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 Trim. Just watch him as takes the suptzy gas, not a
sid gas. Well, good morning, good morning on a Saturday morning.
It's a little cool outside today. I hope you had a chance to cover
up your plants last night, because this was round two, not as bad
as round one, but it stills here. For those of you that are
south of Interstate ten, now Interstate ten, let's just put this with the
interstate Highway system and the weather don't always align perfectly. But if we're to
give a rough estimate, as I was looking at forecasts and things, if
you're south of ten, you kind of had one night a freezing. If
you're north of ten, you kind of had two nights. And I must
say there are some exceptions in there, because again it doesn't line up perfectly.
But those of you listening up in Conroe or Tomball, places like that,
you got another one coming tonight. For those of you down south,
down in Sugarland and places like that, down to Seabrook, all those areas.
I think tonight's not gonna be as bad, for sure, not as
big of a concern. I've been talking about freezing all week, Oh my
gosh, emails and just dealing with a lot of different kinds of questions that
have come in. And that's what I suspect we'll be doing today. You
are listening to Guardline. I am your host, Skip Richter, and our
phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven to
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to talk all
kinds of things about freeze, freeze protection, freeze recovery, and I hope
today we can actually just start talking about spring and what's next and what we
do now, and you know, just not everything freeze, but whatever you're
interested in, that's the topic. That's how it works here on guarden Line.
I'll do my little monologues in the meantime and when you want to,
when you want to change the subject, let's go ahead and let's let's do
that as well. Talking about freezes, we spend a lot of time talking
about how to protect plants, and hopefully some of you took heed to that
and did the things that are most helpful for protecting your plants. That freeze
we just came through a little bit ago that was a pretty good doozy for
us here. It's not like it never happens, no, it those freezes
happen quite often. We February twenty twenty one, we were even worse than
this. So every few years we get down to one that's a little lower
than we expect it to be, but that's just how it works. What
do they say on the average? On average, if you put one foot
in boiling water and one foot in freezing water, you're comfortable. That's about
what an average is worth. And we do have that fluctuation, but that's
part of what makes gardening fun. And I just want to talk about that
a little bit. Whenever we have a drought and heat summer like we did
last summer, Whenever we have a very very unusually hard freeze and plants just
flat dye, especially those that were not protected, people kind of tend to
overreact in terms of, oh my gosh, we need to turn the whole
landscape into a gaby Texas mountain laurel and cactus because it's going to get hot
and dry again. Well, I don't think so, that's not my opinion.
Now, if you want absolute as close as you can get to,
I'm not going to ever lose a plan. Again. Yes, you can
do some things that will help achieve that, or at least get close to
it, But is that what you want your landscape to look like? You
know, landscapes have First of all, let me just back up with the
big picture. Landscapes have a lifespan. People don't think about that. They
think you plant a beautiful landscape and it's there forever. It evolves continuously.
So I remember growing up, I went back, I don't know thirty years
after I grew up, took some pictures of the home we grew up in,
and one of the first things I noticed was the shrubs were huge.
They had been you know, chopped back a little bit here and there,
but they were pushing the eaves of the house. It just looked like an
abandoned place. It wasn't abandoned, but the shrubs got huge. Well,
shrubs do that. Over the years, we've come up with things called dwarf
varieties, right, and so now instead of something having to be giant,
we often have varieties that stay a little smaller, but they grow up.
You can hack them back. You can really do a major butcher job and
almost start over from near the ground up. But shrubs have life spans.
In terms of esthetic life spans, maybe they'll live thirty years, but after
about fifteen they probably have overgrown their space despite your best efforts. In many
cases, then there are things that kill them, freezes and droughts and whatnot.
And so we're constantly changing our landscape. That little tree that was a
broomstick way out in the middle of the yard now has covered the whole property,
shaded everything. You can't grow a lawn underneath it. And that's okay.
A beautiful tree like that is wonderful. So when life gives you lemons,
you make lemonade shade loving plants. We have so many wonderful shade loving
plants that'll do well here. And that's what I'm talking about. Now,
you get to choose how you want to do your landscape. I mean,
if you want to remove major parts of a tree and replant it, you
can't. I wouldn't recommend that, But you could do that at your house,
at your yard between you and the hoa. I guess it is the
big thing. But the point of all this is just to say, because
we have a frieze that kills some things, doesn't mean me suddenly have to
change and start looking like a landscape from Dallas or Oklahoma City because those plants
are a little hardier. Right. It doesn't mean when we have a summer
drought and heat that suddenly we now want to have a landscape that looks like
San Angelo or Opaso. It's not the case, and so we're tolerant of
that, and I would encourage you to be. One cool thing about gardening
is that every year is different, Every year's new, and you're not going
to fail. You can only give up. So if you plant it a
vegetable garden and it was a flop, what do you do. You pull
out the plants, fix the soil, make raise beds if that was the
problem, Whatever is the problem, and you replan again. I have years
every year I have some crop that doesn't do like I want it to.
That's part of gardening. Can we can live with that? I like to
compare it to an etch A sketch. Remember the years of Etcha sketches.
Those of you who are old enough, you tried to draw with two knobs.
One went up and down, one went left and right, and invariably
you'd mess it up. And what do you do? Turn it upside down
and shake it and suddenly you have a blank slate and you start over.
That's what it means to bring in a rototiller, a spading fork, or
just pull plants up. We can start over. We can always do that.
Unfortunately, with our landscapes, we don't have to plant everything again,
but we always get to change. Do you ever get tired of the clothes
you wear? Of course you do. You want something new, something different.
Well, same is true with our landscape. So we want to take
a little break here. When we come back, we're we get back to
the calls. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. When we come back, Carol, you'll be the first
up. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
We're going to go out to Carol now in League City. Good morning Carol,
Good morning, Skip. How can we help I have I have about
a dozen white beach spider lilies that for the last three years have frozen to
the ground, and before that, all summer long they get a fungus on
them Mad's nursery. I took a sample to Ma's nursery and she said spray
it with meml and I do that every few weeks. So they look terrible
most of the summer because they look okay at rest, brand then it comes
back and they've totally outgrown their space. And my question is, how do
I get rid of them? Oh? Well, I thought we were going
to try to fix the fungus and keep them. But well, if you
want to get rid of them, well, there are people that love spider
lily, So I don't know. If you are part of a garden club
or a group or anywhere you can post something, they'll if you say free
for spider lilies, I'll probably go out and dig them for you and save
you the trouble. That's one option. I mean, you could always spray
and kill them, but that's going to take a little while because there's a
lot of storage inside that plant at the base, and so digging, although
it's work, is one option. I tell you, there are ways to
deal with the fungus, and it's you know, it's always going to come
back occasionally, but getting all the dead foliage out of there, cleaning every
bit of it out and just getting it completely out of the area, that
helps because all those disease spores are there to reinfect and reinfect, so that's
step one. You can use products that are more persistent than an em oil
that move into the plant, and so that would be a step too,
And without knowing the exact fungus you have on them, it's hard to say
for sure the exact ingredient that you need. But there are a couple of
good ingredients that soak into the tissue and protect over a longer period of time,
so that would be another option. So I don't know which direction you
want to go on all that, but those are a few things to think
about. Can you tell me some of those products to look for, because
if I could get rid of the fungus where that they would look, okay,
I could keep them in check for the limited space I've got. Okay,
So what you're going to want to do, I'm going to give you
more than one, and you may need to do a rotation where you spray
one and then maybe ten days later or so you spread a different one just
to alternate, and you're not going to have to spray. Ever, if
you're having to spray every ten days, then that what we're recommending isn't working.
But one of them is an ingredient that uh you got a panhandy.
Yes, sure, there are more than one brand on market, so I
prefer to give you the ingredient rather than brand names. But on these but
t r I A try a try uh. And then d I m E
like the coin dime. I think it's p h o N or f o
N try a dim A fon is one that's that's a systemic. Another one
is m y c l O my cloe. And then b U t a
N but ten I l buttinil mike cloe, buttenil. Those two, I'll
give those a try. You may want to get you when you go to
the AMAS, ask them for a kind of a spreader, sticker or something
to help it hold on. Spider lilies have a little bit of a slick
leaf, uh, and so you're gonna wanna you're gonna want to spray it
over and not just have the spray roll off the leaf. Okay, okay,
Well, I appreciate it because they're beautiful when they're when they don't have
the fungus. But that fungus look So this year, what I want you
to do is the growth comes out, it's about six inches long, I'd
go ahead and spray them and then let it go a little more and spram
again. You want to get ahead of the fungus. You don't want to
wait until the spots appear. So those those fungus spores are infecting and you
don't see the spots yet. It takes a while for the spot to develop.
So that's why we're preventively spraying with them and just follow the label and
see see how that works. One of those two should work. But again,
since I don't know the exact fungus you're dealing with, uh, it's
it's the I'm giving you the most likely options. Well, I appreciate it.
That would be a whole lot easier than trying to dig them up because
they are persistent. They are persistent. They are beautiful though, I tell
you. And for folks that have areas where maybe it's a drain, need
to ditch or something that doesn't drain, well, a lot of plants don't
like that. But spider lilies do. Okay, I appreciate the information.
I'll certainly give that a try. All right, Carol, thank you.
I appreciate, appreciate you call very much. I was talking about freeze protection
before, and I'm talking about now Today. We'll talk a little bit about
freeze recovery and things, and I know that there are a number of things
that we can do to help our plants come back. Now, when you've
got a plant that's completely frozen to the ground, you don't have to wait
for it to regrow. The question is when do you step in and do
something you know, like do you prone now? Well, what I would
recommend is take your thumbnail or take a knife and scrape the bark back on
a branch underneath. It'll either be green and creamy white that's healthy, or
it'll be paper sack brown that's dead, or a grayish color too. Sometimes
they take on a brownish gray color. It's even uglier. That's dead.
And you can work your way down toward the ground until you find healthy and
that will give you a place to prune. I try to talk people into
learning to like ugly for a little while, because when the plant starts to
regrow. It will tell you exactly where to prune. And if you go
back on a plant and let's say it didn't completely get it back, and
you prune into healthy tissues. Prunting is a stimulating process. So when we
go into a period where we have some seventy degree days, that plant's going
to go. It's time for spring, and that pruning will force even faster
some new shoots coming out, and those tender new shoots are very susceptible to
a cold snap, and so I try to avoid pruning and especially into healthy
Pruning off dead doesn't change any of it. That's fine. If it's dead,
prune it. It's not going to change a plant. But another thing
is the top growth protects the base. Maybe you have a little perennial,
this melt in the ground into a mulsh a mush, and that dead material
is like a mulch insulator over the top of the plant. So pruning it
out exposes the crown the base of that plant. And if we do have
another coal snap, which you never know it could come, then it could
suffer that damage again. Now, if you can't stand ugly and you have
to deal with it, then mound some mulch over the base of the plant
to protect it. Should another coal snap come, you can pull that back
out of the way if it doesn't, but at least you have a little
bit of an insulator. When growth starts again, you want to spray those
plants with a product that is going to help stimulate that growth, to help
support that growth and rejuvenate that growth. And that would be things like for
example, Microlife has an ocean harvest product that works really well, Microlife Ocean
Harvest. You could do it when you get some new growth coming on it.
Do it then as a folier. Drench the plant though also and drench
the base of it so the roots are getting that, and then about maybe
a week or so later you could do that again. You always want to
include a granular fertilizer in that, and so for example, Microlife has the
sixty four. Sixty four is a normal green bag. We use it for
everything. It's thought of as a lawn fertilizer. It's good for everything.
Just put that down and help that plant as it begins to grow, to
have the nutrient reserve and the soil that it needs to support that growth.
That's it and Warren's and Kingwa Garden Center. They carry that. They've got
the whole Microlife three step recovery program ready to go there. The products are
there, they're available. If you need more frost cloth, they've restocked,
they're ready to go on that. And they've also restocked all their seeds in
preparation for spring gardens. Go in and buy them now. Even something you're
not going to buy a plant until later, buy it now while you have
a selection and you'll be ready to go. And Kingwood Garden Center both we'll
be able to get you set up for those. It's it's really as simple
as that. And finally, while you're out there, check out their houseplants.
I love houseplants, and right now they've got their houseplants and a toasty
greenhouse and they look great. It's you gotta at least go home with a
houseplant too when you do, because inside our home, bringing life in the
home, it changes the whole feeling of a room to have something that's alive
in there. It's that that sort of that warm jungle feeling as opposed to
the coal sterile you know, just tables and chairs and floors and walls and
stuff. Anyway, Warrens and Kingwood gardens, so they can get you fixed
up with all that stuff and more. 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 fifty eight seventy four. I was mentioning that
Warrens and Kingwood had. Now, if you live on the opposite into town,
maybe down south towards Roast Sharon well Siena multch you know you've probably been
there. If you haven't, you've got to go buy it's it's north of
Rose Sharon on FM five twenty one. Now we think of Sienna as a
place to get molts and soils, which they are, but they also keep
a stock of all the microlife and medina liquids that people use for this plant
rejuvenation when they come back. So while you're there bagging your purchasing a bag
of airloom soils, landscapers pride. They carry a wide variety of things.
They also have the fertilizers I talk about here on Garden Line, So go
ahead and get your lawn fertilizer now while you're there. It'll be fine.
Set it and don't put it out yet, but have it ready to go.
So when you're ready to go, you've already got it. You can
go to their website. It's Cienamultch dot com Sienna multch dot com. They're
open Monday through Friday from seven thirty in the morning till five pm on Saturdays,
two day seven thirty to two pm, closed on Sunday at Siena Maltz.
They always they'll surprise you when you go buy at all the different things
they have. If you've heard me once, at least you've heard me say,
take care of the brown stuff and then take care of the green stuff.
What does that mean? Soil first, then plants. That's how that
works. When you get the soil right, the plants thrive. And whether
it's fertilizers or compost or multi Sienna they can take care of all that.
They get the brown stuff ready, so when spring fever comes, you're going
to want to be out there planting. So take care of the brown stuff
first and Sienna can help you do just that. Well, we're going to
take a little break. I think Nicky may have some news today. She
occasionally has a little bit here and there. Right, I do indeed.
