Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with skip rictor
trip. Just watch him as woods so many pricking not a sign starting and
well, good morning. You are listening to garden Line this morning. We're
here to talk about plants. That's what we do. What we also do
is take your calls. If you'd like to give us a call at seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Will be glad to visit
with you about whatever's of interest to you this morning. That's seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Well, the brutal heat just continues,
and it takes its toll on us and takes its toll on our plants
as well. But that doesn't mean gardening stops. There are a lot of
plants that just absolutely thrive despite the heat long as you give them a little
bit of water. What does a little bit mean? It means keeping the
salm moist. There's an interesting thing that goes on in the summertime with gardeners.
First of all, people will neglect a water just not recognizing that you
know how much water plants are capable of kneading and taking up this time of
the year, that's not the most common thing. If you see somebody in
their lawns dying and drying and all that kind of stuff. Generally, it's
just because trying to save it dollar on water bills and other things, because
it you know, it adds up. But the other end of the spectrum
is equally bad, and that's people that water too much. And there's two
I'll say too much, let me say improperly. There's two ways of improperly
watering. One is you keep it too saggy wet. The plants do not
need to live in a swamp because it's one hundred degrees outside. In fact,
they need to not live in a swamp because it's one hundred degrees outside.
And here's why they are doing all that their systems can do to pump
the water needed to keep them hydrated and to keep them cool. Think about
that, anything setting out in the sun on a sunny day in the summer
is going to get blistering hot. Well, if a plant leaf gets up,
you know, one hundred and forty degrees or even way below that,
it has some serious problems. I mean it literally cooks the leaf, and
I mean it just can't take that kind of heat. So without water flowing
through constantly evaporatively cooling it, it's going to be a big trouble. The
other thing is that the roots can't sit in water, and if they sit
in water, they can't get oxygen, and roots have to have oxygen.
At least most plant roots don't have a system for dealing with saggy, wet
soil conditions. So you don't want to overwater. You don't. It keeps
you wet, But then you also don't want to miss water, and miss
watering means we're going to give them a little squirt every day to keep them
going. You need a good soaking and then it needs to dry out.
That's just the way to water. And the reason is when it dries out,
it brings oxygen in the soil for the roots. So watering properly is
important. We'll probably talk about that a little bit more today. Right now,
let's go to the phones and let's talk to Mel. Good morning,
Mel, Hey, good morning, Hey, what's up? Question about fertilizing
during this drought season. A couple of weeks ago, I fertilized the aze
is. And then last week I fertile as my um mocks woods. But
now I was going to add to it, but then I heard or read
somewhere too that doing so during a drought season is not a good idea to
fertilize your plants. Anything on that. Uh so I'm not quite following you
fully on that. Could you could you elaborate this a little bit? Yeah,
I had heard that during the drought season it's not a good idea to
fertilize your like your flowers or whatever. Um, Okay, I don't know
where exactly I heard that. Okay, but and I I've already put some
down on some of my plants, and I was going to add some more
to it, but then I heard that, you know, hey, don't
don't do it during a drought season. I see what you're saying. Yeah,
yeah, well there's truth in that, but there it's also not true.
So here's thought that works. If you're using if you're using a salt
based fertilizer, which a lot of our synthetic fie a salt based and you
overdo it and you get a lack of moisture. So it's sort of the
moisture in the soil has a concentrated salt content in it, you can burn
plants with that. But if you fertilize properly with a salt based fertilizer,
don't overdo it, watered in really good and keep it adequately moist, then
it's not a problem. A natural slow you know, an organic type fertilizer
typically is not going to have a salt base to it, and so you're
not going to be able to burn with those either or and so that that's
kind of the difference. So your azaleas are taking up nutrients every day,
and so gradually feeding them with a slow release or feeding them in small amounts
with a not slow release. Either one is okay, right, Because I
was going to use some medina on it, got it was it was organic
stuff that I put on her. So yeah, putting on me to it
wouldn't hurt them, No, it wouldn't. You're not gonna you're not gonna
burn them with a medina. And you know that that's just the only thing.
Sometimes people you know, they get a good a good fertilizer, maybe
a synthetic and it you know it is maybe a salt based it's a good
fertilizer. But they just you know how we are. If a t spoon's
good, a tablespoon's better, And so we dump it on and then we
half watered in, and now we got a very salty soil solution. But
that's created by the applicant, the fertilizer applier, not by the product.
That's the It's a user error. I guess when that kind of thing happens.
All right, I appreciate it. I'm gonna go put it on there
later on. All right, Hey, I thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much. Let's see, I believe we've got somebody else
on the line. Let's see. This is a garden line you're on.
How can we help? Ah, yes, sir, I am. I'm
not really sure what the proper term for it is. I've heard they're called
potato plants. It's a vine. It's growing on my spins and it gets
these big round I guess what you're supposed to be potatoes? I don't know.
Oh you yeah, I know that's called an air potato. Okay,
yes, sir. I've tried so many different things to try to kill this
thing off, to quit it, keep it from growing on my bins and
I just can't kill this thing off. And I wondered if you had any
suggestions what might do it in once and for all. Yeah, Number one,
they form potatoes. So when they form, get those out of there,
because those are essentially like the seed pieces if you will of the vine
propagating. Secondly, find out where it's coming out, and you can dig
up the tuber that's underneath there to get rid of it. Another option is
to spray the vines with a product containing triclopier triicl o pyr, and with
the tricopier it will translocate down and do a pretty good job. You may
have to do more than once, but just be careful with it because it
kills. It kills anything brushy, anything broad leaf, wheaty, and if
you get a lot on your lawn, it can damage your Sain Augustine in
the heat too. So and be very curious that if I could just care
anything that's close to it, I can read plant and grow. I mean,
I'm just the main thing I want to do is get it off my
bins. I've tried, but you know, you know what I would what
I would do is get the Tracyle pier. And by the way, you're
going to see it for sale and something like poison ivy, poison oat killer
or something maybe with a name like brush be Gone or something on the in
the home garden market. And put a little bit of your vegetable oil catchen
vegetable ottle with it and try try just dabbing it right on the vine.
You can I use those little foam brushes like you buy to paint their throwaway,
a little wooden handled foam brushes and just just dip it in there and
just wipe it on the vine, especially down near the base. And okay,
that works. Well, that's how farmers kill brush with Tricolo pier.
They put a diesel oil in it to make it stick and soak in and
that'll prevent you having to spray all the foliage. I think you have success
with that, but you want to mix it very strong. Try to try
color clear, try chlow here, tri Clo pyr. But um, let's
see what part of the listening area are you in up in Conra. Okay,
Well, if you if you go to an Ace hardware store or if
you head out, you might give them a call at a and a that's
your hometown nursery out there towards Montgomery, and they probably have something with triclopier
in it. But just tell them it's like, do you have like a
poison ivy killer or something along those lines, And that's what it because I
have some poison ivy I need to get rid of. Tricle Au pair works
on whatever. The birds plant seeds when they poop, so poison ivy,
hackberry trees, you know, all those kind of things. The birds are
eating the seed and they're dropping them in your fence lines and under the power
line, under the tree. That's why those plants are there, and so
all those things. Striclepayer works. All right, Okay, well, I
appreciate your help today. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate
that call. Thank you very much. You know, if you are looking
for a quality liquid product to feed your plants through this summertime, Microlife has
just what you're looking for. They have the Biomatrix that's the orange label.
I use that one on my house plants. It's a seven one three ratio,
so it's got a lot of nitrogen in it, and that nitrogen supports
foliage growth. It supports a vigor. That's what nitrogen does for plants,
and our house plants or foliage plants by and large, and it does just
it's outstanding. It has beneficial microbes that get into the potting soil in the
house and help the root systems outside. Try the blue label that's the Ocean
Harvest. It's a fish based fertilizer. It's a four two three ratio and
it just works on anything you got outside. If it's blooming, it works
fine. If it's foliage, it works fine. You can dilute it and
use it as a folior spray. It's not going to burn your plants.
Its Microlife Orange label Biomatrix and blue label Ocean Harvest. One for inside,
one for outside. You need to have a court jug of each where you
keep your plants supplies. I keep mine unto the kitchen sink, and I
just just the other day I went there and mixed up some and a gallon
of water and took care of all my house plants and they were very happy
as a result, which of course they always are. If you have not
been up to Buchanans lately, you have not been to Buchanans, you know,
Buchanans Plants up in the Heights there on Eleventh Street. The thing I
like about going to Buchanas, well, right now, the thing I like
about going to Buchanans is there's shade everywhere, so when you walk through,
you can actually shop and enjoy yourself without standing in the blazing hot summer sun.
They just it's a really wonderful setting. If you've ever been there,
you know what I'm talking about. You can go online to Buchanans Plants dot
com. But they are like your hometown specialists when it comes to natives.
That is their main focus. That's what they really excel beyond beyond all.
They've got a table just for Houston natives. But don't just think of Buchanans
as natives only. Do you need herbs? Do you need house plants?
Do you need perennials, Do you need plants for the shade? And on
and on and on? Do you need products? All the fertilizers I talk
about, You're going to find him at Buchanans. The soils I talk about,
You're going to find him at Buchanans. Buchanans Plants in the Heights.
It's just it's just a fun place to shop, and you got a little
time this afternoon, that would be a great thing to do, or maybe
this morning, get over there and check them out. They've always got something
going on. Sign up for their newsletter because they have incredibly good information that
comes free to you in the email where you can learn more about plants and
be up ahead of the game when it comes to what's the latest special,
because you definitely will know in those kinds of things are going on. You're
listening to garden Line and I'm your host, skip Rick. You're our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's see. I'm gonna just make because
another mention about watering on our plants. I was talking about overwatering and underwatering.
You just want to be careful too when you water. If you can
keep it off the foliage, it's better because with it being so hot,
people watering a lot every time you went the foliage, it just makes diseases
proliferate more so. Drip irrigation is good, but the less frequent watering also
helps because you avoid getting it all over the foliage. Well. Let's take
a break here, we'll be right back seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four and SKIP producer Ryan here joining the show. Good morning,
Yeah, good morning. Just wanted to say before we went to break to
all our callers out there, we are doing things a little differently this morning.
Our normal studio is under maintenance, so we may not be able to
process your call. But if you hear the station and you're on hold,
you're in. Don't go anywhere, and we may just have to process you
on the air. So it's just one of those things. We're working through
it. So we're so happy to have you guys with garden line. Like
Skip said someone three two one two, KTR five eight seven four, that'll
get you in here. And by the way, we're doing a great job
holding those strings between the ten cans taught so we can hear each other.
Ryan, I appreciate that exactly. Yeah, so I just wanted to give
you callers that heads up. We're not ignoring you, just having some difficulties
that we're working through, so hopefully we'll be able to process you soon.
But like I said, if you're on hold, you're in, so don't
go anywhere. We'll be right back with more garden Line times. Are afraid.
Good morning, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we are here to answer your gardening questions. On this Saturday
morning. It's going to be a beautiful day for gardening. I can just
already tell you that, because every day is a beautiful day for gardening.
Hey, if you live down in the area, let's say around League City,
Santa Fe, Dickinson's, Lamark, Clear Lake City, l come into
Reale all those places. Your hometown feed store is League City Feed Now West
and Madison Funderberg operate the place, and I mean it is when you walk
in there, it's like you've walked into the traditional hometown feed store. I
mean, with the traditional kind of service. They got all the products you
need. Of course, they are feeds, so they got all the kinds
of things you would expect, like a premium quality pet food or things for
your backyard chicken needs and so on. But they also carry the fertilizers that
we talk about, they carry the soil blends that we talk about. They've
got a good selection of different kinds of pest control products as well, so
You're not going to go wrong with League City Feed. In fact, I
think you will find it refreshing to go to a place like that to have
the kind of service that they give there. Now, you can give m
a call at two eighty one three three two sixteen twelve two eight one three
three two sixteen twelve. Hey, they're open from Monday through Saturday from nine
am to six pm and closed on Sunday. So today's to get over Today
is the day to get over there and get your shopping done. Say hey,
do them for me. I always enjoy going into League City Feed.
I just find I don't know, I just love the feel of going into
a place like that that just sort of makes you feel like you're at home.
It's maybe the kind of feed store or some of you grew up with
and and you know what I'm talking about. If that's the case, League
City Feed down in League City. By the way, they're on Highway three,
a few blocks south of Highway ninety six, so that makes them really
easy to find, easy to get to and meet ope until six I mean
you need to swing by after work on any given day. They're going to
be there. League City Feed, Well, we're here to answer your gardening
questions. And I believe Josh, do we have or Josh Ryan, do
we have somebody? Yes, we do have someone on hold and skip iled.
