till I could figure out what
I wanted to do. Yeah, but so I wanted to know. It
looks like maybe it's a sweet by vernum, but I'm not sure, and
I'm not sure if it's going to work in the spot where I need it,
because in the summer that bed gets full blazing sun till very late afternoon,
and I have a huge live oak in the backyard that actually shades that
area plus the house, but this time of year it's in a shade almost
all day long. And I've read that my vernom here need to have more
shade. But these shrubs that Papasito's are in full blazing west afternoon sun.
So if that's what they are. Okay, you know what, I haven't
been able to open your your photo sure, yeah, so I may have
to do that maybe during a break or something, and then go back to
you so I can take a look. I hear what you want, and
I'll take a look at those pictures and then get back and talk about it.
Okay, okay, I'll best. Thank you. I appreciate that very
much. I uh, if I try to multitask too many things, yeah,
it doesn't go real well. So we'll take a look at those during
a break. You are listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven
to one three two one two five eight seven four seven to one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. As simple as that, give us a
call. We'll talk about gardening and the things that are of interest to you.
Remember this is still prime time to get in cool season color in your
color beds. There's lots of great plans to choose from. Go to a
good quality garden center. They're going to carry the stuff that does well here
and tell you how to take care of it so that you have success.
And that's really important, It really is important. It's also the time for
continuing to plan our fall vegetable gardens. And I say vegetable garden, but
I realize a lot of people don't have room for a big garden out back.
They probably you know, have room for maybe a bet or two,
or maybe they just are going to grow in containers on the patio. Well,
however you go about it, do some a little bit of looking into
it, how to do it, or give me a call on garden line,
and let's talk about how do you successfully grow food in a container of
whatever type or size. We can advise you on that. But you can
grow carrots and cool season greens and all kinds of stuff. I mean,
basically you just have a little field that's a scattering of different kinds of greens.
When I say feeling about a large container size and it just go in
and take scissors and clip them off, make solid or use them for cooking
or whatever. You can grow in containers. So if the only sunny spot
you've got is out in the driveway, get a container you can actually don't
run into it with a car by the way, but you can find that
sunny's spot and do real well. I'm going to go now out to Ronnie
and Lake Jackson. Hello, Ronnie, it's good about you doing this morning.
I'm good, Thank you. Yes, sir, I've got a quick
question. I've got a couple of rows of Japanese box woods coming up my
driveway and I'm getting brown spots in them where like a portion of the plant
has died, but it's not dead, but it's it's not leafy. Uh
yeah, is there some Is there something? I figured it's got to be
something that I can spray in treat. I just wanted to know what you
thought. Yeah, several things can do that one of them, and I
realize not all these are probably what's happening to your plant. But we get
a real hard cold snap and those boxwoods aren't ready, and you'll see some
splits on the stem, and then often that stem dies and you have that
brown area in there that nothing's coming back. Certainly, if you got pats
running around, this happens to a lot to dwarf you opon, but it
can happen to box which a basketball bounces in or a pet goes in and
you actually crack a branch and that leads to maybe a canker type infection.
That's another possibility. Are these watered by sprinkler irrigation, No, shir.
The only thing we get is rain water. It's about the only thing I
did. Rain water. It takes care of them. Okay. Well,
the last thing would just be some type of a stem canker, and those
are very difficult to treat because you don't just spray the bush and it doesn't
get the canker. Canker is an internal like think of it as like an
infection and a cut on your arm or something. That the canker is working
inside of bark tissues. So when you find those, follow them all the
way down and cut them off behind where you see the either a split or
brown bark or anything. You can take your pocket knife scrape the bark back
and see if it's creamy and green inside. If it's kind of you know,
dying brown and gray, cut it behind that and between each cut,
get some lifeyl and just spray your printers just in case you got into the
canker. You don't want to carry those diseases onto the next year. Okay,
got you all right? Well, good luck with that running. Appreciate
you. Appreciate your call very very much. Let's see, we're going to
go now to Mike and Fredericksburg. Hello, Mike, hits Her, Mike
or you listen? Are you listening to a radio or are you doing it
on your computer? On my heart? Okay? Good. I just always
have to ask. I'm curious. I heard garden line on the edge of
Lano a few months ago, and I thought, wow, I didn't think
we could reach that. But it wasn't much fun to listen to as cractly
as it was. But you know I have actually done that. I've listened
to seven forty outside Atlanta before. I sure have. Okay, how can
I help? Well, my question is this. So we bought a prefab
greenhouse one of the builders that metal builders that offers those as a package.
Did it in the summer, and I failed to put some type of floor
in it. And so as we started getting rain again across the summer,
late summer and early fall, the grass started growing, okay, and I
was wanting to find out an effective way to get rid of that grass and
not poison my greenhouse and I'm going to probably put everything on pots above ground,
but I just didn't want the atmosphere to be bad. Yeah, you
could use anything to kill weeds grass. It could be a grass only killer.
It could be a product like life a say, that has broad leave
and grass activity. You just spray it whatever you're going to use, and
then, know, don't drench the soil with it. Slightly cover it.
Now, if you have plants in the greenhouse at the time, if you
could get them out before you spray, that would be better, just because
I'm yeah, so go ahead, and if you own do it, do
it now. Another thing gets going a weed eater and take it to the
ground and then put a some kind of a good thick mulch over it.
That that's another option. But I don't generally use a mulch in the greenhouse
just because it ends up kind of getting soggy, wet and not being a
not being a real good environment. We were thinking like pea gravel something like
that, Yes, if you can, but you if you're going to use
it to kill the plant, you'd need some like a layer of craft paper
or something underneath it. But yeah, pea gravel would be fine. Pea
gravel in those little one foot by one foot contrey concrete stepping stones. That
is that is so good. I see it in a lot of greenhouses and
it is very clean and neat. You just have to watch you don't get
some algae growing on something where you'd have a slippery footing. Great skip.
