KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor, so just watch
him as Golden Clubs back. Not a sid morning. Good Saturday morning.
You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and we
are here today to talk about what you're interested in when it comes to gardening.
Our phone number. Write this down so you can give us a call.
In fact, you should just you know, write this down on the
refrigerator door so that you can see it anytime you need it, because we
are here every Saturday, and we're here every Sunday from six am to ten
am. But our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. My purpose in
doing the visiting, the talking, everything we do is for you to have
a more beautiful garden and a more bountiful landscape and not waste your money on
products that are not going to work, but to actually get your money's worth
out of what you buy and make sure and one way we do that is
number one, making sure we are going after what we think we're going after.
For example, I was in a let's just say a national chain that
doesn't specialize in plants, garden center and listening to someone. The conversation basically
went like this. The customer says, you know, I've got these brown
spots in my yard, and the person selling products walked over and handed them
and insecticide. Well, insects can cause bronze spots in our yard. So
can not watering, so can diseases, so can certain other kind of cultural
things like I mean, there was not one question about describe it to me,
where is it? When did you first see it? You know,
anything like that, And it'd be like, imagine go into a doctor.
You go to your doctor, you're and you sit down and you say,
doc, I just have been feeling bad lately, and he says, hold
on, and he writes a prescription and hands it to you. What kind
of confidence would you have in a prescription like that? Right? I mean,
it's like, wait a minute, you don't even you haven't gone to
the first step of trying to diagnose why I don't feel good? Right,
well, doctor wouldn't do that, at least we hope not. But yet
it happens a lot of times in garden centers that basically that's just not their
business. They sell a lot of other things, you know, or maybe
they just are a huge chain that has their best job they can do is
to try to fill the spots for employees. Our mom and pop garden centers
here in the Greater Houston area are unique. And you can go to any
big city here in Texas and you can find that handful of garden centers,
not as many as we have here, but a handful of small handful of
garden centers that hire people that know what they're talking about because the owner is
passionate about it and they know what they're talking about, and they want their
customers to always have success. The goal is not to get the customer through
the cash register to get their money. The goal is for the customer to
have success because yes, you're they're going to go through the cash reister,
but they're gonna come back again because what you told them was right, and
what you told them worked. And I Harp and Harp on the importance of
independent garden centers, and we talk about a number of them here in the
Greater Houston area. And if you think you're saving money going someplace where you
think you may get a better price on something. Well, number one,
you don't know that you probably aren't going to get the better price. But
when you go home with the wrong product and you wasted a trip to the
store and now your yard is dead, drt than it was, that is
not saving money. When you buy a plant that doesn't do well here,
or you put it in a place where it doesn't do well sunshade, too
wet, too dry, etc. Because the person at the garden center couldn't
guide you on how to use that plant and where it would do well,
or maybe direct you to a better plant, that's waste of money. And
so you know, the way I look at it, it's the same way
as I do with pruners. For years, I would just grab a pair
of pruners. I had some good pruners, but I just grab some cheap
pair of pruners to go get a job done on something because I forgot to
bring mine. Every one of those ended up in a trash can. They
don't last, they don't keep an edge, they get sprung where they don't
make the cut right anymore. A quality pair of prunters is going to cost
you some more money. But I still have prunters that I had fifteen twenty
years ago because they're quality. And if blade needs to be replaced, you
can do it. If you need to sharpen it, you can do it
and it'll hold an edge. Do you get what I'm saying. So think
about that when you're out there shopping and we try to direct you to those
kinds of things. We try to help you with diagnosing things and getting you
to the right questions that you might have. But just something to think about
if you've been thinking about retiring and maybe moving and you know, finding a
community where you can just really enjoy retirement. Maybe you're an active adult,
you're fifty five or older, and you are just looking for that kind of
state of the art community, but a place where you can you really will
feel like you're thriving. That is a dell Weeb community. And dell Weeb
has a new community at Fullsher It's two miles from downtown Fullscher on FM three
fifteen nine. Del Weeb of course comes with all the lifestyle programs. It's
not dell Weeb's not just a house. It's it's it's a way of life,
and it's the lifestyle programs that are designed around you. The Fulsher community
has contact me to help them with their community garden. They're putting together a
community garden, and I cannot imagine a better situation than to move into one
of those first class, beautiful communities, but also have access to a place
where you can garden and where you can hang out and visit with the gardeners
that are your neighbors. That would be Dell Web. You can go online
to Dellweb dot com, Slice Houston for more info or just give him a
call two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine. Well let's head
out now. We're going to take a phone call here. We're gonna go
to Camp Logan and visit with Ron. Good morning Ron, Hey, good
morning Skip. Thank you for taking a call. Yes, sir, Yes,
And I've been following Landy fertilization your treatment schedule for three years now and
everything has worked real good except my battle with brown patch. Okay, and
the first couple of years I was air rating at compost top dressing, especially
areas where I've seen brown patch, and that really didn't seem to help.
Last year, I didn't do that, and I switched to start treating early
with the chemical and that felt a little bit, but I still had pretty
pretty bad brown patch. But I recall last last fall a caller called into
Randy and he said he had had luck switching between two different chemical treatments,
and he used the chemical name, so I didn't catch them. But again,
I'm just looking how can I beat back this brown patch. I've tried
most of the things. I'm going to cut in. We're about to take
a break, and when we come back, I will answer your question.
And I thank you so much for the call. We're going to take a
break right now. If you'd like to call in and get on the boards,
it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Good Saturday
morning. You are listening to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter.
If you look outside and your neighbor's house looks dark, no lights on,
please go bang on the door tell them they're missing garden Line. They
will rise up and call you. Bless it. I am in a conversation
here with Ron. By the way, our phone number if you'd like to
call us seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right,
Ron, let's come back and get down to the nitty gritty. Let
me just ask a question first, and that is, are you seeing this
as the large circles in the fall or winter or springtime? Yeah? Yes,
I am. I think last year the earliest I saw was late August,
but again late September to mid October when they really Okay, well,
um, if you're not recalling what you've tried on the fungicides, let me
let me just kind of make a point. Not all fungicides label for a
large patch. By the way, we call it large patch. Now.
They have to change things all the time, and that's one of the latest
changes. But a large patch, not all fungicides are equally effective against it,
even ones that are labeled for it. I think probably the best combination.
If you were if you were talking about you'd talk to someone who used
two different things. If I were doing a single thing, I would probably
use an ingredient called a zaxy strobin and it you'll find it in a product
called Heritage. That's that's a common brand. Uh. There weather several products
out there. Let we spell the azoxystrob and I'd rather send you out for
the ingredient because that way, whatever brand you see on the shelf, you
know what you're looking for. It's a zo x y a zox and then
strobein str bi N. That's a systemic and it works very well when you
combine it with a product containing propiconazole p r O p I c n A
z o L that's pro piconazole. Just like you would say it, those
two combined are excellent against it. I would expect the azoxystrobe and alone to
be enough, but when you combine the two, I think you'll have good
results. And there are a lot of other products that worked pretty well.
You have to get in there ahead of it, though. Once you start
to see the yellowing, well, the disease is already rotting the leaves off
the runners, and so even if you sprayed it with a good product,
it would be too late because the process would already be under way. So
that would mean you know, look, think about the time when you normally
see it. Typically it's when the weather we get a little coal front,
the weather breaks a little bit, we get some rain. That's when it
really flares up, you know, October being a key time. But just
this year. If it's an ongoing problem, then get ahead of it with
a spray. Great, thank very much, I appreciate it. Yeah,
let me add a couple of things. Run because my approach to things is
not just to be, you know, on a chemical treadmill to fix everything,
and so the things you do before you spray that help make it not
so much of a problem is Number one, don't over water. We can't
control rainfall, but we can't control the sprinkler. The more often you water
and keep it wet, especially heading into that season, the worst it's going
to be. And over fertilizing too much nitrogen. We want enough to keep
the grass healthy and green, but if you over do the fertilizer, large
patches a lot worse. Okay, all right, great, thank you very
much, gift. All right, sir, thank you for the call.
Appreciate that we are, you know, far from large patch season. And
for those of you who like me, who've called it brown patch your whole
life, I still catch myself doing that. But brown patches actually, now
it's a it's a different it's more of a summer type of disease, very
closely related to large patch, but we don't typically see a lot of problems
with it here. We can have some, but not it's not like the
large patch. It really gets your attention when the big giant circles start farming
as we move into that fall season. So yeah, prevent it, number
one, don't encourage it. Number two. If you've got an ongoing problem,
then here's what you do. Something else for those of you who've dealt
with those circles before, is having your your turf mowing a little bit higher
helps. It helps with the evaporation of water. A real densely mowed turf,
like think of a golf course screen that would be the ultimate and dense
turf. Well, that is so dense that moisture underneath there tends to stay
underneath there. Whereas you think about a Saint Augustine. If you're mowing it
up at about let's say three inches, that's pretty high, but at least
two and a half, then you're you still have a nice lawn. But
it just seems to help. That's that's what the turf specialist and the plant
pathologists that deal in turf tell me is that that changes the cultural situation down
there at the surface, and cultural controls are our first step. You know,
even if you're not an organic gardener, then you would at least want
to not have to spray when you don't have to spray, right, and
so we try to do the things to avoid sprays. That's why when it
comes to weeds, you know, we talk about herbists that prevent weeds,
herbicides at kill weeds, but the number one weed control is a dense,
healthy lawn. That's number one. If you're not doing that and you've got
bare spots and the sunlight hits the soil. Wherever sunlight hits the soil,
nature plants a weed. And so if you if you're not taking care of
your lawn and just depending on herbicides that you're on a treadmill, I mean,
you can do it. We have pre emergence, we have post emergence,
but work toward low density. And in the meantime, there's things we
use to help prevent weeds. And there's some weeds that will will thrive in
a dense Saint Augustine, Virginia buttonweed, dollar weed. You know, those
kinds of things, they're gonna you're not gonna prevent them. But for crying
out loud, you know, make it easy on yourself by starting with healthy
plants and good good cultural measures. Plants for all seasons. I'm talking about
the Plants for All Seasons on FM two forty nine. It's the Tambo Parkway
right a little bit north of where Louetta comes in. That is the place
that green thumb gardeners go, and they know they're going to get top quality
plants, top quality products, top quality advice. Because the folks at Plants
for All Seasons the family owned a Flaherty family since what nineteen seventeen three.
I believe they have been working in this area and helping people in this area
that whole time. They're experts, their true lawn and garden experts. Bring
them a picture, bring them a sample, show them what you want.
Here's my yard, what plants might go there? You will not be steered
wrong at Plants for All Seasons. If you're a brown thumb and you want
to turn your brown thumb green, you need to visit Plants for All Seasons.
They are just wonderful friendly. I mean the service you get is unmatched.
I mean it absolute excellent service. You can give a call to eight
one three, seven six, sixteen forty six, or you can go online
to Plants for All Seasons dot com Plants for All Seasons dot com and learn
more about them. You ought to follow them on their their social media pages.
I always love to check out what our different garden centers are doing.
I know Plants for All Seasons has some awesome, awesome houseplants. And by
the way, this is houseplants season. When we run inside for the air
conditioning, we can still garden with our houseplants indoors. And and if you
want some just stunning examples of beautiful houseplants, they absolutely have that. They
also have some really cool combo planners too, by the way, Potted arrangements
you know where you have a multiple series of you know, different kinds of
plants all put together. Those are so much fun. Now if you just
want to buy one and take it home, you know you got you got
a party to night, people are coming over. I mean you can just
take that whole thing home and set it there and you look like the greenest
thumb gardener in the world. Or you can make your own if you like
doing that, and they can guide you. You can say, hey,
I want to make one of these. You know how to I do that,
and they'll take well, use this plant in the center, use these
around the side. Uh. You know, just another example of our independent
garden centers and going way above and beyond that just make gardening in Houston so
much much more successful. I've been kind of talking about some different things regarding
diseases and whatnot. This morning we are we're in the big middle of summer,
and in the big middle of summer, we end up with a couple
of common lawn issues, actually more than a couple. Number one is water
watering. Most people overwater they're Saint Augustine. That is just it just it's
the way it is. Last week we had a doctor, Guy phips On
with the Water my Yard app that is so easy and makes everything so easy.
You don't waste water, you don't promote disease by overwatering, and and
you don't underwater either. A little little squirt every day does nothing. It's
a good soaking and then let it dry out. A good soaking and then
let it dry out. That brings the oxygen back into the soil to just
keep the soil saturated. You're going to have root issues on a number of
plants, but it doesn't do your lawn any good anyway. So watering is
the big issue of summer. The other thing is the chinch bugs. Chinch
bugs as we get especially toward the mid to end of summer, going in
just the beginning of early fall, we see a lot of chinch bug issues
pop up in our lawns. And they typically start at a sidewalk, driveway
some other masonry structure, and it's kind of like, you have this spot
we're going out from the concrete or whatever masonry you have. It just starts
looking like it needs watering, and then it gradually bleeds out into the lawn
and goes further and further until the old just dies, even though you're water
in it all the time. And that's that is a typical for chinch bugs.
By the way, also in sun The other issue that we deal with
in summertime insect wise, in our lawns is the side web worm, and
those are head and miss. We never know is this going to be a
bad year or not. Hopefully it won't be a bad year, but when
it is, they can turn a lawn brown really quickly. We'll talk about
those as we get a little further along into the season here. But for
now we're gonna get ready to take a break, and I wish you would
give us a call if you will put down this number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. By the way, I was just I was just thinking about
the ACE Hardware stores that are here in our area, and who was visiting
one the other day and it was for the fourth of July. Looking at
all the stuff they had going on. If you go to ACE Hardware dot
com. Ace Hardware dot Com, you can find go to this store locator.
You can find the thirty nine locally owned and operated ACE stores here and
they carry everything that we talk about, all the fertilizers that we talk about,
all if you need pest control issues, for diseases, for insects,
for weeds, They're going to have all the products that you need there at
the ACE Hardware. I always brag on their grilling section. I mean,
whatever kind of grill, whatever kind of bling to go with your grill you
need, they're going to have it. Go to ACE Hardware and sign up
for the ACE Hardware Rewards program to any earn some money back on your purposes
purchases. I think I need to go work on Peter Piper pick to peck
mate. In the meantime, I'm going to hand the microphone to you while
I go wash my mouth out. It always a surprise with the music on
garden Line. You're listening to garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Rictor
and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four R
seven one three two one two K t r H. If you like the
doll bother letters. Makes it easy to remember. We are visiting about things
this morning, regarding all kinds of I'll say, horticultural principles. You know,
we talk about when it comes to diseases, it's not just like,
well, here's the spray that kills it. It's okay, how do we
get here in the first place? How do we avoid that in the future.