All right, well, I'm gonna turn it over you for those of you'd
like to get on the board with Josh seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line. Glad you're listening this morning.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions.
If you'd like to ask a gardening question. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I mentioned earlier about the end. They also have the Medina products here,
and if you want to learn more about the Medina products for recovering from
freeze and damage to plants, as well as just generally fertilizing and supplying your
plants with the nutrients and everything else that they need for successful growth. Andy
chidester. She is with Medina, our local girl here with Medina, and
Andy's going to be out at an Chenna Gardens out in Richmond today. So
the minute I end this radio show at ten am, she will be there
starting to talk. Isn't that nice word to wait until I finished the show?
I don't think it worked out that way, but anyway, seriously,
she'll be there from ten to twelve, and she wasn't going to talk about
all kinds of things with soul prep. And you can pick her brain for
that because she is a wealth of information on soul prep. I knew Andy
for I met Andy first years ago at a garden center in Austin, Texas
she worked at and we've known each other off and on through the years,
and she just a wealth of knowledge. She's really going to be focusing today
on all the post freeze issues with our plants, things that we can do,
and the products that Medina has. They've got the has to Grow plus
that they use. They've got the seaweed product too that they recommend. When
you start seeing new growth on the plants, you can give a good drench
to the foliage or a spray a folier feed. It will not burn the
plants, and then you can also drench it on the soil. And she's
going to be talking about all that outed in Channa Gardens. And while you're
at Enchanted, you got to get around and check out all the stuff that's
going on there. If you've never been before, it is a wonderful place.
Now we're going early in the season, you know, early in the
season. Spring fever has not hit the populace just quite yet, but I
hope it does soon because there's a lot to be doing now and they got
a wide selection of plants out there. At Enchanted Gardens, it's always fun
to go. There's knowledgeable staff. It's it's really really worth it. So
it's really a twofer to get out c andy, learn about the products,
learn about freezing frost recovery, learn about soil prep. And also while you're
there, I hope take home some of the wonderful selection that they have and
boy do they ever always have a good selection and Enchanted Gardens in Richmond if
you've not been there before, it's on FM three point fifty nine, that's
on the Katie Foolscher side of Richmond. If you want to go to their
website just to learn more. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Simple as that,
not hard to do. They're open Saturdays to day from eight am to
five pm, Sundays from ten am to four pm. By the way,
they're open all week eight to five as well, so it's always a good
time to go out and visit at Enchantegardens. Get inspired. That's what we
need right now, is we need some inspiration. You know, we just
went through a couple of rounds of cold. Some of you got one more
night tonight to deal with it, and we just kind of need some that
spring fever to trickle in a little bit. It's a it's a great time
to be gardening, I can tell you that. Do not if you have
gotten discouraged with heat and drought in the summer, if you've gotten discouraged with
the cold, you know, getting having to get out and cover up things.
It's part of nature, and it's okay, it's it's really you know,
those who throw up the throw in the trough, throw up their hands
whatever. You're missing out on not only having a beautiful landscape and a bountiful
garden, but also on all the fun and joy that comes with getting out
and planting and interacting with nature. Listen, we were made to interact with
plants. That's why they call it a garden of Eden, where we are
supposed to be messing with plants and nature. From the forest bathing concept they
talk about Japan and now here, just getting out and experiencing nature to just
like getting in the garden and digging. We know that even microbes involved in
nature are part of our human health in many ways also. And so to
get out to try some new things, to plant some new things, Oh
my goodness, take any children or grandchildren or neighbor kids along for the ride
when you're going out and planting seeds and letting them experience that the rebirth of
new life that comes in a garden, the bounty and the beauty and everything
else. And our garden centers here can get you so set up with that,
just so many plants, so many options. And that's also why we're
here on guarden Line answer your gardening questions. You know, what do you
want to know? What are you struggling with? What would you like to
try growing? What have you never tried before? Will that grow here?
Will it not? If so, how do I do it? That's what
I do on garden Line is answer those kind of gardening questions. I've been
doing this for over thirty five years. That's the thirty five is a length
of my career here in Texas with Agger Life Extension. I grew up in
Texas. I went off to Missouri for three years and worked as a fruit
grower advisor in Missouri so if you got some high bush blueberry and raspberry questions,
as long as you're not trying to grow them down here, I can
help you with that as well. But I love plants. Obviously I'm biased,
but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Absolutely not for sure. Thanks for
being a listener to garden Line. By the way, let's get back to
some of the things we do for our plants. I mentioned that when you're
pruning them back, taking off dead is fine. You're not going to stimulate
growth by cutting off dead. When you cut into living it is a growth.
Pruning is a growth stimulating process. Pruning into living plant tissues. So
we try to wait. If you cannot stand to wait, use your scratch
the bark technique to figure out how far back to prune. I would suggest
at least be a little on the conservative side, you know, just maybe
a few inches of dead if you can leave that just to be sure,
and then come in and finish the job later. If you want, the
plant will tell you where to prine. That's the bottom line. The plant
will tell you where to print. When we are wanting our plants to have
some help and some success. Basically, freeze damage is pruning the plant.
That's what it is. It is basically killing the tissues, just as if
you cut them off, they're essentially not there. It's like you know when
you clip your fingernails. You got this dead fingernail that's growing out and you
clip them off. Well, that doesn't hurt your fingers to do that.
You're cutting off material that's not alive. And when you prune back a plant,
it doesn't know whether you prune dead or not. It knows when you
prune into the living, because that affects the hormone balances in the stem and
affects the growth. I know, don't worry, I'm not going to go
nerdy on you there any past that. But when we are wanting to support
the new growth, that's where some fertilizer can help. That is where a
lot of the products that I'm talking about today and will be continue to talk
about can be helpful in getting that new growth. And we talk about products
that have some nutrient in them that won't burn the plant, that can be
used. We talk about products and be drenched on the soil, products that
have hormone and all kinds of different substances. You know, the seaweed and
whatnot, and those can all be helpful. We're going to take a little
break right now if you'd like to be on the air with me to answer
ask a gardening question seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
And I got some activities I want to tell you about when I come back
that you will not want to miss. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter. We're here to answer your gardening questions. Our
phone number. Write this down you'll want to call sometime seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. And while you're at it, look out
the window. If your neighbor's lights aren't on, they're not getting to hear
garden light, and to go bang on the door and tell them what they're
missing. They'll wake up and someday they'll say thank you. This morning,
they may say something else to you when you bang on the door and we'll
come up. But hey, think of it as a favor, you know.
It's it's tough love, it's I'm doing this for your own good.
How many times have we heard that sort of thing? Seldom appreciated at the
moment, right, I think that is absolutely the case. Listen, if
you've been through the freeze we just went through, which of course you have.
Some of you have dealt with some damage to things like pipes, and
certainly with our plants and whatnot. Well, ACE Hardware has got you covered
on that. You know, we keep saying ACE is the police. Ace
is a place for this. ACE is a place for that. That's because
ACE is a place for everything. If you have any kind of frieze repair
to do, ACE is the place for that. They are stocked up on
all kinds of plumbing parts. You know, anything you need to repair a
sprinkler system, for example, they've got that. They absolutely are ready to
go. And you know with ACE you're always going to find the parts and
supplies you need, from lactical to plumbing to you name it. We talk
about it from the standpoint of gardening because they carry all the fertilizers that I
talk about on gardener. They carry all the products for pest control, disease
control, for weed control. Do you need tools, They've got them.
ACE Hardware is your place for supplies on all things gardening. But certainly coming
out of this phrase, whether it's for your plants or your pipes, or
whatever else. ACE is going to be able to cover you. There there's
ACE Hardware's what forty of them in the greater Houston area now that are part
of our group. That absolutely makes it so easy no matter where you live.
Just go to acehardware dot com, look for the store locator and find
the ones near you and go check them out. Go check them out.
You will be surprised at what all ACE has. I mean even down to
I've been gift shopping in there before. I mean, there's some really cool
so I know I didn't buy someone some PVC pipe for their birthday. I'm
talking about all kinds are really good, cool stuff for the home. Just
go, just go look You'll see what I'm talking about, really really fun
and cool. Not that hardware store you grew up with, but it is
the service of a hardware store that probably you grew up with back in the
day. I remember that knowledgeable staff that know what they're talking about, that
greet you, they help you, They make sure you go home with what
you need and information on how to do it. That day's hardware that's well.
I love to go into those places that always always fun, always stick
from up by the way I need to keep exploring. I haven't been to
all forty yet, but I'm working on it, working on it. Well,
you're listening to guard Line and it's I guess I should say post freeze.
For those of you south of I ten, you may be done maybe
tonight. I need to check the weather again. It changes every five minutes.
I need to check the weather and see what we're going to do tonight
down there. I don't. I think you've kind of done most of you.
Further north, we got another one still coming. And on what part
of the listening area you're in, And I realize here on Guardline, we
got folks listening in Louisiana and way all the way over to New Bronfils and
north south east west, a lot of areas. So it's kind of hard
to say whether it's going to freeze tonight in your area. But I think
I tend seems to be a pretty good line tonight or for where it is
and isn't going to freeze, or at least it's a let's say, a
gray line, a rough gray line for those plants that were damage about freeze.
I've already tried to encourage you if you can just learn to love ugly
for a little while. That would be best. If you can't, then
prune back only cutting the dead. If you have to go further than that,
make sure with the plants that have the base. We call it the
crown of one of the more than one things that it's called a crown on
a plant, but the base of the plant is the crown of the plant.
So that take Mexican heather for example. I love that plant. It's
a great border plant, makes a little mound of foliage. And listen,
if you want to support pollinators like honeybees, Mexican heather is like cracked for
honeybees. They love that plant and it blooms all through the summer. It's
a really pretty plant. So on that plant, if you were to cut
it all off at the ground, it is not an extremely hardy plant,
but the dead top growth protects the base. It does, and so if
you did cut it back, which I'd suggest you wait, but if you
did, then put a layer of mulch covering over it, just to protect
and insulate it. Should we have another very hard freeze, and then you
can pull that back. That's the nice thing about that. For those of
you who mounded up compost around the base of the stem of plants that are
cold tender, like a citrus tree, for example. You've got the rootstock
and then near the ground you've got a graft or a bud. That is
the variety you're growing. By the way, did you know that whether it's
a lemon or a satsuma orange or a lime or whatever, it's probably on
only one of maybe two root stocks primarily that we have here in this area.
So you can graft a lot of different things to these root stocks,
but you got to keep the buds above the graft the live and that's why
we make this giant cone of soil. You know, I spend a lot
of time griping about landscapers that create mult volcanoes around trees and shrubs. You
shouldn't do that, but for coal protection in those unique situations, you do
mound it up like that for the night, or if we've got a couple
of freezers, it can stay on for a few days. But then pull
all that back. Now, pull it back. You want to see the
topmost root of the plant, pretty close to the ground level, pretty close
to that. Don't leave mulch piled up against the stem. But all that
compost you filed up will just spread it out. That's great mulch, and
it'll release those nutrients to the plants. Works really really well, easy to
do, not difficult at all if you are dealing with another freeze tonight,
or if you want to get stocked up for future freezes that are coming.
RCW Nurseries has got a good stock of the frostcloth still in at least the
last I checked. They may have had a run on it by now,
but I'm pretty sure they have a good stock. They've got humates for example.
We talk about the importance of that. They have the ocean harvest by
microlife that we talk about in post freeze recovery, and boy are they ever
loaded up on roses. They are stocked up big, big time on roses.
Just pages full of roses from weeks and star They're ready to go.
It's still the best planting season end of the year for roses. O their
shrubs and trees, and they have one of the best selections of trees you're
going to find anywhere at RCW Nursery. That's the nursery, the garden center.
It's on Tomball Parkway, where it comes into Beltway eight. Here's the
website Rcwnurseries dot com, RCW nurseres dot com. So check them out,
go see what they've got. Don't delay much because that best of the year
window is going to pass in time as we get closer and closer to summer.
So get those things planted. Now. We're putting another hour here in
the books here on Guarden Line. Glad to have you listening. We'll be
back as soon as we get through the news at the top of the hour.
If you got any kind of questions you would like to give Joshua call
and get on the boards. Seven to one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two kt r H. I mentioned that
there's some things that we're going to be talking about today. I want to
tell you about. First of all, Oba Organic Corticulture Benefits Alliance is having
their Organic Science Day event. Now they're going to have some great speakers there.
It's Friday, January twenty sixth, from eight thirty in the morning till
three thirty pm. I'm going to be there by the way, it's at
the United Way of Greateron. You have to go online to Oba Online dot
org slash registrant. I'll tell you more about that later. Just keep listening.
Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H. Garden Line
with skip rictor it's crazy. Just watch him as wor Google may give me
things to sept Welcome back to garden Line. I see a glow in the
eastern sky. I always love that. I love sitting here looking out the
window and you start to see the beginning of a new day, and it's
gonna be a good day. It's always going to be a good day.
Listen, what do we call life throws us curves? Right? I bet
if you're listening to this, you've had a curve or two thrown at you.
We have things called the vicissitudes of nature. I love that big word,
the vicissitudes of nature. And we have just been through a couple of
rounds of vicissitude, if you will, when it comes to our landscapes due
to the freeze. But it is always a good day. We always have
something new. There's always hope. When that sun's on the horizon, I
know it is going to be a good day. That's just the fact.
That's the way it is when it comes to gardening, that is the way
it is. I have got some plants that were cold damaged. Actually,
I had a thing that I covered up, and then I left and went
out of town. And last night I was not in town and I realized
I forgot to cover something and I'm probably going to get back and see some
mush when I get back. That's okay. I can do that. I
can live with that. It's a good day because I know what to do
in that space. Plant something else, prune them back, watch some new
growth begin again. Just to have that kind of optimism when it comes to
plants, and that's one of the things that horticulture growing plants, gardening,
if you will Hortus Latin for gardening a garden. When we have that in
our lives, we always have that hope of renewal because that's what nature does.