Thank you very much for your will. All right, Mike, thank you,
and thanks for listening out in Fredericksburg. I appreciate that. Well,
here we are, Nikki, we are time for another break. This morning
is the last few days of doing Gardenline. It just felt like I'm careening
downhill. It's on roller skates at breakneck speeds, and first thing you know,
I'm at the bottom of the hills. Isn't that amazing? It's eight
thirty. Didn't we just start this? We did just start Yeah, yeah,
it's one of those days. I've been having computer issues. I know
all the more. Oh Gremlin's everywhere. They've just taken over. So yeah,
one of those days they're going to rule the world, especially with AI.
Oh boy, yes, yeah, let you we get out of here.
We got this and then do the news for you just by pulling it
off the headlines. And reading it, and we're getting in a robot voice,
but you don't have Nicki's dulctones. When you use a computer generated voice,
that's you all sit down, then'll sit down. We'll come back to
that. Welcome back to garden Line. We are. We're happy to have
you today and looking forward to visiting with you about the kind of questions that
you might have. You can give me a call at seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. When you are talking about planting plants, we always begin with the
soil round stuff before green stuff. And when you create the swell environment where
the plant can thrive it, you're just way past halfway to success, way
past, because you you now have a thing that a substrate that the plant
roots are going to just be able to proliferate in, and that's going to
create a much stronger, healthier, better plant. And heirloom soils has a
couple of blunds like that. In fact, that probably the two most common
things that I'll mention about airlooms is there are rose soil and the veggiean RB
mix. Both are high quality soils that they put together out there in Porter
and the rose soil happens to be on by. In fact, both of
those happen to be on a really big fall special. So if you're looking
for bulk, you can get roasts soil for seventy dollars up a qubit yard,
or you can get the supersac, which is also a qubit yard set
in your driveway for ninety nine dollars. The veggie and art mix is also
on special one hundred and nineteen bulk one eight supersack. Now there, these
are very very good prices, and so if you're thinking about putting in a
bed, topping off a bed, making a bed a little higher, all
of that, now's the time. This is the best deal you're going to
get, and you just give them a call. Make sure that they understand
the kinds of plants that you're wanting to grow in the area so that they
can direct you to the best products for you. And that's Airloom Soil of
Texas dot Com, Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com. This fall special isn't
going to last forever. Go ahead and take advantage of it, because we
always need to improve soil somewhere in the lawn, garden and landscape, if
not everywhere we need to be improving our soil. I'm going to head now
out to Lawrence and Humble. Hello Lawrence, thank you, morn How are
you. I'm well, thank you? How can I help? So?
I sent some pictures in r a picture of some little bugs that they like
to jump on my lawnmower when I'm through the grass. Okay, I've had
I've had a problem with the spill bugs in the past that I treated for
that. These are little babies. Yeah, I'm looking at that. I
can't tell what that is. It's a little too far away to really make
them out where I could keym out. That is not a common pest of
plants that I know of. The plants were growing, so I don't I
don't think that this is a concern. But that's that's my best estimate based
on not quite being able to make out the details on those bugs very well.
Okay, I'll watch you, Yeah, just watch them. You know,
the vast majority of insects are either beneficial or of no consequence to what
we're doing, you know, And so it is it's the exception to have
the past and I don't believe these are anything to be concerned about. Thank
you, though, I appreciate you, appreciate your email, appreciate that.
I appreciate that call very much, very much. Let's see, I'm going
to go to Allen in Kingwood. Hello, Allan, this skip. I
enjoy your show a whole lot, never missions on weekends. The question is
that I've discovered I got at least I got a mole in the yard,
okay around maybe even more than one. Do you have any feedback you can
give me on how to get rid of them? Are and are they doing
any serious damage? Let's let's uh let me ask you some questions about what
you're seeing. Uh Well, first of all, describe to me what what
you're seeing when you when you say tunneling around, Well, there's the there's
it looks like it's the ground has come up about an inch and a half.
And I don't I see some of those, but I don't see where
there's any heel or anything where they're popped up or anything like that. Right,
And and you don't, Yeah, you don't have the big piles of
soft dirt out there, so that that I've got a little that big piles
I've just got a little where the grounds come up in the air, a
little bit soft dirt. It's just spongy. Yeah, I think you're dealing
with moles. I just wanted to be sure because there's some other critters out
there, moles, vowls, gophers, things like that. Uh, probably
the best thing. There's different options. There's there's poisons for them, and
there's traps for them that you can get from a good feed store, hardware
store, you know, like an a store for example, is going to
have that. There is a publication that you need to look at if you
go online to agra Life Learn a g R I l I F E L
e A r N Agrolife Learn dot t A m U tex An m University
dot E d U that's education. That is the bookstore for free publications from
Agrolife Extension And if you type the word mole in you will get a free
publication. Fact there's a couple of them on there that you can click on.
You just have to fill out some stuff. They send you an email
with a link to the pdfile and you can learn about it. Because chasing
these down is not always easy, and a lot of times people feel like
they're playing Whack a mole. Joe contended with the moles because they can't quite
get rid of them. So the publications can be very helpful and help me
understand that. Okay, okay, could you repeat that this one more time?
I can barely hear you. Yes, Agra life learn A G R,
I L I F E, and then the word learn dot T A
dot I need you text an m university education With those stand for okay,
okay, we'll type okay, well the mole if I just say, well,
at some point, we'll just get tired of live in my yard and
go somewhere else. I don't know. I wouldn't count on that. Uh
you know, Okay, you're did you ever see the movie Caddyshack? Yes,
I think you're Bill Murray. I'm sorry, Yeah, so I got
to do the Bill Murray. I don't have any data mite, so I
guess I'll just have to give you some chemicals. Well, yeah, I
wouldn't I wouldn't worry a lot about it. But but there is dammage,
so hopefully we'll set you off on the right direction there. Hey, thanks
for the Thank you very much. Alan appreciate that a lot. Uh.