But when we have to spray, what do we use and what's effective,
what's best? And when it comes to weeds, build a dense lawn.
And then we can talk about the pre emergence or the post emergence you
might need. But let's clear out as much of the problem as we can
with our cultural practices before we jump in and just start spraying, Because why
do you garden? I mean you garden for produce, you garden for beauty.
The flowers. You don't garden so that you can spend your weekends mixing
up a spray tank and spraying it around the place. I guess some of
you might, but I, yeah, I sure don't. That's not my
idea of a good saturday. But I'll do what I need to do to
protect plants from insects, from diseases, from from uh, you know,
the weed issues that come in. But that that's not my main reason for
gardening. So let's figure out how to get you busy with more of the
fun stuff that you like and less of the problems. Dealing with problems.
It always kind of makes me sad to hear someone who's saying, you know,
I tried this, and I tried that, and I did this and
I did that, and everything's dying and you know, and it's just okay,
we got to fix this because you are not having fun. And gardening
is for having fun. It is your palette to paint. When you walk
out and you look at your landscape, think of it like a blank canvas,
and what do you want to paint it with, what colors do you
like, what seasons do you want color in? And a lot of people,
you know, they go to the garden center and they buy what'sever in
flower at that time. Garden centers can attest to this, but it's sometimes
hard to sell a plant that doesn't have a flower on it because people want
to take home the flower. Well, trust me, it's great and since
some cases even better to buy the plants before they have flowers on them,
but bring them home and paint your landscape with them. That's the fun part
of gardening. And you know, I just can't imagine. I was thinking
about some gingers the other day. I love ginger, by the way.
There are several groups of gingers. One of my favorite of the hidiciums,
the butterfly ginger. Some of those the fragrances, oh my goodness, wonderful.
But I also love the hidden gingers. There's the kirkuma gingers, a
number of different circuma gingers like red chocolate and let's see, there's a new
ruby ginger that's a beautiful one. And a lot of these I noticed the
other day because I follow all these garden centers on social media. Buchanans Plants
has some of those beautiful circumas and they are absolutely stunning. You have a
shady area and you want to put something in it that also gives you some
color coming up in there. This is it. It also makes a great
cut flower. By the way, Buchanans you can go online Buchanans Plants dot
com to find them. They're at six to eleven East eleventh Street in the
Heights. And of course Buchanans is going to have all the products that we
talked about here are all the fertilizers and all the soils. In fact,
they have their own line of soil blended with composts and shale called Life Below,
which is a very high quality product. Their own Tropic Core. You
know, we used to just use peat moss in everything, and we still
do in most things, but we're moving away from pete and Tropic Core is
a peat free content hainter mix for your favorite tropicals and favorite indoor plants.
And of course when you're there, you gotta look at the pottery and all
the other stuff. I mean, it's a it's a complete deal. You
ought to be able to walk home with either something that's already instant beauty,
or with a group of plants and containers and soils and fertilizers to set you
up for creating that beautiful garden, a beautiful landscape, or maybe just a
beautiful container. But check out the check out the cocumas. When you're there,
let's run out and now to Beaudah and talk to Carol. Carol,
are you in Beauda over near Austin. I certainly am, yeah, I
am. Thanks for Colin. I used to live not too far from there.
Oh, Okaya, just out in the country. What's happening in beauty?
Well, I'm not out in the country. I'm actually in a waiting
neighborhood. But here's my problem. I move to the house several years ago,
and I just left the garden that's they're adjacent to that front of the
house. I just left it alone. But I went in recently or several
months ago, and I cut down all those shrubs and I'm cleaned it all
out. But I've been stunnied about planning anything since then. I had what
I fought were these little weeds that just kept coming up. They're real healthy.
But I finally figured out those are really attached to the seat around them.
Tree that's in the front yard, that's like maybe I think it's eighteen
feet from the house. And I think over the decades how they dealt with
that. They just weeded it there. So when I dig down, I
find roots and I've gone down the foot and I just can't go any more
than that. These roots there's anywhere from a pencil in diameter to a man's
thumb. And I cannot plant because I mean, I can cut them back,
yeah, but they're back in two weeks. I can cut I could
do that all the turney, But how am I going to plant? The
being is is there a big seed, a realm right there still or is
it a tree that you see? So it's still there and it's not in
real good shape, but it's still there. I think the freeze of them
the last phrase come again pack it is, but it's still there. So
more next thing is I googled and I just found all kinds of information.
I'm a low overwhelmed with it. Yeah, some of it sounds a little
dangerous as far as the chemicals go. Okay, so I need something that
I can I need it. I can plant a fall gardener, if you
can tell them what to do. Okay, so got about a minute here,
I'm gonna try to try to give you the quick answer on it.
If number one, elms are all bad about casting seed that grows a little
seedlings, and but you are to be sure that when you follow one of
these sprouts down, it is tied to a big route. It's not a
little The sprout has it own route there there, and they're to the right
there. I cannot pull, there's no pulling, there's just no pull.
And it still may be their own route. And here here's the difference.
If they're their own plant. There's one thing I will recommend, and we're
gonna take a break here. I can get to it. But if you
hang on just a little bit, if they're attached to the mother tree,
then we wouldn't want to use something that would translocate over and damage the mother
tree. And that's that's kind of why this is important. I don't think
of cedar elm as a big suckering tree issue, but it is definitely a
big seedling tree issue. We're gonna take a break right now and I will
be right back. Carol, hang on our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good Saturday morning. You are
listening to garden Line and the sun is creeping over the horizon, and I
can tell you this can be a good day. I am looking forward to
after the show, getting out, enjoying kind of hanging out with gardeners and
plants. Today. Hey, we're going to go back to Beaudha and talk
to Carol again. Carol. So here's what I would recommend for those if
indeed they are their own route. There are a couple of options. There
are devices you can buy that attached to them. It's like you They squeeze
the base and you pull back on the handle and it pulls the long root
up of weeds. It's a I don't know how to describe it other than
that, but I heard in your question you don't really like to use chemicals
so much, so that would be the non chemical way of pulling up the
little tree seedlings that you find down there. And those are not you gonna
have to hunt down one of those devices, but it works pretty well if
the soil is moist. The chemical way, that's the least what least chemical
used would be to get a product. I hope you have a pen handy.
If not, grab one, I do get a product that contains triclopier
t r I c l O p y r t r I c l o
p y r. You'll find it in things like a poison ivy killer or
a brush killer or those kinds of products. And you can do one or
two things. If it's of any size at all, like let's say it's
the trunk is the size of your little finger or whatever, you can cut
it off and you dab the triclopier directly on that fresh cut. I use
a little foam like the paint brushes, a little bitty skinny paint brushes that
you just throw away and just dab it right on there. If if it's
smaller, you can wipe it along the sides. You can put a little
cooking oil in with the tricho pier to make it kind of stick better,
and it will soak in and it will go down and kill those. Now,
if they're all connected to the mother tree, and you just do a
whole lot of those, then you can have an effect on the mother tree.
And that that is the concern. And I'm not able to discern for
sure what all you're dealing with, but just in general, if you've got
a if you've got an elm, it has dropped seeds and they've come up
and people have chopped them off, and so now they're getting bigger, but
they're sprouting resprouting each one is kind of how you're describing it. And I
think that's that's the approach that I would take. But I do a little
bit first, just to watch and see if you notice any problems on the
on the mother tree. Okay, well that's going to work. And oh
I feel incouraged. Thank you so much. We'll take care. I have
fun out there in Budaud and I will. That's it. That's good.
I appreciate your call very much. Hey, our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two and two five eight
seven four. If you have not fertilized your lawn this summer, you need
to get that done. And you're not going to find a better option than
the regular nitrofoss what do we call it. It's our favorite nitro foss for
the summertime because it gradually releases the numbers on the bag nineteen four ten.
So what do you call that? You call that superturf because it creates a
superturf nitro foss superturf will gradually release those nutrients over time. You're not gonna
need to fertilize your lawn again until fall. By the way, you should
be returning your clippings along the way as you go because they're also releasing nutrients.
But you're gonna find super turf in the silver bag. It makes it
easy. You don't have to remember all the numbers in the names silver bag.
You're gonna find it at all these hardware stores that we talk about here,
you're gonna find it. I was talking about earlier plants for all seasons.
Up at Louetta, they are going to have the super turf as well.
If you head up to dnd Feed and Tomball, if you go to
Plant and things out in Branham, everywhere nitrofost is sold, you're going to
find their silver bag the super turf. And that is a good one for
the summer lawns. Our lawns, you know, as long as they get
a little bit of water. They are doing really good right now and they're
thriving I mean, it's too hot for us, but not for the lawn.
I was working out in my garden beds the other day and some of
my wooden beds that I had, that I've had screwed together are starting to
bow and come apart. They just they warp wood works. It happens,
And I was just thinking, you know, I'm almost at the point areas
like I'm gonna pull this stuff out and I'm just gonna get the Vego beds
that I've been wanting to get for so long. Anyway, Vego garden beds
are modular metal beds. They've been treated so they don't rust, they don't
corrode. They've been painted with a safe paint, a USDA certified, and
it was also tested at Texas and m Universe. These beds are quality.
They last, They last a long long time. You'll go through more than
one set of wooden beds in the time that it takes to, you know,
for finally your vegobed and I you know, they say twenty years.
They wouldn't surprise me if it goes further than that. In fact, I
don't see why it wouldn't go further than that. But anyway, vegobeds.
You can build them their modular it's easy to put together. It's like just
playing with tinker toys. It's well, let's go more modern. It's like
playing with Lego blocks. There's a good one. Anyway you put them together.
They hold the soil. They gradually over time that soil is gonna slink
down, which it does in any bed, and you just add more,
but the vegobed stays here after your They're beautiful, the colors are beautiful.
There's impostors out there. Vego only vegogarden dot com. Go to vegogarden dot
com and you'll find vegos in some of our local guard centers. I've been
around. In fact, just the other day, I was out there at
Enchanted Forest, which is uh out in Fourban County. If you're like in
Richmond and you're heading up toward sugar Land, it's it's to the right kind
of south of fifty nine. The folks added Enchanted, by the way,
they have, they had some garden, some Vego beds out there, and
I, you know, I just was looking at them and thinking, this
is this is so easy and so simple. By the way, while I
was at it, Enchanted if you don't plant yarrow, you should. They
have a wonderful selection of yarrow multi colors, and it's just a fern like
plant with these little tiny bloom heads and an umbrella shape that attracts beneficial insects.
The little tiny wasp that lay eggs inside move the aphid so that it's
like the movie Alien. It's really cool. If you're an afid and you
go see a movie, Uh, it's it's because of this tiny wasp that
that does that to you. Anyway, yarrow beds super super cool. They
got plenty of those out there. Beautiful. Also some sun bekia, the
Luna sun beckia. It's type of rude beckia, giant, beautiful yellow composite
flowers with some rusty red and gold in the flower. Just outstanding out at
Enchanted Garden. You can go online find them. You can find a bike.
Like I said, I follow them on Facebook and I follow them on
Instagram, both of those available Chanted. They're on FM twenty seven fifty nine
out there in that area. Well, let's see, we've we've been talking
about a lot of different things this summer. One thing I do want to
remind you is in your lawns if your lawn is needing aeration, if it's
any top dressing us. It's pretty much always from the time, oh,
let's say you've mowed twice until we get towards the end of the season.
It's a good time to do that kind of thing. If you have pest
control issues and you want somebody to come in and do that for you,
well, I have a great idea and it's org lawn or org lawn dot
com. As an organic lawn. They can do a one organic care of
your lawn. They can do a hybrid of organic and other on your lawn,
and they just really really cool. The org lawn is something that I
like because they don't have long term contracts. Now they'll serve Katie Cypress,
Houston, Sugarland, Richmond area kind of the to the central, up to
the north and to the west is their area they focus in. And right
now they're having a deal where if you tell them you're a garden line customer,
twenty nine ninety nine plus tax will get you the first treatment of whatever
your lawn might need. Maybe it's fertilizer, maybe it is insect prevention.
Maybe you know the seaweed and the bug prevention that they're putting out now.
Maybe it's one of those org lawn dot com eight three two three five one
zero zero three two where you're listening to garden line and our phone. We're
gonna take a break here, but write this down. Give us a call,
Joshua, get you on the board. Seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Sitting here going through my notes, different kinds of
things I wanted to talk about today, and I had forgotten about the yarrow
that's all of us out there in Channia. Just I love that plan.
I mean, it's one of the ones that it kind of makes a groundcover,
and there's a lot of great groundcovers, and sometimes we get in a
mindset where we can only think about the few plants we see everywhere. You
know, like, what's a groundcover. Well it's lorioty, Well it's Asian
jasmine, monkey grass, you know, those kinds of things. But there's
so many other plants that we can use that we can mix in. I'm
doing an article for a Texas Gardener for an upcoming issue, talking about things
that are ornamental and that are edible. So think about a regano, a
regano makes a good groundcover. There's no reason why you couldn't use a reguno
as a groundcover. But anyway, we'll be back in just a bet talk
about some more of that. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of
the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with
scarre Rictor just watch him as so many ticket. Good morning, good Saturday
morning, beautiful day out there and we are talking gardening. Good day to
be talking about gardening. There are so many things that we can do to
make our landscape apes more beautiful, our gardens more beautiful, our house plants
more beautiful. And that's what we're here about. That is why we're here
and why we're talking about that. By the way, if you if you
live in the north central part of the I'll say north central downtown that that's
kind of like three different things. But anyway, you know what I'm talking
about. You need to know about quality feed. Quality feed is over there
on Luzon Street. Now, they used to be into different location and I
used to go to them in that old location too, but at eighteen thirteen,
Luzon Quality Feeds has that old time feed store field. You need to
check it out to see what I'm talking about. I mean, the can
and Cress have an outstanding operation going there and right now, you know,
this is the time we're talking about insects in the lawn. If you need
products to control insects in your lawn, they're going to have them. They
carry the products we talk about here, whether it's fertilizers or whether it's best
control kinds of products, they've got them all right there. They have an
outstanding supply of things for your backyard chicken project, including about over two weeks
I believe they get in a bunch of baby chicks. So if you've thought
about getting into backyard chickens and just haven't gotten around to it, go buy
there. They will not only provide the chicks that are coming in, but
they'll provide the feed that you need, any kind of equipment that you would
want to take care of your backyard chicks, feeders, waters, those kinds
of things. But they do have an excellent, excellent supply of products there
at a quality feed I love to love to go visit with them. It's
a good old fashioned feed store and you know it's just excellent. By the
way, if you are an organic gardener and you have a problem with fire
ants, when you go into quality feed, ask Ken or Chris say,
I need to see your come and get it. Come and get it.
