Katie r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Richard.
It's the Crazy gas Trip. Just watch him as so many go things
to supt crazy gas tub not a sid We need to get some soundtrack of
some roosters crewing in the morning to kick off the show. Those of you
who are up early, welcome. We're glad you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are going to talk gardening all
day today. That's a surprise, isn't it. I'm not gonna do sports.
I'm not gonna do news. That's Nicky's job, news, traffic,
all that kind of stuff. We're going to talk about gardening. What do
you want to talk about? Our phone number seven one three two one two
k t R eight seven one three two one two k t R eight.
It's pretty simple. Well, I'll tell you what we are gonna speaking of.
Early in the morning. We're going to go right to Tom Ball and
talk to Mel. Hey, Mel, congratulations on the Early Bird of War
today. Good morning. Yeah. I try try to get up early to
catch you well, there you go. Last spring, we planted some moseas
in some box woods, okay, and I did some fertilizing there. But
I'm just curious now, beginning of the year here, when and now do
you recommend to put some fertilizer on those isaiahs and boxwoods. You know,
I would. I would go with something that's a gradual release. You can
do an organic fertilizer that will release a little bit as the microbes begin to
wake up and break it down. Or there are other types of slow release
fertilizers that synthetics that have a natural slow release as well, But I would
do that in a moderate amount, and I would, I would go ahead,
you can start it anytime. I would say, you could do it
this month if it was slow release. Otherwise wait and do it next month
if it's gonna be something that's releasing a little bit faster, because those plants
are gonna they're gonna wake up, but they're not quite awake yet. They're
not ready to grow, all right, All right, That's what I was
curious about, exactly when, because that's you know, I don't know when
their grow period starts, or their blooming period starts, or whatever. Yeah,
it's all it's all temperature mellot. You know, the soil warms up,
the air warms up, and that's what kicks everything off. All right,
appreciate it, you bet, and enjoy enjoy those plants. Thanks for
the call. Appreciate that, alright, bye bye. You know talking about
organic product that can gradually give you a release over time with that, you
know, microlife fertilizer. I mean, it's not you don't have to wait
on it to get really, you get some pretty quick and then it just
continues on as microbes break down those organic molecules. And you know, microlife
is loaded with natural occurring microbial organisms. These are things that you find in
nature. Just lots and lots of different types. I think the other day
I was counting as like over thirty different individual types of microbes with like I
don't know, ninety strains or whatever. All together. There's lots of strains
and each one has has its own roles. Some work with the roots to
help release nutrients. Some and interact with the roots and cause the plant to
grow differently. That's right, microbes talking to the roots, if we can
use a human term talking, cause the plant to be more resilient to diseases,
to pests. We find microbes that can affect growth response of a root,
Lots of things like that, And I think if you're going to use
a microlife product, you can use things like the six two four. You
can use their fish uls the release. It's a ocean harvest fish based product.
But I would always put that microlife hum mates plus in there at least
once a year. Go ahead and do that. That's a zero zero for
so it's not packed with the Big three. It's got a little potassium in
it, but it is packed with microbes and with the humate component itself,
which is what the product is. You're building the soil too over time.
It's it's a gradual development of a healthier and healthier soil. And that's how
it works with organics. You're you're changing things slowly over time, improving things,
and the plant just ends up thriving more and more and more. And
that's that's important to understand. If you're gonna if you're going to do something
organically, you're gonna work with nature. Well, you've got to pay attention
how nature responds, and nature gradually responds over time to the to the things
that are happening out there. You know, the leaves fall on the ground,
they decay in time, they molt the soil, they release their new
against the microbial activity picks up. That's not overnight, but it's an ongoing
thing and that is how you need to look at it. You can find
microlife products all over the place. Just go to microlife fertilizer dot com and
that would help you know exactly word to look for them. For example,
here's an example microlife source Southwest Fertilizer down on Bison Utton Renwick. Southwest Fertilizer
they carry every fertilizer I recommend they carry insecticide funge a side, every herbicide,
every organic, every synthetic, and they when you walk in there,
if they don't have it, you don't need it. And microlife's an example.
They have a very good stock of microlife products there at Southwest Fertilizer.
And you you know that it's not hard to get to busin Uton Runwick in
Southwest Houston. Southwest Fertilizer has been around for a long long time and they
you know, anytime that you're looking at things to enhance plant growth or things
to use in an am around the guard for example, seeds for example,
tools and fertilizer spreaders. All of that they've got you covered there. Just
go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. You can find out more about them.
If you haven't been, you need to go just to see it. And
I know people that drive all the way across town to get there because they
just over the years have kind of learned that that's the place. They like
the way they're treated. They like the folks that you know, come and
greet you and help you, and they're very knowledgeable and they're not going to
point you to something you don't need just to try to sell your product.
And you know, you treat people that way, and that's why you're around
for decades and decades and decades, and that's why you have customers that are
that that committed to your place to drive a long distance even to get there.
This morning on garden Line, I want to I want to talk a
little bit about the spring season coming upon us and some of the activities that
we would be doing right now. One thing that we would be doing right
now is finishing up our pruning. If you need to prune fruit trees,
if you've got some young ornamental trees that you need to prune, you know,
shade trees or flowering trees. Now's the time to get any kind of
pruning like that done that you need to do. But I said the word
flowering. Anything that just flowers in the spring, don't prune it until after
it flowers. So what would that be, Well, if you had a
dogwood, if you had a red bud, if you had a flowering quinch
shrub, if you had a spring blooming azolua shrub. There's a lot of
examples of that. So if something blooms in the summer, like a viex
or an oleander, you can prune it now. But if it's only spring
blooming. A lot of the climbing roses are what we call them once bloomers.
They bloom in the spring and then they're done, and that would be
like lady banks rose, So don't prune those now. Exception. The other
thing to keep in mind is fruit trees. They bloom in the spring,
but forget that being the exception. With fruit, we're not there for blooms.
We're there for fruit, and a fruit tree blooms way more than it
can support a fruit load, so go ahead and prune them now like you
would non blooming plants. For example. We're gonna take a break. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two kt RH and I'll be right
back. Man. Well, we always used to say we play weird stuff
on guard line, or at least we expand your musical repertoire right a little
bit. All right, anybody can tell me who was singing that, I'd
be curious. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. That ought to be an easy question, by the way,
at least if you're over, I don't know four fifty somewhere in there,
somebody else ought to be able to know. That's right, this talking
about spring, talking about where we are, things we need to do.
If you haven't had your soul tested, now's the time to do that.
And the reason I say now is because we're about to do a lot of
spring fertilization. And you know, when the grass starts waking up and things,
and when you fertilize based on a soil test, it is a let's
just say, it's an educated fertilization, meaning you're not just fertilizing blind.
I can tell you the standard numbers and our fertilizer blends we recommend are good
standard numbers. You know, with turf, when you're talking about about a
three one two four one two top ratio in general, that is a very
good ratio for turf. It is each yard could be different. You know,
maybe the people that own the place before you use the triple thirteen or
twelve twenty four to twelve. That's another one used to be used long ago.
Lots I means recommended all the time. Well, if you do that
over and over and over and over through the years, you're going to get
too much phosphorus in your soil. And in that case, you don't need
any of it. You've got enough to last you and you just don't need
it. So I guess what I'm saying is start with a test and find
out where you are, and then there's going to be a fertilizer that fits
what you need. Just find It's real easy to do. If you want
your soil tests, and you can go to Soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu
or here do this, go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot com. The latest publication I put on there. In
fact I'm gonna post in fact I did post it. I think yeah,
I did post it last night to Facebook, the garden Line facebook page,
and it talks about how to do a soil testing made easy. It's not
that hard, it's not mysterious, and I explain exactly how to do it.
There's a direct link to the lab if you'd like to do that.
But that is a minor investment, and you don't need to do that every
year, once ever three years or even even less if you things are kind
of in order. But in a garden where you're doing a lot of fertile
fertilizing and you're adding composts and things like that, you're getting a nutrient level
that's going up higher and higher, especially with the additions of compost on a
regular basis. In one of our lists to say, roto tilled or spaded
garden areas like a flower bed or a vegetable garden, because we're always adding
stuff to improve the soil there. In a lawn, you know, you
can't rotal till the lawn, it'll tear up all the grass. So but
in a garden we are and so you do need to check it periodically,
but that's how you do it gardening with skip dot com. It's as simple
as that bookmark that. Because we continue to add things. You know,
we went through freezes, we added something on freeze protection. The gardening schedules,
a lawn schedule rather the and the lawn pest we in disease management schedules
are both up there if you would like to do that. In my backyard,
I have two golden retrievers, and they are retrievers. They when I
plant plants, they retrieve them, bring them back to the back porch,
thank you very much. And they also have torn up a place in the
yard where I'm going to have to go in and kind of redo it now.
But whenever life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Right So instead of
just replanting grass right there, I'm going to do a little bit of a
different kind of a hardescape out in that area. I've got some plants,
part of a little bird bath, one of those fountain bird baths that recirculates,
and I just I love the sound of water. The sound of water
is so soothing, and there's a lot of good sounds we can put in
our landscapes. You know, sound of water is one, the sound of
birds is another. We talked about that once, I believes yesterday, and
so with the sound of water, it's just a soothing thing and it'll attract
that beneficial Insects need to be able to get to some water for a drink
that is helpful. There are several types of beneficials like that. Birds would
like to come to water as well. And when we have summertime, we
definitely need to supply some things for our birds. And if you'd like to
do that, maybe you want to go all out and create one of these
disappearing fountains or something along those lines. Well, piercescapes they are specialists in
a lot of things. There are very few companies that can do a lot
of things well, and pierscapes can. Do you need landscape lighting? Would
you like to put in a backyard fountain or some sort of a water feature.
And here's a big one. What about your irrigation system? Does it
have even coverage? Last summer's drought, there were people that were watering all
the time, but because of bad coverage with the irrigation sprinklers. Most systems
are poorly designed. They had dry spots and they just couldn't water enough to
keep everything adequate. And so Piercescapes can come in and they can fix all
that. They absolutely can fix all that. But on a need of these
things, you need to call them very soon because they stay busy too.
When you do a good job, you do stay busy. So schedule as
soon as you can. They want to be able to get to work started
for you before the hot summer weather comes, so you do have the effect
of that irrigation system. It's ready to go. The sooner you start with
a consultation with them, the sooner the work can be scheduled on the landscaper's
books, and so think about that. You can go to the website Piercescapes
dot com, Pierceescapes dot com, or give them a call three or excuse
me two eight one three seven zero fifty sixty two eight one three seven zero
five zero six zero. Go to that website and see some of the work
they've done. I mean, you're going to see some early taj Mahal jobs
out there. But just know that it doesn't matter what you live in or
where you live. They you know, in terms of how fancy the place
or whatever. They can really turn you're outdoors into a place that you and
the family just loves to gather and on any any kind of scale excellent at
that Well you listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven to one, three two one
two five eight seven to four. I was talking yesterday about some events going
on out at Enchanted Gardens uh in Richmond, and if you haven't been to
in Chenna Gardens, you really do need to go. Uh. It is
a it's a show place. It is a destination garden center. People do
travel from all over to get there. I mean I was out a while
back talking to them, and people have been coming in from Austin, Texas
to get to in Chenny Gardens just to see that place. Listen, we
are fortune in here in Houston to have some of the best nurseries in the
state, and way more than any other big city in Texas has. In
fact, I would dare say you could combine a couple of big cities like
Austin, San Antonio, or Austin and Dallas or whatever, and we have
more good nursery. Sure than they do. We just do. It's really
a fortunate thing. But in Chenni Gardens is on FM three fifty nine.
That's on the Katie Richmond side of Fullshire. Excuse me, the Katie Fullsher
side of Richmond. You go north, how about that three fifty nine In
Chennigardensrichmond dot com. You're going to find there that any kind of plant,
any kind of accessory that you need. They've got it, from seeds to
plants, to you need a beautiful rose bush, a beautiful shrub. You
will get out and plants, your vegetables and things. They stock all of
that kind of thing. And they're open today from ten am to four pm.
During the week it's eight to five, so it's always a good time.
And by the way, today's weather is going to be awesome. Get
out there this afternoon, take a little trip. You'll be glad you went,
and you will be as impressed as I always am when I go out
to in Chenne Gardens. Love to visit good garden centers. Oh and also
another big characteristic of our great mom and pop garden centers here in Houston area
is knowledgeable staff and the folks that are in China gardens. They are very
knowledgeable, they're trained, they know what they're talking about, and so when
you go in you really get help. They'll take the time, they'll explain
things. You can bring a picture of a problem or a plant you want
to identify it. They can do that too. They are excellent at that.
We're gonna now head out to Katie and talk to Hank. Hello Kate,
Hello Hank from Katie, Hello, sir, I want to talk about
it can be temperature or be correct to use nitrogen. Is this a lawn,
Yes, we do an early We can do an early nitrogen application,
and Randios used to have this on his schedule as well. An early application,
you know, toward the end of February or all the way through about
the third week of March would still be considered a little bit early, which
is more of an immediate release for early green up. Now, nitrogen doesn't
make the grass grow if the temperature is too cold, but it will take
it up and you'll get a darker green color. Then, once we've mowed
the lawn about twice, which is usually about the beginning of April to mid
April, somewhere in there, we would start putting on our summer fertilization schedule,
which would tend to be a slower release product. So hopefully that answered
what you're trying to find. The yard took a beating last year. And
would it be okay to put a light code of twenty one zero zero first?
You could for your early application, but I would not use more than
five pounds per thousand square feet. If you use twenty one zero zero,
what do you consider early well, I would say that would be you know,
probably first of March would be good in your area. If you're a
little further south, you could go a tad bit earlier, but I would
say first of March would be the time. And you want to stay light
with it because it's it's going to be an immediate release. Don't do it
right before a rain because the rain will dissolve it and you'll lose a lot
of the stuff you put out. So I like to put it out maybe
then just turn on the sprinklers for about a half inch just to get it
down in the soil. Then maybe a nice time release the first of April,
first of April, or even in mid April in your area. If
you've done the March fertilization. You could go just to Tad later into April
and be just fine. Thank you. All right, remember that schedules online
at gardening with skip dot com. You can find it right there. Hey,
Hank, thanks for the call. Thank you. You take care.