I was talking about Verden Tree Farm, Wago and uh playing plants, planting
trees, the importance of this season for woody ornamentals. You know, tree
hugger sprinklers is a tool that you need to just have it in your garage
where your toolrack are, where do you keep a hand trowel and a shovel
and those kind of things. Right there, handle the wall TreeHugger sprinklers seven
inch, eleven inch fifteen inch. You hook them to your hose and your
newly planted tree. You can water wherever the roots are from just in that
little cylinder, initially the day you plant it, to gradually moving out into
a large area, you just turn the tree hugger up more and it does
that. I like to think of it as insurance on a tree, and
that is really inexpensive insurance when you consider the value, the costs and value
of those trees in our landscapes. You are listening to garden Line, I
want to remind you those of you listening that I have a website. It's
Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. That's where you'll
find my lawn fertilizing schedule, my law past disease and we schedule. Uh,
they're up there a good amount of information and once we get past January,
first, we are going to do some major upgrading of the website by
just adding a lot other categories and information. That's all coming. That's all
coming. I gotta get through all this holidays first, and then we're gonna
put our hands to that plow. Well, thanks for being a garden Line
listener. If you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. And when we come back, Charlie, you'll
be first up. Welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back. Yeah,
playing whack a mole with moles just like Bill Murray. Actually I wasn't a
mole. Was what was a little rodent that he was after? Anyway?
Ground high? There you go, there you go. Hey, we're gonna
go back to the phones now, if you'd like to give us a call
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. That's right. It
was a gopher kind of figured out. Uh, let's go to West University
and talk to Charlie. Hello, Charlie, Hi, my fun lawn looks
bad. It's Saint Augustine past Saint Augustine in half weeds. I put some
fertilizer on my wife. Did this fall the kin? You recommend anything for
eight twelve, but it's still looking looking bad. Things just started going.
There's a large oak tree that covers a lot of it that may be part
of the problem. Is it a live oak? A live oak? Yeah?
Yeah? Uh? What West University asking? Is it a live oak?
This kind of a unnecessary questions only one? Oh is it okay?
Well I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So I it could be a couple of
things. Number One, I have to think drought had a part in this.
When when the grass gets weak and there is a disease called take all
root rot that move can move in and often does and destroys roots and takes
it down further. And then there's the issue with the live oak shade,
which can be dense and it's twelve months out of the year basically, and
so unlike a deciduous tree where maybe the grass could capture all sunlight you know
after the leaves fall off. Well you don't have that with the live oat.
So it's probably a combination of those things. Charlie, I just remember
my wife Waters. You mentioned the drop my what Waters had the sprinkle sets
of water. I think it's fifteen minutes, three times a week almost no
matter what. Okay? Well, and is this grass in a lot of
shade then or is it just part of it under the live oat. I
see it's part of it under the live Oaka, it's not doing well either
either way. Well, the more you keep the thing well, the more
frequently water, the more disease problems you can you can have as well.
But if you want to take drought out of the mix, I'll take your
word for that one. But I think what you basically are going to need
to do is look to see if you have that disease. You can send
a sample up to the state plant clinic, or you can just you know,
basically follow the publication on take all Root route that's online and just try
to make your best visual assessment of it. Typically you're going to get some
yellowing of the grass, yellow blades here and there on the grass. It's
going to decline and you just very irregular areas, not like the round circles
of brown patch, but very different. And if that's yes yellow, yeah,
just see and if you want to. I can put you on hold
if you want to send me a picture of it from the distance, show
in the yard, and then picture or two really up close and good sharp
focus. That would be helpful. Try pulling up a runner at the end
and see if the roots look healthy or if they're just tiny, shriveled,
wiry brown things indicating that they've died. That would be another helpful. Till
just see if you got to take all right, Okay, all right,
Charlie, I'm going to put you on holes, so Josh can give you
an email if you would if you would like to go ahead and send me
those pictures. Let's go now to Bill in Spring. Hello, Bill,
Hey, good morning. I enjoy your show. Thank you. Hey.
I've got a thirty foot magnolia tree that's been in stress for about two to
three months. It started during all the hot and dry period that we had,
and about half the leaves are brown, but they aren't falling. Okay.
Now, Initially I started watering at the base of the tree, and
I wasn't sure if that was doing enough, so I dug a two foot
hole about two feet away from the trunk and put a three inch PVC pipe
in the hole down to where I thought it would be. I've been warning
it regularly and it's been that way for about three weeks, and I was
hoping that the roots would be fed directly by the water. Now I'm not
sure this it's actually working. And what I was wondering, is there some
type of fertilizer or chemical that I could add to this hole that would go
directly to the roots that might save the tree. Well, okay, I'm
trying to picture the setup. You got probably not fully understanding it, but
I will tell you this. The magnolias took a hammer hammering from this summer
heat and drought, and we lost entire trees and huge sections of other trees
around town like I haven't seen before. And that is probably what is going
on with that. When you water in one spot that root system from them,
magnolia is going out three times in all directions from that tree trunk and
three times the width of the tree in all directions or in some cases.
But that just doesn't help to water one spot like that. You need to
keep the whole root system hydrated, and that would be a top down soaking.
I talk about the the tree hugger sprinkler, you know, put it
around the plant and turn it on to create as big a circle as you
want for watering. That's the area you most need to try to take is
the you know, the branch bread and a little beyond that. Uh yeah,
I wouldn't. I wouldn't do the whole version. And same with the
same excuse me one second, Bill, The same is true with fertilizing.