That is a organic product. That's a bait for fire ants. That's spinosaid
based. Spinosad is the ingredient. There's a lot of other good things that
will kill fire rants out there, but when it comes to u inech fire
ant bait, that's the only one that I'm currently aware of that's on the
markets for lums. Come and get it, but they carry it. They
do carry it there. They can get you set up so you can enjoy
your yard without having to deal with the fire ants, which isn't any fun,
is it. We're gonna head out to Cypress and talk now to Sandy.
Good morning, Sandy, I skipped. Good morning. I have a
question about my tomato. I had a determinate, a determinate tomato and it
produced polly about thirty tomatoes. Okay, when I cut it down because it
looked disease and I knew it was done producing. When we took it down,
there was a little baby tomato that was that came up. So I'm
watering it and it's growing. Is that normal for determinate tomatoes to lay babies?
You did a tomato fall off and maybe the seed come up. Is
that what you're saying, Yeah, because it's a tomato. I don't know
if the tomato fellow. I know one day I went up there, there
was a tomato in the plant, but I took it out. Yeah,
well, who knows how the seed got there, But that came up from
a seed. So what you're describing is just a seed. Any tomato is
going to have a seed that you can grow into a new tomato plant.
If it's a determinate tomato, chances are it's a hybrid tomato. And that
would mean that it had two parents that were not alike, but when they
combine them, they come up with an outstanding offspring. And so that's how
that's what a hybrid is. It's a it's a plant that is better than
either it's of its genetic parents. And so if you the analogy that works
for me is if you look at a family, Let's say there's six kids
in a family. No two of those kids are going to be alike.
That is for sure. You may see a family resemblance, but they're not
going to be a denticle. And that's true. When you pull seeds out
of a hybrid tomato, you're gonna get a mix of the gene pool,
but it will not be like the tomato. Maybe it won't be determinant,
maybe it won't be as red, Maybe the size of the fruit will be
different, maybe it's disease resistance will be different. But that that is why
we generally don't recommend people planting seeds from a hybrid plant. Okay, do
you temper another question? Sure? Quick, one um my, okra um.
It's growing really good. But I had one you could see the green
part of the oquacomy. I don't know if it was the flower or what
happened. It was like a black, black, big black slug looking thing
that I know it wasn't a slug and it had like a web around it.
Okay, so I cut that whole thing off. Un Did you do
anything else to it? Is this where the leaf attached to the stem that
you saw this? Yes, and there was coming trying to come out,
but it looked like in the future, just in the future. Just pull
those off, throw them on the ground. What happened was the bloom wilted
and a fungal infection got in the bloom. And it's not a disease of
okra. It's just you know, here was fleshy bloom tissue. It's hot
to humid and it and it grew this this black stuff that you're seeing.
But that was just like mold. Think of it. It's just like mold
on there. And if you pull it off, you'll be left the little
green nub of okra behind it. And you don't need to cut the okra
off, just grab it and it out a pull loose real easily. Okay,
all right, thank you today, Thank you, Janet. I appreciate
appreciate that call. You know, if we are if we're talking about I
was saying that it's in the summer times, so darn hot. It's a
good time for our gardening, at least in part to move indoors. And
I was taking care of some of my house plants the other day and the
product I use on my indoor house plants is the Microlife's Biomatrix. It's their
orange label. It's a seven one three blend, lots of beneficial microbes in
it, by the way. You just mix it in water and use it
on your house plants, and it works really really well. That high first
number, the high nitrogen provides good support for the foliage. That is why
we grow our house plants, at least most of them we do nowdoors.
They've got the Ocean Harvest blue label. The blue label is a four two
three mix. It's a fish based fertilizer. You can dilute it down and
use it as a foliar spray for a foliar feeding. It is not going
to burn your plants, and it's just a great way to go out and
keep your Let's say you're potted plants on the patio just blooming well and looking
great. Now you could use it on a whole flower bed if you wanted
to. But the idea here is with a liquid as you're typically you're going
to use that on putting in new transplants, or you're going to use it
on taking cara plants that are confined in a container. It's just real convenient
to do that. The orange label Biomatrix, the blue label Ocean Harvest boast
by Microlife, and you can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out more
about them. There is a number of products that they have there and you
can learn more about these two products specifically, as well as where to get
microlife products. We are going to take a break right now, Janet.
You'll be first up when we come back in the meantime, if you'd like
to call in seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, I
leave the city. Get Na good Saturday morning. You're listening to garden Line
and I'm your host, Skip Richter. Thanks for listening. By the way,
our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Hey, if you're looking for a place where you can move into a beautiful
neighborhood for your retirement years, but you are not ready to just go out
to pasture. You are an active adult. You want to be out and
about doing things. You're not going to do better than a Dell Web community.
There's a new one, by the way, going in down near Fulsher
on FM three fifty nine. It's less than two miles from downtown Fulsher.
It's got the inspired designs you would expect from Dellweb. It's got the lifestyle
programs that are designed around you that you would expect but this one has a
community garden and I'm helping them with that get that set up. So the
beauty of the community along with a place where you can garden, where you
can get together with your gardening friends. You're not going to do better than
Dellweb, that's for sure. Go to dellweb dot com slice Houston for more
information, or just give him a call to eight one four to five nine
zero six zero nine. We're going to head out to Portnatus and visit with
Janet this morning. Good morning, Janet, Good morning, scare How are
ye well, I'm well, thank you good. I have to Rosa Linda,
Indian hotthorn trees and something is eating the leaves and they make a perfect
little scalop around the edge and I haven't had any new growth on it in
about two and a half months. Okay, I was wondering if you know
what that is? Is the scalop out size of the end of your little
finger. Yeah, maybe half anch or so across. H Okay. That
is a bee. It's called a carpenter bee. And what they do is
they drill holes in wood. They like it just took a drill about the
size of that scalop you saw, and they drill a hole in the wood
and then they use those little cut pieces of leaves to line the hole and
they lay their eggs in there, and then they put up a little wall,
and then they lay more eggs and put up so this little hole has
a bunch of little chambers going out and the bees hatch out. They're a
great pollinator, very helpful pollinator. The negative of them is somewhere they're finding
some wood that they're drilling in, and you know, if that's the facial
boards on your house or something, that's not a good thing. But you
know, people actually put blocks out for them to have to you know,
these little bee houses, if you will, for them. They're solitary bee.
They don't live in a in a like a bumble bee in a colony,
or like a paper wasps altogether. You know, they they're they're solitary.
So I guess as far as the pruning job they do, we don't
really worry about it. The amount of leaves that are lost or just not
worth trying to deal with. Okay, so do I don't have any new
growth? And it was to make a new leave construct, Well, that's
going to be due to something else. If it's got a good mulch around
it, and it's not compete with weeds and lawn, that's good. If
it is, you maybe want If it is competing, you want to move,
move the grass back, take it out and give it a little molesteria.
You want to fertilize, Get you a good quality fertilizer. In fact,
right now, I would say vigor. Vigor is what you're looking for.
So I would just use janet a lawn fertilizer for right now to get
that thing vigorous and growing. Uh. And you know we've got and don't
worry about the leaves like uh doing a spright fertilizer on them there, No,
no, no, no, don't do that. Just just put it
on the put it on the ground, watered in. That's the best bang
for your buck. But just get you a good quality lawn fertilizer. Uh.
You know you can. You can find those kind of things all over
the place. We talk about them here all the time. But I would
get one that's more of an immediate release, you know, for our lawns
in the summer we go slow release. I would just get like a fifteen
five ten that's an immediate release. Put it out at a moderate rate and
watered in so you can get a faster response on that plan. Okay,
now this is in my landscaping beds to Okay, yeah, well so do
the same same thing, yes, same thing, and just make sure it's
getting enough water when we have rain and the soles moist If it's an established
shrub, you shouldn't have to water it a lot. It very seldom actually,
because we shrub has a wide root system and we get rainfall pretty regularly.
Here. But okay, yeah, mine, nor the Indian hotthorn tree.
Okay, than thank treatments in hunt yes, okay, now one more
question. I heard you talking about this after I had some of these planets.
I had six encore a Zalua bushes planet. Yes, I've lost four
of them. They're doing terrible and I heard you mentioned that a week after
I had them. Planet. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but
they're doing well. You know that it could be a lot of things.
It could be so moisture, it could be pah, it could be a
you know, amount of light that they're getting. But in general, just
the encore is designed to be a reblooming azzelia, and that's what it does.
I just find that overall, I like just a regular type of a
zelia in terms of the bloom, you know, the amount of blooming and
whatnot that you get. But I would not tell someone don't plan an encore
at all. I just I think that if you like the traditional zelia that
blooms, when they bloom and looks good, I think you can you can
create some or you can find some really good choices. All right. Well,
hey, thank you, Janet. I appreciate that call very much.
You're listening to Gardenline. It is a phone number seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. That's how you get in touch with me so
we can visit about the things that are of interest to you. Hey,
do you leave? Do you live out there in the Mountain Bellevue area,
maybe even around Baytown. Well, I want to tell you about your hometown
feed store, and that's Texas Feedstop. You know how always brag about all
the garden centers we have around Houston. We've got great feed stores around Houston,
North, southeast, West, Central. We got you covered. Texas
Feedstop is on North Hi. It's thirty four North Highway one forty six in
Mont Bellevue. Let me make that easy. You're on I ten. You
go north on Highway one forty six just a few minutes and they'll be there
on the right the roads. Brian and Hope have created a beautiful experience for
customers. And what do I mean by that. I mean you're greeted.
I mean they take you to the product you need. They carry what you
buy out, you know, whether it's feed. When you go in there,
you're gonna find all the fertilizers that I talk about. You're gonna find
the products that I talk about. Things like mosquito dunks, for example,
are going to be there at the Texas Feedstop in Mont Bellevue. It is
a place you need to get to know. If you're any we're out in
the Mount Bellevue or even it's just minutes away from Baytown, that's your hometown
feed store, the Texas Feed Stop. And I hope you'll check them out
because it's pretty cool. You know. They say the cobbler's kids go barefoot,
and that is true when it comes to me in my yard sometime.
I laughed and tell someone the other day that a boy if people could see
my yard at this moment, meaning actually it was in my yard. It
was this flower bed that I was looking at as I got to get in
there and take care of that. And so I started doing some planting.
You know, I'm always picking up plants and bringing them home. And I
started planning the plants and getting them established. And I know it's summer,
it's not the ideal time to plant, but we're going to plant all through
the year because we can here. And I had some salvia as I was
getting in the ground. I had some Mexican heather that I was getting in
the ground. And when you put a plan in, I think that you
should grab, grab a hole some hast grow has to grow six twelve six.
The has to grow six twelve six from adina is an excellent product.
It's got the six percent nitrogen, twelve percent phosphors, six percent potassium.
Plus, it has a lot of the humic acid, the humate humic acid.
It's got the seaweed extracts. It's got all the kinds of combinations that
just really help plants take off and grow. It is an excellent plant food
for watering in a plant. I put mine like in a watering can.
It just mix it according to the label and a watering can. That way,
as I planted something I just watered in, I go down planning,
planning, I'll come back. I'll rewater each plant again to get a good
soaking of that. I'll follow it up a week later and do it again,
and then a third time one more week later. So at planting a
week later and a week after that, and that plant will be well on
its way to fruiting and blooming and whatever that it is doing. The Hastrogro
six twelve six excellent product for just that purpose, as well as many others.
Gray for vegetables. Two. When you're putting those transplants in where you're
listening to garden Line, our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We had some rain this week. That's kind of nice, wouldn't it to
have some rain come through. We'll have some more. And you know when
you have rain, that means mosquitoes will be about to proliferate. It just
takes a little bit of stagnant water than mosquitoes lay eggs in a very short
time. Now you have all these mosquitoes swarm in you, and when you
think about diseases like westn al virus and others that mosquitoes carry, well,
you don't want to mess around with that. Mosquito dunks is the best way
I know to deal with mosquitoes. That is, of course, always empty
out all the stagnant water that you have. I mean, it goes back
to what I said earlier, the cultural practice is being so important. Why
just have stagnant water and have to treat the water? Dump it out.
But maybe you've got some areas, like there's a tree that has a hollow
spot that is, you know, holding water after a rain, mosquitoes are
gonna go crazy in there. Throw a mosquito dunk up in there. Or
get some granules to put around your pop plant where you have the catch basin
that's holling water, or maybe in a little bird bath for example. The
granules work good for that. Hey, these are one hundred percent organic.
They're not going to hurt the things that you care about like people or pets,
or fish or birds or wildlife. You can't go wrong. You'll find
them everywhere. There's an ace hardware everywhere there's an independent garden center and everywhere
there's our feed stores. We talk about mosquito dunks, super super quality stuff.
Yeah, don't don't make mosquitoes happy. Don't be a skeeter breeder either.
That's another thing that you don't you don't need to do. If you
are looking for a summer plant food for your lawn, that would be Slow
and Easy from Nelson Plant Food. Their Turf Star line. Slow and Easy
is one of those products that we love because it gradually releases the nutrients,
so you don't get the thatch build up, you don't get the increase in
water consumption due to a smaller roots system from overapplying. The nitrogen gradually feeds
you over time. It does really well. It's like all the products the
Turf Star line from Nelson's, the Color Star line, the nutri Star line,
the Nature Star line, all quality products from Nelson Plant Food, and
for summertime, the Slow and Easy is one that I think you just need
to do. It's going to carry you all the way into fall. You
don't have to worry about fertilizing again because you took care of it and always
return those clippings. They are free plant food in the process. Well,
it's time for news break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Call Josh, get on the board. We'll talk to you when we
come back. Don't let me be misunderstood if I never mean to take it
out. Good morning, beautiful, beautiful Saturday morning, and you're listening to
garden Line. You'd like to give us a call. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two and
two fifty eight seventy four. Let us see here. We're gonna head out
where we're gonna go First, Now I can I spill coffee all over my
desk? So I've got this interesting little situation going on here. We'll eventually
get it taken care of. We are gonna go out to Full Share and
we're gonna talk to j D. First thing. Hey j D, how
are you doing this morning? Pudy skip By? I'm doing great. How
are you well? I'm good Other than the coffee, I was looking forward
to drinking being all over the place, now wrangling it all over yourself.
