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 it's so trim,
just watching as many club rick A s Well, good morning, Good
Saturday morning. It's still dark outside, but it's gonna be life soon and
we're gonna have another day for gardening. This uh, this kind of weather
has been driving a lot of folks inside just a little bit too hot.
But you know, morning time's a great time to get out there and get
a little bit of things done. We still have to maintain. We will
take care of the lawns and the gardens and the landscapes. Certainly are maintain
our trees and whatnot, So let's get that done in the morning. I
like to also work late in the day, although I find the mornings even
better, better time to get up and get out and do some things.
So we'll talk about some things to be doing this time of the year.
In the meantime, we'd love to have you give us a call. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. We are going to actually jump
right on the phones this morning and head out to League City and talk to
John V. Hello John V. Good morning, skib Good morning everybody on
Garden line. Yes, my question is on the cosmics apple. Would I
be able to plant a tree here in a city of League Sydney cosmic Crisp?
Where did you find that? That's not a no? It took fourteen
years to genetically create. Uh, this is something that um, I have
never tried done before. I love the I love all types of apples,
and so yes, sir, yeah, well that's a that's a new one
that they've been promoting. I'm what I'm trying to figure out is what is
the what is the chill hours on the cosmic Crisp? Do you happen to
know offhand? I have no idea, sir. No, I just don't
know if it survives here in Lake City or My first guess would be no.
But since I don't know, I'm not saying that's the definitive answer.
It was developed in Washington State, which makes me think it's probably not gonna
do well in our chilling down here. I see, yeah, So,
but I'm sitting here, I'm trying to see I can find something on it.
If I do, I'll mention it on the show today. Wonderful.
Yeah, it's a it's a new thing they're really excited about up there.
But I generally when they develop an apple, it's too high chill for us
down here. I see, Well, wonderful, You'll have a wonderful day.
Thank you, well, thank you for the call. I appreciate that
you take care. Okay, goodbye, bye bye. You know, if
if you haven't been by RCW Nurseries in a while, you haven't been by
RCW Nurseries. I mean they are always rotating the stock that they have.
And by the way, that's a nursery up there where Tumball Parkway comes in
with Beltway eight. You can go online to RCW Nurseries dot com find out
more information about them, what they got going on right now. I know
they still have that super duper rose list, like four pages long. That
is a document worth downloading just for information. I mean, you want to
know the name, the type of rose, is that a climber, is
it disease resistant? How big does it get? What color of the blooms?
You see what I'm saying. Everything you can imagine, and then while
you're at it, go ahead an order one. They can get them in
up there. Right now, they're specializing in shrubs. They've got a lot
of good shrubs, a good deal going on shrubs, and so if you
need you know, some Nandina, Laura padalums, whatever kind of shrubs you're
looking for, our CW Nursery is going to have that, and way,
way way more. Now they specialize in trees as well. The fifteen gallons
up the two hundred gallons be on ornamental tree, something beautiful blooming, or
maybe just a nice big shade tree. So give our CW Nurseries a look.
You will find that they have all you need. And if they don't
have it, they probably get it for you. One of the good things
about visiting up at OURCW. Let's head over now to fin it and we
are gonna talk to Duke. Good morning, Duke. Who Hey, I've
got an azea bush that's getting over rain. It's a pretty big size of
zea bush, but it's getting over rain with vines. Is there anything I
can put on that? Do you know what kind of vines they are?
Off hand? Absolutely not just some old weed vines. That sits up at
the lake house until you do. Yeah, well, what I would do
just grab one of them and follow it down, find out where it comes
out of the ground, and I would if you can cut it off there
and then dab some product I'm going to give you in a moment here right
on that fresh cut surface, it'll translocate down and kill the roots and everything.
Because if you tried to spray something on the vine that is on your
azzalia, you're gonna kill your azzalia. And so just yeah, all you
gotta do is you know, when you cut a vine off where it comes
out of the ground, everything above that's going to turn brown and it's easy
to see and pull pull out of there. But by treating that stump or
the base, the base of the vine, you shut the whole thing down.
It doesn't come back out of the roots. And there are a few
vines like pepper vine that you may get a resprout from somewhere else because they're
just coming up from so many places. But if you just stay with that
in the ingredient duke that you want is called trich lopier t t R I
c l O P y R, and it'll come in a number of things
from the home market. It may be called poison ivy killer or it may
something like that, but Traclopier's ingredient and just actually I've actually got some poison
poison killer up there, so yeah, I'll definitely give that a truck.
Yeah, check that ingredient. But remember it'll kill yoursel yet. So do
you just want to put it on the cut surface of that vine and that'll
do it? All right? Thank you, sir, Yes, sir,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Let's see, I'm going
to head out now to Roe, Sharon, and we are going to go
talk to Alex. Hello Alex, good morning, Harry. Wow, thank
you. So I was going to turn my tree tomorrow and I was wondering
if I were to run the branches through a shredder, if i'd be able
to use a fresh wood chippings that molten my garden or around my trees.
You can, yeah, you can. You're using them as a mult which
means they're sitting on top of the surface, and that's that's okay. If
you were to mix them into the soil, that's a lot of raw wood
and it would draw a lot of nitrogen out of the soil, but it's
not going to happen so much with them sitting right up on the surface.
You could always just toss a little extra nitrogen up there into the into the
mulch and kind of rake it so it falls down in the surface and watered
in, just to be extra sure. But generally a mulch is not going
to affect your soil like you would have with a with a soil amendment mixed
in. All right, okay, all right, well, good luck,
good luck with that. That's a good, good use of that in a
good way to recycle those clippings. I want to talk about a new thing
that I haven't mentioned before, and that is with Microlife, and it is
their commercial liquid fertilizers that are available for say commercial available for homeowners. The
first one it would be the Microlife Biomatrix. That's the orange label, the
seven one three. It's a high nitrogen liquid organic but it has a lot
of beneficial microbes in it, and I use it for all my houseplants.
It's a it's an excellent product. You mix it in water and just use
it when you water. You can very dilute and use it every time,
or you can, you know, give them more of a boost and then
water in between applications of it. But the other one and that's Microlife Ocean
Harvest, the blue label. That's a four two three. It's a it's
a fish based material and I use it outside outside. You can mix it
up follow the label as a folior spray and it won't burn. You can
also use it as a drench on the soil. Now, Microlife Ocean Harvest.
If you want to use it as a folior, you want to mix
it at the lower rate and then spray upward from under the plant early in
the morning. That is the best time and way to get nutrient into the
plant. And so either way you go with the orange label Biomatrix or the
blue label Ocean Harvest, you are going to be very impressed with how quickly
your plants respond. Now you can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com for more
information if you would like to find out where to buy Microlife in your area.
Well, let's take a break. We are going to go ahead and
stop for a break at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We'll get Saturday morning on a great day for gardening. You're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number.
Write this down so you can give a skull seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Hey, if you've not been to Quality Feed, Quality Feed and Garden Company,
it's there in the Heights now we're all close to the Heights. Rather,
it's on Lozon Street eighteen thirteen lose On, which is near the intersection
of Equipment and Alesion. I used to go to the old store, Now
I've been to the news store. Ken and Chris have had Quality Feed for
about thirty two years now, and they've got all the kinds of things we
talk about here. You know, if you're looking for the herbicides and the
soils and mulches and whatnot, they've got all of that. Now be in
a feed store, of course you're going to get feed. They really do
an awesome job, better than anyone I know. With the chickens. I
mean they get shipments of chickens in about ever two weeks. It's amazing.
So if you're into backyard chickens, this is a place you need to go
check out of course, so get all the supplies you need to go with
those baby chicks to take home and enjoy in your own yard. Quality feedco
dot com, Quality feedco dot com. Check them out. You will find
a wide variety of products everything you need and that good old fashioned service that
we love from a good old fashioned type feed store like Quality feed. Let's
head out. Now we're going to go to Cyprus and visit with Joyce.
Good morning, Joyce, good morning. I was going to ask about take
patch. I think I'm getting it again. I had it a couple of
years ago and did the aeration and the compost top dressing and all that fact.
I think a top dressed twice, it's not three times, but it
looks like it's coming back. And there's a products made by Scotts. It's
called disease X and I was wondering if I could put it says it takes
works against takeall patch. I was wondering if I could put that down,
or if it's too hot. It's not too hot, but take all patches
primarily uh infecting in the fall season, a little bit in the spring,
but primarily in the fall season. So I guess you know, to put
it on. Now, I don't think it is going to help a lot.
If you want to try it, you can uh either way. It
you know, it certainly is something that uh take all. It needs to
be treated because it is, as you have learned it, it's a it's
a pretty devastating uh fungus once it gets into your into your plants. That's
well, it just really looks like it because you know how to see in
Augustine the shoots gool out and they turn all brown and and then all of
a sudden there's just dirt there, don't grass. It might not be,
but that's what it looks like to me. Okay, uh, well have
an idea. Yeah, just describing basically you're you know, what you're describing
as the grass is dying and and uh so that in and of itself does
not necessarily mean it's take on me. It could be anything from you know,
drought to burn, from a chemical to lots of things can kill grass.
But take all, root rot is a disease that we have to deal
with. And that particular product. Really, any product you get that has
a zoxystrobin, which is ingredient in that product, is going to be effective.
It's just most of the activity of takeall has taken place. Now you've
got grass, it doesn't have a good root system, and so as a
weather heats up, it starts to die. And it's a little confusing because
you think, well, take all seems to kill my lawn more in the
when it warms up than in the cool season. But yet it's more active
in getting into the grass during the during the fall and sometimes spring season.
Well I don't have an irrigation system, but you know we have watered quite
well. Yeah, I think, well, and it's not a lack of
water. I mean, it's a lack of roots. And so you want
to be careful because if you overwater, that creates its own problems, so
be real careful about that. I think the air rating and the top dressing
is always a good idea, and anything that stimulates and strengthens the grass is
going to help it fight take all rot. Take all is a disease that
loves to get into stressed grass. When grass is strong and healthy, not
so much of a problem as when grass is weakened and its defenses are compromised.
All right, well, thank you very much. All right, Joyce
thank you. I appreciate that call very much. You know, we're talking
about top dressing and air rating and all that that anytime we improve the soil,
we improve our plants. And the best time to improve soil is before
you plant something. Now, I realize the lawn, you know, it's
there for decades hopefully, and so it's not like you go in and rototil
your lawn to replant it for no good reason. But when you're putting in
a flower bed, or when you're putting in a vegetable bed, or when
you're preparing soil for some shrubs in a row, you want to use a
high quality compost, and airloom Soils can provide just that. You can go
online to write this down Airloom Soils of Texas dot com. You will see
an endless supply of all kinds of great products, from the rose soiled to
various kinds of blends for houseplants or potting plant, potting soils for outdoors,
and all kinds of bed mixes and combinations with shale and other things. Airloom
Soils of Texas has it all. You can get it in one cubic yard.
Supersacks. That means they bring a giant sack that holds a cubic yard
of soil, set it on your driveway. Now, that's very convenient.
Now, if you don't know how much you need, check out their Airloom
Soils cubic yard calculator. They're on the website Airloom Soils of Texas, and
you can find exactly how much you need, whether it's cubic yards or whether
it's how many one cubic or one square foot or two square foot bags.
They've got it easy to figure and always at Airloom Soils of Texas. I
want to now go out and we're going to visit with K out there in
Missouri City. K. If I can find the button, here we go.
How are you this morning? I'm just fine. Thank you. Listen.
My lawn is absolutely gorgeous, and I was wondering if there was anything
I need to put on it to sustain it through this heat wave that we
have. If it looks good now, I would leave it be and I
would just focus, just focus on a good deep soaking as infrequently as you
can, I would say about once a week. And now if it's in
the full blazing sun and for whatever reason your soil is somewhat limiting. You
might need to water twice a week, but I would aim to get toward
once a week where and it may mean you have to water several times on
watering days so it soaks in and between watering, so you can get that
one inch down because most soils you can't put an inch on at one time.
But if you give it a good soaking and then when you let it
dry out, it brings oxygen back into the soil's roots system as that water
moves out, and then you give it a good watering again, and that
is is deep rooted and healthy and resilient. Of a watering schedule for lawns
as you can as you can get. Okay, thank you very much.
Appreciate your show. Well, good luck with the lawn. I'm glad to
hear it's doing well. Usually people are complaining about it's dying. Right.
No, it's absolutely gorgeous, so I just want to make sure it stays
out lake all right, Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, the
h when you look at you know, lawns and trees and turn. In
fact, I'm gonna do a talk for the Oba Palooza Oba Palooza. I'll
talk about more coming up that's coming up in July. I'm going to be
given a talk and the topic is the two teas, the things that make
the phone ring, and that is trees and turf. Actually there's three trees,
three trees, turf and tomatoes. But the primary two or trees and
turf, that that is what people call about because you know, everybody wants
a big, beautiful, gorgeous lawn. They want beautiful shade trees, maybe
blooming trees, and those are valuable parts of the landscape. I mean,
if you're ever going to sell your house and you've got those in order,
man's that's impressive when people drive up when it's not not so much. And
I know some people have different opinions about lawns, or are those who would
rather not have lawns and go back to kind of a natural prairie look and
other things, but they're for the most part lawnser or the popular thing that
just about everybody has. Everybody wants that beautiful outdoor carpet, and so as
a result, we have to figure out how to have a beautiful lawn.
And that's one of the things we do here on garden line is we talk
to you about how to have a beautiful lawn, and one of the ways
to have a beautiful lawn, absolutely beautiful lawn, is to fertilize it properly.
And when I'm talking about fertilizing it properly, a good example of just
exactly that would be Microlife's silver bag, the silver bag. If you've heard
about different or Microlife fertilize. Excuse me, I said Microlife nitrofoss the silver
bag that is nineteen four ten. I got two different things running through my
head here. Nineteen four ten is a slow release that nitrofoss makes that gradually
feeds that soil over time. So what's going to happen is the nutrients come
out slowly, and as a result, you don't get this flush of growth,
you get gradual growth, you don't get a lack of root system,
which over nitrogen applications can do. Because you're putting this on at a rate
about five pounds per thousand square feet. That is going to give you that
gradual feed and that's going to give you the right amount of nitrogen, and
you're just not going to do better than a nineteen The nitrofoss nineteen four ten
fertilizers specifically formulated for our hot, humid southern climates, and it's just a
wh wh When you do that once for the summertime, it carries you all
the way through into your fall fertilization. You're gonna find nitro foss all over
the place. I mean, for crying out loud, a lot of our
ace stores, almost all our A stores are going to carry the nitrofoss.
You're gonna find it an enchanted forest and channing gardens down in the Richmond area,
or maybe you're up at RCW Nursery's talking about them earlier on I forty
five North. R CW carries nitrofoss as well. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seventy four. When you give us a call, we can talk
about whatever you're interested in. In the meantime, I'm gonna talk about some
things that I am interested in. And we were discussing the importance of lawns
to people and how people just want to have that beautiful, picture perfect lawn.
