Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor so just watch
him as anything to club ticket, but not a sign. Well, good
Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we we're here to talk to you about whatever you're interested in
regarding gardening. So let me give you a phone number. As always,
I tell you to keep a pen and a paper hand because we'll be giving
out other kinds of information you just might want to jot down. And our
phone number here is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Well, we've got some
some pretty decent weather today. You know. I'm looking at different different weather
outlets and kind of get a mix of opinions on what's going to be going
on. But overall it's gonna be pretty good day. I was I was
thinking yesterday I was talking to somebody about weed control in the lawn and they
were they were asking how to get rid of some particular weeds and and so
basically, you know, it's going over the broad leaf post emergent options that
they would have, but just pointing out that when it gets hot, a
lot of those products, the hotter it gets stressed lawn more and more can
coust some issues. And of course every particular chemistry is a little different and
how it how it reacts. But in general, if you're going to kill
growing existing that is broad leaf weeds in your lawn, especially Saint Augustine lawn,
you want to get that done before the temperatures are mid to uper eighties
or above. So as you get in you know, eighty five eighty seven,
Yeah, it's kind of go ahead and get it done. And as
I look at the temperature, it's we've got that for a few days.
We're kind of bouncing right around in that area, and then things are heading
up to the nineties. And so if you've been looking at weeds and you're
on thinking, yeah, I get to get around to that, well,
here's you're around to that. It's time to get it done. Or you
know, there's there's options on weeds. Everybody has a has a different tolerance.
Some people it has to be perfect, as if you'd lay AstroTurf out
there and that of course, is a higher level of weed control, for
sure, and it can be achieved. It's just some people don't want to
go to all that. Other people it's, well, the weeds are green,
grass is green. Let's keep a mode to the same height. And
I'm happy and I and that's the other end of the spectrum, and that's
fine too. And there's a thousand debates and arguments over all of these kinds
of things. So I'm not going to wait into all that today, but
I just gonna say that if you, if you are going to choose to
spray your broad leaf weeds to shut them down before it gets hot, I
would say the next there or four days, just watch the weather. You
know. It's what I see doesn't show a lot of rain coming. Maybe
a storm today, but that's kind of iffy. Anyway. There's just a
word for the wise. The reason the reason I talk about these things on
turf weed control is because a lot of times things we do to our grass
weaken the grass and you look at it and maybe you'll notice a little yellowing
or it doesn't look quite right for a little while, and then it bounces
back, or maybe you don't even really see it but if the grass is
weakened, then opportunist diseases have a chance to move in, and weeds have
a chance to proliferate because the grass is not filling in and becoming as dense
as it could be, And so we try to avoid that. I compare
health to human health all the time, and I realize that's a stretch,
but there are some similarities, and here's one of them. If you are
tired, if you don't get good sleep, if you don't eat right,
don't get any exercise, just basically couch potato status, well, the chances
of you getting sick are higher than someone who does all the above. That
doesn't mean someone that does all the above is not going to get sick.
It just means you're predisposing your body to getting sick by not taking care of
it. And the same thing can happen with plants. Diseases like hypoxillan canker
that can attack oaks and other trees and take them out are out there in
nature. They're there right now. If you've got trees are on your yard,
there are hypoxillan spores in your yard, but they're not killing all your
trees. But when that tree gets stressed, the hypoxillan has the opportunity,
if it's the right species that it can attack, to move right in and
kill it. So how do you control apoxilland canker? You don't. You
keep your trees healthy. That's that's how you avoid it and take all root
rot of Saint Augustine grass. Take all root rot is pretty ubiquitous. It's
not like a spore landed in your yard but not your neighbors. It's out
there, and so it moves in when the Saint Augustine gets weakened. And
now once we have take all root rot, we're dealing with some significant efforts
to try to shut it down. And some of those efforts are a little
bit stressful of the grass as well, like kind of almost a chemotherapy thing
where the you know, we're going after the disease, but at the same
time, it's a little bit hard on the patient, and so that's why
we try to avoid those things and good cultural practices. I don't care what
you're growing. That is the first foundation. So if you're going to ask
me a disease question, if you're going to ask me how to have a
beautiful lawn or beautiful tree or whatever flowers productive vegetables. The answer always begins
with cultural practices. That's where we start. Now. Doesn't mean that if
you do all the cultural right, there aren't any problems, of course,
but my goodness, why not take ten problems and maybe make them one or
two? Wouldn't that be a good idea? I mean, it's like playing
think of it this way is a weird analogy. It's like playing Russian roulet,
you know, and one bullet is poor soil, and one bullet is
poor drainage, and another bullet. You know that it could be the nutrient
levels, or it could be you know, you're stressing it with a certain
type of a chemical that stresses it. Are you get the idea? Well,
at some point the chance of spending that revolver and coming out with a
good a good outcome gets slimmer and slimmer. Right, Well, that's kind
of what we do. That's what we do with our plants. So our
goal is basically to every empty, every possible bullet out of the chamber when
we're playing the horticultural or Russian roulette, if you will, out there in
the landscape. I don't know if that analogy works with you. But it
makes a little bit of sense to me. So there we go. H
we're talking about taking carrier lawn and the importance of things, you know,
looking good. One of the things I did this spring, uh to it
was part of in my front yard, right, I hadn't it hadn't done
some fertilizing. I put out some has to grow twelve four eight. It's
a liquid lawn food. You attach it to a hose in sprinkler. It
takes about ten minutes to go over your lawn and put it. Not just
the nutrients, but they also have the Medina soil activator and humor, a
liquid humus in it, and it will give you a nice quick green up.
It's good stimulation for the soul's natural microbes and materials that are in it.
Uh And it works well. Now you can. You can do it
about four times a year if you if if you're leaving your clippings on which
you should be, four times a year is enough. But a Medina has
to grow. Twelve four eight Lawn food is an excellent product by Medina that
really helps. And I saw the green up in my own lawn and when
it was the first time I had used this particular product by my medina in
it, I was very impressed. I thought it did it did really really
well. Well, we're bumping here up on a break, so I'm going
to give you a phone number and if you want to get on the board
with Josh, we'll talk to you when we come back. That's seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. I hope we got a cup
of coffee or hot tea or whatever you used to wake up. You're listening
to Garden Line. We're looking forward to talking to you. The number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And I was heading
through Tomball the other day and I stopped in at D and D Feed that's
about three miles west of Tomball on two forty nine. If you haven't been
out there, you need to check it out now. As as Randy always
said on the on the station, you know we love our feed stores,
and that certainly is the case. And D and D is a good example
of why they've expanded their store just to have a whole new area where they
can even have more products. They already carry all the things that we talk
about here on the show. But they also now have plants, lots of
plants out front, flats of vegetables and different kinds of roses, citrus trees
and things like that. You're gonna find all those high end dog foods at
D and D that would include Origin, diamond, victor those kinds of things.
Certainly, it's a feed store, so livestock feed. But maybe you
got rodent problems or other kinds of pests. There's a section for that.
They carry that mosquito dunk that we need to put putting out now in any
stagnant water. D and D feed just outside of Tumball, three miles west
on Highway two forty nine. If you haven't been there, you should.
You should check it out. I think you will be impressed. They do
an excellent job out there. I always like to go visit, and when
I go, my dogs always insist that I bring them some kind of a
snack home, because they've got a really cool dog deli section as well.
Well, let's do it. Let's head out and we're gonna go to Cyprus
and talk to Charles this morning. Hello Charles, Hey, good morning,
Skiff, good morning. I'm old enough to remember listening to Dewey Compton,
So I guess that tells you about how old I am. All right,
all right, we may be born on the same day, but let's go
let's keep going here. So live out in Cyprus. Two years ago,
I ripped out everything out of my front beds because it was all overgrown,
and went back in with Berfort Holly's put in a dwarf magnolia, put in
two Japanese us. And I was listening a few weeks back, and I
believe you had a caller calling say he was having trouble with his japeus,
and I'm both of my plants and they're in separate beds, but both of
them are having that where one of the growth stalks dies off brown and then
you know, I'll still get some green ones. But it seems like one
plan is just about going to be completely dead. And I started reading up
on it and it seemed to indicate that there might be a root broad problem.
So I just will wanted to get your okay, get your opinion.
Well, that's that's entirely possible. Japanese you is not super prone to root
rots, but like almost all plants, it can get a root rotum.
What was the dieback. Has it been kind of progressive like this branch and
then a few weeks later that branch or or is it kind of like pretty
much all at once you're seeing it. No, it's definitely progressive. Okay,
Well, like I said, it started last year. Yeah, Well,
I'd like to blame it on the December freeze at least in part,
because that caught a lot of our plants. I'm prepared. I'm I'm still
surprised at how many crape myrtles I'm seeing that I have huge sections dead or
whatnot because because of that freeze. But that you would expect most of the
damage to show up at once, although when there's partial damage to let's say
the stem of the plant, it may go for a little while and be
okay, and then later it just kind of collapses and it's not able to
keep going. And so I would follow the dead branches down, just examine
those limbs of shoots and see if you see splits in them further down,
that would be more of an indication of cold damage. That primarily that would
be a point toward cold damage. You may just see some sunken dead areas,
and that could be like a canker, and that would be impossible.
I would prune out anything that's dead in them. And when you prune,
get you some lysol or a similar product, and you make a cut.
You go below the dead and cut it out of there because it's not going
to come back to life, and then spray your prunters with lysol that's a
disinfectant, and then you go make another cut in that way. If it
is a canker type disease or something is active in there, you're not just
writing it as you make cuts through the plant. So just you know,
do that little routine. It's fast and easy and it's a good way to
do it. The only other thing that you know, I would suggest is
if you have a bush that declines to the point of you know it's not
going to make it, but before it's fully dead, you could dig it
up, shake soil off the roots, and send at least a good part
of it, or drive it up to the plant clinic lab in college station.
They will take it into a lab, cultured out in a petri dish
and actually scientific, you know, look at what is the name of this
disease rather than just a visual Yeah, that's a root rot and then give
you some recommendations now that would probably be worth your money. If you've got
a bunch of them and you'd like to set this down. If you're leaning
toward giving up on them already, well you know, you may not want
to go to that extra step, but that's the way I would suggest,
Charles, that you would get to the very bottom of it. Great,
okay, yes, thank you very much. All right, well, and
I hope it does well. I hope they turn around. It's a it's
a decent plant for here. We you know, we often need things that
are the shape of a Japanese you, that are evergreen, and a lot
of the things that could be used in other parts of the country don't do
well here, so we're kind of glad to have Japanese you as an option.
All right, well, thank you so much. All right, Charles,
you have a good day up there in Cyprus. Thank you you too.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I've got a
hibiscus, the tropical hibiscus, you know, the gaudy ones with oh my
gosh, the color is just all over the place beautiful, and it's sitting
in a pot and I'm you know, they say the Cobbert's kids go barefoot.
Well, I need to get home and actually pot that up. And
I was just thinking about about that, and I've got a big container that
I can put it in, and what I need to get a hold of
some of the nitropost jungle land. Jungle Land is a very good mix for
potting up plants on your patio because it has it has good drainage, and
you know that's the key. If you want a plant to grow well in
a pot, you want it to do two things. It seem opposite,
and one is drain well and the other one is hold water well. You
want the access to drain away so it's not water logged, but you want
it to hold water so the soil stays moist, and jungle Land does that.
It's got a blend of peat. And I've talked about the four sources
of age material, the micro rhizal fungi. That's another that's another important thing
that's in it. There's an indoor version with the water crystals. But what
I'm needing right now is that outdoor version to finally get that thing potted.
I don't know, I probably need to get some help in here so I
can finally get my own yard work done. But potting up that hibiscus is
a good idea, and jungle land is something I think I'll plan on using
to get that knocked out and out of the way. I love hibiscus.
The hotter it gets, as long as they have moisture there is going to
keep looking good. I mean, they really just thrive in the heat,
and we just have to watch that they don't dry out. That's it's a
number one thing with all our container plants. They you know, it's it's
so easy to forget to you know, you watered and you got busy,
and then you went out and did something, and the next day something unexpected
happened, and all of a sudden, it's been three days and those plants
are toasty turn into toast out there, and that can happen fast in a
container. So good quality mix is important, making sure they're good drainage holes
in your container is important. But large container sizes. I always cringe when
I watch maybe a TV show filmed some of the more northern part of the
country. Midwest, east coast California, and you see containers that here,
that is not a big enough container for that plant. And if if temperatures
are milder, and I know it can get up to a hundred degrees in
the Midwest, right but we're talking about hot all day all the time,
and then hot all night too. It puts a lot of demands on those
plants, and they have to pump a lot of water for the evaporative cooling
in their system to work to keep them from overheating themselves. And so we
do need to keep them moist. And with a larger volume of soil,
then that plant has more water to draw from, you know, because every
cubic inch of soil is going to only be able to hold a certain amount
of water. So how many you know, how many cubic inches or how
big of a container can you provide? That's the bank account. So you
want a little bank account, do you want a big bank account? A
big bank account means you don't have to water three times a day or twice
a day. It's going to be okay. And that's what we're aiming for.
And I mentioned that because you know, everybody intends on water in their
plants. I do, but I can't tell you how many times I've come
home and that tomato growing in a container is just wilted and it's like water
and it perks back up. Now most people would say, well, okay,
chrisis averted. No, not averted. You have ballooms on there that
are going to abort. You have fruit that's going to develop, blossom,
end rot now because you've taken it through that wet dry cycle. There's a
lot of problems that happen. Even though we keep the plants alive, we
don't keep them productive and healthy, and so large containers are just important.
That's the easiest way. The other thing that I've done before is as I
put a drip system in and you can get these not difficult to put together
with a little timer on it. So there's little tubes running along on the
ground, or maybe if it's hanging baskets up on the arbor or something,
there's a tube and a little tube drops down in your basket. And every
day, maybe once or twice a day, the little sprinkler comes on or
the dripper comes on, and it wets that pot and it's I don't want
to ever say, just plug it in and forget it, because things go
wrong with anything we plug in, but just check it periodically. But it's
not up to you to remember every day to take care of those plants.