Well, hope it's not too hot. Well, long time sporadic at best
listener, Um, we got you and randy, but sporadic because only when
I'm in the vehicle do I on the weekends. But like I am now.
But uh, I got a comment and a question comment. I just
want to say thank you. Um we purchased a house in Fulsher last October,
so we've you know, the plants in the grass have all got about
what eight months worth of eight or nine months worth of growth in them?
Okay, But the thank you was I had emailed you about putting in some
different flowering plants for the front and I'm gonna be doing a water feature in
the front. And my question is, so thank you for responding to me
a few months ago when I emailed him. My question is I want to
move some of those plants around. I heard you just talking about transplanting and
then using that that fast to grow or whatever it was called. But my
question is, what's the I'd like to do this water feature disappearing water fountain
in the front garden area. What is the best time a year for me
to try to transplant one of my great myrtles and possibly some other plants.
Should I wait till the it's cooler in the fall, or should I wait
till even the spring. Now, you definitely want to do it in the
fall. And the reason is the demands are very low on the plan.
If you did it now, it would be very difficult to not at least
set them back significantly, if not kill them out right. So I would
wait until probably early November even I mean, you depends on what the weather
is doing. But you wanted to cool off where the demands are low,
maybe in the leaves coming off, and at that point when you transplant them,
get them in the ground, water men, get the soil settled in
around the root system again so they're not air pockets underground, and then our
winters are warm that roots will start growing over the winter time, and so
by the time we get to next summer you will have a much better root
system than a plant that you transplanted, let's say, in late winter.
Than I sure appreciate it. Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks a lot
for all you guys do well. Thank you. I appreciate that. JD
appreciate that call very much. We're going to head now over to northwest Houston
and talk to Ralph. Hello, Ralph, good morning, good program.
Yes, and I want to find out about I've had my tree for con
tree trimmed up and it's looking good now. And I'll but um my sig
three there and somebody coming in there and picked all my feeds. That's that's
but I wanted to thank you for your program where it's quality to feed you
to say where were they moved to? Yeah, quality feeds on Luzon Street
there. That's near the section near the intersection where equipment an A lesion come
together. So if you're you're north of downtown, but you're not you know,
as far north as the loop for example. If I don't know if
that's making I'm saying, yeah, ye okay, it's been a rough year
for everything this year, but all my tomatoes and all without the good rain,
like will you see yet? But I guess I'm doing what I should.
But it's it's hard, okay, say yeah, yeah, that's that's
you know, that's all we can do, especially when the weather is brutal
to us like this. So um, just take care of yourself, watch
out for that hot sunny conditions and that takes its toll on us. Okay,
thanks A and M for you. All right, all right, thank
you, Frank. I appreciate that call very much. We we do love
to talk about, you know, like our feed stores and our garden centers.
And if you're up in the Tomball area, I'm gonna tell about your
hometown feed store. That is D and D Feed and Supply. Now it's
just like three miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine, twenty and
so if you haven't been there, we'll go check them out. I mean,
if you have, you know what I'm talking about. They've expanded.
It's a much bigger store now, lots of supplies. They already had a
lot, but now there's even more. Dover Family Gosh, they've been operating
D and D since nineteen eighty nine, I believe it is. If I
talk about a fertilizer here on garden Line, they're gonna have it at D
and D Feed. They're gonna have also flats of vegetables, vegetable seeds,
fruit trees, roses, all kinds of things you need. You want to
high end dog food like Origin, Diamond, victor starprote they've got it.
Quality livestock feed products to care for your horses. Rodent control, we always
have to deal with that here, especially here in the Houston area. Do
you have a pool you need some cleaner for it. They've got it D
and D feed and Tomball is a great one stop and you will get treated
right there and you will find the things you're looking for there too. You
need to check them out for sure. Want to go over now to northwest
Houston and we're gonna talk to Frank. Hello, Frank, good morning,
Skip him. I want to put out this nitro files has to go instead
of the Grandulus. Would it be acceptable? Yes? Are you? Are
you talking about the one I was just mentioning before. Well, I did
not hear that. But this is there has to go for lunch, which
is a twelve four eight twelve four eight, No, that's a different one
than I was talking about. That would be just fine. The twelve four
eight has got that three one two ratio of nutrients that we're looking for in
turf, and yeah, it could be a higher nitrogen, but three four
eight or three one two is a really good ratio. And the has to
grow will be just fine. It'll work very well for that. Uh,
it's gonna because it's an organic product, it's gonna release a little bit gradually,
you know, over time. I mean it's not. I kept to
wait a long time on it. It'll be there. But it's a microbes
break it down and it stimulates them in the process and then they're releasing the
nutrients to your plants. If I have the nitrofols um, I think it's
a nine poorteen and nan poort toy of okay grand okay and month spreader broke.
And that's the reason I decide to use this. Yeah, okay,
Well, now you're talking about something that's on a hose end right. Yeah,
you have a holeson sprayer. Yeah. I put some of that on
my lawn a section of my lawn this spring and was replaced with the results.
It's easy in ten minutes. You can fertilize a pretty much most people's
whole lawn in that amount of time. It's not it's fast and easy to
do, so yeah, I would do it. You just know that it's
gonna I was thinking you were talking about a granular that that one. You
are gonna want to repeat it periodically. You know, it's not gonna be
like you mentioned the nitro fiss I think you're talking about the silver bag that's
going to release gradually over like three or four months even, But this one
is going to be more of a provide you something now. It'll last a
while. I mean, you don't have to do it every week at all,
but you know every couple of months you probably want to redo that nitrofiss
that you're I mean, the has to grow that you're talking about. Okay,
you want me to wait till they kind of grow up before I play,
No, I'd go ahead and do it. Now's a good time.
Get all right? Do I continue to feed peach trees? Frank let me.
I'm gonna have to take a break. If you want to hang on,
let's take on peaches when we come back. I appreciate your call very
much. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and I'll
be right back anyway. Conversation. Good morning, beautiful morning, beautiful Saturday
morning. Yeah, a good day to get outside and get a little uh
gardening work done. Certainly need that. Also a good day to get outside
and visit some of our garden centers that we talk about here and love so
much, perhaps some of our feed stores or ash hardware stores where you can
get those products that really help you have a beautiful lawn, bountiful garden,
a beautiful landscape. We're going to head back out to northwest Houston now and
talk to Frank. Frank, where were we by? Okay, tell me
tell me again about the specific question that you have. I would like to
know the feeding schedule. So peaches have a very extensive root system, and
so we just kind of build up the nutrients in the overall area in the
soil and that they can draw from that and they'll do well. I typically
will use lawn fertilizers on my peaches. Now I know they're fertilizers made for
fruit and vegetables. There's fertilizers made for a lot of things, and it's
not like there's only one thing that will work. But that three one two
ratio works pretty good for the peaches. And because our number one goal on
peaches is to manage the vigor, so we want them to grow and not
just be sitting there. But we don't want them to grow too much.
And so if they're if you're not getting by this time of the year on
a peach tree, at least eighteen inches of growth on the shoots as they've
come out, and you can kind of follow them back and see where this
year's growth is. If it's not at least eighteen inches, then I would
probably give them a little bit of fertilizer, even in the summertime to get
them going. I wouldn't fertilize past August though, Okay, sounds good,
Rick, Thank you very much. Yeah, and in general, though,
just going historically here a year by year, I'll do most of my fertilizing
in the springtime on them. But just watch them, especially a young tree.
You're trying to get them to grow fast once they're established. Yeah,
well three years old, it's just getting into its fruiting life, starting maybe
a little this year next year, and so that you're still trying to grow
a good tree. So I would keep them moving with some fertilizer. Thanks
for loderic, Thanks sir, appreciate that very much. Thanks for hanging on
too. By the way, our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
You know we are entering into the hurricane season. In fact, we
are in the hurricane season, and those of you who lived here for any
period of time know what that means. That means strong winds. That means
the likelihood of hurricanes coming through this area each year. Do you have a
limb that's dead on your tree? Is it may be something leaning over your
house or your neighbor's property. Maybe it's one over one of those powerline drops
coming into your house. Well, you certainly don't want to have a limb
fall on that. And now you're up a real creek right when we have
a storm. You need a quality tree company to come in and assess that.
You need an honest tree company to come in and assess that. Not
somebody that's just going to sell your product because they're trying to make a buck
or sell your services in this case, trying to make a buck, but
someone who looks at what do you need and then tells you and then knows
how to do it right. So where do you get all of that in
one package? It's Affordable tree Service. I mean they affordable tree Service.
We've been talking about them, Randy's talking with them on garden Line for many
years. Martin Spoon Moore and his wife Joe, they really know what they're
talking about and they know how to give you service. And it starts with
this the owners answer the phone. Martin and Joe answer the phone when you
call seven one three six nine nine two six six three. It is worth
calling a professional and affordable tree service. Is that affordable? Here's how,
here's the website. Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot com.
And beyond just the you know, the trimming for hurricane season, we've got
things like deeper feeding. We've got a tree removal, we've got a you
know, advice on planting a tree. Maybe you're going to do construction around
a tree, Oh my gosh, don't do anything regarding trenching or building around
a tree without calling Affordable Tree Service to come out and advise you. Because
if you wait until after in the tree's declining, there is very little that
we can do at that point. But ahead of time, there's a whole
lot that we can do. Don't make that mistake. Don't make the mistake
hiring somebody because they stuck a business card in your front door when they pass
by one day. Two jerks on trains on a chainsaw. Tree service is
not what you need. You need someone that knows what they're talking about.
Those trees are a long term investment, you know. I mean I I
think about the trees in my yard. I've got some cypress trees in my
yard, and you just look at the beauty of them, and every year
they get better and better. They add to the value of our homes.
We I think sometimes forget about all the things that trees contribute. I mean,
we know, you know, in an urban area, trees are catching
particulates out of the air and making the air a higher quality air for us.
They're like any plant. They're they're exchanging. They're taking in chemicals that
they take out of the air. Like any plant. They are taking in
more carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. The net change is a lot more oxygen
for us in the area. Trees help protect against wind. They serve as
a wind break, slow the wind down a little bit. They provide shade,
a beautiful area to sit outside, and they provide also shade for your
house if you plant them at the right spot. As the sun bakes down
on a western wall. I've got a brick wall on the west side of
my house. When the sun breaks bakes down on it, I'm telling you
it is hot at the end of the day. I need a tree on
that side to get going trees serve a lot of things and they are valuable.
We need to take care of them. If you, in fact,
if you are interested in learning more about trees, give us a call.
Let's talk about some of the questions that you might have specifically about that type
of thing. You know. The folks out at Warrens a Garden Center and
Kingwood Garden Center in Kingwood. They're open seven days a week and they are
going to have a supply of everything you need. If I talk about a
fertilizer here on guard Line, they're going to have it. They've got an
excellent selection of pest control products if you buy Microlife and Nelson plant food,
and the jugs, the plastic jugs. They have a refillable container where you
just you, I mean, you bring your container in and you refill it
there. It's it's less expensive and it's also better for the environment. Less
plastic that's going out there. Check out their color right now. Their combination
planners are absolutely gorgeous, and they occasionally even have workshops on you know,
how to do this or how to plant succulents. Is when they had a
while back, lots of good information. Do you need a tree Hugger sprinkler.
Warrens has got that. Warrens and Kingwood Gardens Center both if you're in
Kingwood, you are so fortunate. Warrens is on North Park Drive, Kingwoods
on Stone Hollow Drive, and they they're unique in each in their own way,
but both. In both cases you've got a quality garden center with well
trained people that know what they're talking about, so they can direct you the
right way. You know, connect to them on Facebook, Instagram, find
out more about the garden center. Kind of be up to speed. You
know, maybe there's a sale coming up. They'll give you the sneak peek
on it and get you inside right now. They're they're talking about things we
went on in the greenhouse as well at Warren's. So I always love to
visit there. Just love visiting with the folks, love seeing the products that
they have. And I guess I don't know it's just me, but I'm
super impressed with the color containers that they have, just really nice blend of
things. But of course what they carry goes way way beyond. Their houseplant
selection is unbelievable as well. And boy are we ever in house plant season
right well, you're listening to garden Line. We're about to take a break.
We are gonna do a little bit of news and business and be back
pretty quick. Here if you want to write down the phone number seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Gift Josh you call, let him get you on the
board so we can talk to you about the things that you are interested in.
I can always come up with topics. You mean an Agrilife extension office.
I get calls and emails all the time, and I've been doing this
for decades since I kind of know what the questions are this time of year.
But I always love to hear from you what are you curious about?
Because somebody else is going to be curious about that as well. If we
find that when gardeners get together, it just it just fun, fun visiting
and fun talking. So let's do some of that fun when we come back
from breaking. Hey, thanks for listening. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH
garden Line with Skip Ricord. Just watch him. Good morning on a beautiful
morning for gardening. You're listening to Garden Mine and I'm your host, Skip
Richter. We're to talk about things you're interested in regarding gardening. Give us
a call at seven one three two one two five eight seven four and we
will do just that. If you live up in the let's say Lake Conro
area, the Montgomery area, anywhere around that area, that would be Walden
and Bentwater De Lago April Sound. You know what I'm talking about. Your
hometown nursery is A and A Plants in produce. They've been there for thirty
years and they're right on the on the east side of Montgomery. You your
Montgomery head towards Conrow on Highway one oh five. They're just on the edge
of Montgomery there on the north side of one oh five. You've driven by
a hundred times. You've seen them, I mean, but what you don't
see is it every year it just keeps getting better and better. And how
they had three acres of shade trees and fruit trees and the vegetable and herb
plants, all kinds of perennials and annuals, palm trees, cactus, succulents,
bougainvilleas, rose, it's a garden center. It is a mom and
pop garden center that they know what they're talking about, good service, good
quality folks there, and lots of good products. When we talk about our
fertilizers we recommend here, they're gonna have them. You're gonna also be able
to find the pesticides, fungicides, herbicides that you might need for your garden.