I find that the lawn rangers out there and you know who you are.
They have this varying tolerance for lack of perfect action in a lawn.
Some people, if it's green and they mow it, that's good. It's
like the old guy from Mississippio stelling you bout a while back that he says
he just gets rid of all his weeds by taking off his glasses. In
other words, it's all green when you take your glasses off. Other people
it's like it's got to be perfect. It's got to be perfect, And
so they want to have that where it looks it's absolute best. And we
can do that. We can achieve that, but we do it primarily through
proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing. And I know that sounds so simplified,
but it is that simple. When you mow regularly, the more often
you mow, the dent your lawn. When you mow at the right height,
the deeper your root system, the more resilient your lawn. When you
water properly, like I was just mentioning a moment ago, with a deep
soaking followed by drying out, the better your lawn is going to be.
And then when you fertilize with the right ratios of products, the right kinds
of products at the right rate, at the right time. Those three together,
it's simple. But it's the secret. Mo water and fertilize properly.
When you do that, you can have that kind of lawn you want.
Now, yes we have we just we have disease and insects we deal with.
But those three are key. Well, let's take a break. Five
one excuse me, seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give Josh a call. We'll get you on the board for when we come
back from break. Then I saw her face. Well, good Saturday morning.
You are listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer your gardening questions. That's what it's all about.
If you'd like to give us a call, the number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one two five
eight and four. So let me go back to this mo water and fertilize
a little bit, because I think that for a lot of folks, they
think, well that's that's just too simple. I mean, you got to
be more to it than that. Well, remember how I said, Yes,
there are weeds as their diseases. Yes, they're insects and so on.
Those are there, But think about this. We were talking with a
Joyce in cipersub minute to go about take all root rot. Take all root
rot as an opportunists. We have several different types of fungi that we deal
with in our lawns and landscapes that are opportunists. That means that if the
patient is just completely healthy and everything's good, those diseases typically do not attack
and get the upper hand. But when the grass in this case is weakened,
then take all root rot has a chance to move in. And you
know that makes sense. I mean I love to, I guess anthropomorphize things,
but where you know, I'd use human examples that don't always one percent
fit, but still I think they work. And here's one. If you're
tired, if you don't get good sleep, if you don't eat right,
if you don't exercise, if you basically are doing all those things, you
are more likely to get sick than someone who in all the other ways is
as healthy as they can be. That doesn't mean that a healthy person that
works out and does all that can't get sick. Of course they can It
just means that it's more likely that as we weaken our bodies, we get
sick easier. Well, the same is true with your lawn, and that
would be the case. Would take all root rot as an example. So
when we mow, water and fertilize right, and we keep the lawn as
healthy as we can, then the chances of having problems would take all become
less and we have less problems with that disease. With the large patch.
Now everybody calls it brown patch. That's the old name. Large patch is
the big brown circles that you see in the cool season and you're seeing augustine
lawns, and it can occur in other turf grasses as well. Well.
If you overdo the nitri and we're moving into that fall season where the weather
cools off a little bit, you get some rain, some frequent rains,
and boom, here come the big browne circles everywhere. Well, overdoing it
with nitrogen makes that worse. It sets them up for a problem. Even
chinch bugs on the lawn. Overdoing with nitrogen makes that a little bit more
of a problem. So mo water and fertilize helps us avoid, not eliminate,
but avoid a lot of the issues that we have with insects and diseases.
And then how about weeds weeds? The way I like to put it
is, wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. So if
your lawn is thin, nature will fill that in with green, and green
is called a weed, okay to nature. And so anytime we create a
scar on the earth where we strep back the foliage the plants and we leave
bare soil, weeds are going to come up there. And it's a you
know, from an environmental standpoint, it's a good thing because it avoids soil
erosion and a lot of the other issues that can happen when soil is left
exposed, like crusting and erosion. And so that's just how it works.
So how do we avoid weeds? Mo water, fertilize. We mow regularly
with more density, less light hits the soil, less weed seeds can come
up. We water properly for density, and we fertilize properly for density.
So mowater in fertilize is the best weed control in your lawn. And along
with returning those clippings when you mow. Now that doesn't mean that if you
just mowater and fertilize, you never have weed problems. It just means you
minimize them. There's some weeds that are perennial. They'll live toe to toe
with a Saint Augustine or Zoysier or Bermuda grass law and they'll just keep going.
I mean, their perennial, they can survive, they can fight their
way. Those are the exceptions, but they're there. You know, Virginia
button weed as an example of that, dollar weed as an example of that.
But all those annual weed seeds, we can pretty much deal with those
with a good, dense, healthy lawn. And that's what we're aiming for.
I mean, our goal. Our goal is not to live with a
turf that is dependent on products that fight everything that goes wrong. Our goal
is to have the healthiest turf we can and then grab those products if and
when they're needed, if and when they're needed. If you know, we're
discussing this hot weather that we've been having here, been brought up more than
once already today. But when you put a new shrub in, it takes
it a while to to establish its root system. That's true with the new
tree too, and I strongly encourage you to consider purchasing a tree Hugger sprinkler
if you're planting shrubs or trees, or if you've already planted them, let's
say in the last six months to a year, they need they're going to
need extra TLC on watering when we now that we are in the one hundred
degree range way too early, by the way, and but TreeHugger sprinklers they
water. You can turn them on load of water right at the base where
that cylinder of soil came out of the pot and is now all the roots
are right in that spot when it first goes in the ground. You can
turn them up a little more and more to water a larger and larger area
is that tree establishes and grows. They come in seven inch, eleven inch,
and fifteen inch sizes, are easy to hook up to the water hose,
put around the tree, and you just take off. Go to town
tree Hugger Sprinklers dot Com. Tree Hugger Sprinklers dot Com is where you can
find a retailer near you. Pretty much the places we talk about on garden
Line are going to be places at Kerry TreeHugger sprinklers dot Com. Let's head
out to Cyprus this morning and we're going to talk to Vicki. Hello,
Vicki, Hi, how are You'm well? Thank you? My question is
I put some slow release fertilizer down Wednesday morning, okay, and I water
it in, but then we got that heavy rain Wednesday night that I wasn't
expecting, right, do I need to refertilize it? You're you're okay?
Unless the soil was bare enough to where the watering caused the rain caused the
water to just flow across your law. I put new grass in right before
we had all that rain, okay, like April, all right, I
think it was all right. So so Vicky, if the if the water
did not literally wash the granules off the lawn, which it didn't in your
case as you're describing it, then you're fine. Those granules are made to
not dissolve right away like an immediate release fertilizer would. It's going to take
them time to release those nutrients. So that's another reason for a slow release
through the summer. Okay. That was my question. It's like I didn't
want to really have to redo that again. That's good new. I'm glad
to be the bearer of good news. Sometimes I had to be the bearer
of bad news. But yeah, that was good news. I'm also air
rating it too, because I don't think the guys did it when they put
the grass down. Okay, So I bought an air raider, so will
that help too? Got brown? I've got some brown out there already.
Yeah, if you're if your air raider pulls out plugs out of the soil,
that's the best kind. But when you open up the soil down deep
and then get a little compost top dressing occasionally over the top of it,
that's even better on top of it all. But an air raiding does,
and they generally don't errate when they put the side down because it needs a
wild for that side to get roots down in, or the air raider will
just pick up the side pieces as it pokes through them. I thought he
was should have air raided the dirt underneath it. Okay, No, no
need to do that. Okay, So he did do what he was supposed
to. He did what he's supposed to do based on what you're telling me
at least. Yeah, okay, so I should buy the air raider with
the plug where the plugs it's got the two things where the plugs come out.
Yes, we call those a core narrator, and the way I describe
it as the other kind just sort of has a solid tine that presses a
hole open in the soil. You know, as if you took a cone
shaped thing and just shoved it in the soil. The core narator pops out
those little sections of soil and leaves them on the surface. That's the better
of the two kinds. All right, Okay, okay, I think I
saw those on Amazon. I'll buy one of them. You got it,
all right, Vicky, thank you for the call. We're gonna go take
a break here, and if you would like to be on garden Line,
give me a call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Everybody knew in a brand. Oh you'll get well. Good morning,
good Saturday morning, on a great day for gardening. You are listening to
garden Line, and our purpose here is to help you have a more bountiful
garden and a more beautiful landscape. And that is exactly what we try to
do. If you've got some gardening questions you'd like to call, it's seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. That's two one two kt
r H. If you would like to give us a call, I'm going
to go back to the lawns and we're going to continue talking about some of
the basic principles that I was talking about. Basically, what this amounts to
is I am trying my best to convince you that the most important thing you
can do for your lawn is to mow it, water it, and fertilize
it property. That is the most important things we do for our law.
So we were talking about how diseases and insects and weeds are all hampered by
proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing. We reduce the problems that we have
by proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing of the way of the lawn.
There is another practice, and I talk about it here pretty often, and
that is the core aeration. Now, if your soil is a heavy clay,
if your spot has a lot of compaction from foot traffic or whatever reason,
compaction, coreeration is even more important. But for any lawn that is
you know, struggling with water infiltration and just the density the clay, the
soil coreation could be helpful for that. And what it does is we're popping
plugs out of the ground. So imagine a little hollow tube goes in the
ground and it pulls out a plug of soil, a little tube of soil,
and drops it on the surface. So when you get through aerating a
lawn, it looks like that there was a convention of small dogs that hung
out at the lawn for a while, if you know what I'm talking about,
little little thing sitting on the surface like dog droppings, and that that's
kind of the the visual equivalent there. When we're talking about coreation, we
follow that often with a compost top dressing. And what that means is a
very fine textured compost, not woody, chunky stuff. Ideally it would be
a leaf mold compost, though that is a super high quality and a screened
product that's small enough to fall down in those little spaces that the core aeration
creates in the soil. So kind of look at a cross view of your
law and think about it this way. Follow me on this one. You've
got a cross view of your soil and there's little holes down into the soil,
straight down in the soil where the soil has been removed, and now
you top dress and it falls down in those holes those holes. Oxygen moves
readily sideways down into the soil from those holes, and now you've got the
decaying organic matter and the root system. It's just the best thing you can
do. And the root system is to get oxygen and organic matter and everything
down into the soil like that. When it rains, water can move down
in those holes and not just have to soak in from the surface, but
even sideways through holes that could be moving in. So do you see what
I'm saying. It's a corderation sets your soil up over time to get richer
and richer and better and better and be a better zone for roots to thrive.
And if roots thrive, your grass can thrive. If you've got a
soil that's dense, that's compacted, there's no good aeration, water can't move
in. Roots are not going to thrive, and you can't have a beautiful
top grass top above ground part of your grass plant, which is what we're
looking at, if you don't have a good root system to support it as
well. That's what we're aiming for. So it's really simple. You know,
when it comes to taking care of your soil, it's just not that
difficult. I was talking last week, and I've talked about this several times,
but the Dell Web Communities are putting in a new community in full shirt
that has a community garden in it. Now, if you know del Weeb,
you know that for what seventy years they have been building communities for active
adults fifty five and better that just have that lifestyle program that wold. It's
not just a house to live in. This is a community. This is
a community with programs and activities and events that are just built around you.
To put it shortly, the inspired designs of Dellweb homes or second to none.
But when we talk about now adding a community garden to that, oh
my my goodness. What you don't have to dig up the back forty to
which is your yard to plan a garden. I mean you can go over
the community garden and enjoy the fellowship and the social connections with people over there
as well. Go to dellweb dot com slash Houston for more information or call
them to eight one four five nine zero six zero nine. If you're a
gardener, I cannot think of a better place than the New dellweb community and
fulshure on. Let's see, it's on Highway three fifty nine, just a
couple of miles outside of full Sure. We you know, we're trying about
a lot of different kinds of things today regarding gardening and when you're looking for
a place where you can find not just the best plants selection you can imagine,
but also the best advice you can imagine. I think of plants for
all seasons on Highway to forty nine. They're right there where Louetta comes in.
They're on two forty nine. Now, plants for all seasons. Green
thumbs know it. I mean they take pride in their lawn and garden and
they go to plants for all seasons. But if you're a brown thumb and
you want to turn that thumb green, you need to visit plants for all
seasons as well. This is a family owned, owned and operated garden center.
Since nineteen seventy three, the Flowerties have created this dependable go to place
for plants and for gardening advice. Take the pictures, bring in samples.
They will tell you what's wrong, or they'll identify a plant for you.
And they will direct you to the products or the plants that you need.
Now. You can call them at two eight one three seven six sixteen forty
six two eight one three seven six sixteen forty six, or just go to
Plants for All Seasons dot com and see all that they have to offer.
Right now. They are loaded up in beautiful summer color plants. So I
was looking at the other day, just so many different nice annuals that can
take one hundred degree heat and still bloom and look good. Plants for All
Seasons dot com. If you'd like to give us a call, our number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Love entering gardening questions from folks,
and if if we don't get to you right before the next break, which
is coming pretty quick here, we will, Josh, We'll have you on
the board and you will be absolutely the first one up. When I think
about where do you go for the things you need for your garden and your
home here in the Greater Houston area, I think of our thirty nine locally
owned and operated hardware stores. Go to ACE Hardware dot com. To find
the store nearest you, I should say the stores nearest you. With thirty
nine of them, you have options. But the ACE Hardware stores carry all
the fertilizers I talk about. They have a product selection that is very extensive
and wide for any kind of thing, from a disease to an insect or
a weed. You name it, they've got it. ACE Hardware is part
of our community. Do you know that in twenty twenty two they raised half
a million dollars for the Texas Children's Hospital. They've got the ACE Rewards program
where you can earn money back on your purchases. Another reason to shop at
ACE. And when you look at the grills, the furniture, the decor,
the lighting, the outdoor power equipment, on and on and on.
Everything you need you're going to find at your local Ace Hardware. Check them
out at ACE hardware dot com. We've been talking lawns a lot this morning,
and I'm going to kind of shift years unless calls want to keep going
in the lawn direction. When we come back from break, I'm going to
talk a little bit about some of this summer vegetable garden and flower beds there
is despite the hundred degree heat. There's a lot that we can do.