All right, Well, it's time for Niki in the news. We'll be
right back if you want to call seven one three two one two ktrh you
welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening today, talking about all
kinds of things gardening. We're going to start off this segment by going out
to Cyprus to talk to David. Hello David, good morning, sir.
How are you today? I'm well, thank you great great. I was
calling in reference to I've got about four acres with a barn dough on it
and I'm wanting to put in some bermuda. I have turned the soil with
basically broke it a couple months back, and to prep it a little bit
from this last summer seat. And I was just wondering if you had a
good bermuda seed that I'm not looking at for like grazing for cattle. I'm
looking at something more that would be for lawn slash, you know, just
out in the country probably for that. There's a seed called Arizona common Arizona
common bermuda. It is pretty widely available. There's a lot of different seeds.
I think the Aggie Turf website lists like over twenty five different types of
bermuda, and some of them are A lot of them are gonna be hard
to find, you know, some tend to come and go and whatnot.
But if you if you were to, if you're up there in the Cypress
area, if you could find an Arizona common, you may just check around
on that. I suspect that you're gonna need more of it than just a
little backyard packing. So oh, yes, you're gonna need a bigger a
bigger supply. Is the property up there in Cypress where you're gonna plan,
No, sir, it's more towards Schulenberg Houseville area. Okay, a little
bit sandy like loam, also with some black you know. Yeah, go
ahead. Oh, It's just all I'm trying to do, is is I
was, you know, wanting to I'm kind of get ahead of everything,
you know, the plant because I think it's March when you usually plant the
bermuda and stuff like that. You might want to try talking to the folks
at D and D Feed and Tomball. If they don't have it, I
bet they can get it, and they're not too far from you in the
Cypress area up there. Just I guess you would head up Telgi or something
to get real close to where they are on twenty nine to twenty. So
I would try that and see if they had Arizona common or if they have
one, and you just explain you want a turf type but you don't need
to be a little dwarf. It's just a standard topp of bermuda. Correct,
Yes, sir, they would have If they don't have it, you
know, I mean you, it'd be worth a trip down to Southwest Fertilizer
and see if Bob has it down there too. Now that's a little more
of a halt for you, but yeah, that would be the only other
alternative would be in Schulenberg. I can't think of who the county Extension agent
is there for AG but but he may know someone out in that area to
one of their suppliers that that has. But I would start with dand I
think that that's probably your best start all right, Well, no, I
appreciate the information on prepping any of that. So, like I said,
you know, when we've done other just pastures, you just you know,
break it real good and then then you you know, you sprig it,
you know for the different grasses. And I just didn't know you do you
like something like this? Would you take and put down any kind of herbicide
before you the seed or just seed and let it come up and get a
little stand and then herbicide, Well it would be better to do that ahead
of time to get the competition out of the way. Uh. You in
order to have good seed success, you need to have a clearer ground area
because you know, we talk all the time about malts, so you don't
get weeds in the garden. Well, when you've got a thick cover of
even if you mowed the field real low, well, now you just have
a nice malt cover and those little seedlings aren't going to get any light.
Number one, they're not gonna make it to this little surface like you want
them to. But but you liked you need a good a good mulch cover
for that, Well, I dis disc it with a disc behind the tractor.
So I broke it all the way down and turned it all in.
It's it's all ground. No, it doesn't is there is there not bermuda
at all? There pretty much over the last two summers. I don't have
any kind of cattle on it. And it's just you know, the heat.
You can only water out so far to in a lot of it.
Just from the heat from last summer filled off a lot of areas of it.
So I wanted to just see if I could bring in a stronger bermuda.
And just because it's just so trouting, it's better for the drought.
I mean last year was just hard on everything. Yeah, yeah, well
that that would do it. Just remember you know that seed has to hit
some soil and it needs needs to get light. That's the two things you're
trying to give it. All right, sir, Well, I think so
much of your time. Have a great day, all right, you take
care, Thanks for the call. Appreciate that. Yeah, that's a that's
a large scale, large scale thing for sure. You know D and D
feed. I just was mentioning them. They're up there in the Tombol area
and it's easy to find them. You just go if you're in Tombol and
you head out twenty nine to twenty to the west. They're just not too
far out of town there on the left hand side, and they've got all
kinds of things you know they've I just mentioned. Call them for some seed,
like for a pasture like that. They in fact, this week they're
getting in baby chicks. That's when they start arriving there. And boy do
they have a great selection at D and D feed. Just call them.
Make sure before you go. Two eight one three five one seventy one forty
four. You can get your red, white and yellow potatoes out there.
You can get the soils I talk about, you know, the heirloom soils.
They've got the plants that come in periodically out there. They've got the
fertilizers I reckon men out there. The nitrofoss is all loaded up there and
everything. And they have more than that too, all at D and Defeat
there on the just out west to Tomball. Two eight one three five one
seventy one forty four. You've been thinking about getting backyard chickens, This would
be a good time to go ahead and do that. We're going to head
out now to Seabrook and talk to Steve. Hey, Steve, good morning,
Skip. How are you they? I'm well, thank you. I
have two fairly young pecan trees that are pretty much covered and I believe it's
called pronounced liking. Huh. And is there something we can do about that?
Or is it I've heard a couple of my neighbors just say leave it
alone. It's all right. Calm well, I'm gonna give you a quick
answer. I'm about a minute out from a break and if you want to,
if I need to, you can hang through and we'll keep talking.
Likings are a sign that the pecan is the number one, that the conditions
are very humid and around it it maybe the pecans don't have a real great
edge cover to shade because lichens like to be in more sun, and so
as the tree is not real vigorous, you tend to see lichens. And
people think the lichens did that, but they came the cause of that,
not causing it. Right, the very first year we got picans out of
either one of them. Yeah, well, yeah, I would say,
you know, Steve, I would ignore it. That would be my suggestion.
If you want to spray for them. There's some copper based sprays that
you can get that you know would would kill the lichen. It takes a
while for it to shrivel and die and go away. But the lichen is
not hurting the tree. It's more of a sign that maybe you need to
do a little more weed control to give it a less competition, maybe a
little more watering in the heat of summer, just to keep that vigor on
the tree up. Okay, okay, sure, I appreciate it, sir.
All right, thanks for the call. Take care, yes, sir,
you as well. We're going to take a break right now if you'd
like to give us a call. Seven one three two one two KTRH.
Good morning, Good Saturday morning. You're listening to garden line. What do
we want to talk about today? Here's the number seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two on two fifty eight seventy four.
Talking about earlier. I's going to continue this today. Things to do
this time of year for spring. We'll just make that kind of a theme,
I guess if you will, of the day it is time to get
the woody ornamentals that you want to get planted planted. The sooner you do
it. The more time that plant has to develop roots to spread those roots
out into the soil, so when summer comes and it's coming, that plant
is more resilient and able to survive. It just makes it easier. You're
not having to worry so much about keeping the soul moisture just right. It
more and more has that resilience because it has a wide bank account of soil
that the roots have filled in order to draw water and nutrients. So now
now's the time to get it. If you're looking for a place to get
a quality tree planted in a quality proper way, well that would be a
Verdant tree farm. A Verdant tree farm. They got a couple of farms.
There's one out on Barker Cyprus and West Houston, and down in Parland
on Broadway Street there's another Verdant Tree Farm location there. Now we've known Verdant
as a place to get all of the best palms that really are the best
ones to plant here. But they're the place to get all kinds of trees,
a wide variety and if you need if you need instant posessed. They
got trees all the way up to like seven hundred gallons that they'll bring out
and plant when you hire them. Here's how it works. You go there.
In fact, you can go in there with a picture and say,
look at this yard, I'd like a little tree for over here, and
here's what I want. They can help you find the right tree. You
go out, you pick it out, you get to walk through and go
I want that one, just like you're getting a Christmas tree, and they'll
put a tag on it, they'll bring it to your house and they'll plant
it for you. And that you're not going to be better than that.
If you are a military first responder. There's ten percent discount that they offer
on that. The website is easy verdanttreefarm dot com, Verdant treeform dot com.
Give them a call and find the good tree. But remember, now's
the best time, so get a hold of them. A lot of people
are wanting trees planted at this time of the year. Go ahead and get
a hold of them and get scheduled to get that tree out to your place
and planted the proper way and with a little proper care this first season,
you'll be well on your way. When is the best time to plant a
tree? Fifty years ago? When's the second best time today. Don't delay
get that done. The goal I always see. The goal when I plant
a tree is how soon can I hang a hammock in it? Let's get
there quick. Well, I'm giving you tips for getting there quick. We're
going to go now to Jersey Village and talk to George. Hey, George,
good morning, Skip. How you're doing today? I'm well, sir,
How can I help? Good? Good? Now, I'm trying to
first time I ever tried planting, and I was curious, Enolf, I
want to eat them all year long? Do I do that like it would
like green vegetables? Plan them, cycle to plant them and then harvest and
plant them in harvest somewhere. Yeah, plan them all at once. Yeah,
good question, George, good question. The answers know about cycles.
You got two seasons for potatoes. One of them we put them in the
ground about now, and that means you buy the little potatoes. We call
them seed potatoes. Basically, we're going to take that potato, cut it
into sections with two eyes, roughly two eyes on each section, let it
sit in the air on newspaper or something for about two days or so to
just sort of seal that cut surface off and then plant it. The next
season is at the end of August, very end of August for a fall
crop. And if you take care of your potatoes, get them dug,
get them in a refrigerator cooled off. Those two seasons can pretty much keep
you in potatoes all through the year. They last a pretty good time once
their harvested under good storage conditions. All right, So where can I buy
those seed potato things? It's not their grocery store, yeah, I assume.
Yeah, you can get sea potatoes in a lot of places. Our
garden centers carry them. You know, you've got plantrel season. You got
arbigate down the street from you there. I just was talking about D and
D Feed out in Tumball that has their red, yellow and white sea potatoes
in as well. Just give these folks a call at one of those places,
because you want to make sure they still have a stock of them.
You know, sometimes you get a rush on things and they sell. But
I suspect all of those are going to have some sea potatoes for you.
What was that last one you mentioned? D and D Feed. It's out
there just west of Tumbull on twenty nine to twenty. Yeah, from you,
I would probably head up to Telgy Road and go north. That'll put
you right in the backyard of Arbigate and D and D feed. Oh fantastic,
skip you bet, George. Thanks for the call very much. I
was talking earlier about, you know, compounds that have nutrients for the soil
and whatnot. When it comes to fertilizing our lawns and gardens and everything else.
There's a wide variety of nutrients that are essential over twenty nutrients the plant
has to have to survive. And I mentioned this yesterday, but things you
never worry about, like manganese and molebdenum for example, in copper. I
mean, whoever puts copper fertilizer out right, Well, plants have to have
those nutrients to survive, but they only need a tiny, tiny amount.
You don't put too much. And asamite is a trace mineral supplement and when
you put it out, I generally will put it out about once a year.
It may be that you would put it out more often, but a
soil test would have to direct you on that. But asimite is going to
provide those kinds of nutrients, so you don't have to put it out.
When you quote fertilize. You could do it now, you can do it
anytime. But asimittexas dot com is a website if you only learn more about
it in a vegetable garden, which it's also good for vegetable gardens. I'd
put about ten pounds, oh about ten pounds on a thousand square feet of
garden. That's so it didn't take much, just a little bit, because
a very long way in a yard, maybe a forty four pound bag for
six to twelve thousand feet somewhere in there that would go. So give it
a try. As and MTE, I think that we often forget about our
trace minerals, but they are as important as anything, and you can get
as might in a lot of places. I was just mentioning Arburgate a second
ago, Arburgate Nursery. I'm sure they carry as might out there. I've
seen it out there before. And Arburgate is the kind of place where if
you've never been, you got to go. If you went before, you
need to go back because they're always doing something new at Arburgate. One of
the coolest things that has happened there in the last ten years is a new
parking lot out back behind the store. You just I don't care which way
you're coming down twenty nine to twenty from the east or the west. You
turn down Trischel Road. It's a big loop that goes around behind Arburgate and
you park back there and it's all weather, easy to get in, easy
to walk right into the nursery from there. It's it is. It is
really cool. I love going to Arburgate. Knowledgeable folks, good folks.
And when you're out there, ask them for their three to one two.
Excuse me, three one two, one two three. I got my numbers
all messed up. What is one? Two three? Well, one,
it's a food that feeds anything with roots. Number two it's or soil that
has expanded shale in it, which helps keep a clay open. And then
the compost is number three and that also has expanded shale. And so with
those three products you just have everything you need to set the plan up for
success. What's the rule in gardening? Brown stuff before green stuff? One
two three, we'll call that the brown stuff That all three of those get
the soil ready to set your plants up for success. Arburgate Nursery out there
in Tombole, go to the website, you know, follow them on on
social media. Lots of good information from those folks. Well, here goes
an hour in the books. We're going to be back in just a bit.
If you would like to give us a call, our phone number is
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. While we're closing
down this hour, I just want to remind you that for those of you
who love vegetable gardening, the annual, the thirty ninth Annual Fort Bend Regional
Vegetable Conference is February to eight. That's this Thursday out at the Fort Thing
County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas. Registration is forty bucks, which includes a
really good meal too by the way, for lunch, and a full day
of talks. You want to learn about ease and honey production. If you're
a commercial grower, you know, a small scale commercial grower, maybe wanting
to learn about marketing your produce, UH climate, drought, proper irrigation,
backyard gardening and alternative gardening techniques, how to build soil for better crops,
how to grow mushrooms. They expect that and a vegetable talk, but yep,
they're going to have one of those integrated pest management how to manage pests
more safely and find it all there. Here's the website Forkbend dot agrolife dot
org. This Thursday, Katie r H garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H
garden Line with Scape Richter. It's so crazy just watch him as world.
So many things to see about. Welcome back, Welcome back to guard Line.
There is a glow in the eastern sky. I always love the start
of a new day. Gardening. Every day is a new day. That
that is one of the cool things about gardening. I I talk to gardeners.
I talk to people that would I guess they I don't say they aren't
gardeners, but they want to be gardeners. They want to have success,
they want to try things out, and it's just like I don't know how
to do it. Everything I touch I kill. You know, those kinds
of statements, And it makes me sad because everybody can grow things. You
really can, you know. It's kind of like it's kind of like making
compost. You can. You can take longer doing it, you can get
it done faster. You can do a little better job, but you know,
if a leaf hits the ground, it's gonna decompose in time, so
you can't fail at making compost completely. Gardening is a new start every day.