I thought I'd be able to process system. I was not, So
we're just gonna go straight to our collar. There you go, line number
one. You're on the air. Good morning, Good morning. How are
you doing well? We're good. We're good, other than we're kind of
dealing with some digital gremlins here. But other than that awesome question, I
am. I'm down in Angleton, and my soil is a little bit play,
kind of red play. And I planted a couple of plum trees and
they seem to be living, but they're not thriving. I don't know if
that has to do with the clay soil or if they just take time to
get hold. How long did you plan them. I'll plant it on before
I guess before the summer, so three or four months ago. Okay,
Well, you know they can take a little while to get going. But
if it's a heavy clay soil, they may be struggling with that soil.
If you can put a lot of composite organic matter in the soil, even
some expanded shail things to kind of open the soil up. They're gonna thrive
better if the area is a little bit low. So when it rains or
when you water, water tends to sit. Then plums and peaches are gonna
really not like that. And so it could be a drainage issue, or
it could be an overwatering issue, or it could just be a soil quality
issue. All right, So we need to add something to the soil when
our plant. It seems like every time I plant comes in, it dies
before it starts to grow. It like takes the quality. You know,
Yeah, you know, if you've got that kind of soil, I think
what I do is, you know, when you decide, hey, I
want to put in some fruit trees, go ahead and bring in a good
quality mix with hopefully with a little bit of expanded shale in it, and
just work up a large area. You know, if you could get maybe
eight foot wide area even for a fruit tree, really built up and a
little bit raised up so the excess can drain away when it's too wet,
I think you'll be off to a better start that way. But you know,
of course I'm not there sitting looking at your place, and so I
can't I can't for sure see what all might be going on. But that's
that's really common in a clay. Okay, my dad said, we can't
do a haircat over the tomb. There you go. I guess all right,
Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Hey, thank you for
the call. I appreciate that. Say, if you are wanting to take
your landscape up a notch, peer escapes is a place. They're the ones.
I don't know if you were listening. We had Jason on uh and
Bob his designer, and they were on the other day and we had a
really good time. Peer escapes is that one stop shop. I mean,
whatever you need if you're want to renovate your landscape. I mean I'm talking
about I need a new hardscape, I need to improve drainage, I need
the irrigation worked on, I need rock borders. They can do it all.
Peer escapes. Do you go to peerscapes dot com and find out more
about what they can do or just give them a call. Two eight one
three seven zero five zero six zero. That's two eight one three seven zero
five zero six zero. Pierscapes is they're professionals. They know what they're doing.
Their employees are tenured, they've been there a long time. It's a
first class, one stop shop, and that's exactly what you need. I
mean, it's easy for us to go out and pick plants. We like,
it's something altogether different for somebody to design the space and to make it
a place that you want to go out in the outside and enjoy. Maybe
it's some landscape lighting. That's another thing they do a great job of over
there at Peer Scapes two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero.
Well, Nikki, I believe we're going to be doing a little bit of
news here, so we shall. I'm looking I'm looking around a monitor trying
to see Nikki over here high. You know, we could have a comedic
element to the show if we brought a video camera in here and watch me
trying to crawl around on the equipment. Gets something to work here? All
right, it's all yours. It ain't that state of pain. And I
can tell by the smell of the perfume. It's like forty dollar suits.
I like, somebody's in a lot of trouble to me, right, you're
listening to I picked the wrong song I was met Dirty Laundry by Don Henley.
That's dirty laundry, dirty laundry, bubbleheady bleached blonde on. Hey,
you're listening to garden Line. I know this isn't a music show, but
we can try. I'm your host. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Give us a call, Ryano, get you on the board. Well,
we'll be glad to talk about whatever you are interested in. Listen.
If you're thinking about retiring, maybe you know you've been thinking, you know
it's time to move and settle in somewhere and just enjoy my retirement years.
If you're an active adult age fifty five and better, Dellweb bills communities for
you. And we're not talking about going out to pass year. We're talking
about still thoroughly enjoying life, living an active lifestyle. That's dell Weeb.
There's a new community less than two miles from Fulsure, from downtown Fullsure.
It's on three fifty nine. It has those designs that Dellweb has that are
just inspired. It is a beautiful place. The cool thing about this community
is it's got a community garden going in that I'm helping them with and that
you know, if you're a gardener, I mean, how can you do
better than beautiful home, beautiful community, lots of activities that are built around
you. Plus you have a nice place set up just for you to go
and enjoy gardening to grow the things you want to grow. Go to dellweb
dot com slash Houston for more information or just give them a call to eight
one four five nine zero six zero nine. I believe we have Jason on
the line and we're gonna head out there. Hello, Jason, how are
you this morning? Hey? All right you, I'm well, Thank you
for calling. Yes, sir, Hey, I've got a question. I
got some pecan trees that the squirrels planning. Okay, they planned the pecans
when I threw them out like three years ago, and there's little trees that
popped up okay, and I'm wondering, is it right now it's a good
time to dig them up and free planom. I want to plan them and
like a big pot or something in the yard. So okay, well,
it's gonna be hard to grow up acon and a pot, even if it's
a big pot. No, no, no. So right here we have
a lot of clay. So what I do is I dig a hole in
the ground, hopefully two foot deep, and it put something around it so
it never gets damaged by mower or something, you know what I'm saying.
Okay, well, here's the thing. You want to wait until about the
first of November to make that dig and move of the trees. They need
to be the pressure needs to all be off of them. This is like
the highest pressure time on them. And so if you want, you could
do a cut a route here and there on the size light, go out
about a foot from the tree with a little sharpshooter type shovel, go straight
down, you know, eight or ten inches, and then just come straight
back up and do that on maybe two or three sides of the tree.
And that cuts us some roots that then they'll branch and proliferate, so when
you transplant them, they transplant easier. You just want to be very minimal
about that, and you want to keep that area very moist so that the
new roots can proliferate and then when fall comes it'll be ready for you to
dig and move. Okay, all right, well, hey, I appreciate
it. Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Yes, sir, well you're listening to Guarden Line. I am your
host, Skip Richter and our phone number seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You
know, if you are looking for a fertilizer for your long this summer,
you're not going to do better than a quality fertilizer from Nitrofoss. And one
of my favorite it's the Silver Bag. I mean, you know Nitrofoss,
the nineteen four ten, the Super Turf. I mean you remember it however
you want, remember nineteen four ten, Remember Super Turf. I think it's
easiest to remember the Silver Bag. It is gradually released. The chemistry of
that is such that the nitrogen cannot get loose until a period of time has
passed. And so what does that mean. That means you don't get a
flush of growth. That means you're not mowing more. That means you're not
having top growth at the expense of root growth. You're not promoting disease or
chinch bug attack or other things that can happen when we overdo it. So
Nitrofoss is the way to go. You can find nitrofoss all over the place.
I mean everywhere. That all the places we talk about here. You
know, our feed stores are nurseries. Certainly the Ace hardware stores all carry
nitrofiles. It's one of the easy products to find around town. And super
Turf as a product that if you have not fertilized your lawn this summer yet,
now's the time to get that done because it's going to carry you all
the way into the fall season. We got somebody else over there waiting on
the lines. Yes, we have Maureene and Lakeside of States, well Marine
and Lakeside of State's good morning, Good morning. I have probably a brief
question. My Okra is doing very well and it's almost as tall as I
am and I'm five to five. So I wanted to get an understanding.
Will it continue to have fruit there? Yes, it will. It just
keeps growing taller and keeps having more fruit. Now Okra has a way of
sort of playing out at some point where it's not producing. Yeah, that's
what I'm trying to figure out what's going on, because it's just I've got
I'm overwhelmed right now, and so I have neighbors will be very happy.
But I just wanted to know when it sort of slows down, that I
have a heads up that it's going to happen, and then I won't have
anymore. Well, it's not like you don't have any more, it just
slows down a whole lot. But here's what people do. If you've got,
you know, a decent sized little ochra patch, you can go in
and probably, let's see, I would do it about now about every two
or three plants, cut them off, oh, just a little above knee
high, and they will resprout and you have all these fresh new terminals.
You know, okra is basically a big old bad boopole coming out of the
ground, and you'll have a whole bunch of them. Now, you won't
get anything from that plant for a while, but when we get to late
summer and early fall, it will be producing like crazy, whereas plants that
weren't cut back maybe dwindling. So you sort of hedge your bet there.
You know, you don't cut them all off, because then you're out of
okra for a period of time. But you can do that great time.
Yeah, you can do half of I mean, if you've got more,
Okrah, than you know what to do with, which is often the case.
It's a good way to spread things out a little bit. Yeah,
okay, I will listen. What is your main topic for today? I
just turned the radio. I talk about whatever you guys are interested in talking
about. But I love when someone I know, but you do more than
that. You have a little segment on flowers, and I love it because
I like to hear the different things. So I'll just have to hang on
and listen and see where you go. Well, I've been talking water this
morning, because you believe it or not, it's something on people's mind.
So talking a little bit about that. Who knows? Okay, um,
yeah, ALRIGHTY have a good show. Hey, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that. Our numbers seven one three, two, one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Yeah, we like to talk about whatever you guys are interested in. So
you know, as you as I see the different calls. I work at
Higher Life Extension in service during the week and we get a lot of calls
and so I kind of go by what are people asking about? And that's
probably what we need to be talking about and the same thing. Same kind
of calls are true here when we get on garden Line people call them.
They have the same kinds of basic questions that we're dealing with, so makes
it kind of easy. Hey, if you've not been to Arbigate recently,
you need to get out there. They always have something of interest. I
mean they sell free trees twelve months out of the year, which is just
amazing, beautiful rose selection. It just always a place one of those garden
centers what we call the destination garden center that somebody comes to town from the
family and you put them in the car and say, come look at this.
You got to see this, even if you're not a gardener. I
mean, the gift shops and just the beauty out there is wonderful. But
they have a one two three system for soil and it's one food that feeds
anything with roots and that is an organic product, one percent organic product.
It's a four four three plus ten percent calcium and you can put that on
your plants, I shrubs, trees, vegetables, you know, and even
lawns. I mean, you can use it any way you want. It
works super super well. Being organic as well, it provides all the extra
microbes in addition to the nutrients that it provides. And they've got the soil
complete, and the soil complete is it's a blend. It's got a compost,
and it's got a large particle sand and it has expanded shale. What
is that? Well, think of kitty litter that's been fired you know,
the old clay kitty litter. Think, just think of that. That's not
what this is. But it's been fired in and oven so hot that it's
like little rocks and they're porous and they expand and they look more like that
little lava rock you put used to put on your barbecue pit. Right Well,
on a microscopic level, that's what they're looking like. You put that
in clay soil and it holds it open and organic matter to decomposes away and
the clay sort of shrinks back down fairly tight. Again. It's not a
twenty year fix, but expanded shale is it gives you a long term fix
on that. And that's why I like to see that in these products.
The other thing that they have is an compost complete, and that's two different
kinds of composts that at very high biological activity in the compost. They have
macronutrients, they have micronutrients, and they also have the expanded shale in the
organic compost. Complete so one two three of food to feed anything, with
roots of soil for any application, and a compost to improve any and also
and you're all finding it there at Arburgate there by the way, if you
haven't been out there, they're one and a half mile west of two forty
nine in tumble On twenty nine twenty So just head west on twenty nine twenty
a mile and a half oricle online arbergate dot com. Really easy to find.
And if you haven't been there before, you got to get out there.
If you have, it's time to get out there anyway, because getting
those supplies ready. We're getting ready for fall, by the way, pretty
quick. Here. It's time to begin planting some of our fall crops,
and so having the soil right is essential before you start putting in seeds and
plants. Well, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four, Ryan, we got somebody on hold there. Okay, I
believe it's time for a break. Why don't we do that? You got
the phone number. Give Ryan a call and we will be looking at you
first when we come back. Here we go. There's some music. Hey,
you're listening to garden line. We are glad you're listening, and we're
glad you're calling too. We're here to talk about all kinds of things.
It might be of interest to you. By the way, it is hurricane
season, right, and what happens when hurricanes come through, Well, they
take a toll on our trees. You ought to get a hold of Affordable
Tree Service. We're talking about Martin Spoon, Moore, his wife Joe.
One of them will ancher when you call. That's a nice thing about a
company like this. The owners are actively involved and they basically answer the phones
for the business. You can go online to aff Tree Service dot com or
just give him a call. Seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. Seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. They'll look
take a look at your trees. What needs to happen, What doesn't need
to happen. Maybe there's a dead limb, Maybe there's a limb hanging down
low they could break off during a storm. Perhaps some powerline drops coming in.
Got a limb over them. But they do everything an Affordable Tree,
I mean not just you know, hurricane season. They do pruning, they
do deep root feeding, They come out and do consultations. And if you
ever are going to have anything done around your tree, trenching, building,
anything like that, don't do it until you have Martin come out and take
a look at those trees. Because once damage is done, you can't undo
it. It's really hard to recover from a mistake, and they can help
you avoid that again. Affordable tree dot Com seven one three, six nine
nine twenty six sixty three. We're gonna go out to Pasadena now and tell't
to Ze. Actually, unfortunately Ze dropped off. Z if you're there,
give us a call back. We're gonna go to Lisa in sugar Land.