And so the combination of a large container and some type of a drip system,
it just makes it full proof and you will see an amazing difference in
results as a result of that. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to be on the air,
I would encourage you to give Josh a call seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four and we will take your call and see what it
is that we can do to help you have success in your garden. That
is why we're here. Charles was talking about listening back to Dewey Compton days
and somebody out when I was in Sugarland at the Outdoor Living Show yesterday,
somebody was talking to me about you know, they grew up. They were
a younger person, but they grew up listening when they were with their dad
in the car to Dewey Compton and Bill Zac and John Burrows, and of
course the quarter century of Randy Lemon, and it is not lost on me
the legacy of this show and just what this show has been to the greater
Houston community. And I say greater Houston reaching all the way out to Interstate
thirty five in the Louisiana border if you if you want to listen that far
away. That's a long history of great radio and good advice, local advice
for gardeners. And I consider that, I guess soberly thinking about the fact
that how important that is, wanting to make sure that we continue that tradition
here with garden Line. And part of the tradition with garden Line is I
get to hand the baton to Nikki for news every time, and here she
is. We're getting close to the time, aren't we. Oh, we
definitely you are. All right, Well, I'm on the edge of my
seat waiting to hear what has happened in Houston, because it's always a surprise
and then sometimes not so much of it. Well, this involves perhaps drinking
a little bit too much. That's probably first time that's happened. Well,
good Sunday morning, on a good day for gardening. You're listening to garden
Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter and here's our number. Write this
down, give us a call. Seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two two fifty eight seventy four. I like to
sort of nerd out on reading about horticultural things. It's just something I enjoy.
I try to not, you know, be insufferable putting out all the
nerd facts that I find fascinating on the air, But I think it makes
things a little more interesting when you kind of understand the background, and you
know, you go back in time and you think about how do people deal
with pests before the era of chemical controls. You know, if you go
back to a round World War two, we got a whole lot of different
chemicals that came into the industry as a result of the chemicals research during the
World Wars, and we received a lot of our chemicals at the time.
Some of the almost all the early ones are now gone for good reasons.
But you go back before that and you can get into the Middle Ages and
times where they were discovering the heavy metals like arsenic and other things that were
used for controlling past. You can go all the way back to Egypt,
and sulfur was actually used back then fungicide and a midacide at that point as
well. And one of the things I just ran across the other day is
that the Greeks and Romans used cedar for repelling insects, and I thought,
well, that is interesting. It reminded me that nature's creation has a bag
of cedar repell that's what it's called. It's an insect repellent, and it's
really finally ground up. And this is the cedar that you see around here,
the eastern red cedar. It's all over the place and it when you
chucked that up in a find will find particles, so you can spread it
really easily. It really does repel insects, so you have things like fleas
and chiggers and mosquitoes and ants and other things. Just spread it out there
and do that. You get a little a little pile of it around your
barrier. I think that's one of the ways they talk about is effective to
keep around your barrier, around your foundation, the perimeter maybe perimeter or the
patio or whatever. And insects aren't it's likely to want to cross over that
crawling through and boy do they ever like to crawl inside our houses now year
to find cedar repel. I know our CW has it, plants for all
seasons, Wabash has it, Moss Feed Quality Feed has it, and you'll
find it all the Houston garden centers as well. But you might want to
give Nature's creation cedar repel granules a try. I just thought that was an
interesting fact that Greeks and Romans going back that far, they knew that this
tree had some interesting uses when it comes to dealing with insects. So a
little fun fact there for you on garden Line this morning, our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two and
two fifty eight seventy four. I was taking care of some house plants yesterday,
and I have a number of different ones. I'm one of those plant
collectors that just when there's a new plant I don't have somehow seem to need
to bring it home. And we have some plants that are doing very well
and some that are not doing as well. And I was checking the plants
out to see, you know, what's going on with these And when I
potted them up, I used different potting media, or they came with different
potting media. I think in most cases, but the ones I potted up,
I always use a good quality mix for because when when you are when
you're trying to have success with your plants, you need to give them,
you know, the best soil that you can find for. I mean,
we talk about a number of good quality potting soils here, but I thought
it was interesting that the one plant that always is wilting first of all of
them is a potting mix. It's almost all peat, almost all Pete,
and I know Randy talked about not caring for Pete, and Pete has some
characteristics that I don't really like. One of them is a shrinks and swells
more and it'll pull away from the sides of the pot a little more than
some of our other options in a blend. But it just seems to wick
and pump dry faster. And I need to take that plant and you know,
kind of with my fingers, scratch away some of the exterior soil on
it, move it up to a little bigger pot, and give it a
better mix, uh, and so that it's a little more resilient, because
if it's dependent on me to remember to water it more often than I'm doing
the others well, Eventually that's going to catch up to me, because you
know how that goes the best intentions, it don't always always get to happen.
But when when you're purchasing soils. A group was kind of grilling me
on some soils a few days ago when I was giving a talk, and
and basically I could tell what they were wanting me to say is what's the
cheapest, cheapest soil that I can play? You know, use that's good.
And I was trying to say, if you've got something called potting soil
that has wood chips in it, that is not a good idea. That
is a cheap soil. It is It is not, you know, inexpensive
and cheap, thinking of them as two different words. Don't waste your money
on cheap stuff, by a quality stuff, because these are these are plants
you want to enjoy. And you paid for the plant, you paid for
the pot Why not pay a little bit for the soil so you can have
success? And that's really important. Well, I'm gonna quit droning on here.
We're gonna go and talk to Paul out in the Woodlands. Hello,
Paul, good morning, World's good skip. I get a question about my
mignolia trees. I got a few nice sized magnolia trees there, and from
the ground up to where most of the foliages, I'm starting to get shoots,
which will we saw on them out of the trunk, and I'm just
swoggling. Should I be clipping those off or should I be leaving those?
Yeah? These are the southern magnolia. That's an evergreen, not the one
that blooms on bare stems in the light winter. Oh yes, the big
dig evergreen. Okay, uh, well, that's just the tree, you
know, re sprouting, And I would I wouldn't work about clipping them off.
I'd let the tree do what it's gonna do. Uh. Now,
if you wanted to have a trunk on it where you have no branches down
low, you could do that. But I think magnolias are beautiful when if
you will, the skirt goes all the way to the ground. You know
that that phono? Yeah, it was just curious if it would help or
look better if those were well yeah, yeah, Paula, I can't see
the tree, so you know, if I saw it, a may go
oh I see. You know, maybe you'd do this or that, But
in general, Magnolia's just don't need a lot of pruning, and we don't
we don't want to get in a mess with it too much if we don't
have two Thanks for thank you, all right, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
You know, if you are looking for a one stop shop for all
kinds of things that you need for the home and garden, that would be
Ace Hardware. And you can go to Ace Hardware dot com and find one
of the thirty nine locally owned and operated Ace Hardware stores here in the Houston
area. And they're I mean they're everywhere. There's thirty nine of them.
Were crying out loud. Ace Hardware carries all the products we talk about here.
That's part of the deal with Ace. They care about what we're talking
about, and they make sure and get those in and so you can walk
in and have confidence that not just the things I talk about, but a
whole lot of other products that we don't have time to even get to,
you're going to find on the shelf there at Ace Hardware and you're going to
find people that are trained, people that are friendly, and people that are
let's say proactive, you know, walk up and ask you what do you
need? How can I help you? That is ACE Hardware, Ace hardware
dot Com find the store near you. I saw miles of jacks, all
the stars up in the sky. I saw mile mile Well, good morning
on a good Sunday morning to be talking about gardening and soon to be getting
outside here this afternoon, get a little bit of gardening done. When you're
out there, you want to make sure if you haven't fertilize your lawn yet,
lawn yet, you need to get that done. We've got a long
summer coming. And when you fertilize, you want to use something that's going
to release the nutrient gradually over time to avoid that flush of growth and you
know, followed by a you know that you're you're mowing lot crazy because you've
overdone the nitrogen and then it kind of dies down again and you have to
fertilize again. You want to spread that out, even that out, and
one way you can do that is with Microlife fertilizers. Microlife is is number
one or again excelling fertilizer here in the Houston area and with Microlife, you
know, we talk about the sixty four bag, the green bag, that's
a main one you want to have that's excellent for using on your lawn.
But it's not just that it has the three numbers nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium. We're talking to over one hundred minerals. When you apply Microlife,
you are applying all the micros and stuff that plants need to grow and to
live. And Microlife is available all over town. There's the you can go
go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and if you go there you can find all
the locations for you. And when you buy the green bag, also at
this time of the year, go ahead and buy the purple bag. That's
the humates plus concentrated compost in a bag. Put those two on together for
that one two package. That will really set your lawn up for a good
long summer of healthy growth and beauty, which is kind of why we have
our lawn so we can get out there and enjoy those lawns. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call. We'll talk
about stuff that you are interested in. In the meantime, I'm gonna talk
about some things that I am interested in. I have been wanting to get
a citrus tree and to get it planted in the yard because I just I
love set personally. I like satsumas. Now it's cool to have you know,
the key lime or or you know the Mexican lime. It's cool to
have myer lemons. And I mean there's a lots of different kinds of citrus
to plant. I'm just kind of partial towards satsumas. I love those.
Uh when I plan them up in college station up there, you know,
you need something a little more cold hearty, and the satsuma accomplishes that.
But this last winter was kind of hard on our on our citrus. I've
talked to a number of people who who had a pretty severe killed back on
their on their citrus plants, and it's because December hit unexpectedly, unexpectedly,
let's say this, by the plants they were living the life O'Reilly. They
hadn't slowed the growth to the point they needed to to get as much heartiness
as that particular citrus could have and so December comes in with a hard freeze
and it just caught them unprepared and it did a lot of damage. And
some of you may may be also wanting to get a citrus to restock.
I was looking the other day online. I always follow, you know,
our independent garden centers their Facebook pages and Instagram pages, and you should too,
But I noticed that Buchanans is getting in new citrus plants, or they
have gotten in new citrus. I think they've got They've got the dwarf lemon,
naval oranges, even Calamandan Persian lime and others like that, and they
will that if you don't delay and get over there, you can you can
get you one. No Buchanons, I know you guys are familiarhe it.
It's in the Heights on East eleventh Street. But if if you just want
to check it out, go to Buchanans Plants dot com. You can find
out exactly where they're located, and you can also sign up for their newsletter
and follow them on social media as well. But Buchanans does have that citrus
in so now would be a good time to do that. And hey,
when you're there, why not just pick up a bag of Microlifes. They
have a citrus and fruit granular fertilizer. Just have a two one punch,
take it home and get your plants set up for a good season. I'll
tell you what. When the fall, late fall and season comes and my
satsumas or a satsuma is ripening, there's nothing like it. And if you
if you're not grown citrus before, even if you don't care about the fruit,
the blooms are amazing. The fragrance on a citrus bloom, it's like
gardinia. It's one of those It's one of those plants that just wafts through
the air and just a wonderful fragrance. I love I love citrus. Winth
that that in and of itself is enough reason to grow a citrus. Our
phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and let's
go out to League City and we're going to visit with Rick Well. Hello,
Rick Skip, thanks for taking my call. I have a quick question.
I have a flower bed in my backyard that is fairly fairly small,
but it's had foxtail ferns in it for a number of years and I decided
I want to make a change, and so I have dug them out.
But in the soil there is all those tubular roots and nodules that are still
in there. And is there anything I can or should apply to that to
make sure those those foxtails will come back up? Nothing to apply. A
lot of that will not reach sprout. Some of it is just storage and
it's not going to reach sprout something. You may get some more sprouts here
and there, but I think I would watch it and if you see some
things coming up, just dig them up because there's not going to be a
good Put this on the soil and it'll prevent them from coming up with a
foxtail fern. Okay, great, So so I can just get what I
can out and then replan and I should be okay, yeah, I think
so. You know the I actually like foxtails. It was at the cold
heartiness problem that's kind of making you want to go in a different direction.
No, it was actually just time for a change. I did replant them
in another another part of the yard, okay, but this particular area I
would like some color and it's a different color, and so I wanted it
to make a change. Yeah, that's a good that's a good idea,
a good reason. Well that hopefully that'll get you going. I they're not
that hard to pop them up if you miss something, but you may find
that you got most of it when you've done. Okay, all right,
okay, great, Thanks very much, Hey Rick, thanks for the call.
Appreciate that our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four two and two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna hit the break here
in a little bit for the hour, get the news and everything in here.
So if you'd like to give us a call and get on the board,
go ahead and do that. If you are having trouble with your lawn,
maybe last summer's drought hit it, call patch is in it compaction issues
with the lawn, You need to call Greenpro and have them come out and
do a core aeration. That means popping the plugs of soil out of the
soil and dropping them on the surface. That is the way to properly core
aerture lawn. Just to have something that just squeezes a hole in the soils,
compacting the sides of the hole. No, you want a core aerator
that pops that hole out and a follow that with a quality leaf mold compost
stop dressing. And the folks at Greenpro they know how to get a finely
ground leaf mold compost top quality so that it falls down in those aeration holes.
And now you've got oxygen for the plant roots. Now you've got organic
matter in their decomposing and the microbial activity that goes along with that. Greenpro's
been in business for nearly fifteen years. They are the experts and getting it
done. You can go to green Protexas dot com or just call them two
eight one three five one four seven three three. This is a you know,
it's a time when we really need to be taking care of our lawns
and getting getting them ready for summer, and that's easy to do. I
was visiting the other day when was out at Arburgate for an appearance I did
out there. I was visiting with them about their one two three easy system,
and I love that combination it is makes it makes it easy because they're
going to give you a food that is essentially it's a fertilizer that feeds anything
with roots. They're going to give you a soil that fits any application,
and then they're going to give you a compost that is going to improve your
soil. Now you can go to Arburgate dot com. If you've never been
there, you can find out how to get there. It's one and a
half miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty out in Tomball.
But while you're there, check out the plants, check out the art and
the garden. Check out the gifts. If you want to earthkine rows,
they carry fruit trees year round. It will be it would be a very
nice outing for this afternoon to stop by Arbourgate arburgate dot com. But ask
them about their one two three completely easy system. I think that is a
really novel creative way to kind of put in one package pretty much everything that
you're going to need to have success with your plants. Well, you're listening
to garden Line and I am your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to talk to you about things that you're interested in. We're about to take
a little break here, but give Josh a call at seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. He will get you on the board and
we will talk about what you're interested in talking about when we come back.
I just want to remind you next Saturday, I'm going to be at Wilbird's
Unlimited in clear Lake from eleven thirty to one thirty. Wilbird's Unlimited in clear
Lake. It's one of the mini Wahbirds store here in the Greater Houston area.
This is one of the newer stores that's opened up out there. I'll
be there for two hours to answer your gardening questions. I love going to
a Wildbird. I love any excuse to go to Wildbirds because the products they
have it's just amazing. Even books interesting, you know, books about birds.
Maybe you just care about hummingbirds, or maybe you just want to bring
songbirds into the yard, or maybe you're you know, looking at watering or
feeding birds. They got it all. See you next Saturday out there.
I hope KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictord. Just
watch him as wood Well. Good morning, good Sunday morning, and a
good day to be learning about gardening, talking about gardening, and hopefully this
afternoon doing a little bit of gardening. You enjoy getting outside, I enjoying
the weather and just the I don't know, the fresh air. I've talked
about the brazilion benefits of gardening many times and will many times more. But
you know, it's it's even true. And I just find this to be
an amazing fact that there are microbes in the soil that affect our serotonin level.