Don't be afraid to mess it up. Don't be afraid. Just get
good information. That's one thing we try to provide on garden Line is good
guidance that's local, that is accurate for our area, to help you get
started, because we want you to have fun gardening. It is such a
good hobby that I don't think anybody should be afraid to try starting growing something.
And if you have problems, give us a call. We can answer
your questions. Be happy to do that. I'm continuing to put stuff on
the website just to make it easier and easier. We've got a lot of
new material coming out out there that you can go to and reference. I
send you to places all the time like Aggie Horticulture website for example, lots
of publications that are very helpful, that are free, that are for our
area, and that is very important. Well, I think you get the
idea. Another important thing is to get good quality plants, get things that
belong here, get things that want to go row here, and what's the
most important thing? Ding? Ding ding? What's the question of garden line?
We always say it brown stuff before green stuff. Right. Well,
for example, if you want to have success, you got to build the
soil first. That is like one oh one. It's not the only thing
that's important. It's not the only thing that's critical, but it is step
one. You got to build the soil. Well out of Warren's Southern gardens,
they had a new thing out there. If they did this before,
I wouldn't aware of it. But they now carry the supersacks of heirloom soils,
age leaf compost and the heirloom soils veggie and herb mix. So the
supersack is a cubic yard and you can go there. I mean they just
set it in the pickup or on the trailer or whatever. It just you
take the whole thing home. Instead of buying eight hundred bags, you just
get a big supersack, and you've got a very economical way to get a
lot of that material to your house because building a bed is important. Warrants
has a lot of other good things. By the way, they just got
in all the fruit trees, both citrus and other types of fruits. So
do you need lemons or limes or blood oranges or they even have an arbikuina
olive. They have several types of avocados, blueberries, peaches, all of
it out there. They also have a good selection of other things. They
got blackberries, for example. They've got even a raspberry out there at Warren's
Southern Gardens in Kingwood. Both Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center, they're
both open seven days a week. It's easy to find a time that you
can go buy and get stuff fits around your work schedule. And you know,
let me just say one other thing. When you're out there, you're
going to be able to get good advice. That is very important people that
know what they're talking about. That is Warrens. They even have the refill
stations for Microlife and Nelson plant Food. You know you buy with those little
jugs you've seen those the clear jugs, both those products. You can take
the empty jug back out, refill it and it's a more economical way to
get fertilized. Plus you're not thrown away all the plastic. But just another
one of the eight hundred reasons that if you are anywhere near Kingwood, you
need to go to Warrens. And if you haven't been to Warrens, well,
if you live halfway across town, you need to go check it out.
You'll find that it's very, very cool. We're going to go out
to Sea Lee now and talk to Francis. Hello Francis, Welcome to garden
Line. Hi Skip, good morning to you. How are you this morning?
Well, I'm doing great. It's spring is on the doorsteps, so
here we go. Yeah, my favorite time. I have a quick question
for you. I have a gorgeous, huge live oat tree in the backyard
that's probably thirty seven to forty years old and it's very special to me.
And about seven years ago it got struck by a huge bolt of lightning.
Okay, and at the base of the tree, the bark is starting to
come off. I actually was home when it happened and saw this, lots
of smoke pouring out at the base of the tree. Wow. The leaves
have done beautifully. The tree has done beautifully up until a few days ago.
I looked up at the upper limbs and I'm like, oh, what
is that? And it looks like white patches more of them than not,
and some of them are circular. So I was wondering if you could recommence
someone that could come out and look at my tree and see what's going on
with it. I certainly don't want to lose it. Yeah, very very
special. You're either saying it could be lichens. Lichens are generally not white.
They can be a light grayish color, or the worst announcement would be
that it's a mold growing on the tree due to the decay underneath. When
the bark dies, then you can get decay organisms all the way into the
inner wood. There's no living bark around the tree to protect it. And
then you see the white. That means there's rot, which means that limb
is getting weaker and you need to have somebody look at it. I would
call Martin Spoon Moore over at Affordable Tree. They're a go to guy for
all kinds of things trees. Martin, let me give it. You have
a piner pencil handy, I sure do, thank you, all right.
The phone number seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven
one three six nine nine two six sixty three, or go to the website.
It's a f F Tree service. Dot com, a f a aff
dot com. Talk to Martin uh and you know, do it soon.
Let him know you're a guardenline listener that gets you to the front of their
line, and just see what they can do. I think they will service
that far out. It may be that he can't go that far out,
but he'll tell you. But he's the one I would talk to. And
if he can't do it, he'll he'll, you know, suggest what he
thinks you ought to do from there. But that that is where I would
start. He's been doing this for thirty years here in the Houston area,
and you know, we without hesitation, we'll just send people to Martin.
That's fantastic. Well, I really appreciate your help and I love listening to
you. Thank you so much for what you do. And we'll just say
a prayer for that tree. All right, Thank you. Have fun.
Seeley's a beautiful little town out there. Love love going through Sealy. We
love it. It's full of wonderful people out here. We just really love
it. You've been there a long time, yeah, bout forty years.
Okay. There used to be a Richter's Buttercrust bread store out there. Yeah,
I happen to notice that that's got a nice nice name. Oh all
right, you take care, Francis. Do you take care too, skip,
and thank you so much you got bye bye. We're going to take
a little break here again the phone number seven one three two one two kt
RH. Welcome back to garden Line. We are glad to have you back.
And what are we going to talk about today? Well, it depends
on what you call about our phone number seven one three two and two five
eight seven four seven one three two and two fifty eight seventy four. We're
going to go out to talk to Joe this morning. Hello Joe, And
where are you calling from? Right now? The front seat of my car?
I drive Okay, okay, we'll try to make we'll try to make
recommendations appropriate to that area. Then okay, Well I'm in Beach City or
Traity by okay. Uh the freeze and a drought sort tore up my august
in the last couple of years, and I've had a real bad weed problem
and put out barricade in the fall, and uh, I plan on putting
it out again here shortly. Okay, but I I want to go back
with the commuters rat okay, and see that when would be a good time
to do that. You use the barricade in the fall, but you haven't
used it in the spring yet. Not yet, Okay, don't use it.
And here's why. It'll affect your bermuda seed. It stops weed seeds
from growing. And so wait until that bermuda is very well established before you
do the barricade. So right before you're going to plant bermuda, I would
wait till the weather warms up pretty good. I'd probably get into maybe maybe
mid April to put that bermuda seed down. And right before that you can
kill the weeds you got. You can rot a till over the area to
get everything down, plant the seed, get them up and growing, and
then just take care of the bermuda. Don't worry about the weeds right now.
And then once the bermuda is established, then we can start dealing with
the weeds. But that, yeah, the barricade lasts a while. It
gives you a good window of control, and not if you do it now,
it's going to affect your bermuda seeds that you're cutting out. Question,
I've got a bad clover bloom or clover patches Okay, can I can I
go ahead and put round up down to kill the clover? Well? You
could? Is this a big yard two acres? Yeah? Okay, so
I was going to say you could. You could just pull some up here
and there, but not on two acres. Uh yeah, any kind of
a spot treat you you don't have to use. You could use that product
you mentioned, but you could also just use a broad leaf weed killer.
There are a number of ones out there that our general broad leaf weed killers
brand ups can kill everything. So if you got grasses and broad leaves to
kill that, we would do that. But just for clover, you could
get you know, something like pur Loans got a weed free zone. I
believe, I believe that's theirs uh bowneye. We'd beat her. Ultra you
know, would would kill the clover too, but do it soon once it
starts blooming and setting seed. Those products don't work very well. Okay,
I appreciate it all right, sir, Thank you appreciate that call very very
much. You know, yeah, down that direction reminds me league city feed.
I was going to try to head out there yesterday and I got tied
up and wasn't able to go. But League City Feed is on Highway three
south. League City Feed just south of League City on Highway three, a
few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So any of you out in all
those areas around there, the Lamark, Dickenson, Santa Fe, Webster,
Lake City, League City, you know that whole area. This is your
feed store, your hometown feed store. Thunderbergs have been running the speed store
for three generations. It's that good old time feed store with good old time
service. They've got the fertilizers I talk about. They have a lot of
products for controlling pests, diseases with weeds, super high quality premium types of
pet food there, some of the horse supplies. You might need, products
for your backyard chicken. They've got it all there. League City Feed.
They're open Monday through Saturday. Nine to six. Are closed today, but
it's easy to find a time when nine to six. You head by there
on the way home from work. Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.
Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve on Highway three, just a
few blocks, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. We're gonna head
out now to Tomball and talk to Paul Hey Paul Hey Hey, good morning
morning. Yes, sir, hey, I have a question. I have
about a half acre that I planted of some wallflowers. Yes, and I
was curious. You know, over the winter, the winter weeds take over
and winter grass takes over, and I was wondering what could be used to
possibly kill the weeds without killing the wallflowers. You can't kill the broad leaf
weeds without killing the wildflowers, but you can kill the grass. Well that's
kind of what I thought. Yeah, he killed the grass weeds though,
and grasses are big competitors. But you know, in nature, nothing kills
nothing. The waldflowers just grow and and and so that's also an alternative do
nothing to it. But there are some grass only products that you can use
that will kill kill. Uh. There's yeah, a number of options,
you know, if you if you want to go back. Okay, alrighty,
well, I do appreciate it, all right, good luck with that.
I hope you, uh, I hope you enjoy your wildflowers. I
think it's one of the best things in the world to do, especially when
you've got you know, some piece of land, piece of property where you
can you know, do some just make it, make it beautiful. Oh
yeah, yeah, I think that's a that's a good idea that by the
way, if you decide to go for a uh weed control over the wildflowers,
and it's a pretty large area, right. Yes, Yes, there's
a product called ornamech or n A M And it's one of the two things
that's out there on the market the home garden market that will kill grass without
hurting broad leaves if you decide to go that route. Okay, okay,
thank you, all right, I do appreciate it. You bet. You
take care lots of lots of great wildflowers that we can grow around here.
I always enjoy getting a chance to do that. If you are looking for
a quality type of a potting soil for a potting mix, and a versatile
potting soil, in other words, one that you can amend as you wish.
Maybe maybe you want to go and grow some succulents or some cacti,
so you want to add some grit to a mix to go that direction.
You can do that with Landscaper's Pride. It's their forty pound potting soil and
it's fine to use just as is. It's very budget friendly, but it
is fully customizable. You know, it's got the aged pine bark and sand
and various blended organics in it. But I also use it. You can
use it as a weed, I mean a weed, a seed start.
If you're going to start some transplants indoors. It's just fine for that.
It's one of the many products twenty seven different bag products from the folks at
Landscaper's Pride. UH. If you want to find where to get at number
one. Their products are widely available, but you can go to Landscaperspride dot
com. Landscaperspride dot com. They've been in business since two thousand and two.
Now it's over twenty years of experience, their local and their top quality.
So give them get give them a check out there on Landscaperspride dot com
and see some of the things that they have to offer. Many other really
good, high quality products. You're listening to the garden Line. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. What do you want to talk about
today? I'm talking about UH, it's the time to get ready for spring.
It is the time we talked about the importance of planning, what are
you ornamentals? Uh? And also in that group of what are you ornamentals
or roses? Now, roses are the queen of the landscape. I mean,
you know, it's just it's just a bloom that is iconic. People
love roses. Valentine's Days coming, by the way, be a good time
to get some roses. Right well. RCW Nursery has one of the most
extensive rose lists I've ever seen. I ask them to send me a rose
list a good while back, and it was like, I don't know how
many pages of roses that they had, but it was like single space,
you know, regular size font Oh my gosh, it was like six pages
or something of roses. It was a lot. Let me say that specifically.
Quantity wise, we would classify it as a lot. I think it's
five pages of roses. They can get you set up there. They got
all the products you need to to plant those bushes. By the way,
they carry the fertilizers I recommend on guardenline. They have a extensive selection of
trees and shrubs and annuals, perennials and vegetables and all the other things you
can imagine. Right now, I just want to talk about the fact that
they are stocked up on roses. I was by there a while back.
They were potting them all up, getting things ready to go, and I
mean the place was covered in roses. Where is RCW. It's the garden
center that's there where two forty nine Tomball Parkway comes into belt Way eight.
It's real easy to find. You can go to RCW Nurseries dot com RCW
nurseries dot com to find out more. But hey, Valentine's on the way.
You can't get a better gift than a rosebush or Valentine's Day, because
that gift is not just giving them a vase of flowers on Valentine's Day,
which you know flowers are always way overpriced for Valentine's Day. It's given them
flowers year after year after year with that one gift of a rosebush. I
don't know. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.
Seems like a good plan to me. Well, let's see here we are
discussing things that we can do at this time to get ready for spring.
If you are dealing with problems in your landscape, this is a good time
to get those things diagnosed to find out what's going on. You can go
to our good mom and pop garden centers and say, you know, hey,
here's a leaf, here's a plant, here's a weed, whatever,
what can we do about it? And they can guide you. They can
guide you in that, and then when you know what you need, just
go to ACE Hardware and they're going to have everything from insect control, disease
control, weed control. ACE Hardware has got it. I was out the
ACE up and porter this week and just looking at all the supplies that Jeff
had up there at Jnr's Ace. I'm telling you the it always surprises me.
In fact, I put a Facebook post in of the barbecue area.
If you want a high quality barber, keep it things like Traeger and Big
Greenick. They've got that and a bazillion accessories that you need. If you
just want bling for the house, you know, home decorations and whatnot,
they've got You had to picture of that too when I was up there.
If you have problems with the irrigation system you need to replace a broken head
or something, they've got all the plumbing parts to fix your sprinkler system.
ACE is set up for everything. ACE is a place for you fill in
the blank. Go to acehrdware dot com find the store locator and it's not
going to be hard to find out one of the forty stores in the Greater
Houston area, to find one that is very close to you. That yeah,
I mean that is so handy to know the company and know that there's
one of those really close by. And each is independently owned. You know,
this isn't like this giant centrally controlled chain. This is like each store
there's a personal, local owner who's taking care of you. That's why you
get that kind of service and that kind of attention, and that's why each
store is unique in its own way. It's time for a break. Here's
the number seven one three two one two kt r H and here's Nikky.