All right, let's do it. Good morning, Lisa, Hey, good
morning. I love my rank jud And I'm wondering what the fascinated care for
those I am knew at Gartneys and flowers and like got and I have a
couple of my front porch. I took a little vacation and we forgot to
water them. Came home water them. They to like back from brown spots
on the leaves. Just tell me walking through how does care for them.
Hadrang just want to be kept evenly moist. They want to be in very
bright light, but not necessarily direct sun. You know a little bit of
morning sun's okay, but a real bright dapple shade would be hadrangja heaven.
But the main thing is they do not put up with drying out. They
don't. You know, we buy these floorish tadran just to bring home put
inside the house. And I'll tell you, if you can get one of
those to last more than two weeks, you're doing You're doing something because inevitably,
you know, we forget to water them, and then they do get
the brown tips and edges and brown blotches and the leaves, and they just
don't like that. So keep them moist using acidic type fertilizer for them.
In general, that's generally the best way to go, and just give them
gradual feeding over time. Don't dump a bunch of fertilizer on them all at
once. Very good, and then the leaves that have some brown spots drike
cut those off. You know, it depends on how much it is.
I mean, if you know, like half the leaves on your plant or
getting brown. Your plant needs the green leaf area, So as long as
there's some functioning leaf area, I would leave them until you get some fresh
new growth and new leaves, just to avoid taking all the carbohydrate production away
that's left. Even with the brown spots, I'd leave them and kind of
embrace the ugly for just a little while, try to get some new growth,
and then you can pull those o ones off. Very well. Well,
thank you, you have a great day. Thank you, Lisa.
I appreciate your call very very much. For any of you that are living
out there in the Kingwood area, you are rich with garden centers. I
mean you've got Kingwood Garden Center, which by the way, Kingwood Garden Centers
over on Stone Hollow Drive, and then you have Warren Southern Gardens on North
Park Drive. So I mean and when I say if you're living in Kingwood,
I mean Humble, a Tasca Seed, a Porter, or New Caney.
You know that whole area out there, awesome, unbelievable garden centers.
They have all the products I talk about if you hear about them here,
you're like a fertilizer, for example, or a soil, an excellent selection
of every kind of soil. But you can imagine, you know, from
potting sail mixes to composts, to rose soil for building beds, to a
veggie and herb soil. I mean, they've got them all there, plus
the plants, the plants, the pottery. They have ability to help you
with making a design and a container. Maybe you want a multiplant container.
I just did some this summer just the other day actually for hot weather flowers
and foliage, and they just look beautiful. I mean, it's an easy,
fast way to do it all there at Kingwood Garden Center. Hey,
by the way, Kingwood and Warren's both seven days a week, both open
seven days a week, easy to find, easy to get to, and
a pleasure to shop at either of those places. Let's head back to the
phones. I think we're going on to Rockport and talk to George. Hello,
George, Hi, good morning. Um. So, I was in
in Zion National Park about a month ago down in southern Utah and they have
the the Kislopenia plant, the bird, yeah, the bird of Paradise plant
all over the place over there, and I only mainly see the red one
here. And I grabbed a bunch of seats from the plants there, and
just about all the seeds are growing now. But I'm wondering, why is
it that I only see the red one instead of I don't never really see
the yellow one. Is there's something about that the yellow one that yeah,
maybe it isn't. They're both they're both fine. They're both beautiful. The
red one is a little more the flowers are a little bigger and bolder.
The yellow one is beautiful because it has yellow flowers, beautiful red stamens coming
out. But it's more of a kind of a lanky, open plant,
I guess, is how I would describe it. It gets it typically gets
a little bigger than the red one would. But they're both good. They're
both good. It's just I think the red is a little gaudier, showier,
you know, it's something to take the people's eyes off the pink flamingos
in the front yard. Okay, yeah, because because the ones that I
saw were, I mean to me, they were just as a showy and
beautiful, and I was like, well, you bet, you bet well,
those are beautiful. Glad you got some seed. Hey, I'm gonna
have to go to break but thank you so much for the call our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four Ryan a call who
gets you on the board and when we come back from break, you'll be
first up. 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 watching so many Well, good morning, good Saturday morning, and it
is beautiful outside. If you have been outside yet, you can go outside
and take a look at this. This is really gonna be a good day.
Hey, morning is a good time to get a little more work done.
You know, you get up in a hundred degree temperatures, just a
little tougher to get some things done. But it's still time now to get
it done, you know it number time. I understand we want to run
inside. I head for the air conditioning myself. But it's amazing how much
you can get done just a little time in the morning, a little time
late in the day, and there's plenty to do. Right now. This
is a time to begin for planting for our fall garden. You know,
if you've got crops that are carrying on, you want to take care of
them. Things like eggplants and peppers and okra. You know those eggplants and
peppers both will really be producing well again once we get a little break and
the weather here coming up. So hang onto those plants because you will have
your best harvest of the year at the end of the year when it comes
to peppers. At least, that's been my experience every time, because in
the spring your plants are small, so how many peppers can you hang on
a small plant? But you take care of a plant through the summer.
You got a nice sizable plant in the fall, and oh my gosh,
it is nachos for Christmas and for football season. Isn't that a nice coincidence
that the Halopenia's produced best in the fall season. That's the way it is.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
If you'd like to give me a call, seven one three two on
two five eight seven four. I was, you know, bumping and banging
along the streets of Houston the other day. You know how it is when
you go in some parts of town, the soil has shifted so much that
you know, you feel like you're wide and a riding the wall bull or
something like that. Remember Gillies and the wall bull he used to have.
It's just so rough, and it's because the soil moves here, it moves
a lot, It gets dry at shrinks, it gets wetted, swells.
Well why am I talking about this? Well, because if you have a
house and you have a foundation, that's an issue. If you've got a
driveway, if you've got a sidewalk, you know it's an issue. If
you notice sticky doors, if you're if you're bricks on the exterior or cracking,
or maybe there's even sheet rock cracks inside, you may need some foundation
repair and you need to not delay. Don't stick your head in the sand.
Check it out. Find out now. Call Tie Strickland at fix my
Slab Foundation Repair. You can go to fix myslab dot com, or you
can just call two eight one two five five forty ninety nine. Tell them
your guardline listeners, because they'll do a free estimate for you. They're committed
to doing things right, they give you a fair price, they show up
on time, and they fix it right. If you got a driveway or
a sidewalk, same kinds of things going on there, just call fix my
Slab foundation repair, have it professionally estimated, look at what is or is
not happening, what you need to do and act now, don't put it
off. Tie as a native Ustonian, fifth generation Texan, and he has
been here in the business doing this for a long time. I believe they've
been here now twenty three years in the business. Fix my slab dot com.
I'm gonna go now to the phones. Let's see, let's talk to
Michael and Galveston. Hello, Michael, good morning, thank you for taking
up the business. Brandy went to a just reward. You're doing a great
job. Thank you. M Yeah. Um, there's a world why grout
going on. And there was a lady or guy called in when Randy wood
around. I'm talking about how she was getting our air him water from air
condition I have our central and I'm not a ball and I don't know if
she was talking about either water or both. And um, that'd be a
good source or water since and also if you know of a company, um
that does that or how to get the directions, Um, I'm sulfur doers
to make one and all would be handy. And um, this drought stuff
going on now, that's all right? Yeah, thank you, Thank you,
Michael. I appreciate that, and yes there is some information. I
don't know a company that comes out and does the condensate collection system for you,
but a lot of people do themselves. Usually got a little tube hanging
outside the wall of your house that's dripping when the air conditioners running, and
you can get a lot of water that way. I don't know the exact
data. I do know that just a window unit, which a lot of
people have those. But remember the window units, they'll put out a couple
of gallons a day, and in a central system can put out quite a
bit more. And think about that. That is like distilled water. It
is water that is condensed out of the air, and so it is very
pure, very good for plants. And to have even like a little rain
barrel that that drip is directed into would be well worthwhile because you would have
some high quality water. And again it's water that's you're either not doing anything
with it and wasting it or you're collecting it, so you're on the right
track. What I would suggest, Michael, is there is a website called
Rainwater Harvesting Rainwater Harvesting and then dot TAMU like Texas A and M University TAMU
dot DU Rainwater Harvesting dot TAMU dot e DU And there you can find out
about rainwater harvesting and find out condensate collection. If you're a rancher listening to
this and you've got you know, just some little shacks and feed covered areas
you can collect water for while wildlife, you can collect water for livestock and
all the information is free and it try to get that website. So I
would recommend you go to there check that out. I think you learn a
lot. I appreciate that call. By the way, our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, we're always glad when we
get a little bit of rain around here. But when you get rain,
what do you get with it? Well, you get mosquitoesses. Houston is
mosquitoes worldwide. They make their vacation plans to come to Houston every year because
it's such a lovely environment for They're very happy here. You know. They
like the hype, they like the human they like the rain and everywhere water
stands. I'm talking about a thimbleful of water sitting stagnant, you can a
mosquito can lay an egg and raise a baby in that amount of water.
I mean, it's that's what we're up against. Sagging gutters. You got
to fix them. Standing water underneath the pots and your plants and rain the
bird baths and things like it. You gotta deal with that. Well.
The way we deal with it is number one, dump out those supplies.
But when you can't, you need mosquito dunks. And a mosquito dunks are
a little small beige donut. You throw it out there in the standing water,
it floats in it. Maybe you got a little drainage ditch behind the
house and nobody's dealing with that, and you can just throw a mosquito dunk
in it. It'll dissolve slowly over time, and it will release a disease
of mosquitoes. It is safe for birds, it is safe for pets,
It is safe for fish, you know, any kind of wildlife and won't
hurt people. Mosquito dunks are natural, organic way to do it. And
if you've got a large area, you can buy their granules and kind of
scatter the granules over a larger area to get a real quick knock down.
You know, you walk back there and you just see mosquito regulars all over
the place in the water. Throw the granules all over it and get that
knocked down now. But the mosquito dunk is a good long term way to
do it. Sometimes when I go on vacation, I'll put a bunch of
houseplants in a little kitty wading pool and maybe an inch or so of water
in there, just to kind of hold them for a while, and then
I'll throw a mosquito dunk in and that way when I come home, I
haven't been a mosquito breeder. Makes sense, sure does to me our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two ktrh. I was talking about watering earlier and watering efficiently and properly.
If you ever have a chance to switch to drip or other kinds of
micro sprinkler irrigation, you should take advantage of it. So what's a microsprinkler.
We'll think of it as a little drip line. But a little line
comes up and you've got a little spurting sprinkler about oh, I don't know,
maybe eight in ten inches up off the ground. Those are really easy
to install. It's like playing with tinker toys. For those of you who
remember that, you just pop them together. The instructions are simple. But
you weave those through a bed and now you've got water on the ground where
the roots are, where the plant wants it, not spraying on the foliage.
You know, your Indian hawthorns get all that intimate spoium leaf spot because
we spray the foliage all the time. There's a lot of other diseases that
drip irrigation avoids. It saves water, it's by preventing waste, and it's
just the way to go. It's really easy flower beds. You can use
it in shrub beds. I use it in my vegetable garden. I haven't
used it with containers. I got a line that runs along the back patio
and little come up from it into each container. So you know how many
times you have the water a container to keep them moist. Would drip irrigation
you don't even have to worry about that. It's really really simple, it's
fast, it's easy, not a problem at all to do. The RCW
folks We've been talking about them on Guardenline. I don't know since forever.
My first introduction to RCW was their rose selection. I mean, it's unbelievable.
You can go online and look at it. Their list of roses they
carry are like four pages long. It is just an unbelievable list of roses.
They're also known for their trees. You know, they grow their own
trees up in oh gosh, Plantersville area, and they have fifteen gallons all
the way up to two hundred gallons. You can get them planted for you.
It's just really good. But don't just think RCWS roses and trees,
herbs, perennials, annual shrubs, native plants. They have great selection of
some of those unbelievable a bowl hibiscus plants that are just so gorgeous that I
mean, they just there's nothing more show stopping than some of the hibiscus that
they carry out there. And they carry the products. You know, why
are you there? You hear me talk about a fertilizer. They're going to
have it at our CW nursery. They're at Tomball Parkway where it hits Beltway
eight, you know, two forty nine at Beltway eight. Right there.
You go online to RCW Nurseries dot com. You can find out more information.
By the way. They're open today from eight am to five pm and
tomorrow from ten am to five pm. So it's not hard to find a
time to get by RCW Nurseries and you will be really impressed with the color
that they have. They just know what they're doing. They've been doing it
a long time. And people that know our CW love r CW Nursery here
here in the Houston area. Well, let's take a break. Our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Ryan a
call, get you on the board and we'll talk to you when we come
back. And the way this white place partner, good morning. You're listening
to garden Line and we're here to talk gardening. That's a big surprise.
Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Love
visiting with gardeners about all kinds of things like that. You know, I've
been talking about watering today and the importance of watering enough to keep the salm
moist, but not so much that you keep it saggy wet. That is
a big problem, and don't water so often you just a little squirt every
other day is wasting water. I mean, go into it to explain why
that is. But in a nutshell, it's just wasting water. If you
want a free way of watering your lawn with what it needs but no more,
you need to go to the water my yard dot org website water my
yard dot org. Now there's an app. You can get it on Apple
at the Apple Store, on Google Play both, and you download it and
when you connect with them, you know, you give me your address and
what they do is they find the nearest little mini weather station and those are
all over the place. I mean they're a little bit of weather stations like
sitting out at a golf course or someplace like that, and it connects you
to them. And so that weather station is looking at solar radiation, at
humidity, at windspeed, at temperature, all those things that affect how much
water our grass is using. It crunches them through the scientific formulas that have
been researched, proven over the years or recently, you know, they've learned
how to create those formulas by based on turf research. And it sends you
a free email and it says, hey, I got one just the other
day. It said you've used point five eight inches of water in your yard.
Because I subscribe to it, it's free for crying out loud. I
mean, what a better deal at point five eight so I know exactly how
much water to put on. I don't have to put a whole inch on
that week because I didn't use that much. Maybe you use an inch.
It'll tell you water my yard. You're not gonna find a better better deal
than that. I mean, works really really well. Let's now head out
to northeast Houston and talk to Harrison. Hello, Harrison, how are you.
Oh I'm doing good. How about you? I'm well, thank you
good. Look here, I have a problem with my indue plant. They
keep they keep producing mosquito, lot flies and all that. You know,
Okay, wonder look at you get suggested I may be able to use So
what those are? Those are called fungus gnats. And when you keep the
top of the soil moist, those fungus gnats they get in there and they
eat on that organic material and they proliferate. It's kind of like drain flies.
You know. You get a bunch of junk done in the kitchen sink
drain and you got these little gnats coming up out of there. It's the
same kind of thing. The simplest thing is let it dry out on top.
Just let it dry out. Some people will spread a little bit of
something over the top, you know, like a kind of grandyear, little
gravelly kind of stuff, just to keep them from having access to the wet
surface. But that's not necessary. Just let it dry out. There are
some some products that will kill fungus gnats, but you can spray on the
soil. But you know, I don't. I wouldn't go to the trouble
having to buy those. I would just let that thing dry out a little
bit more. I think a good soaking. Let it dry out, and
you're gonna stay away from them. Okay. Yeah. Some people will will
make it their own little sticky card too. You know the little red solo
cup plastic cups. There's a yellow one, and in the yellow one,
if you smear it with kind of an oil or a grease kind of material,
they'll go to that land on it and they'll stick to it. It
looks ugly, but you can catch those little gnats flying as adults are drawn
to that yellow and you can capture a whole lot of monitor and kind of
shut it down. All right, Well, let's see we are going to
head now to Frank over in Deer Park. Hello, Frank, Hey,
good morning Skip. I appreciate you in your in the program, your job
you're doing. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I wanted to
ask. I think last week you mentioned gallery pre Emergent herbside, and I've
had a problem with neighbors yards not being kept very well, and I get
seats, all kind of weed seats coming in from them. And then a
pipeline heasment in the backyard and used nitros barricade, but it doesn't go very
far. And I was wondering the price of that Galery's like off the chartists
to forty five a court, but it goes a long way. It looks
like he's a point three to point five ounces per one thousand square feet,
And so I was wondering, would that you would that be a good thing
for a residential lot if I let me get it last a long time.
Yeah, it's fine, but um, the barricade should go a long way.
I'm not I'm not quite following, but we don't want to need to,
you know, get into that. Barricade works very well on broadleaf weeds
and on grassy weeds. Gallery is primarily a broadleaf weed pre emergent. Okay,
So if you just are looking at broadleaf weeds, the gallery should work
fine for you. It's a good product for that. But the barricade will
do both. And so you know, it kind depends on what you're going
after. I guess Virginia buttonweed and crab grass, okay, preventing crab grass
barricade for sure. Virginia buttonweed is a perennial mess and it just is always
there and you pretty much have to hit it with a post emergent product,
and you're gonna have to hit it more than once. And during the kind
of weather we're having, if you can get very early in the morning and
use something called celsius on it, like fahrenheit and celsius, you can as
a post emergent, you'll knock it back. But what you're gonna have to
do is you're gonna have to hit it again because Virginia buttonweed is not a
one and done spray deal. I mean, it's tough. There are some
other products out there that will work on it post emergent. Typically, we
try to hit it as early in the season as we can, poor it
gets so darn hot. And then as we go later in the season you
can you can knock it out too. But but if you wait until later,
it's already produced a ton of little seeds, you know, those those
little white flowers turn into two seeds, and that now you're just starting over
again. Okay, well I'll go with that, and I might have to
wait to the weather cools a little bit and then I'll stick with the nitro
facet. It does work. It just seems like this other would be a
liquid that I could put out with a garden in sprayer versus a broadcaster.
Well that, you know, it's fine. I mean, there's a lot
of good products out there. It's just you know, kind of what are
the weeds you need and what season of the year are you in, And
it's you know, it's going back to what I was saying, like,
right now you got Virginia button weed. A pre emergent is not what you
need. You need a post emergent. Uh. You know, once I
got up and growing, but you get ahead of them, and the pre
emergent is a way to go, that's for sure, and that's why we
recommend them at least a couple of times a year. And it's springing the
fall especially, all right. Sounds like a plan. I appreciate it,
Scoop, Hey, thank you man. I appreciate the call very very much.
We are gonna Yeah. I just wanted to mention I've talked about dell
weeb before and the chance of you know, getting out and finding a nice
little place to retire and enjoy. You know, Delweb bills communities for active
adults, you know, those of us fifty five and better that want to
keep going in an active, fun lifestyle. They're less than two miles the
new community less than two miles from downtown fulscher on three fifty nine. They're
gonna have a community garden at this community. So with all the Dellweb advantages
and they're a bazilion. I'm out there now this community, you're gonna have
a community garden. I'm helping them with it. I'm really excited about it.
As a matter of fact, if you want to check it out and
discover Dellweb difference for yourself, go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or
just give them a call two eight one four five zero six zero nine two
eight one four five nine zero six zero nine and they can get you set
up. I'll tell you what. Let's head to the phones now. We're
gonna go to Magnolia and talk to do we need to hold Okay, we're
gonna have to Bruno your first when we come back. Sorry about that,
We're about to have to go to a break here. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, double love and causing
the city rushing by. I said, well, good morning, a beautiful
Saturday morning for gardening. You're listening to garden Line and I am your host,
Skip Richter. We're here to answer gardening questions. That's what we're here
for. That's what we do. Love to have you call talk about whatever
you're interested in. I mean, I can talk about things that I know
people are wondering and asking about now, but it's always better when we hear
your questions, because, believe it or not, somebody else is going to
have that same kind of question if you have not done your summer lawn fertilization
yet you need to consider getting a hold of some microlife and putting it out
to get those nutrients to the growing grass. Also, when you put out
microlife, you're adding an organic material out there that is going to improve the
soil over time. As you do that, you're just building it up stronger
and stronger. They didn't it quick fix. This is an ongoing, constant
improvement, over and over and over. Now you're going to get the nutrients
right away, of course, but it's the long term build that's where you
really see the full benefit. They've got a green bag which is a six
two four six percent a nitrogen, two percent phosphorus, four percent potassium.
They've got a purple bag, which is a human's plus. Think of it
as liquid or concentrated post in a bag. And the humtes are just always
a good idea for our soils. There's so many things that they do enhancing
the microbial activity. Of course, there's a lot of nutrients that come out
of a microlife fertilizer, like sixty three essential nutrients that are going to give
you that gradual feed in the gradual growth promotion that your lawn needs. Go
online Microlife Fertilizer dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out
where to buy Microlife, which basically is pretty much everywhere. And also you
can learn more about the green bag and the Purple bag that one too combo
punch that will really enhance your lawn as we go through these hot weather and
you're not going to burn with these. They are gradual release over time.
Microlife Green, Microlife Purple. It's a good combination for your lawn. You're
listening to guardline seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
believe we're going to head out to Magnolia now and talk to Bruno. Hello,
Bruno, good morning. What's up. Well, I've I'm building a
home when a couple of outbuildings uh and um um it's uh. In order
to get the grade right, I've got a lot of slopes and things.
And by the time the bulldozers left, there's not much top soil, but
there's a lot of the sandy clay. Uh. That's that's good select filled,
but probably not so good for growing grass. And from the slopes I
do get starting to get really deep ruts the occasionally when it does rain.
And my project's been going on for months, and when when mister Lemon was
still with us, I'd called and he suggested just putting down rye grass with
some bermuda, because I don't want to really a lawn look when we're done.
I wanted to still have that forest preserve type of look, you know,
So cutting weeds and bermuda was what he suggested. And I did that
and had some pretty good results. But when this heat came, the rye
grass all died. Uh, and so did the rauda. Now well,
not much of it seemed to take. And I didn't have water at that
point. So I and it's about three acres that I'm dealing with, um
a total of seven. So you know it's you know, bringing in a
bunch of top soil and really watering every day. It just isn't feasible right
right now the bermuda. Is this area pretty sunny or is it partially shade
or what? Oh? There's all of the above. Okay, okay,
Well, bermuda grass is about as drought tallerant as you're going to get.
So if the bermuda can't take the drought, then you know that I'm not
sure it was not taking the drought. I think it never really germinated,
right because at that point I was relying up on the rain water or you
know, in order to so places that actually held more water when it did
rain and didn't run off got the best results for the grass. But I
know, going back with rye grass, um, you know this time here,
I don't think it's going to be successful. Yeah, no, no,
not at all. In fact, it'll be about October before you'd want
to try putting ray grass back in there. Uh is there another thing like
ray grass or I guess even a weed that I could put down? Oh
boy for summer grass covered they're just not um, you know, there there
are a lot of different kinds of grasses. There's there's native grasses too,
that would be an option. As you're describing it, almost like a kind
of a little mini meadow kind of deal. Uh, There there are Yeah,
Yeah, there's there's a Uh I'm right off of Milk Creek, so
it slopes a lot more than you would normally think of Houston properties. So
I've got some some open areas, some of it's heavily wooded where I've just
kind of mowed around around the trees. So there all that gets a few
hours of sunlight. You know, good good sunlight, but it's uh so.
The natural grasses are different. There's tall grasses of some area that there's
I don't have. I'm not much in h very knowledgeable about plants in general,
but there's one kind of grass that shoots up little old pokey birds about
a quarter of an ins diameter that you stick to your socks through fingers,
and yeah, the stuff is just awful and I hate that stuff, but
it's becoming my friend because it seems to be the only thing that's spreading.
Yeah, that sounds like sambur and it does like poor droughty soils, you
know, other than just next time you see a little rains come in,
tossing some more bermuda seed out, they'll get rained in and get started that.
You know, it's going to be kind of an off and on.
But with the using seed is not that expensive compared to trying to sod something,
and you might just want to try that, but just look for here
comes some rain and then get that seed scattered and just kind of repeatedly do
that until you get a better stand. But the bermudas as drought tolerant as
you're going to get and if you if you've started with that, I think
I would just keep going. Otherwise it would just be a matter of getting
a kind of a native meadow type pasture grass and seating it out there.
And there's some ways of doing that as well, but that's a whole different,
different kind of grass. Okay, all right, Yeah, not being
able to not being able to water, you know, you're kind of left
to planning your planting around the season when it tends to be a little moisture
and that grass has a better chance of getting going. All right, Thank
you very much. I appreciate that call. You know that if you happen
to live out in the Mont Bellevue area or maybe Baytown, your hometown feed
stores Texas Feed Stop, and we love feed stores here on Guarden Line.
The Texas Feedstop is it's everything you would expect in a feed store, and
we're talking about you walk up, they greet you, they know what they're
talking about, They carry the products you need, and then they have some
folks to carry that feed to your car so you're not having to lug the
feed and everything else. It's just a full service. It's a pleasant experience
and Brian and Hope Roads have made sure Texas Feedstop is a pleasant experience for
people coming by, and not only just the experience. You're going to find
all the fertilizers we talk about, You're going to find the pesticides herb besides
fund decide all that that you need is going to be there Texas Feed Stop.
I mean I talked about mosquito dunks a minute before. They've got those
as well. They're just they're on Highway one forty six, just a few
minutes north of I ten there in mont Bellevue. So if you're in Baytown,
this is minutes away. I mean, that's your hometown feed store,
the Texas Feedstop. We are going to go now to the phones and take
a call from Ross and Montgomery. Hey Ross, how are you this morning?