Serotonin's all feel good chemical. And so you know, those of you
who grew up playing in the dirt, well, that's why you're that's why
you're happy, I guess, or you work back then at least as one
of the many reasons enjoying, enjoying that just experience of being out and being
out in nature, and it's it's a nice time. You just gotta get
hot this summer, I know, but hey, there's a lot of gardening
to be done when it gets hot too. So don't don't let that,
don't let that scare you away. If you live up in the Montgomery area
and you haven't been out to A and A plants and produce, you you
really you really need to give them a try. They just had a little
hands on project as part of the children's workshop at the Garden Center. They're
in Montgomery, by the way, They're just on the east side of Montgomery
on one oh five, So everybody up in the Lake Conro area, there
your backyard nursery right there. But they're gonna have another workshop, I believe,
in two more weeks. But looking at the pictures of the little kids
that we're having fun, having fun making seed balls. You know, it's
these little little soil balls that you press seed into and so the kids can
just chunk them out there and have things come up. That's kind of things
that they do out there. I mean, they've got a great selection.
You're going to find all the products that we talk about out at Ana.
They just you know, everything you can imagine, and not just plants,
but all the products for your plants and all the kind of bling you need
for your landscape. And by the way, they're open seven days a week,
nine to five. So that's a good trip for this afternoon out to
Ana Plants and Produce in Montgomery. We're gonna talk about I'm gonna talking a
little bit more about lawns this morning. But yesterday when I was out at
the hom and Garden show in Sugarland, Home and Outdoor Living show had a
number of folks, and thanks for everybody that came out. By the way,
I really enjoyed visiting with you. Oh my gosh, you guys had
questions. I think I answered more questions that day out at the Home and
Garden Show than I did in two months on the air here on a garden
line. These guys are filled with questions. But a lot of people are
asking questions about the lawns and lawn weeds and dealing with lawn weeds and things
like that. And I mentioned earlier that if you're going to do a broad
leaf weed control, you need to get that done because it is time.
It's going to get too hot. We're going to hit the mid eighties oper
eighties this week, probably hitting up to ninety before too many days ahead,
and so we don't want to wait any longer or you'll stress your grass out
with that broad leaf weed control application. But what you can do is you
can put down a pre emergent, and a pre emergent is one of the
most efficient ways to control weeds because it prevents them from ever coming up in
the first place and getting established. And barricade is that kind of product Nitrofoss
barricade. Nitrofoss's barricade is gonna stop grassy weeds and broad leaf weeds that are
coming up from seed in your lawn. And one bag, a ten pound
bag is going to cover five thousand square feet, so it goes a long
way. And you know up in d D feeding tomball plants and things in
Brennam k and m A sutting king with those, those places all have barricade
products, as does plantation ace and uh you know there there's just there's just
so many opportunities. J and rs Ace. By the way, importers another
good example. Barricade ahead of time, follow the label carefully, but before
the weeds are up, give get put that down and create that protective material
in the surface of the soil that shuts down weeds as they try to get
started and you never see the weed to begin with. And that that's an
efficient way to get to get that done. I you know, I'm amazed.
I know we love our lawns, we love our trees and flowers and
vegetables, but we really are a nation of lawn rangers. We love to
have a beautiful, beautiful, well attended lawn and you know, the idea
of how do I make it that even green carpet that just looks good all
the time. That's kind of what we're after, and that's what we talk
about here, and we give you you'll hear me and I'll be a broken
record on this, but it starts with cultural meaning. You gotta water adequately
with a good deek soaking on an infrequent basis. You want to mow regularly
with a sharp mower for Saint Augustine, don't cut it lower than three inches.
I keep mind at three and a half and sometimes in shade even a
little higher than that, because those grass blades are the solar panels, and
the shorter you cut it in shade, the less sun from that limited light
under the shade, the lust is as able to absorb and take in.
So a longer solar panel, longer grass plate is good. And then finally
fertilizing, you know, putting the nutrients out to give it the boost that
it needs to support healthy growth. That's that's pretty important in fact, talking
about lawns. That's a let's head out to Cyprus. We're gonna talk to
Sandy this morning. Good morning, Sandy, I skip, Thanks to talking
about lawns because it made me remember my question. So I had some oak
treese in my point yard that we were removed because it was keeping my yard
too shady and my grass was dying. And we removed about four oak trees
and we have four left in the front yard. And um where they removed
it from, and they removed the stump out. It's dip. It dips
down like there, even though it's grass has grown over it. But what
can I do to um that the dips, you know, the little hilly
they're like and I can't tell where it steeps down and where it goes up,
yeah, because until I step over it. Because it's okay, so
these are small ups and downs. This isn't like a ten foot wide low
spot. Um No, it's just from the removal of the cheese trunk,
okay, and where the branches in the inside under the ground branched out of
these up cheets. Okay, Okay, Well what you just you just have
to figure out where the low spots are. Maybe walking on it is one
way you tell. But I would use a soil a top soil quality mix
on that. Normally we top dress with composts, but what we're not.
What we're trying to do is change the soil level in the lawn so it's
even and so you can just spread a good qualities sandy loam top soiltop mix
out over your lawn in those low areas. What I do, uh sandy
is I use a rake, the kind that you would rake soil with,
not a leaf rake, but the stiff times and turn it upside down so
the times you're pointing up and then it's like you're playing shuffleboard on the lawn.
You have all these little piles of soil where you've dumped a little soil
here and there where you felt there's a low spot, and you just use
a rake to smooth it out and it gets you a nice even finish,
and that'll settle in and maintain a good level. And then of course top
dressing is good later, but that top dress is composting. It decomposes a
way, so if you're using that to fill a hole, the hole's just
going to sink back down again. That's why I like the soil for the
situation you're asking about. Okay, okay, so good top soil, Yeah,
good quality top soil that ought to get you going. I appreciate you
giving us a call. Yeah very much our phone number seven one, three,
two and two fifty eight seventy four. Be with you right after break.
Well, good Sunday morning, good day for talking about gardening, and
a good day for gardening. That's a good day for shopping for gardening.
Two this afternoon, we are enjoying ourselves today talking about all kinds of things.
And we are now going to shift topics a little bit. Head out
to League City and visit with John V. Hello John V. Good morning,
Good morning, Skip and everybody, and garden talk. I would like
to ask a question about mangoes. Okay, how can we growing them?
And yes, I'm growing them? What are their seasons? And um,
how to maintain? And I think a lot of the things that you've just
told us about the citrus and I listened to so I wrote everything down in
my um in my notebook. Oh good. Yeah, Well, mangoes are
a bit of a challenge because they're a little more cold hearty, you know,
than than some of the citrus even are. But you can people get
them to grow here. You just have to go to great links. When
we're gonna have a real good cold spell. But I love, in fact,
mango. I think mango and peach are probably my two favorite fruits to
eat. But they the mango fruit it takes oh, I don't know,
maybe three to four or five months to fully develop it. You know,
from the time it blooms until the time it harvests. Harvests. H They're
not that difficult to grow. It's just primarily it's going to be the cold
protecting them from the cold. So in what you fertilize them with the things
you fertilize other fruit trees with. You give them good drainage like other fruit
trees, you give them good sunlight like other fruit trees, and they do
really well. I thought, sounds wonderful. I'm thinking about planning it in
the center of the backyard because my mother, I love her to pieces.
I call her the Maagnelia tree Murder because she chopped down on vagnelia tree.
No, oh, my gosh, she did, and I told her I
didn't want it. I didn't want to let it go, and she let
it go. So I was like, well, we're gonna have to spot
to replacement. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, wherever you put
it, go ahead and start planning for how you're going to protect it.
You know, maybe maybe maybe it's a bunch of lar PVCs that are put
together into like a tinker toy box that you can cover and the kind of
heat you're gonna need to get under it, because the last thing you want
to do is go to all that trouble and then have a coal take it
away from you. That's right. And then um, they get pretty tall,
have by these five ten I mean ten twenty? Yeah, they well,
in time, they can, you know, and if you go to
where they're not going to be frozen down and everything they are going to be,
they're gonna be um pretty large. But you can do some proning to
keep them a little smaller. So a lot of people will plan them,
you know, within eight to ten feet of the south side of a house,
for example. That's one thing. Are the booms of the mango Yeah,
that's a good question. I have not had a mango tree in my
yard. I've seen people grown mangoes. Oh my gosh, I need to
check that out. Maybe someone else can call in that knows I've that is
I'm drawn a blank, I mean, but oh I'll look it up.
Don't you worry skips. Okay, thank you. You have a wonderful Sunday,
all of you. Yeah you two, John V. Thank you,
thank you very much for the call. I was talking about. Fertilized the
law and earlier. The folks at Nelson Dean and they have put together the
turf Star line, which is just a group of a half dozen outstanding products
for your lawn. And my favorite for this time of the year is Slow
and Easy, the twenty two two ten Slow and Easy. It's it's the
kind of thing that gradually feeds over the summer, which is what we're talking
about being important. That avoids a lot of the issues we have with shallow
rooting, of with having to mow too much, with the disease or insect
problems being exacerbated for the for the fancy word by excessive succulent growth rates,
and Slow and Easy will do just that. Nelson's they have a number of
products. I always like the Bruces brewis year round eighteen four nine. It's
a good a good fertilizer. But my number one recommendation for the summer would
be to either use a Slow and Easy which will gradually feed, or to
take a Bruis's brew and divide it up into two or three applications, spread
it out not the same, not the full amount each time. But but
do you create a slower release by you fertilizing in small amounts. That's a
lot of trouble. So I would just say go with the slow and easy
twenty two two ten. And you're going to find nice fish products everywhere around
town. But if you're down let's say you're down in southwest part of town
near brass beIN State Park, seen a plantation, Quell Valley, Manville,
Meridian, First Colony, all through that area, you need to go to
see on a mulch because they carry Nelson's. They carry a wide variety of
products that we talk about here. But they also while you're there, you
can grab the molts, the bags of molts, the bags that compost.
If you want it in bulk and it's nearby, they can deliver within an
area around there, and of course there's always a delivery fee when anybody producing
a moltch is going to bring it out to you. But that's a very
nice convenience and they have all those products that you need. Uh go to
Cienamals Dot com CNA malch si E NNA, cnamals dot com uh and they
are open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five thirty, Saturday seven thirty to
two thirty. Close today, but they'll be back open Monday morning. Either
swing by there and grab your products or give them a call and have something
delivered. We um are going to head out to the Spring Branch area now
and we're going to talk to Hurt Well, good morning, Hurta. Are
you there. Well, we'll put you back on hold and we'll see if
we can we can get hurt to live back here again. When when we're
trying to when we're trying to achieve that state of the art landscape, the
landscape that is just you know, it's a show place. You're you're proud
for people to drive by and see your house. You love for people to
come visit and go sit in the backyard with you and hang out. That
kind of landscape comes because people plan, They plan ahead. They choose their
plants that are going to do well here and be established here. They and
by the way, they go to a retail garden center that's going to sell
them stuff that does well here. Not one of these national chain places that
just ships plants to all over the place, and in a lot of places
they should never be planted there. They just it's not a horticulturally driven decision.
It's a whole different world. You go to an independent garden center and
they're going to give you things that our horticulturally sound advice are going to give
you horticulturally adapted plants for our region. And that's just important, and so
setting things up that way will help you have success. It always breaks my
heart to get a call or to talk to somebody with an email and they're
talking about this plan and they did it, and they put this on and
we're a couple of years in and I've just got to break the news that
look, just dig it up it is. You know, it is never
going to do well here. I know they told you that lilac would grow
further south than others, but not this far south. For example, you
may love the yellow Forsythia blooms where you came from, but not here.
They're not going to make it here. So get plants that will do well
for you here. And that's why we're always talking about our good mom and
pops all through the Greater Houston area that provide that kind of thing. By
the way, it is with all the rain we were having. Remember it
doesn't take mosquitoes very long to go through their life cycle, and here we
got a whole new crop. So that wonderful sitting out on the patio I
was talking about. Now you're swatting things as they fly around, you're irritating,
you're trying to enjoy your time. Well, Mosquito dunks is a way
to get rid of that. Mosquito dunks there's still a small paige donut and
you just toss them out there. They float on the standing water. They
dissolve for about a month. You're going to get good control of your mosquito
in a very natural way. By the way, they're safe if your pets
go up and drink the water, if you've got birds that are coming up
and drinking the water, and so on. Mosquito dunks are organic product that
will last about thirty days and will control any mosquito larva that hatch from eggs
in that little body of water. Now you're gonna find them. Of course,
our Ace hardware stores carrying mosquito dunks. Almost all the independent nurseries.
You're going to have them, and all those feed stores we love to talk
about, they're going to have them. But mosquito dunks is just the simplest
way to deal with a body of water. You can't drain that. You
don't want to raise a new crop of mosquitoes in. We're gonna go now
to spring branch. I think we're going to give another try here. Hey,
Hurda, do we have you back? Yes? You do, Thank
you, you beat. How can we help? Well? I bought some
blue plumbago, and I want to know all about planning them. I want
to do everything right, all right, right now I can plant now what
is it that you're wanting to plant? Blue plumbago? Three of them?
Yes, okay, you can plant them now. Blue plumbago. You just
want to in the coming weeks. You want to give it small amounts of
water to keep that little rootball that you put in the ground, to keep
it moist. All right, it's gonna get its roots spread out really well,
and it is amazingly drought tolerant once it is well established. So give
it some TLC for a month or two here, and I think you're going
to be really pleased with that's a great plant, okay, And I have
another question I have. I call it the parent azaa. They're about fi
stems at least half an inch in diameter, but the lead are brown on
one stem and they're kind of yarrowish on another. Um, What do I
do about that? And you said it wasn't azalea, right, yeah,
okay, Uh, something's wrong in the soil. Maybe it dried out a
little too much. Maybe the drainage isn't good and it's staying saggy at Maybe
you used a salt based fertilizer a little too strong and it burned some roots.
That's probably the most unlikely of the options. But something's wrong underground,
and it's just that's why it's not looking good above ground. So I would
just you know, reach down kind of feel the soil on that side of
the plants, see see what you find there. Is it moist or not
watered accordingly? And then I would give them a boost of a fertilizer for
acidic loving plants. We got a good number of plants like Camellias azalia's blueberries
that need an acid fertilizer, and I would give them a boost of that
and try to get some more vigor in those azalias. All right, all
right, oh, thank you so much, Skip, Thank you well,
you're you're very kind. Thank you heard. I appreciate that call. Uh.
You know, I always talking about liking our feed stores. If you're
on the east side of town. We're talking about out in Mont Bellevue or
even down in Baytown because they're just minutes from Baytown. The Texas Feedstop is
that complete feed store. Brian and Hope Rhodes have created that thing that you
would expect from the old time feed store. They carry their bags out for
you that you know, they know their customers. You're like family there.