You know, you get out on a morning like right now, I'm looking
outside. It's daylight out there. The temperature is not that bad right now,
but good time to get out, plant, take care of things and
just have a beautiful and bountiful flower garden and a vegetable garden. There are
vegetables we can grow in the summer. Did you know that? And I
mean not just Okrah, there are a lot of other good vegetables. Fresh
produce for your garden, from your garden, for the kitchen, for your
cuisine. I use fresh produce and smoothie. Believe it or not. I
love to have a morning smoothie, a little protein and and that's where I
get a lot of my greens in a lot of my different vegetables, root
crops and greens that are so good one these days. I just need to
give you a recipe I guess for the smoothie to beat all. Hey,
we'll be back in a short time. 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 Rictord. Just watch him as anything come chicken not a
sign. Well, good morning, good Saturday morning. The sun has shown
itself on the buildings downtown Houston. See the beautiful, beautiful rays of the
sun coming through. It's gonna be a good day. A little breeze going
on. This will be a good time to be outside. Take a radio
though, she can keep listening a garden line while you're out and about doing
your gardening chores. Hey, have you ever had to deal with a foundation
problem before? Now, if you have, you know that that is something
that you do not want to have to get into. But if you do,
you want to hire somebody that knows what they're talking about, and that
would be Fix my Slab Foundation Repair. Tie Strickland has been doing this for
twenty three years. It's a local small business service. They've got that foundation
experience that you need. You need someone who knows what they're talking about when
they do this. If you want more information, you can go to fix
my Slab dot com or give them a call at two eight one two five
five forty nine forty nine. Now, before you do any home improvements,
you need to get that foundation level and right, otherwise everything's going to shift.
When they fix the foundation and the improvements you made or just kind of
out of whack. So first, get the foundation fixed before you do the
home improvement. Secondly, you need to know that if you're a garden line
listener, let them know that because it'll be a free estimate for you when
you do. They they are committed to a fair price, They show up
on time, they know what they're doing. The way we like to put
it is on time, fair price, and fixed. That's fixed myslab dot
com. And by the way, you got a driveway crack, you got
a sidewalk crack, they can deal with that as well. We live on
that part of the state where we got a lot of clay soils and it's
shifts and shifts and shifts. I mean you drive down Houston streets and it's
like you're running through the rocky mountains up and down with all the shifting soils
and whatnot that we have. That's why we need a good foundation repair company.
Let's head out to Cyprus. We're on a visit with Walter this morning.
Good morning Walter, Well, good morning, sir, Hey sir.
I've got a problem with NATS. I've never had it before. We have
tried everything, we know, you know, bleat in the drains sprays,
but the thray line insects don't seem to affect them. Okay, so we
don't have any food setting around or anything. They're in your house. You're
saying, yes, okay, garden, go on, you'll tomato, yeah,
out back. But yeah, well, basically I think a three different
places that will really encourage, you know, three situations that bring the gnats.
At number one, you got fruit laying around like fruit flies for example,
and another thing other food, and you say you've checked, you don't
have that. The drain is another source for nats. It can be,
and so you just want to want to check that, make sure that that
huh okay, and then uh let me see what's Oh, the pop plants
in the house. We we can when we keep our plant soil surfaces moist
fungus, nats will breed and developing that and we can end up with some
gnats from that Somewhere. Those gnats are getting the moisture and the sustenance that
they need. And Walter. Other than those, I don't know where else
to tell you to look. You might talk to a good you know exterminator,
the Scott over at McGrath. Pest control can probably direct you to some
things that either you do yourself or they come in and do for you,
to try to try to shut those down. But there are several different kinds
of gnats and but still they got to have water, and they gotta have
something that they're feeding on. A little bitty I mean like a pencil.
Yeah, get in a pencil about that. Yeah, I know I've seen
what you're talking about. I usually trace mind some food I didn't know was
there. You know, maybe a one time I found a potato that had
kind of gotten behind the counter and were starting to decay a little bit.
And boy, I mean it was there were gnats all in there that were
coming out from behind there. I don't know where to tell you to look,
but I know it's going to be some type of food source from wet
saying it's supposed to track them and kill them books. I hope that's gonna
work. It's socially here today, Okay, I don't know anything about those,
so uh that that's outside my certain poet. Maybe we could put out
not that I know of. You know it, you got to figure out
what's bringing them in. And I know you've you've kind of looked and tried
enough suggested some things. But other than that, I don't know. I
think I may call a pest control company and see what they what they say,
Okay, sir, I appreciate your knowledge. All right, Well,
good luck with them. I'm sorry you having to deal with that. That's
a pain, I know. Thank you, Yes, sir, you were
listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Hey, if you love out in the Kingwood area, and I mean area,
I mean humble the task as seat a Porter, Valley Ranch, New
Caney, all that area. You're Richwood Garden Centers out there. You've got
Warning Southern Gardens on North Park Driving, Kingwood, and you've got Kingwood Garden
Center on Stone Hollow Drive in Kingwood. Both of those are open seven days
a week and they have got all kinds of great plants. I was taking
care of some pentas that I put in a container on my back porch this
past week, and I just noticed Warrens has a excellent supply of Penta's in
Penta's They're also called Egyptian starflower. They're white, they're pink, they're red,
they bring in butterflies, they love bright shade. I mean, they
do it in containers and everything. They've also got the Primark Freedom blackberries in
now. Primark Freedom is a thornless BlackBerry that produces on the first year in
the canes, which most blackberries won't, and then also on the second year.
So it's an awesome berry to try. You should you should give that
one a try now. Or head over to Kingwood Garden Center where they just
got in a whole bunch more of those Cajun hibiscus that I just can't quit
talking about. I mean, if if you think you know what a hibiscus
flower looks like, look at a Cajun hibiscus and you're gonna see something very
different. They're very very popular now in our Greater Houston area. Or grab
some diamond frost. Euphobia's another little whispy plant with white flowers that absolutely laughs
at our summer sun. I like it in containers, I like it in
the ground, in beds. It's a beautiful plant. Hey, Warren's and
Kingwood Garden Center, you're not going to go wrong with either of those.
You can find them online. They've both got the Facebook pages, They've got
the Instagram pages where you can see all the plants and what's happening. Check
those out and feel fortunate if you live over in that area, because you
are indeed, very very fortunate. Let's see, I'm gonna mention one thing.
If you're down in the area and your League City, Santa Fe,
Dickinson, San Leone, Lamarck, League City Feed is your local feedstore.
Wes and Madison Funderburg have really continued that tradition that began over forty years ago
in an Oprah patch of League City Feed. You can give McCall at two
eight one three three two sixteen twelve. If we talk about a fertilizer on
Garden Line, they're going to have it at League City. They're on Highway
three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. Everything else that you
would expect from a feed store, from Chicken Supplies to pep food and you
name it is there. And it's that old fashioned service that all of the
feed stores we talk about will provide you down in that area. League City
Feed. You're not going to do better Monday through Saturday nine to six and
closed on Sunday. Hey, give us a call, Josh. You'll get
you on the board. We're gonna take a break and you'll be first up
when we come back. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Good Saturday morning, on a great day for gardening. The sun is
shining, it is beautiful outside. Boy, this is a time to get
that kind of stuff done. We are here to talk about whatever you're interested
in regarding gardening. My name is Skip Richter. I'm your host in our
phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Now, I've talked to you
about Dell Web before, but I just want to remind you that they have
a brand new community coming in in Fulsher on FM three fifty nine, less
than two miles from downtown fullsher If you've ever been around Dellweb, you know
the quality, you know the workmanship. You know that they design their homes
and their communities for active adults age fifty five and better. The lifestyle programs
designed around you, and part of that lifestyle is being able to garden.
They have a community garden that I am helping them set up there at the
Dellweb community in fullsher Now check it out. I hope you would go online
to dellweb dot com slash Houston or give up a call two eight one four
to five nine zero six zero nine find out about that community and the Dellweb
difference for yourself, including the really nice community garden for residents. Pretty excited
about that. I think it's a great addition for a Dellweb community. Let's
head out to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Susan this morning. Hello
Susan, good morning. I wonder it is too late and too hot to
fertilize your lawn. Yes, no, it's not. You want to use
the fertilizer at the right rate so you don't overdo it. And you want
to use a slow release so you don't burn the lawn. Okay, So
a product that's going to gradually release over time will give you the good nutrition
without putting the salts down in a concentration that might cause burning. So the
nitro fos product, what are the numbers that first nineteen nineteen four ten.
But it's easier, it's easiest just to look for the silver bag. When
you see silver, that's it. That nitro files has one silver bag,
and that's that's the one we're looking at. Thank you, does does very
very well for it. Yeah, just follow the label. By the way,
Susan, you want to put five pounds per thousand square feet out there?
Okay? Five pounds per thousand of that of that fertilizer. All righty,
thank you, Thank you very much. Bye bye. Now we're gonna
head to Southwest Houston and talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Hi,
how could we help today? Uh? Well, I, um, you
know, pulled leeks and peas out of my garden bed. It's a raised
bed, and I have the rose soil compost mix that I hit picks two
to one. Okay, um do I And now I'm going to plant some
oat crop and I do I put or do I did more compost yet?
Uh? I don't think you need it at this time. It's warm enough
now to where the microbes are really breaking down all the organic matter in that
rose soil that you have. Have you done any fertilizing in the last couple
of months. No, I just pulled out all of my leaks that were
there. Yeah, yeah, last week and so yeah, well and how
how were the leaks doing? Did they look pretty good? Are they pretty
healthy? They did? Yes? Okay, I think you're gonna be okay.
If you wanted to get you a fertilizer that is a you know,
geared toward a vegetable garden for example, I think you can. You can
go ahead and do that. I mean that we have so many good options
out there on the market. I know Nelson Plant Food makes one for vegetables.
They make an organic U fertilizer for vegetables as well that you could just
mix a little bit in and just give them a little extra boost as you
go into the okra anytime though, you mentioned peas. Anytime you're doing beans
and peas, you want to hold off on the nitrogen because too much nitrogen
causes them to vine without as much production. Okra, okra would be fine
with a little boost. Okay, Okay, thank you so much, you
bet, thank you. Yeah. The Nelson's products, they know, when
we think of Nelson's, we think of like the color Star line, we
think of the Nutrostar line, or but now the turf Star line. And
then they also have a Nature Star line, the turf Star for summer fertilizing
for your lawn, The Slow and Easy as the one you want to look
for. That's the twenty two two twenty two ten. It's gonna do that
gradual release over time that just absolutely provides the nutrients that the plant needs,
but not all at once. It gives it to the plant gradually, which
is how plants grow. That's how plants feed. So Slow and Easy twenty
two two ten from Nelson's is a good one, you know. But as
we're talking about the you know, the taking care of the garden, when
it comes to vegetables, look for their look for their vegetable fertilizer. Look
for one of the Nature Star lines as well. It's gonna you're gonna find
it. Your plants just perform exceptionally well when you provide them that kind of
nutrition. Let's head out to Tanglewood now and we're going to visit with Charles.
Hello, Charles, well skip with all this heat, is it okay
to put the slower grow out? And how do I handle that for your
lawn? Yes, yes you can. If it's a gradual feed, it's
a gradually releasing fertilizer, a slow release fertilizer. You're not going to burn
your lawn if you put it out at the right rate. Okay, the
best time, the earlier the day, and then watered him. Yeah,
you could do that. I mean, you know, you could do it
anytime of day, but because of the temperature, for human reasons, I'd
say do it early in the day. All right, Okay, Well,
thank you very much. Have a great day. Okay, thank you.
I appreciate that call very much. You know, when you're talking about a
source for fertilizers, we're talking about all these fertilizers out here. You're not
going to find a better place than Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer has been on
let's see, they've been a lawn and garden tradition here now in the Houston
area since nineteen fifty five. So you think you don't stand business that long
if you're not doing a whole lot right, including customer service selection and whatnot.
They're at the corner of Bissonet and Renwick. You can go online Southwest
Fertilizer dot com and see what I'm talking about. There's not going to be
a product you need that you don't find in there. If they don't have
it, you don't need it. That includes all the fertilizers we talk about,
and then some that includes herbicides, fungicides, and secticide. That includes
organics. If you want organic products, you're not going to find a better
selection. The Southwest Fertilizer. They've got everything else you need. You need
your more blade sharp and they got a little shop in the back. They
can do some repair on small engine. It's everything you need. Let them
help you. Take a sample in, take a photo in. They will
direct you. If you need a product, they won't say something if you
don't. If you need a product, they'll direct you to the one you
need to have good success. Let's head out now to Hempstead and we're going
to talk to Greg. Hello Greg, Good morning Skip. I've got a
quick question for quick question for you. My wife and I just built a
new house out out here in Hempstead, and of course there's a new side
with that. Let's permute a side. My question to you is what do
I do now? How do I pick up on the fertilization schedule and so
on and so forth? How long go did the side? Was it put
down. It was installed about her laid down about three weeks ago week.
Okay, good, So it is now rooted in in this weather we're having,
you need to give it a good soaking on an infrequent basis. So
if you can water once a week, even if you have to apply it
in two or three, you know, cycle and soak applications on watering day,
that's best. That's number one. But but yes, go ahead and
fertilize. Get you a slow release product. We've been talking about them all
morning that is going to gradually feed over time and you're not going to burn
your lawn that way, and it'll carry you all the way through into the
fall fertilization time when you do that. Okay, so I can pick up
right with the normal fertilization schedule now. Yes, And if you have a
preference you know of a brand or a product like that, or we've got
a lot of good ones here that are local companies, which is what we
like to talk about. Just just follow the label carefully. And yeah,
you're Bermuda, and you know with the Bermuda, Greg, the most important
thing for beauty is regular mowing. The more often you mow it, the
better it looks. If you get it down in the inch and a half
range, you know it's gonna really really look good. Okay, very good,
all right. I appreciate your help. Thank you, sir. Appreciate
appreciate that call very much. Now I'm a broken record when it comes to
soil. I say it all the time, and I'm not ashamed of it
at all, because everything starts in the soil. Plant success starts in the
soil. If you run out to some place and buy a flat of plants
and bring them home and walk around the yard wondering where am I going to
put these, you've already messed up. You need to get your soil right.
Maybe buy the plants and buy the soil product, get them right,
bring it home and take care of that. But if you're looking for a
quality soil, you are not going to do better for all of you down
in the south of Houston, south southwest all through that area than CNA mal
CNA Malch is north of Rocher and they're on five twenty one where Highway six
and near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together. You can go
online to Cnamulch dot com and find out more about them. But all the
fertilizers I've been talking about, and then some they carry them if we recommend
them, they carry them at Ciena mulch dot com. So you here's your
soil well for Elijah goes in the soil. You can pick up your fertilizer
at the same time. Do you want bags of soil? Do you want
bolts soil, bolts, bulk soil that there we go. If you live
down in that area, Quel Valley, Riverstone, Manville, Row, Sharon
Lake, Olympia, Pomonia, Sweetwater, pear Land, you know, anywhere
near Brasispin State Park within about a twenty mile radius. They will also provide
delivery out there for the soils. You pay it delivery fee for that.