Doing well? Good morning? Yeah? I had a question get a
suggestion. I've got a about a sixty foot long patio that I'm trying to
get something low maintenance, something that wouldn't grow more than maybe a foot and
a half and not take a lot of wit as it relates to that for
coverage, and wanted to just get some suggestions on what might be alternative plants
or hedges for that. All right, So you got a foot and a
half in height or width height, and okay, I want to make it
full width, so yeah, full coverage. All right. Well, uh,
the fast answer is dwarf you opon. That's a fast answer. If
you'd like to talk a little bit further about that, We're about to take
a break here, kind of running out of time on this segment, but
if you want to hang on, I can pick it back up with you
right after the segment. Would you like to do that? Yes, I'll
be fine. All right, very good, Thank you our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Someone else? But can
your name? Can you name two monkeys? I don't know if I can.
I know there's Mickey, and there's Davy and what were the rest of
them? They had great music. Hey, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
Have you ever heard of the nitrophoss sweet green product? It is cool.
It is a molasses based product. It's eleven percent nitrogen zero phosphorus,
which most our lawns don't need phosphorus, and four percent potassium eleven O four
nitrophile sweet Green. It smells wonderful. The name really fits the way it
smells. It's an organic product. You put it down and I mean it
just kicks the microbes into super high gear. They love that sweet material and
they kick into gear. And when microbes kick into gear, they release the
nutrients to your grass. So you're going to get a good release of feed
from it, and the nitrophile sweet green you'd hist or not gonna do better.
They've got a great supply in now where we can get it. I
mean, it's so popular. You know, last year seemed like it's about
sold out trying to get enough of it out there. Well, you'll see
why. When you use nitrofost Sweet Green, super high quality product and one
of the highest percentages of nitrogen of any organic products. You're going to be
able to find nitrofos sweet Green. Look for it wherever you buy your nitro
FoST products, which is pretty much everywhere. You know, if we talk
about a place like ACE Hardware, the home, mom and pop garden centers,
you know, the feeds are a lot of those places they're going to
carry nitro FoST. Makes it super easy to find. Let's go back to
the phones. We're talking with Ross out in Montgomery about some shrubs, and
Ross, you wanted something that's about a foot and a half high. You
want it to not be too wide, and you wanted it to be easy
to care for. And I think I said that the dwarf yopon may be
the best bet to fill all those It's a Yopon's a native here, so
it does well here, and you know, you can do some sharing on
it. I mean, if you want to make it a square box,
you can, but that's just a lot of maintenance to keep a square box.
Or you could leave it in a very natural, you know, kind
of just a natural loose form, which is I really like that in the
dwarf jopon. What about the timing of planting, is this a you know,
okay to plant at this point in time? And then how far apart
would you put them? Okay, I would put them. I would probably
put them, oh, you know, if you want it to be solid,
I'd probably put them about maybe two two and a half feet apart.
If you want it to be just a series of shrubs down the line,
not necessarily making one hedge, then you could put them just a little further
than that. Apart as far as the time of planting, you can plant
now, but you've got to be right on it. Watering every day because
you know in the container the garden centers water in those things every day because
all the roots are in that little cylinder when you put them in the ground,
the roots are still in the little cylinder. It takes a while for
them to get out in the soil. So you've got to put water right
at that cylinder every day until they begin to get into the soil around them.
So if you want, if you need something fast, go ahead and
do it now. If you can wait until fall, all that's even a
better, easier time to get them established, just because the demands are less
and so it's not a day by day thing. Okay, Can I expand
one other question? So sure, brand new yard six foot fence, um,
but neighbors can see in, I can see out. And so looking
for like maybe a ten foot privacy type hedging, what would what would you
recommend for something like that? Oh, boy, there are there are some
hollies that will do. Okay, they're gonna probably get a little bigger than
ten foot but you know you could you could get by with some of hollies.
The Eagleston's a pretty good holly. The oh gosh, I can't say
the the other names escaping me of them. You know, if you're up
there in Montgomery, if you go out to any plants, they're going to
have a good selection of both the yopon, the dwarf yopon, and the
hollies. There are some taller yo pons, uh like, probably to Houston,
and they get a little bit larger. They have berries on them,
and they're pretty. They're not as dense of a hedge, but they are
a beautiful hedge that you could use. The standard Southern wax myrtle another native.
If you water it, it'll get up there. I would say,
I would expect it to go an eight foot pretty easily, and you can.
The more you share it, the denser it's going to be. As
far as the privacy hedge. So those are just some options for you.
But the folks out at a Anda have got them. You know, they're
right there on Highway one oh five. You've probably driven best them before.
Okay, great, I appreciate your home. All right, Hey, thank
you for the call, I appreciate that very much. Ross. Yeah,
Ana, you know that they're on the east side of one oh five is
you're going like Conro direction. So if you're at Lake Conrow, if you're
Bentwater, Delago, Walden, April Sound, you have that whole area,
certainly Montgomery and even Conrow, and they're your hometown nursery and they carry all
kinds of things. They have a really good ironwork selection. So if you
like at Trullis, maybe going over a garden path, one of those old
iron trellises, chimineas you know for the patio. Just just lots of stuff
to enhance your landscape. Besides three acres of plants to choose from. You're
not gonna do better than Ana. You guys are fortunate to have a and
A around up there, because they really really are a great nursery that has
so many cool things to supply. Let's see where are we now on our
calls here, we believe we've got something from William. William, are you
out in beat Eyes? I think you and I may be the only two
people who know where beat Eyes is other than the people in Bad Eyes and
the people in Carlos. And you know you get the idea. All right,
what's going on? Shiro? Don't forget that metropolis. I love that
country out there. I love it. Hey, y'all are lucky. You
got grimes canny feet out there. Have you ever been there? Yeah?
Yeah, oh man, that's I love to go in and talk to Chris
and the folks are at Grahame Skenny. How can we help you today?
I'm calling about the mineral that you could buy it to put in your garden.
Yes, sir, that specific question is if you apply it in your
guarden in the spring, you have to re applying in the fall. It
looks to me like it's a little rock with it. It's all are you
talking about asamite or what product are you talking about? That's a z.
I can't think of the n angler right now. Okay, Well, you
know, if it's if it's a fertilizer like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
those kind of minerals, you apply it regularly to keep feeding your plants because
they're needed in large quantities. But if it's if it's a product like asamite,
that's just the micro's the trace minerals number one. I'd have my soul
tested to see just what you do need because you need them. They're essential,
but you don't need a lot of them. So I would do it
about once a year, but a soil test would be the best way to
know if you maybe need to do it twice a year, you know,
if you need to kind of beef it up a little bit. But at
least once a year, I would say for those kind of things. Okay,
I thank you, and you're very eligible. All right, we'll have
fun out there. I haven't been out in that country in a while,
but I need to get out there. You got some you got some nice
little hole in the wall restaurants out there. I just love to go to
driving through. Yeah, ok yes, Sarah, thank you appreciate that call.
William. Hey, if you're looking to buy a tree and you want
a deal, you're not going to do better than Verdance Christmas in July sale.
It's at all three of their locations. You know. They got the
place out there on Barker Cypress that's on the west side of town, right,
They've got the place down on Broadway Street in Pearland, and they've got
the place at the Heights where Yale Street comes into I ten. It's not
hard to find a Verdant tree farm. By the way, go online Verdant
tree farm dot com. That's the way to find out more about them.
But with this Christmas in July sale ten to fifty per sent off the trees
when you purchase them with an install Now that's not off the installs off the
tree, but when you buy the tree and harmed a planet, which you
need to do. You buy a big, old beautiful tree. Your carpractors
kids are going to find a way to get to college without you helping them.
And so I would just let them install it for you. They know
how to planet. They do it right. You're investing in this tree,
you need to take care of it and get it done right. Verdant will
do all that. Verdant treefarm dot com take advantage Christmas in July cel ten
to fifty percent off the trees. I don't know how you get you get
any better than that is that is a deal. That is an opportunity,
and boy do they have a lot of really good quality trees as well.
Hey, we're gonna go ahead and take a break here again. We will
be back our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give Ryan a call. He'll get you on the board and we'll look
forward to talking to you. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of
the products or services advertised on this gra Welcome to k c r H Garden
Line with Skip Richter trip just watch him as wood Many luck, Good morning
on a beautiful Saturday morning for gardening. We are talking gardening today because that's
all we do on garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
our phone number. Write this down so you can give us a call whenever
you need to. That is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I talk all
the time about the importance of soil. Now we get excited about plants.
You know, you go to garden center. There's this plant's got a big
old flower on it, and you just get excited and want to bring it
home and planet and good for you. You should, but don't PLoP it
into an unprepared plot. Prepare the soil first, because that's your key to
success. But when you put that plant in the ground, you are seventy
five to eighty percent of the way to success or failure. The minute you
walk away from planning it. Why is that, Well, it's either sunny
or not sunny, and the plants can have an opinion about that. It's
either well drained or it's not. And the plant probably wants well drained almost
all due it. You've either put fertilizer in the soil so the nutrient levels
or balance and what they should be, or you haven't. You've added compost
to improve the clay soil, You've added shale to improve a clay soil,
or you haven't. And so here's what I'm saying. You create the setting
for that plant to succeed, and then it will. And it looks like
you have a green thumb. What you have is an informed thumb because we
just informed you that that's what plant need. And how do you prepare the
soil? You get a quality soil and you know airloom soils they've been doing
this for a while. They know what they're doing. They have a wide
variety of options. I mean, do you need a veggiean herb soil?
You know, do you need a mix for maybe container plants indoors, a
jungle land you know, or any of the different kinds of things you can
find. Airloom Soils got them all. I mean they have them. While
they have a super dupe or indoor potting soil. They've got the mulches that
you need. They've got you know, the soil amendments and things. Everything
is there. So if you go give M a call, al go to
airloom Soils dot com. That's their website, airloom Soils dot com. You
can find out more, give M a call, find out about the one
QB yard super sack. They fill that sack up with a quality mix and
they set it on your driveway. I mean it's really cool. Imagine a
sack that holds a cubic yard of mix and then you just shovel it out,
use it, take it where you want it. I mean it's really
easy to do, very convenient. They also have a cubic yard calculator on
the Heirloom Soils website and the qubcard calculator. You can find out exactly what
it is that you need. How much do you need? You know,
how many wheelbarrow, how many wielbarrows are in a cubic yard. If you
don't know the answer that the qubcard calculator it does. It knows what it's
talking about. By the way, when you're talking to him, you need
to look at the expanded sail and compost blends. You need to look at
the leaf mold compost super super high quality stuff. And also it's it's summer.
We're doing stuff inside their potting soil called the Works the Works potting soil
and the Works indoor potting soil. You're not going to do better. Super
high quality all available from heirloom soils. Just go to Airloom Soils of Texas
dot com and you can get right there. Really easy, easy to do.
You know, I always struggle with you, how do I convince somebody
to build the soil first? To get it right? One way I put
it is spend a dollar on your soil before you spend a dollar on your
plants. How about that? And it'll save you money in the long run.
Anyway you want to put it, just remember that the plant is only
going to do as well as the conditions you put it in, and that's
what we're aiming for. Let's head to the phone right now. We're going
to go out to Hempstead and talk to Richard. Hello, Richard, how
can we help? Oh? I'm live out here on well on forty acres,
but I maintain about four acres and I've got areas that I've had some
health problems over the last year and hadn't been able to really take care of
and control. But they have you know, knee high grass and stuff in
them. Yes, And I mean I've used round up in the past,
but I'm normally you know, keeping up with it my chain link fences and
all that throughout the r this year things have kind of gotten out of control.
Would a brush killer hermicide work better and be more devastating, like total
devastation compared to a roundup? Uh? So we're we're not talking about a
pasture now, We're talking about are like around your yard fences and things like
that. Is that correct? Well? And yeah, And I live right
on the edge of a pasture, so I mean some of it's you know,
some of its hayland and that kind of stuff. So it's okay much
just open, you know. So if it's a woody plant, a brush
killer is going to be the way you need to go. And the ingredient
in those is triclopier t R I c l O p y R. If
you go to our garden center, it'll be sold as a brush be gone
or it'll be sold as a poison ivy and poison oak killer. You know,
it'll have names like that. But the ingredient as triclopier, and you
can if it's a if it has somewhat of a trunk to it, let's
say as big as your thumb or bigger, then you can cut it off
and you just paint the triclopier directly onto that fresh cut, not the next
day, but cut it off and then right then dab fresh tricleopier. I
was a little phone brush to do that, and it'll it'll move down,
it'll do it. You can also put a little oil with it, and
like I just use a kitchen oil. Sometimes beneficial to be added into that
max a surfact It would be if you're going to spray something on the leaves
and the leaves are glossy and you want it to stick, that the surfactant
would help that. Generally, I just tell people to treat the stump,
or if it's small, to just spray it on the base of the trunk.