Look at a forest in the winter, if it's a deciduous for us,
it's leafless. I mean it looks like dead trees everywhere, and the
dead leaves have fallen on the ground. But what's really happening is those plants
are waiting for spring. And the soil just got a whole new layer of
root, feeding, root protecting, rejuvenation. Those leaves decay, they get
covered by other leaves, they stay wet, they decay. That duff on
the forest floor where there was one hundred percent death is teeming with life and
it's feeding those plants. That's the principle that's in nature, and we get
to be part of that when we garden. When I go out and I'm
going to pull up, I've still got some pepper plants that I finally picked
everything off of before the freeze, and I'm gonna go home pull those out
of the ground. And when I do, I actually cut the roots off
right at the base and leave all the root system in the ground and just
remove the top growth because that root is opening up chambers through the soil.
It'll decay, it'll feed the plants as well and help with the movement of
oxygen and water down into the soil. But what's going to go in its
place. Well, I can already tell you we've got some cool season peas
that are ready to go in. They just started sprouting yesterday. And I
normally would direct seed cool season peas, but these I'm doing from transplants,
just for fun, just to try it out. I love to experiment with
things. I have some tomato plants and pepper plants, an egg plant that's
ready, not ready to go in, it's already up. They're growing,
they've got leaves, they're looking good under the lights in the house, and
they're going to go in. Every time I turn around. It's rejuvenation,
it's renewal, it's new. Hope, it's new, exciting things in the
garden. I hope you catch that fever because it is the case. You
know, if you're looking out and you've got a lot of damage to the
landscape, or maybe you just drive up to the house and just look.
Do you see the beauty that you want or do you see a little bit
of blaw Well, we talk about how to fix your blaw here all the
time on garden Line, things to do to spruce up to make it more
beautiful. But that's what Piercescapes specializes in. They can take whatever situation you've
got in your landscape and turn it into something very special. Now they do
irrigation inspections and they do irrigation tune ups, but you need to get those
schedules soon. I know you're thinking, I'm not going to water my grass
not for a while. Yeah, that's right, but you want that system
to be efficient and you ought to be ready to go when summer comes.
And you can't wait until that day because everybody else is saying, hey,
come fix my own irrigation system. Schedule it now. With birscapes, have
them come out and take care of that. What about the things that are
that have gone on in your landscape with the freeze? The things need to
be replanted. Do you want to do landscape lighting? Listen? If you
will go to their website and I hope, I hope you will piercescapes dot
com. You will see the work that they do and it is stunning and
you may look at something and go, oh my gosh, that's an eight
hundred million dollar home. I don't have one of those. Well they do
that for eight thousand dollars homes or something. They do it for everybody.
They can do hardescapes, they can do irrigation, they can do landscape lighting.
Oh and one of my favorite things that they do are is patios.
If you would love a beautiful stone or manufactured stone patio with a maybe a
fireplace or rock fireplace. They can build all of that in for you and
you will enjoy that all through the season. Maybe a pergola over the top
of it. Would you like some water in the landscape, That is a
wonderful feature. A little disappearing fountain, a little disappearing creek or river going
along on flat stones or others. They can create all of that and the
sound of that is so just rejuvenating in the summertime. Piercecapes dot com.
Just go to that Piercescapes dot com and take a look at what they can
do for you. But remember, the sooner you get them in for the
consultation, the sooner the work can be scheduled, so that when the work
begins and when you're really you know, March and April you got the fever,
you're ready to go. You've already scheduled and you're on the bucks and
you're ready to go. So don't delay on that. Take a look around,
see what might be nice, and they can fix you up on that
easy to do. I've been talking about recovering from the cold and rejuvenating and
things like that. Just remember that all those leaves, those bags of leaves.
You see a curb side, they put them there for you. I
know, I know you don't even know those people, but they put them
there for you. If you are a gardener, you always have a use
for leaves. Don't ever let a leaf leave your landscape. When a tree
takes up nutrients, the majority of the things we think of as fertilizer go
to the leaves. There are a little bit of nutrient in wood, there's
no question about that. The interior would but most of the nutrients the leaves
take the tree takes up, or in the leaves, they fall on the
ground and they lay there. Nature's free organic fertilizer. I just talked about
the forest. So are you gonna pay somebody to holl them away? You're
gonna put them out in the garbage like your neighbors do. Are you going
to take those leaves back, grind them up, run over with the lawnmower,
put them in as mulch in the beds, make composts out of them.
I use them in my vegetable garden and the walkways as an all weather
pathway. You just pile them in there, put them in there a foot
deep, and they sink down and put more and they sink down. I
mean, I don't know. I probably have three feet deep of leaves and
my garden walkways, but they've all packed down and they're decomposing, and in
time I'll harvest those. Just a little tip. But remember leaves and grass
clippings are nature's on free slow release fertilizer and mulch as well, so take
advantage of that. I always I need to send my neighbors thank you cards
for their leaves, I think, because that's a good idea. Well,
let's take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I'll be right back. Well, good morning, you're listening
to garden Line and the day has dawned. We are here to answer your
gardening questions if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one
two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r
H. Simple as that. Look forward to talking to you and helping you
have a more beautiful on a more bountiful garden as well. We're going to
start off by going straight out to the phones and to Steve in East Houston.
Hello, Steve, Hey, good morning, Spanish moss on crape myrtles
and bagworms in a possum haw Holly, how can I prevent those? Or
is it possible? So Spanish moss, h and ball moss and oh gosh,
its lichens, the little frilly things that are gray, and different versions
of that that occur. All of those are along for the ride. They're
not a parasite taking energy out of the plant. They're just along for the
ride. And most of those are effectively managed with copper sprays. You want
to do it before the foliage comes on the plant, So okay, now's
a good time. Now, it would be a good time. It'd be
good if you could wait a little longer to just prior to the foliage appearing,
that's the best time. Different species vary in their response to copper.
I know with like livo trees and bal moss, we wait until spring and
they have foliage on them. But we catch them when the old leaves have
fallen off and the new leaves haven't quite come all in yet yet. That's
a good time to get in there so you can actually have contact copper.
You just got to get in on the plants and that will do it.
Now, most crape myrtles are not such a large size that you can physically
remove the Spanish moss, or at least most of it. But yeah,
you can do that. But here's the thing on spraying all of those.
When you spray them, it may kill the plant. But dead bal moss
and Spanish moss looks a lot like living bal mass and Spanish moss, so
it sort of has to rot and fall out of the plant. Uh.
And and a spray is not going to keep it away forever. You know,
it'll be back the same way it got in the plant in the first
place. It can get into the plant again. And so it's just something
you have to be aware of. But copper is the primary one that we
use for that, other than other than physical removal. Yeah, I found
that, you know, because I did. I picked off that and it's
and it is a ball moss, and I would I go up into the
branches and pick it off and and that's it becomes very tedious. And so
I thought, well, for after I, after I've done all this work,
I can perhaps there's a spray, and so I will I'll try this
prior to uh, prior to the foliage coming out in the in the great
middle and then the bagworms they kind of coincide or the spring and and I
I would have to cut my my possum haw holly, and then I'm marring
the shape. Yeah, so the worms create that that. When you say
bag, are we talking about a web like you see in pecan trees or
are we talking about a little tiny bag like a little missile that's only about
two inches long? H Well, it can get I've seen it. It
can probably two hands. I had one that was a that was probably the
side size of two of your hands. Okay, And so that would that
would technically be called a webworm. And those are low caterpillars that create a
web to protect themselves against wasps, which is their main natural enemy. And
so you can go and just break the webs up once it's the weather's warm
enough and wasps are out and about, and they'll go in there and haul
those caterpillars out of there. You can blast them with water. That that's
one way, a strong stream of water. You can use just a little
stick, a little brush, you know, I mean brush meaning like a
broom or whatever you can reach it with. Just break those webs up.
Spray's a b T. That's the ingredient, b T. Bacillistheringensis is an
organic caterpillar disease. And if you can get the spray to the foliage,
they eat it and they die. So you may have to watch and when
you first start to see signs of them, spray that legic couple times a
week for about three sprays, and you should knock them out that way too,
And that way you don't have secondary damage to the environment with that kind
of spray. Okay, and you said it was bud. Yeah, it's
b as in boy, t is in tom and uh, it's a It's
a bacteria that's in the Basillis group B A, C I, L l
U S. That's why we say B and T is as thuringiensis. Germany
has a region called the Thryingya region. That's where they discovered it. But
BT is what gardeners say. If you go to any good garden center and
you say, hey, I need some BT, they don't know what you're
talking about. The and if they don't, go to a different garden center.
Okay, so yeah, I go to Southwest Fertilizer. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, they yes, they absolutely will know, and they'll probably have
three different four different kinds of BT you can choose from, and it doesn't
matter. They're all the same. Okay, all right, so BT in
and it's sounding like, okay, BT, Well, I guess I'm not
getting the connection, but I know you have other collar. It's sounding like
it's not an insecticide, but it is an insecticide, but it's a natural
insecticide. Uh okay. So here's how that. I don't mind taking a
moment here because other people will want to know this. When you spray the
foliage, caterpillars eat it, and because of the pH of their intestine,
it creates toxic crystals that let's just say cause a terminal case of constipation.
Isn't that a happy thought? And if a grass operate that foliage, it
wouldn't do it. If a beetle ate that foliage, standard type of BT
would not do it. And so it's a it's very specific, which we
like that I call that an arrow rather than a grenade. Grenades kill all
the insects around it. You spray them on. Arrows go in and they
surgically remove one species without causing a disruption in the balance. Of nature out
there. So that's why I like BT. Okay very good. Well,
that's very helpful. I do appreciate it, and and Southwest fertilizers. My
my spot will go well. I can't think of a better spot in town
to get any kind of a pesticide. But you when when you just one
thing to remember is BT breaks down fast in the environment, so when you
spray it two days later, it's probably not working. So that's why you
want to get out there. You want to get it where the caterpillars will
eat it, which is why I usually break the webs up first. Break
the webs up first, and then spray. Okay, then a regiment of
a couple of days a week for you you mentioned a half a dozen,
no, three sprays would be enough. If you get it where they eat
it, it'll shut them down. But it may take you know, you
may not get them all, and then you know half a week, even
a week later, wait a week if you want and spray it. I
just it's not a poison in the sense of you get it on the caterpillar
and the caterpillar dies. It's you get it on the foliage. The caterpillar
eats the foliage. Okay, I'm understood. Okay, well, very good.
And obviously if it rains, I should go back and reapply. Well,
yeah, but it's only going to last a day or so, Like
if it's going to rain tomorrow, I don't think i'd strolled today. I'd
wait until after the rain to spray it. Yeah, got it. Okay,
Well, thank you very much. You've been very helpful. I appreciate
it. Thanks to call Steve. I appreciate that very much as well.
I was telling y'all or earlier about the OBA event, which is the Organic
Science Day event. Now I've been to these before. In fact, I'm
going to be there this year. It's on Friday, January twenty sixth,
so next Friday, from eight A under three thirty. You can register and
you need it's a cost for this that you get a lunch and breaks included,
and it's a day full of speakers that are just outstanding that you just
don't have a chance to get to elsewhere in most cases. So there is
a cost. But go to OBA online, HbA online dot org, slash
register. It's at WAD Drive. It's the United Way downtown here in the
Houston area. Jeff Lowenfels. If you've ever read the books Teaming with Bacteria,
Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Fungi, Teaming with Nutrients, really fun
reads. I enjoyed reading those. Jeff Loenfells will be a speaker there.
Doctor Lisa Morno from the University of Houston Downtown is going to be talking about
shifting microbial communities from antagonistic to friendly. And I'm not going to read you
every talk for the day, but it is a day full of really cool
stuff. I always enjoy going to OBA Science Today's events, and here's your
chance to do that again. OBA online dot org, slash register. We
are now going to head out to pair Land and talk to Don. Hello
Don, Good morning sir. How are you today? I'm well thanks.
My question was about roses and my creekmurtles. Okay, should I trim them
back? Tod? Did part of it back now? Or should I wait
and see if we have another freeze? I would wait until spring, uh
and and I mean until new growth begins. And here here's why. Sometimes
you may you know, a dormant crape myrtle kind of looks dead. So
if you if you are pruning based on visual it's kind of hard to tell.
You can scratch the branch to find out, but I would just wait.
There is nothing wrong with after new growth begins. You see where the
shoots are coming out, that's where you pumm back to. And that's the
easiest, most accurate way to go about it. So other than scratching a
branch to look for life, I would I would wait on both of those.
What about my roses? I covered them up and they are they're still
alive, Yeah, of course. Yeah. Should I wait before I try
to trim the dead branch is back? Now, I'll wait until we get
new drops thought popping up? Yeah, I'd wait. I mean you could.
You can prune now just by checking them back roses. We tend to
prune back a lot anyway. But remember when you cut into living wood,
it's rejuvenate, it's in. It stimulates the regrowth, and we don't want
to get a bunch of real tender shoots. And then maybe two three weeks
from now, whenever here comes this other freeze. That's that's a real hard
one, and now you've got even more damage. So just I would wait.
That's that's my suggestion. And I was thinking, thank you, man,
I'm sorry. I was thinking about waiting, but I just wanted to
check what you and make sure. Well. I'm glad you did. Thanks
for that called, don I appreciate that. Good luck with those plants.
Thank you for calling. We are about to take another break. I think
Nicky has news and as a result, I'm going to shut up and let
her have the microphone and take it from here. If you'd like to give
me a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two want to k t R H and I'll be right back. Welcome
back to garden Line. We are glad you are listening today. Got some
calls on the line. If you would like to call in, it's seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Let's talk about what's you're
interested in. I think everybody has different interests. That's one thing I have
learned for sure, that is that two things. Number one, that everybody
when it comes to gardening has got different questions and interest But number two,
if you have a question or interest, there are a lot of people out
there that are just too shy to call that also have the same question.
So don't be afraid give us a call. We are gentle, we will
not. I like to say this, and that's there's no such thing as
a stupid question. There's stupid answers, though, and I'll have to worry
about that end of it. So call away. Someone else will have the
same kind of question. We want you to have success, whether an experienced
gardener or a brand new gardener. While ago I was talking to Don and
no, yeah, Don out in Pairland and we were talking about he heads
over to a Southwest Fertilizer to get his supplies. And so you know,
here we got a guy heading from Pearland all the way over Southwest Houston for
Southwest Fertilizer. What's the reason for that, Well, the reason for that
is that Southwest Fertilizer has everything you need. You know when you go there.