They do delivery in that area and so they know all about what works
there, what does well there, and that's what they sell there. By
the way, you can also pick up some fresh homegrown produce, home grown
produce. I saw some organic eggs in there the other day too, from
some of the local forms A and A plants and produce on one oh five
just east of Montgomery. You need to check that out and I think you
will find. By the way, make sure the back of your car or
the back of your pickup is empty, because you're gonna find a lot of
good stuff. You need to fill it with before you head home. An
A love to love to stop buy and visit Kathy and the folks that are
there at the Ana Garden Center. Let's head out to Spring now and we're
going to talk to Annie or is it Annie or an An? Well?
Hello Anne, No, I enjoy your programs so much. You're just so
much hemp. I need two questions about weeds. Something I can put out
to prevent weed. I have nutgrassed like overnight at Zoom, and I need
something to put out in the beds to prevent that. Okay, Um,
so it's in it's in flower beds. Oh, yes, every bed I
have, I just spend so I can get huge bags of weeds just every
week. Yeah, I know how that goes. Well there, you know
you've got a wide variety of weeds, no doubt growing in there, and
anything coming from seed. You can prevent those by mulching with about three inches
of a good quality mulch that blocks the light from getting to the soil.
Two or three inches of mulch will do that, and so that takes out
a section of them. Now that's not gonna stop nutgrass. It'll push up
through the mult I've seen nutgrass. They laid a fresh asphalt parking lot over
the Montgomery at the Montgomery County Extension Office one year, and they rolled it
out hot asphalt, and within a few weeks later, nuts edge was pushing
up through the asphalt because it was still soft hot asphalt. I mean that
tells you how yeah, yeah, a little multit and gonna stop nutsedge.
So for that, you need to switch to a product that's made for that.
And there's one there, Oh my gosh, the name is now escaping
me. There's one called sedge Hammer. There's another one called sedge Ender.
You just need to read the label, make sure that it's okay to use
in the spot you're using it, Like is it a vegetable better? Is
that a flower? Better? Is that a lawn? The label will tell
you those kind of things, and so you want to watch for those.
But but that that's probably going to be the kind of thing you need to
be looking at. Okay, I don't use the mult I use a lot
of pine needles. Okay, well they break down, you know, I
know that's probably and I do use some mulch, but and I have my
sprinkle system. Last summer was out and I was gone a lot, so
I lost a lot of my Saint Augustine. So I need to I have
tried to dig out and I have just the bermuda has taken over, and
you know, the roots they can go really deep and to try to dig
all that out it takes so much time. So I need to kill the
grass enough that I can then replace it. So what do I need to
kill it with? Then? How long do I need to wait before the
bermuda? For the bermuda grass which is an invader? You want to use
something that is a grass only weed killer, and there's a number of products
out there that do that, but it'll be just for grass. And so
if you go Europe in the spring area, you know, if you go
to one of your local ace hardware stores there, if you go drive a
little distance to one of our great nurseries that we have, ask them for
a grass only killer. There's two different ingredients that can be used for making
one of those products. But it doesn't kill your broad leaf weeds. So
if you had nuts sedge coming up in your petunias, you could spray it
on the nutsedge and it wouldn't hurt your petunias. Okay, so how long
how long should I wait? It will tell me before a replant it.
Yes, well, you shouldn't have to worry about when you can replant if
you're using a nuts sedge I mean, a grass only killer. That's gonna
that's gonna do just fine. Great. Well, it's just I just spend
so much time and it's so hard to get all the roots. And I
have transplanted a lot of grass, and I see signs of the bumuda coming
up, so and I think I put some extra dirt in there. And
it looks like it has some kind of little like little spinaly reeds coming up.
And I'm dealing with that too, But that's mine are compared to trying
to get rid of this bumuda because I just don't have can I have.
I live on two lots, so it's not just an easy job to get
rid of the mess and then put the other grass in. So yeah,
I'll do this. I appreciate so much your hell good luck without appreciate that.
And by the way, if you're looking for the non edible beds,
the flower beds and things, just go look for a product called sedge hammer.
Sedge hammer. There's a sedge hammer plus that's even better. It's a
spot spray. You're going to spot spray it, just but always follow the
label very carefully that without avoids you doing damage to something. Great. Thank
you very much, all righty, thank you. I appreciate that call very
much. Well, we're going to head to a little break here. We'll
be right back in a moment. But if you'll give Josh a call at
seven one three two one two five eight seven four, we'll get you on
the air and we'll talk about whatever kinds of gardening things you are interested in.
You look good, look fine, look good to look. Good morning,
good Saturday morning, on a beautiful day for gardening. You're listening to
garden line. It's a beautiful day for listening to garden line too. That's
what we're here for is to answer your gardening questions. And we're gonna jump
right at it here and head out to you friends Wood to talk to Scott.
Hello, Scott, good morning, How are you well? Thank you?
Okay, I gotta I cut down. Last year, I cut down
a three story oak tree in my front yard. Gave tremendous shay, but
it routed out. Now a year later, my lawn is devastated. I
have where grass grows, it's crab grass. I have big swats of dead
grass. It or just will not grow, and I don't know what to
do. I read that that it's mold underneath from the root system is leaking
out fertilizer and the nutrients. But I don't know what to do. Could
you give me advice? Yeah, it's interesting that the lawn was doing okay
when the tree was there, but but it's doing not so good after the
tree. Uh, that that's a little bit surprising. I tell you,
I would. I would just go to the basics, check your soil and
see if it seems like it's so compacted. And in that case, you
would get an aerator in there with some compost top dressing on it. If
you need to reside, go ahead and do that as soon as possible.
Maybe you've got an area, you know that's four feet across that's dead,
well, you don't want to weight on grass to grow in from the sides.
Go ahead and get some fresh side in there, get it watered in,
get it established, get some roots on it. That's gonna take a
couple of weeks to get that process done, uh, And then I would
begin to use the fertilizers we're talking about. If you've got soiled that's decent
aeration, if you've got adequate moisture, if you have sunlight, and if
you have fertilizer. You ought to be able to grow grass? Was your
you said you're lawn or did you say if you're lawn to Saint Augustine or
something else. It's just possible, you know what, I don't know.
Grass's regular, the regular carpet grass then is in everybody's front yard all across
Houston. All right, that's the Saint Augustine. And uh, yeah,
it ought to. It ought to come back for you. Um okay,
it just into devastated it. Yeah, I don't know exactly why. I
mean, I guess if if grass was in deep shade and suddenly you got
just blazing sun on it, I would expect to see some Any plant moved
into blazing sun from shade may have suddenly may have a problem. But this
thing I ought to bounced back and get going for you. I mean you
you've done what should have made the grass happy, and let's give it sunlight,
right, Okay, But I would I would stick with that, trust
the schedule and uh and just you know, gradually over time, if any
unique things show up, give us call back. Will be willing to take
a second look if maybe something else is going. But unless you can think
of something that happened there. Other than the removal of the tree, I
think it's just given it time and giving it the conditions at needs, which
is water, light and fertilizer. You got it back all right, Thanks
Scott, appreciate that call. We're gonna now head over to Conrow and talk
to Bill. Hello, Bill Skip, Good morning. Another grass question.
I just put some new sawd in an area about fifteen by thirteen had been
just poor, really run over with Bernuda. You know, I live in
the subdivision where the common areas are Bernuda, but all the homes are Saint
Augustine. I don't know why they do thatage. It just drives me nuts
anyway. So I took all that out and laid down some new Saint Augustine
and some of the basics. Again, keep it wet for what three weeks?
Yeah? Well yeah, So when the grass comes to your house,
it's on this little thin layer of clay that it was dug out the fielded
with, and all the roots are right there. It has no roots below
that, of course, And when you lay it down there's a period of
time where I'm always saying water deeply and infrequently. The exception to that is
when you put grass down, you're watering lightly and frequently just to help hold
on keep it alive and well until it gets roots down. So for me
planting grass in the hot weather, I would water it every day with a
light application. Don't turn it into a soggy swamp. That's not doing it
any good. Just keep that top and a little below that half inch of
soil it came in with a little below that. Wet every day for about
a week, and then I'd probably go to every other day and then every
three days until you finally get to a once a week schedule. But it's
going to take it about two weeks under good conditions to root in enough to
where if you were to reach down and grab one of those and pull on
it, you could see it was packed down really good. It doesn't just
lift up like a throw rug. Once we have that, then we begin
to fertilize, and then we begin to move toward that deep and frequent watering.
Okay, so even soil activator I should hold off on. Oh you
could use that. I mean, there's there's nothing wrong with that. That's
not necessarily like a dry or a salt based type fertilizer. I'm just that's
fine for it. Just it's like giving the little daily water and you're just
trying to help keep that grass happy right there. But when it comes to
the longer term nutrient building the soil of the fertilizer, I would give it
a couple of weeks before I started out. Then it has the roots to
take up the fertilizer you put out. Okay, that sounds great. One
actressine to kill bermuda is that effective. It makes it weak, it makes
it unhappy. It can be part of sometimes in certain situations, people will
recommend that to weaken, say the bermuda nsat Augustine lawn, to get of
the Saint Augustine a little bit of an upper hand. But it's not a
panacea. It doesn't just kill the bermuda and the Saint Augustine thrives, and
it's it's a little bit of a process. And atrazine has some other issues.
You know, it affectsh is bad and it'll get in the tree roots
and everywhere you've got lawn, you've got tree roots underneath that lawn. And
so that's why I know Randy got away from that, and I understand why.
And that's basically the reason. Okay, all right, great, thank
you very much for that. All right, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much. You're listening to guardline. I want to talk
to you about a product that I have loved to brag on, and that
is the tree Hugger sprinkler. If you're putting in a new shrub, a
new tree, anytime of the year, tree Hugger sprinkler will help you have
success. And here's why. That plant that went in the ground has the
entire root system in the cylinder of soil you pulled out of the pot and
put in the ground. It takes time to get those roots out in the
soil so it can be a resilient plant. With tree Hugger, you can
turn the sprinklers on. You attach them to a garden jose, a low
valve, and you haven't come on just as much as you want. Maybe
it's just squorting two inches high just to water right where that sprinkler is.
Maybe you turn it on a little bit more to water a larger root system,
and then more to water a larger root system. Go to Treehugur Sprinklers
dot com. If you go to an Ace hardware store. If you go
to most of our independent garden centers and the feed stores we talk about,
you're going to find tree hugger sprinklers. It is a small investment in something
that is really a major investment. That would be the tree or the shrub
that you're dealing with. Let's go to see you want to go to Jeff
out in Tikui Island. How are you today, Jeff outstanding? How about
yourself, sir? I'm well, thank you. What's happening out there in
your tropical fruit paradise where I'm having difficulties with my boganvillia. I have quite
a few varying in age, but I can't keep the color on them.
I'm feeding them with the boganville of food. I've cut them back, but
I'm just not having any success. And see if you had anything that I
could try out. And they're all in the pots, nothing in the ground.
That's a good question. So that you say the blooms are fading,
is that what's happening? They're just non existent right now. They I had
a little bit in the late spring, but right now I just have very
small clusters and that's in yeah, consistently feeding bogin villa is an interesting creature.
You know, you go down like let's say you go down to Mexico
and you see these things, you know, half the size of a house
that are growing out there on the street side. And obviously they're not being
pampered and fed boogin villea food and all that kind of stuff, and they're
blooming like crazy. And for us here and in containers, letting them get
a little pot bound is a good idea, and they seem to bloom a
little bit better that way. The food is fine, just you know,
water enough to keep them adequately moist, feed them a little bit, and
give them good sun, and it's up to the plant after that to do
its best. I don't know another tip to suggest to you, just don't
overdo the fertilizing, you know, with excessive amounts of nitrogen uh and and
don't be afraid to let them get a little bit thirsty at times too,
and certainly become pot bound. Okay, well, they're definitely pot bound because
they've been there for several years. I bring them in and out through the
freeze. But I've heard other people that you you you're trying be detrimental to
the root systems, or try and stress them to get them back into it.
But yeah, I didn't feel I was adequate. Well you know it
sounds like you're doing things right. Um, I just beyond what I'd said
before. I don't know where else to go on this one. Maybe we
have a boogainvillea expert. Do we have a boogin villa society here? Someone
could call in and and perhaps give another tip or two. But they they
do seem to do well. Uh, you know, if if we give
them adequate care, but but don't pamper them too much. Okay, well,
I'll keep trying. I'll keep you inform, all right, Thank you,
sir. I appreciate that. I appreciate the call. You know,
if you have a landscape and you look at your landscape and it's like,
well it's pretty, but it's nothing special, and I want it to be
special. You know, we are plant people, right. We love to
go buy plants. We love beautiful plants to put in the landscape. But
the way you lay it out and the way you arrange it, it makes
all the difference in the world. You know, Beautiful sweeping beds put in
nice places, the right kind of plants put in those beds and so on.
Peerscapes is the one that can take care of it like that for you.
They have designers that know what they're talking about. They know how to
create artistic beauty in your landscape. Peerscapes does everything you need. I mean,
do you need you know, low repair on the irrigation, do you
need to improve the drainage most everybody does you want to put in a hardscape,
perhaps they can do it all there now you can call them two eight
one three seven zero five zero six zero or just going to Piercescapes dot com
p e a r ce scape s peerscapes dot com experience. They have professionally
trained employees. They will give you that quality landscape that show place that you're
looking for. And now's a good time to get in contact with Peerscapes because
the fall season is coming and we have a lot of preparations that we want
to be doing getting ready. We need time to design, time to get
it done. Now would be a great time to give a call and get
that process started. You're listening to garden Line and we're here to answer your
gardening questions. If you want to write our phone number down and give us
a call. You can be the second one up when we come back from
break. Our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four
and Carol will get to you first. Good morning, Good Saturday morning,
on a great day for gardening. You know I say that all the time,
but every day is a good day for gardening. I mean, if
it was zero degrees outside and snowing four foot deep inside, you could take
care of your house plants. You could start some transplants for the next time
you get a chance to go out there and have a gardening season. By
the way, I've never seen it snow four feet deep here, but anyway,
you get the idea. Well, I've talked about the Dell Web community
going on in full sure. If you haven't heard me, you need to
know about this community. Dell Web makes quality homes in quality communities, with
quality lifestyle programs for folks that are fifty five and better and that are active,
that want to have an active lifestyle. And so if you're thinking about
retiring and you're a gardener, you're not going to do better than the new
Dell Web community out in full. Shure two miles from downtown fullsher on FM
three fifty nine. This community has a community garden and I'm working with them
on getting that set up. And so not only will you have the beautiful
home, the beautiful community, all of the activities and lifestyle programs that are
available, plus you get a community guard. What more could a gardener want?