You know, maybe you've got little shoots coming up and and they're not
big enough to really cut off and have a stump. Then you can just
apply that product, put a little bit of a vegetable oil with it,
or I mean diesel oil can be used too, But it makes it stick
and soak into the trunk and then you get a really good result. It
just works really well. Poison, ivy, poison, oh, cackberries coming
up, you know. Yeah, I mean it's it's a full mix of
pretty much, you know, everything that you can imagine, grape vines and
other stuff like that. And I was just looking for something I could just
spray on it. I mean, I've got a twenty five gallon sprayer put
on the back of my foiler. So I was looking for something just to
go in. Like you said, it's pretty much knee high. Yeah,
instead of having to go in and we'd eat it all down and then treat
it right. I was just looking for something just to knock it all down
and kill it all there. You go, Well, you're you that is
what That's what I would do. Now. Ranchwise, there's some bigger there's
products like Remedy that you buy a two gallon jug and it's a lot of
money to cover a lot of acres. But I think sounds like what you're
needing is mostly you can get from the home garden market. You've got an
ACE Hardware there. The hometown Hardware in Hempstead is probably going to carry more
than one type of tric will appear for you and they could get you a
strad up. I don't know, if you're familiar with me, that would
be a good one stop. That'll work. Thank you, sir, you
bet, thank you. I appreciate that call. Yeah, you know,
that's the thing about ACE Hardware is that they're going to carry everything. I
mean, I'm always amazed when I walk in and look at the product line
that they have. The fungicides and secticides, herbicides of course, all the
fertilizers we talk about, they're all there at ACE. And I just I
love hardware stores. I love going in. I grew up with a little
old town, old time hometown garden. Gosh, I can't even talk hardware
store. Where you go in and this guy, you just walk in with
a piece of pipe and show it to him and he goes follow me and
he takes you right to what you need and tells you how to fix it.
That's ace hardware that they still have that kind of service. They still
have that kind of knowledge and stuff. And then when you add to it
that pretty much everything you can imagine you might need is going to be right
there. And it doesn't get much easier than than that. Let's head to
the phones. By the way, we need to take a break right quick.
But when we come back, Richard and Jeremy and Hurta you will be
the first ones up. Good Saturday morning. Look outside, take a look
at this. It is beautiful outside there, and now it's a good time
to get out and get some gardening done. By the way, I take
your radio with you. Hope you can keep listening to Garden Line or just
give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
If you live up in the tom Ball area and you are looking for that
good old hometown feed store D and D Feed, that's a place you need
to go. They're about three miles west of Highway two forty nine on twenty
nine twenty in Tomball, So you just had out twenty nine twenty towards the
west about three miles the Dover family opened D and D in nineteen eighty nine.
They expanded it this summer. Oh my gosh, it is they have
even more places to carry to store all the different things they carry, and
they carry everything. The fertilizers we talk about, the soils, we talk
about they've got plants, they got hand tools, they got you know,
if you plants like roses and fruit, trees and vegetables and seeds and on
and on and on. You want a high end dog food like Origin,
Diamond, victor Star Pro, those they've got them. You need things for
your livestock, for your horses. Maybe you need a pool cleaner. How
about pests and rodents? Oh my gosh, I was dealing with some rats
the other day and those little boogers, those nighttime terrorists coming along. They
can set you up to take care of that. We're talking about mosquito dunks
earlier. They carry those as well. What can you not get a D
and D. I'm not sure. I mean they just about have everything.
Dnd feed that is west of tom Ball on two forty nine, about three
miles. Stop in and check it out, say hey, the Dovers,
and you will see why we're so excited. About another one of those awesome
hometown feed stores that love going into the feed stores. Well, let's head
to the phones now, we're going to talk to Jeremy out in Friendswood.
Hello, Jeremy, good morning. You know today, Well, I'm well,
how are you today? I am doing great, doing great. Hey,
I had a quick question for you. I've got a weekend place over
on sam Rayburn just north of Jasper, Texas, and I'm having a large
building built there in part of the land is slow being so that the pad
that they've made is about four and a half to five foot tall, a
pretty packed clay type soil, and I was trying to decide what would be
the best approach to minimize erosion. If I should get a couple of palettes
aside brought in stand agustine, or would it be better to plant some sort
of a seed like a bermuda or some other type of seed for that area.
So you're wanting to cover the pad until you get a chance to put
the building on it, or what's section just the slopes on the side I
should have cleared, Oh, just the slopes. Well, yeah, you
can use bermuda. That is a that is a good old tough, takes
you know, takes a heat, pretty drought, resilient and all that.
The only thing is if you ever decide you want to put flower beds around
it, the Bermuda is a flower bed invader, and so it meant it
be the best of all choices for that. But as far as holding the
soil, putting up with a heat and the drought and all kinds of things,
you're probably not going to do better than a Bermuda great and that comes
in a seed form. Is there any recommendation on like the fertilizer to apply
with the bermuda seed? Yes, you want a fertilizer that's in a three
one two or four one two ratio if you can. If it's a little
higher nitrogen, that's okay. But you know, we've got a lot of
great fertilizers that we talk about here on the show, you know that will
provide that kind of of a mix for you. I know, one we
just just kind of a pull one out of the hacks we've got a lot
of them, will be nitrofoss is the silver bag. The silver bag is
Super Turf. It's a nineteen four ten product, so it's got plenty of
the nitrogen for a boost. And it's slow release, So if you put
that down now, when you put your seeds down, that's going to carry
you all the way into the fall. And so that would be kind of
like a one time done. It's slow release, it's not going to just
all wash away. And I probably would would give that one a good shot.
I think that that's going to help your bermuda get started. There's seeds
of bermuda all around. I don't know, you know, it depends on
you know where you shop. I know down there you've got some ACE hardware
stores down in the Friendswood area that I would you give a serious consideration too.
If you're going to do your shopping up in sam Rayburn area, you
know that you're gonna find some places up there too. But I'd probably buy
my seed down here to be ready, just to take up, so you
know you've got what you need. Yes, sir, perfect that that is
a great product. I'd use it on the lawn down down in Friendswood as
well. Yeah, great, great results with all the nitro foss products.
Yeah, believe you're out of me. Yeah, well that's good to go
to the ACE there down on Edgewood Drive in Friendswood and seed. Do you
have some bermuda seed available? There's a lot of different types, you know,
the old standard rangey bermuda, just a coastal bermuda kind of thing.
But they have they have types now for sad that that do pretty well.
Uh, you know, I could, I could name varieties, but then
you're running all over trying to find that variety and it's not that important that
you get exactly one variety. Yes, sir, thank you for your time
this morning, and have a great day, all right. Just be ready
to keep it moist during that early seed starting stage. Those seedlings, if
they dry out, which they can do in a day or two in this
weather, they'll die and so you gotta keep them moist until for about two
weeks until they get some good roots in the ground. Okay, okay,
well dude, thank you, you bet, thank you. Jeremy appreciate that
call very very much. We're gonna head out now to Spring Branch and talk
to Hrta Hirta. Thanks for waiting. How can we help today, Yes,
sir, hey Hurda, we're here, Herda. Turn your radio down,
you're on air, all right, We're gonna put Hurt on hole one
second and we will come back to talk to Hurdas. If you are interested
in a quality garden bed, you need to know about Vego garden beds.
Vego garden beds. Vego like a Lego v egogarden dot com, viegeogarden dot
com. Vegos the original here in the US for a iron or metal bed
that has been coded so that it does not rust, it does not corrode,
and then it's been painted with the USDA certified paint tested at Texan m
University. And these little beds are modular. You know, you just bolt
them together. I mean it's just like playing, you know with legos.
I guess you just put them all together like you want them. You can
make them long and straight, you can make them C shaped, L shaped.
I mean, you create the garden you want. They come in different
heights, different sizes, and so it just makes it easy. It's absolutely
simple. Several different beautiful colors with a nice little protective edge over the top.
I mean, if you want something neat and clean, if you're an
organic gardener, you don't want treated wood. I mean, there's a thousand
reasons to do Vego and I think everybody should do a bed like this.
It's because you know, I've made a lot of garden beds in my life.
I've built them down in the soil just by improving the soil and raising
up a mound. I've used sender blocks, I've just treated what I've used
all kinds of things. Vego is the only way to go, really,
it really is. It's just fast, it's easy, it's simple. There's
impostures out there. Go with Vgo vgeogarden dot com. They're a Houston company
right here hometown, and they will get you set up. And by the
way, some of our home and garden or some of our mom and pop
garden centers around town carry the Vego beds. I was out at uh the
uh let's see uh gosh, Kenny said, uh in Chenna Gardens and Chenne
Forest down there. I saw him out there. They had them there,
really really nice. I know. I think they have them at Buchanans downtown
some other places. Go online vegogarden dot com and find out more. You'll
be as amazing impressed with them as I am. Would. We have heard
it back on here. Hey Hurda, how are you this morning. How
can we help, Well, I'm interested. I want some foxtail fern.
But I wondered if I could cut cut them up like two stams at a
time, would they would they be okay doing that? So if you buy
a foxtail fern in a pot and it's got a little clump there, you
can use like a sharp butcher knife just cut straight down through it and you
can make two plants out of it, or you can make three plants,
if it's a big enough plant to start with. But when you divide them
that way, you know, you need to be a little baby them a
little bit because you just kind of they went through something there, and so
you just want to keep them moist, keep them watered, and they will
be just fine. That's one way. If you need to spread things out
a little bit further, you can. Okay, now, is it okay?
You go ahead and plant now in this sat Well, it's okay,
But you're gonna water them every day with just a little bit of water.
That's not how we normally recommend watering. You know, we say a good
soaking infrequently, but that you plant, especially when you've cut it in half,
you need to keep it constantly moist right there at the base. Don't
drown it, don't make it soggy, but every day a little drink of
water until they get their roots out, and once they're established, you don't
have to baby, I'm like that anymore. All right, all right,
thank you very much, Well, thank you heard it. That's a beautiful,
beautiful plant. Yeah. I love I love foxtill fern. They do
do super super well. Well. You know, if you need a supply
of things, you're not going to find a better place in Southwest Fertilizer.
No talk about brag him, Bob and his team down at Southwest. They've
been They've been in business since fifty five, nineteen fifty five. It's a
long time. They have all the fertilizers we talk about, including their own
Southwest Premium Gold of fifteen five ten slow release product. If you're an organic
gardener, you're not going to find a better organic selection than south West Fertilizer.
They carry everything that you can. If there's a product that is not
at Southwest, you don't need it, go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
They're on the corner of Bissonette and Undwick. Bisonette and Rundwick and Seeds supplies
everything you can imagine. Get your lawnmower blade sharp, and get your small
engines prepared. All there one stop at Southwest Fertilizer. Well, good morning
on a beautiful day for gardening. You are listening to garden Line and we're
here to talk to you about whatever you're interested in regarding gardening. Maybe some
diagnosis, maybe some identification, maybe just some advice on what works well,
what would be a good plant for this area, or how do I keep
my plants alive? That's a good question for today, that is for sure.
How do I keep my plants alive? Oh my? You know,
I have become a fan of backyard birding and I never was. I was
a gardener, but I just I mean, I like birds and I always
kind of had a bird feeder or something out there, but I've really gotten
interested in it, and it just it's another aspect of gardening. You know.
You we garden because of the esthet We garden because of the nutrition and
flavors of the food. We also garden for the smells. There's fragrant plants
and it's it's beautiful. It makes it just enhances the outdoors we garden for
the sounds and that's where songbirds come in. They come in well number one
visually. The esthetics are there too on the antics of the birds as well,
but the sounds and while birds unlimited. They just have everything you can
think of when it comes to birds and taking care of birds and promoting and
bringing them in and everything. Like that. First time I walked into a
wild birds I was just I was just stunned. I mean, I could
not believe the amount, the options, the selection, all of the things
that they have. Wilbirds just has it all right. Now, by the
way, our birds some birds are still nesting, bluebirds, cardinals, chickenees,
wrens, they're all still nesting. They need that nesting super blend that
Wilbirds has. It's a high quality feed, just perfect for summer feed.
And really it goes all the way through August because as we get toward the
end of summer, our birds start to molt and they that's when they're renewing
their plumage. Keep it on top condition. Again, there you are with
the nesting super blend. Now, Wilbirds has a lot of quality feed,
including what the no waste types of feed where you know they're not going to
be debris kicked out all over the ground. It's a very clean, easy
way to feed. You can go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston.
By the way, we're gonna have a special guest from Wahbirds tomorrow here in
the studio at our eight o'clock hour and we are going to pick their brains
on everything regarding birds and you know, just all the tips that you need
to take care of the birds, So many beautiful ones I was looking at.
I got one of those squirrel excluding feeders, got it from Wahbirds and
oh my gosh. You know, squirrels are smart, and I mean they
can thwart anything you come up with. There's a there's actually a social media
I can't remember which of the it's on YouTube or somewhere. There's a guy
that has just devises squirrel obstacle courses and then films that as you watch the
squirrels overcome them, they will not overcome the squirrel excluding feeder from Wilbirds.