If it's a fertilizer, if it's a soil a bag soil product,
if it's an insecticide, a funge, a side, whatever you need.
We've talked about the medina and microlife products for recovering from a freeze. Southwest
has them. Southwest has everything, and if they don't have it, you
don't need it. That's just how it works. They also have copper fungicides,
and we were discussing earlier. I think Steve had a question about moss
prevention. Yes, in fact, Bob at Southwest has more than one type
of copper fungicide and they can drone on with you about the advantages and how
you use it and all that kind of stuff. But copper is one of
the product we use for things like ball moss or Spanish moss or liken for
example. Those all are helpful. They don't eradicate everything, but they knock
down what's there. And Bob has that do you have a fertilizer you need?
He's got everything I talk about on guarden Line. And then some do
you need a tool? Do you just need advice or an identification? Put
it in a bag. Bring your pictures, make sure they're in good sharp
focus, take them to Southwest and somebody there on the team is gonna be
able to look at them and tell you what you need. That's just how
it works there. Always, always you're gonna have exactly a supply. In
fact, you're gonna have choices as to what you purchase when you go to
Southwest because they carry it all. If they don't have it, you don't
need it. I'm going to head out now to Montgomery and we're gonna talk
to another Don. Hello, Don, Hey, good mornings, Good morning,
love your show. Thank you, first time caller. So my scenario
is I have a crapy myrtle who's suffering between two trees, two other trees.
Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure what the other two trees are. But
my question is can I transplant? And when should I? As soon as
possible? Yes, you can. How tall is the crape that you have?
Oh Jesus's probably eight or ten feet tall? Okay, well, yeah,
around that crape, there's going to be those other two tree roots everywhere.
So digging it is going to be a process. It's gonna be some
work. But the more of the root system you can get, the better.
And I realize that you're gonna have a hard time getting much of the
root system. But if you can go ahead and do it as soon as
possible, normally we would do something like that in the fall, to give
it all winter to start to rejuvenate roots and whatnot. The chance of its
surviving is I would say, let me put it this way, the chance
of its surviving and being ac duptible in its survival is probably about fifty to
fifty. But you can because you're just not going to be able to get
many of the roots. But if you get it in there, move it,
don't let what's there dry out, and put it in the ground at
the same level that it grew before. Put something in there to stake it,
something to support it. And there are a couple of products out there
that can do that. There's you know, steaks and wires and things like
that. I'm gonna be talking about a product you're coming up. In fact,
I need to do that three sixty stabilizers that will actually hold it very
well, and then put a berm around it. Done a berm of soil,
a doughnut, let's say a foot wider than whatever root system you were
able to pull out, and you can fill that with water and it soaks
in and when we get it's going to be okay for now. But when
we start getting warm, which happens in May here and then June July,
the demands are huge and that's where the touching go where you're probably going to
lose it. If you lose it, So that burn helps make sure the
soil has plenty of moisture. Okay, good. Any suggestions for the soil
that I put it in, any boosters or nutrients or anything you suggest.
If you have it in a bed, if you're going to create a raised
bed, yes, a good quality bed makes like a rose soil or something
like that. If you're just going to go out and plant it in the
ground, don't amend the soil in that hole. You can amend a large
area and then dig a hole, but don't dig a hole, especially in
a clay soil or something, and then drop a bunch of composts in it.
That just is an underground bathtub. That is not going to help at
all. Wonderful, all right, you can find me much. You may
want to do some cutting back on it, some printing back, and that
just because I suspect that its form is not that impressive having grown in among
those trees, and so cut it back. And then you get to choose.
In fact, you cut it back a lot and let the regrowth come
out of the base. You get to choose do you want three trunks?
You can pick which three you want, because you're gonna get a bunch of
sprouts, and then you can take it from there. Don't feel like you
need to keep that big thing so that That's what I would do if it
were mine, I'd cut it almost the ground and then just let it re
sprout and it will. Okay, okay, we loaded. Thank you.
You appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call. A lot.
By the way, that Don is out there in the Montgomery area,
and I tell you he is fortunate. Any of you out there are fortunate
to have A and A Plants and produce in your area. You know that
AIGHTA Plants have ben around for thirty years, but it's changed a lot over
the last thirty years. It's on the east side of Montgomery, on the
right hand side if you will heading toward Conroe. It's on the well left
hand side of the road if you're going toward Conroe, but right on the
edge of town. They've got all the fertilizers. I recommend they're open seven
days a week, nine to five. I mean knowledgeable. So it's anytimes
goodbye to swing by A and A Plants and Produce. They've got everything that
you need. They have a good selection of a lot of different products.
I know, I was just looking the other day. They have the Landscaper's
Pride products out there. Landscaper's Pride has you know they they've been around a
while. I mean the actual products that they have or excellent. They work
very well when you're looking at a option from composts to multz Do you do
you want a cypress moultch, Do you want a cedar mult Do you see
what I'm saying. They've got all kinds of different things twenty something different products
that are available there from Landscapers Pride's real easy to have success when you use
a quality product, and that is exactly what they do. Right now,
it's time to be making beds, it's time to be getting out there and
making sure that you have a quality soil before you plant in the bed.
And they carry a variety of bed products like the roast soil that they have
for doing just exactly that, making sure that when you're looking for something that
is going to give your plants success, well, think about Landscapers Pride.
They're going to have it. That is what they do. They specialize in
things that are going to have success for your plants. Landscapers Pride you can
go onto the website Landscaper's Pride, and they are going to point you to
a store near you. It's Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com. Find
the store locator and you can find where you can get those quality products a
very reasonable price. We're going to take a break right now again. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome
back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening. I'm your host, Skip
Richter. We're here to answer gardening questions and our phone number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Just listening to that. That add
for the Brass County Home and Brasos Home and Garden Show, not brads County
Bras's Home and Garden Show. Rosenberg. I'm going to be there next Saturday.
Next Saturday, I'll be there after the show, I'll head down there
be there for a couple hours. I'm gonna be talking about some spring gardening
tips, dealing recovering from the freeze, and all kinds of things, answering
your gardening questions. I'll be there at a table to answer gardening questions,
and I hope you'll come out and see me that is the Brasses Home and
Garden Show. It is going to be at the Fort Bend Epicenter right there
on Southwest Freeway and just south Rose in South Rosenberg, Texas. If you
know where the Kenny Extension Office is, well you're getting really close. It's
just up toward Highway fifty nine from there, real close by. So come
on by Brasis Home and Garden Show next Saturday. I hope you come out.
And I always love to meet folks that listen to Garden Line. Let's
see, we are now going to head out to Dickinson, Texas and talk
to less. Hello. Les, Hey, how you doing. I'm well,
thank you? How can we help? I was going to start a
garden with some raised beds. I heard you talking earlier about the importance of
the soil yes oil mixture that I should try and get together and put in
there. Well, there's a number of quality mixes a lot of people will
use, you know, just for beds that are all shrubs and general ornamentals
and things that will use a thing called rose soil. Even though it says
rose, it's good for more than just roses. When you're getting into vegetables
and things. I like veggie and herb type mix. I know, Heirloom
Soils has a quality veggie and herb mix that works really well. It's pretty
widely available, you know, down in your area. Let's see, you
were in Dickinson, You're going to be able to find it a number of
places. All these hardware stores carry it. And you're not too far away
from Moss Nursery downe there and they have a number of soil blends that they
carry as well as options. So, uh, it's going to be easy
to come back. If you're gonna do a lot of beds, though,
you probably want to call Heirloom and have them deliver a bulk to your area.
You know, if individual gags, I'm gonna do quite a bit and
that's going to be vegetables. Yeah, So what you ought to do is
just go ahead and get get a hold of Heirloom the folks at Airlom show
and ask them for their specifically their veggie and herb mix. And if if
you want to do ROAs, that'll work too, works just fine. But
I was about fourteen inches high sixteen inches high that that's plenty of Is it
going to be sitting on ground or is it gonna be sitting like on concrete
or asphalt. It's going to be sitting on ground, So there's going to
be you know, gumbo underneath it. Yeah, even even eleven inches is
enough for going. So if you wanted to go up to fourteen or sixteen,
that's even better. Yeah, and let me give you a website just
because I can't describe every soil and where it is and how to get it.
Heirloom Soil of Soils plural of Texas, Heirloom Soils of Texas dot com.
And they they have that, They've got lead more compost. You know,
it's real. It's really, uh, kind of a one stop where
about it. They're importer. You can drive up there if you've got a
flatbed and get it. You can have them deliver it. Uh. They
also have a thing called a supersack that's one cubic yard and you're gonna probably
need more than that, but a supersack is handy because they just bring it
and drop it on the driveway. And just think of one of those big
old cloth grocery you mentioned somebody in my area there's someone closer than border well,
well yeah, yeah, and I was talking about I was thinking in
terms of bags, and I was saying, you know, you're not far
from Moss Nursery. You're not far from a number of Ace hardware stores that
are going to carry and I know the Ace carries the Heirloom Heirloom brand.
But there you're buying it in you know, one or two cubic foot bag,
right right, So you're gonna need a whole lot of those. All
right, Well, thank you much. I'll call back when I got another
question. Yeah. All I ask is that you bring you know, about
a third of the produce, drop it off at the station so we can
both enjoy the fruit of your labor. Gotcha, that's reasonable, right right?
Ah less, thanks for the call. I love people getting into a
new garden. It is just it is so much fun. And anytime you're
trying a new garden, just be patient. Call in. Let's get you
some good information and let's let's help you have success. I think now we're
going to run out to League City and talk to Judy. Hello, Judy,
good morning, how are you. I'm well? Thank you. I
wonder if you could tell me do you think it's supposed to warm up this
morning into the forties? Yes? Here in League City. Do you think
it's all right to take the covers off the plant? I think it is,
But check the weather. I haven't checked this morning for down in your
area in the forties on up well, but I mean tonight. How cold
is it supposed to go? I don't think it's dropping below freezing. No,
it's not. It's not supposed to freeze. Yeah, I think you
go take those off. Take them off. We have them on there for
a reason. But it's also important that they get sunlight, and so the
more days them on the rain would probably help them too. Well, you're
gonna get plenty of that too, yeah, I know, if it doesn't
drown them. And I heard you say to wait to cut back on the
roses till mid say, mid February or so if you got cold damage.
Yes, mid February is when we do our pruning. You know. We
we like to make it easy, so we say things like plants your roses,
and plant your potatoes, and plant and prune your roses on Valentine's Day
just because people remember. Let me ask you something. We have some of
these into p I N t A pliants and I couldn't cover them all because
they ran out of step. But if you cut those back, will they
come back or do you think it's just a lost cause. Pentas are borderline
and if if you had enough protection around the base, maybe some multipled up
around them, I would say they will come back from the base. In
general, though we think of them as annuals. But you're far in the
south, you know. I realize I'm talking to people in Huntsville and people
in Galveston listening to this, so it's kind of hard to Pentas are not
a perennial in Huntsville normally, right, But if they have some protection,
they might and that top growth may have helped a little bit too. So
don't give up on them. But don't expect them to pop up in the
next few weeks. They're going to be sweepy helps until it warms up.
Yeah, there you go. Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate
your help. All right, thank you for the call. I appreciate that
very much. Well, here we go. Put another hour in the books
this morning. If you would like to be on guarden Line, have a
gardening question, give Josh a call at seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. He can get you on the boards. When we come
back from the top of the hour news, we'll talk to you about what
is of interest to you. I will mention this again later, but you
need to write this down if you are at all interested in vegetables. Fort
Ben County Agrlife Extension Offices has hosting their thirty ninth annual Fort Ben Regional Vegetable
Conference. You know that's going to be the Fort Ben Fairgrounds, the Fort
Ben County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas. It starts at eight am, it
goes all the way to three thirty pm. Lunch is included if you register
before January twenty sixth. Hear that thirty dollars. After that, forty bucks.
Lots of great speakers. I've spoken there myself in the past. I'll
tell you more about it a little bit later. Katrh Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this programme. To Katie
r H. Garden Line with Skip Richard, it's trim just watching as well
as so many good things to septasyas Gat. There not a sad welcome to
garden Line. We're glad you're listening today. Looking forward to talking to you
about the things that are of interest to you. Give us a call seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you would like to be
on the air and discuss some things that are of interest to you. We're
here to do just exactly that. I enjoy visiting with gardeners. It's always
educational, too, do you know that. I don't think there there are
very few days that I don't learn something and about gardening. After how many
years doing this, many many decades of doing this morning, I care to
remember, I still learn stuff I learned from callers. Occasionally people will call
in and say something. It's like, well, I have not heard that
one yet, And I certainly learned when I go to garden centers and some
of our other suppliers and see what's on the shelf, see what kinds of
plants are coming in. That's always That is always kind of cool, because
I just think that one of the fun things in life is learning more,
being able to expand your knowledge, learn about new plants, try new things.
There's always something new. I think that the earth would stop rotating on
its axis if there wasn't a dozen new tomato varieties that we can't live without
every year. I mean, there's always something new. There's probably a thousand
tomato varieties out there. I don't know what the actual number is, but
that ain't far off. If it is off, there's just so many,
and so really, I mean, do we need one thousand and one the
entry, Yes, we absolutely do. There's something new every time that a
new year comes. The plant breeders always surprise me. I remember when tomatoes
were red primarily, and they were either slicers or cherries, and then we
discovered something called grape tomatoes. They're kind of oblong shaped and those are cool.