Naturally, it costs money to haul big bulky things around. But they're gonna
have everything and they'll get you set up. And when you do this right,
when you start with Sienna, then when you buy your plants, you
buy your flowers, buy your vegetables, whatever you're going to plant, you're
just gonna see a much much greater chance of success. By the way,
they're open today until two thirty, closed tomorrow on Sunday, but give them
a call or check them out. Saml dot com, Senamultz dot com,
You're not gonna do any better. I was out working in the garden the
other day, actually two days ago, and taking care of some beds and
some things like that, and I was just thinking that the next set of
beds I put in in my garden, they're gonna be the vegobed. I
talk about them all the time, and I am I've never been as excited
about a type of vegetable bed than I am about Vego Viago As a modular
metal bed. They treat the metal so that it doesn't rest and corrode,
and then they paint it with a USDA certified quality paint to hold onto it.
You can make them any shape you want. Their modular so you buy
the pieces. They go together very easily. You can make a long,
skinny bed, a square bed, a C shaped bed. If you're an
organic gardener, these vegobeds are the thing you need. And if you're not
an organic gardener, I can't think of a better use of space in your
garden than these narrow edged Vego beds. There's a lot of impostors out there.
Vego is a Houston company. The first in America to do the metal
beds. Don't be fooled by an impostor. Go to Vego garden dot com
and many of our local garden centers that we talk about on garden Line also
carry the Vego beds in stock Well. It's time take a break and get
some news going here. If you would like to get us, give us
call, get on the boards. Seven one three two one two, five,
eight seven four. Good Saturday morning. Good day to be listening to
garden Line, Good day to be talking about gardening. Give us a call.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
and two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, you've heard me talk about the
Trusted lab before, and the Trusted lab is one organic made from the highest
quality hump grown under USDA guidelines. They use a CO two extraction so it's
never touched by chemicals. They test it pesticide, solvents, heavy metals,
all the things you don't want in there. They ensure they don't have it
in there. You can get them in oils, soft jails, goomies,
creams. I like to use a cream for muscle aches and skelet of muscular
aches and things that we have. You can go online to the Trusted Lab
dot com. By the way, they have a fourth of July sale coming
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to sleep better, or for tight joints or so on, go to the
Trusted Lab dot com now and shop their fourth of July sale little extra savings.
This is a Texas company, Texas proud company here in our own state
for trusted CBD type products. Trusted Lab. You know we're talking about plants
and when it spent a little bit of time this morning on lawns. If
I spent a lot of time on lawns and I said, I'd like to
talk a little bit about some flowers and vegetable things. We have so many
good flowers for summer. Now I realize there's something in our psyche that happens
when it gets hot. People start thinking less about gardening, and there's no
reason to do that. Most landscapes become a sea of green in the summer.
Green grass, green groundcovers, green shrubs, green trees, green,
green, green green. Nothing wrong with the color green, But there's a
lot of colors out there that we could be choosing from I mentioned pentas earlier.
Beautiful Angelonia takes the summer like a champ, the diamond frost Euphorbia takes
the summer like a champ. Zennis. I mean, we could just go
on and on and on, and then there's all the foliage colors that look
so good. You can get out in a morning time like this and get
those things planted, or maybe very very late day if it's a lottle cooler,
then let the sun kind of head toward the horizon a little bit and
get these things planted. If you will water him and get them started good,
they will look good for you, and they'll just keep getting better and
better and better as we go forward in time. You're you're not going to
have a lack of color in your landscape if you just take care of some
these wonderful planted options that we have, and our garden centers are greater Houston
area garden centers that we talk about on garden Line. I mean, you're
just not going to do better. I honestly mean it when I say I
don't know a town that has so many awesome garden centers like the Houston area
does. North Southeast West Central. Everywhere you are there is a super independent
garden center near you. And what are they They're staffed with people that know
what they're talking about. They're not staffed with people that were working the jewelry
counter or the lumber counter last week. They're staffed with people who know gardening,
who have experienced gardening, who know the products they carry and can help
you identify problems, can direct you to things that work, tell you how
to do it, and they can show you the plants. You say,
I need something for shade, I want something color or whatever. They take
you to what they're talking what they need, and that is so important.
That is worth a lot of money. Let me tell you that. You
know, when you think about what does it cost to have a plant,
Well, there's the cost of the plant, But then is that plant going
to live? Is it going to do what you want it to do?
Are you going to plant it the right way in the white time and take
care of it because you've got expert advice helping you with that. That saves
money and it just and not only that, it makes your property more valuable.
It makes your property more beautiful, and it helps you enjoy it.
You only to get out there and you want to enjoy your property. And
that's why I just so much talk about the importance of going to a quality
nursery that knows what they're talking about. And you know Buchanans and the Heights.
It's just one example that's a central and he's in north central Houston.
It's on East eleventh Street. Now you can go online to be Cannons Plants
dot com, Buchanansplants dot com. They've been a Houston garden center since nineteen
eighty six and they specialize in Texas natives and they also specialize in pollinator type
plants. Now they have everything else vegetables, houseplants, I mean, shade
plants, trees, everything you can think of, they've got it. But
if you're looking for a source for let's say you want to attract butterflies and
you want some velvet leaf center for the yellow butterfly, hummingbird bush for the
tersa sphinx moss, or maybe fragrant mist flower for the metal marked butterfly,
inland seats for the roadside skipper. Do you hear all those? I mean,
on and on and on. They're all there at Buchanans plants, and
they have people that know what they're talking about, so they can direct you
to on Buchanans Plants dot com. Go check them out. It's a shady,
wonderful stroll through one of the most beautiful nurseries in town. You'll see
what I'm talking about when you go at Buchanans Plants. Yeah, we can
plant flowers. Now. The other kinds of things that I didn't mention are
all the hibiscus that's so many. There's a tropicalbiscus and they're the Southern dinner
plate hibiscus, the Gulf Coast native Texas star hibiscus that can be planted at
this time. Just beautiful blooms, on and on. And then when we
get into vegetables, lots of heat tolerant vegetables, and most people probably couldn't
name two summer vegetables. But there's sweet potato vines. You can eat the
potatoes, of course, that's why we grow them the underground roots, but
you can also eat the vines. It's it's a leafy green that can be
eaten. The okra is probably the most famous plant of summer. One of
my favorite vegetables. Okra absolutely does well all the southern peas, black eyed
peas, purple hole peas, cream peas, crowder peas. You know,
tons of purple hole I mentioned black eyes. Those are all doing super super
well in the summer. But then we have vegetables that are from other cultures
in areas of the world that are hot and humid, welcome to Houston.
So when we think about things like molochia, that's green that is very popular
in parts of the Middle East and other parts of the region, really that
it just thrives in our summer heat. There's a one called water spinits that
a lot of people grow here. There's an amoranth that people grow here,
that vegetable amorand that's big nice leaves, and there are many many other good
options that do so super well here in our climate. There's no reason to
not have fresh, healthy, locally grown locally meaning your own yard grown vegetables
and your landscape, and you can certainly take care of them. Now.
They will thrive if you give them adequate moisture. That's all they need is
just adequate moisture and they will do really, really well. So why not
why not get out and try some of these vegeta in your landscape and in
your garden. And by the way, if you don't have a traditional garden,
you know I mentioned earlier just my favorite type of garden in the world
is the raised bed garden. Then you're not going to do better than a
raised bed garden and vegos the one we talk about all the time. But
that is how I would do it. If not a large container also works.
Well, well, let's take a break. Give Josh a call at
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four so he can get you
on the board and we will be right back. Was yeah, through a
chap up in the garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we are here to talk gardening with you our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. We are now going to head to League
City and talk to John V. Hello John V. You know what,
it always helps. It always helps if I actually click on the collar so
I can talk to you. Sorry about that. How are you John V?
Yes, Skip, this is m John V. Hello to everybody at
Garden Line. I have a question about mint, okay and herb. Now
I have two strands of mint and a pop and I need more because I've
got like seven different things to make from mint. Few things in mint limju
Believe Mint Team Mint, chocolate chip, ice cream, and Possessha bread and
others. Trying to make a list right now, making me hungry. I
am hungry right now for some mint. I love mint, that's true.
And what is I'm sorry? What is the question? Or should I should
I put? Should I should I put it in the garden because it's in
a pot right now? I would keep it in the pot myself. You
can put it in the garden. But mint takes over the world. It's
like bermudograss, just it thinks everything belongs to it in all territories. And
so I would. I would keep it in a big pot. I have
some in those big like giant almost almost Whiskey Girl smires containers. But if
you put it in the ground, you just need something that is like a
vertical wall on the soil, which is a lot of work to create that,
you know, to bury a panel to block it. But other than
that, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry about that. Well,
I will keep it in a mint green pot to magic the mint.
There you go, there you go. Yeah, make all those wonderful things.
My mom made mint jelly when I was a kid, and oh my
wow, that was the most I've ever seen them all. Anyway, Hey,
thanks wonderful, Thank you for the absolutely you stay had in trouble and
have fun with that mint. Yeah mint mint will get us in trouble.
I'll tell you for sure, that is certain. Hey, if you are,
if you're a fan, and I hope you are, of the oh
my gosh, I can't even say Green Pro, Green Pro our company that
does the aeration corporation and the top dressing. They also have a company called
org Lawn o RG Lawn like Organic Lawn. Now they have a summer special,
so if you want to have them come out and do a liquid treatment
for new customers, it's twenty nine ninety nine plus tax, twenty ninety nine
plus tax. The first application can be whatever they think your lawn needs the
most. Maybe it's a fertilizer, a liquid feed, or maybe it's a
micronutrient. Maybe it is an insect protection prevention treatment for example. So in
other words, whatever your lawn needs, you can get a twenty nine ninety
nine plus tax garden line special for a new customer to come out and do
that. They can do like seaweed, They can do the bug prevention.
They can treat up to ten thousand square feet of grass for this deal,
additional costs if it's more than ten thousand. Now they serve Katie, Cypress,
Houston, Sugarland, Richmond. They use as many organic inputs as possible
to keep your lawn looking great. And you're just not going to do better
than org Lawn. That's www dot org lawn dot com or give them a
call eight three two three five one zero zero three two. They don't do
the long term contracts. You can just harm to come out whenever you feel
like you need it or what they suggest your lawn might need. They do
both fully organic and organic hybrid option in their mom care. Well, let's
head out to Cypress now and we're gonna talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy,
Hi there, skip, good morning morning. My question I have is
on my oquid they're growing, but I have these little bitty bitty, tiny
brown looking ants. Okay, is that is that a good insect? It's
not a it's not a pest of the okra, but ants ants or dairy
farmers ants will haul aphids up onto a plant and then they will protect them,
just like a dairy farmer would protect a herd of cattle. And then
they literally milk the apid. Now, don't try to picture what a dairy
farmer does here. They use their antenna to stroke the afid and it makes
them produce honeydew that the ants feed on. So it's literally like a little
herd of cows for the ants. And I mean, yeah, for the
Yeah, that's what they do. And so the negative of the ants is,
yeah, they you know, they'll protect your aphids against things that eat
aphids. But in general, I don't worry about ants. You can take
a blast of water and knock off the apids if you need to. But
oaks is so tough it's just not going to be a problem. Okay,
great, thank you, um, thank you so much. And I planted.
Uh, I couldn't um. The tag doesn't say what it is,
but it says camaro slicing tomato. Oh, carmelo? Is that it is?
That a just oh my gosh, that is a good question. I'm
gonna have to do a quick look on that. Carmelo is a slice or
tomato? It used to be very popular in the south of here in Louisiana,
especially um the um carmelo tomato was was really a go to tomato.
And so let me see if I can find out right quick. It looks
like it is indeterminate, indeterminate. Oh goodness, Yeah, it's a it's
a favorite, you know, an old French selection, just real, rich,
flavor, beautiful. Another thing about it doesn't crack as bad as some
tomatoes do, and so that's another good thing. So anyway, it's a
good one. It's a one though. I would say on carmelo, I
would probably plant it in maybe mid July, so that by the time it
gets a good size, our temperatures are breaking in the fall and you get
a little bit of a fall fruit set on it. Okay. Well,
um, since my tag didn't say I bought it at HIB, which I
usually don't buy. I'm plants at Hib, but Ace Hardware didn't have they
ran out of the tomatoes, okay, and so um it doesn't say on
it, but I put it in like a I want to say. It's
a ten ten gallons pot. Okay, And I guess I'll just have to
keep trimming it. I don't know. Well, yeah, you can just
keep trimming it. I mean, keep it around. It'll be a bigger
plant and it'll do well for you when the temperature breaks. Fall is a
short season for us because we've got to get past those days where it's in
the mid nineties in the day and the night times are in the upper seventies,
and so they can start setting fruit and then next thing you know,
here comes cool weather and they slow down so much that we usually end up
picking slightly green tomatoes in the fall to get them in before the first frost.
Thank you so very much, Skip your wonderful keep up the great job.
Thank you, Sandy. I appreciate that call, and good luck with
those tomatoes. And now, if you live down in the Richmond area,
especially up towards sugar Land Way, you need to know about Enchanted Forest.
I've talked about them before, but Enchanted Forest is the nursery if you're in
Richmond, you go towards sugar Land, but it's it's south of fifty nine.
They have a super selection of all kinds of plants. One thing that's
really of interest to me is they just got in some of the pipe vine
Dutchman's pipe that attracts the I was heading ahead of myself. That attracts the
pipe vine swallowtail butterflies, the pipe vine swallowtail, which is a beautiful butterfly.
It's larva love to feed on the Dutchman's pipe. That's where they get
the name Aristolochias, the fancy name for the plant. They've got those in
stock, but they have a whole whole lot more things in stock. If
you want milkweeds, swamp milkweed Asclepius tuberosa, or the balloon milkweed or tropical
milkweed or giant milkweed for your monarchs, you're not going to do better than
enchanted forests down in Richmond. Now, of course they carry a lot of
other stuff other than just the things I mentioned, but it's well worth a
trip. When you drive up, it is so cool the look of the
play it's kind of like this old barn look to it, and it's just
one of the super mom and pops that we keep bragging on that just make
you want to bring family and friends and spend the day kind of wandering around
and looking at all of the unlimited supply of things that they have enchanted Forest.
You can find more information on them by going to my enchanted dot com.
But also if you just give them a call to eight one three or
nine three seven ninety four forty nine two eight one nine three seven ninety four
forty nine. I love to go out to that, but it's been a
while since I've been out. In fact, it's been over a month.
I need to I need to head back out there because I do really really
enjoy being able to go check them out. Well, you've been listening to
garden Line. We are here to answer your gardening questions. We're about to
take our hour break. Now what we got two hours in the books this
morning. That means we have two left, the nine o'clock and the ten
o'clock hour. Tell your family and friends about the show. If they're not
listeners, we would love to have helped them have a more beautiful landscape and
a more beautiful garden. Did I say eight and nine, nine and ten?
Yeah, eight and nine, eight to nine and nine to ten.
How about that? That's easy. You know I'm a broadcast professional. I
can't even tell you what time it is. Well, anyway, we'll be
back. Give Josh a cult seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I hope
you're planning a day to get a little bit of stuff done out in the
garden and landscape if you want to do some things with your house plants.