I mean, you don't dig up the backyard, you go to your
spot, you get your plot, You enjoy gardening and visiting with other gardeners,
kind of like a social watering hole for horticultural activity. How about that.
Community gardens are a wonderful thing for any community. And this dellweb has
it dellweb dot com, slash Houston if you want more information or give McCall
two eight, one, four, five, nine, zero six and zero
nine. Let's head out to West Houston and we're gonna talk to Carol.
Hello Carol, Oh, Hello, Skip, good morning, go And I
have a question regarding a boogin v. It was it was huge and climbed
up this trellis and it was in a very large about three by three clay
pot. Anyhow, it died with the freeze and a couple of questions,
Um can I replant one now is the time appropriate right now? Absolutely?
Yes? Okay, okay. And then the soil I had in there would
not drain properly. The when we had heavy rains, the water would collect
on top, okay, and I had to scoop it out with a little
bucket. So what type of potting soil do you recommend? Yeah, well,
you need you need a good chunky potting soil that has the grit and
whatnot necessary to drain well. And here's the thing about potting soils and and
bougainville is is you can put it in a quality soil, but over six
months, a year, two years, three years, that soil is oxidizing
or decomposing away, and instead of having big chunks, now it's kind of
getting mucky and it holds water too well, and so you're going to have
to pull them out, kind of repot them, get some fresh new soil
in there over time, because it's always going to end up kind of like
you're describing, over time. Because boog and veas are a long term plant,
or at least we want them to be, so we have a number
of good quality mixes. I know heirloom soil has a very good quality mix
that is available in a lot of different areas, including in your area.
You can go into you know, maybe an ACE Hardware or to a good
garden center. I don't know how far west you are, but if you're
far enough west, you head out to Emerald. Emerald Gardens is out there,
not too far. So well, I'm actually a West University. Oh
okay, you're you're in town? Okay, well I would, I don't
know, probably you can. It's maybe one of the close or places to
you. And plus it's just fun to go there, right so yeah,
yeah, well good and tell them, tell them what you're looking for that
you're looking for something that drains especially well. Also, make sure your pot
has a good drainage hole. A lot of times those gets stopped up or
plugged up. Or if you set that kind of pot with holes on the
bottom on top of a clay soil and you know it kind of settles in
where it sort of seals up there, then that clay prevents drainage in the
pot. You see what I'm saying. It instead of water running out a
hole and then off to the side and off the patio or whatever, it
essentially you've you've formed a clay bowl around that pot at the bottom, so
that drainhole has nowhere to go. So you may want to lift the plant
up a little bit. There are little things you can set them on,
or just whatever, just to make sure that drain hole drains out into Let's
think of it this way. It drains out into airspace rather than sealing up
against it some bricks and other words. Well, yeah, it wouldn't even
have to be that high. I mean, just you know, even something
the height of a pencil to keep it off the ground. But just just
remember that, you know, as it SAIDs there whatever. Maybe it was
sitting on grass at one time and now it's just kind of sealed to the
soil surface. So just something else to think about. I'm kind of going
back to your issue with the drainage. Okay, yes, it's sitting on
pea gravel. Oh okay, well, pea gravel's perfect. That's not going
to be a problem. It will it will drain very well. Yeah.
And then should I feed it with anything in particular? Yeah, yeah,
a good quality, A good quality like a boogin villea food would be excellent
for that. And you're gonna find you're gonna find a wide variety of foods,
you know. And and Nelson line, they have a number of good
quality foods, one called color Star, but they also believe have a Bougainvillea
food in that line as well. I believe some of our other folks we
talk about here do also have a similar kind of food. So that would
be the easy one. You know, you're getting a little plastic container and
just small amounts. You don't need a fifty five pound bag of the stuff.
Okay, okay, well, thank you for all your advice. All
right, thank you for the call. Good luck out there in West Easton.
And if you end up going to you cantag today, have a good
time. I'm jealous. I always love, love going in there. If
you don't attract birds to your landscape, and if you don't garden for birds,
you need to try it. You need to start. And here's why.
Gardens are a multi sensory experience. And it goes beyond just pretty colors
that are icy. I see. It goes into things our noses smell,
and it goes into things our ears here and the song of birds. I
love going out in the morning cup of coffee to hear the song of birds
in the morning, and you can attract birds songbirds into your yard. And
I would they say that without a question, the best place to go is
wild Birds Unlimited. Our student, Well, yeah, wild Birds Unlimited is
they have everything. They have the bird houses, the bird feeders, the
advice from knowledgeable staff, and they have quality bird feed And I'm not talking
about feed filled with those little red babies that the birds kick out because they
don't want to eat them, the little hard sorghum type seeds. I'm talking
about like a nesting super blend. You know that bluebirds, cardinals, chickens,
and wrens are all still nesting right now, and a nesting super blend
is perfect for feeding all through the summer. Your birds are going to start
molting as we get later into the summer. The birds have to replace their
old, damaged feathers with fresh new feathers, and that you want a quality
feed to keep those birds in top condition to have them beautiful now. Nesting
super blend all the way through August will support the birds as they begin to
do molting, and wild Birds Unlimited is a place where you get that kind
of quality feed and they also have the no mess formulations where uh, you
know, there's there's just nothing for them to crack and shell and drop on
the ground and lose. Go to WBU dot com Forward slash Houston for more
information. WBU dot com Forward slash Houston. We're gonna take a break our
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Joe Walsh there
to take us into our next segment, Dirty Laundry Boy Don Henley. Excuse
me, I got corrected there that Don Henley. I had the wrong guy.
You know, I love that song and it's too true as well.
If you think about it. You're listening to the garden Line and we are
here to answer your gardening questions. So feel free if you wish to give
us a call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know RCW Nurseries When
I try to think, okay, what is a garden center that is always
going to have an impressive show of color going on? Well, r CW
Nurseries is just that kind of place. They're that nursery that's where Highway two
forty nine, Texas two Friday nine Tomball Parkway comes into Beltway eight. Just
go on line to r CW Nurseries dot com and you can find them and
find out more about them there as well. I know recently they just reposted
there twenty twenty three rows lists, which I think the last time I count
is like four pages of single space lines of all the roses they carry.
Now, if you're looking for a rose and RCW doesn't have it, you
shouldn't grow it here. It doesn't grow here. I mean a great selection,
great selection of trees fifteen gallons up the two hundred gallons. They grow
them at a farm twenty acre from they got up in Plantersville, and they
will bring them out, they'll plant them for you if you're a harm to
come and do that. But if you're looking for a quality tree, this
is what we're talking about. This is what we're talking about. A tree
that is adapted to hear, that has grown well, and that is planted
right. RCW Nurseries is going to carry the things you're looking for when it
comes to fertilizers, and plus the wide range of plants. You know,
all I can do just talking about is mentioned a few kinds of plants,
but it goes way way beyond that RCW nurseries dot com. If they don't
have it, they will probably be able to get it for you. Just
ask, great family, great service, and as a result, you'll get
great results with what you purchase from our CW. There. Enjoy, enjoy
visiting with those folks. You know it is it is blazing hot, and
we're about to today, you know, one of those days we get a
little bit of a break and we don't have to deal with quite as much
on it, but it's going to go right back up and be bumping one
hundred degrees again for a while. And I complained. I put in my
official complaint with the National Weather Service, but by the way, they haven't
written back yet asking why on earth in June are we dealing with weeks and
weeks and weeks and one hundred degree temperatures. Well, fortunately we got plants
that can take that. It's hard on them, I mean it's tough,
but they can take it. But remember this, when you've got a quality
plant that is able to survive in the heat, don't overwater it. And
overwatering means there's no oxygen in the soil. Okay, you can't You can't
have success in the heat when you prevent the roots from getting oxygen. And
here's why roots actually respire. If I can entropomorphize, breathe if you will,
and if you put them underwater, they can't breathe. And in that
situation, most plants have no mechanism for dealing with that, and they will
die faster in summer than at any time of the year. And it's weird
because you're looking at a plant and it's wilting, and it's one hundred degrees
outside and it's in standing water. How could that be? Well, if
the roots die, the plant cake get water and it dies too. It
brings in root rots, It brings in all kinds of stress. We want
to water regularly enough to keep our soil moist. Evenly moist is the goal
in our watering, but not overwatering, So just be careful with that.
There's a tendency in the heat of summer to overwater and that just creates problems.
Another thing that we can do in the summertime for our plants is to
mulch. Well. When you provide a good, thick, deep mulch,
you hold moisture in the soil and you moderate soil temper. I mean that
soil surface can be like one hundred and twenty degrees or more when it's really
sun blazing down on it, but not when there's a mulch. So those
roots can grow up near the surface, near that mulch and do well.
And where are you going to get multch? Well, let me tell you
about Sienna Maltz, Cinnamal. It's a great place if you're down south of
Houston area like Riverstone, Manville, Sandy Point, or a Cola, Iowa
Colony, Sienna Plantation, you know, near Brassmin State Park, anywhere pair
Land down in that area, Pomona. They're your local mult supplier. Sienna
Mulch is on FM five twenty one. They're near Highway six and two eighty
eight. Go online Sienna Mulch dot com you can find out more. They
got bulk mulch, they got mulchen bags. They carry every fertilizer we talk
about here, and a beautiful selection of ourtilize. They even have some some
handy tools for the kinds of stuff you would use and working with the soil
and mulches and things like that. Sienna Malch is just a great place to
visit. They do some local delivery, small charge for doing delivery. They
are open Monday through Friday from seven thirty to five pm this is summer hours,
and Saturday from seven thirty to two pm, So tell two pm today
you can get out there. The most important thing you do for a beautiful
garden at a bountiful landscape is to take care of your soil. That means
adding compost ahead of time before you plant, and then putting mulch on the
surface to protect the soil after you plant and deter weeds. That's another thing
it does. If you take care of that, and then by plants that
belong here, that grow here, you're going to have success. But don't
start with the plant, start with the soil. The soil is the key
to success of any plant. And CNA mulch. That's why I like them
so much. Awesome, awesome job on that. I was visiting an ACE
hardware store the other day looking at I think actually I was in there it
was like I needed some electrical plumbing that kind of thing, some things to
fix up on the house. But when I was going through, I was
just so impressed with the outdoor living products that they have, you know,
they carry all our fertilizers. They have unbelievable selection of fungicides and sexercise harbicides
and all of that. I mean, they've got all that nail down.
But just the out the beauty of the outdoor living. It was prior to
the Fourth of July weekend and they had all kinds of Fourth of July supplies
available. Just really turn your yard into a party place. But they have
that all the time. They've got stuff like that all the time, as
well as for indoors. Beautifying your indoors. You know, you like that
farmhouse. Look, you're going to find stuff there. At an ACE Hardware
store. I mean I could talk all day on everything they carry in ACE
Hardware because they carry everything. Go to Ace Hardware dot com. Ace Hardware
dot com find one of the thirty nine locally owned and operated stores, and
very very impressed about that. I want to go up to Conro now and
talk to Dotty Dotty. I got about a minute or so. How can
we help. I just need to know where I can find dirt, all
of these things that they call potting mix and soil. It's nothing but very
you know much, and the water runs right. Truly. I know,
I know I can't tell you on the air the words I say. When
I find one of those bags of MULT from a big box store and you
open it up and it's got chunks of wood as big as your thumb in
it, and I'm thinking, I'm sorry, bags of malt, bags of
potting sail. Is supposed to be a potting sail and it looks more like
a malt. Here's what you do. You are so close to Nature's Way
resources. Just drive down forty five when you get to the fourteen eighty eight
eggsit which is just on the south side of town. You just turn left
and go over forty five and right back there is is Nature's Way. They've
got bag products and you've been there, I've been there. They're wonderful,
excellent product. If you need something for a potting putting up a plant,
if you need something for building your soiled if you want a MULT to go
on top of it. Right now, they have Fungal Fridays where there's a
you know, there's a discount on purchasing MULT, both in bags and by
bulk. Uh and so it's a good time to check them out, especially
on a Friday. If you're looking for one of their fungal products. Well,
I have plenty of molts because I bought this stuff that they call.
Okay, I don't know if I don't know that that's even good molts.
I know what you're talking about them for a pottom, so I would go
there and get that. I mean that that's the closest to you. Yeah,
okay, Yeah, I'm not that far. Yeah, I say Conro
because that's our mailing aggress Thank you so much. Oh okay, okay,
Well which way from which way from Conro? Are you? Well? I
know where that place. I've been their work for something very unusual. It's
been a long time, but I do have a little bit of memory from
it. Very good, very good dotty luck. Yeah, that's good luck
with Yeah. That drives me nuts to have those. You know. I
talked earlier about what saves money and what doesn't save money. What doesn't save
money is to buy cheap potting soil or cheap mulch from some national chain sold
all over the country and it's not quality. And we've got stuff here that's
quality. You may pay a little more for the bag I would expect to,
but long term, the results are better. I mean, is your
goal in gardening to just not spend a penny or is your goal in gardening
to have a very high quality, economical product that performs. That's what we're
talking about. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
us a call and Daniel, you'll be first. KTRH Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to
KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just watching Good morning, good Saturday morning.
On a great day for gardening and a great day for talking about gardening.
You're listening to Garden Line. Let's get you off to a good start here.
Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
A good start on a day where you're getting out there and taking care
of some of the things around the garden and around the landscape. You know,
we don't left the summer hamper our gardening too much. I mean,
there's a lot of things we can be doing just because it's hot outside and
it's a challenge. In fact, there's some things that love this weather.
We have plants, we have flowers, we have vegetables that thrive in this
kind of heat, and that's the kind we need to lean ourselves toward.