They're on North Highway one forty six in Mont Bellevue, just north of I
ten, just a little bit of north of I ten Highway one forty six,
and you're going to find all the products there, all the fertilizers that
we talk about, the mosquito dunks I was just talking about, You're going
to find them there at Texas Feedstop. So go buy, say hello to
Brian and Hope there and just get to know them because, like I said,
your family out there, and that's how they treat their customers. And
that's what makes it such a pleasure to go back to and to u go
back again and again. You know, you kind of get to know somebody.
It's like you're an old friend. You can trust what they say,
you can trust with the products that they point you to. Texas feed Stop
is just I love it when I go out there. Just a real pleasure
to be out in that area. Well, speaking of real pleasure, here
comes news with Nikki. Is that right? News? Can we go there?
Nicks Network? That's the NNN jump back. Well, good morning on
a good Sunday morning for gardening, for talking about gardening. This afternoon,
good time to get out and do some gardening. You know, we talk
about a lot of different groups, organizations and things like that here on Garden
Line, but that there's one that really hits close to home for me and
that Star of Hope Mission. Decades ago, my wife and I volunteered at
Star Hope with the church we are at at the time, and it has
changed so much. I visited a couple of months ago, I believe at
the new facilities, some of the new facilities they have, it is amazing.
I mean, they serve Harris Fort Benbersoria, Montgomery Counties. It will
change, It will change the way you see homelessness. To understand the ministries
and outreach of Star of Hope. They have a Love and Action van that
goes to the streets to offer people prayer, shelter, recovery programs, a
chance at a brighter future. They have a place where homeless men, women
and children can stay for up to a year while they focus on life changing
programs, getting educated, getting an employment, learning how to get a job,
recovering from substance abuse, whatever they're dealing with. At that place,
it's a safe places place where they get meals and clothing and training. Sure
there's rules that's necessary in order to operate something successful like that, but an
amazing community that gives people that. You know, it's often been said where
many of us are like a paycheck or two away from being in a similar
spot. And that may not strike you, but I'll tell you this,
when you see the face of homelessness, it may be a mom that for
no fault of our own, is now trying to stay alive, keeping her
living in a car with their kids. It would be someone who is wanting
was once successful and has fallen on hard times and is looking for a way
to get their feetback under them. That little hand out at the corner,
somebody holding the sign up. I don't want to go into that too far,
but let me just say this, if you want to give a few
bucks and make a difference, the differences by putting that kind of money into
a place like Star of Hope, where we don't just hand them food for
a day, where we train them, where we set them off for a
successful life. And you can volunteer or star by the way, go to
shmission dot org for more information. Oh mission dot org. For two dollars
and eighty cents the cost of a fancy cup of coffee, you can you
can provide somebody with a meal. They have volunteer opportunities. They need people
to help with everything from helping with meals to just writing encouraging notes. This
is a great way to make a difference in somebody's life. So let's take
that compassion that we all have and let's put it into practice in a way
that really truly brings hope and change, and that that is with starvoph Mission
dot org. I'm going to head out now to Spring Branch and we're going
to talk to Richard. Good morning, Richard, good morning. How can
we help today? Well, this is not it's help for information, is
what it is. I was at a popular nursery the other day and they
sail in lonely Pine, and people ought to be aware that it's not like
the regular pines around here and there. It needs certain conditions. It goes
in sand or sandy long and it has a tap root. Most places don't
think that pines have tap roots, but this particular pine does. Well.
A lot of pine trees haven't tap root. Yeah, that's right, right,
So if if you planet, then it's real slow growing and people need
to understand that because other pines go real fast, but it goes real slow.
Yeah, we have a we have a number of good pines for hearing.
You know, they each have their pros and cons. But I appreciate
that that information. Richard. Did you have a question to go with the
call? Uh? No, I did have another piece of information. Most
people think that Houston has old clay soil, but in north of O ten
there's a lot of s andy loam pocket that is true, that's right.
So if they need to make sure that there's I believe to grow pine tree
with a tap root, they need to make sure that they have sandy loams.
Saw it all right, Richard, Well, I appreciate that information.
Yeah, we do have a variety of types of soil around here. The
predominance through the Gulf Coast. We had a lot of that Houston black clay.
They even named it after us. That's the official name of the sail
type. But as you get up in the piny woods, got some wonderful
sandy loams. And it just varies any area you live in. You know,
it may be mostly clay, but you may have pockets of sand.
And just check your sword before you make assumptions. It's a good, good
idea. You know, you hear me talk about ACE Hardware on this show,
and it's because I just am amazed at the way they have preserved the
old time hardware. Qualities of staff that know what they're talking about, that
greet you, that take you to the products you need, that it advise
you, that help you with your project, and that includes having the gardening
products that we need. And they carry the stuff we talk about here.
I mentioned that before, but if you've not been in an ACE Hardware I
would just ask you, do me a favorite, go in one and just
see what I'm talking about. There's thirty nine of them around here. You
can go to ACE Hardware dot Com you can find a one near you.
But you would be amazed. I mean, it's not your daddy's hardware store,
although they treat you like it is. But when you walk in there,
the products that they have, the variety of products that they have for
the home beyond just home and garden, I mean for the home, and
it's just amazing. Ace Hardware dot Com. Check them out. I promise
you won't be disappointed. You'll be amazed like I was when I first walked
in to the new modern Ace and the quality stores we have in our group
of thirty nine hardware stores here in the Houston area. This is this is
a good time of the year to be getting ready for the summer garden.
And that means that means that we are going to be planting the vegetables that
do well in summer. It means we're planting the flowers that do well in
summer. And we're gonna take a break here. But when I come back
from break, I am going to talk to you about some of those things.
In the meantime, write down the number and give us a call seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Josh, you'll get you
on the board and we'll talk to you about what you're interested in. We'll
get Sunday morning watching the skies brighten up a little bit as we get a
little bit more light in here. You can see around everything. It's kind
of nice now, you know. The weather is just so awesome these next
few days. We I think we're probably in the next three or four days,
you know, maybe upper eighties at the most, mid eighties, upper
eighties somewhere in there. That boy, that's that's great weather. Good good
time to get out and get some work done out in the garden. By
the way, if you live if you live in down you know, kind
of in the north central part of the interior part of Houston. If you
house that for a description you need to know about Quality Feed Company, Quality
Feed and Garden Quality Feedco dot com. Go to Quality Feedco dot com and
Ken and Cress. This place. It's been going on since well, actually
the store itself since nineteen twenty eight. They've owned it for like thirty two
years now. They carry all the products we talk about when you hear me
mention a fertilizer or mulchis and things, they have it. And they even
have some of their own kind of products, like Ken makes his own potting
soil there and that they sell there everything you'd expect from feed store. Certainly
they get chickens in all the time there and so if you're intesting backyard chickens
and the products to go with them, they're going to have it all so
you can get the complete setup. They're at Quality feed Now. They're open
today from eleven thirty to four pm, so it's a good time to go
buy now. If you went to the old location like I used to go,
you're gonna need to know. The new location is at eighteen thirteen Luzon
Street, which is near the intersection of Equipment and Alesion. So Quality feedcode
dot com check them out. It's one of those cool old time feed stores.
But wow, you will be impressed by the products and even by the
bones eye and other plants that they have there for sale. We're gonna take
some time to go out now to Oatesbury and talk to Lee. Good morning,
Lee, how are you this morning? I'm doing fine, doing fine.
Uh, skip us wondering I have several contrees that I would like to
see if I could get some cons produced out of them. How I go
about that? How old are these trees are? How big are they?
They're pretty old, several several years old. So if you went up to
the trunk and gave it a hug, about how far how far across that
t punk is it? You know? At chest high? Are we looking
at an eight inch trunk? A twelve inch trunk or what it might be
about twelve inch trunk maybe a little bit larger? Okay, good? Probably
at this point, don't know what the varieties are, right, No,
I don't know what kind they are. They just volunteered, Okay, and
do they ever produce for you? I have seen some green ones pop up,
but then when I opened them up to the shelves, who not,
they're not very good? Okay, well, pecans, it's our state tree.
I mean, there's no question that we beloved. They are beloved here
in Texas. However, when we start kind of bringing them into landscape type
situations and whatnot, they're a challenge and even out in a pasture. Uh,
you've when a pecan comes up from seed, it's genetically different than any
other pecan, just like people are all individually different from each other, and
so it may be more susceptible to disease, which means every year you've got
a problem with that. It may have issues with branch structure and tendency to
break branches. It's going to vary in terms of does it produce pollen or
nutlets first, and so it's kind of a mixed bag. When you describe
having a pecan and you open it up and it's nothing inside, it's black
inside or dried up inside, that is probably because something has killed the shuck
tissues. There are diseases that affect the leaves, and there are diseases that
affect that green shuck. And interestingly enough, you know the branch comes into
the base of the pecan and then there's that schuck around the pecan. The
nutrients and water go through that shuck before they move into the pecan, and
so if you kill the shuck, you affect that pecan's ability to fill up
with good pecan kernel, and so you may be looking at a disease problem.
There are also insects that feed inside the shock, and insects it can
feed inside the nut itself, so a lot of things can go wrong for
trees that size. It's gonna take one heck of a sprayer to try to
get on some kind of a schedule to shut that down. And that just
maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of you, you know,
being able to go out and yeah, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go
through that and get try to do it that way. But spraying is probably
necessary just based on what you've told me, which I know is limited information,
but I just know that with pecans, insects and diseases can spoil the
show if they're in a lot of Are these in a pasture or in a
lawn or where lawn? Okay, So a good soaking watering when we go
through extended summer heat and drought like last year is important because up until about
August first, roughly, that pecan is growing and the pecan nut is growing
in size, and then the shell hardens and after August first it fills the
kernel creates that we call it nutmeat inside. So if you are not getting
well filled pecans, it's often also because of a lack of adequate moisture during
August, September and early October, and so that would be another thing that
would be in your control is to giving a little bit better good deep soaking,
because you're going to need to put on at least an inch of water
to wet the soil deeply, probably more than an inch to help rescue a
pecan when it's in a drought stress and it's depleting those bank account nutrient of
moisture in the soil. Okay, all right, there's a lot of information
the really I hope that was helpful. Well, it has helps, so
I do, thank you very much. Yeah, and there's good information online
if you go to the Agge Horticulture website, it's aggy Dash Horticulture dot TAMU
dot edu, or you can just do a Google search for Aggie Horticulture.
There's a publication in the fruit section on pecans. It's many pages of full
color pictures and it'll tell you all about the kinds of things you're probably curious
about in terms of getting success with those. Okay, okay, thank you
very much. Well, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very
much. We are you know, we talk about trees and things and success
with them, and I know that just like turf, trees are one of
the big things that people care a lot about, very concerned when you start
seeing trees having problems and you know, I know a pecan is it would
be in that group of trees we call fruit and nut trees, but they're
also shade trees. And when it comes to taking care of trees, you
need somebody that knows what they're talking about. And the folks at Affordable Tree
Service I'm talking about Martin and his wife Joe. They've been in the business
fifty two years. It's the third generation for those folks that family in the
Tree Service. When you call seven one three, six nine nine twenty six
sixty three, either Martin or Joe's going to answer. And there are some
other companies that put Affordable in the name. So if it's not Martin or
Joe that answers the phone, we're talking about the owners answering their own phone,
then hang up and you got the wrong number. Seven one three sixty
nine nine two six sixty three. Or you can go online to aff Tree
Service dot com. They do it all, you know, consulting and that's
a that's a very good thing to hire somebody to come out look at it,
see the situation, especially if you're about to do any changes to the
landscape or build a house around a tree or anything like that. They do
pruning, deep root feeding, pest disease control, They grind stumps, I
mean, you know, the whole whole nine yards. Affordable tree service or
folks that you can depend on to do the job right. And remember with
trees, you only get one shot. When someone comes in and they don't
know what they're doing, they screw up the tree. That's for life.
They did they don't outgrow a butchering pruning, but a four tree service does
know what they're doing. Tell them, tell them that you are with KTRH,
that you listen to garden Line and they will put you to the front
of the line. And they have a lot of business, but Guarden Line
customers go to the front of the line, So make sure and mention that
when you call seven one three six nine nine two six six three. We
I'm really enjoy visiting with Martin and Joe. Just a really pleasant a couple
to be around, and it's just pleasure. It's a pleasure to be able
to recommend something where I know you're going to get a good results from it,
because there's, as you know, in any industry, there's a wide
variety from the good, the bad, to the ugly out there, and
that's certainly true and tree care as well. Were you're listening to Garden Line,
we are putting another hour in the books and we'll be back again after
a break for news. If you would like to get on the boards,
give Josh a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
seven three two and two five eight seven four. He will get you on
the board so we can talk about what you're interested in. By the way,
next hour, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the transition into hot
weather for our flower gardens and for our vegetable garden, so you definitely will
stick around with that. If your neighbors are still sleeping in, go bang
on the door, wake them up and tell them they're missing garden Line.
They'll appreciate that, trust me. Someday, maybe maybe not this morning,
but someday they will say thank you for turning us on to garden Line.
Hey, we'll be back in a little bit here. KTRH Garden Line does
not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just what I have been called a lot
of things, but to my knowledge, not adorable. You're listening to garden
Line. I am your host, Skip Water. You can decide whether it's
adorable or not as we go through the show today seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four, two on two fifty eight seventy four. We
are here to talk about the things you're interested in. And why don't we
just start by going up to spring and visiting with Rich. Good morning,
Rich, Good morning Skip. On May the fifth, I put down my
second application of fertilizer, the nitro foss nineteen four ten, and I also
applied amid a cloprit as a preventative manager against side web worms, and we
got all that monsoon, and I'm wondering, do I need to reapply either
or both? Tell me the date again when you put those down, May
the fifth, May fifth, No, you don't. And as far as
the metacoprit, it is a systemic and it hangs around a while. But
side web rbs are going to come a little bit later on, so I
think I wouldn't do it again for sure now anyway, that number one that's
already in the plant. But I would wait a little bit later and we
see if we're going to start to have a web worn problem, you can
get in on it really early and knock that out too. There, so
there's no need to you know, start earlier in the year applying the meta
culprit. But so i'd wait. I would wait, and that nineteen the
fertilizer you mentioned putting down, that one's gonna gradually release anyway over time,
so even the rain, that's one of the nice things about having something that
releases slowly. Got it. Appreciate your help, Skid, Thank you all
right, Well that was fast and easy. Thank you very much. Rich.
Appreciate that call I mentioned before break. We're going to talk about some
of the transition to hot weather in our gardens. By the way, our
number seven one, three, two and two fifty eight seven four, if
you'd like to give us a call. When it comes to the flower beds,
the petunias, some of those spring flowers that were just gorgeous in the
spring, but when the heat of summer comes, it really hammers them pretty
good, and you can stretch them out a little bit. You can keep
them going a little bit if you will shear them back and give them some
fertilizer, give them a boost of a good fertilizer designed for color plants.
Okay, And so last year I had a petunia in a hanging basket.