Welcome back to Garden Line. We are talking about getting ready for spring today
because it is time. I mean it is time. What did we do
well? We build the soil. That's important. Absolutely anything you're gonna plant,
you're gonna put in flowers, you can put in shrubs, you're gonna
plant a vegetable garden or herbs, You've got to fix the soil first.
Even areas where you can't get in and rototill the soil like a lawn.
We do add the nutrients we need. We had things like the azumite for
the for the trace elements. And when soil gets compacted in areas, especially
our heavy clay soils that we deal with, we can do deep time aeration.
I wouldn't do that right at this moment, that it's better to do
that when the grass is actively growing, but we can do that. We
can do compost top dressing with a leaf more compost on our launch. There's
a lot of activities that are all centered around the soil because the soil is
the foundation for success and when the roots are happy and thriving, the plant
is happy. Add sunlight to the top and you've got success. That's kind
of how it works. Good root zone care. That is what proper gardening,
successful gardening is all about. It's important to be able to do that.
You know I mentioned things to do to the soil like that in the
lawn. Well, you know, the folks at Greenpro they're set up for
that kind of thing. Green Pro they can come out and they can do
deep tenneration. Greenpro can come out and do compass top dressing or maybe you're
needing to just level the area out a little bit. You do a little
sand top dressing over the lawn, a little top soil. Green Pro can
come out and they can do that sort of thing too. Now it's easy
to get a hold of them, just go to the website. It's greenpro
dot net. Greenpro dot Net. That is the key to success with the
lawn that has been struggling. Last summer took its toe on a lot of
lawns and as we get going this year, we're gonna have to rebuild,
rebuild those areas and deep time aerration and core aeration specifically and compost top dressing
is important. Now what do we mean by core aeration, Well, you
can rent little aerrator machines you pull behind that just sort of squeeze a hole
into the soil, kind of like you took a a dow and just shoved
it down in the soil. What that does, though, is that presses
the hole open and you end up with a little bit of a compaction around
the sides of that hole. It's better to have a core, a hollow
core aerrator and that's what green Pro uses. Go down in the soil and
pull a plug out and leave that plug on the surface. It looks like
you had a little dog convention all over the lawn. At the top that
soil, those little cores will melt away. Now you have open holes where
organic matter can fall in there, your fertilizer and your moisture, your better
water infiltration, and the lawn is just better able to thrive. And that's
what green pro does. Again, if you want to get a hold of
them greenpro dot net. Even if you call them and get on the schedule,
you know, so you're ready to go whenever the warm season hits and
things are warming up a little bit. We'll go ahead and do that now.
And the phone number is two eight one three five one forty seven thirty
three two eight one three five one green that's right, g r ee and
some people like the dial by letters. Well there you go. We're gonna
go now to South Houston and talk to Parker. Hey Parker, Hey,
good morning, good morning. I want to thank you for the tip yesterday.
I'm purchased the twenty three bags of fine needles from my neighbor. Oh
all right, all right, so this is a neighbor kid, right,
yes, sir, yes, so your up in. A little hard working
kid make a liven there you go, Well, he couldn't find a paper
route. How's that? Hey, it's a good cause to rake pine needles.
Yes, and I put an order in for this summer for another twenty
bags if he can get them. So there you go. Sure he'll go
to hustleing all. My question is about tomato pruning. When they're growing the
suckers, do you remove them or leave them? You remove them. Now,
there's two ways to go about it. One, not many people's steak
tomatoes anymore, but if you did grow a steaked tomato, you remove every
sucker and just let the main stem come up the steak and set a cluster
titus at each leap. Most yeah, cages is what most people do.
And so there I would remove the first, you know, two or three
suckers, and then as they begin to grow, remove a sucker here and
there as you go. Because a tomato vine left unsuckered will fill that cage
so down that air can't get through there. You can't see inside there.
It's easier for pests and diseases to build up. And so you don't keep
suckering a tomato removing all the suckers in a cage. But start off with
a few sucker removal and then as they grow, don't be afraid to do
some more removing because they're going to grow way more shoots than you need,
Okay, And planting them, plant them as deep as possible up to the
top canopy. Yeah, you can do that. I mean, you know,
people talk about laying a tomatover in a trench. If I've got a
real long, lanky tomato, I will definitely lay it over in the trench
bury the stem, but I prefer lay it sideways because getting those roots up
within the maybe three inches of the surface, they'll develop roots all along that
stem very well and that highly oxygenated soil up near the surface. And that's
a technique. But I've also planted them where I just planted them. You
know, if they're not long and lanky, you don't have to lay a
tomato down. Late in the summer, when they get a little bit lanky
and stuff like that, I'll go ahead and lay them down and they will
rerout alone along the steem. Like you said, sometimes you get sprouts and
new tomatoes for their next crop. So yeah, you can and that that
is a technique. I've there's a thing called uh or they just called layering,
and you bend to stem down, go underneath the soil, cover it
with soil, or just put it pin to the soil if it's a tomato
soup, and then cut it off from the monoplant and you're you're back in
business. Okay, yeah, got you got you. And and my pepper
plants have survived. They did get some freeze damage, and I trimmed off
all that freeze damage and I'm hoping I'll get some green sprouts here if it
warms up the next couple of weeks. Well good, well good. What
kind of peppers you're growing? I've got about five or six different varieties.
Oh okay, mostly mostly halopenias. It's more than I can eat, but
there you go. I do have hobnaro in Tabasco. And oh my gosh,
you need to keep that mulch water so it doesn't catch on fire.
That that's a lot of heat in the garden. Oh sheah, okay,
the pine the pine needles water, Yeah, keep them water. You know
those hobb and arrows are so hot they'll catch the multi Yeah yeah, yeah,
I tried to grow the ghost. Yeah, and I did one one
year. I got like three peppers. Could need them. That's a deadly
weapon. That is a deadly weapon. Yeah, gosh, thank you a
fine job and appreciate it. Thank you Parker. Appreciate the call. Now
for all you listening, that was a joke. Hobb and narrow peppers will
not catch the mulch on fire. It was just a joke. I always
have to be careful because there's going to be somebody who who you know,
thinks you can't plan hot peppers or your start a fire. You start a
fire in your mouth, that's for sure. Now I'm a wimp. I'm
not like Parker. I I can't take the heat. I have four different
varieties of almost heatless jlopenias i'm growing this year, along with a couple of
hot ones. I do like those. I also have a hobby narrow that's
almost heatless. It's called hobban nada. Good word, habban nada, no
heat, but almost no heat. Hey, we're going to take a break
seven one three two one two k t r H. Maybe we'll talk about
peppers more when we come back. Welcome back to Guardenline. What are we
going to talk about today, you tell me I'm gonna I know what I'm
gonna talk about is things to do for spring, getting ready for spring.
But if you'd like to ask a question seven one three two one two k
t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H.
I want to remind you that if you are going to be, you know,
out taking care of the lawn, doing fertilizing and stuff, it's always
good to start with a soil test. And if you want to know an
easy way, just a simple, simple, just give me the basics.
How do I take a soil test? Where do I send it? How
do I do that? I just created a new little flyer up there on
the website Gardening with Skip dot org dot com. Excuse me, Gardening with
Skip dot com, and it's called soul Testing made Easy, and that's all
it is. You can print it out and read it online, do whatever
you want with it. But it's up there. It's the newest publication we
have up there. And while you're there you can print out the lawn schedule,
the lawn care schedule, as well as the lawn pest disease and weed
management schedule. Two schedules that kind of tell you whatever you need to know
in order to have success with those. If you would like to give us
a call at seven one three two one two k t RH, we will
be glad to tackle your questions. The folks that Nelson have come up with
a really cool new product that is the Nutristar Genesis Transplant Mix. So what
is that. That's a six one three fertilizer six one three fertilizer. It's
loaded with beneficial bacteria with indo and ectomycorrhizo fungi. Those are the ones that
help the roots take up nutrients better. It's got humates in it to help
condition the soil and it has other nutrients as well in that product, the
six' one three Nutristar Genesis Transplant. So it enhances the biology of your
soil. Now here's what you use it for. You've got some plants.
Maybe you're growing little seedlings like tomato seedlings for planting out, and you're going
to bump them up to a four inch pod or a gallum pot. Eventually
you just mix it into the transplant mix to enhance, to supercharge that mix
and make it even better for roots. You've got a rosebush that you're going
to pot up and put in a big container. Any kind of a sol
mix that you are going to be transplanting into, you can add the nutri
Star Genesis transplant mix to it to just make it do better. Now it's
available in the little jars that you see, and you're going to find it
everywhere else that you find Nelson Plant Food Materials, which is widespread availability here
in the Greater Houston area. I think you ought to give that one to
try. I think you'll find that it is very helpful and it does that
thing that we talk about, and that is making the soil better and better
for root systems. Good soil equals happy roots. Throw in a little bit
of sunshine on the leaves and you got a happy plant. That's kind of
how that works. We're glad you're listening. And I wanted to talk a
little more about some things to do that are connected to this spring season that
we're about to enter into. That is important. I mentioned the importance of
planting, getting in shrubs, getting things like that done. This would be
the time if you're going to get your lawn more sharpened, I would do
it. And a sharp blade actually makes a greener lawn. And the reason
is that when you create a ragged cut, you got a dull blade and
it's just ripping the ends of the grass blades off. You get this little
tan section at the end where it's the shredded blade end. Multiply that little
ten quarter inch times of bazillion leaf blades and the whole green color is less
in your lawn. It's like pixelated, if you will, with low brown
pixels. When you have a sharp blade, that little ten section at the
tip is very narrow, and as a result, your lawn just looks greener.
So you probably haven't thought about that, but a sharp moor blade creates
a greener lawn. That's how that works. It's easier and your mower too.
Just another tip and getting ready for that. If you've not been to
Moss Nursery down in Seabrook, I was just down there a while back,
and you know it never disappoints Moss Nursery is it's get this eight acres.
You're wandering through eight acres of gardener's paradise, every kind of plant you've seen.
I've never seen so much pottery in one nursery in my life as I
have at Moss Nursery. And the fun part is as you're walking through,
you know, the habit like a wooden Africa mask, a mineral specimen sitting
out there, taxidermy mounds, old swords. I mean, it's just it's
just a cool environment to walk through. Uh And my my personal favorite part
right now is their house plant house. Now at Mos you're going to have
every kind of plant you can imagine. They got everything you need, but
you will not find a collection of house plants is huge and cool is what
they have done at Moss Nursery and Seabrook. Do you like succulents? Oh
my goodness, they got string of everything's They have every kind of thing from
you know, alo to cactus to you know, like I said, string
of wide verie. Do you like the more tropicals, you know, like
aglinema and vicuses and things that you've never heard of. I promise you you
walk in that greenhouse, you are going to see a number of plants.
I don't care what kind of plant enthusiasts you are, You're going to go
what the heck is that I've never seen one of those? That's Moss Nursery.
It's easy to try and website, and that'll tell you where to go.
It's on Toadville Road, by the way, our Toddville Road down there
in Seabrook mos nursery dot com, m a a s nursery dot com.
I need to get back down there. My wife is wanting to get another
string of plants, and that is the place I just need to take her
to go. A couple of my daughters went down there a while back with
me and did the same kind of thing. Let's head to sugar Land and
we're going to talk to Michael. Hello, Michael hold on doing well,
sir? What's up today? Well, my wonderful wife has gone out and
bought a plethora of vegetables. Okay, a raised garden dead, I've got
deal, I've got faith, well, I've got oregano. I need your
advice on when I should put this stuff in the ground. And if you
can give me a little bit of advice of what type of soil of using
that garden there, Yeah, I would, I would use a veggiemex.
You know you're down there in the Sugarland area, You're gonna find heirloom soils.
You're gonna be able to find that I just went blank. Southwest fertilizer.
I couldn't say the words. They're gonna be real close to if you
ont to had the other way. You got in Chenny Forest and Jenny Gardens.
They're gonna have them there. But they have a veggie garden mix that
works really really well for that. In fact, I just got a bunch
of it the other day. I'm taking home to put in a big raised
bed myself, and so I would do that. It just drains well,
it holds water and nutrients well. It's good for the roots. As far
as planning time, Michael, hold off on the deal a little bit.
Let's get a little bit warmer before you put the deal in the ground.
They're reguno. You could put out now. You may want to cover it
up. If we do get a frosty night, it'll survive the frost,
but you know, you just don't want it to get set back. I've
got a couple other things I've got. She's went nuts on this. I've
got peas, I've got beans, squashed, cucumbers and peppers. Okay,
peas. Now, definitely hold off on the squash, cucumbers and peppers.
Let's get past this. Last danger of frost. You know, we get
into March and it starts, it starts to be a little bit, a
little bit safer if you put them out early, just be ready to cover
them up. And those cold frosty nights, they're not real crazy about the
chilly nights. We will still have a number of them. And I bet
we have another frost for freeze. Great skip, Thank you so much.
All right, have a great day. All right, sounds it's good things.
She went crazy on plants because you guys are going to eat well this
year, good healthy food. Thanks sir. You take care. Yeah,
I love I love gardening enthusiasm. Listen, I under my lights. I
grew all these plants and flats and it fit under the lights. Then it
became time to bump them up. What does that mean? Was that of
a little six pack sized plant? Sell? It goes to four inch?
Oh my goodness, Now what am I going to do? Number one?
I'm about to order a new light just for that. And number two,
they go outside a little bit during the day and we managed to get by.
But oh, it's so much fun to get out in garden. It
is just fun. And listen, if you're listening to this show, and
you don't have a vegetable garden, but you would like to grow something you
can eat, get you some containers and do that this year. It's easy
to do. I mean, if you want to go, there's a wide
spectrum from You get a five gallon bucket, drill a bunch of quarter inch
holes in the bottom, fill it full of a quality mix, you know,
veggie growing top mix, and plant in it and you can grow almost
anything. You know, tomato. I like to go bigger than five gallon
because that's a big plant needs a little more soort. But anyway, you
can grow peppers in them. I've grown like three kale plants and a five
gallon bucket before and just harvested the kale leaves as they were coming along.
Works really well. Or you can get you a nice bigger container that's even
better. One of these grow bags. Grow bags work really well, kind
of a felt type bag that you grow in. You can go all out
and buy the most expensive, beautiful glazed pottery in the world and grow vegetables
in it. Listen, plants don't care what they're growing in. You can't
embarrass a plant by the pot that I'm telling you, if you want to
grow them in an old toilet with holes drilled in the bottom, it will
not embarrass the plant. That's what a friend of mine, Felder Rushing says.