Hey, by the way, I wanted to mention our soils here in the
Houston area buying large are a heavy clay soil that moves around. I know
there's exceptions in different parts, but in general, those clay soils, when
they get wet, they swell, swell. When they get dry, they
shrink. And that's when you get the big, the big cracks in the
backyard that are so huge. You know, your little Yorky or whatever falls
down in them and you hear a muffle bark from down underneath somewhere. We're
talking about big cracks. And because of all that movement, it plays havoc
on our streets, you know, driving down some of the Houston streets,
all the bumping, breaking water lines. Your foundation on your house, your
driveway, your sidewalks are all cracking. Because of that. You need to
find somebody who knows what they're doing when it comes to fixing them, because,
especially on your home foundation, that can be a serious problem. Fix
my slab foundation repair Tie Strickland's company. They know what they're doing. You
can go online to fix my Slab dot com or give him a call two
eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. When you call fix my
Slab, when you call Ti Strickland, the you know you're going to get
a fair price. You know you're going to get someone who shows up on
time. Oh my gosh, how frustrated are you with people that say,
well, I'll be there on Friday sometime after two, and so you're sitting
there all day waiting on them to show up. Not with fix my Slab,
they'll do the driveways, or do the sidewalks, or do the foundation.
Give him a call two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine,
or go to fix my slab dot com. It's always better to take
action sooner rather than later, so don't delay on that. Let's go out
to Cyprus and we're going to visit with Daniel this morning. Hello Daniel,
Good morning, Skip, good morning, Thanks for holding Yes, sir,
no problem. I have a I've been trying to find this product. It's
called Delta dust for like any side and you right in we pose you know,
on your house, yes, and I haven't been able to find it.
I know I can get it, you know, on Amazon or whatever.
But I really didn't want to do that, right, Do you know
of a place that I can get that? Well? I don't in my
mind have memorized, you know, like where each each kind of product might
be. But that delta dust is a synthetic perrethroid. It's called delta dust
because it's delta Metherin is the ingredient, and it is a dust. You
put it in cracks and crevices, and you know, cockroaches and all kinds
of things like that are affected. I would I would start which direction from
Cyprus? Are you north southeast west? I am on the west side of
two ninety like, uh, Greenhouse and Barker Cypress area twenty nine. Oh
okay, Well, uh, you've got a couple of ACE hardware. Is
that aren't too terribly far from you? I think the Langham Creek Ace Hardware
is actually on uh five twenty nine, f five twenty nine. Uh what
do they call that street? What's the street name of that thing? Anyway?
Uh? They're down where maybe Spencer, Yeah, five twenty night.
It's the same, okay, down on Langham. I would call the folks
at Langham Creek Hardware. It's an Ace hardware. The numbers two eight one,
eight five five sixty eight O one and ask them if they carry the
Delta dust. Now there are other they don't, don't. Okay, that's
my favorite, uh Ace Hardware. I go there all time. Yeah,
well and for good reason. Okay. The next thing, and now this
isn't super local, but it's worth the trip up, would be to call
Southwest Fertilizer. They are down kind of southwest of downtown. It's where Bissonette
and Renwick come together. I tell you, if Bob doesn't carry it,
it probably not for sale in Houston. I mean, he really has a
wide variety. I would call them. If you strike out there number one,
he's going to have another product that works as well, another synthetic parithrod
if he doesn't have that one. But if you're determined to get the Delta
dust, then you would have to shift over to one of the places that
you know sales products for people to do their on pest control kinds of things.
But I would give I would give Bob a call. I think I
think he's gonna have it's what's the number. Oh, I'm sorry, I
didn't even give you the number. You can go on line to Southwest Fertilizer
dot com. By the way, Southwest Fertilizer, let me see, I'm
gonna have to find I don't have the phone number right here in front of
me, Southwest Fertilizer. Let me go to see if I can find that
for you while we're talking. By the way, also, they are gonna
have, um, they're going to have a wide variety of other things that
you might need, so it doesn't it doesn't matter what you're looking for that
you know, fertilizers, pesticides, I mean, all kinds of products.
I'm always amazed when I go go down there as to you know, all
the different stuff that they have, good, good, good qualities of thinking.
Okay, ready to go seven one three six six six one seven four
four seven one three six six six one seven four four good bab a call
so you don't make that whole drive, just to be sure. Yeah,
thank you sir, all right, you take care, Thank you for the
call. Yeah, love love to go into Southwest Fertilizer. By the way.
You know, if you need tools, they've got them. If you
need to have a lawn mower blade sharp and maybe you know you've got some
small engine equipment you need repair. They got a little shop there they can
do it. Another good thing about it is if you don't know what you
need, you know something's killing this plant. Take a sample in, take
a photo in. Let Bob and his folks, as they say, get
a pair of eyes on it, and they can tell you what it is
and then take you to the right product if indeed you even need a product
for the situation. Love to have honest folks that give you an honest assessment
instead of just trying to sell you something. You're listening to Garden Line and
we are here to answer gardening questions from you. And that's a phone number
you want to write down. Seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, if
you are interested in a tree, you need to know about Verdant's Christmas in
July sell all three locations of Verdant Tree Farm. You can go to Verdant
Treefarm dot com to find out more. Ten to fifty percent off of the
trees when you purchase them with an install. Now they're not giving you that
off the install, but off the tree, but what a deal to make
Great locations you can find about at barker Cypress on the West Side, done
in air Land on Broadway Street. Are up in the Heights Yale Street at
ten all Verdant Tree Farms. You tag your tree. They've got a wide
selection, including some awesome palm trees. Check out Verdant Tree Farm. Take
advantage of the Christmas in July sale. There is an appropriate song that he
is on. Not yet outside, but it's going to get there, especially
as we go into this week. That's okay. We know how to work
in the mornings, get our work done late day, take care of things,
and take care of our plants. If you uh, well, let's
tell you what. Let's start off. We are going to head out and
talk to Marty. Good morning, Hey, how are you Marty? I'm
fine, Good morning. Hey. I pulled up all my tomato plants and
I know you said we could plant some seeds right now, and I've got
some of my okra. We're not in a full sun, so I have
a bunch of seeds. If I put those in and some green beans and
some corn in the full sun where my tomatoes were, is that okay?
To do right now. Yeah, tomatoes, okra. You're wanting to plant
cocra and green beans, okra, green beans and some corn if possible.
Yeah, corn is pretty much a summer crop. You can give it a
try. We have a lot of problems with the corn ear worm when it
starts to heat up like this. But the green beans, I would wait
a little bit. They take about forty eight days fifty days or so,
sometimes fifty five to reach their harvest, and you need that to happen when
it's cooled off just a bit. So I would probably look at sometimes I'm
in August putting those in. As far as the okra, you can plant
that. Anytime it's hot. The okra will be so happy it'll be singing
to you as it the seed falls to the soil. I was really excited
because I had two pods, but they were in a little bit of shade
and they didn't quite make it. So one of my plans is in full
sun and it's still not making I don't know why, but anyway, whatever,
it's all it's all trowal and error, right, Yeah, that's it.
Trowel and error. Well that's a gardening dad joke. Sorry, I
couldn't. I'm sorry I didn't hear it. Trowel, trowel and error,
trowels by trowel and error, trowel and error. Okay, I'll get out
there and get them done. All right, Well, you have fund sounds
like you got good plans out there for the garden. Love. If you're
not gardening with edibles, if you're not growing things to eat, you need
to do that. Maybe you don't dig up the yard or put in a
nice raised bed. By the way, we've got great raised beds that just
or that to me is the only way to garden. But you can also
gardening containers that works really well. I mean a large container that holds a
good quality saw a mix and drains. Well, you can pretty much grow
anything in a container, vegetables that you can grow in the ground. The
possible exception to that would be sweet corn. But there's actually a sweet corn
called on deck, as in your outdoor deck that is very short and compacted,
and you put a few plants in a whiskey barrel sized thing and get
a little bit of sweet corn. I wouldn't bother with sweetcorn in a container,
but I just found it humorous that they actually tried to create a corn
for that. I would starve to death trying to grow corn in containers.
But everything else it's a vegetable. You can pretty much grow it in a
container. If you like it, that's good. If you have not tried
the one, two three completely easy system of food, soil and compost that
Arbourgate offers, you need to now Arburgate. I know everybody knows about Arbogate.
They're up on Highway two forty nine. Or excuse me there west A
two forty nine on twenty nine twenty so I should get up into Tomball,
turn left, go west on two forty nine. They're right out there.
They have a three step system. One is a food that feeds anything with
roots. That would be an organic food. That's a four four three plus
ten percent calcium. It's a granular product. It gives you a slow release
of nitrogen, lots of trace minerals, plenty of organic matter, of course,
but that is an excellent product for all kinds of things that you would
use. The organic food complete now, also organic is their organic soil complete.
It's a blend of compost. It's large particle sand for improving drainage and
then expanded shail, which really improves the drainage. It gets that oxygen down
into the soil. As we go higher and higher in our expanded shale content
in a clay soil, it drains internally better and better. And then they
have the organic compost complete, which is two different types of composts blended together,
lots of microbial diversity, lots of different kinds of beneficial microbes. You
know, microbes rule the world, and when it comes to plant roots,
good microbactivity and content is very important. I mean, it helps them develop,
it helps some fight disease. Maybe I need to talk about that more
sometime, about the role that microbes play in that. But it also it's
got these two types of compost mix and it's got the macro and micronutrients in
it, but it also has the expanded shale. And every time you add
expanded shale to your clay soil, you're improving that internal drainage. And that
is a very important long term thing, and arbigate can provide you with just
that. Oh and by the way, you're not going to find a better
plant selection. They self root trees throughout the year. You know, herbs,
flowers, vegema everything. Just go you'll see what I'm talking about.
Great gift shops too. Always love going into their gift shops because I find
some really beautiful quality things for the home that make excellent gifts for friends and
family. At the arbor Gate, you're listening to garden Line. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking earlier bragging on
Microlife's liquid plant foods, you know the seven one three, the orange label
and then the silver label, or though giving me the blue label, not
silver, the blue label. That is their ocean the fish based material Ocean
Harvest. Well, I want to brag on their fertilizers for your lawn are
Actually they're great for all kinds of plants. But that's the green bag,
in the purple bag, that's the combo. The sixty four is the three
one two ratio that's in the green bag. You're releasing a bazillion beneficial microbes.
You're providing sixty three essential minerals for humans and for plants. Important that
are part of this organic fertilizer as it microbially decomposes over time. That's the
sixty four. The Humates Plus is a purple bag. Always a good idea.
Think of Humates plus is concentrated compost in a bag. If you were
to take compost and concentrate it down into a granule you can put in your
fertilizer spreader. That is the Humates Plus. Hey, if you want to
learn more about any of these or where you can buy them, go to
Microlife Fertilizer dot com. First of all, it's not gonna be hard to
find them. All our good home garden centers are Mom and pops carry them.
You will find them at as hardware stores and all kinds of other places
are feed stores as well. But Microlife Fertilizer dot com to get more information
on those kind of products. Put them out on my yard this spring and
really happy with the results, watching the way that things growing by. It's
about time to do that again with the summer fertilization on us. I'd like
to use those to carry through summer. If your lawn isn't very dense,
it's do guy good color. I'd do it now and I probably do it
again in a month or two, just to kind of start to build up
that content in the soil that will be releasing nutrients slowly over time. I
love to talk about feed stores, and we have so many good ones.
North, Southeast, West, Central, wherever you live, you've got a
hometown feed store. If you were down south and a little bit to the
east, your feed stores. League City Feed the Thunderbergs West and his sister
Madison operate the place. Just that old time feed store. You want,
you know, you want all the products we talk about. If I mentioned
a fertilizer, they're going to have it there. They're gonna have soil blends,
they've got what does feed store carry. Well, it carries livestock feed,
of course, but it also they carry a premium pet food that's always
available if you have backyard chickens. They have a very good selection of feed,
feeders, waterers, betting material, everything you need for your chickens.
If you want to pick up some local honey, they also have that there.
Now they're on Highway three, just a it's a few blocks south of
Highway ninety six. So if you're in League City, Clear Lake City,
San Leone Bay, Cliff, Lamarc Webster, Santa fel Comino, Ria,
all those places. This is your hometown feed store, League City Feed.
They're open Monday through Saturday six or nine to US to US six and they're
closed on Sunday, So today would be the time to swing by and grab
you some quality product. They're from League City Feed. I think now we'll
head out and go to the phones again. By the way, our number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna talk to
Donna out in Beaumont. Well, Hello, Donna, I skip. We
have a problem in our yard with a big oak tree that has been there
for many years, and for quite a few years we've had an issue with
it um not getting enough light, and I think that's part of the problem.
But then my neighbor's tree that was blocking it dies, so it is
getting a little more light. But around the bottom of it, in a
oh, probably about a ten foot diameter, all these little sprouts keep coming
up off the roots, and the roots are kind of near the surface,
and they're just everywhere. It's like hundreds and hundreds of them. Tree.
Yes, sir, okay, all right, go ahead, and we don't
know. It's just really bad. I mean, they just keep coming up
and so my husband keeps weed eating them down, and and is there anything
we can do to help our oak tree out so that maybe it doesn't do
this well, you're not going to stop the sprouting. You know, oaks.
In the big gene pool of live oaks. There's some live oak types
that are less prone to sprouting, and then there's some types that are very
prone to sprouting. That's why we have all the little live oak mots in
central Texas. When you're driving through the country's a little clusters of live oak
trunks out there in the field. Once you've got the sprouts started, by
the way, what stimulates them is extra moisture there. And if you disturb
the soil to put in a flower bed, that'll also do it. But
once they start, you just got to cut them back as low as you
can and either live with them and trim them back periodically, mow over them
and whatnot, or put a ground a very dense thick groundcloth fabric like you
see in a garden center they set the pots of plants on, put those
out there and then put a mult or something over the top of it,
and that way the sprouts try to push it up, but they can't.
And I know that's a little bit of trouble, and maybe esthetically that's not
what you're going for, But once the sprouts start, you just can't get
them to stop sprouting. There is a proble all sucker stopper. I don't
even know where you would get that now, but sucker stopper is a product
and you spray it and like crape myrtles like to send up suckers from the
bottom too, and you spray it on them and it kind of it's a
hormone and it gets them to not grow. It doesn't kill them, it
doesn't make it all go away and quit. It just sort of shuts them
down. But that's something you'd have to be doing over and over again.