And trust me on this, I know what I'm talking about. Watching the
squirrels get frustrated makes me very happy. And they just pretty much have given
up on this feeder. They've tried every where the world get into it.
They can't do it. And so if you want to see birds and not
watch squirrels, eat all your bird feed wilbirds, I love it can get
you fixed up. So tomorrow eight am, rich Eddie's going to be in
here from Wilbirds, and I hope you will give us a call and let's
talk birds during that time. I mean, I'm not the bird expert,
but Rich sure is, and so hang on. We'll be back tomorrow at
eight o'clock hour with wild Birds Unlimited. And I think you'll find it very,
very very interesting, very helpful. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four or KTRH if that makes it a little easier for you. You
know, Nitrofosts has a lot of different quality products out there. I mean,
you're gonna find just many different types of nitrofost fertilizers, and we brag
on them all the time. Here. One of the new ones, one
of the newer ones as far as the fertilizers go, is there Sweet Green
Products. Sweet Green it's a molasses based organic food. It's an eleven zero
four fertilizer come about the highest percent's nitrogen of any of any organic that you're
gonna find. Smells great. That's where the names sweet Green comes trump.
And because it's a sugar based um molasses based material, the microbes just go
crazy. You know, when you put a molastis type product on your microbes,
my gosh, they it just kicks them into high year. And when
microbes get active, it's good for plants. Microbes are breaking down organic matter,
they're releasing nutrients, they're providing substances protech plant roots. All of that's
going to happen when you get your microbes fueled and well taken care of.
And that's what sweet Green will do. Sweet Green is easy to find,
you know, the microbe type supporting materials like that. They you don't have
to hunt around for them. Everywhere nitro FoST is sold. You know,
we talk about ace Hard Restore, they're in all ace Hard restores. Talking
about our home and garden home, Mom and pop garden Center. You're going
to find them their feed stores. You're going to find it there. But
you need to check out that Sweet Green. It's really easy. It's a
gradual release over time, but it is an outstanding, outstanding fertilizer for you
to consider. You're listening to Garden Line. I am your host, Skip
Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seven four Yeah, and
skip if you're ready. We actually have Shelley out in the Lake Jackson area.
Well let's do that. Hey Shelley, how's it going out in Lake
jack How are you? I'm well, thanks? Are you? My problem
is cane that's growing up through our rock bullhead. Okay, like George,
you're talking about the Georgia kane or what do you mean by cane? I
don't know. I actually live Old Caney Creek. So it's just a green
cane, Okay, it can grow burl tall. Yeah, yeah, that's
a Georgia kane. That's a grass type plant. So any kind of a
grass like we'd killer will work on it. You can use something with glypha
said in it though you know, round up is the old common name,
but there's a lot of brands of that that will kill it. You can
use a grass only killer. There are some products that us kill grass.
They don't kill broad leaf weeds, and we use those that were flowers I
don't need I mean using broad leaf and it's not killing. Now we won't
touch it. It won't touch it. That's right. So switch over.
Switch over to everything killer like a glass saide or a grass only killer that
you know you'll find things that are They have names like grass be Gone or
over the top grass killer or things like that. Uh, and they just
go out. Well, my husband's out on his way to go get something.
So I'm giving the buzz right now him know what to get? Yeah,
where where are you located? Lake Jackson? Lake Jackson? Okay,
so you're out there the closest big town too. But yeah, so you've
got Ace hardware is out and not too far from Yeah. That that you're
gonna they're gonna carry it. They're gonna carry more than one option for you
in factory, maybe three or four options when he gets there. Awesome,
I won't tell him where to go. All right, thank you, thanks
for the call, and good luck with that. Georgia King. All right,
bye bye bye. You know, the folks at dell Weeb they know
how to build communities and they gear them toward active adults age fifty five and
better. You know you want to retire, you want to relax, but
you don't want to just go out to pasture. I mean you want you
want an active lifestyle. Well, dell Web the community has built all around
that, and even for gardeners, because the Dell Web community going in and
fullsher On it's about two miles from downtown fullsher On FM three fifty nine.
It's got a community garden, and I've been assisting them with this, and
so not only do you have all the pluses of a dell Web community which
is a mile long list, but also a community garden out there. I
don't know how you can do better than that as a gardener. Dellweb dot
com slash Houston, we'll get you more information. Give him a call to
eight one four to five nine zero six zero nine two eight one four five
nine zero six zero nine. Well, we are working our way through today
despite some technical challenges that we've had, but we're gonna go ahead and take
a break here. When I come back, we will be glad to visit
with you about whatever you're interested in. Give Josh a call or Josh,
I have to switch all right, Ryan, guests producing today, deb in
the Woodlands, Roseanne and Mission Mandera. And we have another caller that I'm
about to process. We will be with you momentarily. All right, thank
you. I have some nice happy music for today. And it's a happy
day by the way. Look outside, Wow, good weather, good weather,
good day to be outside, good day to go shopping. And you
know, if you get out there and get a chance to move around a
little bit shopping today, I can't recommend any place higher than we do.
Plans for all seasons right there. I mean, it's just two forty nine
on the way to tom Ball right at Luetta, right where Luetta comes into
two forty nine. Now, Plants for all seasons. You're familiar with them.
It's everything you would expect in a hometown mom and pop, quality,
first rate garden center. What am I talking about? When I'm talking about
staff that knows what they're talking about. You know, they've they've been doing
this a long time. They've seen a lot. In fact, there's times
and I'll call them out and go, hey, you see any chinch bugs
yet this year? And they're going to be the first to know. They
got the products that absolutely are the best things that you would use for your
plants, and they'll direct you to that. You can walk in there with
a picture, you can walk in there with a sample, what is this
weed? What do I do? They're going to take you to the things
and tell you how to do it. And that is so important to have
a garden center that knows what they're talking about, that has the products you
need, and it can accurately address them and then advise you along the way.
You know, people are always, you know, talking about, well,
I'm gonna go get you if I find some sale over here on this
or that or the other. Listen, the number one factor in a garden
center should be do they have quality plants that are in great condition? And
do they have people who can help you because you're gonna have questions. You're
gonna have questions what's wrong with this plan or what would be a good plant
to go in this area? You go to some big box store and you
know they're just gonna they don't know it. Just be honest, they don't
know what they're talking about. And I'm saying that because I ask a lot
of times. I've been to those places where you you talk to them and
the minute you ask the question, the eyes glaze over in New Realizes.
Okay, that was just wasted breath because they have no idea what they're telling
me. I was talking to someone at the big box store one time and
said, hey, you're selling products here, you know, asking them about
a product, and it was like they had no idea what they were saying.
I said, so, how long you've been working here? Well,
I've been here for a while, you know, but I was cutting hair
last week, so I've been here almost a week now. And they were
actually working in a beauty shop before that. And that's the qualification for selling
pesticides. Well that's ridiculous. I've kind of drifted off here, but it's
a tangent for me. It's a soapbox for me, Mom and Pop quality
garden Centers. Plants for All Seasons is just that. You can go online
to Plants for All Seasons dot com, or you can go give him a
call two eight one three seven six one six four six two eight one three
seven six one six for six And by the way, they just got in
a great shipment of stuff that laughs at Houston Heat, things like Lantana's,
things like vinca that I call him the Madagascar prairiewinkle, absolute heat tolerant firecracker
fern. If you ever seen those, it's not really a fern, but
it's just this big arching thing with beautiful tubular red blooms that hummingbirds love.
Blue plumbago can take the heat. Mist expires blue salvia, probably the best
single blue salvia there is. Mist expires. It's there, graffiti pentas.
I just planted some of those in a container in my backyard and they are
just looking great. Another butterfly magnet, all that plants for all seasons.
Well, I think you get the idea. I love. I love a
quality hometown garden center that knows what they're talking about. Well, let's let's
head out to the woodlands and talk to Deb. Now. Hello, Deb,
Good morning, scap. How are you well? I'm doing good?
How can we help today? Great Saturday? Out here? I'm out walking.
Hey, listen, we live on a cold of sack, and that
could of sack has some rogue lantana on it. And I have been trying
to baby these things for the longest time. Okay, I gave them a
good dose of water. They looked a little wilty on Monday, and I
gave them all a bunch of water and they nothing happened. They still looked
like wilted and the coloring is not very green. I have a huge lantana
right across the coulda stack drive that looks a thousand times better than these little
rogue guys do. And I just don't know what to do to them.
And before I end up killing them, maybe you can tell me what the
problem is. If it's not water, Yeah, that's a good question.
Lantana is pretty tough, and say, I don't worry about They're not a
hydrangea that you got to sit there with a drink of water over five minutes,
right, Lantana? You know, I don't know, something damaging the
roots. Possibly maybe the soil in that one spot is super sandy, or
you know, just drains too darn well and doesn't hoole water. Well,
I'm speculating here, but for a lantana to be wilty and not doing good,
something's wrong underground. So well, very well, dig down and feel
the soil a few inches deep and see what you think. Yeah, it's
just you know, whatever soil is in that island, the cul de Sac
island, and so then one of the neighbors I was on vacation. One
of the neighbors decided to put some black mulch on top of the whole island.
And it doesn't look like it's the kind that leaches out in the color.
Yeah, it's just but because it's black, I think it's really really
hot. I don't know. I dug down a little bit around a couple
of these things to see if I could see if they were still wet,
and they were not wet from Monday. It was yesterday. I did thought
yeah, and so yeah, it could be that they're not getting any water.
It's not running off either. Yeah, I think they need more and
the most Yeah, the black mulch will get hot, and we're where I'm
again. I hope it's not a dyed mulch. But the black most gets
hot on the surface, but it still keeps the soil cooler because as you
go down, you know, you're gonna put a two or three inches thick,
depending on what you're mulching, and it'll be hot on top, but
underneath that soil will be much much cooler than if it wasn't mulch. So
that's that in of itself is not them. I think a good deep soaking
a few times and see if they perk up and turn around. Other than
that, I don't know. I'm not familiar with a common root rod on
them. We don't have common root feeding insects that chew the roots off of
a lantanna or you know all there is good holes in them, and they're
not in the leaves and leaves. Yeah, yeah, but that's not a
wilting thing. So let's let's start with the water and give us some good
deep soakings out there and see see what you think. Can you get a
hose to them or are they not just not on your part? No,
I can't get a hole. I don't have a hose long enough. But
I do have a water in cannon. I did build up some little dams
around them, you know, so yeah, um, and and so that's
working. It's not really running off, it's soaking in. Yeah. But
they just don't look I mean, they look the same. They're not changing
at all when I give them water. And that's what's confusing me because right
across the street is my lantana and it only gets water three times a week.
For like, I don't know, eight minutes or whatever, and it
is green and humongous, and it even had a cable company run right through
the middle of it to put their line in, and I thought, oh
god, they've killed my beautiful Lantanna. But no, it has come back,
just as fears that it always does. Well. The only explanation,
tub is that you've just got a really green thumb. So yeah, now
give me some water. I think that's probably the best you can do,
if you if you don't mind looking at something ugly. What I've done before
on a plant that was out there where I couldn't water it really well,
get a five gallon bucket, drill some little tiny holes in the bottom,
and then set it on the ground, kind of move the mulch bike so
it sits on the ground. Fill up full of a half full for a
lantanna, you know, about half full in that bucket, and it'll slowly
leak that water out and that'll give the best slow wide soaking that you're going
to get. That That would be the only tip. Just tell the neighbors
not to look. Okay, all right, yeah, hey, thank you,
thank you for the call. I appreciate I appreciate that very much,
you know, talking about those mulches and stuff. If you live anywhere south
of town, Sienna Malch is the multiplace for you. I mean you go
to Sienna Mulch dot com. They're down there just north of Rose Sharon.
So for all those folks living near the brows has been State Park, Manville,
Riverstone, Fresno, Arcola, Sandy Point like Olympia, Iowa Colony.
You get the idea of Sienna Plantation. Sienna Malch Monday through Friday, seven
thirty to five, Saturday seven thirty to two, closed on Sunday, so
today is a day to get out there. They carry all the fertilizers we
talk about. If you need stone, if you need rock, if you
need bulk soil, if you need bag soil, if you need rose soil,
if you know, they have it all Sienna Malch and they deliver within
twenty miles for a small charge out in that area. Check them out.
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just watch him well.
Good morning, good Saturday morning, on a great day for gardening,
which every day is. Of course you're listening to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Hey,
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You can contact Lansdowne Moody for more information. Just go to l mtractor dot
com LM tractor dot com. Hands down, It's Lansdown and this is one
sweet ride. You got to check it out. I used to have a
little farm and had some tractor that I took care of there. It was
an old clunker that you know, I pretty much had to do magic on
it every time just to get the thing to start. I wish that l
I wish that Cabota L twenty five oh one was around and available and I
had one at that time, because that sure would have been sure it would
have been nice, made it even more of a pleasure of getting out there
and working on the place. We're gonna head out to Willis now and we're
gonna talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, good morning, Hello, Hey,
how are you? How can we help just well, I actually would
like to get rid of a plant. Its looks like a shrimp plant.