Mississippi plants just want sol volume, quality, soil, good drainage and
nutrients. Beyond that, throw them in what you want. I grow mine
in wheelbarrows. We'll be right back. Kt RH Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt
r H Garden Line with skin ricter. It's so trim. Just watch as
so many got a taste the soup. Hottazes a sad welcome back to garden
Line. On look outside. Is this a beautiful day or what I mean?
Check out the sunshine, the clear skies. Oh my goodness, this
afternoon would be a good time to get out. Get some supplies. Get
ready to go, get some soil mix, get the fertilizers you're going to
need, any kind of products you need to get go in this spring.
We've been talking about them all day. Well now it's a good time to
go. Do that. Go visit a garden center, check them out.
Just get outside and if you're if you're planting, there's some things that are
real timely right now. For example, if you're going to put if you
want to grow potatoes, you know you can grow your own potatoes. If
you like, you can do that. Well, now it's time to get
those things purchased. Cut the potatoes up two eyes on each seed piece.
That's a good, good average amount, and give them a couple of days
to dry off that surface and get them in the ground. It is time.
We're visiting a while ago, just a minute ago with Parker, and
you know that he mentioned his wife had peas, and the peas can go
into ground. Now I forgot to mention that to him. But peas like
English peas, snow peas, and sugar snap type pieas, sugar edible potted
peas, sugar snap type piece, those can go in the ground. Now
if you haven't bought them, and you're hearing that and going ooh, I'd
like to grow some of those. Look for varieties that reach harvest in about
fifty five to sixty five days. Some were in there. If you can
find something in the fifty five to sixty five range, that will be good
because we've got to get them in the ground. We want to protect them
when we're going to have a freeze, a hard freeze. But you want
them to hurry up and get that product available to that harvest available so that
you don't have hot, hot weather in there to ripen their pod. That
is not a good thing. They do not like hot weather. So sooner
is better than later on those types of things. If you are looking for
a good place to get you all of those kinds of supplies. By the
way, RCW Nursery is always a good place to do that. We talked
about them earlier, but they're always going to have supplies of everything you need.
And if you haven't been to RCW, just remember that's the nursery where
Highway two forty nine Tomoil Parkway comes into belt Wagh eight. You're going to
find everything you need there. You can go to RCW nurseriesplural dot com and
that's how you find more about them. I mentioned you know the other day
that when you're wanting to plant fruit trees, late winter is the best time
to get them in. Now, you can plant fruit any month of the
year. You can get by with that, but it is also a plant
that has got to develop a root system to get through this first summer,
so getting it done soon is important. Our garden centers are beginning to get
the stock in things like deciduous fruits, the traditional fruits citrus for example,
coming in, so don't delay if you want to make sure you get good
selection. Go ahead and buy the plant when you can get it, and
bring it home and just take care of it a little bit until you get
the spot ready. Don't stick it in a poorly drained site. Fruit needs
sunlight and fruit needs excellent drainage to do well. So if that means you
need to get a bunch of soil and bring it in and make a raised
mound, then do that because you definitely want to make sure that it is
in the best well drained, sunny spot that you can give it for to
have the best success with that. Speaking of a soil mixes, Heirloom Soils,
you need to listen to this one. Heirloom Soils is offering their cocktail
mix. Again. What is the cocktail mix A It's a blend of some
of the best soil packages that they have at Erlom Soil. You're going to
get leaf more compos there's h pine bark, there's cocoa coar, there's shale
pearlites, you mate sands, worm castings, molasses, micro rise, a
biochar. I mean, it's it's the who's who of soil ingredients all put
together in one mix. And here's the deal. And you are never going
to find a better deal than this seventy five dollars a yard. Now they
have a limited amount of the cocktail mix, so don't wait and expect it
to be around three months from now. Just go ahead and move on it
now if you'd like to do it, because you're not going to find a
better price than that. Now. It's available in bulk. There's not a
bad product. It's available in bulk, and you have to go pick it
up or have them deliver it. If you're going to pick it up,
it's Warren's Rock and Mulch and Porter. Just head up sixty nine and past
Kingwood and when you get to Porter, it's gonna be on the right hand
side right there, and it's a seventy five for bulk. If you want
a supersack, it's one hundred and four. That's the qubic yard that has
been put in a sack where it's real, neat, clean and easy to
do, so very important to do that. Now. They also have the
works potting soil and they're shipping this out. Our garden centers are colling them
and saying hey, we need it, and they are shipping it out all
this week and next week two in places like allspose up in the woodlands,
you know, Ace Hardborough Memorial Drive, Kingwood Garden Center is going to have
it. Warren Southern Gardens is going to have it out out there in Brookshire
for those of you out west Nelson Water Garden not in Brokshire. They're getting
shipments of the works potting soil and other other stuff from the heirloom soils as
well plants for all seasons. They're going to have a number of different products
from them, mid Kenny Feed and Neederland Huntsville Farm Supply for those of you,
Hey shout out to Huntsville way up north, all of that heirloom soil
sources. But the cocktail mix man. What a special deal. And only
now get it done because somebody else is going to buy your cubic yard and
if you're going to make a garden bed for vegetables or flowers, I mean
it has a wide variety of uses because it's got all the good stuff put
together in one. 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. Uh. If you have slab foundation problems, now,
how do you know? Well, you got cracks on the sheet rock
inside, maybe going across the ceiling, maybe going up a wall. Typically
you look over where there's a window. In the corner of the window,
there's this little spidering crack going down to the ground outside. Is there crack
in the brick? Are you seeing cracks in your foundation themselves? Or maybe
your driveway, your sidewalk? Fix my slab foundation repair. That's Tye Trickland's
business. Now. Tie's been doing this for twenty three years and he knows
what he's doing. They give free estimates for garden Line listeners. So how
do you get a hold of him? Here's a number two eight one two
five five forty nine forty nine two eight one two five five forty nine forty
nine, or go to his website at fixmyslab dot com. Listen. Ty
is committed to several things. Number one, he shows up on time.
Number two, he gives you a fair price. And number three, when
he fixes it, he fixes it right. Fix my slab foundation repair fixmslab
dot com. We're going to go now to Northwest Houston and talk. Oh
my goodness, hold on just a second. I was jumping the gun.
It's time for a break, Ralph. When we come back, you are
first up. If you'd like to give us a call. Seven one three
two one two KTRH. Welcome back to Guardline. Glad you're listening today,
and we are now going to go talk to Ralph in Northwest Houston. Hey,
Ralph, good morning. I'm great to have you on my program.
Okay, yeah, I have. I've been here forever. You know.
I'm ninety years old, but I'm out there. My garden is good and
good, but I lost some of my grass is down and I just don't
know whether it's gonna come back up. I'll call Mama Saint Augustine in the
front. I didn't get enough water on it, and I want to know
water, but I got other other questions yet. Yeah. Okay, well,
how can we help today? Okay? I want to know what's to
do in my yard, and my garden is good, governenty gown good.
But I just uh this don't know about uh, I got all I gotta
get too much going on, I guess okay, But anyway, I'm gonna
do my garden up. I just want to brag on you. I guess.
Well, that's kind of you, Ralph. I would I would just
make sure and that you get some fertilizer down on your lawn. Uh.
You can do an early green up if you want. It's on my online
schedule, or you could just wait and after you start mowing the lawn,
put down a quality fertilizer one of the ones we talk about here on guarden
Line, one of the ones on my schedule, and we can then see
those nutrients start to wake that get that grass growing when it's trying to wake
up and looking for nutrients. That that would be the most important thing.
And right after that would be then making sure it's mode as often as you
can, because every time you mow it, it gets denser and denser.
Okay, I got another question. I got my pecan trees or overloaded with
pecans? Is it's been a crazy year for my all my trees and everything
anything. I can Some of them are good, but some are them more
good? Can I do anything with them? I got a two big trees.
They come down and they are producing for you though, right, you're
getting some production. Yes, okay, well that's a long time. I've
been here a long time. Yeah, yeah, okay, Well just again,
pecans need some vigor to produce well. So they also benefit from fertilizing
things you do to keep the competition down underneath them, you know, just
keeping the grass down. If they're big trees, there's no multing around them.
If they're young trees, mult helps them grow faster. But once they're
established, that's not that important. But getting a good quality, just treat
them like you would your lawn. You can use the same fertilizer on lawns
on your pecan trees. Okay, but I've over got there, all these
old pecans. Anything you can, I can't. I got to compose in
my bag in the back. But did you just throw them away? Oh
you're talking about the pecan nuts. Yeah, nuts, it's oh well,
I mean, you know, you can throw them out as a malt on
the ground underneath plants. You can grind them up if you have a grinder.
But it's a shame and that's a big and they cropped this year on
my ag trees. I got in my howls. It was am doing really
good and all all my other trees and I yes, I just nothing as
you can do. Just that's just what it is. Yeah, just throw
them out on the ground as a malts. That'd be just fine. But
good luck with those. And hey, Ralph, thank you so much for
calling. I appreciate that. And good luck with those because they like your
program. You're the best. Thank you, Thank you, sir. I
appreciate that very much. If you are in the Tomball direction, that would
be plants for all seasons. On Highway to forty nine. I'm talking about
you're going up to forty nine, you cross over the exit for Luetta and
go off to the right there and just past Luetta, it's plants for all
seasons. Now, I know a lot of people already know that very popular
in that area. That people know, they love it. They know when
they go there they're going to get good service. That's why they go back.
I was like going by myself off visiting with Sherry and the rest of
the Flowery family and the folks they have there. It's just a quality group.
They know what they're talking about. They give good advice, they carry
good plants. They are happy to provide service after the sale, and that's
all you can ask for in a garden center. There's a reason they've been
around since nineteen seventy three, and it's because people love to go back to
Plants for All seasons. The websites Plants for All Seasons dot com. The
phone number write this down two eight one three seven six sixteen forty six two
eight one three seven six one six for six. I had to get my
brain straight there. Listen. If you are a green thumb, you already
know about plants for all seasons. If you're a brown thumb and you want
to see it turned green, you need to visit Plants for All Seasons again
right there, just north of Luetta on Highway to forty nine. I love
visiting the place myself. Where are we going to go now? I believe
we are going to head to the the Galleria area and talk to Chip.
Hello, Chip, Hey, good morning, good morning, love this show.
Hey, can you replete please? The soil place that you said was
north of oh An importer it's in Porter. It's called the soil place is
called Warren's Rock and Mulch. That's a soil yard in Porter and woul.
Do you have a phone number for them? I do that you can call
them. I believe eight three to two, two to one zero seventy nine
zero eight. That's the number I have. Yeah, I generally don't call
it there the perfect perfect, but there they're in Porter. Because that cocktail
mix that you describe sounded wonderful. It is wonderful in that building a raised
bed garden for my mom's house. And there you go. You know,
it all starts, It all starts with the soil. Can you give me
the address one more time up in Porter? Let me see here. Let
me fucking click on here and get the actual address. They're on US fifty
nine, the numbers twenty three nine US fifty nine Importer. Here. I'll
make it real easy. You just go to Porter and you pull off.
Just go to Porter and you pull off. There you exit. I guess
the exit would be for FM thirteen fourteen. Yeah, it's the big main
main cross street Importer. But before you get to that, though, there's
a tractor supply right close to there. Yeah, perfect, all right,
I'm gonna swing by. Thank you sir for show you bet you take care
appreciate that call. All right, Well, let's see I had Charles.
I believe we lost Charles. If if you'd like to call back, we
can get you back on there. We lost you. There'd be happy to
visit with you about all those things. Hey. Micro Life fertilizers widespread,
wide, known known. They've been a leader in the organic fertilizer and organic
products in general really for a very very long time. And they have a
product called Humates Plus. It's a zero zero four and I'm suggesting that you
put that down on your soils now. It doesn't matter if it's your lawn,
it doesn't matter if it's a flower better or garden soil. Humates help
improve the soil. They're the final decomposition stage of organic matter. You know,
we have dry leaves and grass clippings and animal manure things like that.
That's organic matter that decomposes into compost, and then compost decomposes fully all the
way into something called humate. And Humates plus has a good little concentration of
potassium in it. But most importantly it's got the soil structure building capabilities,
and it is loaded with thirty plus different kinds of microbial activity organisms and it's
got like ninety strains totally many strains of all those organisms. You know,
you may have a Bacillis, which is a bacteria, and there's a lot
of great Bacillus for the soil, and there may be number of strains of
Bacillus and they've got that all packed into that one product, Microlife Humates plus
zero zebra four. It is a purplish, dark blue, purplish bag.
And you just need to try it. You need to use it, because
I'll tell you this, you will see the results. Now. Anytime you're
building soil organically, it's not like you just put something down and it's all
over and everything changes overnight. It's a gradual process like nature does. Nature
builds soil over time, but over time it builds the best soil you can
have. And that's what we're going for in an organic system is to build
that soil and grow ourselves out of and create a healthy root zone environment,
grow ourselves out of the problems that we deal with. And it just it
happens in time. You stay faithful to it, you stay with it,
we'll see those kind of results. I've talked about today a lot about what
to do. It's time for spring. Here we are. What are the
things that we need to be getting done at this point in time. If
you purchase something like tomatoes or peppers or eggplant, just know that it's a
little early to put them out now. I often do put them out early
like this because I know I'll cover them up and i'll protect them and i'll
get them through. I don't think we're through with frosts and freezes yet,
but I'll go ahead and purchase them, and myself, I'll plan them and
just have the covers over them. But if you want, you can purchase
them and just bump them up to a bigger container, have them out in
the sun during the day. If it's a night that's going to drop down,
you know, fifty degrees, and go ahead and bring them in for
that night. But get them out there and a bigger container. You'll get
them growing. Next thing. You know, those things will be blooming and
even setting fruit. And then when you put them out, you've got that
head start. You didn't start off with that little small plant. Now you've
got a bigger plant than when you feel like the coast is clear and it's
safe. You got to do a roll of the dice to know. But
you can put them right out and do that, and that makes it makes
it real easy and get you can get those plants, by the way,
all kinds of plants. If you're up in the Montgomery area at A and
A A and A Plants and Produce Ana is on the east side of Montgomery
off right off one O five. There you've seen it every time you drive
by, especially those of you who live up in the Lake Conroe area,
all the neighborhoods around Lake Conroe. It's your backyard garden center. They've been
there for thirty years and I've watched them over thirty years. There was a
time when I was keunty extend an agent in Conroe, and I've seen an
a grow over the decades, and it is it is a cool place.