I love grape tomatoes, but that red, you know, I know,
we have yellow tomatoes, and we have green and green striped tomatoes,
even some older ones that are green striped that are kind of cool. Green
Zebra is a good one. That's an older variety, got good disease resistance
and very unusual. You might have to turn the lights off where you eat
it because it is unusual looking. But some people think it's beautiful and that's
okay too. But then we had some breeders decide they were going to get
all weird with tomatoes and come up with some unbelievably splotchy, streaky, all
kinds of things like that. There's a there's a company out in California called
bores Head Farm Boar like the male hog Boor's Head Farm, and they have
all kinds of crazy tomatoes. Now a lot of theirs. The days to
harvest is a little long for them to do well here. But anyway,
go online sometime and look at a what's the Berkeley Tide. That's a good
name in it for a California tomato, Berkeley Tide, And when you look
at a sliced version of that, it's like, WHOA, that's a lot
going on there. Colorwise, kind of cool. Now, I'm not recommending
that particular variety. Don't go to a garden center and say skip said by
Berkeley ty die. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying tomato breeders are
always coming up with some new things, and so our pepper breeders, and
we got a cross stuff. And this last year I grew two different types
of habanero that were almost heatless. That just seems like an oxymoron to say
heatless habanero. Hobanaro is normally so hot you have to water the mulch to
keep it from catching on fire underneath the plant. They are. They are
very very hot peppers. But I ran into one. One was a breeding
line I wasn't very impressed with. The other one was called Habanada. That's
a good name for a heatless habonnaro nada nothing habannaro with nothing and comes to
heat well. It has a little bit of but not much habanada. That
was cool, real pretty too. I just picked the last ones before the
freeze the other day, which reminds me and I know we're ahead of game
here on plant and peppers. But when you plant peppers in the spring,
you'll get a decent crop in early summer as they begin to come into harvest.
But hang on to those plants. My habanada plants were probably about four
and a half feet high, and when fall came, that's a lot of
branches to hang ornaments on, ornaments being the peppers. So the bigger your
pepper book gets, the more potential for pepper production that you have. So
always hold onto your peppers, hold onto your eggplant. As we get into
fall. Usually our tomatoes are getting looking really bad from spring. Sometimes people
can keep them fairly healthy for fall. But when it comes to eggplants and
when it comes to peppers, hang onto those plants. They may not do
much in the summer, but boy do they ever look good when we get
into the fall season. I've talked to you about ACE hardware before, but
ACE is the place for anything. ACE is a place for plumbing and light,
electrical and all the stuff you'd expect a hardware to have. But ACE
is a place for your gardening supplies. Do you need a fertilizer that you
hear on garden line, They got it. Do you need a soil blend,
a mix, a maltz, or a compost, They've got it.
They've got those as well. Do you need things to control pest, weeds
and diseases, They've got it. Did you just go through a freeze and
you need some of these products for your plants, or maybe you lost you
had some damage to pipes in the freeze. ACE has all the plumbing repair
parts you could possibly need anything to repair sprinklers too. By the way,
if you have issues with a sprinkler system, maybe somebody came to visit during
the holidays and they ran over a sprinkler head when they cut a corner there
on your yard. You don't know it yet, but boy, when you
turn the system on, that old faithful guyser pops up and it's time.
ACE can get you fixed up on that. They are the place for that
as well. You can go to Acehardware dot Com find their store locator.
There are ACE stores near you. I don't care where you are in the
Greater Houston area, it is not far to get to an ACE to get
what you need for that. If you would like to give us a call
and talk about things related to your garden seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
wanted to go back. I was talking about the Fort Bend Regional Vegetable Conference
before we went to break and this is a thirty ninth. They've been doing
this for many years. Mooon Holiday, the horticulture agent done there in Fort
Benk County, has done a great job of this for a number of years.
Personal friend of mine. And if you want to go to this conference
now, it's if you're a commercial grower or you want to be a commercial
grower. It is for you. If you are a backyard gardener or a
master gardener. It is also for you lots of good information. They're going
to have talks on bees and honey production, on marketing your produce, on
climate and drought and irrigation, on backyard gardening and alternative techniques for backyard gardening,
on building your soil, On growing mushrooms. Hey, you ever thought
about that? That is something I'm going to start doing this year. I've
never done it before, but we gave away as a Christmas gift to some
kids in our family. Kids okay, there were kids once We gave them
a mushroom starter kit. You can do shataki mushrooms and oyster mushrooms and lions
main mushrooms and stuff you never heard of mushrooms. Well, anyway, you
can learn how to do mushroom gardening there as well. There's going to be
a lot on integrated pest management, how to manage pest with minimum dependence on
sprays or with using safer sprays, and all of it is Thursday, February
the eighth at the Fort Bend Regional Vegetable Conference. That's at the Fort ben
County Fairgrounds just south of Highway sixty nine Highway thirty six South eight am to
three thirty pm. If you want to register, you can just call the
Fort Ben County Extension Office talk to Lorraine there. It's two eight one sixty
three three seven zero three three two eight one sixty three three seven zero sixty
three, or do a web search for the Fort Ben Regional Vegetable Conference.
This is the thirty ninth time they've done it. I've been a number of
times I've spoke before and it's never a disappointing thing, always always impressive.
We're going to take a break right now. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four is a number. When we come back, Larry,
you'll be the first up. Welcome back to guard Line. We're glad you're
listening in today. We're here to answer your gardening questions. That's what we
like to do here. We'll always like to visit with gardeners and find out
what's going on in your garden that we can be help with. For example,
let's go straight out to the heights and we're going to talk to Larry
this morning. Hello Larry, Yes, I usually plant a little tomato garden
in the spring. What would you kind would you recommend that that there's so
many different kinds, but for this area here, which one would you be?
The top of the thing tis for you? Well, there's a bunch
of them that do well. Celebrity is one that I recommend if your soil
is at all sandy. He does good in any soil. But Celebrity is
one of the few varieties is Nema toad resistant, and so Nemo toads can
spoil the show, and they are a space actually bad and sandy soil,
So Celebrity is always at my list. It's a semi determinate tomato. I
enjoy the grape tomatoes and the cherry tomatoes. Now they tend to sprawl,
so you gotta trollisome and take care of them. But they're the old variety.
Sweet one hundred is still a good one to do. The Juliette is
a very large grape tomato. It's been around a while. It's an All
America selection. It's I would call it. When I say large, I
mean a large for a grape. A grape tomato is not much bigger than
a grape, but Juliette is about two bytes, so it's it's a little
bigger than a grape size. That's a good one too. And then yes,
sir, celebrity, you can't go wrong. You're not gonna go wrong
with celebrity. You know. I do tomato trials. I do them every
year. I try new tomatoes, and I always plant Celebrity as a standard,
and that allows me to compare. Now, there's often in any given
trial year there's gonna be something a little better than Celebrity, but it always
is up in the top tier. And so it's one that I like a
lot. But there are I got to tell you, literally, there's probably
thirty tomatoes out there that would be worth recommending for you. Yeah, now
you're there in the Heights. If you go over to Buchanans, they've got
a lot of good, good tomato selection. When it's time for that's all
right. When it is a good time to start there, we usually plant
tomatoes. What we tell just in general, our average recommendation is do it
after the last average frost day. But that said, I never wait that
long. I plan them a little earlier, and I'm just ready to cover
them up if I need to. Because you could do in the Heights,
Yeah, you could do that in mid February but I wouldn't say you're necessarily
done with frosts necessarily, but you get them early and you just get ready
to cover them up. And I mean, if you got an acre of
tomatoes, that's one thing. But for a backyard garden, just a few
plants, it's not hard to cover them up. Alrighty, good luck with
that, Larry, have fun. Why hey, while you're there, more
important even than the variety, is the soil. So pick up some bags
of a quality soil mix to mix into the soil and before you plant,
and that'll get you on your way to success too. Okay, thank you,
Yes, sir, appreciate that call. It all begins in the soil.
Say it. Let's say it together, brown stuff before green stuff.
Yes, you can do them both at the same time. You buy your
tomato plant, you buy a bag of soil, but when you get home,
set the tomato aside, fix the soil, and then plant the plant.
It's like imagine building a house and instead of putting out a concrete foundation
out there, a good one that's not going to crack so easily because it's
made well and whatnot. But imagine just taking the two by fours and laying
them on the ground and starting to build, how is that going to end
up? Not? Well? Right, foundations are critical and the soil is
where the plant. Essentially, the plant live in the soil. That's where
the water comes from, and that's where the nutrients come from that they need.
Now, sunlight is critical. You got to give to meate of sunlight.
Of course, absolutely, the fertilizing and watering and things you do after
planting or important, and the pest control is important. But that soil is
the bank account and when you build it with a good organic mix, a
quality soil mix. We talk about them all the time on Guardline. When
you put a good nutritionent load nutrition load into the soil into that bank account,
and then when you maintain moderate moisture so there's always moisture that those roots
reaching out all over the place are going to find and take up. That's
the foundation for success. And essentially that is where plants live is in the
soil. I know they stick above ground and all that, but think about
the soil is the most important part of your plant, that root system and
what it's growing in that I can't over state that that is so so very
important. And you know We were just tom with Larry about tomato varieties,
and that's a common question. And I can recommend a good variety, but
I would rather take a mediocre variety and put it in good soil than the
best variety I can possibly think of. Wait a minute, I said that
backwards. Yeah, I would rather take a mediocre writing but than the best
writing in the world and not the best variety in the world and put it
in unprepared soil. And that happens all the time. People that maybe aren't
really into gardening, but they just want to plant something. And typically they're
going to go someplace that's not a full service mom and pop garden center where
they know what they're talking about, and they carry what should be sold here,
not something else. And they take care of them too, by the
way, So when you bring those things home, they're ready to go.
They're going to go someplace else. I'm thinking they're going to save a nickel.
And when they go there and they bring that home, I always say,
they stand there with a flat of plants in their hand, looking around
the yard, going where am I going to put this? And so they
scratch up some soil and they put the plants in it unprepared, and before
we even get to summer, the plants are struggling. They're not doing well.
The people say I have a brown thumb, they throw up their hands,
they walk in, you know, they mow around that thing for a
little while, and then the next thing they just mow over it because it's
not worth growing. That is not necessary. That is absolutely unnecessary. You
prepare your soil, you buy a quality plant from a place that knows what
they're talking about, that sells you the right stuff, and you can have
success. You go into trouble, you're spending money on a plant for crying
out loud. Get a good plant from a good place that can help you
with the good products you need to go with it so you can have success.
That's the whole idea. That's why we do it. All right,
that was a soapbox. I'll quit that now. But Buchanans is one of
those kinds of places. You know. They're in the heights. They're eleventh
Street, Buchanans Plants dot com. That's the website specialize in native In fact,
that's the name of the place, Buchanans Native Plants. But don't let
that fool you. They have a beautiful selection of houseplants. They have a
wonderful selection of plants for the shade in your landscape. They've got fruit trees,
they've got vegetable plants and herb plants and everything else. You know,
as the spring warms up, all of those things are going to be coming
in. And when it comes to soil, yes, they will send you
home with quality bags, bags of quality soil so that you can have success,
including every fertilizer I recommend on Guardline. They're going to have it at
Buchanans Plants East eleven Street and the Heights. Buchanans Plants dot Com should have
said, Yeah, Larry is a not too far away, so that's just
kind of walking across the street for him. But it's worth the drive in.
I'll tell you that too for sure. Now we haven't really started talking
about lawns a lot. It's just about time to do that, and I
will once we get past this frost or freeze and all the disco of that.
But the weeds that germinated in the fall in your thin lawn, remember,
wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weed. Those weeds are
small still they're like our blue bonnets. They sprouted in the fall. They're
just sort of sitting there. We call them rosettes, little tiny plants,
and all of a sudden, as the weather warms in the day link gets
longer, they burst forth with growth their blue bonnets, or become knee high
full of all kinds of flowers and set in seeds. And that's their cycle.
That's true with your lawn weeds, the henbit, the chick weed,
the cleavers also called though crow weed, the carpet weed, annual blue get.
All of that stuff is going on in your lawn now. Now,
once they become big old plants with blooms and seeds, it's very difficult to
control them, and you're not going to have good success. The time to
do it, if you're going to do it, is now. Turf Star
product by Nelson's. They call it weedinator, turf star weedinator that has nitrogen
and all the other nutrients that you're gonna want there, especially the big three
nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. They're there in a very slow release form.
And so rather than call it a weed and feed, I just like to
say it deals with the weeds that are already growing, not a pre emergent,
a post emergent, and then later on releases those nutrients. That's one
of my problems with a lot of wheden feeds is the time to weed and
time to feed in the spring are not always the same. When you get
a slow release like that, it'll work out okay, but you don't want
a delay in getting it done. You need to get it on. We
the soil, we the foliage of the weeds. Sprinkle your grass just briefly,
just enough to wet the foliage, then immediately put it out so it
sticks to the foliage. And as it does that, it moves down and
it kills those weeds before they have a chance to go to seed and cause
you all kinds of problems. Turfstar weedenator available a lot of place, is
easy to find from the folks at Nelson's. Let's see, we are a
little short on time to take another call. Pat, you'll be the first
when we come back in just a moment. If you would like to call
in, talk to Josh and get on the boards. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Just want to remind you that if you are
looking for my lawn care schedule and my lawn pest Disease and weed management schedule,
that's two different calendar charts free multicolor, organic options, synthetic options.
They're all on the website Gardening with Skip. That's me gardeningwith Skip dot com.
So go buy there, print those up, and be ready to go
for spring because spring is really right on the doorstep. We're going to turn
it over to Nicky again. The number if you'd like to call seven one
three two one two fifty eight seven four. Welcome back to guard Line.
We're glad you're listening today. Of course we always are love talking to you
about it. We got some phone calls here we're going to get to if
you'd like to call in seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We're going to start by going up to Cyprus and talking to Pat.
Hello, Pat, Good morning, Skip, Good morning. I have a
Confederate rose tree that grew on its own from one that I used to have
that was out in the middle of my yard and died. So my concern
is that where this one grew, it's near my back fence. Right behind
the fence is a retaining wall that drops down to the to the yard behind
me. Come at the backside of a subdivision. My concern is that the
roots of this Confederate rose may affect that retain wall. No concern. It's
about six feet from the wall. Should I move it? Is it okay
to leave it? Perfectly? Okay? Think of it as a perennial.
I mean, I know it's shrub like, but they often will die to
the ground. In fact, if you didn't protect it. I bet I
bet it did die of the ground. Well I didn't protect it, so
we'll see. No, that's okay, that's okay. Done. All the
time. They grow them across Texas and different areas. I don't how far
north they can go, but they'll die back, and you just cut it
all back just a couple of inches above the ground, and it'll re sprout
out and do just fine. It's a wonderful plant, okay. And the
roots won't affect that retaining wall or anything. No, think of it.
Think of it more like a perennial than a tree or shrub or something.