Sprinkle a good fertilizer all around and watered in really good, and that's the
best. Yeah, okay, hey, well I appreciate it. I'll try
that, all right, Bill, thanks for the call. I appreciate that.
Yeah. It's a misconception, and it just continues to, I don't
know, go on and on. Especially you know when tree companies will use
a picture of a mirror top bottom, a mirrored tree as their logo.
For example, Well, you know, you hold your hand up, hold
out five fingers, that's the tree. Then open your other hand and put
it upside down. That's the roots. In other words, they're a mirror
image and they're not tree. Roots are about whether they're in the top foot
of soil. Primarily virtually every significant part of the root system that you need
to deal with is in that top foot of soil. That's how it is.
And so I tell people, if you want a picture of a tree,
forget that top bottom mirror image. Put a pancake on the table.
That's the root system. Put a stalk of broccoli in the middle of the
pancake. That's the tree. So you got this little tree virtually compared to
the roots, and this large area of roots going out in all directions.
And so that advises us when we go to maybe put a trench in.
You know, take a knife, slice through the pancake. If you slice
right close to the stalk in the middle, you've taken half the root system
out of that tree. The further you get away from the trunk, the
less root loss occurs with a trench. That's just an example, but it's
also part of watering. How does rain water. It drops down on the
ground over time, and it soaks in and it wets to soil deeply from
a good rainstorm. That's what we're trying to achieve and helping our plants.
Now that the stress is off, everything's fine in terms of the plant not
going through additional issues. But I understand the damage and I understand the concern
about losing them. The decision you have to make on your trees, like
let's say this magnolia tree, is is it going to be so disfigured when
I prone out all the dead that I want to keep it? And often
the key answer that is no. And that's true with cray Myrtle's really hit
by last December spreeze, especially in the northern parts of the listening area,
and you just see whole sections died out, And so that's the question you
ask yourself. But caring for trees for now, soil's moist, they're doing
okay, don't worry about them. If they're evergreens like a magnolia, they're
going to use more water in the winter time than a deciduous plant would because
they've got leaves on them. So just watch. If we go through two
weeks three weeks without rain and the cool season, go ahead and give them
one soaking. That's all you need to do. It takes about an inch
of water a little more to give them a good soaping. Well, you're
listening to Guardline. We're going to take our little break here and we will
be right back. Our number is seven to one. Three, two,
one, two, five, eight seven four. Kt 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 yes trip. Just watch
him as well, say hey, welcome back to garden Line. We're glad
you're listening on this Saturday morning. I've got about an hour left here in
today's edition. We'll be back next Saturday morning. Sunday morning. We'll be
back next Saturday and Sunday next weekend from six am to ten am. We're
glad. We're glad you listen. It always makes a show more interesting too
when people call in have a wide variety of questions. Never know what is
going to hit. We're going to go now to Magnolia and talk to Mary.
Hello Mary, Hi, Skip, good morning. How are you doing
today? I'm well, Thank you, I'm well. How can I help?
Okay, I'm up a magnolia. We've got an aerobic sceptic system in
our backyard and it sprays the water out onto the pine trees and the bark
is getting covered with the green moss. Okay, and I'm wondering if that's
going to hurt the trees, or if it is, if there's a way
to get it off of the trees. I tried scraping some off with a
razor blade and that didn't work out too well. Yeah, if you're getting
green moss growing successfully on there, then it is it is keeping it pretty
wet. It must spray pretty often. It's not good for trees to have,
you know, wet trunk tissues all the time, especially when you have
like piles soil up against the bottom of the trunk. That's a big note.
I'm gonna I'm going to hang up and just listen to you because I
can't hear you on the phone very well. Just turn my radio up.
Oh thank you, all right, Mary, thank you. I appreciate that.
So, yeah, that when you wet a tree trunk, the bark
on a tree trunk, and keep it constantly wet, that's not good for
it. That's one of the reasons why we say don't pile multi volcanoes up
against the base of the trunk of your tree. Tree trunks aren't made for
that. However, just spray of water here and there. Rain does that
all the time. So if it's enough where moss is growing, I still
think the trees are going to be okay, just because there is oxygen,
they're able to get oxygen on there. I wouldn't worry about that. It'd
be nice if they didn't do spray it all the time. But I think
that you're going to be just fine. Mary, that's not going to be
a problem. Let's now go to the galleria and talk to Unus. Hey,
Yunus, Hey, Kim. I have a problem. I restarted my
front lawn because I had so much bermuda grass. I killed it. I
didn't kill anything, but I put the sod down with the grass. Really
sure. Well three months later, I'm covered in bermuda again. Okay,
So I was wondering if I reach on it again, should I do it
at this time of the year or wait until the spring. Well, if
you're going to go to that measure, and that's a lot of work,
as you know, and expense, I would do it in the spring.
Okay. You want your grass to be actively growing, and here's why you're
going to have to spray that bermuda grass. Spray everything and and kill it.
I would I would use a glacy state product on that because it translocates
down and works very well. There are also some grass only killers. Depending
on which one you get, they may work very well or not really get
all the bermuda really well either, but either either way you're going to when
it's actively growing. That's when those spray products work the best on bermuda,
and I would spray it in the spring with new growth. Make sure don't
mow it right before you spray, because you're cutting off all the leaves that
are going to get that round up or whatever you're using on them. Life
ate. There's a lot of other brands, and probably about two weeks later
you may need to come back and spray again just because it doesn't all come
up. And having been through this once already, the last thing you want
is to get almost all the bermuda rest again and then here we go again,
you know, because okay, so it's important that I kill the bermuda
before I do any sarting that if if you don't want to mix lawn,
you're going to have to do that. There they're actually there's actually a type
of sod that it's a it's a Saint Augustine. You may want to call
the folks at Milburg or Turf on this one. I'm trying to remember who
all carries it. It's a it's a new product that is resistant to glyphasate,
and so if you spray that with to kill the bermuda, then kill
the Saint Augustine. But that's a very special kind of sid And I don't
know if you don't try to get into all that or not, but I
just want to mention that that's there. Okay, okay, thank you very
much. All Right, thank you. I appreciate your call very much.