You've got, you know, three acres to wander through looking at trees and
shrubs and fruit and berries and vegetables and herbs and boogainvillias and succulents and roses
and palm trees. And do you get the idea what I'm talking about annual
flowers seven days a week, nine to five. What a great idea for
this afternoon. Run by an a plants and produce. While you're out there,
you're gonna find Chimenea's and metal yard art, and Tallavera and Trellis's gazebos
and Topiari's and wemsicle yard art. I like that, wemsicle. That's a
fun way. It's fun to say wemsicle. Yeah, that's cool. They've
got it all there. If you've ever been to Ana, you know what
I'm talking about. If you haven't been, go this afternoon. It's good
time to go buy there and see that. Welcome back to guard Line.
Good to have you today. Our phone number if you'd like to give us
call. Maybe you got a question seven one three two one two k t
r H. Let's head out to Kingwood and talk to Lena. Hello,
Lena, Hello, thank you for taking my call. Yes, okay,
I have three quick questions. The grapevine that's wrapped around all the trees.
Okay, how do you get rid of that? You just have to cut
it off like up pie in the branches or at the base. No,
cut it off the base and everything above that dies when you cut it off.
Just you can make two cuts, take a little section out, but
just you want to cut it. Once you sever it, then the top
will all be dead. Now the roots will then re sprout or the base
will re sprout. So right when you cut it right away. Get a
product that contains tri cloap here t R I C l O P y R.
It may be sold. The label may say something about killing poison ivy
or killing brush or whatever. It's a home garden shelf thing. Try clopp
heer a good garden center like Kingwo Garden Center or Warren Southern Garden. They
can direct you to it on the shelf. And you want to take a
little spongebrush like you would do for painting, those little tiny sponges on a
stick, and just dab that product straight out of the container onto the cut
surface. And you don't have to spray it. You don't have to mix
it up in a sprayer. You just dab it right on the freshly cut
surface and it soaks in and it will kill that vine. It will not
re sprout, and it won't hurt anything around it if you just get it
on that fresh cut surface. So I just add literally you're putting like a
teaspoon of it out. Okay, I've got a lot of it to do,
so well, that's the fast way because you're not having to dig.
You can dig it up. But if it's grown around the base of a
tree, digging it as a nightmare. Yeah. And then it hangs from
the top of the trees. Yeah, well it'll it'll it'll dry and die
and you know, eventually wrought out. I mean you can once you've cut
it loose, you can pull on it and kind of you can without breaking
tree limbs. Yeah, all right, okay, So how do I prune
asiatic jas when that's going around the crpe model? Oh boy? So it's
on the ground as a groundcover, right, Yes, sir, you have
options. Some people will just basically mow over it, you know, weed
eater, mower, whatever, and just cut it way back and then it'll
come out fresh and clean. That's one option. But you can I've known
people to get down with hedge trimmors and trim it. That's kind of bend
over tedious to do it that way, but you don't have to print it.
But if you want to kind of lower the level of it, make
it flat and neat, you know, and everything. You can do that
and it'll rea sprout. Okay. So there's an area where there was a
lagostrum that had grown too big and dyed. Chop that down. So all
of the Asiatic jazz and that was close to that browned over the heat of
the summer. So should I just kind of trim that back or so it'll
get Yeah, yeah, I would. I'd trim it up. If it's
still live, I just trim it back and it'll come out Asian jazz.
Any plant that grows in a lot of shade and then suddenly has the full
brunt of the sun, the leaves plant leaves adjust to their environment within a
certain range. And so if you get a plant that's that's adjusted to being
in shade and then suddenly you give it the full brunt of the sun,
it's going to burn. It's going to fry it. That same plant could
adjust to the sun. In the case of jasmine, you can grow jasmine
and quite a bit of sun. We usually see it in semi shade because
it thrives there. But yeah, well this was already in the house that
we just purchased, So okay, trying to deal with it. One more
question. The crepe myrtle that blooms so pretty, they obviously did create murder
on it, and so the the branches from this past season, should I
just leave them alone and then they'll go back? You know? There's there's
there's a couple of approaches. The drastic approach when you have a truly butchered
CRP myrtle, horribly butchered, would be to cut it all back at the
ground, select one of the shoots coming up or three. You often see
CRP myrtles with like three trunks, for example, select three and then let
them come up and then form branch and you just recreate the whole plant.
Now, that takes time and it's a little drastic. The alternative would be
to when the re sprouts come from those cut stubs of where they butchered it,
select a couple of them to be the new growth for the going out
from there on each cut stub, and then start to reform the structure from
there. You're always going to see that old stub though up there, but
you can begin it now. Yeah, if the cutoff piece is you know
the size of a golf ball or smaller you can probably retrain the regrowth.
If it's much bigger than a golf ball, it's just going to be an
ugly spot. There's going to be decay in the wood because it doesn't cover
back over that giant cut very fast, so it's it's black life. The
branches were flowered on. I just left them so we grow. Or should
I cut those all those branches back? No, you could leave it,
just lets reach them. Yeah, look at it. Aesthetically is what is
what I'm saying. I guess if you you can do either way, the
drastic way or the work with what you got way, and it just comes
down to aesthetics, the plant is going to be fine either way. Okay,
just wait and see how it looks and then deal with it. I
think I would do that. Yeah, it sounds like that'd be the best.
All right, Okay, all right, that's it. Thank you,
all right, Lenna, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Hey,
listen, if you have got winter weeds in your lawn, we're talking
about hind bitten chick weed and cleavers velcrow weed they call it, or carpet
weeds another one. All those weeds you got to do something about them before
they start to bloom and set seed. At that stage, even products that
would kill them are not going to work well. So what do you do
now, Well, one thing you can do now is turf Star Weedenator.
Turf Star Weedenator has got that broadly wheat control. It's a granule. It's
got a very slow release fertilizer that's going to release over the next six weeks
and then continue to release with slowly available water insoluble types of nitrogen that just
really stretch it out. So it's a long term fertilization, not a fast
dissolve, and it's gone. You need to make sure the weeds are moist,
so water just enough to barely we the weed surfaces. Then when you
put it out, it sticks to those weeds. A granules stick to those
wet leaves of the weed and it does its job. Now, turf Star
Weedenator is widely available. It's a Nelson products, so you can find a
lot of places like Nelson Products are. It's got a really good blend of
nutrients for a lawn. And so this is one time where I think doing
the two at once would be an option. We're going to take a break
right now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Welcome back to guard Line. What do you want to talk
about today? Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two and two fifty eight seventy four. We can talk about all kinds
of things. I love talking about gardening, vegetables and house plants. I
was just noticing the other day some of the orchids at the house that I
have. I keep them in a bathroom window. It's a real big,
bright window, and they just love it in there. They you know,
the moth orchid, the kettle orchid. They're not that difficult to grow.
They're the ones you just see for sale everywhere. It's real easy, easy
to grow. And if you give them a humid environment with a bright light,
not direct sun, just a good bright light, they do really really
well. I've got something that I've neglected. I hate to tell you.
I just haven't gotten around to them. Something I had in my office a
while back, and they just sat in the window. Whenever I happened to
come by and think about it. I'd give them a little water. That's
no way to treat a plant, but they're tough, they're easy to grow.
People think orchids are too tough and they're really too difficult to grow.
They're not. They some orchids are. Some of them you've got to have
certain temperatures and they're real persnicty. But boy, the moth orchid is the
easy one. That's really easy to grow. It's time to repot them.
If you've got orchids that kind of gone through their bloom cycle now, it'd
be a time to go in repot them. Get you a good orchid mix,
a good bark mix where there's different blends. Some people put big chunky
pearlite in there, or or expanded shale or the little clay dried clay a
spheres laika that it just does well for that too. You can use a
lot of different kinds of mix. I was in b Canon yesterday as a
matter of fact, looked at some of the orchid mix that they have there
that would work just good. By the way, Buchanans they if you have
a rose plant, a rose bush, they are having number one. They've
got rose pruning basic video online that's very very helpful. Buchanans has a lot
of really good educational material on their website. You need to go check it
out. But on Saturday February the tenth. Guess when that is right?
Next week, Saturday, February the tenth, Gay Hammond from the Houston Rose
Society is going to be there talking about pruning roses one oh one. Now,
I want to tell you something. Gay Hammond knows more about roses than
roses do. I mean that lady is a wealth of information, a good
friend of mine for a long time. But really Gay Gay is absolutely outstanding.
So if you want to learn from the best pruning roses one oh one
with Gay Hammond at Buchanan's next Saturday from ten to eleven am. So it's
required that you do finish garden line, I'll let you out five minutes early
so you can run over to Buchanans. Seriously, it's excellent. You will
learn a lot and you can pick her brain to the cows come home,
and the lady can answer any question that you have about roses. Really good.
I'm so glad they're having her there. That's excellent. Buchanans, by
the way, is at eleventh Street in the Heights. You can go to
the website buchanansplants dot com. Look for that look for that thing I was
telling you about. You know, the information, it's under there. It's
under their resources. There's gardening articles and gardening guides and how to videos.
Go check it out there. Zach and the team there have really put together
some good information. But yeah, so I was talking about orchids. Yes,
you can grow you can grow orchids. The moth orchid very simply a
very dilute fertilizer. The thing orchids don't want is to be kept too wet.
Orchids grow in the air, they grow on the side of a tree
and the in the jungle for example. That that is an orchid's happy place.
Now we do have terrestrial orchids, meaning they grow in dirt. There's
a native orchid to East Texas. That's just an aside, but yes,
there's an orchid that you can find in the woods of East Texas. There's
also and I saw this at begin just do by the way, there is
a terrestrial orchid that they have And I'm trying to remember the name of the
durned thing. It just just went out of my head. I had it
just a second ago, but it grows in soil and a container. A
very different kind of orchid, very very unique. And but orchids are a
fun plant. That is something that I would suggest you consider getting some and
growing them. They're they're they're really not that difficult. Start with a moth
orchid. That is, that is absolutely the easiest one. With a moth
orchid. You're not going to have any trouble at all, real, real
easy. Just a little dilute fertilizer solution. That's what I do for mine.
If my orchids were here, they were going. He's lying, he
didn't do any thing for us. We're we're abused. Somebody comes to steal
us out of his house. Now seriously, though, they they are simple
to grow. I am going to repopmine, though, get them, get
the old roots cut off, get them cleaned up and stuff like that,
and they they will do just just fine for you. Love love to grow
orchids. All right, Well, let's see our phone number nine seven or
A seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm sitting here
looking at another number seven one three two one two five eight seven four or
just KTRH if you want to make it really simple. You can do that.
They do super super well. Uh. If you need supplies for anything
for your garden and landscape, Ace Hardware is a place that's going to have
it. Now we know ACE is a place to go for lawn fertilizer and
garden fertilizer, for soil blends and nutrients, all the ones I talk about
here on garden Line. You're going to find them there at ACE Hardware.
You're also going to find pest controlled, disease control. Uh, you're going
to find we You're gonna find tools and things like that. You're gonna find
everything. You're going to find repair parts for your plumbing. Did you have
freeze damage to your plumbing? Did you have do you have damaged irrigation heads,
sprinkler heads? They can fix that. They can sell you the stuff
to fix that. They know how to do that. They are getting in
their supplies right now. I was in some ACE the other day and the
nitrophos products were flowing in the door, and they carry all the fertilizers that
I talked about here on garden Line. Ace Hardware dot Com. That's the
website. Find the store locator. Forty stores more than one is near you.
Let's head out now we're going to go to League City and talk to
Brian. Hello, Brian, Hey, good morning, Skip. How you
doing doing well? What's up? Got a quick question? So I know
everybody's grass last year got hit pretty hard with the drought and then you know
the little uh frieze we got this uh this last month. But my question
was, is I know every year I'll put prodigamin like you are, not
prodoming barricade down like you'd recommend. But since I hadn't having some like thin
spots and I want that Saint Augustine to spread back out, should I hold
back on the barricade, you know, to let them runners. Yeah,
that's that is a trade off that we have to deal with when we're talking
about a pre emergent herbicide. I would say, do it according to the
label. Do it according to the label. There's going to be some time
if you go ahead and get that done right away, you've got several months
before the Saint Augustine is growing at a clip where any kind of a concern
like that would be a big deal. Just do it at the left.
Don't overdo it, that's for sure. Get sure and watered in and I
think as we get into the summertime that stuff's going to start breaking down at
some point. And I think you'd be okay if you don't do it.
You can just let the Saint Augustine do what it's going to do. But
you're gonna have to wait a while. You're gonna have a lot of weeds
that are coming up in it, and then you're dealing with the seeds and
things. So those are the two options you have. Is just to grow
your way back into a lawn over time. But if you'd like to give
the Saint Augustine open space to get that done, do the barricade right away.
Okay. And then I got one more question. I know when that,
like I said that we got hit with all that the drought and everything,
that wild bermuda came in really good, you know, and kind of
overran at Saint Augustine. So yes, I know that that new herbicide recognition
came out that just attacks just the wild bermuda and leaves the Saint Augustine alone.
Would you recommend doing that too or having the info on that actually there's
there is a concoction, it's not just the recognition. Let me. That
is a huge topic. Let me address that next hour on the air.
People are gonna have questions about that. The answer is can it be done?
Yes? The answer is is it affordable and practical? Probably not,
But I'll answer that and I'll come back. I picked up the stuff.
It was like right around three hundred dollars. Yeah, I'm talking about Yeah,
that's some expensive stuff. I appreciate it, sir. Do you men?
Do you know how many cool plans you can buy for three hundred dollars?
Mount Fiance told me that. Yeah, there you go, there you
go. You could have spent three hundred on Valentine's Day. Brian, you've
missed. I'm kidding you. Hey, we we gotta take a break.
Oh my gosh. I have to remember to talk about that when I come
back. Carolyn Spring, you'll be first up when we come back. Definitely
don't have enough time to do your call service right now, but I'll take
you first when we come back. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven winth I probably just got Brian and Trump.
I shouldn't have done that. Seven one three two one two five eight
seven four give us a call. We'll talk to you when we come back.