By the way, Enchanted Forest has got a couple of really cool philodendrons,
and I know they have a burken and several others. You need to check
those out. Speaking of house plants, KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRA Garden
Life with Scared Rector smell. Just watch him as so many good A good
Saturday morning. Take a look outside, beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful
sunshine coming through. Good day for plants, and good day for gardening,
and good day for talking about gardening. And that is why we're here.
Give us a call if you would like to visit seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Maybe we can help recommend a plant, help
diagnose something, help identify something. Whatever you're interested in, we we will
be happy to is it about that as long as it's herticultural you know I
do. Sometimes people will give me a call and when I get on the
call, I find out the call really isn't about a plant question. It's
we have two spouses on the call, and one of them is hoping that
I will say something so that an argument they've been having with their spouse they
will have a backup to it. And I always say, look, gardening
advice is free. Marriage advice is one hundred dollars an hour. So you
decide what you want and we will try to help with that. Sometimes there's
more than one opinion in a household. Have you ever noticed that before?
Well, we're going to talk about gardens this morning, and I want to
tell you, first of all, if you if you have a little piece
of property, you know, a few acres outside of town, or maybe
a lot of acres outside of town, and you've been thinking about getting you
a nice tractor to help you get the work done, you're not going to
do better than the Texas edition Cabodo. That's the L twenty five O one
by Landsdown Moody. That common Lansdown and Kubota. What a combo. There's
Lansdown Moody Tractors companies all over or outlets all over this area. Here you
can go to l mtractor dot com and find out more. But here's why
you don't need to delay until June thirtieth. There is a deal going on
that you're not going to do better than a period zero down, zero interest
for seven years, eighty four months Lansdown Moody LM tractor dot Com on the
Texas Edition Caboda L twenty five one. It's got the hydrostatic transmission. If
you want to add a front endloader or a box blade, or a rotary
cutter, anything like that, you're not going to find a more affordable option
than you have right now with Lansdown Moody LM tractor dot Com. I wanna
now go. We're gonna head out to Cyprus and visit with Mike. Good
morning, Mike morning, thanks for taking my call. I just bought house
and Cypress have moved from the Brennamaria into Cypress. And this house has got
about half the yard that had been laid in with some landscape. It's monkey
grass, okay, and it's been cut in the past. It hasn't been
cut in a while. It's full of weeds. Everything from dollar weed to
some other taller weeds. I'm just wondering, can you kill weeds and monkey
grass without killing the monkey grass? And can I do it when it's this
hot outside. You know, I've never tried treating in this heat on it.
I would say you probably can, but I would test a small area
just to be sure, check it out, give a spray, see if
it does. I don't think you're going to have a problem with using a
broad leaf weed control product. Just to be a little extra sure, you
might want to use one called celsius, like as in fahrenheit and celsius.
It's a little less stressful to some plants when the weather's are hot. But
I think you're probably gonna do okay with most of the broad leaf weed killers.
But again, just to be sure. That's kind of an unusual you
know, there's always this new twist on a question and monkey grass one hundred
degrees, you know, dollar weed. But you know, I'm just trying
to think through that, and I don't want to send you in the wrong
direction. But if it were mine, I would probably grab some celsius.
I would treat a small area and then if it looks like it's gonna be
okay, then treat the rest. Or you could just use another broadleaf weedkiller.
There's the weed beater Ultra. The Bonide puts out furtloam. I'm trying
to think of what's furloams equivalent of those? Ah, I'll think of it
in a minute. But anyway, a test a small area with the the
only thing that the Celsius says you buy a little packet and you mix it
in water and it treats a large area. So you don't want that sitting
around for a week while you wait to see what it's going to do.
So it's not like the other kinds where you could make a small amount to
just test with and then make more later. So that may be a reason
to not do the Celsius in this situation. All right, appreciate it very
much. I'll give it a try. Yeah, good luck getting that in
control. Yeah that's yeah, you bet, you bet. Welcome to the
new home, you know. The when we start looking at the weed problems
and stuff that we have to deal with like that, I mean, it
can be it can be quite quite a challenge. I mean it really can,
because we have to deal with those kinds of problems that come in on
it. If you are living out in the Mont Bellevue area, or if
you're down you know, all the way down in Baytown. I want to
tell you about your hometown feed store, and that's Texas Feed Stop. Texas
Feed Stop is on North Highway one forty six. It's just a few minutes
north of I ten in Mont Bellevue. And so when you go to Texas
Feed Stop, these we were just talking about these products. You're just a
moment ago with Mike on deal with monkey Grass. You're when you go to
a place like Texas Feedstop, you're going to find the supplies we talk about.
And there is no place like Texas Feedstop except the original Texas Feedstop out
of Mont Bellevue. The Rhodes, Brian and Hope have created a beautiful little
business there. I mean it's the old time feed store. Some teenager from
the Mont Bellevue community they hire from the community there. They will carry their
bags out for you. I mean they're going to carry all the fertilizers that
I talk about and the other things you know that you hear me talk about,
like the mosquito dunks for example, a mosquito season which we're in the
big middle of that. They have it all right there, and so if
you're looking for products and supplies at a reasonable cost, all the stuff we
talk about, in addition to all the feed things that you would expect from
a feed store. Check out Texas Feedstop just a few minutes north of i
Ton on Highway one forty six in mont Bellevue. We're gonna head now down
or out to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hello Martyr yea, how are
you? I'm well? Thank you good? Hey. Last week you were
talking about digging up some potatoes, getting there your sweet potatoes. Yes,
how do I know? How do I know when to start working them up?
Yeah? Okay, Actually that I was talking about regular potatoes, the
little red new potato kind of things. The sweet potatoes. As they grow,
as those roots get bigger, the soil kind of heaves up and you
see cracks around the base of the plant because you got something under the ground
kind of pushing up on it. Typically we let them run full course all
the way up into the fall season. It takes about one hundred and twenty
days from planting before you have a good sizeable potato. Now, if you
if you go earlier. You don't have the nice swollen roots. You just
have little things like your fingers sticking out there that are not worth messing with.
So you might want to dig around one just to check and see if
you're not sure that it should be way way too early to dig a sweet
potato. Well, I had some come up from last year last fall.
Okay, they's just divine. And then I did see two that popped out
of the ground, and so I was told to cover them back up and
let them fully mature. Well I went out looking for them and they're gone.
So I guess it created out them. But I'm seeing flowers and stuff,
little purple flowers. Ye, but I don't know when just start digging.
They've been way way too long. I would. I would just dig
down, look around, see what you see, because it's gonna be a
roll of the dice on these, Marty. I don't know how to predict
whether you're going to have a good results or not. But I would just
dig, you know, dig down. You don't have to completely dig one
up, just check it out. Hey, I'm gonna have to run to
a break, but thank you for the call. I'll make some sweet Potata
comments when I come back. The phone number here is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call. You'll be first
stop when we come back. Good Saturday morning, on a great day for
gardening, as all days are, and it could be pouring rain outside and
it's a good day to be starting plants indoors, taking care of house plants.
You see what I'm saying. Every day is a good day for gardening.
You know we earlier today I was talking about nitrophisis silver bag and the
nineteen fourteen and the importance of that as a slow release fertilizer. I want
to say about a couple of other products that are part of their Summer Essentials
program, and that would be first of all, their fire ant killer nitrophiles.
Fiant killer works quickly, but it prevents the queen from escaping. It
kills the colony, preventing them from building new mountains. Now, if you've
dealt with fire ants, you know they are no fun. And if you
like to roll around in the grass, have kids playing in the grass and
so on, you do not want fire nts in the yard. And nitrofos
firont killer works well on that. Now we have other insects that are coming
up in our landscape soon, and that would be things like chinch bugs tend
to have their worst population as we get towards the end of summer. Then
we have things like the side web worm that we never know each year it's
gonna be a bad year or not on those but boy, when it's a
bad year, it's a bad year. Well. Nitrofous makes a Bugout Max
and it is the best consumer choice for Texas insect problems. Bug Out Max
Nitropous bugout Match. It's an advanced formula. It targets a pests and invest
our lawns including up to one hundred and thirty different species of insects. Those
two products, the firont killer and the bugout Max are key to success in
keeping the bugs at bay and your lawn. And Nitrofosts is sold everywhere.
You're gonna find nitrofoss up at Harbor Gay, You're gonna find nitrophiles up in
the indfeed in Tomba. You're gonna find them down in Fisher's Hardware in Baytown,
or plants and things in Brandham or many many other locations. Check out
their summer essentials of these two important insect management products. Well, let's head
out to Spring and we're gonna talk to Phil. Good morning, Phil,
good morning, thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir, recently I
picked up a about a thirty inch tall ceramic pot. Okay, it's very
large, it's very heavy, It's probably three quarter inch thick. And my
question is it doesn't have a hole in the bottom. Can I drill a
hole in the bottom without tearing up the pot? You can? I am
not an expert on that, but I would go to probably an ACE hardware
store and ask them for a masonry type bit and ask them how do you
use it? You may have to go online and do a little watch.
You know, though, you you don't want a normal drill bit on this,
either wood or metal bit, and you want one that's made to kind
of grind its way through the ceramic. A lot of times water is involved,
and you know, putting it on there. But again, this isn't
my area of expertise. But I've seen it done, I guess you could
say, and you can drill the hole yourself. You just want to be
real careful and go very slow, don't push too hard. On the bit
and let it kind of chew its way or grind its way through there.
The only other alternative would be if you if you wanted to put a pot
in a pot, maybe something that's not as attractive of a planner, and
set it down in that pot and then put some moss on top, just
to kind of so people don't know it's not planted. Then you could just
pull that out and it would drain down into the bottom and the fact that
the pot didn't drain wouldn't matter, because the pot you have in it would
drain. Do you see what I'm saying. Yes, that's probably more tribula
on something that size. I do that on indoor plants all the time.
Really appreciate your help. Well, good luck with that. And boy,
those beautiful ceramic pots, those are those are nice things to have. Yes,
they are all right, Well, thank you, sir. I do
appreciate your call. Hey. Yeah, And speaking of pots and containers,
if they're standing water anywhere, you're gonna have mosquitos breeding in your landscape.
That could be a saggy rain gutter, you know, I mean, one
of those materials that catch water and hold water, but don't don't allow it
to drain. If you know the edges are not are not tilted at an
angle where they drain. Well, you got a low spot, maybe on
the eaves of your house. If you've got things catch basins under your plants
and they hold water for five, ten, certainly twelve days, you're gonna
have a generation mosquitoes go right through there. Mosquito dunks prevent that. You
put a mosquito dunk in a large body of water, it'll cover ten square
feet and it will last for a month. You can get the little granules
and toss them into the bottom of the pot just for a small area,
or if you want to really quickly kill a whole bunch of mosquitos in a
big area fast faster than the doughnuts will dissolve, the little granules work for
that. Mosquito dunks are organic. They do not harm people. They don't
harm pets, not fish, not birds, not wildlife. Very safe to
use. If it's an ace hardware store, if it's a feed store,
we talk about. If it's an independent garden center, we talk about they're
going to have mosquito dunks. Don't be a skeeter breeder. Get some mosquito
dunks and mosquito granules to take care of that. I would like to go
now out to Bob in Walker County. Hello, Bob, is this are
you heavy online? Now? Yes? Or Bob? I'm actually in North
harri standing. But I have a sweet gum tree and I've had a true
forty years, and what I've noticed is that when it gets really hot,
it has a tendency to break off and drop limbs. I did lose a
couple of limbs during the recent storms. But for example, about oh maybe
three weeks ago, on just one of the really hot days dry, nothing
happened. I went out and I had maybe a four inch limb that had
broken off about fifteen feet long and just fall into the ground. And I've
had that happened before. Is any thoughts too? I mean, the tree
appears to be healthy, it's watered with a sprinkler system. Yeah, you
know, it's it's lush. But I just for the life of the tree,
every now and then, particularly when they get long arms on them,
they break off. Yeah. I understand when you walk out to the tree,
Bob, about chest high, about how how wide diameter is it?
How far across? Maybe as I said it's about forty years old. For
five years old, yeah, big one. Sweet gums are not good about
healing themselves. In other words, they get a break or they get something
in them and it decays. And limb breakage is not unusual on those going
over time. And this is an old tree, so it doesn't have the
vigor that a young tree would have to close over and wound. We also
have a thing that's a sudden limb drop phenomenon that happens. It hames up
a coon, trees and other things in the summertime where just out of nowhere,
I mean, not a big storm or anything, you just get a
limb that falls out of a tree. And there are different reasons they speculate
for it, but there's nothing that we can do anything about. So if
your tree is receiving adequate care, meaning moderately moist soil, which the rainfall
generally takes care of that most of the year, then I don't know anything
else you can do. Certainly, when a limb falls out where you've got
that wound up in the tree, having a fresh cut, clean it up
and hope that it can start to heal over would be helpful, but that's
just an issue that we have to deal with, and sweet gums can be
problematic, especially as they get a little bit older. To follow up questions
number one, if I had read or heard somewhere that if a tree starts
showing moss that grows out on the limbs, that's not a good sign.
Some of the big branches, particularly lower down, could be as much as
eight ten inches in diameter on the branches, and some of those do have
moss growing on them. Is that a Is that an indicator or issue?
No, not really. I mean in moist climates we get different things that
grow. You can get lichens that grow in a human environment that we see
those a lot. We can have the resurrection fern that doesn't grow on sweet
gum to my knowledge, but you see it on live oaks in Houston all
the time. That's like a fern that grows on the trunks and the branches.
And then there's also what you're describing moss. It may just be a
regular type of moss that just indicates it stay and wet, stay moist up
there, and so it's not a disease of the tree. Last question,
because of the size of it, the proximity of the house, and it's
tendency to drop. I'm debating whether or not it's time to just remove it
completely. Yeah. If I do that and excavate, the trouble is where
it's located is exactly where I'd want to put another tree back in, right,
you know, neighborhood etc. If I excavate or you know, grind
out the stumps and so forth, how long can it be before I could
plant something back in the same vicinity. You know the problem with grinding it
up. You have all that wood in the ground and it's going to decompose,
and as it decomposes, the soil is going to sync down considerably because
what was you know, once level after they finished their grind job, now
it becomes a hole. So that's that's the if there were a way to
you know, have that thing pulled out, and I realize you can't get
a D nine caterpillar bulldozer in there to do it, But if you could
do that, you could go probably ill faster back in with something. I
think you need to move over the side as much as you can to try
to do that, or as they grind it, try to get as much
of the wood out as you can, but that's not going to be very
easy to do. So if I if I do grind it and just excavate
as much of the you know, sawdust and chips and thing that I can.