It's not gonna be a problem, especially six feet away. That's that's but
they do last quite a few years. Well, yeah, they should,
they should, I will say living definitely. You know, things happen to
plants, but there there's not a life span per se where you're only going
to get three years out of water. I mean, they won't keep going.
Okay, all right, and then the future, in the future,
by the way, when we're gonna have uh, you know, just really
bad cold. There's nothing wrong with a with ahead of that, going ahead
and cutting them off so that you can mound up some compost over them,
just to protect that base a little bit better. But I don't know what
killed what killed the other one, do you know? I think it was
too much water, okay? And then we got the freeze okay, Yeah,
so I wasn't gonna rep I wanted to get another one when I wasn't
going to replant it in the same spot. Then this one popped up.
Has this one bloomed for at least it has better drainage? Yeah? Has
it bloomed for you already? It has it bloomed? It popped up at
the beginning of last year, and then it bloomed this fall. Was it
single blooms or was it more of a double carnation. You're looking wide?
Is that blood not? Okay, that's good because they can't say probably a
single it's I don't think it was real. Okay. They come in both
types and both are beautiful. But the cool thing about Confederate rose for those
of you listening that don't have one, uh, it's a it's a longtime
Southern plant. Uh. It is in the hibiscus family, so it's kender
cotton and okra and your hibiscus flowers in the garden perennial hibiscus. But it
comes out like a pink or white and then it fades to almost a burgundy
color. It depends on specifically which one you have, but that's kind of
cool to watch them change color. Yeah. What what I also like about
them is they bloom in the fall. Yes, that's a good point.
Don't forget we have four seasons. There you go, yeah, exactly.
All right, Okay, Well, I'm going to let it stay right where
it is. Alright, good luck with it, thank you. Hopefully it
made it through this freeze, okay, and enjoy it. Well, I'm
going to go out and uncover some things today. All right, this is
it's time time to do that and ass Cyprus you may are you scheduled to
have another freeze tonight? Now I looked, it's it's the forties. I
think, oh really okay, well that's a lot warmer than the last time
I look, so okay, good, all right, Pat, thank you
so much, thank you, you bet you take care. I was in
the Magnolia area at Spring Creek Feed yesterday visiting with Kelly there, manager there,
and just looking at the supply of everything they have. And you know,
if you if you need anything when it comes to feed and you are
in that area, it's Magnolia FM twenty nine seventy eight, just minutes away
from Grand Parkway and Highway to forty nine. They've got it. They've got
all that stuff. You know, if you're into backyard chickens. They're going
to be getting a lot more stuff in with that really soon. Always friendly
and curtious staff. They always greet me when I walk in, you know,
people working there out I am walking in the door necessarily and they just
come up and greet you, and it just it's what you expect from that
kind of feed store. Now, you know they're going to be getting in
a lot more plants. They're adding to their plant selection this year. They've
got all the products you need to control disease and pest and weeds. They've
got the fertilizers that I recommend here. In fact, we were talking about
some things that they carry and that they might want to carry there. I
always like to go by and visit and you know, talk about that kind
of thing. If you need a special order, talk to them. They
probably can do it. They even have a delivery service there at Spring Creek
Feed Center. It's a fun thing to go see. Lots of cool stuff
to look around when you're in the feed store. Any kind of a line
of dog food, animal food. They just have a million different options.
Far it at Sprint Creek Feed I always like stopping in there. It was
great to get to see Kelly again to visit the other day. Let's see
we are going to now head out to Alvin and talk to Joanne. Hello,
Joanne, Hi, I wondered if you had any recommendations on how to
get rid of stink bugs. I love to grow tomatoes and I always plant
two dozen or so bushes, but I can't grow them with it anymore because
the steak bugs are so bad. And I've tried everything that I have found,
and I can't find anything, even vacuuming the babies off of them,
which is pretty time consuming. I don't know how to. I can't bring
the tomatoes up to when it's time to harvest them. They're all messed up.
Yeah, I get it. I feel your pain. So with stink
bugs, it's a multi faceted approach, and it depends on things. Like
you know, if you have an acre of tomatoes, that changes things.
If you got one tomato plant, you can do a whole lot for stink
bugs on it. But when you get more plants and things, that becomes
more of a challenge. I would start off. Here's what I tell people
here. It's like, just think of it as a stair step and you
just heat taking it up one more step, and there's more of those you
can get done, the better off you're gonna be. Number one. Learn
what their eggs look like. Now, when you say stink bugs, are
you talking about the leaf footed bugs, the longer black bugs, or you're
talking about the little shape like a shield. The shape like a shield mostly,
and they grow pretty good size eventually. I mean by the fall you
can see those great, big old things zooming around even if you don't have
tomato plant. I think on that last part, I think you're talking about
the leaf footed bug. But because stink bugs will only get oh gosh about
the size of your thumbnail something like that. The leaf Yeah, it doesn't
matter what they are. They do the same thing. They're both They both
spit in your tomato plant. Can you imagine that they put their mouth in
there and they spit. This is more than you want to know. And
they spit is caustic and it dissolves the cells of your tomato, and then
they lurp up the contents and what's left behind is that little hard yellow spot.
So next time you're next time you're serving tomatoes and you got a spot
or two, just tell your friends and family that's what it is and they'll
appreciate all that. Actually I have more than one spot or two. I
mean they run them all right, you know what, Joanne, I am
going to have to take a break, but hang on, I want to
get into this because it's it's a long inch or not a short one.
Okay, thank you, all right, we'll be right back. Welcome back
to Guarden Line, Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. Write that down so you can give us call. By the
way, whenever you listen to guard Line, have a pen and paper handy.
I may give out a URL. I may give out the name of
a product or a plant or something. And you'll want to be able to
remember that. For those of you who have already missed something writing it down,
you know what was that? He said. We have a thing called
a podcast, and you just go to your podcast app and you can find
garden Line and there you can listen to past shows. If you'd like to
go back and do that shortly, welcome to We have a lot of folks
that don't live in this area that listen to garden Line on the air excuse
me online. They don't get the radio signal, but they can listen online.
And we have other folks that listen by podcasts too, so welcome to
do that as well. We're going to head out now and continue our conversation
with Joanne and Alvin and Joanne I said there'd be a lot lot to the
answer, So here we go. Okay, already, number one, learn
what those critters look like. And I think you already know that. Number
two, Learn what their eggs look like. Stink bug eggs look like little
barrels that are all stacked together. Imagine a bunch of wine barrels that are
all, you know, kind of pile together in rows, if you will,
or in a group. That's what stink bug eggs look like. They
have different coloring. Of course. The leaf footed bug egg the leaf footed
bug has eggs that are a little flat, like shingles on a roof,
and they will lay them along the pettiole of the tomato, the leaf petiole,
the stem of the leaf. You'll find them in different places. But
once you know what those look like, and you're just out taking care of
your plants, just clip them off, take them out of the garden thumb
way. That's step two, number three, Step three. When they hatch,
they stay in herds for a while. That's an easy time to swat
them into a pail of water. You mentioned vacuuming. Yes, that is
a little tedious. You can do that, but other people will just have
a little kind of a little pale of water, soapy water. They can't
fly up out of that. It drowns them. And just swap the branch
and that's it. You took care of the whole thing with one swat.
After they get older and they have wings, now you got a challenge because
now they're flying in from other areas. If you killed every stink bug and
leaf footed bug in your garden, some from across the fence may fly in,
and so you're still going to have some. But remember I said this
was a bunch of different steps to get rid of more and more and more.
At that stage you have to use some pretty potent insecticides to do it.
It can be done, but it's not very effective because number one,
they're not easy to kill. Number Two, you're chasing a bug around the
garden with the spray wand one at a time as you find them, and
that's just not efficient. So what people will do is they will put if
it's slicer tomatoes, they'll put the little organza bags with a draw string over
them. If you've just got one or two or three tomatoes, you can
buy a hundred of those bags for pennies in the bag and you just have
them handy and you just slip on a tomato cluster or whatever tomato. You
slip it up, pull the draw string and walk away. It's done,
and that keeps them off the tomato. You can also, if you have
a row of tomatoes, put a mesh over the whole row. There's something
called garden mesh, and think of the screen on your windows, but something
that's a finer textured and very soft like a bed sheet, and you just
lay it over the whole row and it basically is creating a screen porch and
the bugs can't get in. Now, you need to do that early before
the bugs get in and start laying eggs, or you're just trapping them inside.
But that's that is the final step as an option to do it.
So one or more of those things along the way can at least get the
numbers down really really low. Okay, well there's nothing you can. I'm
scared to spray them, you know, too much, because I don't want
to ruin the fruit to be able to eat it. Well. The sprays
are made with some called a days to harvest interval, and that depends on
which insecticide you buy. It may say you've got to wait three days or
seven days or whatever before you can pick that fruit and then wash it.
Always wash them, little miles soapy water at the kitchen sink. You can
wash residues off the surface. But I'm just saying that most people don't want
to spend their saturdays mix mixing up smelly water to spray on bugs. And
so we've got a lot of other options that work very very well. They
do have natural unamis. The natural unemies do not do their job enough,
as you've learned through the past. Okay, all right, I'll work on
this now. If you double the amount of tomatoes you get this year that
don't have bug damage, I just want you to bring half of it to
the garden, to the garden ship. Okay, drop it off. That's
all I asked. This is free advice, but I do charge tomatoes have
good time, have any at all? Well, we're gonna you're gonna have
something if you do all that I just said, you're going to have some
tomatoes. But I I grow my stuff under that garden mesh. Squash undergarden
mesh up until the time I need to let the bees in to keep the
squash vine borer out of it. Tomatoes undergarden mesh. That works really really
well too. All right. Just got to be smarter, got to be
smarter than the bug. That's all. Well, thank you so very much,
thanks for the calle Joan appreciate you hanging around till we got back from
break two. I appreciate that. So how many times do I say brown
stuff before green stuff? On a garden and a gardening show? A lot?
Right, because it's the most important thing you do in your garden.
Nobody can complain about their soil. You can fix the soil. If you've
got a clay soil, you can buy compost, you can buy bet,
decomposed bar all kinds of things, mix it into the soil and turn that
soil into something else. Or you can just buy it and dump it on
the surface. You can do that. I make beds all the time.
Where I put the stuff down, I mix a little bit in with the
soil that I have, and then I continue to add that bed mix in
to create whatever height. Most of my garden beds are eleven inches high.
That just the size I like. And you know, it's easy to do,
but however you want to do it. You can fix the soil,
but you need good stuff. And there are places that sell cheap compost.
And what is a cheap it's just decomposed stuff right, well, not fully
decomposed stuff. People rush it through. They leave it there long enough to
turn brown, so people think it looks good, and then they sell it
and it's not ready to go. It needs to be decomposed well. It
needs to have the parent materials that make the compost to be a good blend
of high carbon and stuff with more nitrogen in it to create that quality compost.
And then it needs to be screened into the particle size that you want
for the use you want. That's what Nature's Way does. Nature's Way resources
is up on Interstate forty five, up there in the conroad direction. If
right where fourteen eighty eight comes into forty five, you just turn right.
If you're going north, turn right, cross the railroad tracks, turn right
again, and Nature's Way is right there, easy to get to. They
can deliver. They also have bag products that you can get. Do you
need a rose soil? Do you need leaf mole compost? They invented those
things. They know how to make them. The phone number nine three six
three two one sixty ninety nine three six three two one six nine nine zero.
When you go out there, leave room in the car and go check
out their Native Plant Garden Center. They have a wide variety of plants,
including an excellent selection of natives. You can while you're out there grabbing your
multus and stuff, just pick some of that up as well. You would
be very impressed, as I was last time I went out checking it out.
It just keeps growing and getting better out there. Nature's Way John and
Ian have really continued to improve the place. Nature's Way Resources nine six three
one sixty nine ninety. Get the brown stuff right, and the green stuff
will make it look like you have a green thumb. That's a tip right
there, worth the price of admission. Always a good idea to start with
the soil. I don't know what it is about us where we just we
just like to purchase the flowers and we like to purchase the plants, but
we don't get excited about this. Well, and you should. That's the
best part of the whole mix right there. It just really is. I
tell people all the time, you know, you buy a plant, people
want a giant, big red bloom on the plant in this little tiny tray
at the garden center. Well that's fine, But to buy a plant that
doesn't have a bloom on it. But you know what it is, you
know the type, and take care of it and put it in good soil
and get it growing. It's not trying to support that bloom and create a
the bloom right away. That's the head start. They're just a little tip
right there. It'll look better in the long run. Plants have a way
of performing according to the environment they're put into. They like sun, they
like if they prefer a break from the sun. They almost all need good
drainage, not all. Most of them need good drainage. Just give them
what they want. If you have a question about what they want, give
us a call on garden Line. Our number is seven one three two one
two KTRH. It's as simple as that. Seven one three two one two
k t our H. We'll be glad, glad to help you out with
that. Don't forget that. The Oba Organic Science Day is coming up on
January the twenty sixth, next Friday. Come by there. I'll find me
there. I'll be hanging out there eight thirty or eight am to three thirty
pm. Go to obaonline dot org slash register to get your tickets. It
is a day full of awesome speakers. Kt 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 Trim just watch him as
well. So many go thanks to Septs Gluble not a side a. Welcome
back to garden Line. On a beautiful Saturday, look outside. Check out
that sky Ooh that's what we want to see. And it's going to be
warming up a little bit. That is a nice thing. Be a good
day to get outside. Go visit some garden centers, Go pick up some
supplies. Get ready because hey, spring is here. I know. Don't
wait until it is just perfect spring weather and you know, butterflies are flying
by and everything. He who hesitates his loss. Now's the time to get
your soul fixed, get your beds made. If you're gon't to purchase a
bed like a Vego bed for example, and put it in and get a
mixed delivered and get all that set up you need to get going. It
is. It is time to get that done. If you are going to
be doing any planting before next year, for woody ornamentals, roses and shrubs
and trees and divines, even perennials. Now's the time to get those in
because it gives them more time to establish before the heat of summer arrives.