Oh my gosh, it was beautiful or it just unbelievable, and they actually
almost bloom themselves to death if you look at it early on. You have
a lot of leaves, and then here comes out the bloom stalks and things,
and it just blooms and blooms and blooms. And at some point I
looked at it, and the last foot of that vine, if you want
to call it a vine, it was all just where flowers had been,
and there were no leaves. And so a plant can't make carbohydrates to make
more flowers without foliage. And so sometimes people say, well, why would
you recommend a high nitrogen fertilizer if it's a blooming plant. Well, you
don't necessarily need a high nitrogen, but you do need nitrogen. And so
ever, fertilizer should contain some nitrogen for blooming plants too, not just phosphorus
and potassium, and that boost of nitrogen combined with a shearing back. So
think of it this way. You look at these plants that seem to be
kind of blooming themselves into a little bit of a weakened state. There's not
as many blooms. You cut them back, you fertilize them, you water
it in, and you get a fresh, new vegetative growth, and then
the blooms come back, you get more blooms again. And we can do
that with a lot of plants. You know, maybe you have Salvia greggy
I greg sage or cherry sage. Sometimes it's called autumn sage. I hate
that name for it, but anyway, Salvia greg it's a little subshrub and
if you just let it go, it'll just keep growing. As a little
subshrub kind of gets open, a little woody look in. It always is
blooming, just a few blooms, but always blooming. But if you will
share that back, I share mine back at the end of winter. I
come back typically when it's finished the spring flush of growth, and it's always
gonna have blooms on it. So this is gonna be a hard pruning for
you to do, but you share it back by about a third again going
into summer, fertilize it, water that fertilizer in fresh new growth, lots
more blooms. I'll do that again at the end of summer, the sharing,
fertilizing and watering, and it's a beautiful fall. Now, if you
don't do any of that, it's a tough plant. It'll stay alive,
but it'll be rangey looking and you won't have nearly the bloom production. And
here's why, and I've talked about this before, but a lot of plants,
many of our gardening plants, bloom on the terminal ends of shoots.
Roses do that. Salvias do that, for example. So if you have
one shoot with blooms on the end, and you go back and you prune
it back far enough back to encourage some resprouting and vigor, not just cutting
the end, the end off with the very bloom on it, but cut
back a little further. That's why I say about about a third, and
you fertilize in water, then all these new shoots come out. Where there
was one shoot, you may have two or three, and now you have
three terminals that can have blooms on them. So your plant is more compact,
more tidy, and more floriferous. How's that for a nice word for
a Sunday morning. Floriferous. So that's the care. That's the management.
People used to ask me. You know, they would say things like,
I don't know how to take care of my plants, and I never could
understand what what are you talking about? You water at your fertize. What
do you mean? You don't know how to take care of your plants?
And I think it's it's just this. I look at a plant. I
don't know about plants. I don't know what to do, and it's kind
of intimidating. Maybe, Well, I'm telling you what to do, and
I'm telling you for these kind of flowers, don't be afraid to two or
three times a year give them a sharing back, give them some fertilizer and
some water, and get them going again, and you will just have good
success. Now, as we're getting warmer, we're going to be heading into
some really hot weather. So things like petunias. Even though they've improved on
heat tolerance with these plants, they're still not totally summer heat tolerant in terms
of performing their best in the summer. So that's when we look to things
that can take the heat. And I keep talking about summer snap dragon or
angelonia, just because the breeding that's been done on that plant, the colors,
the compactness, the size just covering up with little spikes of blooms really
beautiful. I mean, it's hard to go wrong with Angelonia for a summer
color plant. It will never get too hot and humid in Houston for angelonia,
so that that would be a good example. There are several other plants.
There is a kind of a version of a lissum, which we normally
think about as a winter plant, but you can get them to bloom in
summer. But there's one called white stream. We call it Lobularia as if
that's something different, but that's the same genus as a lissum, but albularia
white stream will bloom all summer. When I worked out at Bear Creek Park
at the Extension office here in Houston Harris County, we planted some white stream
Liabularia in May. Now May is just the doorstep of really hot weather,
and it was mid to light May when we planted them, and we kept
them watered. Of course, they got to have water. But I thought
these things don't have a chance. They just got better and better each month
of the summer. White, just like a lissome little tiny white flowers all
over the place. Nice, pleasant fragrance, very attractive to beneficial insects.
If you've got a container, it spills over the side and just looks beautiful,
nice trailing plant. But anyway, I'll come back. We'll talk about
some more of that stuff in a minute. We're gonna take a break now.
Our phone number seven one three two and two fifty eight seventy four.
Is it still over mind? Well, good morning on a good Sunday morning.
We are glad you're listening to garden Line our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you would like to give us
a call, I want to remind you that next Saturday, that's Saturday,
the twenty seventh of May, I will be at the Wall Birds Unlimited in
clear Lake from eleven thirty to one thirty. We'll spend two hours out there.
We'll answer your gardening questions. We'll certainly be pointing you to some good
quality supplies at Wilbirds. And by the way, if you've not been into
a wild Birds you're not going to believe it. In fact, let me
give you a website. Please write this down w BU dot com, WBU
dot com forward slash Houston. When you go there, what you're gonna see
are the wild Birds Unlimited store in our Houston grouping here. Now, there's
one missing out there, and that's the clear Lake store. That's the one
I'm gonna be out. They haven't got that on the map yet. It'll
be up there soon. But all the wild Birds around town, you're going
to find the one near you, and they're all over around town. It's
not hard to get to one. But next next Saturday, I'll be at
the one in clear Lake. But check out that website. Go to a
store near you. There's a You can go to the website of the store
from the link I gave you, and you will be amazed what you'll find.
All this kind of information online. You know, how do you squirrel
proof a feeder? Uh? There's cams on there. I like these.
There are several bird cams, like five different bird cams around the country and
they're just set up all the time, and you could just sit there and
watch birds come to it. In fact, if you put that on your
TV and just let it run kind of like background, it'll give your catch
something to do all day, trust me. But they'll never get close enough
to get a me a lot of that. But while Bird's unlimited, just
so many educational things upcoming events. You know, the materials they have,
the food they have, the feeders that they have, the bird houses.
By the way, a good time for getting out there with some bluebird houses.
We got a little property with maybe a little grassy field out to the
side that is just bluebird heaven. You know, get up on the edge
of the woods and put your bluebird feeders in such a pleasure to watch.
While Bird's unlimited. Well, let's call to Montgomery. We're gonna talk to
Jim this morning. Good morning, Jim, Hey, good morning. Say
I wanted to ask you about this blueberry. I got it. It was
called a southern high bush and it's in a container, a large container,
and I left it out all winter, and you know, it's deciduous,
but it came back big time and it put on tons and tons of blueberries.
Okay, but it looks like a rabbit got him. I have a
big old rabbit. While rabbit runs around here, I'm just assuming that's we've
got it. But they ate them green, can you? Uh? And
I was wondering, you think this blueberry is gonna boom twice like another time
this fall? Probably not? Probably not. It's just a one shot deal.
Yeah, it would if they if they got them green. I don't
think it was bird birds, although birds birds can eat blueberries for sure.
It could have been squirrels too, but that is unusual. Yeah, I
got squirrels too, but I didn't think they'd eat them green. But I
got a few that were ripe, and they were big and nice and sweet
and everything. And I use that Microlife red label at the Microlife sixty four
for acid loving plants, and yeah, that's wonderful stuff. I also use
the orange label for my cum quots, and they're like blooming their heads off
right now. But I thought of another question, if you got time.
I was in France a couple of years ago, and I noticed it's some
of the outdoor cafes. They have these trees that grow up in there.
I don't know what kind of trees they are. They had blooms on them,
but they're not great myrtles. But they I don't know what you call
it, but they've they've grafted the limbs together to form a lattice, you
know what I'm talking about, Like, have you seen that? Yes?
I have Huh do they have that in Texas? Anywhere? I'm sure people
have done that. I mean it's a little bit of work to do.
But basically, where two branches would touch, you know that, you you
can create the kind of like checkerboard xes type lattice, or you can create
even a ladder if you want to do that. But where two branches touch,
you kind of cut the bark back and you put them together so they
heal back together there, you know it. The books these were older,
and they you know, had like knots where they grafted them together, whatever
you call it. And they did it all over the top. You know,
it's like a ceiling of lattice. Yes, and the blooms. It
was wonderful. You know. I was always afraid though a bird was going
to drop something in my food, but you know, I was taking a
chance. But they really looked cool. I was wondering if that was kind
of a just a French thing or people did that, you know in the
United States. Yeah, well, you know in different countries, they're different
traditions and styles and things. But when you get over into parts of Europe,
there are some elaborate pruning things that they do to create beautiful uh,
like you described there, allott Us would be one example. You can do
that here. You just have to, you know, pick your plants accordingly,
things that are going to do well here. It does take time,
and I guess you know where you have this little courtyard with a stone wall
around it, and that's been in the property for three generations. You know,
time is not an issue we you know, we create beautiful things,
but we tend to be a little more mobile over here, and you don't
see things like Espalier. That's another example, you know, the sal with
one and if that would work, you could do it. You could make
it work. It's going to take a lot of work, and you're gonna
have to really do a lot of really big right now. And they're kind
of touching each other right now, but yeah, they're I could do that,
but I couldn't make it one. You know, it's just going to
be in one line it's not going to be like over like they headed over
a courtyard. Well, what they will often do on that is you will
you will plant the crape myrtle at like a forty five degree angle, a
single shoot, and then you can use like a bamboo stick or something to
tie it to to keep it going at that forty five degree angle. And
when you do that to several crape myrtles, now you've created a row of
them leaning like that. Then shoots come off and you train them back the
other way at a forty five degree angle. So you kind of get the
design in your head and use pieces of bamboo that will allow you to attach
those shoots to it so that it's perfectly straight and at right at the angle
you want to create that ultimate final effect that you're going to grow yourself into.
Oh it sounds interesting, sounds like a fun thing to do. Yeah,
I'm gonna give it a start and see what happened. Yeah, we'll
have to well I have to try that myself. That'll keep us out of
trouble. I guess we'll have something busily keep that. Seeing out of trouble.
Not my thing, but I can cut it all right, Hey,
Jim, thanks for the call. I appreciate good luck with that out there.
Oh wow, that's funny. Yeah. The the kinds of pruning and
design and things that people do, it's just it's really it's really outstanding.
I was talking about the importance of getting trees planted properly and you. In
fact, yesterday I was visiting someone about it's time to get that done.
Now. You can plant trees twelve months out of the year here. If
you know how to take care of them, you can just keep going and
planting them. But if you really want a quality tree, I would suggest
you check out Verdant Tree Farm. That's Verdant tree Farm dot com. Now
their original location, the one I first went to, is out of bark
Or Cyprus, on the west side of town, kind of just past Bear
Creek Park on in pair Land on Broadway West Broadway. There is a Verdant
Tree Farm down there. For those of you south and east, if you're
kind of in more central three thirty seven Yale Street is the newest one.
It's right at Eye Tend there. Verdant Tree Farm in the Heights area never
Dance got all the kinds of trees that you would want to grow. I
mean you go picture tree, you tag it, they bring it, they
install it for you. They'll go all the way up to seven hundred gallons.
I mean, if you really want to just an instant tree, they
can do that. Of course. They they have always specialized in palms,
greatest selection of palms in town, and Verdant Tree Farm is the kind of
place that can get you set up with a quality tree and they can plan
it right so it survives and it just gets better with time. Go to
Verdant tree Farm dot com for that. Speaking of go to let's go to
Cyprus and we're going to talk to Stephen. Hello, Stephen Poties, get
what's up today? Hey, I got a question for you. I have.
We have three goldies in a K King Cavalier and I'm trying to find
out what type of fertilizer and wheat killer I can put out there that's good
for the pets, because the problem I have is the dogs like to eat
the grassy, but we try to stop them. But it's I always section
off the art where I think it needs it most, but I like to
do the whole yard if I can, and I want to make sure that
that you know, I have tumble sometimes, you know, trusting what I
read. Question says they grass. Yeah, so I was hoping maybe you
can give me a direction where I can do the whole yard and try to
get the you know, like a pre emergent and the fertilizer to put out
there to where the dogs you know, if they do eat the grass,
you know it won't harm them. Okay, well, my preference is always
to do fertilizing and pre emergent. Separate. Fertilizing and herbicide separate. I
know you can buy combo products. There's a few times of the year where
the timing is okay for that, but I would I would separate those out.
That way, you pick the herbicide that deals with the weeds you're dealing
with at the time of year you're needing to deal with them, and you
pick the fertilizer of your choice separately. I think that's the best way to
go. But that said, when you put a fertilize or when you put
a herbicide out, you're gonna want to water it in if it's a pre
emergent. If it's a post emergent, you're gonna get it on the foliage.
And just give it some time. You just need to keep the dogs
off for a little while. Now, technically, when it dries, they
should be able to go out there without a problem. But if you just
want to be extra careful, just kind of keep them off of an area
for a while, give that. Maybe if you can give it a week
to keep them out of a certain area, that would be even better.
Maybe your situation doesn't allow for that. But as far as the fertilizer,
you know, if it's a granule here and there and then you give it
a good watering in after applying it, I'm not so concerned with the dogs
coming along and just eating up all the fertilizer. And if it was an
old pile where they could you get into more trouble there, that might be
a thing. I'll tell you this. You know, Microlife talks about their
products being safe for pets. Not only they are safer pets, but pets
like them. You mentioned you have did you say three Goldies? Yes?
Yes? Wow? How many Rubot vacuum cleaners do you own? Seven?
It's funny you say that. My wife, Sylvia, I think she has
three of them, Missie Baggage, like two or three times a day.
Oh no, and people listening. This is not an exaggeration. This man
is speaking the truth. We have two goldens and Ellie and texts. And
I was out I put some microlife in my vegetable garden a few weeks ago,
and Texas out working in the garden with me, which he does,
and I was just looking and he was just going through there picking up the
microlife and shooting it up. It's like tax I paid for that, cut
it out, so I would. I would definitely water it in really good
because they'll be fond of it. Oh yeah, trust me, I agree.
All right, Hey, Stephen, thank you for the call. I
hope that's helpful. No, it is very helpful. I appreciate your time.
All right, you take care. We'll get Sunday morning. Welcome to
garden. We are here to talk to you about whatever it is of interest
to you regarding the home, garden landscape kind of things. Our phone number
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. You know, I was visiting the folks at
League City Feed a while back, and that's Wes and Madison Funderberg there running
the show. Now, League City Feed is one of those old time feed
stores. It's the kind of randy used olways say we love our feed stores.