You're listening to garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. By the way, I wanted to go back to a question from
Donna. Donna, you'd sent me the pictures of the shrub you saw,
and then where you want to plant something. I think what you're looking at
as a copper tone low quat. The best I'm able to make out in
the photos. I think that is a copper tone low quat that makes a
really big tree. And so I don't you know, you would have to
prune a lot to keep it as small as you want it to be.
So I don't know that that's going to be the best one for the location
that you have right there. There are a number of other evergreens that stay,
you know, fairly compact, fairly small, especially with some pruning,
and so it just kind of depends on what you like the looks of.
There's a lot of a lot of really good options out there. You may
want to go with something that's going to be a little bit smaller, a
little more compact to do well to of course, Drophiopon, that's always an
easy one that it does really well. Nandinas can take a variety of the
sun exposures. They often are more compact, and they also have a nice
colored foliage. With the cool weather especially you get the burgundy to orangish red
tips or foliage developing on them as a result of the cool temperature. So
that may be another one that you like that does pretty well for you.
But go go someplace and I'm trying to remember where you're calling from out in
sugar Land, go out to one of the enchanted gardens and genet for us
nurseries out there and ask them, you know, show them a picture of
the plant and ask them do they have that? And I think they probably
would, and then they would also have some suggestions for how to maybe swap
that out with something else that better fits what you wanted to do. Take
your photos with you when you do that, because they know better than I
do. Everplant that's sitting on the on the I can't even talk here.
Ever, plant that's sitting on the property there, I want to go.
Let's see, I think we had unus here. We've already visited with Unice,
haven't we. Jer's going all right, Well, I'm gonna put that
back on hold. There. I want to spend a little time before we
wind up today we're getting close to the end and talk about some fruit tree
things. We need to take a little break, but when we come back,
the topics going to be fruit and nut trees, and we're going to
talk about that a little bit with your calls at seven one three two one
two kt RH. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions. If you want to
ask a question, give us a call seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If
your question is where no matter where I live in the Greater Houston area.
Where can I find all these products you're talking about? Well, the answer
to that is ACE Hardware forty stores in the Greater Houston area. Ace Hardware.
Do you need fertilizers that you hear on garden Line, Well, they're
going to have that pesticide disease control everything for your yard, all the outdoor
things, the bling Like I love those little strings of lights. I call
them beer garden lights. But you know what I'm talking about. Uh,
They've got all kinds of stuff like that. But did you know the ACE
is a place for your holiday decorating and lighting for that matter. Do you
need a wreath? Do you want some garland? Do you need lighting?
Perhaps box lights that have various colors and sizes, and ACE has all that
available. They also have something called custom lights by the foot. Custom lights
by the foot allows you to do just that. You can create a set
of lights for each area that you need to be lit. For example,
I used the example earlier of a mantle on of oiurplace. You know,
I want a light to go around there, so it needs to be this
long. Well, custom lights by the foot will do that. Indoor lighting
outdoor lighting. Just give ACE a try. Go buy the nearest ACE near
you. And how do you find the nearest ACE Hardware near you, Well,
you go to Acehardware dot com and if you want the whole thing,
you can put slash store dash locator, or just go to Aceharware dot com
the store locating enter your zip code and you'll see what I'm seeing right now
on my computer screen, as a matter of fact, is a whole lot
of red dots, meaning that ACE is everywhere. We're going to go out
now to pair Land and talk to Kay. Hello, Okay, good morning,
Skip, Thank you for taking my call. I was in Round Top
area last weekend with visiting my daughter and they have a little red house there
and she has a big fiddly fig over in one corner there then and some
of the laser starting to turn brown around the edge, and she wondered if
she should take those off, clip them off, or just let them go
till they turned browner and drop off or whatever. Yeah, okay, or
do you have any ideas on why it's doing that. It's probably Yeah,
it's probably a soul moisture situation. I have a physical gig and I only
get to see it, you know, about about months a week really,
uh and yeah, I find that sometimes I need to move it into a
bigger pot because it's still in too small of a pot consider how big it
is. Uh yeah, I would, yeah, okay, I'll just give
it that As far as as far as what the douque for those leaves,
they're not going to get green again, of course, and so oh,
I know, generally when there's enough of a brown spot, I'll just take
the leaf out. It's not one leaf plants where you can take your scissors
and cut up the leaf and make it look okay anyway, But I would
just take the leaf. It is not no. You know, if you
have if you have something like a corn plant a dressina and the turns brown,
you can cut a new v into the healthy leaf behind it, and
after you do it, people can't retell that it was prune. I do
that with my bamboos sometimes, Yeah, you could do it, but fiddlely
fig that's not appropriate. Also, anytime that you break off a living leaf,
there's going to be white sap that forms in that sapple see clothing,
it's a rubber it's a rubber tree. So that's the substance that's coming out.
Uh, and it'll get on carpet, on clothing and stuff, so
just be be extra careful. I usually have it issue there, so I
want to break it off. So if she snips it off, so it's
not going to weep like that. If it's dead, it's not. If
it's alive. Oh yeah, I wouldn't. Well, I'm thinking the leaf
might be brown, but the stem might be kind of green. Still,
well, I wouldn't snip it off. I would grab the thing and just
pull sharply downward and it pops right off. Oh okay, and that way
you don't have a little stub that you left when you snip Okay, okay,
thank you so much, great day and love your show. Thank you
man, appreciate that. Thank you for the call. You are listening to
Garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh.