Remember last summer not a good time for a brand new plant without an extensive
root system to go in the ground. We can do it now, don't
delay, get that done now. A lot of great deals too at our
suppliers on some of the woody ornamentals and whatnot. I was mentioning RCW the
minute ago or earlier today and just the selection, Oh my gosh, there
rows selections unbelievable. There the trees. One of the best selections you're going
to find anywhere. On trees and trees that grow here. These are not
things sold by some national box store all over the country. These are things
grown by local people who've lived here a long time and know what works and
what doesn't, and sold for this region. And that is important. Think
about a tree, it's a long term investment in your landscape. I mean,
well, it's a long term investment if you get a good one and
plant it right and take care of it. But some of these trees,
I get calls and questions all the time on fast growing trees. They opened
up some Sunday supplement in the newspaper, and they saw some tree like royal
polonia. That's one beautiful, big clusters of purple flowers. It grows fast,
it dies young, and it's basically the strength of a match stick when
it starts falling apart on you and the environment. Don't plant that kind of
stuff if it's fast growing. What that means if you translate the words fast
growing tree, what it means when you translate it into gardener language is dies
young, trash tree. Don't plant it. Don't want it. You don't
want that kind of tree. You want a tree that every year gets bigger.
I had a gardener up in Montgomery, Texas, Jim Smith, Humy
Smith Boy. Wonderful people, wonderful gardeners. But Jim showed me a picture
one time as this little old black and white picture of a home that he
and Kimmy lived in, and it had this little tree in the yard.
And then he showed a picture forty years later of that tree, and that
tree was the yard. That tree is probably worth more than the house by
that. I have a beautiful tree, absolutely wonderful quality trees last, and
they make your home more valuable. Over time they do, and so don't
get in a hurry, don't dry by, you know, go someplace and
it just kind of a whim Oh, I think I'll try this. Find
out what you want, and if you go to a good place, if
you go to a good place that knows what they're talking about, you can
tell them I need an evergreen, I need deciduous. I want it to
bloom. I don't want it to not bloom. My lot is only this
big. What'll fit. That's a good question to ask, and pick the
right species for all your goals and get it planted right, take care of
it right, and it becomes more and more valuable over time. When you
look at a quality home with quality trees, if you remove those trees,
the value of that property it plummets. But a big beauty not just the
actual dollars you get for a house when you sell it, but the fact
that it sells. When you walk up and you're looking to buy a house
and you find a house and it already has beautiful trees that are well planted.
They weren't stuck ten feet from the foundation. There are planting where they
belong, and that is part of the deal. Like this is the house
we want, and that's what you create when you take a good quality tree.
That is important, very very important to remember. You know, the
cold weather we've been through has set a lot of plants back and it's frozen
some to the ground. Some have been killed all right outright, if it
was a very marginal species. Where you live, you have marginal species.
You know, we have things that are very dependable here that you go up
to Waco, Texas and Huntsville or certainly Dallas, they're not going to be
veried, and so you want to make sure you're planning things that belong where
you go. But your plants that have been through it are going to need
some help. And it's important that when the new growth begins, you supply
that new growth with some nutrition early on. And that may include something like
Microlife's ocean harvests. For example, add an enchanted forests in Richmond. I
don't know if you've been there before. You need to go if you haven't,
But enchanted forests and Richmond they've got a good supply of Microlife's ocean harvests
and you're going to drench that on the on the plants and when it begins
to grow, You're going to spray the foliage with it as it's growing.
It will not burn. It's an organic safe for spraying as a foldier feet
and then you're gonna drench it again later and also include some of the dry
granular fertiliza that they produce. They're going to have that out there at Enchanted
Forest and that is going to help a lot to get your plants off to
a good start. Now in Chanted Forest has got lots of heirloom seeds for
peppers and tomatoes and eggplants and more. And boy, they are soon going
to have all your vegetables, their vegetables and herbs. That selection is wonderful.
You gotta check it out. They carry everything you want. I mean,
they're gonna carry annual flowers and trees and shrubs and perennials and vines and
plants for butterflies something else are good at. And they also have a good
selection of red, white, and yellow seed potatoes. That's not one potato,
that's red varieties. You know, red varieties of potatoes or things like
pontiac and with soda. The yellow if you never grown the yellow that is
Yokan Yukon gold and it just looks buttery pant from the standpoint of cutting it
wide opens. Beautiful potatoes, but red, white and yellow potatoes all there
at Enchanted Forest. And if you haven't been to Enchanted Forest, here's what
you need to do. You need to go. If you're in Richmond and
you're heading up tourch sugar Land, it's off to the right and it's on
FM twenty seven fifty nine, just a little bit off of fifty nine there
Highway fifty nine on FM twenty seven fifty nine. When you go, you'll
see why it's called Enchanted. Wonderful place, fun to visit, knowledgeable staff,
everything you want in a garden center right there to chant it for us.
It's time for a break. We're in our last hour by the way
today, so if you'd like to give us a call today, Hey,
it's time to get on the phones and do it. Seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. I'll be right back. Welcome back to
garden Line. Our phone number if you'd like to get on the boards with
us, is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And
we got some folks on the boards. We're going to go right out to
Huffman, Texas and talk to Harold. Hello, Harold, good morning,
Thank you for taking my call. More of a turf question than gardening.
But I built a house out here in the country and put I had to
put an aerobic system in. I'm looking for a grass that will flourish in
an aerobic underneath an aerobic system. Pretty much any of your grass, any
of your grass, is going to grow. Are three big ones here in
this area are Saint Augustine, Bermuda, and Zoysia, and all three of
those have their pros and cons. Saint Augustine's the most common one. It
puts up with irregular mowing schedules. Even though it doesn't want an irregular mowing
schedule, it will put up with that, and it grows better in shade
than anything. Zoysia is the next best in shade. I suspect your aerobic
field is sunny. Is that correct? No, there's a tree canopy.
Oh, there is the tree. I trimmed the trees up, you know,
to let the It was raw land. Uh, you know, over
overgrown, never been okay before? So oh okay, okay, I got
you. So Saint Augustine's the best shade tolerant one, and it's more tolerant
of an erratic money schedule. Zeutzia is quite shade tolerant, not as much
as Saint Augustine, and it is also very resilient to wear and tear foot
traffic. It's especially Saint Augustine's not Bermuda grass is it needs sun. It
does not do well in shade. It's extremely resilient. Every football feel pretty
much in Texas and golf courses as well are going to be Bermuda grass because
it can take the wear and tear and bounce back just fine. But it
doesn't want shade. So those are your options. Depending on which one you
choose. You can pick from a number of cultivars or varieties of that grass
you know as to which one does the best for you. Let me let
me give you a place where you can go and learn a lot more than
I would be able to go into just in a phone call. If you
go to Aggie Turf A G G I E t U r F Aggie Turf
dot t A m U dot E d U, that's the State turf Grass
special Specialist website at Texas A and M. And if you click on there.
It has Texas turf grasses. You can look at other things, but
if you go into that and like you clicked on Zoysia, it would tell
you all about it, and it would tell you all the varieties that are
good options for Zoysia, and go in there and read and learn about it.
I think if your shade's not too dense, Zoysia might be a good
one. But Zoysia needs more regular mowing to look good. If you mow
it irregularly, it gets lumpy and it doesn't look so good. Okay,
well, I appreciate your time, sir. All right, Well, good
luck with that, Harold, and if you have follow up calls, feel
free to give us call. We're going to head out now to Richmond,
Texas and talk to Brian. Hello, Brian, Hey, good morning to
Gid. Morning my normal PSA. All your listeners needed take advantage of your
text. They have make that service agents. All right, I agree with
that, having been one. Yeah, hey, skip, so last year
if planet some butterfly bushes and they only get afternoon sun in the summer,
it didn't matter what any for replace it. I think I think I heard,
yeah, I think I heard what you said. I need to make
sure and take your phone off speaker. We we cut out about a third
of that. But what you want is a butterfly bush replacement in an area
where it doesn't get a whole lot of sunlight. Is that correct? Yeah?
I mean it only gets afternoon sun but it was so hot and dry
last summer that they didn't do well. And okay there were week going into
the freeze. Yeah. Well, butterfly bush is a good plant. It
is susceptible to spider mites. Uh, and it does want sunlight. Uh.
Let's see, you might consider some of the salvias. Uh. There's
a salvia called salviaannitica. It sounds like you're saying guarantee that it's garynitica.
Salvia garnitica gets up about the size of butterfly bushes. It has beautiful spikes,
so typically blue. A bluish purple attracts hummingbirds. And what else about
Sava garanitica. It will put up with a lot more shade than a lot
of salvia's will, So that would be one to consider. There's also a
version called it's called Argentine skies. It's kind of a sky blue color that
shows up a little better in shade. Uh, there are other salvias that
will do okay in a moderate amount of shade. So that would that would
that's a perennial, not really a shrub. It's going to dive back to
the ground, but that would be kind of close to a butterfly bush replacement.
And then there's some other things that bloom that can take partial shade.
So it kind of depends on what you're going after. I like I like
that Salvio garanittica a lot. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Now you're
in Richmond, so you got enchanted gardens and enchented forest and they're both going
to have Salvia garnitica as well as some other options. You might ask if
they have one called black and blue. Black and blue is one of the
common cultivars of Salvia garanitical that there there are several other good cultivars too.
Okay, thank you. Hi, yes, sir, Hey say hey to
mister Boone holiday at the extension office there. If you get a chance to
visit with him again, I will do that. Thank you very much.
You've bet appreciate that call. Well, let's see here, we're going to
head up now to Conroe and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve Hey,
good morning, mister skip Hey. I got a red oak that when I
moved in this house. It's one of them ones that branched into four trunks
coming off of it. Okay, it had some kind of ye on it
that was choking the tree out of one of the trunks. Ended up getting
cut because it was bad looking. So I got two good looking ones.
About two foot up of one of these coming out the smaller one, it's
the box black where the box came off the woods black. Okay, about
three foot up I got to for some box come off. There's it's brown
and in about four foot maybe about four and a half foot, the box
kind of came off. It's gray. Is this thing toast that sounds a
lot like hypoxylan canker And I'm gonna spell it for you because I want you
to go look it up. It's h y p O X hypox a l
O N hypoxylon canker. If you go to the State Plant Clinic, which
is really easy, it's plant Clinic dot T A m U dot E d
U. That's a n m's State plant Clinic for the whole State of Texas
all plant diseases. You can go in there and they got a publication on
hypoxylan canker And here's the bottom line. The plant gets stressed, the disease,
which is already present, gets the upper hand, and you start losing
entire branches and trunks and typically the whole tree, and there's no spray for
it. There's no systemic cure for it. Keep the tree healthy. I
would take that completely out, that whole trunk, the olive drab brown color
underneath the bark and then the gray hard color. Sometimes there's a black tar
like looking color on some species with hypoxylin. That sounds really classic. And
having multiple trunks on a red oak is generally not a real great idea anyway.
Yeah, I know it's not. And then's just what I had when
I moved in here. So I'll look that up and then meantime i'll get
a three guy over here, and it won't be too much. It's not
too much of it, Yeah, too bad, So I'll get that cut
off and then I'll see what I need to do for the rest of it.
Yeah, And when you cut them off, you're always gonna have a
lopsided tree left because they grew together, so the branches are only going outward,
not inward, on any given trunk, and so it's gonna be lopsided,
but trating itself out in time. How big is a trunk like if
you were to try to grab around, oh, okay, the one that's
got the disease on it, to the canker on it, I'd say that's
about six inches, Okay, six to eight inches? Is that what?
Most of them are? Same size? No, there's one that's towards the
back that really looks good and it's about, say that's about twelve to fourteen
inches. Then there's another one that's close to the diseased one, and it's
about eighty inches. Okay, I would leave the best one. I'd take
all the other two out now. Of course, I'm not sitting there looking
at it. And if you have a tree guy come out, he's gonna
be able to see things I can't see right now. But I would leave
one and just know it's going to be lopsided, but it you know,
it's the best thing to go back out Eventually eventually it will but up higher.
It's not like suddenly out of a thick bark trunk. You're just gonna
have a branch comes from the bonus. This good looking one isn't going to
be really too lopsided. It's it's kind of grown out a little bit.
I just the other ones were far enough away. It kind of grew out
little Yeah, barther Well, branches proliferate where they can get good light.
And that's why you know, you don't see a lot of sprouting inside of
a tree. That's why your trees that grow side by side or get lopsided
because there's no light to be going toward the inside. All right, good
deal, because I don't want this thing falling. I'm putting in the process
of putting in a pool and it's probably going to fall. Well, have
a tree, you know what I would call affordable tree. He knows what
he's talking about. And have him come look at it. Because here's the
thing. When you cut a trunk off, now you got exposed wood that's
going to decay down there. That's just going to happen, and there is
some bit of a loss of structural strength right there at the base. We're
at a branch that's eight inches across coming off the base of a trunk,
then you'd really have a weak spot. I wouldn't worry as much, but
have a good tree person that knows what they're talking about, like affordable tree.
Come out and take a look at it, because I you know,
it's one thing for me to on the phone here make a recommendation. It's
different to be standing there and uh yeah, I mean you're looking at it.
It just looks sick at the base. I mean it's it's it's definitely
sick. Okay, Well, good luck with it. And red oaks are
a great species, so hopefully you can get it back in shape and it
just gets better over time. I appreciate it. Thank you, appreciate that
call very much. You're listening to Guardline. Our phone number is seven to
one to three six or two one two fifty eight seventy. How many times
have I said that number of the past year seven one three two one two
five eight seven zero. We are here to take your phone calls, Katie.
I see you out there. We're going to come to you in just
a moment when we come back, and just want to let you know I
want to have plenty of time available to be able to answer your question and
do a good job about it. Now, some of you are into birds.
You love bird feeders, love you have bird houses, You love songbirds,
You appreciate the music they bring into our landscapes, maybe even bird baths
and things. Whybirds Unlimited is the place you need to know about now.
Why Birds Unlimited is easy to find. Go to w b U, wibirds
Unlimited, WBU dot com, Forward Slash Houston. There's I believe there's six
stores out there across the greater Houston area, and they will stock you up
on the best stuff. And they're knowledgeable. They can guide you. Do
you have particular kinds of birds you want to attract. They can tell you
what kind of houses, what kind of feeders, and what kind of seed
to put in them. Right now, Winter super Blend is the one you
need to be putting in most of your bird feeders because birds need the fat
and the protein that a Winter super Blend has. Don't buy cheap bird seed
because it's not cheap. Here's why I say that, I've seen those things
that are over half the little red bebes that birds don't want to eat,
that not milow stuff. And so if you get a good deal, but
half of it you don't get. You just paid twice as much as you
thought for stuffed birds are gonna eat right, Plus you get the mess.