Well, this is why, this kind of place is what we're talking
about. We're talking about a place that gives you the kind of service you
need. You know, carry the bags out for you. You don't have
to sign up for a chiropractor visit every time go bag of feed. They
bring it out for you. They provide that kind of service and they carry
the products that you need. They're going to have the things we talk about
here, all the different fertilizers. They have a good selection of pesticides and
herbicides and fungicides, quality premium pet food and products for your backyard chicken needs.
I know that's a real popular thing now people are interested in getting some
backyard chickens. League City Feed can provide you those kinds of products. Now
the phone numbers two eight, one, three three two, sixteen twelve.
But if you are looking for League City Feed, they are on Highway three,
just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six, so near League City,
Santa Fe, Dickinson, Lamar, Clear Lake City, all those places
you're close to League City feed and you need to check them out. You
will find the selection of what they have, the quality of what they have
to be exceptional. I'm going to head out and talk to let's you know.
I think we'll start by going to Richmond and talking to Warren this morning.
Good morning, Warren, Hey, real, good morning. Question.
I've got Dallas grass in my front yard. I think it's because the neighbors
also had Dallas grass and it has infiltrated my beautiful Saint Augustine and I'm trying
to figure out a way to get rid of it and keep it from coming
back. I do do the pre emergent, but I think I didn't get
enough down or you know, it's just more aggressive than I thought. Yeah,
so how long? How long has this been a problem If you've been
dealing with for years or yeah, I've been a deal with a couple of
years. Yeah, okay, Well, now my backyard is perfectly fine.
There's no Dallas grass in the backyard. The front yard is the one that's
uh, you know and affected. Well, you certainly a pre emergent can
stop the seeds from creating new Dallas grass plants, but Dallas grass is a
perennial, so you're gonna have to get rid of that weed. And there's
not a grass killer to kill Dallas grass but not kill your long grass.
So what I generally do, Dallas grass is very happy to send its leaves
up a little higher than the Saint Augustine. I don't know if it's there,
yeah, yeah, And that's where you have the opportunity for a white
or applicator where you could wipe something on those leaves without getting it on your
grass. And so I would use you know, you could use a grass
only killer, one of the products that's the label will tell you just kills
grass. There's a couple of ingredients that that do that, or even even
something that's a general purpose you know, kills all the plant you know,
broadly ven grassy plants. You could use that carefully in there, but if
you can get the if you can wipe it on those leaves, you probably
you are not going to get it all the first time, because just the
way the plant comes out of the ground, you maybe get leaves on this
side, but then some on the other side survives. So that leaves you
with the options of either carefully trying to dig it out as best as you
can, and then the grass right well, if it's that bad, then
the other alternative is you just you spray those spots as much as you can,
just get the spotty right down. Then there on the Dallas grass,
you're gonna have a dead spot and you're Saint Augustine. But it'll fall back
in over the course of the season. So those are kind of the options.
Just when you see those big seat heads coming up tall that have the
little angles going out with all the seeds on them, don't let clip those
off. Mow them off with a bagger or something. You don't want that.
Yeah, we've been mowing more frequently trying to keep those at bay.
That'll do it. Yep, that'll that will do it. We'll skip.
Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great morning. Hey, Warren,
thank you for the car. I appreciate that. Now let's head out and
we're gonna go to Bay City and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike,
Hello there, how are you going to skip? I'm doing well. Go
to Indians. By the way, Hey, I was gonna call you about
I got something in Milan and it's been there for a while, you know,
like last year and everything but it's spread. It's like crazy. I'm
gonna try to describe it. It's like a heart shaped leaf. If I
pull a real small one up, it's got a little nod on me.
Okay, I'll pull a bigger one up. It's gotta like a large,
you know, tubrious thing on there. But anyway, I don't know how
they spread or how they've gotten so far. They're getting into everything, and
I need to know how to what you think about how I needed to get
rid of this. I mean, they're just they just keep ye spreading and
I don't know what's doing it because I don't never see him bloom. What
I think I look try to look them up and said, it's a wild
violet or would okay, would violet or something like that. Well, that
has somewhat of a leaf like you describe, but they also have a little
violet flowers on them. I tell you what, I've never seen a flower.
Yeah, I'm gonna put you on hold because I cannot just guess based
on that description. I'm gonna put you on hold and Josh will give you
an email address. Please take some pictures. If you can do that pretty
quick this morning, I might be able to see them and enter online.
But if you can make sure they're in sharp focus, get as close as
you can to the plant, okay, and nail them to me and I'll
give it my best shot. Let's just do it that way, Otherwise I'm
gonna beat around the bush and probably not help them. Look okay, very
good? All right, Mike, Hey, thank you, thank you,
all right, thank you, thank you for call. I appreciate that.
Let's run out to Kingwood and we're gonna talk to Pamela. Hello, Pamela,
Hi, gets listen. I just got back from Europe. I was
there for over a month for the garden shows like Cordoba the Patio Gardens.
But I didn't get my Azzalius trimmed before I left. Can I steal trima?
Yes you can, absolutely you can. I've got about thirty seconds before
breaks. So here's a quick answer. Prune them back as needed, take
out the wild hair, shoot the bush like you want. They don't need
to be heavily pruned, but you can do it now, and you get
it done now. They have plenty of time all the rest of mid to
late summer and fall to set the blooms for next year. So just get
it done by midsummer. I would say, okay, great, thank you,
all right here, thank you. I appreciate that call a Linda.
Don't have quite enough time to get to you for a break, but you
will be first when we come back. Number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. A good morning on a good Sunday morning. It's
nice at day of the day. Little cloudy, a little lowercast, but
that just makes it not get so hot, and it's not gonna get so
hot today. Pretty good day to be outside in my opinion. Let's see,
we are going to go to the phones. Got a few folks here
lined up. Let's start with David in Spring Branch. Hello, David,
Yeah, good morning. I had a quick question about my peach and neck
three fruit trees. They gave me good truth this year, very happy about
it. Where's a good time for me to prude the upward branches. They're
getting a little bit too high for me to reach up here on a small
lad in anything going up through the middle of the tree or out at the
tall ends of the branches. You could do it now. Just a little
bit of pruning here and there is just fine. We do most of the
pruning in the winter, but you've got to keep the suckers and water sprouts
and like that under control or they'll shade out your interior. I appreciate that,
Thank you very much, you bet, I appreciate appreciate that call.
If you're interested in a quality product to add compost to your should maybe you're
needing a rosebed mix, or maybe you're needing a vegetable garden type mix.
The folks at Airloom Soils now have the supersacks. What is that, Well,
that's a one cubic yard. That's a big sack that they bring out
and set on your driveway. They will deliver that to you. You can
go to Airloom Soils of Texas dot com and see what products they have that
you need that are available in the supersack. While you're there, check out
the Airloom Soils cubic yard calculator. Maybe you need to put four inches over
X number of square feet and you need to know how many yards do I
need for that? Or I want to make a bed this tall or whatever.
You can do that and it'll break it down to how many five gallon
buckets or how many will barrows, you know, are in a qubic yard.
It's an amazing calculator that the folks at Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com
have put up for you to use. I really recommend that you check that
out. Uh. If you're if you're in the market for um, you
know, getting a quality soil like that, I suggest you do get McCall
because they have they have a wide blend. I could sit here all day
just talking about all the different heirloom soil products. Pretty pretty cool stuff.
Let's see where are we now. We're going to head to Missouri City and
talk to Don. Hello Don, Hello, Skip. I've got two problems
I want to ask you about. One is I've got a Japanese you that
is, uh, the needles are starting to turn a little pale color.
Uh. And then I've got a problem with the lawn kind of doing the
same thing. Spots all over the yard a light green to yellow. Okay.
So either we're looking at some sort of a nutrient issue, which just
quality fertilizing will get you out of that situation. And if you're if you
know, if you if you're looking for like in the lawn, I don't
know, have you fertilized this year yet, Oh yes, all right,
Well, I would then look to something like a take all root rot and
that's going to require a proper diagnosis. You may want to send a sample
up to the plant clinic at A and M and have them look at it
and determine what that is. They'll tell you how to take the sample and
everything. But yellowing at this time of year, if the nutrients are already
there and they're right, I think I would look to look to a disease
sample because that's probably what you're gonna be looking at. Okay, and the
Japanese use on the y. It could just be some older it could be
a little bit of damage from cold, but it could also just be some
older foliage that's being you know, basically given up by the plant that at
this point just a few older leaves. I wouldn't sweat it. Okay,
done, sor right? Thank you very much? All right, thank you
for the call. You know, if you're looking to fertilizer, lawn Nelson's
Plant Foods Slow and Easy twenty two two ten powerhouse blend gradual release through the
season, high quality fertilizer. I can't recommend it. More. And when
you put a fertilizer like that out, you do it once now and you're
done until fall. I mean it has that kind of slow release. Now.
Nelson's has their Color Star line, the Nutral Star Line, Turf Star
Line, Nature Star Line. But this Turf Star Line for your lawn this
time of year is it's the product and the time to get that done.
I'm going to head out now to talk to Linda in tom Ball. Hello,
Linda, good morning, good morning. Thank you for taking my call.
Yes, um, I'm it's calling because I have poison ivy growing on
my tnsit okay, and I want to know what's the best way to kill
that poison ivy without harming my horses. I also have a couple of horses.
Well, you're not going to harm the horses because they're not going to
eat that poison ivy. So whatever you spray on it, it's okay.
If it's on the fence. You can use a product that contains triclopier t
R I c l O p y R. There's a number of brands.
Some of them will say things like poison ivy killer, some of them will
say brush killer or things like that. But if it's just a bunch of
foliage, you can spray it on that. Just know that the tricleal pier
kills broadly plants, so if you have anything desirable around it, don't let
it drift over on those. If it's a big stump coming either ground,
a stem, or a trunk of the poison ivy, you can just cut
it off at the ground and everything above it will die and the leaves will
eventually rot and fall off. And then you treat that stump with the tricle
pier directly. You dab it right on the fresh cut stump and it translocates
down and that way you don't spray the foliage all over the place. You
just go right to the source and you treat that base of that cut stump.
What would you suggest to cut it off with it? I mean,
I'm really highly alarmed. Yeah, well, you you just gotta be careful.
I mean, somebody has to have some sort of a saw that they
can reach down there. I wouldn't use a chainsaw that's flinging pieces of bark
all over your face. Right, Just a little saw you want to cut
out a section, you know, you just cut it where you can get
to treat that stump. So any kind of a little tree pruning type saw,
maybe a pole pruner, you know where you got a little bit longer
extension and you can get in there and oh yeah, void that. Okay,
Linda, I appreciate it. Yeah, appreciate today. Good luck with
that. Thank you, thank you very much. If you haven't been out
to RCW nurses in a while, you need to check them out. They're
that nursery at Tomball Parkway and Beltway eight. They're the ones we think about
when we think of roses because they've got such a huge selection, certainly trees.
They grow them out in Plantersville on a farm and everything for fifteen to
two hundred gallons. I'll even come out and play them for you. But
they're also the place where you pick up the fertilizers. We talk about where
you would get herbs, perennials, annuals. If they don't have it,
ask them, I bet they can get it. We call them to get
it. Got it nursery RCW nurseries dot com. Check them out there RCW
nurseries dot com. You're going to be impressed with a kind of color and
the other options that you have. Boy, We've been going here on Guarden
Line all day and it just seemed like the hour is finishing up pretty fast.
So I I do want to mention again. I talked about this folks
earlier, but Star of Hope. Star of Hope here in Houston gives hope
to people that are homeless that are in need of help. They not only
send a van out to help people in the streets to try to invite them
to come in and have a change to their life, but they have a
place where people can live for up to a year, where they can get
training, they can learn how to get a job, how to hold a
job, they can recover from stuff substance abuse, get meals and clothing that
they need to at a start. And I've I've seen the folks there at
Star Hope. It's a different look at homelessness than you normally would expect.
These are people that they want to make a life for themselves. They've run
into trouble and they're willing to do the work to get back on their feet,
but they need help doing that. So rather than just a hand out,
invest your money and Star of Hope go to a Star of Hope mission.
Dot org and put your compassionate heart to work by providing the money or
even volunteering to be to be a help at Star of Hope. You can
do things like helping with the food. You can even just write encouraging notes.
I mean, there's a lot of opportunities put your compassion to work at
sh mission dot org. Just that's a passionate, a passionate thing for me
to talk about because it just means a lot to me. I've been involved
with it in the past. My wife and I volunteered there. We just
love the Star Star of Hope Mission, and I would encourage you to get
an involved with them as well. You've been listening to garden Line. We're
finishing another hour up, about to put the eight o'clock hour in the books.
If you want to get on the boards seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
Josh, we'll get you in there on the boards. Get your car ready
to go. You'll be the first we come to. Now, we've got
one more hour left today in the show, so don't delay. You wait
till the end, and that's usually when we have a little bit of a
bottle of that coming in and we're trying to wrap it all up fast,
so give us a call sooner rather than later. By the way, next
Saturday eleven thirty to one thirty, I will be at Wahbird's Unlimited out in
clear Lake. That's the newest store. By the way, you can go
to WFBU dot com forward slash Houston w BU dot com forward slash Houston.
You can see all the wahbirds stores there. By the way, I haven't
added the clear Lake win to the map, yep, but it's coming soon.
But for those of you in other areas, you can find their store
there the clear Lake Lawbirds. Next Saturday, eleven thirty to one thirty.
Bring me your plants in a bag, take a look at them. Maybe
it's a bug you want to identify it, or a plant you want to
identify it or diagnosed, or maybe maybe you just want to talk about a
good way to die to a landscape. We'll take a look at some pictures
and help you do that. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of
the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with
skip rictor just watch him as any well. Good Sunday morning, a good
sunny morning. Every day is a good day for gardening, and today's no
exception. I hope this afternoon you get out and enjoy that a little bit.
If you're looking at your landscape and you know it's just like I go,
I buy a new plan. I like it, I'll bring it home
a planet, but just overall it doesn't have the look I want. There's
something missing. You need to give Peerscapes a call. Peerscapes is the kind
of company that can design impressive beauty. They can design that look that is
exactly what you want. I mean, it may be heartscapes that maybe that
you need to put in a rock border, or maybe there's an issue with
drainage that you need to address. We certainly have those issues around here.
They do the whole thing. They have complete custom landscape design and installation practices.
Now you can call them up to eighty one three seven zero five zero
six zero and see what Peerscapes can do for you. Also check them out
online. Go to the web site Piercescapes p E A r C E Scapes
peerscapes dot com and find out the difference that they can make that landscape that
you or I and I'm not a designer. We can get our landscapes so
far, but when you want to just take it to that next level,
you need a quality company with the training, the expertise, the design abilities
that Peerscapes has to do just that. We are here to answer your gardening
questions today. We're in our last hour for this weekend, so if you'd
like to give us a call now would be a good time. Trust me,
at the end it often gets a little too busy, so let's move
that forward a little bit and get your call in when we have a little
more time to address it. That's seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. I
was talking about hot weather flowers earlier, and I also wanted to mention hot
weather of thats when the vegetable season transitions. You know, our cool season
plants are done. I mean the vegetables they're done. We plant a lot
of things in the spring that are gonna do great in spring and early summer.