It is as simple as that. Do you have some more holiday shopping
to do still? Do you need to get some products to take care of
your lawn or build a flower bed, or do you just want to get
some new plants? Well, Arbrogate our Gate Overgate it is. It is
a destination nursery just to the west of Tombol. Most of you know where
it is. In case you're new here, you need to go check it
out. It's Arborgate dot com. That's the website. It's on FM twenty
nine to twenty just about a mile and a half west of Tomball Parkway,
which is two forty nine in Tombol, so out west just one and a
half miles. Now they while you're there, grab the completely easy system.
That's three different product bags. One is organic food complete it's a four four
three fertilizer plus calcium. And then the second is organic soil complete That is
a soil that has some additional shale, expanded shale at it like I was
talking about earlier on in the show today. And then organic compost complete,
two different kinds of composts blended together, super high quality product with more expanded
shale in it. So those three together is the brown stuff that comes before
the green stuff, right, and when you build those beds, fill those
containers, do whatever you're going to do and take a quality so like this,
then those wonderful plants that you're going to find at Arburgate are just going
to be so happy and they're going to thrive. And when you go there,
they'll direct you to the kinds of plants you need, things that will
grow here, and they'll advise you just go and ask questions. You know,
hey, I've got this plan and it's not doing really well. What
would you recommend? Are there some other options and so on. Arburgate is
great with that. They got a new parking behind the building. By the
way, if you go down Trisher Road, either before or after you pass
by Arborgate, it swings around to the back with some wonderful parking and of
course they're loaded with Christmas trees and poinsettas and flowers and all kinds of things
to make the holidays more festive at your house. So I'm just getting a
message there from Josh. Somebody had asked about it was still located to winter
fertilizer and the answer is yes. But I want I want to say you
two things. Number One, my website, gardening with Skip dot com has
the schedule and yes we are past the fall fertilizing schedule time. Now I
put that on there, not to say it has to fall between these two
days, right, But to say this is the best time to do it,
This is when I would recommend that you do it. If you miss
that. And you may have heard Randy say this before, I know,
you know, over the years I've heard him say, if you miss the
schedule, then just still do it. Just get it done, don't don't
skip it. Just go ahead and get it done. And you can do
that. The reason a fall fertilizer a winter fertilizer helps your lawn is because
it produced. It puts the nitrogen potassium levels, especially into the soil for
the roots to take up in the presence of sunlight. They make carbohydrates,
which is and a freeze for the grass plant. It makes it heartier going
through winter and when it comes out in spring. The energy that drives grass
growth at the beginning of spring is stored energy that's in the plant. The
roots will begin growing as spring warms up and they'll begin to take over and
provide the plant. But initially it's how did it go into winter? And
that's why fall fertilizing is important. Now when you wait this long, yeah,
we have less days where that grass is going to be in a somewhat
growing state. Hopefully the weather stays mild and we continue to make a lot
of carbs on those grass out of those grass blades. Over time, it's
better to get it done if you use a product that has a per emergent
herbicide in it. Same thing with weeds. They sprout when the weather goes
off in the fall. If you didn't get them, you can still put
down a per emergent and prevent additional weeds, but if they've gotten large enough,
they're not going to be affected. Some products will give you a little
kick back, like the kill seedlings and actor as a pre emergent, but
most of them, most of them are not going to have that kickback.
Well, I want to head now out to Kingwood and we're going to talk
to Natalie. Hello, Natalie, Hi, how can I help? I
have a quick question. I grow a lot of crown of thorns and they
bloom all the time. But I purchased four last I don't know when,
and I replanted them kept them alive during the summer. They're in containers,
and I guess I'm trying to use up a lot of fertilizers that I have,
you know, for various things, and I must have put something in
that had something that made the leaves grow beautifully. I've never seen such beautiful
green leaves, but no blooms. What can I get to have some blooms
on them? Well, based on what you've said, my best guess is
that you put down a higher nitrogen fertilizer. Prona thorns is not a super
fast grower, you know. I've had those. Mother in law is a
giant, beautiful and she's had for years. But they don't grow super super
fast, and so we want to give them a little nitrogen for boost for
health and whatnot, but we just don't want to push them with too much.
And so I would just say it's the quantity, and it's also the
ratios that you put down. So some story I can't hear you. It's
the quantity of fertilizer, and it's the ratios. You know, if it's
a real high nitrogen not much else, that's probably not a good ratio for
crown of thorns. You want something more balanced down. I would use a
product called color Star. Color Stars an excellent product and it will work.
You can use it on houseplants. There's also I know Nelson's makes a houseplant
food as a matter of fact. Okay, it's designed. Okay, what
was the first one you said? Color Color Star. Yeah, that's a
star that is a fertilizer we've had around for a long time. It's it's
an excellent, excellent product and it works really well, especially when you're talking
about plants that you're wanting to produce good blooms. Is that available uh?
At various stores? Oh? Yeah, Yeah, Nelson's Color Star is available
all over the place. You just just call around and ask where you like
to shop. I know you're out there in Kingwood. Kingwood Garden Center or
Warren's probably has some. You may find some at a nice hardware oute there
as well. Oh I've got to wrap I've got to wrap up and go
here. Kay, I'm put you on or Natalie, I'm put you on
hold. If you want to stick around, we can continue talking. Phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back
to garden Line. We are glad you're listening today as we talk about whatever
gardening topics or of interest to you. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Give us a call if you like to visit. Right now,
I'm going to go back to Kingwood and I was in a conversation with
Natalie. Natalie, where do we go from here? Well, my second
question was is there a product that I can use to kill pine trees?