Yeah, do I need to leave it follow for a year or two,
or if you left it a couple of years it would help. I
would throw some nitrogen on it, and I'd do that about three or four
times a year, just to speed up the decomposition of all that carbon,
which is basically the wood. Sure, and then you're gonna end up with
a sunken area. You need to fill it back in before you do the
planting. Yeah, I understood. Hey, thank you very much, you
bat. I appreciate that call. Thank you very much. You know,
Dellweb has the new community. I've been talking about them for a while now.
They're out in Full Sure on FM three fifty nine, less than two
miles from downtown Full Sure. It's a typical Delweb community, beautiful homes,
beautiful designs, lifestyle programs built around you, and this one has a community
garden that I'm helping them set up. Go to dellweb dot com slash Houston
for more information or give us a call or give them a call two eight
one four to five nine zero six zero nine and discover that Dellweb difference for
yourself. We're going to take a break here, John and Katie. You'll
be first up when we come back if you'd like to get on the board.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Good morning on
a good Saturday morning, beautiful day out there today. Need to get out,
get to visit some of our local mom and pop garden centers. See
what's going on by the way today out of Buchanans from ten am to twelve
thirty pm. The folks from Heirloom Soils Luis and It's gonna be out there
and they're gonna be giving away some hats and t shirts as well as samples
of the products and stuff. So just another reason to head out to bukein
Ands today ten am to twelve thirty pm. Check out the folks from Heirloom
Soils to make some beautiful, beautiful mixes out there. You know, we
talk about gardening topics all the time and different kinds of things that are important
to understand. One of the things that is important to understand is when you
apply nutrients to your garden. You want to provide the things that plants need.
Plants need the three big numbers on the bag, but when we are
looking at all of the other things plants need that includes micronutrients as well.
Many of the microbes as well in the soil are all part of that sustaining
good, healthy plant growth. If you have a vegetable garden or a flower
bed, I would seriously consider getting the has to grow. It's a six
twelve six higher phosphorus content hastrogrow six twelve six. It's really three products in
one. Number one, you got the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium the six
twelve six plus it has a medenus soil activator to stimulate biological activity and humate
humic acid, which humic acid improves soil structure and improves nutrient uptake with the
roots. And it even has seaweed extracts in it as well that helps stimulate
the fruiting and the blooming. Now you can use this as a foliar application.
I would spray it upward in the morning or in the morning while the
stonemats are still open, spray upward to coat the bottoms of the leaves as
well as the tops of the leaves. This is not going to burn your
plants. It's a salt low chemical formulation to burn that will not burn your
plants. You can get in a court bottle with a little measuring cup,
or if you want to use a hos In sprayer you can do that too.
I like the little quart bottle where I can mix it up myself,
put it in a in a drench. Can you know a watering can or
something along those lines. It's a great way with new transplants. When you
put a new transplant in the ground, you need to have the HASTI twelve
one on hand. A good solution with a hiphos first content is a great
way to water in those new transplants and that helps get them off to a
good start because they're having to hit the ground running facing one hundred gree temperatures
out here when they're brand new in the garden. But that will accomplish it.
Yes, Okay, we're going to head out to Katie and talk to
John. Good morning, John, good morning, how are you well.
I'm doing well? Thank you. Okay. I planted some green ball to
santhis six of them and they're doing well. It's set that they don't stand
up. The stems with the flowers just lay down on the ground and I'm
afraid to put them in deeper that have rocked the stems. But at this
point, I don't know what to do. Uh, tell me again,
what is the plant? It's called a green ball, the santhus green ball,
the santhis yeah stem with a very just round ball. Oh, oh,
I know what you're talking about. It's a dianthus. Yes, it
has a yeah, it has a little stock with it. It's just like
a dandelion, but it's all green on top. Okay, yeah, well
Dianthus is primarily a cool season plant, you know, so how it will
do in the heat of summer. I've never tried that particular dianthus, but
green ball is very very unusual, very uh, just to say the least,
just for folks that are listening. Just imagine a stalk with this little
like the equivalent of a dandelion head, but much larger, but it's all
green. It's all part of what would be of Diantha's flowering stalk. Yeah.
So I don't know on this. You might you might just kind of
keep an eye on them and maybe a little bit early, a little bit
early for him, maybe better to if it doesn't work, well try it
again in the fall. Okay, So did I appreciate it? Yeah?
I was hoping for more than that. But well, I know, I
know, Well, are you wanting any questions? Do you have questions on
caring for them in the meantime or well, I unless there's something very very
special. Yeah, if you didn't know something special, let me know.
But the other than that, no, no, no, it's just you
know, good soil law as always before you plant, and then good drench
water man with something like the hastier. I was just talking about six towelve
sixty an instance early spring, and I mean early early spring. Okay,
really well, I mean you know it's just the flowers, instead of being
up on the end of the stalk, are laying on the ground in the
end of the stalk. Yeah. Well, you know that could be part
a heat related, it could be whend related to They make little things you
can put over perennials and it's like just imagine a little flat, horizontal piece
of checkerboard fencing that the stalks grow through and it keeps them from flopping over
that that's a little bit of an extra trouble there to try to do that
something like that. Yeah, but if the plants are looking good number one,
I'm very impressed. I would not think Dianthus would would in general be
looking good right now, and that that floppiness may in part be due to
the heat too. All right, well, good luck. Hey, keep
me posted on it. I've never grown a green ball before, and I'd
be curious to see how they do for you, especially going through summer.
I'm probably gonna learn something here, so don't hesitate to let me go.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, John very much. Hey,
if you're looking for a tree for your landscape, you are not going to
do better than Verdant Tree Farm. Verdant Tree Farm, by the way,
the website is just that Verdant tree Farm dot com. Maybe I should say
Verdant. I don't know. I never know which way to say that.
I tend to call Verdant. They've got all sizes up to like seven hundred
gallons. I mean, they got palm trees. Awesome. I like that
you can go there and you can pick out the plant that you want,
and they'll tag it and they'll bring it to you and they'll plant it for
you. Now, the original location, the one I've always gone to period,
has been out on Barker Cyprus in West Houston, kind of near Attic
Reservoir. There's one down in Parland on West Broadway, and there's one in
the Heights at Edg Yale Street where I ten come together Verdant Tree Farm.
They know what they're doing. The twenty acre farm in West Houston, Barker
Cyprus. Just coach, get out. You will see you'll be very impressed
with the kind of trees that they grow there. They grow trees that do
well here and they will advise you on which tree may do best in a
particular site. So go in and let them help you pick out the perfect
tree for your landscape. Remember, the best time to plant a tree is
fifty years ago. The next best time is today. I have a new
bird feeder that I am putting out in the landscape, one to you know,
provide a little bit of a break from the squirrels. And I have
an old time bird feeder. It's one of those with a camera on it.
By the way, that bird feeder now is sending me pictures of squirrels.
So I need my new bird excluding feeder that I actually got it from
wild Birds. And you know, wild birds is the place for all kinds
of bird stuff. I mean we are talking about you know, the seed,
the houses, the squirrelproof feeder, you know the quality seed that are
no waste seeds. There's wallbirds all over the I think we have seven of
them here Katie Kingwood, Cypress, Pearland, Belair, West Houston and clear
Lake. Just go to wabu dot com and find the wild birds near you.
Hey, it's it's hot and dry. Make sure there's water for wildlife,
including the birds in your landscape. And bluebirds are nesting still through July.
Cardinals, chickadees and wrens are still nesting. They need a quality super
blend for that summer feeding to take care of them. So going to wilbirds.
They're the experts. They will tell you exactly what you need for the
birds you're interested in attracting in the time of year that you're in. Right
now, Hey, we're gonna take a break. It is time for a
break. In fact, it's over time seven one three, two and two
five eight seven four. Josh, we'll get you on the board and you'll
be first up. Good morning bed Saturday morning, gray day for gardening,
as all days are. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and if you would like to be on the air, ask
a question seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know I have been. I've
talked about Microlife fertilizers. You know the green bag and the purple bag that
we use in our lawns through the year. Really that do so well.
But I haven't talked much about their liquid products. And they have a wide
variety of full array of granular and liquid fertilizers, but two of them that
I want to really feature and tell you about it. The first one is
the Microlife Biomatrix. Now that is an orange label. I love it when
when companies give us color labels or it's easy to pick the right one orange
label seven one three. That's the nutrients seven percent nitrogen, one percent phosphorus,
three percent potassium. Seven one three is higher nitrogen percentage liquid organic.
It has beneficial microbes in it. We know what microbes do for roots systems
of plants. I use the seven one three for my house plants. It's
my favorite one to take care of the plants indoors. Mix it a little
bit of water. Sometimes I'll do just a full mixed strength application for a
boost. Maybe I'm giving some vegetables even outside a boost to help them get
going. But generally I'll do it at a lower rate where I just constantly
every time I water, I feed them with it and they do really well.
It provides being a liquid, it provides a really fast release and provides
your nutrients that the plants need along with those microbes they need. The second
thing is the Ocean Harvest. Now that's a blue label. So first was
orange, second is blue. Ocean Harvest is a four two three. It's
a fish based product, and I like to use it on the outdoors plants.
If you've got container plants, if you've got plants you know in a
flower bed or something you want to water them in get them going good.
It's fine for that. You can also use it as a foli your feed.
You want to mix it at a lower concentration. It's not going to
burn your plants. It's not a salt based fertilizer and spray upward from underneath
the plant early in the morning when the stonemaches are open for the best results.
But Ocean Harvest blue label or Biomatrix Orange label. I would suggest having
both of those on hand if you want to find out where to buy them.
Well, they're available all over the place, as is microlife in general.
But Microlife Fertilizer dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com will tell you more
about these products as well as where you can find them. So be kind
to mother nature with microlife. You know, the plants that we're taking care
of right now in the house, the ones that I have are they're really
happy with the summertime, and it's because it's a little warmer in summer,
even indoors. You know, if you're over buy a window, it's a
little warmer over there. But the light levels are really good and this is
their chance to thrive. This is also a time when we can move some
plants outdoors if you need to. Now, I don't move them outdoors just
to move them outdoors, but if they need a little extra light, find
a spot that has just a little more light intensity than where they are inside.
Don't put them in the sun. It will burn them for sure.
Move them gradually to from low light to the higher light. Even like my
front covered porch area is totally shady, but the light intensity, it's so
much brighter there than it is and even a bright spot indoors, So just
be aware of that. Outdoors they get that extra light intensity, they kind
of rejuvenate, they get ready for summer. My Norfolk pine goes out there
during the summertime. That's just a good example. Some of the times the
corn plant there's sena goes up out there. But again, be real careful
and remember when you move them outside, they're gonna need about twice as often
to be watered as they would inside, just because of the change in temperature.
So don't over water them. That's death to plants. But do water
them, make sure they get adequate amount of moisture. Hey, you're listening
to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. If you'd like to
ask a question, our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. You know, I was talking about the importance of watering a
little extra, but I want to make something really clear, and I was
visiting with you know, some folks last week about this. But there's a
tendency for people to think, if it's one hundred degrees, I got to
put twice as much water on my plants. That is not the right way
to think. Because when it is hot, if you water log your plant's
root systems, you will kill them faster than any other time of the year.
The demands on the plant are high, and when roots can't get oxygen,
they shut down, They shut down respiration. They cannot survive in completely
water logged soil except for a very few species of plants that have developed ways
of doing that. When you overwater them, you will kill a plant faster
in the summer than you will in the fall or spring, the cooler seasons
of the year. So you want to keep the soil moist They never should
lack for water in the soil. Lack for moisture, I should say.
But if you've got a standing water table and you're just overwatering, or you
put a new plant in the ground and now you've dug a hole in clay,
so it's an underground bathtub, and you fill it with water and keep
over water and keep overwater, you're gonna kill your plants and you're gonna kill
them fast. Don't do that. Dig down, Feel the soil. You
know, I could tell you water this much, this mean times a week
and all that. It just there's too many variables. Dig down about three
inches. Feel the soil. Is it getting a little dry to the touch,
then water. If it's not, then don't water. That's the best
way to go when you're when you're looking for a quality source of all the
supplies you need, certainly everything I talk about on garden line, the fertilizers
and so on, as well as the pest control products. That's Ace Hardware,
and it's easy to find Ace Hardworkers. There's thirty nine of them.
Go to ACE Hardware dot com, thirty nine in the Greater Houston area.
Go to ACE Hardware dot com and find the store locator, find the ones
nearest you. You're going to find all the fertilizers, but you're also going
to find all the other things for that outdoor living, you know, the
barbecue area, the webber, the tragger, the big Green egg and more.
All the supplies and bling that you need to go along with a good
quality outdoor barbecue setup so that you can enjoy that patio furniture outdoor furniture for
example, and decour It's all there at ACE hardware dot com. Super easy,
super easy. Let's head out to talk to Valerie. Now, hello,
Valerie. Hi, um. I have a crape myrtle tree and the
bark is falling off. It's like in big chunks. Is that normal?
You mean strips, little kind of like paper things rolling up and falling off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's normal. Yeah, that is long.
Yeah. That out crepe myrtle exfoliates its outer bark and little thin sheets
and they typically kind of curl up as they dry and pop loose. That's
part of the beauty of the plant. That nice smooth trunk. Some cultivars
have a beautiful cinnamon color underneath. It's really really nice. Nothing to work,
Oh okay, do you have time for another question? I'll tell you
what. I'm probably gonna have to hold sag a little, but let's let's
give it a shot and see Vellerie. Oh okay. I have a property
that slopes down to the street, and when it rains, all the dirt
washes down to the street to the better and there's all these roots are showing,
and I didn't know what to do whether I should just you know,
get some dirt and put it down and then put sad down on top of
it to hold it in place, or what's the best thing to do.
Yeah, that's about all you can do. You can just bring it up
to the level of the top of those roots, or just a little bit
above that. You can put some sod on it. If there's a whole
lot of roots, the sod's going to have time a hard time because there's
so much essentially wood in the soil that it doesn't have soil to put its
roots in. It's just all tree roots. But you could try that.
You could also use a groundcover like an Asian jasmine or something groundcover that covers
over the whole area. But nothing holds soil better than turf than grass,
any kind of grass. Oh, okay, should I put some down on
this street, like rocks or something so that the water the dirt doesn't rush,
And yeah, you could do that. You could have a little bit
of a stone wall or something along those lines. That would be fine too.
And then of course the ultimate would be creating little tears you know,
where it's like stairstep going down. But that's a whole other world. Right
there, so I would do the first things we're talking about. I think
that's going to work best for you. Oh okay, thank you very much,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Valerie. Well,
if you'd like to be on guarden Line seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four, we're going to take another news break now, but give
Josh you call and he'll get you right up there on the boards so we
can talk to you about things that are of interest to you. I've been
talking about a lot about side this morning, or grass. We've talked a
little bit about some summer vegetables. I want to talk a little bit more
about some summer flowers and another strategy for color in Houston, in the greater
Houston area, really all over Texas when it's blazing hot outside, and hang
around when we come back. I'll do your son, katrh 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 mold so many
good good Saturday morning, good gardening. Saturday morning. You're listening to garden
Line, and I am your host skip Rictor, and we would love to
talk to you about whatever is of interest to your regarding gardening. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two five eight four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. I was mentioning before we went to break
that I want to talk a little bit about how to have color without blooms.