That would include tomatoes. By the way, this is May is the
big warm season garden production month here here in the area. That's tomatoes,
there's some peppers, there's eggplant there. You've got squashing cucumbers and all kinds
of things like that that do well. Then we get into summer when it
gets really hot and you need to include a few vegetables for that. That's
where sweet potatoes come in. That's where southern peas, the black eyed peas,
the purple hole peas, the crowder and cream and lots of different kinds
of Southern peas. By the way, if you've eaten black eyed peas out
of a can, you haven't eaten black eyed peas. Now. I know
everyone says when you grow it yourself, it tastes better. I agree with
that, but I can think of very few crops where the difference is so
dramatic as fresh shielled southern peas versus canned. Now, the frozen kind those
are okay, that's fresh frozen, But growing yourself, it's unbelievable. Will
you will really love it. And then we have a lot of good warm
season greens, malabar greens. There is one called Egyptian spinach. It's actually
a type of solosa that you can grow here there's molaquia that grows very well
here, makes a little bush in fact before it freezes back in the winter
time, and it's an annual, but it does make a bush in the
garden. So you don't need very many of those. And there's some others
that we can talk about. But the warm season is no reason not to
garden. When I say warm, I should say the blazing hot season is
no reason not to garden. We have a lot of other options. Those
are just just a few that you might want to think about when you're building
a garden. By the way, you always build it with quality soil.
That's the beginning. I mean, I don't care how good of a vegetable
you put it in an earth flower. If you put it into unprepared soil,
it's like tying an arm and a half behind your back. I mean,
it's gonna be very hard to have suc us when you didn't start with
good soil. And nature's way resources has been making good soil for a very
long time. They were the originators of rose soil and fungal compost and so
on. In fact, if you just want to tip, every Friday is
fungal Friday. Fungal Friday, that's a good name. Ten percent off their
bag products, twenty percent off their bulk products, and they have thousands of
yards of fungal composts ready to go to help you enhance your garden and your
landscapes and every kind of way. By the way, one of the best
things about Nature's Way Now that I've seen going out there. I mean,
the soil is absolutely outstanding. But when you're out there, check out their
plants. We're talking about two acres of nursery garden center. They've got fruit
trees, native perennials, they even have house plants and seasonal vegetables out there.
One of the largest varieties of native plants here in the Houston area out
at Nature's Way. They're up there on North forty five, just south of
conro about where fourteen eighty eight comes in. But Nature's Way Resources, you
just kind of check it out and you'll see what I'm talking about. The
difference in their soils is just dramatic, and it will make your gardens successful
by starting them correctly with that kind of quality mix. We're gonna go to
the phones and go out to Humble Now and talk to Lawrence Hello, Lawrence.
Are you there, Lawrence? Yes, I am. How are you
going good? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm pretty good?
Thanks for asking. How can we help today? So I've gut these strange
bulbous planks me and my neighbors. It looks like lying. When you pull
it up, it's got like little shoots that shoot up straight from the ground.
And when you pull them up, it looks like onion, horse gallion
hanging on the bottom. But it doesn't smell like it. Oh, it
doesn't smell like it. No one does not, even when you break the
leaves, and you know, you smell that fresh cut, broken, little
strappy leaf. So I broke the bulb. I think that'd be the stronger
which it. Huh, Well, it's either there's wild onion and there's wild
garlic, and they are quite similar U and they but they both have that
alium family smell. And so if you're not smelling it, then we're gonna
have to shift over to something else. And off the top of my head,
I'm not thinking what that particular thing would be. Now, the control
of it is going to be similar, but h in a flower bed,
you know, the products that would kill it will also kill your flowers,
and so you want to probably probably avoid the spraying, and that leaves you
with the unhappy task of getting one of those long handled weeding forks where you
can push it at the ground and you you pull on the leaves but not
enough to break them, but you know, your fork kind of leverages it
up out of the ground. You get the bulb and everything that would be
you know, that would be my suggestion, uh, spray and not being
a option. Him pulling not being much fun. So sorry, but I
don't I don't have I don't have great simple silver bullet on this one.
They come up easy. But I've just didn't know if it was like a
lily or some kind of flower, or well, if it's a strappy skinny
leaf, you know, a little little straight skinny leaf coming out in a
clump out of the ground, there's a whole bunch of them. Uh,
then that boy, thats or sounds like a wild onion, wild garlic,
But it's going to be something else that there are some other plants that will
do that. I'll tell you what. If you want, I'm gonna put
you on hold. If that's the If that's the last question, you have,
I'll put you on hold and Josh will pick up the line and get
you an email. If you can pull one up and lay it on a
dark surface like a kitchen table or whatever's a dark surface, and take a
good sharp close up, well focused, very well focused photo, I'll see
what I can do. All right, okay, all right, thank thanks
a lot. Okay, so Josh gonna take that one for me. We're
gonna go to a break now our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. I will wait for you, and I will wait.
I will wait for you. Well, good Sunday morning. We are
looking forward to visiting with the last folks here as we go through our last
hour here today. If you'd like to get on the board seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, if you yellow piece
of land and you need to take care of it, we're talking about an
acre, five acres even more, you need to consider a Lansdown Moody cubot
a tractor now. Lansdown Moody is available. There's number of stores around the
area. You can go to LM tractor dot com LM tractor dot com.
But check out their Texas edition Kubota L twenty five one. That's the one
with hydrostatic transmission. It is a first rate tractor. You can trick it
out with that front end loader, maybe a box blade so you can smooth
the soil out and you know, spread some spread soil around, get everything
like you wanted. A rotary cutter another good addition to it. But but
here's the thing. You need to hear until June thirtieth. Only until June
thirtieth, zero down, zero interest for eighty four months. I don't know
how they do that. Seven years, zero down, zero interest, landsdown
and Caboda is a good combination, a good package. LM tractor dot com.
But don't delay. The deal lasts until June thirtieth. I want to
go now out to Conro and we're gonna talk to Ben. Good morning,
Ben, Hi, Skip, Hey, I'm out here Premium Sego Palms.
And it's okay to just yank them loose, right, you mean cut the
cut the leaf front off where they attached to the n Yes, yes,
yes, okay. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to damage
anything doing that. Well as far as yanking them I've never tried that before.
I guess they did break off. That is an option. I usually
to snap them off real close to the trunk, but some of them,
the dead ones, pull off really easy. Some of the green ones brings
a little trunk of the meat of the trunk with it, just a little
bit. Though. Well it's not like a pineapple. Yeah, it's not
going to kill the sago to do that, I don't know. I generally
just prune mine off, but you can probably do it either way. I've
pruned them for in it a trunk. It's not two feet tall on one
of them or a couple of them, and it looks like a like a
porky pine or you know, a sticker bird or something. It's, oh,
I don't know, just look kind of funny. Okay, yeah,
well it does look way with all those little stubs sticking out. So when
I get done, what do I do to feed these things? Is sixty
four good enough? Or yeah, that's that's perfectly good enough, A good
y you know, any even a long type fertilizer works really well. If
you have you ever used the nitro FoST products before? Oh yeah, yes,
all I really owe us around here purposes the micro six two four,
I would do the green bag six two four. I think that you're going
to have good success with that. You can throw some of the humans plus
in if you want, but that will do just fine. That kind of
ratio for that kind of plant is just ideal. Yeah, okay, great,
all right, that's all I got. Thank you, you bet,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Uh. You know,
we were talking about garden centers already every time, about some of the great
garden center around here. In the importance of an independent center if you're down
in the Southwest region. In fact, these folks Enchanted Forest in Chended Gardens.
They have people driving from Austin and other places to come there because it's
that kind of destination. Gardens that are both of them are enchanted forest.
That's the one. If you're done in Richmond kind of in the Sugarland direction
just south of fifty nine, and if you are in Richmond area going north
toward Katie direction, that would be Enchanted Gardens. So each of those nurseries
has their own Facebook and Instagram pages, so just go on and find them.
In Chanted Forest and Chanted Gardens, you will be staying up to date
with what the latest deals are, what's going on there. Maybe they got
a food truck coming out or something like that. That's the way to find
out. But this is one of the places where you go and I don't
care where you're driving from. You will enjoy it and it'll be time well
spent. In Chanted Forest and in Channing Garden, both of them. I
love to go there. Let's head out to Full Shure and we're going to
talk to chat. Well, hello, chat, how are things out in
Full Shure? They're good, skip, thank you. So last year we
planted some southern leaf wax myrtles, all right, and now they're and the
goal is to have a privacy headge kind of hide our wood fence, and
they're about six seven feet tall now and they're basically growing like wild child and
thank you. And I'm just trying to figure out what's the strategy to prune
them, how to you know, how do you do that appropriately so that
they're you're sort of stan or you know, kind of flat on the runt
and you know, but they we're wanting to height too. Yeah, I
get it, I get it, all right. So here here's the deal.
Wax myrtle is a little bit of a loose, open growing shrub.
That's its natural style. But every time you share a plant, what was
one shoot, now you get a bud breaks that create several shoots to fill
in for it. Okay, you cut off the end of a shoot,
two or three shoots or true or three shoots replace it, And every time
you do that, the density gets more and more. You just want to
watch chap that you keep the top a little narrower than the base because wherever
you don't get sunlight, you will not have foliage on any shrub, including
an evergreen like southern wax myrtle. So if the plant will always try to
grow top heavy, it'll become more of like an umbrella that's spreading out at
the top and then everything underneath that you lose the foliage. So you make
that plan have a narrower top with your sharing. The more often you share,
the denser you're gonna have in terms of a wall of foliage. So
that's the key to it, and that in fertilizing it. Put a good
quality fertilizer on there. And uh, you know what kind of what do
you have a favorite brand or something you'd like to use on the fertilizer.
Um, yeah, nro flies, I think is what we typically use.
We we we shop and we got these actually from enchanted gardens. Okay,
that's where we where we do are are shopping. Good place to shop.
Well, I would, I would do. And this is gonna sound weird,
but you know Nitrofis has that nineteen four ten which is for lawns.
But it would be great because you're growing foliage. Just like on a lawn,
you're growing foliage. On a wax murder, you're growing foliage. Now
you could use one of their fertilizers for trees and shrubs, that's just fine.
But if you're already is that a grand kneeler like you would just kind
of throw under the plan. Yeah, no, yeah, it's a grand
yard. It's it's you know, you put it in your fertilizer spreader for
the lawn. And I'm not saying you have to have that one. I
mean that you get one of the ones that have for trees and shrubs,
that's just fine too. But if you already got that for your lawn,
I would use it on that wax myrtle for every inch of trunk diameter on
your wax myrtle. So just use your thumb as a measuring guide for every
about every thumb width across the thing. Give it a cup or two a
fertilizer, spread evenly throughout a big circular area and watered in really well.
All right, okay, okay, And then how far out from the trunk
should I be trimming? I mean, is there? I don't want to
understand what you said. You cut it and then you get more shoots coming
off. But yeah, you know sort of a rule eight inches out or
six inches well no, I mean, you know those shrubs, A lot
of people keep them probably five feet six feet wide, but you can make
them four feet. You can make them two feet. If you've got a
little bit of area and you need a two foot wall of foliage, you
can and make the shrub do that. But the tighter you get it,
the more often you have to share it, because it's constantly coming right back
into that little walkway space or whatever. So I would start my sharing chet
a little narrower than you're eventually gonna want it to be, because think about
it, you share back. Let's say you shared it a foot away from
the trunk and then there's no reason to do it there. But let's see
you did that, well, then it's going to grow out. Now it's
sticking six inches out and you share it back again. But you're not sharing
it right back to one foot. You're sharing it an inch or two out
from that right or six inches out from that, and so it's going to
get a little wider on you. So start narrower. Okay, okay,
is that a good table? That's it? Alrighty so much, thank you,
thank you, I appreciate, appreciate your call our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know that Nitrofos nineteen four
ten. It's a good it's a good all purpose really, but it's it's
made for the lawns for a gradual slow release, which is what we need
in the summer. You put it down now twelve to sixteen weeks. A
good, good, even growth is going to come out of that product,
and that's what we need. We don't want encourage these we don't want to
encourage insects, We don't want to encourage having a mo mo mode to keep
up with it. So put it out at the right rate, it'll feed
gradually over time. And by the way, when you do a fertilization,
you need to also consider adding azamite to your lawn. And azamite don't think
of it like a fertilizer. It doesn't replace the three numbers on the bag
that your typical fertilizer has. What azamite is is it's all the other elements
that you need as well, all the micros. You know, there's tons
of trace elements, many of which are essential for plant growth, and we
need to have a good supply. The soil is a bank account. If
your bank account is few and far between, when it comes to finding a
manganese molecule or an iron molecule or a zinc molecule, that turf is not
going to do as well. You need to have plenty of it there.
And that's why we follow our fertilization with an application of ASMIT. You can
go to ASMIT Texas dot com and find out more about it. Basically a
mind mineral that is excellent and I use it my vegetable gardens because I want
my vegetables to be as packed with nutrients. It go beyond what the plant
needs, including the nutrients my body needs, and it just makes for healthier
produce to have that kind of an application. We're gonna head out now to
Spring and talk to Greg Well. Good morning, Greg, good morning.
I have a question about a lab Lally pine. It's about sixty five or
seventy years old and it looks like the roots are coming to the surface.
Okay, so you or can you what do? What? Please? What
are you asking me? Can you do? The roots seem to be coming
to the surface. Okay? Can I cover those with soil? You can?
You can bring the line up to the top of the roots. There's
no problem with just adding a little soil. That's primarily around the base that
you get the most surface roots, and that would be just fine. You
could do a mulch. The pine would love to have you do a mulch
bed around it. That would be even better. It's gonna be hard to
get grass to grow around there anyway, but either way it would be fine.
Greg, Okay, understood more to hurt thee now, now, if
you put four inches of soil over the whole root system, yes, that's
a problem. But just putting a little soil around the base to bring it
up to the root level. That's fine. Okay. These are out from
the base about four feet Okay, well it still would be okay, it
would still be okay. If it were mine, I would seriously consider a
big mulch bed there because I don't think you're going to get much to grow
there anyway. But that's your that's your call. We can go either way
on that. All right, Okay, thank you sir, Yeah, Greg,
thanks for the question. I appreciate that We're gonna take a little break
here, but our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. Give Josh a call. Let's get you on the board.
We're heading into our last thirty minutes of the weekend, so this is the
time to talk if we need to talk. And speaking of talking, we're
gonna hear Nikki Talk now. Oh my goodness, NICKI talk with Nikki Talk.
That's like a podcast. It's yes, it's the talk show. We
just gather around and discuss current events. I'll jump into it. That's a
fun song. Can anybody tell me who sings that? Who is that?