Well, if you cut a pine tree off, it can't reach sprout.
So there, you know, there's no need to like spray. I mean,
you can just saw them off at the ground or wherever are these in
your yard? Are they you know, like a wood? They are?
They're huge trees. And I hate to say this, but you know there's
a disagreement between my husband and me about these trees and I'd kind of like
to maybe get rid of some of them, if you know what I mean.
So basically, you're asking me in front of the entire listening audience to
be an accomplice to a crime. Here? Is that? What's going on?
Yes, well, you don't need to spray a pine tree. It's
going to die when you cut it off. And so there are way is
there something? Is there something that I can inject into the roots. Well,
here's the problem. When when a pine tree dies, the bark very
soon loosens on that tree and it becomes very hard to climb, very unsafe
to climb. And so you I don't know, I don't think it's a
good idea to just basically kill a tree that's still standing. That's a pine.
You there are herbicides you can put and take a little hatchet and chop
down in the in the bark around the tree. There's some herbicide you can
put on it that will kill it that way. But you know, as
far as putting on the roots and things, I don't know anything that's not
going to mess up other things. I know it's a it's a kind of
a murderous question, but you know, well they can be very annoying.
Yes, okay, well I understand, but thank you, thank you for
the advice. I appreciate it. Well, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that, Natalie. I hope we helped out with that crowd of
thorns too. Those are cool plants, you know. I guess that could
be you know a little reddish kind of an orange red blooms on them or
on some of them. Uh, that could be kind of a holiday plant
as well. Just for those of you who don't know what they are.
There's a bunch of straight stocks coming up on the ground that are incredibly thorn.
I mean there's like on each side their rows of really long thorns.
Now, they're not sharp pointed like cactus thorns that I wouldn't grab one and
try to pick it up by this now. But but they're not quite as
vicious as maybe a cactus thorn. But I'll tell you what they They are
beautiful and they bloom and they seem to thrive on the glack. They are
tolerant of droughty periods. They'll drop their foliage and then come back when they
get some moisture and put a new foliage on. It's kind of a cool
plant. I think that's a great one. You know. The whole idea
of plants and gardening is to have fun. It's to provide that escape.
And I for me, it has long been escape. It's mental health to
get out in the garden and just relax and let the day wind down.
When I was working with extension in another county that I'm in then I'm in
right now. I remember when our kids were younger, they I come home
from work at the end of the day, and I just would be spent,
and I would just go to the straight to the water hose and the
garden and I watering a garden with your thumb on the end of a hose
is not the recommended way to water. But when you are getting the day
out of you, and my wife and kids knew, Okay, give daddy
just a wind down time here and he'll be in in just a moment.
But it is. It is therapeutic, It really really is. When it
comes to people that don't have room to create a garden, it's easy when
you have containers and such a huge variety of plants, plants that want to
be in a container outside, plants that will do well in the container inside,
all the different house plants and the cacti and succulents and succulents are really
big right now, and they are foolproof. I mean, it's really easy
to take care of succulents. Just don't over water them. That's basically your
number one goal. But whatever kind of plant you choose, just find some
that will do well for you, that you find attractive, and just continue
to learn and get better and better at them. It is a I have
a daughter one of my daughters really collects plants. I mean, it's a
jungle in there. It is little shop of horror as you go in and
freight one of the plants going to eat you, there's so many of them.
But she does and she really enjoys that, and I love to go.
I mean, I just think it's a wonderful environment to go and see,
you know, a house just full of so many really cool plants.
So I guess what I'm trying to talk you into is, Hey, I
know you're busy, it's a holiday season, but it's a great time to
get out to a garden center and purchase some plants and pots. Just so
many beautiful containers that you can. Just want to make sure any container you
use is well drained. That's important, So you also need a catch basin
under the container. I've got a couple of house plants and containers that have
no drainage holes at the bottom. But when I put them in there,
I put some charcoal in the bottom because that helps keep the water from going
sour from the decomposing organic matter helps a little bit. Put some of that
in there, and I just know how much to water them, you know,
I know that let's say a quarter cup of water, a half cup
of water poured into this container is going to be about right for taking care
of it, maybe a little more, and you just watch and you can
always use a pencil trick. Remember the pencil trick. You show up and
a pencil, you push it down in the soil, and when you pull
it out, if the sharpened wood is wet, that means it's soggy wet.
If there's moist soil clinging to that sharpened rough wood surface, that means
it's moist and it's okay. And if it comes out clean and dry,
then you know you need to water. So that's just one way to go
about determining when you need water. Plants. Everybody's mix is different, particle
size and whatnot. Some of them are chunky and they drain super super well,
so you need to water them often. Others are mucky and they don't
drain very well. So once you get them moist, back off or you're
going to create problems with that. Important to find a good quality mix.
Well, you're listening to garden Line. We're gonna take a little break here
and come back for our last segment. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two kt rh.
Give us a call, Josh, you'll get you on the board and
we will talk to you first when we come back. Well, welcome back
to garden line. We're in our last segment of the day. So if
you have a call that can't wait till next weekend, that would be a
good time. And don't hesitate, because we don't this last segments of a
fairly short one seven one three two one two five eight seven four That is
the number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Staring out
the window watching the wind blow, and there's this swirling of leaves coming up
as the wind comes around through the buildings and whatnot, and it's it's just
almost like there's a little mini leaf tornado coming up through here. That's kind
of cool. You know. The fall season is a season when we are
provided with free organic matter for mulching, composting, whatever however we want to
use it. And that's the tree leaves. Most of the nutrients that your
trees take up during the year are in its foliage. A lot more of
the nitrogen phosphorus potassium, magnesiums all that kind of stuff. The micro is
in the foliage and in the tender let's say, fresh twig growth, then
in the old interior wood, which is mostly carbon. So here comes all
these nutrients up through the tree that it took up, perhaps you fertilized it.