Don't forget My schedules are online and it's time to download them at Gardening
with Skip dot Com. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H
Garden Line with Skip Richter. It's so crazy trip. Just watch him as
well, so many the supposa not a sorry gas. Welcome back to guard
Line. We're glad you're joining us today. Looking forward to talking to you
in this last hour of this weekend for garden Line about the things that interest
you. Seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three
two one two k t r H. That makes it real simple, easy
to find. While ago had a phone call and we were talking about the
question was about using recognition herbicide to control bermuda grass from Saint Augustine up to
now, I would say that there is not a way to get rid of
bermuda grass in Saint Augustine. There are now actually there is a way,
but I'll just say this. It is not cost effective and probably not practical,
but professional turf care people can probably get hold of the stuff if they
can have enough yards to justify it, because, like I said, this
stuff is expensive. But Recognition is a herbicide available for commercial use and it
will kill bermuda grass and not kill the Saint Augustine. What they do is
they put a combination together of bermuda grass and fusilade herbicide. It's kind of
a cocktail mix that they put together, and they have pretty good results on
killing bermuda without killing the Saint Augustine. Now, don't run out to the
store and where's your Recognition. You're not going to find it. It's very
hard to find. It is on the market, but it basically the supplies
are almost gone for it in terms of you know, being able to grab
it, but a professional lawn care person may be able to get a hold
of some and do that kind of combo for you. In general, when
you got the two, you're going to have to live with them. They
just it's hard to eradicate one from the other. But we can talk about
that more at another time. I just wanted to finish answering that question.
We're going to go to a spring and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol,
Hi, Skip, Hi, what's up? I have four Texas blueberry
bushes that have been in the ground for about two years, and they do
produce berries, but the bushes aren't growing. So I don't know what I'm
doing wrong. Okay, good sunlight, yes, decent drainage, The so
didn't stay too saggy wet. I don't think it does. Okay with blueberries
generally, the way I would tell people is you plant them on top of
the ground. Meaning the idea is you got this level soil that you would
normally plant plants in. I set the blueberry plant on top of it and
then bring a bed in around it. Now that's a little bit of a
caricature to say it that way, but the concept is that those roots are
in a bed above the soil surface. It's highly organic, very acidic.
You can create that kind of environment and they thrive in that. I would
suggest in the meantime that you go ahead and try an acidic fertilizer. There
are a number of different products that are acidic that are made for blueberries,
camellias, azaleas, gardenias, those kind of plants, and use one of
those and try to get some more vigor in the plant. Now the plants
are not going to bloom this spring because you fertilized them. The bloom buds
were created last fall or late summer and fall and so. But in the
course of this year, getting more vigor and health in the plants should help
then with them blooming. If they're getting good sunlight and they have adequately moist
soil and they overall the plants look good and healthy, you should see some
increased heels. If that isn't the case, then you may want to consider
in the fall season when it cools off about November, going ahead and digging
some up, redoing a nice rais improved bed, and then resetting them right
away back into it. That would be stage two. If stage one doesn't
work. Okay, all right, tell me how many plants you have.
I have four, and they're the Texas blueberries, but you know, I
don't know if they're all the same variety. Yeah, okay, that you're
saying they bloom though, right, they bloom, and one of them for
sure has a lot of blue on it right now. It just they're just
scrawny little plants though. Yeah. Well, we've got to get the plants
healthy and then hopefully there's more than one variety so they can cross pollinate.
Well, did they used to produce in the past or they just have never
done well? Well, they've never done well. They do get blueberries on
them, but there's just a few. Yeah. I would start with fertilizer
and make sure the soil stays adequately moist. Try to get vigor because you
need vigor to have good production going forward, all right, Okay, and
then also a friend of mine has some box woods that a neighbor's cat is
using that bed as a litter box. Okay, what can be done to
keep the cats out? And yeah, so one option that some people use
is they put like a mesh wire in the bed. It's like you get
chicken wire and just sort of cut out where you get it around the planet
and just get it on the ground, maybe pin it down, and the
cats can't scratch with that chicken war on the surface and they sort of go
somewhere else. I don't know how long you would have to leave that,
but that they want to be able to scratch. Another thing. There are
some repellents on the market. I suspect you probably have to replace them periodically.
They don't like the smell of it. I've heard of people before that
use like a moth crystal kind of thing, just muffballs, scatter them around
in there. You don't eat a lot. They have quite the odor and
cats do not like that, and that'll keep them out of there. That's
an option, all right. Some of them are I don't know, a
kind of yellowy brownish on the top. Pick our fertilizers you can put on
them to try to get them healthy, yellowy brownish on the top. If
it's not coal damage, it could be due to some temporary drought occurring.
Even if you're water and you go for a while and you don't and it's
hot, that would be something to look at. But I suspect browning on
the top on box woods with the frost or freeze we had a while back
that was pretty hard. That could be due to that as well. And
then there's always a possibility of nematods in the soil. If it's a somewhat
sandy soil, especially Nema toads will often get on them and then they make
them very inefficient, and it's the equivalent of drought injury because you've got these
knots all over the roots and the water can't flow through. Okay, all
right, all right, thank you, Carol, appreciate that very much.
I was talking about wildbirds the other day, and I love wallbirds unlimited because
they have so many cool supplies. I got my squirrel excluding feeder there by
the way, bluebird season, they're looking. Get a box out if you
want bluebirds, Purple Martin, same thing, get a box out, get
a bird house, a purple Martin house up on a pole to bring those
in the seat, bugs and stuff you need. You need to have some
in your yard. By the way, six stations, six locations all over
town for wildberds. Go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston. You can
find out more there. We're going to take a break. We'll be right
back. Welcome back to guardenline. What do we want to talk about today?
I'm talking about things to do for spring? What do you want to
talk about? Seven one three, two one two five eight seven four.
I'll tell you one thing you need to do right now is you need to
make sure your trees are in good shape going into spring. When it comes
to pruning. If you got weak branches, broken branches, rubbing, crowded,
narrow branch angles, that's got to be fixed. And Martin Spoon Moore
is the guy I would say is the best one to go to for that,
because Martin's been doing this for many, many years now, about thirty
years here in the Houston area. He knows what he's doing. He knows
what he's doing. He stays busy. Affordable Tree Service that's his company.
If you want to get a hold of him, aff Tree Service dot com,
or you can skip Martin a call. Either here's something. Either Martin
or his wife Joe will answer the phone. And if you call someplace that
has Affordable in the name and you don't talk to Martin or Joe, it's
not the right place. Hang up seven to one three six nine twenty six
sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six six three. Yes,
the owners answer the phone at Affordable Tree Service. Tell him you're a guardenline
listener gets you at the front of the list. He stays busy because he
does a good job. So don't delay. Have him come out. If
you're planning on doing any work in the yard like trenching or laying a slab
for a driveway or something anything like that around the trees, that that affects
trees negatively. Have Martin come out and advise you on how to go about
it. Don't let somebody that has a business card, a pickup truck and
a chainsaw touch your trees. You need a professional that knows what they're doing.
That's why we recommend Martin Spoon Moore without any hesitation at all here on
garden Line. I'm going to head now out to where am I going.
I'm going to go to Herta and Spring Branch. Hello, Herda, good
morning. My questions about foxtail fern. At the Credit Union. They had
like three fronds coming out of their plants, but they sickened up and my
gosh, they've got like eight or ten now, but they all turned to
brown. Yeah, now will those come back or not? Probably so.
Spockstae farn has some underground structures to give it some ability to resprout real well.
It is not the heartiest of all the plants we have, and I
generally recommend mulching them, especially when we go into winter and we're liable to
get one of those doozy coal spells. Go ahead and mulch them real well.
That way you're sure the crown stays alive and healthy and can come back
strong. I've seen times when they come back and it's just a shoot or
two, but they will eventually rebuild. So don't give up. Don't give
up on them. Be patiently. That's very good to know. Thank you
so much. All right, herr, you take care of it. Wonderful,
wonderful to talk to you. Thank you very much. The folks at
Nature's Way, do you know Nature's Way? That's that's the place up there.
As you're going up forty five toward tom Ball, right where fourteen eighty
eight from Magnolia comes in to Highway forty five. You just turn right,
go across the railroad tracks. That's Nature's Way. Now, Nature's Way is
the originator of some of the best blends that are now sold all over town
in the Greater Houston area. We're talking about roast soil, we're talking about
leaf more composts. For example, they have got a great supply of fungal
composts, and on every Friday, they call it Fungal Friday, they have
a discount on the fungal compost. It's ten percent off bags of it,
twenty percent off bulk of it. Of the fungal and that is a super
high quality compost you can use for a lot of things, including of course
amending the soil. They've got a Native plant garden center. If you drive
out there, you need to check that out. Leave from room in the
car for some native plants. Here's a number if you want to give them
a call. Nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety. They have
a blend for pretty much anything you want to grow, from roses to acid
loving plants, and on and on down the line, many quality products.
John ferguson his son Ian. They know what they're doing. They're ready to
go, so give them a call. This would be a good time to
get some stuff either delivered to your house or to go pick it up yourself
at Nature's Way Resources. I'm going to head out now to Liberty and we're
going to talk to William. Hello William, Hello, good morning morning.
I was to ask something about some plum trees, because in twenty twelve or
thirteen I had two plumb trees, but now I got one, and I'll
not have a plumb on it till not too long ago. I've had about
three plums on them on one tree. I still have. Okay, it's
because I've been fertilizing it. I'm not for sure, but if you could
give me some tips. Okay, do you happen to know the variety of
the plum that you still have? I know it's a big purple one,
but I've got I think we got it from I got from Crister Supply.
Uh huh, I think okay, No, I got it from Houston's Garden
and all right, well it might be something called Morris, maybe something else.
Uh. Most plums need another variety for pollinating. There's a plumb called
methylee, and it is not a big purple plum. Plumb called methylee that
is somewhat self fruitful. Uh, but it even it benefits, uh,
you know, to have some self pollination, I think you need to get
you another variety and plant it. Now. I should just get any can
or well, any kind that's going to be appropriate for this area and bloom
at the right time. That's important, so you know, go to let's
see you're out in let's see liberty trying to moss. Nurseries. Probably one
of the closer nurseries to you that down there down at Seabrook I know that's
not close, but it's fairly close. They got one in nineteen sixty in
Dayton. Okay, so get you a good nursery and knows what they're talking
about. Ask them what they have, Describe your plumb to them, tell
them you need something different. But here's something you can do, William in
the short term. Do you know anybody else that has plumb trees? I
did, but I think the woman sold out. I think. Okay,
Well, if you could find one in the spring, you could just trim
off one or two little blooming shoots. Get you something like a coke can,
punch a hole in it so you can put a wire through the top,
put those shoots down in the can. You could use a jar or
anything like that and hang it in your tree, and the bees will visit
your blooms and that bloom and you will get your cross pollinating done that way
until you can get a tree purchase, planted and up to a size where
it's blooming. So just think about that. Be on the lookout for some
of the plums. You know, you're not asking for a lot, just
a few blooming shoots if you could replace them after about four or five days,
with some fresh shoots that would be even better. But that is that
would be a good test to find out does that work for you? And
you know, in other words, is that a different variety than what you
have? And if that's the case, then then just find out what they
have and buy you one of those. Now, I've seen on multiple gardening
things where you can put like a leaf or steam and put it in water
and root it like that. Yeah, well that's still work, not really
with a plum, not not really. So you have to actually have a
plumb tree. You need a plumb tree. Now, if you find somebody
that has a plumb that will let you take a cutting in the winter or
in this well, there's a thing called tea budding that you can go online
learn how to do, and you can try grafting that thing into your tree
and then you have a branch that's you're pollinator branch for the rest of the
tree. That's another option, but that's that's a little harder to do.
You may not have great success with it. You might so all those will
work if you do them right. All right, all right, thank you,
all right, thanks for the call. I appreciate I appreciate that very
much. Let's see here, go to Oh I wanted to I wanted to
talk to you about Medina plant Products. It's a it's a company, it's
been around a very long time. They're one of the first sponsors of guard
Line. I mean we're talking about decades and decades ago that they began to
support gardener. Medina has a couple of great products for your plants that suffered
some coal damage, were set back having to regrow, and one of them
is Medina Plus. Medina Plus you would drench on the soil. Do it
right now. Just drench it on the soil. As new growth begins,
to drench it again on the soil as the plants begin to get foliage.
Get the Medina seaweed and spray that on the foliage to get into the plants.
By the way, that's something that's good to have on hand. I
was reading some research the other day on use of seaweed in helping plants prepare
for cold. Now that's well ahead of time, not the day before it
freezes, but you get a few weeks ahead of time. Some seaweed sprays
can actually help enhance the cold protection. That's something to remember for next winter.
But it's also good to use any time on the plants. Medina Seaweed
Medina Plus are both excellent products. They work well, they're easy to find,
widely available, and one of the mini products from Medina that I would
recommend without a question. Let's go now, we're going to head out to
Tomball and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, Hey, good morning.
It's good. How are you. I'm well? Thanks? Good. Yeah.
So I've got these clover patches in my backyard. I've got Saint Augustine
grass and they came about probably last spring and summer, and I went to
Ace and bought some spread that I put on them and didn't take care of
them. And now that the grass is nice and browned out because of the
freeze, those clover patches are still there in bright green. Is there a
way to get rid of that? Or I just have to go out there
with my hands and pick them. Well, the simplest thing is to go
out and pull them. That's a single root going in the ground, so
that big patch of clover has one spot, so they're not as hard to
get out as you think. I've got a little thing called the Grandpa's red
weed, or you step on it and it pinches the weed and pulls it.
You lean the hogh handle back. You never have to bend over.
It just comes right out. If you're going to spray them, you need
a broad leaf weed killer. And I don't think that's clover. If it
was if you saw it in spring, and if you saw it in the
summertime, that may be a less padiza, which looks a lot like clover.