Now, when we are in the spring season, everything wants to bloom.
I mean everything blooms in spring. It seems like there's lots of colors,
lots of options and so on, and then this thing called summer arrives
and it just fries stuff that doesn't survive well here when it's that blazing hot,
which a lot of things can't take the heat. Well, that doesn't
mean we can't have color though. Number one, we do have a lot
of blooming things. I mentioned a whole bunch of them earlier, just thinking
a minute ago, I didn't mention Plumeria. Plumeria is a little sky blue
flower. Beautiful. There's a white form also. They take the heat.
Well. I used to look at the plant and just because there's like a
little baby blue sky flower, I thought, oh it's a whimp, you
know. I judged it wrong. One year, I was working at the
extension office in Travis County over in Austin, and our water went off and
it was like the first of June and it was off for sixty days and
we lost a lot of plants. But the plumeria or I said, did
I say plumeria while ago I meant plumbago. If you're wondering what I'm talking
about now, I'll clarify it's plumbago. If I didn't say that sky sky
blue flowers, the plumbago looked terrible. Well, who wouldn't in one hundred
degree weather two months in the middle of summer. But it survived and it
bounced back, and after that I have had a much greater appreciation for a
blue plumbago as one of our good hot weather flowers. But then there's some
foliage flowers too, And I'll talk about these is as we get going through
here a little bit. But right now I want to start off, and
we're gonna go straight out to Bear Creek Park and our Bear Creek area and
we're gonna talk to k Hello, kay, hey. I used to work
out at Creek at the Aggarlive Extension office back before it flooded twice and finally
went away. Oh oh dear, yeah, yeah, it's it's a dicey
area for them. So here's the thing I've got. I don't know what
they are, and I don't care what they are. I just need to
get rid of them. They're little, trashy, crappy little trees that start
off little twigs and then get big like they start off about the size of
your pinky finger, and then they grow and grow and grow until they're about
as big a round as your forearm, and they get really deep roots and
they are everywhere, and I hate them. I don't know that they're Chinese
tallow or hackberry because I've never actually seen berries on them, but I don't
care. I hate them. What do I do? There? You go,
well, you're right, you accurately describe them. You use the word
crappy, which is very important in describing that kind of tree. They're woody
weeds. And what happens is a bird each seed, and they come on
and they fly and land on a fence or someplace or in a tree,
and with one little flick of the tail, they both fertilize and plant the
seed that has gone through the bird, and that's how we have poison ivy
everywhere and hackberries everywhere. Tallow trees can show up as well in our landscapes.
What you need to do is you need to buy a product K that
contains the ingredient triclopier, and I will spell that out in just a moment
while I give you a second to grab a pen in case you don't have
one. Tricopier is a woody plant killer. Farmers use it to control brush
and hay pastures, but in the home guarden market it may be sold as
poison ivy killer or poison oak killer or brush be gone, those kinds of
names. But it's t r i clo pyr. Follow the label. Mix
it as strong as you can, almost almost straight strength. When you're doing
what I'm about to tell you, and that you cut the tree off with
a saw and immediately you take a little sponge brush and you dab that tricolo
pier right on the fresh cut stump. Even if it's a tiny one and
it translicates down. Now, if it's a big old robot root system,
it may take a second application, it may die back and then reach sprout.
But in general that's the best way to kill woody weeds, including woody
vines, because you're not spraying herbicide that may kill other things out onto the
foliage where it can drift and land somewhere else. You're just taking a dab
and putting a dab right there on the fresh cut and it's important that it's
fresh cut, not two days after cutting it. So is that something that
I can I'm very close to the Ace Hardware over on Barker Cypress. I
think it is. Absolutely. They'll probably have two or three or four different
kinds of triclopier at the home Garden Packaging. Yeah, okay, all of
mine. They're they're either up against the house or the fence line or under
a tree. So you know, I think that's and it won't kill under
the one tree. I've got a ring, used to have a ring.
I may still of wandering jew with sporadic amarillas. It won't kill um tricola
pier. I do not think triclopier will kill either wandering jew or amaryllis.
But the way I'm telling you to treat it, you will avoid that because
you're gonna dab it onto the cut wood surface. Only so while you're at
Ace Hardware, grab one of the little tiny foam brushes, a couple of
them. I get two or three of them actually, because they're cheap.
And that way, when you're done, you can just throw it away.
You know, you don't have to. If you want to keep it and
try to reuse it, you can, but you don't have to. So
I need to saw in some tricola pier and some brushes. That's it.
That will do it. All right, Thank you so much. I really
appreciate it. I appreciate that call. Okay, thank you very much.
Yeah, that is a common problem that people deal with. You know.
I'm always bragging about our garden centers, our mom and pops around here.
And if you are up in the Montgomery area and we're talking about Lake Conro
area, your hometown garden center is A and A Plants and Produce. They
are on the east side of Montgomery on one oh five. So if you
live in April Sound, the Woodlands, Magnolia, Bentwater, Delago, like
anywhere around Lake Conro, Huntsville, Willis even. This is a place and
it is going to have everything we talk about in terms of fertilizers, it's
going to have an unbelievable plant selections. Three acres filled with everything from shade
trees to fruit and nut citrus, berries, vegetables, herbs, flowers,
annuals, palm tree, cactus. I could just go on and on.
They have beautiful Blaine for the landscape, Mexican tellavera, terra cotta, Chimenea's
metal artwork, gazebos, topiaries, you get the idea. A and a
plants and produced on the east side of Montgomery on Highway one oh five.
Check them out seven days a week, nine to five. Today would be
a good day to go out and visit them. At Ana. We love
our garden centers and our nurseries here. It just makes it so fun to
get out and get that inspiration. Well, let's take a break. We'll
be right back after a break. If you'd like to call Josh at seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, you'll be first up.
Good Saturday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are here to
talk gardening. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If
you'd like to get in on the action, Hey, it is blazing hot
season now. And by the way, I have filed my official objection,
we cannot have weeks of one hundred degree temperature in June. That is just
not okay, that is wrong, wrong, wrong. Somebody somewhere screwed up.
We have got to get back down in the mid nineties where we belong,
or even lower nineties. I would take that too. But in the
meantime, here goes the hot weather, which means our plants need water,
and yards in the Greater Houston area get over watered all the time. It
happens. I've lived here. I know what we're talking about. You know
that every other day the neighbor sprinklers are coming on. That is not how
you water. You give a good deep soaking infrequently, aim for once a
week. If you need to do twice a week, okay, we'll allow
that. But once a week is what you should be aiming for a good
soaking. So how do you know when to water? How do you know
when you need it? Well, there is a free app that you can
use call water my Yard. Does it get any simpler than that? Find
the water my Yard app. You can find it on the Apple App Store.
You can find it on Google play, you download it, You put
in your location, and you can even put in the kind of watering heads
you use. Is it a pop up spray, solid spray, is it
a rotor, is it a multi stream rotor? You know, you put
in the kinds of stuff or detail there. They will tell you how much
you need to water, and when you need to water. They'll even send
you an email saying, hey, and I got one the other day.
You've used a half inch of water in your low. This week, it's
time to apply about a half inch. Well that's good to know, because
I probably would have applied an inch I'd I not known that. A free
app you can't do any easier than that. I'm going to have the folks
from Water my Yard on to talk a little bit later this summer more about
it. But in the meantime, water my yard app over half. Listen
to this. This is a scientific fact. Over half of the landscape water
we apply as wasted and you paid for that. That's drinking water that you're
putting out there on your yard. It doesn't need to be done. Our
plants need water, but they don't need wasted water. That doesn't do them
any good. All that wasted water? Does is it gives the kid something
to put their canoes in at the curb side because you left the water runner
all night. All right, let's head out to Spring and we're gonna talk
to Bonnie. Hello, Bonnie. Hi, I have an answer for the
problem people have with squirrels attacking their tomato plants. All right, what's that?
Well, i'd like permission to send you a picture of it? Okay,
you you have pound permission. I will when we're done here, I'll
put you on hold and Josh will will pick up the phone and he'll tell
you how to do that. Okay, perfect. So is it going to
remain a secret until I see the picture? You're gonna tell us? No,
you're you are gonna love it? No, No, it's got to
be a secret. All right. Well, I like I like to use
I like to use photos when possible, So if you don't mind when you
send it, just if you if it's okay, send me permission to keep
and use your photos. That's all I ask. Oh? Yes, definitely,
definitely you will want to Okay, Well, you you've got me interested.
Okay, I'm gonna put your on hold. Josh, we'll pick you
up and we will learn all about squirrels. I always always enjoy, you
know, callers and our listeners sending photos of things, because there's all kinds
of crazy things that go on out there that I never get to see.
But I have quite a collection over the years that I've put together. I
have put together. If you live up in the Tamball area and you haven't
been to Arbourgate Nursery, what are you living under a rock? Crawl out
from under there and check it out. Arburgate is known not only all over
the Houston areas and over Texas and even beyond. People come from a long
way to see this destination garden center. Now you can go to Arburgate dot
com to find out more. But while you're there, in addition to all
the plants that they have, and boy do they ever have a lot of
plants, check out their one two three system. It is a organic food.
When you're thinking about our organic plant food, Arburgates Organic Food Complete.
It's a four four three plus calcium. Very good to use on anything that
has roots. If you're mixing in maybe you're doing a flower bed and you
want to put some soil, some fertilizer around to get things ready so that
the plant roots begin to grow, or maybe you're fertilizing after planting. That's
a good choice. They have a soil for every application. That's number two
and number three a completely organic compost that does a quality compost, a special
blend. Not just you know, someone piled up some stuff and decomposed it
and now it's called compost. No, we're talking about a quality compost mix
that has the exact same things you need, including some expanded shale. So
if you're dealing with a heavy clay soil, the addition of expanded shale and
compost and Arbourgates Organic Compost Complete is an especially good blend to open up that
clay and improve the inner drainage in your yard. And by the way,
while you're out and about, today good day to go to Arburgate. It's
always a good day to go out to Arburgate and see what they have going.
I was talking about color plants, and in fact I was looking at
earlier. Arbourgate has this outstanding array of color plants. They've got the mendavias
that are just beautiful hot pink colors that go through it never gets hot enough
and humid enough for mendavillas here in Houston, or I should say not too
hot in humid for mendavillas here in Houston. The even near in Burgia,
which is a little pretty little flower, a little wispy foliage, and I
use it around the edge of my containers. In fact, two days ago
I planted some that are going to spill over the sides. It's got these
little whitish lavender lavender centered flowers that are just really pretty. And it does
well even in the heat. I mean it'll grow in spring and fall too,
but it loves it does super well in the heat. It's a good
one. But talking about color, when we hit summertime, we have a
secret, a little secret trick for having color in Houston area in the summer,
and that is foliage. Foliage color is the mainstay that we depend on.
Now. May be one of the burgundy foliaged cannas, or it may
be the the green and white striped canna called let's see a Bengal tiger.
There's another one too. It may be the Phasian canna that has the coral
and it's just a whole bunch of color blends in it. As if you
haven't seen phasian. I think they call it tropicana. That's its trade name.
You gotta check it out. It's beautiful. But what about copper plant
with large, beautiful color, Joseph's Coat, a little bedding plant that has
beautiful colored foliage in shady areas. Remember white is a color too, So
Aztec grass draws your eye. It lines a bed, it draws your eye
down a pathway. If you border the path with Aztec grass, it's not
a grass. Let's think of it as loriopy monkey grass, cousin that astec
grass does so well there. Colladiums really brighten up a shady area. Collius
an important summer color plant. Persian shield in a very bright shade. The
brighter the light it gets, the more purpleish you get in otherwise silvery green
foliage. I have some Persian shield, just potted it up in a larger
pot the other day because I'm trying to get around to getting a spot ready
to put it in in the garden. But persian shield is excellent. I
could go on and on. There's so many good foliage plants, and in
Houston heat, when you want extra color, we have many good flowering options
in summer but not as many a spring, and so we looked a foliage
to fill out that dependable color to carry us through the season. Some of
the burgundy leaf bagnias, beautiful of wax pagunias that just have gorgeous burgundy leaves,
just lots of color, a lot of beautiful color options out there.
So I hope you will take advantage of some of those things. You know,
we're entering the season where we start thinking about hurricane season. Right,
it goes through summer and on in the fall, and when a hurricane blows
through, your trees can have a problem with that, right if you've got
trees that need limbs are removed. Maybe there's a roof line that the trees
are rubbing against the shingles on your roof. Maybe there's a dead tree that
needs to come down, or a leaf or a limb hanging over your house
or over your neighbor's fence, or maybe the driveway where they bark their maserati.
Not a good thing for your limb to land on your neighbor's maserati.
Well, affordable tree service can do all that, and then some now affordable
tree they're easy to get a hold of it's seven one, three, six,
nine, nine, twenty six sixty three r aff Tree Service dot com.
Aftree Service dot Com. They will come out and they'll do all the
things I mentioned above. They'll take care of all of that. You can
pay them to come out just to give you a consultation on your trees.
What may need to be trimmed back, what may need to come out,
what is fine? And they won't sell you something you don't need. At
Affordable Tree. Martin has been doing this a long time. I'm Martin spoon
Moore and his wife. They answer the phones themselves. And by the way,
if you if you call and it's not Martin or Joe that's entering,
hang up and call back. You've called the wrong place with that affordable in
the name. Now, Affordable Tree will help you when you're going to do
construction. Let them come out first. It's money well spent to have them
advise you on what to do to protect your trees during construction, because after
the damage is done, it's a little late to fix it, and it's
money well spent. What do they say, A stitch in time saves nine
or it's one of those many many adages like that in other words, don't
delay, take care of things when they need to be taken care of and
avoid a much much bigger problem as a result. I was visiting with the
folks with Pulte Homes and Dell Webb the wall back and you know, Dell
Webb is building that new community. I keep talking about it and fullser And
the thing that I like this community is they've asked me to come in and
help with their community garden. They're putting a community garden in. Now imagine
this. You have a Delweb home, Dellweb home in a Dellweb community with
a lifestyle program that comes with being part of a Dellweb community for all active
adults age fifty five and better. You're not going to do better than Dell
Weeb. And now out at Fulscher, you know what, listen two miles
from downtown Fulscher on three fifty nine, the new community is going to have
a community garden. You don't have to dig up the backyard to have a
garden. You can go to a community garden in that first rate and you
know, if it's Dellweb, it's first rate and it's going to look good.