And so I don't think that's going to be the solution for you. Okay,
Well, I didn't know if it was just we were it wasn't getting
enough light, or it wasn't we weren't feeding it or anything like that that
we needed to do. So it's just that type of oak tree is going
to do that. It's just going to do that. And once they get
started, then you cut them back. And now where you cut one shoot
back, now three buds come out and you got three shoots, it come
back, and it's just part of the problem and dealing with them. But
yeah, I would turn if it were mine, I would turn lemons and
lemonade and do something like, you know, plant a groundcover around them,
like a Asian jasmine or some other own car you just mow over the top
of it. Or I would use that landscape fabric and then throw a mulch
on. Okay, okay, all right, well, thank you so much.
All right, I appreciate that call. I appreciate Bye, yes,
sir, thank you, byebye. Donna. Well, if you're thinking about
retiring, you're looking for a place where you can have a beautiful home,
a beautiful community, and you want an active retired lifestyle. So Dellweb builds
communities for you, active adults age fifty five and better. Down at full
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new Dellweb community. It has everything Dellweb has, which if you don't know
about Dellweb, go online dellweb dot com, slash Houston and get more information
on them. This community. I'm helping them put in a community garden.
So in addition to all the reasons you would want to live in a Dellweb
community, here's another one, especially for our garden Line listeners. Call two
eight one four to five nine zero six zero nine find out more information and
maybe schedule of time to go out and check out the new community. Well,
Nikki, it's time for news, and I just can't wait to hear
what's happened now in the greater Houston area. Coming up? All right,
any horticultural news. Hopefully it's all right to dance. In fact, if
your foot isn't tapping, I would check up there. I don't know how
that could happen. Hey, you're listening to garden Line and I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. We are in the home stretch here of the last
hour of garden Line for today. We'll be back tomorrow, by the way,
from six am to ten am, So feel free to check us out
again tomorrow. You know, if you're if you're wanting a quality, successful,
beautiful, bountiful garden, whether it's a flower bed, whether it's a
vegetable bed, whether it is containers of vegetables or color. It all starts
with a soil, the soil. It is truly literally the foundation of success
because the soil determines drainage, internal drainage. The soil determines microbial content,
the nutrient content. Do you see what I'm saying? And we can take
whatever kind of soil you have and make it a great soil by adding the
right kind of product to that soil. And heirloom soils provides that kind of
product. Maybe you need a putting sulfur indoors, Maybe you need something you
know your plants on the patio. Maybe you want to build a bed.
Then you want to bring in a quality mix a roast soil for example,
that can do the job. They are going to have it for you.
Maybe you want to get compost and improve the soil you already have and turn
it into something where you can grow things. Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com.
Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com. They'll they can also in some areas
deliver a one cubic yard supersack. Imagine a cubic yard and a big giant
one of those little grocery bags that you know where you bring in you don't
have to get a throwaway back. Well, imagine something big enough set on
your driveway. There was a cubic yard. That's what a supersack is.
And for a lot of their products that are going to be available in the
supersack as well. If you want to figure out how much soil you need,
they have one of the best cubic yard calculators I've ever seen online.
Go to Airloom Soils of Texas dot com. You just plug in your information
and you'll know exactly how much soil are malts or compost or whatever you need
to purchase. I'm going to head down to Galveston now and we are going
to talk to Bill this morning. Well, hello, Bill, Hi,
how are you? I'm well, thanks, Um, How do I get
some photos to you. I've got a I've got a grapefruit tree that that
once through the big freeze back, you know, a couple of years back
in February. We've been nursing, you know, we've been nursing it along.
I used to produce as money as uh, you know, a hundred
grapefruit that hasn't produced anything since that big freeze, you know, two years
back in foe in February. Okay, and uh, and now I've got
you know, we cut it back. We've done all the things we thought
about doing. I've got some some bark that's flaking off, I've got some
sap on it, and I've got one small, you know, branch that's
all of a sudden just turned brown. Okay, And I'm trying to figure
out what's causing this. Yeah, it's it seems like you probably have had,
as they say, insalt added to injury for that tree. Maybe a
canker disease or something has gotten into it. You can certainly send me photos,
um show me some of the branches it has. It become thornier than
it was before. Not really, not really. It's got some good leaves
on it still. But huh okay, Well, I'm trying to determine whether
it's the root stock that has come back or if you've actually got something from
above the graph that is growing the ground, way above the ground. Okay.
It ought to settle in and start fruiting for you. We're talking a
tree that's got that's about six inch trunk on it. Uh huh okay,
well, uh, it ought to settle in and start fruiting. If it's
got, you know, graftwood that's growing above the graph that that ought to
work. You could have something like a canker that's moved in that's given you
trouble, and so that that would be something we're not gonna be able to
deal with. There's not a spray you put on the trunk and the canker
goes away. So I think the assessment is is it worth trying to keep
this tree or not? And the photos may help me determine that. I'm
going to put you on hold, pardon, how do I get them to
you? I'm about to I'm gonna put you on hold and Josh you'll get
online with you and he'll tell you how to how to send me those photos.
Show me the whole tree and a big picture of it. Show me
the stump and anythings you see. You can send several photos that are in
good sharp focus. Check them before you send them. Make sure they're will
focused. Get as close as you can to a situation so that I can
really discern better sometime from a distance I really can't tell. Okay, thank
you for that. Then I'll call you tomorrow. That's perfectly good yes,
and for anyone listening. The reason I don't just give out the emails for
everybody's email is I cannot get the emails answered during the week, just with
all the things going on, and so I kind of limit them to if
you're gonna ask a question on garden line, well get let's get a photo
in and then let's talk about it, or after, you know, vice
versa. If I've talked to you, send me a photo. But I
like to connect it to the calls and the show as much I can.
That way, at least I can manage the volume that's coming in. Thanks
a lot, Bill, I look forward to seeing those, and Josh will
get your information. Now let's go to Southwest Houston and talk to Gary.
Hello, Gary, Hi, thanks for taking the call. Yes, I
am dealing with the mimosa weed in my lawn. Okay, dealing with it
for years. I've tried lots of different wheat and feed products, and none
of them seem to really take care of it. We've tried bulling it and
that just seems to aggravate it. So and it's weird because some of my
neighbors have it, some don't. I've tried the same weed and feat products
they use. Yeah, and I just I'm at a loss. Gotcha,
let me. I need to drill down and make sure I know we're talking
the same weed. Is this weed one that kind of grows more upright or
is this one that trails along the ground and may even have some little like
catclaw hook thorns in it. It's weird. Some of the it's finy.
It grows kind of under the grass and then creeps up on top of it
and purple flour pretty um. If you touch the leaves, gary, do
they close up like a venus flytrap? It close up? It doesn't seem
to I know what you're talking about. This touch me not um sensitive easily,
don't seem to close up. Some of the vines are a little bit
thorny, but some are not. Okay, most of them are not.
I know what you got. Okay, So here here's what I do.
Don't bother with a weed and feed, don't don't okay. My recommendation is
when you need to fertilize, fertilize with the product you need at the time
you need to fertilize. When you need to control weeds, control weeds with
the right product at the right time that you need to do that, and
oftentimes the weed and the feed don't overlap really well. Plus in this case,
you're going after a very specific weed, and so we're gonna recommend a
very specific product. Anything that contains two four D in it, like a
trimech tr I MC would be one that I would try. Now that it's
hot, if you use those in your lawn, it's going to damage the
lawn. Once we get up above about eighty five degrees, some of those
products can cause a problem. So with the weed, either you can kind
of pull it up out of the grass, you know, with gloves on
your hand, and then dab a product onto it, which if you have
a few weeds that's easy. If you've got a lot, that's totally impractical.
Or wait until things go l off a little bit and do the treatment
at that time, be ready to come back and do it again next spring
as they begin to come out. There's also a product that can that contains
triclopeer that will work real well on it, but it's also hard on Saint
Augustine, so you want to use it as a spot spray. A dab
on a spot sprayer, okay, so that you don't you don't damage your
your grass too much. I'm gonna have to take a break, go to
a break here. If you need to hang on and keep keep going,
feel free to do that our phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. We'll be right back. All right, you're listening to
garden Line. We are back to answer your gardening questions system anyway we can.
I love the chance to get to talk to gardeners, and that is
exactly what we're up to today. Let's begin by heading out to Katie and
we're gonna talk to Doug. Hello, Doug. Hello. Well, I
was given some about five to six inch long pop up rose things and I've
I wrapped them in paper towels on the end, I cut them at a
forty five degree angle. I smeared ali vera gel over that and before I
wrapped them up, and I've got them in a little cup, you know,
just enough water to keep those the paper towels wet. And they've been
there like about I guess a month, am I just am I waiting for
nothing here? Oh? So they're still sitting in the paper towels in the
in this cup that you know, I keep the paper towels on the bottom
moist. They still have got to work. Did they have green leaves on
them? They did, but they all fell off like about after about a
week. I think probably not. And here's how you if you get a
chance to redo this, get your cut Get them early, early in the
morning, when it's as cool as it's going to be during the warm season.
And then when you take them, take cuttings that are about maybe four
inches long, take or five take the leaves off the bottom part. Dip
them into a hormone powder a garden center will provide you, or you know
Ace hardware store has the hormones for plants. Dip them in that and then
put them in a moist, well drained material. It could be parolite,
it could be a low potting mix. It just you want it to be
moist. Put a cover over them that's clear, and set them where they
can get light but not direct sun, and they will root in that condition.
I use that, you know two liter pot bottles that are clear.
You can go down and go about a third of the way up from the
bottom and cut them and almost all the way and just leave a little bit
of plastic hanging, so it's a hinge, and then you fill the bottom
with soil, put your cuttings in that and close the top over. That
is a perfect little greenhouse. For how long should that take? It depends
all not all roses rudy equally. Some are very difficult to route, some
are very easy. But I would say in two or three weeks you should
have a pretty good cutting if the temperatures are mild, and if it's getting
you know, a decent plenty of light. But again the cutting can't head
will be in the full sun. Yeah, well, I guess I'll have
to get some more. Try again, maybe y'all, yeah, give them
that shot. Sound like you were on your way to a good idea.
I use the paper to wrap around them, the wet paper, in order
to put them in a plastic bag and just get them home. I'll even
get them in an ice chest with just a little ice, just to be
cool. You don't even be frozen, but you want to kind of a
little bit of a refrigerated feeling there for him until you get them home,
so they don't will too much. That's another reason why I said take the
cuttings early in the day because and then and then you take off all the
leaves except for maybe just a couple at the top, Yeah, the top
top, one or two sets of leaves, leave them on. That allows
them to make those should always those shouldn't die, right, they shouldn't.
They shouldn't die. But if the rose can get that wound that you made
cutting it of forty five degree angles a good little idea. If it can
get that wound to start to form callous, that kind of whitish, creamy
material from that can come roots. Roots don't come directly from the cutting itself.
They come from the callous tissue that forms when you make the cutting,
and then they will form roots. And once you get to that stage,
you're good to go. You just keep taking care of them gradually. Then
you can take that clear off so that you can pot them up. And
I sometimes will throw a little bag over them when they're potted up, a
little clear plastic bag just to kind of keep it little. You know,
you don't want them to lose moisture. That's the problem until they've got a
good root system is they can't dry. You can't lose moisture. But that
ought to get you off to a good start. Okay, I'll give it
another try. Thank you, all right, you take care of Thank you
for the call. You know, I was talking about Nitrofos products earlier and
the fertilizers and things. But when it's summertime, we have insects that we
deal with in our lawns, and Nitropos has two products it work very well
against that. First of all is bugout Max. That is a wide spectrum
insecticide for turf problem. In fact, you'll kill a lot of different kinds
of it's I believe one hundred and thirty different kinds of species of insects that
it'll work on. It's an advanced formula. You can spread that on your
lawn. So when you have things like the sideweb worm coming along, you
want a product there that is going to help fight that. When you're dealing
with chinch bugs and the lawn, perfect product for dealing with that. They
also have the Nitropos fire ant killer. It works quick, it kills the
queen, doesn't allow them to escape, it kills the colony, prevents new
mount for coming up. So the bugout Max and the Nitropous Fiant Killer two
excellent products that are available everywhere nitroposles is sold, which includes places like Fisher's
Hardware down Southmore in Southeaston or on Broadway Street, Laport. Go out to
Lake Hardware in Angleton, or maybe you're in the Memorial City, the Ace
Hardware there, Memorial Drive, lots of lots of places where you can find
nitro foss. Let's head out now to Tanglewood and I believe this is gonna
be our last calf of the day. And here is Beverly. Hello,
Beverly, Hi darling. I know I need to be quick as you're running
out of time. I planted in the ground a Mira lemon tree about four
months ago and it looks great, even has two small little lemons. My
question for you is that there are saying several small limbs growing out below the
graft. Should I cut them off or just lets them leave them there to
grow? You definitely want to cut those off. That is route suckers,
and they don't amount to anything good. They are only there for your grafted
rose to have something to grow on, and so it's below the graph.
That's true. You know you're asking about roses, but I mean lemons rather.
But that's true. If it's a grafted rose, that's true. If
it's a grafted fruit tree, you never want those suckers to grow. Now,
some of these small they're all some small ms rise above where the graph
is coming motor. Okay, just leave them, let them grow. Yes,
that's my that's myer lemon, MYR lemon, and MYR lemon is a
good one. How big of a container do you have that thing in?
Playing in the ground? Oh okay, all right, well good, myr
lemon is a good one. You just have to take care of it when
we have a hard freeze. I know, I know, I lost one
in twenty twenty one. Okay, I had in the ground for years and
years, So you know, kind of members about playing this one in the
ground again, I understand. I'll give it a try. Thank you so
much for your heil, and thank you for the cab. Beverley, it's
good to visit with you. Well, we're wrapping up another garden Line.
We are going to be back tomorrow from six to ten. Remember we're also
available by podcast. So maybe you have friends who live listen outside the KTRS
listening area and they want to know about garden Line. Just tell them about
the podcast Garden Line with Skip Wrecter and they can listen to past shows as
well. You can also listen to us online to get to a computer and
want to come in that way, you can listen to the show as well.
But our goal is to help you have success. We want you to
have a more beautiful garden. Who wants you to have the more bountiful landscape?
And I know a lot of people Number one gardening is first of all,
gardening is the number one hobby in the country. It's it's a very
popular hobby, widespread all age groups gardening. That is one thing that is
unique about gardening is a hobby. But gardening is a hobby where you want
to have fun, you want to have success. We garden because we want
good, yummy, healthy, nutrient packed food. We garden because we like
the esthetics. Regarden for the exercise. We garden for the mental benefits of
gardening. We want you to have success and that's why we have Garden Line.