Well, I'll give you a hint. The answer is it fits the store.
This show by the Lemonheads. So you've body been listening to garden Line
for a while. That's pretty appropriate song, isn't it a song by the
Lemonheads for garden Line? And plus it's fun enough beat. Hey, if
you have any interest in bees whatsoever you need you need to check out the
B Supply out in Dayton. Now here's what I'm talking about. If you
would like to have a hive, and you should there. If you have
a garden, a productive garden, a hive of bees is gonna you're gonna
actually see an increase in production because more seats get pollinated, the fruits develop
better. It's just a better way to go. If you're inserted in keeping
bees. They have classes twice a month and they walk you through everything.
I mean, your hands on you learn. It's a six hour class with
twice a month out in Dayton. Go to the B Supply dot com.
Now my fascination in bees. I used to keep bees a current time.
I'm not, but my fascination is just learning about bees. You know,
how bees affect the environment, the different bees in the hive, the jobs
they do, just how everything transpires inside the hive. You can go do
a free honey tour out there. Now, this is a great exposure to
bees. The honey tours that they provide I said free. I believe there's
a small charge for them. I may be wrong about that, but either
way, it's well worth it. We're talking about getting to taste like six
different kinds of honey. What does clover honey taste like? How about BlackBerry
honey? What does that taste like? You'll find out if you've got a
homeschool group, a church group, pacific organization, or a garden club,
or you just want to help your kids learn about that wonderful science of the
world of bees. The Bee Supply dot Com check them out. While you're
there, you'll get to see the second largest indoor bee observation hive in the
world. It's just like plexiglass giant above the ground room where bees are building
comb and coming in from outside. It is amazing. You just need to
go check it out to be supplied. We're gonna take a phone call now
and I'm gonna head out all the way to New Caney and we're gonna talk
to rust Stee. How are you doing, Rusty? Hey, Rusty you
there? Yes, I couldn't hear better with my radio. No I know
we'll go ahead and turn it down and you and I'll just talk on the
phone. Here. What can we do for you today? I wanted to
just tell you that you are such a wonderful garden line. You have so
much information, your kind, your patient, You give people the right to
do whatever they want. And I just want to give you a double a
plus. And I've been wanting to tell you that for a long time.
I haven't called in lately, but anyway, I was wondering, I appreciate
that. Is it okay? Just soak them? Is it better? What
results? I want? Good results? So do I soak them? Is
this you're talking about like southern peas, like black eyed peas, purple haul
peas, those kind right? Yeah, okay, you don't have to just
plant them into ground now when we go into warm hot weather are now we
just had rain here, so this isn't a situation right now. But I'm
going to answer your question a little bigger than you ask it, and that
is when we get into hot weather and the soil gets a little dry.
Before you plant those summer crops like peas, you want to wet the soil
thoroughly. Some people make a little trench, just a little furrow for the
seed, and they water it well and soak it deeply and get that water
down six eight inches or more into the ground. And then a day or
two later you just come in and you plant your peas. But when that
seed germinates and puts a root down, it puts a root down into moist
soil, because if it doesn't stay moist, the seedling dies. And that
preplant watering is the most important one because once you've planted, it's hard to
get a good soaking with without washing your seeds up or something. So yeah,
do that now. Now it's rained, so you probably don't need to
worry about it. But in general, just always remember our summer crops that
preplant watering is very important. But yes, put them right in the moist
soil, cover them up, give them a little top watering and you're good
to go. Okay, Is that also good for like a big bean?
You know? I have someone brought back from Africa. They're very big large.
Yes, any beans you plant, the instructions I just gave you applied
to them as well. Okay, right, well, God bless you well,
thank you wonderful show, and I am thoroughly enjoy listening to well,
Rusty, you're making me uncomfortable. Thank you very much for the kind words.
By the way, I'm not kinder Rusty, and I didn't give her
twenty dollars. You have a good rest to your Sunday, Rusty. Thank
you very much. You know, if you're if you're planting a woody ornamental,
you need to just think of it this way. If I buy a
tree or shrub, I need a tree hugger sprinkler. Maybe you already have
one, maybe you need to get one. There's a seven inch diameter,
eleven inch, fifteen inch. But you go to TreeHugger sprinkler dot com.
You can find the retailers close to you. But I can tell you this,
everywhere I look at our garden line sponsors, you know, the Ace
Hardware's, the garden centers, the feed stores, they all got them tree
hugger sprinklers. You're not that expensive. And you're investing in a woody ornamental,
and you can set it to come on and just water that small area
at and just beyond the cylinder of roots you put in the ground so you
can keep them moist. Because in the nursery they've been watering them once or
twice a day to keep them going. And so this way you control that
as a tree grows, you can turn it on more. You can water
a wider and a wider area to get young trees or trees that are year
or two old and through the summer droughts. Tree hugger sprinkler is a very
good investment. And I wouldn't plan a woody ornamental without planning without getting one.
It just makes sense. You know, when we're when taking care of
our plants and we're being proactive, we're thinking about things like what I just
talked about. You know, a new plant needs to be needs to be
taken care of. You know, I've talked to people who put a tree
into the soil the soil was moist, and they felt like, well,
the soil is moist, the tree's okay. No, the whole root system
of that tree is still in that cylinder and it pumps that dry in less
than a day in hot weather. Okay, So yes, you're going to
get some soil wicking in slowly from the sides, but early on you got
to water that cylinder and the soil around it. You don't want to keep
it soggy, but you do want to keep it moist, and normally a
tree established is going to have roots way out in all directions. You can
just crank up your tree hugger and water a large area, but early on
you got to take care of that initial cylinder because just imagine if you pulled
it out of the pot and just set it on the driveway, how long
does that take to dry out? I mean, not anytime at all.
So we need to take care of our trees that way. We're coming in
the end, toward the end of our show here. You know, we're
here every Saturday and Sunday from six to ten to answer your gardening questions and
really enjoy doing that. I want to remind you that this coming Saturday,
from eleven thirty to one thirty, I will be at the wild Birds Unlimited
out at clear Lake. This is our newest store. Now you can go
to WBU dot com, slash Forward, slash Houston and find the wild Birds
Unlimited stores near you. This clear Lake store is a new one and it's
a pretty cool and you need to get out there and check it out.
I'll be there. Hey, let's talk about plants. Bring me things to
identify, bring me things to diagnose, Bring me pictures on the phone of
your landscape and questions you might have. Always try to get a picture from
a distance, a picture from really up close, so we can see what
both of those look like. I'd get a good, crisp, clear,
focused picture. I can tell a whole lot of things, and so I
would encourage you to do. I'd love to meet folks that are listening to
the show. You need to see the wild Birds Unlimited stores. If you
haven't been in one, it is just bird, one bird, wonderland.
I mean every kind of thing. I don't care what your interests are.
If it's any type of gardening interest, there are going to be a lot
of things and wild Birds Unlimited that you will want. You'll want for your
landscape. You'll want them for your patio, to be able to watch and
enjoy those birds. To get quality expertise, advice, you know, all
those questions that you might come up with and things you may not even have
known about that you need to be asking from wild Birds Unlimited. Hey,
we're gonna take a break right now. We'll be back for our last segment.
The phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Now, well, good morning, it's a good Sunday morning. You're listening
to garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. I am going to head out, I think to Galveston.
We're gonna talk to Kent here. How are you doing, Kent doing
good? How are you buddy doing good? How can we help today?
We play at Cilantro like a few months ago, and it's already dying.
It meant more of a winter type of herb. Yeah, Cilantro, you're
right, it's a cool season. It can grow in warmer weather, but
when the day length gets longer, it bolts and it sends up its bloomstalks
and then it dies. That's kind of behaving like let us does and spinach
does and some of those others. Now, you know, if it bolts
on, you let it bold, let it bloom, because those blooms are
very attractive to small beneficial insects, and so there it's a benefit to leave
it in for a little extra Plus you can get some seed for replanting next
year that way. But yeah, once it's yeah, it's hard to just
keep growing. I don't know. I don't know how you make your charo
beans after early summer, but I guess you could keep planting it and go
to great lengths to make it. Think it's still short days. But okay,
buddy, thank you so much. Hey, thank you, Ken.
I appreciate I appreciate that call. If you are if you live out in
the Kingwood area, You've got you're fortunate. You've got a couple of really
outstanding garden centers in that area. That would be Kingwood Garden Center and Warrens
Southern Gardens now Kingwood Garden Centers on Stonehallow Drive out in Kingwood. Warren's Southern
Gardens is on North Park Drive. They each are unique in their own way.
I love the gift shop that they have there at a Kingwods. Of
course Warrens as a gift shop too, but they have a wonderful gift shop
out at the Kingwood Garden Center. Warren's a nice spread, beautiful, lots
of beautiful plants. I mean it, you got to go there to see
what I'm talking about. But again, this is this is a destination kind
of garden centers. These are these are the ones that you may live far
away or may if your friends come in from out of town and they're visiting
you. Where if you live in this Houston area and you say, hey,
I want to I want to take you out and go see garden centers
and Warrens would be one of those places you need to go stop. Warren's
Southern Gardens has got all the kinds of plants that you need. They have
excellent information, very educated staff too, and the same is true with Kingwood
Garden Centers. They are going to be able to direct you to the plants
that are going to do well. They're gonna tell how to plant them,
how to take care of them. They're going to have the products that we
talk about, like the fertilizers for example, that will sustain those plants.
And so it's kind of a one stop shop. You can get it done.
You can follow them, follow Warrens and their Facebook page. They've got
a really cool Instagram page as well. That's a great way to find out
what's going on to kind of stay up to date on things. Kingwood Gardens
that are likewise, they got a Facebook page and you can follow them stay
up to date. It's really fortunate you're you guys are in Kingwood are rich
with garden centers to have two great options like that so close by. Both
of them, by the way, are open seven days a week. So
you've got something to do this afternoon. If not, hey, I've got
a great idea for you. Go and get some ideas, inspiration, and
some plants that take home from one of the Kingwood Garden Center and Warren Garden
Centers. You know, today went so fast, I feel like we are
just getting started. But here we are at ten o'clock next Saturday. Mentioned
this again case anybody missed it. While Birds Unlimited out at clear Lake,
I will be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. Please put that on
your calendar. Come out and see me. This is your chance. You
got those weeds in the yard you want identified know what to do about them?
Pull them up, put them in his uplock bag, bring them in.
You've got a plant that's not looking real good. It has some yellow
leaves. Take me a picture of the plant, the whole plant. Take
me some pictures up close. Can see which of the leaves are yellow and
how they're turning yellow. And we'll get to the bottom of it. And
so you can take care of what it is that you need, you know,
need to get done on those. It just really helps to have a
good diagnosis. You know. I sometimes cringe when I hear people say,
well, I bought a weed control product to kill my weeds, and what
product. I don't know what product I bought? Well, what weeds you
have? I don't know what weeds I have. Well, here's how I
look at that. That is like, it's like going no, It's like
calling your doctor up on the phone and saying I don't feel so good today,
and he goes, okay, I'll send in a prescription. Wouldn't you
go, wait a minute, you don't even know what's wrong with me yet,
and of course you would. Well, not all products kill all weeds.
Not all products prevent weeds. Some kill them after they're up, some
prevent them from coming up. Some work well on grassy weeds, some work
better on broad leaf weeds. There's the cool season weeds and the warm season
weeds. There's annual weeds and perennial weeds. One size does not fit all.
And so if you know the weeds you're dealing with, these are the
main weeds that are my problem, then we can put together the suggestions for
here's what to use and when to use to get those under control. And
you know me, I'm always going to say, first mo water, fertilized,
get that lawn as dense as you can and choke out the majority of
the problems, and then we'll deal with the ones that can survive in a
dense, healthy, otherwise healthy lawn that we can take care of that.
The same is true with insects. You know, to go buy quote an
insecticide, Well, what insect are you going after? And do you have
beneficial insects that are helping with the job or is it just you and the
insects? Probably not the latter, but it's probably the former. But let's
prescribe the right one in the right way. We always go with the safest
thing that we could recommend. We go with the thing with the least unintended
consequences that we can recommend. So let me give you an example. You
have a particular pest on a plant, and you also have spider mites on
the plant, and so you go get seven dust. Seven dust, something
I've used my whole life. I mean, I grew up with seven dust.
My family use seven does well through time and research. You know what
we've learned when you put seven dust on spider mites, the way the plant
changes makes it more nutritious for the spider mites, and the spider mites reproduction
and development is actually enhanced. Because seven dust is not a spider mite control.
It kills a lot of different insects, including insects that eat spider mites.
So it is not wise to use seven dust on a plant when you
have a spider mite problem because it's just going to exacerbate that problem. And
we keep learning more and more about products like that. Now that's not to
say there's never a use for seven there. It does many things well.
But as time goes on and as technology advances, we're able better or to
have more options, including organic options for controlling pests and diseases. And so
that's why I know, you know on the radio you call in, it's
like, okay, tell me what it is the bug. No, don't
even tell me what the bug is, just tell me how to kill it.
Well, we can do that, but I'm going to give you an
answer based on thinking like I just described, and you don't have to listen
to me. Go through all that. I won't bore you with that.
But that's why proper identification and proper diagnosis is so important. What is the
plant, what is the past? How long has it been there? What
else is going on? We want to give you that kind of help.
And that's why I love these individual you know appearances like I'll be at Wallbird's
next Saturday eleven thirty to one thirty because I get to visit with you eye
to eye. We need to go back and forth. We have more time.
I can look at your pictures, I can look at your plants,
and we can guide you to the right things. And plus when you're when
you're in Wallbirds, you you probably will I'll have to call you to come
over my table because your eyes will have spirals in them as you see all
the cool products that they have. There's anyway come over here and see me
too, not just the stuff now. Seriously, though, they do have
a great supply. But I hope you can make it out next Saturday.
In the meantime, I hope you have a really really good week. Don't
forget this is a week to get that lawn fertilizing done. If you haven't
done it, already get that down. I believe we may have rain a
little bit later in the week that'll help water it in. If you don't
know how much it's going to rain, you just watered in with irrigation,
because too much rain can wash away which you just put down, or at
least a large part of it. But about a half interrigation, we'll do
it just fine. Remember to keep the lawn more sharp for a greener,
healthier lawn. Less wear and tear on your lawn more. I don't say
think you need to water just now, because we're not in that season quite
yet with all the rain we've been getting, but we hope you have success.
If there is bear soil in your vegetable garden, your herb beeds,
your flower beds cover up the bear soil. Nature plants of weed. Whenever
sunlight hits the soil. That's how in the forest the trees take care of
it. They know how to stop the competition. They drop leaves on the
competition, they bury it and mulch. That works in our gardens too,
So who wants to spend their summer fighting weaves as the fiance bite you and
the kids. Vocabulary grows in ways you don't want it to start with mulch
and avoid the problem.