Wibird's Unlimited has no mess seeds available. Wbu dot com Forward Slash Houston,
Welcome back to garden Line on a gorgeous Saturday. I'll tell you what.
This is a day to get outside. It just is. Look at it,
beautiful skies. You know, we got a little breeze. It's a
little on the chilly side. But hey, that's why we have sweaters and
jackets and long sleeve shirts. It's gonna warm up a little bit for us
too. I found that when you get busy out in the garden, it
just warms up anyway because you're busy in doing activity. Because gardening is good
exercise. It's I always like to say that if if you are a good
gardener, gardening is good exercise. If you are a bad gardener, gardening
is great exercise. Why do I say that, Because you could spend more
time pulling weeds and bathing the soil to replant and all the other things.
So however you want to go about it, We're going to go straight out
to spring branch, right now and talk to Katie. Katie, thank you
for waiting. Good morning, Skip. I'm calling because, yes, I've
been a good gardener. I have this beautiful black gold compost in my backyard.
However, I've noticed as I've been turning it this last month or so,
I'm seeing grubworms in it. And I don't want to put that in
my vegetable garden. Now, I'm very concerned about it. What should I
do about all those YUCKI grubworms? I would not worry. I think it's
so beautiful. The grubworms just we're attracted to. Absolutely, absolutely they do
well in there. But don't worry about it. I used, I've used
composts of grubworms a lot, and you just when you spread it out,
just if you see them, just pick them out. I mean there they
tend to feed the number one they like grasses more than they like other kinds
of plants. But uh, they also or just tend to feed in one
spot. So it's not like now they're gonna make grub worms all over your
garden. I mean they have to come out as an adult and fly around,
and when that happens, they're gonna be grub adults. What we call
jum beetles flying around all over the place dropping eggs. So it's not gonna
make your garden more full of grubs. Really, just pick them out as
you see them. Okay, So I've got a girlfriend that has chickens.
Okay, well listen, listen. You will be known as the neighborhood pusher
drug pusher to those chickens because that stuff is chicken crack. I mean it
is like, oh, yeah, I used to have I used to have
a fox terrier miniature fox terrier that loved grub worms. And when I went
to the garden, the terrier made a bee line because when I turned over
the soil, they would eat the grubs. It was craziest thing I've ever
seen. But still no reason for humans to eat them, not to my
knowledge, and I'm not going to even try to go there. But I
tell you what, your chickens will and the egg yolks will be oranger than
they were before they eat the grubs. So yes, yes, wonderful,
wonderful, Thank you. That's good. You'll be a hit with your friend,
but also with your friend's chickens. They were very good. Thank you.
Bye, Katie, my gosh, let's go out to Cypress, Texas
and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike, Hey, how you doing?
Good morning? Good? So real quickly, I bought a by Text tree
last year and I put it in the ground in the backyard and I did
really well. It bloomed really nice and everything. But through the freeze and
everything I was told. First of all, I was told that it is
really good in the extreme cold and the extreme heat as well. Yes,
but I didn't cover it during these freezes, and I'm looking at it now
and it looks like it's just really dormant. But I'm just wondering, is
it going to come back in the spring? Oh? It should absolutely.
What you can do, it's been a few days since a freeze. Give
it another day or two just to be sure. But you can take your
thumbnail and scrape back some of the bark in those little tender you know,
some smaller than a pencil sized branches and stuff, and you'll see if it's
creamy colored, light green underneath, that's good. But by Texas very doing
that right now, and it's actually green like yeah, they're very hardy,
very hardy. Okay. And one other thing real quickly, so I have
a bunch of different type palm trees, and I have them in my garage
right now. I love the palm trees. I want to say Mediterranean palms
and a few different others. Okay, what is the best way to keep
those really hardy through the hot summer? Well, they can take the heat
just fine. That you just need to get them planted. Would I would
get them out whenever we have days like today that there's not going to be
freezing and you've got good sunlight, get them out where they can get some
sunlight, because that makes carbohydrates, and carbohydrates will help them have the energy
to grow, to produce roots and all that when you get them planted.
So I assume you're put in the landscape, right, No, sir,
I'm putting them in. They're all in pots. Oh they're all in pot
Okay, yeah, well, and I have to they're actually pretty big too,
and so what I see happening during the hot summer, try and keep
them watered in everything, But then they start turning yellow and up. They're
gonna end my watering too much. Well, I guess you could be dig
down in the soil with a little hand trout and feel the soil down down
below. How big are the pots? Oh, I don't know, twenty
five gallons, Maybe they're big pots. Yeah, I don't think you're overwatering
if they have no drainage. The drainage hols are non existing, are plugged
up, and you water a lot. Yeah, you can create an underground
or basically a bathtub that's hold in water with that pot. But I kind
of doubt that that's what's happening. But just check. You can lay them
over and check the drainholes if you want, just to make sure, but
or just water it real good and see if water runs out. But they
ought to be okay. The yellowing could be a nutrient thing. That's a
confined root system, and so it's easy for a nutrient to get a lot
out of whack. You can purchase some quality palm foods, a good palm
food, you know, that'll that'll provide nutrients. Yeah, just look for
a palm food. Nitrophost makes a really good palm food for example, I
know. Yeah, And yeah, just just find You're gonna find it a
lot of places. But I would do that and just follow the label,
you know, don't overdo it when you put it in there. Just just
give it a little food help it. That ought to help. If it's
typically with palms, Mike, it's gonna be magnesium or potassium. That might
be a little on the short side. It could also be lack of nitrogen.
But you know, without having a soil test on your pot it's kind
of hard to know for sure exactly which one. Right, Okay, then
thank you sir, Yes, sir, thanks for the call. I appreciate
that very much. Well, here we are, we're gonna have to take
another break again. We got one more segment left at a Carol, you
are first up when I have time. When I come back, I'll have
time to fully answer your question. So hang on just a minute and we'll
be right back. Thanks for listening to garden Line. Our phone number is
seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome to garden
Line. Glad you're here, and we are ready to go back to the
phones because we've got some folks out there. We're going to go first to
Spring, Texas and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, Hi, Hi,
I have a couple of butterfly cleodendrums in the ground and a pride of
Barbados in the ground, and uh, the butterfly cleodendrin, they're uh,
they froze and look horrible, and the Pride of Barbados is kind of iffy.
So I'm wondering, well those come back or because they are tropical,
yes they should. Pride of Barbados is in a lot of areas. It
naturally freezes to the ground ever winter. If you go far farther north,
you know, you get up in Conroe College Station that direction, it's going
to be unusual for it to not freeze to the ground in the wintertime.
And it does come back out of the ground. But know that it's a
sleepy head and so it it probably is not going to be interested in showing
its face until at least May because they they really like it to warm up
before they want to grow. So don't give up on it. Just save
that spot. It'll be back. The butterfly, the clarodendrum that they call
the blue butterfly. By the way, aren't those flowers beautiful? Oh my
gosh, yes they are. The yeah I do too. It's for those
of you listening it aren't familiar. Imagine a four petaled flower that the petals
are almost shaped like butterfly wings. They're really unique too, light colored blue
and two darker blue with little anthers that look like butterfly antenna. Love that
plant. Yes, it should too come back from the ground, if you
know. I've never tried to see how cold it can take, but I
would expect that you should see it re sprouting also, and it may take
a little while to get going to in the future. By the way,
on those Carol, in the future, when we're going to get down below
mid twenty five, you know, mid twenties or so, I would definitely
just throw some composts up around them or mulch up around them, just to
make sure you protect the base. But in general they do come back.
Okay. Also add a question. Every time I've tried to grow squash,
I only get male flowers, Okay, So I don't know if I'm doing
something wrong. No, you're not. It is not unusual for cue curbets,
and cue curbets include watermelons, cantelopes, squash, cucumbers, all of
those. It's not unusual for some of those plants to start off producing only
male flowers and then begin to produce female and male both flowers. So it
could be that it's a variety that takes a little longer to get going,
and so you eventually should end up getting female flowers. So I don't know,
I don't know why you're not getting female flowers at all, but the
male first is typical, and of course you're not going to get any fruit
out of that. But maybe look at the variety. What kind of squash
are you growing that's doing that. I've tried zucchini, and I've tried the
summer squash, and I've had the same issue with both. That's interesting.
Are you getting plenty of sunlight or the in full sun? I think they're
getting enough sunlight. I just the thing that I've noticed is I don't get
a lot of pollinators in that area. So I've tried plant flowers back there
also to attract them, and I still get a lot. Well, it's
not a lack of pollinators if they're not if they're not producing female blooms.
Now it's a lack of pollinators if they have female ballooms that aren't setting.
But if you're not seeing in all the cucurbits at the base of a female
bloom is a little miniature of the fruit of that plant. Whether it's a
cucumber or cantalop or a squash. Would I would check your varieties, try
to go with varieties that are a little faster. That would be one thing.
Uh. And if you have to hunt this down, do you do
you typically buy seeds or transplants, normally seeds seeds? Okay, if you
can hunt down a variety of yellow squash called multi pick or super pick multi
pick or super pick and pick I believe is p I K. But those
are exceptionally pocious. They come on early and they just set fruit like crazy.
Those are yellow squashes, and they do the summer squash they do really
really well. I would try those two and see if that makes a difference.
So let me know how it goes for you this year. Squash need
sunlight to anything that makes fruit need sunlight to make the fruit. And so
that could also be part of what's going on if it's not lots of sun
But if you do see it and you don't have pollinators, you can What
I will do, just for simplicity, is pick a male bloom and pull
the pedals off and use it as a little stick to pollinate the female flowers.
The little ends of the female flowers. You can hand pollinate. Some
people use artist brushes and Q tips and all kinds of things, but you
may have to become the bee if you end up getting both male and female
flowers if you don't have pollinators. Okay, all right, and one last
thing. My husband wants to know what is the best compost to get or
in your opinion, U or to compost places. And because I've been to
both, I've seen the products. I've used both products as Nature's Way which
is really close to you, and Airloom Soils, which is out importer,
and they sell by the bag all over town. So either one, you're
not gonna go wrong. They do that, they take their time and they
make it right, and that's important. Okay. Is that bagged up already
like Nature's Way or is that buy it by the yard or you can do
it either way. Nature's Way does have have bags. You can purchase from
them at their site, or you can purchase in some garden centers wherever you
like to shop. Check and see what they carry. You'll find Nature's Way
heirloom is pretty widespread in terms of the garden centers that they're in. And
now we have the Landscaper's Pride products they have. They make a compost as
well that is also pretty wide spread in its marketing. So I don't think
you're going to go wrong with any of those. Just know that when you
when you are making when you're getting the bed ready for replanting, it's always
good to add an inch or so of composts mixed in each cycle of a
crop, you know, when you come back into it again. But starting
off that way, are you wanting to make a new bed or a raised
bed, or are you just wanting to improve the soil you already got,
Just to improve the soil, Yeah, you can just mix some of that
in it will it will do very well. So whatever is convenient for you.
And I know you guys you're in Spring Listen, you've got some nice
ace hardware stores not too far from you that are going to carry those kind
of bag products as well. Okay, well, thank you very much.
All right, Carol, thank you. I appreciate your call very much.
We are now going to go to Spring Branch and talk to Berta. Berta,
Welcome to garden Line. I believe we have about two minutes, so
how can we help me? I have a question. I have a bunch
of it. I'm a realist. And the fellow that covers my plants forgot
to cover them. And we're having freeze after freeze. Gon't come back.
They are, They're gonna come back. They're gonna be fine. Yeah,
oh thank you. Yeah, some are. Some amarillas are heartier than others
in most areas where you have a little bit of a protective cover. Did
the freeze just leave the top as mulsh mush over the top of the plants?
Just killed them back? I'm even afraid to touch them. Okay,
there's one coming out like it's telling me I'm here. It's already growing back
again. Yeah. Do you have a portable radio you're listening on. Can
you go out in the garden. I want to talk to that plant.
Take the radio with you and I'll tell it. I'm just kidding. I'm
just kidding. Tell it to stop stop growing. It's not time yet.
But seriously, there's some if you really love amarillis, there's one that has
real strappy red petals called Johnson's, and it's very hearty. But then that,
even the little kind you buy for forcing and stuff, they do okay
in our gardens and most years are going to please. Were given to me
by a friend and I've started so I just multiply them and I've my whole
bank yard full of them, and they've been so beautiful. Sound like you're
doing everything right. You need to ride an amillas. The only thing that
is I'm not doing ready is I can't work on the bed anymore. I'm
maybe two. Oh well, hey, an, if I work on them,
i'll need two people to help me up. Well, here's what you
do. You put a sign in the yard and say free amarillas in exchange
for labor, and people can come you. They can dig up a few
bulbs, but they got to weed that bed or molt that bed for you.
And I think you ought to be able to work something out. I
know a lot of people that would love that. Oh I've got that always
wants to take them, and I said, well, just take them and
don't disturb the bed. Okay, well you may have to give a little
bit on the anyway, get the idea. Hey, thank you so much
for the call. I appreciate that. Good luck with those amarillas. Thank
you, bye bye, all right bye bye. Oh gardening a lifetime hobby,
A lifetime hobby. I knew a gardener one time that was literally in
a rest home with some houseplants, and they had beautiful plants at a good
time doing it. They just enjoyed messing with their plants and all kinds of
things. People love to come in. So yeah, it's a great hobby.
Hey, don't forget. Next week on Saturday, I'm going to be
at the Brasses Home and Garden Show that is in Rosenberg, Texas, right
there on fifty nine at the Fort Bend f S Center Fort Bendepicenter. I'm
all head out there after I get through with the show. I'll be there
from Biden eleven eleven thirty a couple hours. I'll be talking about things to
be doing in your spring garden, answering your gardening questions. If you got
any samples of plants you want to identify. If you got any photos,
please and good sharp focus bring them with you. Let's get together out there
at the Brazas Home and Garden Show. But look forward to it and hope
to see you there.