And here are your nutrients now in the leaves that fall to the ground.
If you bag them and pay them by to hollum away, which if
they are cities, Halloway, you're paying for that. If you do that,
then you're renting fertilizer. That's true. Your grass clippings in your tree
leaves recycle, recycled, recycle them. And it's not just you know,
a matter of like the money or you know, for fertilizer or anything like
that. It's a matter of it's the best stuff in the world for plants.
Think about a forest, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
years of growth, and it just the soil just keeps getting better because of
the decaying organic matter. The tree dropped it on the ground and that microbes
take it from there. It's really easy to do. I will mow from
the outside in on my lawn, blowing the leaves towards the center, and
that way, with each mowing you're chopping and blowing leaves. It makes them
real easy to pick up on a tarp. I can just scrape them up
onto a tarp, drag the tarp somewhere. It's easy to use them,
real easy to do. But the point is do it. This is valuable
stuff. It's good for molts, very good for malts in your flower beds
and whatnot. If you have areas where you want some certain malts, it's
more attractive to you. Oh yeah, you can do that. But just
remember tree leaves are the original mults. That is what that is what trees
get mulched with in nature. And so it's okay to go ahead and do
that. Our phone number is 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 give us a call. I got time for another one here before we
take a break or in the show. Actually not just take a break today.
When I get back to the house, I've got some things that need
to get done outside. I've got a bunch of plants and containers, and
that usually happens. I see a plant somewhere and I bring it home and
then it sits there for a minute waiting for me to get around to it
to be able to plant it. Well, I have my round to it,
and I'm going to head home do some of that today, getting some
of those things put in big containers. I got a couple of beautiful salviats
that just are absolutely gorgeous, and I need to move those to a big
container and get them through the winter. After that, maybe they'll go to
a flower bed or something like that. Always use a good quality soil,
you know. The works potting soil from Airloom Soils is an example of a
good one. There's the indoor potting soil and an outdoor putting soild that they
make, and they are very very well blended. I'm very very good,
and I've used them for for potting up plants and they just seem to thrive
in that kind of a mix. A perfect mix is well drained and yet
it holds moisture. That balance between those two is what you're aiming for in
creating a good, good quality mix. Just be careful what people find.
Some bargain soil somewhere and I know what you're talking about. I know what
you're thinking, but just remember this that when you use quality soil and choose
quality plants from a place that gives quality advice, that is your saving money.
That is well worth the loss from going someplace and just trying to find
some cheap plant somewhere. A lot of those kind of places, box stores
and whatnot, they have plants, but it's they're not necessarily chosen for this
area. You know, it drives me nuts. I was, I'm just
gonna ramp my way out of this one. I believe it drives me nuts.
But I was in a big box store and I was looking the head
little rack with fruit growing on it, and they had some blueberries. And
those blueberries were not southern high bush so or rabbit eye. They were northern
high bush, so they're not going to do well down here. They're just
not. But they were for sale raspberries of various types that the particular ones
they had will not survive and do well here, but they were selling them
to you. And you know, it just goes on and on. In
that sense. Grapevines, you see a conquered grape for sale, conquered as
well as grape juice. It's that traditional grape flavor. But it grows up
in the north, and if you bring it down here and grow it in
warm, warm weather, warm winters, and when the berries ripen instead of
a cluster ripening, they tend to ripen like a berry at a time.
Although it's not quite that neat and clean, it doesn't belong here. It's
not a grape for here. There are grapes that are for here. Southern
sensation seedless is probably the best grape for backyard arbors and things for people that
want to eat the fruit themselves. Southern Sensation. There's one called Victoria Red.
It's pretty good. I think Southern Sensation is a little bit better than
that. Lloyd, Yes, sir, how can I help? I'm looking
for some cypress seedlings. I'm wondering if you could help me with that,
uh cypress seedlings. I would I would talk, Yeah, I would talk
to ARCYW Nursery. I know they grow out little seedlings like that. Maybe
and that's not a product they normally sell, but maybe they would sell you,
you know, a tray of of something like that. Just talk to
RCW and c uh. That would probably be my first choice because they've got
they're they're growing a bunch of those out blot I mean uh, long lay
panted yes, uh you know there there is something called conservation bundles by those
during the wintertime. They're bear root uh. And it's just groups of trees
that are that are really inexpensive because they're just small, bare roots ceilings.
When I say small, I mean maybe maybe two feet high or so,
hunting counting the roots on the tops. But those conservation dundles. There's a
Texas Forest Service nursery. I think they still have it out in West Texas
and I can't think aware, but they grow a bunch of stuff. And
then throughout the southern seaboard there are some places that will sell you clusters of
seedlings like that for people that want to maybe you know, plant out by
the roadside or fill up a pasture with trees or things where you just don't
want to buy big, expensive trees. But you don't have any of the
numbers. No, I tell you what, I'm going to put you on
hold. Josh is coming on Lloyd and he will give you my email.
Send me that question and I will send you a link. Just know this
that at some of those places are already sold out on some things. You
need to probably put the orders in much earlier in the year, but we
can certainly give it a shot. Just send me an email and I'll be
glad to provide that. Well, you've been listening to garden Line. I'm
your host, skip Rickter, and we are here every Saturday and Sunday from
six am to ten am to answer your gardening questions. I'm going to be
doing some holiday traveling myself as we were close to the Christmas season. Looking
forward though, to being here in the next few weeks for sure behind the
microphone and being able to answer your gardening question. So thanks for listening,
look forward to talking to you next week.