But it doesn't matter. I see that because yeah, it's not like
it's not three leaves like a clod. Yeah, yeah, that's probably a
less padiza, and it's more of a woody thing. So you could get
a product that was, you know, made for broad leaf. We ConTroll
do pretty good with it. There is an ingredient called tricloap here. It's
not great for Saint Augustine, but while the Saint Augustine's asleep, it's probably
okay to use a little bit just if you're spot spraying product like that,
just make sure it has a lawn label before you buy it, but otherwise,
just get a good broad leaf. We control bone Eyed, we'd beat
ultra fur loan. There's a weed free zone product out there that's also very
good. That will work, and just direct the sprays to them if you
don't want to get out and do some pulling, but whatever you do,
do it soon before they start to bloom and set. See. Yeah,
let's I was thinking that this would be a good time. You bet,
you bet? Hey, Mike, I've got to hit a break right here,
but thank you for the call. I appreciate that and good luck getting
that under control. Our phone number is seven one three two one two kt
RH. It's time for Nicky in the news. Welcome back to guard Linem.
Glad you're listening today. As I was, I was glad you're listening.
Good to talk to you about things related to your garden success, because
that's what we're here for. How do we help you have a more beautiful
landscape and a more bountiful garden. That's why we're here. If you'd like
to give us a call, our number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Pretty easy to reach us that way, right, Hey, have you have
you been out to Enchanted Forest lately? Have you been out there that?
If you haven't been out there, you need to go that place is amazing.
I'm going to be out there later this spring. I'll tell you more
about that later for an appearance. But I was just looking the other day.
The herbs selection they have in is incredible, and herbs are fun to
gree You put herbs in pots and containers, you can use them. I
use some herbs like a regano as a groundcover. I use others like chives
lining a walk, just like you would use like a riopy or monkey grass
or something like that. You could use herbs for that. There's herbs that
bloom, that attract beneficial insects, that support pollinators, and of course the
culinary purposes of herbs just that's in and of itself, is a reason to
grow some. We are just talking the other day with my wife about putting
some basil seed in the container to get them started. Basil likes warm weather.
Too cold for basil right now, but you can start the seed right
now. Well, when you go out to Enchanted for us, they've got
herbs, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, roads, everything you can
imagine. Really cool things in the gift shop too. That that is always
kind of nice to get by there. You need seed potatoes if they still
got some around, I know they had a great stock of those going in
as well. There's always something going on out there and in Chanted Forest.
I'll be telling you about some of the programs they have coming up. Now.
If you haven't been there before, well you need to know where to
go. Enchanted Forest is on FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond, So
if you're in Richmond, you're heading up towards sugar Land direction. That's off
to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond. It's really easy to
find. And trust me, when you drive up, you're going to say,
oh my gosh, this place, this place is enchanting. It's really
really nice for that. If you want to start seeds, they've got equipment
for that. They got seeds for that. And of course the I mentioned
the potatoes is time to get those done. Stop by Chanted Forest out in
Richmond and plan on picking up all the supplies you need to have success,
because that is what they carry, all the supplies that you need to have
success. They've also got knowledgeable folks, you know, Danny and Klay and
really all the folks that work there. They know what they're talking about and
they can guide you straight on what you need to have success because just like
I was saying before on guardline, we're here to help you have success.
That's why they're there. That's why they are there too. They know that
when you help people have success, they're going to come back. And that's
the way you want to get treated. And that's kind of garden center that
enchanted forest Richmond is. Let's see who's been on the line here. Let's
head out to Deborah in Galveston. Hello, Debra, Hey, I have
been told that clover is beneficial because it brings nitrogen into the soul. Would
you tell me more that is true? Clover is a lagome, And when
you have a lagome, that means it's a plant that takes nitrogen from the
air and puts it in nodules and its roots. There's actually a bacteria doing
the work. The plant gets a credit. But yes, blue bonnets or
lagoons, vetch is a lagoon. Clover is a lagome. We even have
trees and shrubs that are lagoons. Now, if you are taught, if
you tolerate the fact that you've got clover growing in your lawn, you can
leave it you just mow it and ignore it. But it's so dark green
that it kind of tends to stand out like a neon sign, and people
don't care for that to have that kind of a weed in the lawn.
But yes, you could leave it. It also blooms, and the blooms
attract little tiny pollinators. So I could sing the praises of clover or tell
you how to get rid of it, whichever way you want to go.
I just wanted to be sure that I was accurate on that my uncle told
me in Yeah, I wanted to be sure that was true. That's true.
Now, ideally, if you want the best results, about the time
that clover is going to start blooming, you would get to the plant then
just cut it off at the ground, and you'd have the most amount of
nitrogen in the soil. Once it starts setting seed, it starts to pull
nitrogen up out of the nodules in the roots and put them in use it
to make good seed protein in the seeds. But that's a technicality. Well,
I've always had the pink flowers and I thought they were pretty, so
I would pull them out of my grass and put them in the flower bed.
There you go there. You go, well, I guess you can
do it that way. Listen, people, there are people that need their
lawn to look like AstroTurf, all the same size, all the same color,
perfectly cut, perfectly smooth, and not a weed in sight. That's
one end of the spectrum. And that's fine. You can do that.
Then there are other people who they don't care. If it's green, I'll
mow it and it'll look good. And I've noticed something. If you've got
a thoroughly weed infested lawn and you mow it and take off your glasses,
it looks great. If you can't see close, it's all green. That's
a statement, another one of Felder rushing statements. You make all the weeds
in your long go away by just taking over your glasses. So now a
lot of people are going to be not in my yard. I ain't going
to, you know. So you choose where you want to go. It's
your yard. Go out and have fun with it. Deborah, thank you,
all right? You take care, Papa oh Man. More than one
way to just skin a cat, I guess they say, pretty helpful.
Let's see here. I wanted to I wanted to tell you a little bit
about Siena Mulch. You heard me talk about them before. Sienna is a
place down just north of Rocharon for those of you who haven't been there,
it's near Highway six and two eighty eight where they come together. It's on
FM five one FM five twenty one. Their website. Let me just give
you this, write this down. You'll need it if you live anywhere down
that direction. Sienna Mulch now Cienamltch has a wonderful selection of compost of soil,
amendment bed mixes of mulches. They carry every fertilizer I talk about.
They even have pest disease and weed control products there. You can buy stuff
by the bag, you can have them deliver it. Their selection of gravel
of river stones and especially the landscaping rock, you know, from the flat
stones to the stones, you make a whole lot of it's unbelievable. Just
go to the website and take a look at it. You see what I'm
talking about. Lots and lots of options and varieties. So that patio you've
been wanting to build, they can get you fixed up. They deliver within
twenty miles of their location out there. It's real easy to do. I
mean it just cienamltch dot com makes it so easy because you get all the
stuff you need to take care of the brown stuff so that when it's green
stuff season, your plants look wonderful because you gave them a good place to
live, in a good root zone. That is what they can do for
you out there at Ciena Mulch. Let's head. Let's see enough, it's
time per break. Good Conte Ribbon and Maria. You'll be my first two
up when we come back. I'll be right back. For those of you
who'd like to call seven one three two one two five eight seven four,
welcome back to garden Line. What are we going to talk about, Rubin?
We're going to head out to Missouri City and see what Ruben's got on
his mind. Hey Rubin, good morning. Yesterday I caught on on the
tail end of a conversation where you mentioned some soil for seventy five bucks of
panting soil, and I didn't get the name of the location of the place
that was seventy on sale. All right, that's Heirloom Soils. It's out
in Porter, Texas. So if you're going up sixty nine, go past
Kingwood. Just a little further down the street road there is is Heirloom Soils
Importer Texas. Okay, good to know. And uh I just to comment.
Two weeks ago, some woman called in where a ship was having a
bombs with mud bugs, and I can't understand her concern because of so being
so close to Louisiana. She could just rent a cage in the There you
go, There you go. There's a concept in pest management called integrated pest
management. One of the key things is you import natural enemies. You bring
in lady bugs when you have an aphian problem, You bring in caguns when
you've got a mud bug problem. You could bring me into hey as a
kid, I would tie bacon to a string and throw it in the ditch
and come up with food before you knew it about that. That's right.
One final, one final comment. I like the Ryan's answer. You win,
some you lose. So there you go. That's it. That's all
right, Ruben. Is that what you called about? Or do you have
a question? Oh okay, all right, well thanks for calling. You
made my day. I appreciate that. Oh my gosh, yeah, crowd
audsy, it's always crowdedsy you've got when you got a bunch of the little
chimney sticking up out of the yard. Oh goodness, Well, let's head
to the heights. Now we're gonna talk to Maria. Hey, Maria,
good morning. I have a question. I know the crape myrtles are dormant
right now, but I had issues with the scale and the black city in
the summer. So is it a good time to spray them right now,
like within the second sidal soap or malathion, so that they don't come back.
No, it's not what you need to do. I'm going to tell
you the time to spray is going to be about March or April because those
little tiny scale, the little white things that are on the crape murle.
You'll see little white, cottony little spots specs, and that's the scale,
and the city mold is growing on the sugar water the scale puts out.
But if you spray now, you want to accomplish anything. But when we
get into spring, all the little baby scales start coming out from under the
mom scale and crawling around, little tiny things. They don't have a protective
coating, and sprays of horticultural oil at that time or even insecticidal. So
but I would do horticultural oil. We'll coat them if you get complete,
good coverage, all sides of all branches, and it will kill them.
Now, how do you know when, Well, I give you an estimate
of sometime in late March or April. But if you have double sided tape,
that little double sided scotch tape type stuff, and you put it around
a few branches, just tape it to the branch, make a circle around
the branch, and then go check it every few days. I would do
that, probably probably mid March I would do it, and then I would
check it and check it, and it may be after I don't know,
a week or two. The dust is on the tape and it's not sticky
anymore. So you just put new tape over it. And when you see
these little tiny reddish things starting to get stuck in the tape, that's that's
that scale is active and it's time to treat for them. And that's the
least toxic option for trying to manage those scale. So do it with the
oil first, with the oil first. But oil has to be at the
right time. The old mother scale they're going to die. But the baby
scale they you know, you increase your scale population one hundredfold when they all
get out there and start setting up shop. Great, thank you so much.
All right, Maria, there are other options. You know, they're
toxic sprays that you can use. It will kill scale, but uh that
overall, other than a systemic which can affect your honeybees, that's the best
route that I know to take. Thanks again, I appreciate, I do
appreciate, thank you, Thank you. Hey, what was the last time
you were at Anti Rozenborium or have you ever been? Well, if you
haven't been, you really have to go. This place is really cool.
I remember they opened up. I was in grad school and horticulture grad score
just getting out I believe, just getting out at grad school about that time,
and it just it's just a wonderful place. The setting itself is so
cool. It just goes back to another place and time. And antique roses,
boy, they are the place to get antique roses. Just so many
types and variety. They're even crossing some roses and coming up with their own
varieties out there. There's a program working on that at Antiquros Importum. You
can go to the website Antique Roseemporium dot com. You just head out to
Brenham, go north and antiq ros imparms real easy to find. It's everybody
else knows where it is. I mean they've gone there, so you need
to go to The phone number is nine seven nine eight three six fifty five
forty eight. I'll tell you it. Anytime's a good time to go.
You can go right now. They've got a good stock of all kinds of
things. Right now. They're going to be starting their educational workshops. They'll
have different kinds of programs. I'm going to be out there also, but
they're having the on February twenty fourth, there's an session on seed starting that
they're doing out there. They have a spring celebration March ninth and tenth going
on out there. Lots of stuff happening at Antique Rosing Porum. And it's
not just roses, it's so much more. Right now, they've still got
cool season color out there, like pansies by old isn't Dianthus a really good
selection of ornamental grasses and perennials at the antiqu Rosing Porum as well. And
once we get into about the April season. That's when you know roses are
at their peak all over the greater Southeast Texas area. And boy, to
go out there then and see the roses is so inspiring. It's also when
blue bonnet's bloom. While you're at it, you can make a little trip
through the blue bonnet trails outside of the Brennam area there. So yeah,
lots of reasons to go to Antique Rosing Porum. Check them out online though
Antique rosem dot com or give them a call nine seven nine eight three six
fifty five forty eight. If you've not been, you need to go by
the way. If you have a group like a garden club, maybe a
master gardener group or a junior master gardener with the kiddos, Native Plant Society
or Herb Society. Yeah, they have herbs out there too. That's a
good time. Get the team together and let's do a road trip. Head
out to Anti grozing for him. Well, wow, they're win another show.
I mean, we're here at the big end of the whole nine yards.
Thanks for calling in today, those of you who called. It was
fun. We had a good time talking and a couple of laughs along along
the way as well. I appreciate that. I'm here every Saturday and Sunday
from six am to ten am on garden Line. It is a pleasure being
your host. I want to remind you if you need my garden schedules for
your lawn, they're online. If you want that information on soil testing made
easy, how to do a soil test, I tell you all about it.
It's online. If you are looking to have a copy of the thing
we were talking about a while back, the frost and freeze protection information,
that's online. And there's lots more coming at gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot com, you can find all the things I talk about
here on Guardenline are available there for you to download, so I hope you'll
take advantage of that. If you will look outside right now, you will
see one of the best days you've seen in a long time. And this
afternoon to be a great time to get out and visit our garden centers,
Visit some of the suppliers that we talk about here on guarden Line, get
your malts, to get your composts, to get the products for fertilizing your
lawn, taking care of your lawn, all of that kind of stuff.
What a great afternoon to get out and enjoy that as well. Thank you
so much for being a listener to Gardenline. I do want to remind you,
guys that are vegetable gardeners, the annual Fort Bend Vegetable Conference, the
Regional Vegetable Conference, is this Thursday, February the eighth at the Fort ben
County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, just south Highway thirty six, turn off a fifty
nine term south on thirty six, and I mean it's just not even a
mile down the road right there. Easy to find. Forty bucks is a
registration. You do need to register. If you want more information, go
to the website Fortbend dot Agrolife dot org, Fortbend dot Agrolife dot org.
There they can get you all set up figuring out what you need to do
and how to go about it. There's lots of good information at this conference.
Listen that forty bucks. Not only do you get lunch, but you
get a full day of sessions. There's things on bees and honey production,
how to market produce if you're a commercial grower, how to deal with drought,
how to properly irrigate backyard gardening tips, alternative gardening techniques, how to
build your soil. Have you ever grown mushrooms? You'll learn how you're gonna
have a thing on mushroom growing. There. Integrate pest management. That's the
safest way we know to manage pest where you're just not spraying them all the
time because it's you know you got spray and it's a day you know you're
you're doing it in a way that minimizes the need to spray. That's there.
There's gonna be a lot of breakout sessions as well. It's a great
deal. So this Thursday annual Fort Man Regional Vegetable Conference, hope you can
make it.