Go to Dellweb Dot com slash Houston or callum two eight one four five
nine six z nine two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine.
Find out about that Dellweb difference and have a community garden in your community where
you can gather and enjoy growing things and enjoy that social us that comes with
a community garden. I mean that there are no better folks in the world
than gardeners. I am very strongly of that opinion, because I've been working
with gardeners for decades and decades now. Just so enjoy time spent with gardeners,
and you will too, as you already know that you do. There's
so many things to talk about today, I don't even know where to begin.
You know, we've got and we've talked lawns, We've talked vegetables,
talked a little bit about flowers, a little bit about foliage plants, and
the important of that. I just want to remember you that when you remind
you that when you have containers, you need to keep them adequately watered.
Containers dry out faster they're above ground, the sides stay warmer, the soil
stays warmer. Make sure you water them regularly and how often well it depends
on the soil mix. It depends on the plant and the plant size,
and it depends on the volume of soil. That's the most important thing when
selecting containers. Pick bigger rather than smaller, for sure, bigger rather than
smaller, so that you water them once a day, maybe twice a day
at the most. I mean, it depends on again all those factors,
including the temperature. But containers are a great way to have instant color.
Hey, we'll be right back. We're gonna take a break. Seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a column. We'll
be glad to talk with you. So rain you could allude four reads.
Let's Morgan never hate troubles up for good them. Good morning, I'm beautiful
morning. You're listening to garden Line and our phone number if you'd like to
give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
And without any further ado, we're going to head right out to Tumball and
talk to Andrew. Hello Andrew, Hey, good morning Collins. Just to
ask the real quick question. Um, we bought a peach tree last year
at Arbor Gate. It's been planted in the yard and it had peaches on
it when we got it, little ones. But ever since we had it
and had it planned, it's been growing glute good. But there's not a
single peach this year. We were wondering, do we have to have a
second peach tree in order to do that? I know you don't. Peaches
are self fruitful, and so it's unusual, you know, usually and this
is hard to talk people into doing, but usually we try to pull the
peaches off for the first year or two just to get all the energy to
go into as big a tree as you can. So years three, four
and five you you have better, better crops, but the bigger tree.
But it's not unusual for a young tree to not not fruit, you know,
a whole lot, just initially. But it'll be okay. Is it
in good sunlight and got decent drainage in the soil, it's perfect. Yes,
we were just concerned if she didn't see anything this year because it's in
the twelve foot tall But no, nothing, okay, just a truth.
We'll just kind of watch on the pruning of it. You want to keep
as much as you can kind of an open bowl shape to it because peaches
will try to grow and essentially they become an umbrella of foliage, meaning just
like an umbrella. You know, you've got the little sticks going out to
hold up the umbrella, and then there's this top to the umbrella with a
peach tree. When it gets that green top, it shades out all the
interior foliage. And that's where I describe it as an umbrella. So if
you can create more of an open bowl shape, you have peaches from everywhere
from knee high all the way up to as high as you reach, and
you're not up on a ladder all the time. If you go online,
there's a website it's Aggy Horticulture. You just do a search for Aggy Horticulture
and when you get there, there's a fruit and nut page and there is
a free publication on every kind of fruit you can imagine, including the stone
fruit, which is peaches, and plums and apricots and nectarines, those kind
of things. So that'll tell you how to prune and everything. You can
read it online or you can just print it out. So much you bet,
thank you, Andrew. I appreciate that call. Take care. Now
let's go to Austin County and we're gonna talk to Doris. Hello, Doris,
Hi, how are you well? I'm well, thank you, well
good. I'm having problems with these big fat green worms that had the kind
of like a horn on them. Yes, they're on my tomato plant.
Okay. I go out there one day and I picked one huge one off.
Well here it is about a week later and I look out and I
go out there and there's at least fifteen of them a boy, and now
they're on my angel trumpets. Yes, they do. They like those.
They're somewhat related. You know. That's a tomato hornworm or the tobacco hornworm.
They're they're both. They look similar that they both are green worms.
They both have a horn on the back end. It doesn't matter which one
it is. They become a real beautiful moth, a nocturnal flying especially moth.
Pretty. You can go online google it and look at what the moth
looks like. But for folks that have tomatoes, you know, they're not
interested in growing them for the moths or interesting growing them for the tomatoes,
So that would be considered a pass problem. And you just have to decide
if if you want to get rid of all of them, well, you
just hand pick them off, or if you want to use a spray,
get a spray that contains BT. Bee is in boy teas and tom It's
a disease of caterpillars and will not kill steakbugs. They will not kill ladybugs.
It won't hurt the family pet. I mean, it's a very very
safe product. But for caterpillars, when they feed on foliage that's been sprayed
with BT, it's it's deadly. So I okay, somebody tell me to
put self rising flour on it, let them eat it, and then they'll
blow up. Um. That is a very very enjoyable mental image. But
don't believe it. Don't believe it. It's kind of like people that say,
put grets on your fire nt mound. They'll eat it and they'll swell
up and explode. I love the idea of a fire end exploding, but
it doesn't work. Trust me. They're Southern fireants. If you put grets
on fire ends, they just come up mash for bacon fat. It's I
mean, yeah, there they are Southern fireance. No, it doesn't work
that way. It just just get bat it's cheap, it's easy. Or
you know, if with hornworms they're generally not that many. And you kind
of threw me when you said, what fifteen or something. Well, normally
I just diferent sizes too. They were big ones, small ones, and
little bitty was I thought, well he brought his whole family in. Yeah,
well you can hand pick them too, And do you have any neighborhood
kids or grandkids or kids, or if you will bring one of them over
and pick one hornworm and go over and set it on a sidewalk and stomp
it, it'll be like you stepped on a packet of ketchup in McDonald's.
It goes squirting out this side, and you don't have to say a word,
and they just go inside. And then in fifteen minutes later, look
out the kitchen window and there's gonna be six kids. They got all their
friends and they're going over your plants to find hornworms to show their friends.
That's called importation of natural enemies for pest control. Good, that's another technique.
All right, Doris, Okay, thank you, you have a good
day. You too, you too, Thank you, thank you very much
for the call. If you you're talking about men up in the Tomball area
and everything, if you're if you're in D and D Feed is your hometown
feed store now. It's about three miles west of Highway two forty nine on
twenty nine twenty. About three miles west. The Dover family has had D
and D sense, I think the open doors back in nineteen eighty nine.
They expanded this summer, beautiful new space and more products than ever before.
All the fertilizers we talk about. You need pest control products, they've got
it. You need soils, you know, heirloom soil, landscape pride,
those kinds of thing, they've got them there. They also have plants,
quality dog foods like Origin, Diamond, Victor, and Star Pro. They've
got of course there. Feedstore, livestock, feed, horsecare products, things
to control pests and rodents, and pool cleaners and everything you can imagine.
D and D Feed is a fun place to visit, lots to offer and
quality service as you always expect from one of our good mom and pop local
feed stores. Dandfeed and tom Ball three miles west of two forty nine on
Highway twenty nine twenty. Let's see, we're running real short on time,
Carolyn. I'm gonna have to catch you right after break but hang on,
you will be the first up if you'd like to get on the board.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. He comes, he
comes. All right, there we go, gosh, And now we're just
visiting about music. You know. It is my goal in life is to
play stuff you've never heard before. We try to mix it up here.
By the way, I am still in search of some yodeling barbershop music.
So if anyone knows that, please let me know. I will be forever
in your debt. Of course, the rest of the listeners will be forever
irritated at you for sending me that. But you get the idea right.
Well, you're listening to Garden Line. I am your host, Skip Richter,
and it is a phone number you want to write down. Seven one
three two one two five eight seven four And we are going to zoom right
out to south west Houston. And talked to Carolin this morning. Hello Carolin,
good morning, Good morning. I have a surprise plant. Okay,
I have a little garden area beside my screen porch and between the crack between
the concrete pavers that I use and the foundation. About three weeks ago,
I saw a little green leaf coming up, and I didn't pull it out.
I just left it to grow because it looked kind of healthy and pretty.
Okay, it's about now, it's about eight inches tall, and it
looks to me like a red a red stem malabar spinach. And it's it's
in the place near the place I used grow boxes. And I had the
red stem malabar that in the grow box right next to where it is.
Yes, but that was two summers ago. And I don't think they're self
eaters. But could that possibly be another rid Stam malabar. It absolutely could,
because they definitely are self seeders. They will. I have some know
that that some red and green, both in my garden last year, and
I've got sprouts coming up from both of them. In fact that some people
fuss that they're almost weedy, they recede so readily, but I don't.
I don't worry about that. No, no, no, I'm delighted to
have another one. The malabar I have right now is the broad, the
big fat leaf one, and it's not doing nearly as well as the rid
stam. Yeah yeah, well, let me let me ask the best way
for me to keep this one going just just fertilizer and water. It's it's
okay, it's a vigorous Sure. I have some Scott Super Bloom a fertilizer.
Will that be good? Now you can use that. That's not one
of the ones I recommend, but that certainly, you know, if you
got that on hand, go ahead and use it up, use it on
there. It's just fine. Let me ask you a question, how do
you eat malabar, because that's one of those things that a lot of people
aren't familiar with, and I'm always, you know, trying to think of
new ways to use the vegetable. So well, I just saw tee it
in olive oil. Okay, like they eat spinach in Italy. Okay,
all right, and it's wonderful. I love it. And it's so handy
just to go out and pluck a few leaves before dinner. Well, that's
true. You know. Earlier I was talking about we have vegetables from places
in the world that are as hot and humid as our area in the summer,
and they just do so well here. I wish that they'd been more
of our traditional cuisine, but yeah, they're good, right, So the
muse laginous. We would also say slamm. Equality of malabar doesn't bother you,
and you cook it that way. And I have some Asian okra that's
red. It's really pretty and it grows beautifully down here. Well good,
good, Yeah, there's some There are some Asian types of poker that that
do well, some of my favorite varieties. In fact. Well that's good,
okay, And I love the mental image of your taking care of the
caterpillars. Okay, Well it works. Hey, you gotta have fun,
you take see you take advantage of the nefarious nature of children. But it's
like, do you remember Dennis the Menace cartoons? One day? One day
there's it's always like a one square cartoon, and Dennis comes in and he
says, hey, mom, mister Wilson gave me a brand new pocket knife,
and he asked me if I knew what was inside my drum. See
what I'm talking about. There's two ways to skin a cat. Right,
Hey, Carolyn, thank you, thank you for the carl. I appreciate
that. Let's go to Missouri City and talk to Janey. Hello, Janey,
Hello, how are you this morning? Well? Thank you good.
I didn't get to turn in earlier this morning. And you may have probably
already covered this, but I think I might have the starting of some brown
patch. The first area that I noticed in my yard was down by the
street, between the sidewalk and the street, and it's kind of a two
foot kind of a triangle shape, and it just looks like the yard is
just burned. And so then I also noticed just recently I was in the
backyard and I have a large oak tree in the backyard and it shades the
yard some, but I do get sun also, and I found a little
round circle that's just about three inches maybe circular, And when I looked,
I noticed about a foot away was another little circle. Okay, and then
there's and they're not very big, and those are the only three in the
backyard. But I was just wondering if that was brown patch, and should
I try to do something with it. I did fertilize in the spring.
Yeah. Do you this is Saint Augustine? Right? Yes? Okay?
And do you have a pet? I don't have a pet, but I
have a grand dog that is visiting me. Okay, Well, so the
backyard might be that because he's been here for about ten days. That's the
front yard. Heath really not in the front yard all that much. Yeah,
that sounds like what we call phido blight, you know, like dogs
name phido phido blight. It's I have a dog that for some reason thinks
they have to go to the bathroom in the same spot every time. But
anyway that the salts and stuff in the urine can do that, that doesn't
sound like a disease in the back. Now in front, I'm kind of
wondering about insects. We don't have brown patch, which they now call large
patch this time of the year. There are some it's the genus is riise
Octonia, and there are some other riise Octonia diseases of summer. But I
don't think that's what you're seeing. I think that it could be take all
root ride. It could be chinch bugs going on. So you you know,
other than sending a sample into the state lab from an analyzing you might
get on your hands and knees and right on the edges of that little I
think you describe two foot triangular on the edges kind of part the grass and
look down in the thatch and at the soil surface and look for chinch bugs.
You can go online google them see what they look like they're about an
eighth of inch long. They're black with white markings on them, and the
young ones are a kind of a gold or a reddish brown with a white
band across their back. But if you know what they look like, you
can get on your hands and knees and look for them and if they're there,
then you want to treat that with an insecticide like nitrofoss. Bug out.
Okay, all right out, okay, thank you very much. Yeah,
just look for them first, because you know, if it's a disease
and you're putting an insecticide down, that's not going to do you any good.
Yeah, okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. Bad,
Thank you very much. This is a beautiful time of the year in a
landscape. If you have a well designed, well planted landscape, you know,
we talk about beautiful plants to have. Well, maybe you're not a
designer. If not, and I'm not, by the way, you need
to call Peerscapes. Peerscapes is our garden line preferred landscaper. Now. Jason
Garrity and his team out there at Peerscapes, they know what they're doing.
They have designers that can create beauty on a piece of paper and then fill
that with plants to make it beauty. When you walk up and look at
your home, maybe it's the backyard area, maybe it's a frontyard. People
driving by and see the front of the house. Whatever it is, they
can design it. Do you need hardscapes or rock borders? Do you want
to put in a walkway? Do you need drainage? Most people do.
How do I improve the drainage? Called Peerscapes. They can do it.
You can go to Piercescapes dot com, pea r ce Scapes, Peerscapes dot
com or callum two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero. They
are experienced, they're professionally trained. I mean they have employees that have been
around for I think the average ten year over ten years, some around twenty
six years with them. This is a quality company. They've been here a
long time and they take care of their customers and that is why they have
such a successful business. Peerscapes dot com give him a call to I think
you will enjoy the results that you see from that. Well, you've been
listening to garden Line. My goodness, we have been going all morning here
we're about to close it down. We will be back in the morning.
I'll be here at six am till ten am tomorrow morning. Tell your friends
about garden Line. If you miss a show, or if you just want
to go, hey, check this out. Have them go listen to us
on podcasts. You miss a show, you can go back to podcasts.
Go to whatever podcasts supplier you have. Maybe it's iHeartRadio. Well, the
iHeartMedia podcast will get you there, but so will others, and just look
for garden Line. There's actually another garden line around town or a roundtown around
the country. A lady does I noticed that, but this is a guardenline
with skip wrector you'll find us. You can listen to past shows. Maybe
if we said something you didn't write it down. That's a good way to
check up on that and catch up with it. In the meantime, it's
a good day to be out at a garden center. We got garden centers
that have a lot of good deals going, a lot of color plants just
beautiful. Remember, spend a dollar on your soil. When you spend a
dollar on your plants, and you will have wonderful results as a result.