I'm not sure a gardener put it in. It's underneath a little bit under
my huge oak tree. And we tried to dig it and we done it
all out and I said, ah, it's gone, but it had such
large roots. We said, well, it's going to come back, and
it did. I mean it refilled that entire area immediately. It looks like
a shrimp plant, but it's a light pink flower. And I had a
shrimp plant before that had a coral flower and it didn't spread. But this
thing, I mean, it's it's spread blooms beautifully that I just wanted it
out, all right. So what you got have to do is you need
to broad leaf weed control product on it, a post larg if is there
anything desirable around that, like, because we don't want to kill something else
when we're killing. Well, I didn't want to kill on my oak tree.
And there's no other plants around it. Oh, there's a couple of
lilies in there, but they're okay, then go all right. So here's
what I would do. I would check around one more time around the oak
tree. Make sure there's no sucker sprouts coming out of the bottom or anything
that we'd get a spray on. Okay, the trunk. Getting the spray
on the trunk's not a problem with getting it on the other it is.
And you want to get you can get a product that contains kind of a
mixture of different broad leaf controls. There's there's a lot of them out there.
I would probably just get something that contains trichlope R t R, I,
C l O, pyr, and I would be very careful when you
spray it. And you don't want to pump up the sprayer too much because
you don't want it drifting over onto other things, because it'll kill any broad
leaf thing you get it on. If you get it on the green tissues,
you don't want to overspray it and have it drenching and dripping down into
the soil. And you know, just wet the foliage and I would spread
with that, give it some time to work. You'll see it the effects
of it, and then just cut all that back to the ground and wait.
It's probably going to reach sprout because you genuinely don't get everything with one
spray, and when it does, spray it again. But the more you
can have a small plant there coming up that you're spraying, it's better than
having something tall that you know you're spraying up higher and who knows where the
spray is going. Just be real careful with it. If you do do
it. The way I said, you won't hurt anything, but we'll hurt
the tree. That's that's the main thing. I just didn't want to hurt
my tree. No, definitely don't want to hurt your tree. Just check
for those check for those suckers or sometimes you got the little plants coming up,
and you can't do this if you've got if you're going to end up
spraying tree tree foliage you know, coming up. Yeah, Okay, yeah,
I don't want Yeah, I don't want to hurt the tree, but
I do want to get rid of it because I mean, it scupped pretty
flowers on it. But I'm tired of it. Really. Yeah, I
can't get anything else in there. Not a problem. Hey, thank you
for the call, Joe. I appreciate that very very much. Our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Now we're going
to head out to Bendera and talk to Roseanne. Roseanne, you get an
award. I wish I had a door prize for you for holding so patiently,
But thank you for hanging on. No problem, no problem, Skip.
My question is about bees and the bird bath. Okay, ever since
we've had you know, this horrible running one hundred degree weathers. I've had
more honey bees in my bird bath than ever, and I read up on
it, and I've always been worried about them drowning because I know they don't
swim. So I put some river rock in my deep bird bath and so
there's places for them to go. But one of my neighbors suggested that it
may be a problem for the bees to move on when we start any rain,
and I don't see that being a problem. I know they need water
now desperately, but I don't know if I'm if I'm building in a problem
for me later on. No, you're not, absolutely not. You're saving
bees and they desperately need the water to keep doing what they do, which
helps us with our gardens in the meantime. No, don't worry about that
when when they're they're not going to become dependent and think they have to hang
out at the bird bath. That's just a dependable source for them, which
good for you for providing them. So there isn't a problem then with birds
and bees. I mean, I've seen some birds out at my other bird
bath, but they're not going to the same bird bath that the bees are
going to, so you don't see an issue with that either, you know,
I've hadn'try thought about it in that way. I don't know. Tomorrow
I'm going to have a guy from Wall Birds Unlimited. I'm not asking that
question. I would say there's not a problem. But even if there was,
I mean, they're gonna find times to come there, and you could
anytime you give another source of moisture out there. I mean, I've seen
bee around drip irrigation lines when it's hot, a little tiny little drops of
water coming out, and that's just a great place for them to get a
drink. Anywhere they go ahead, No, I was anywhere they get water
is a good good thing, And you're right, yeah, you need they
need to be able to step on the side and reach down and get a
drink without falling in and drowning right right. Well, one of the things
I was so affrightened of is when I fill the bird baths in the evening,
I fill them twice a day because it because of the evaporation, and
I would go out there with my garden hose and skip. I have never
been stung at all these birds. I mean, these birds, these beas
deemed to under I don't know. They don't understand anything. But um,
you know, I was able to gently fill the bird bath with water and
they would buzz around me. But I tried very hard not to be frightened,
and somehow they knew I wasn't there to hurt them. That's exactly right.
Yeah, if you grabbed one, squeezed it with your hand, yeah
you crabbed talking them into biting you. But basically are stinging you? Those
bees they know they they they are not interested messing with the costs them there
if their honeybe it cost them their life to sting us, and so that
that's only protecting the colony and things. But yeah, that's a good idea.
I think I think they'll do just fine. And uh, I wouldn't
I wouldn't worry about it any further than that. Okay, thank you so
much for taking a call. Yeah, I have a quick question. Are
you listening in Lantana to the radio waves? Are you listening online? Actually
I'm not in Lantana. I'm in Mission band Oh, Mission Bend. Okay,
yeah, Lantana. That's my bad, Rosanna. I misheard you.
I'd put Bandera all right, I thought were I thought we were talking about.
I heard garden Line all the way out to Atlanto one time. I
was surprised it went that far, but I thought, well, maybe we
made bendera too or something. I don't know. No, I'm in all
mission bands all. Thanks for the call. Bet you hey, you're listening
to guard Line seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
Ryan a call, will be right back. Is gonnacause east cooloolay comes a
fool. I got a fast car, but then a sol on the pool.
But the brood is wholes for miles for my big ship because we ain't
got down to wish. Sometimes I can just get to listen into the music
and I forget I'm supposed to a radio show here. Welcome to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Rictor. We're here to answer your gardening questions.
You know, if you're looking to do some summer fertilizing in your turf,
I want to tell you about the slow and easy, Slow and Easy
from Nelson playing food. It's a twenty two two ten great ratio. There
lots of nitrogen, not much phosphorus. We don't need much phosphorus in our
lawns. If any and then the meat of the amount of potassium. The
temper potassium is a great powerhouse blend. Well, here's the thing. This
fertilizer has a design where it releases the nitrogen very gradually over time. It
doesn't just all get dumped. When you use an immediate release, you mow
more. You have shallower root systems. Believe it or not, push in
top growth at the expensive root growth is a real thing. You want to
gradual feed. You want to be able to slowly, over time feed your
plants. And that's what Nelson plant Food does. That's what the specifically the
Slow and Easy does. That's why we design things that way. That's why
they've used the science to create that kind of fertilizer because that is exactly what
your lawn needs. It's good, excellent for the gradual feed. Nelson Plantard
and Nelson's has all kinds of good stuff. They got color Star, they
got their Nutril Stars, they got their Nature Star for natural based, organic
type fertilizers, and then they have the sturf Star line. And when it
comes to summertime, slow and easy do it now, you'll be done so
fall, when it's time to fertilize again, that is an excellent product.
Let's see who do we have online right now? We got Bill Linkingwood Bill
in Kingwood? Hey Bill, good morning, how can we help today?
All right? Good morning, um, good morning. I have planted recently
a persymmetry in my backyard. I bought a yard of Nature's way rosebed soil
and built a small mound approximately a foot tall and four or five feet lander,
and I planted this Rugu persymmetry. But in the interim period, what's
happened is the grass or grass like weeds have taken over. The have taken
over the area around it. In the persymmetry seemed to be suffering from a
lack of water briga to all this grass. So I was thinking about covering
all that with maybe some landscape fabric. But the grass is so tall that
I was thinking maybe there might be some herbicide that I could use that would
kill all the grass without killing them per seminary. Yes you could, yeah,
absolutely can. So where are are you in Kingwood? Or you north
southeast and west? Which direction? I'm right on Lake Houston? Oh,
right on last? Okay, so you've got a yard My backyard is Lake
Houston. Okay, Well, You've got a couple of great Ace hardwarees out
there that are going to carry what I'm about to tell you. One is
a K and M Ace hardware. They're right there on Kingwood Drive in Kingwood,
and then Timber Forrest Drive down in Humble is a tesscaseda ACE hardware.
Both of them are going to have the grass only killers. And these there's
two different ingredients, one or the other in depending on the product that will
both kill grass without killing broadleaf plants, which your percenton is a broad leaf
plant. And one of them has something calls a foxy deem and it just
look for the first letters set h X if you if you see that s
is in sam s et like the boys name seth o x y seth ox.
That's that's one. The other one begins with f l U A Z
flu as. No other chemicals are going to begin with those two names though.
The grass only. But if you go into a good Ace hardware like
the TESK c A s Arcane I'm up on Kingwood Drive, they're gonna both
be able to provide you with what they carry that's a grass only and it's
gonna have one or the other those two chemicals follow the label careful go ahead
fethoxy and su l u a z f l f l u flu like like
you got the flu. But you don't even need to know those. If
you say grass only, they're gonna take you to it. And here's what
you need to do. Uh. If I if it were mine it was
taller, I'd probably mow it down and then water it. You want it
to get actively growing. If it's in drought, stress products do not kill
it as well. But when the grass is actively growing, these things will
take it down really really well. Yeah, last breaker says, we got
that. Well it's happy. Well, let's disappoint it by spraying them with
one of those two things. All right, okay, all right, thank
you for your home for you, bet, Thank you, Bill, thank
you. I appreciate that you'll. Bill's talking about a sprinkler system around a
tree, and I should have mentioned this to him when I was talking to
him. But a tree hugger makes a sprinkler that goes right around a tree.
And it's like, imagine just a little kind of C shaped thing with
a hinge on it where you put it up to the trunk and twist bend
it and it goes around like a circle around the trunk. They've got a
little seven inch diameter eleven inch fifteen inch. Here's why I like the tree
hugger. You hook it up to your hose. You set the little valve
on the tree hugger and you sor turn your water on and you can make
it water. You can make it just squirt up about two or three inches
high. Like I see. You've got a brand new woody ornamental, a
shrub or a tree or a vine, and you just want to water that
root cylinder and a little beyond it. It'll do that. You can turn
it up a little bit more and it'll water wider, and as the tree
gets bigger and bigger, you just increase the watering area and you get the
darn thing to survive. You know, the summer is a hard time on
a new tree, shrubber, vine, treeck or sprinkler is a very inexpensive
insurance policy. You can go to tree Hugger sprinklers dot com, find a
retailer near you, or I can just tell you this way if it's a
nice hard riff. It's one of our mom and pop garden centers of as
many of the feed stores. They're going to have that tree hugger there for
you. Really good to go, We're gonna head back out to the phones
now this time we're going to go to West University and we're going to talk
to Charlie. Well, hello, Charlie, how are you today? I'm
good. I've got some tree roots from a very large tree my front yard.
Okay, coming tree roots coming through a crack in my driveway. Yeah,
it goes, goes all the way across the dri driveway. Yeah.
I wanted to chop them out, but my wife says, well, it
might hurt the trees, right, I said, well, I'll call I'll
call a skip rictor. Yeah. Well it's it's also it's also lifting up
the drive or the sidewalk a little bit there or the driveway whichever I'm seeing
in the picture there. Uh. So you can go to wherever it enters
that crack in the in the driveway or the sidewalk or wherever you're finding these
roots, and you can just dig down and cut them right there. That's
okay. Now, if you cut half the roots on the tree, that'd
be a big problem. But just taking out this one route that's going through
the crack. Uh. That is something that you can go ahead and do.
It's not gonna be an easy job dig down and cut it, but
that's that's probably what you gotta do because it's fixing to do some major lifting
on that sidewalk or driveway. Yeah, that's it. That's the driveway.
Does it does go all the way across the driveway? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean you could. You could hire somebody, you know, call H
Martin spend more an affordable tree. You have him come out and look at
it. He may tell you, you know what, I can put a
trench in there, and I can put a barrier in there that forces those
roots to go down and under rather than to go right underneath. Because when
a little rout goes underneath and then it grows in diameter, that's how we
get in the situation. We get in here, and so it's a you
know, it's only going to get worse. So I think I would deal
with it um and either cut that one out of yourself, or you know,
have Martin come out and do a consult and say what would it cost
to put a barrier in here and then have a more long term solution.
Either way, Okay, yeah, I like the idea of the barrier.
But yeah, but my wife wanted to take the three hundred years old.
It's a very big tree. One of the pictures. Oh wow shows the
tree too. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Uh yeah, beautiful, beautiful
tree. Uh. Let's take care of it, because that that thing is
worth a lot of money to the value of the home. You know,
it gives shade and just a lot of benefits. So I think it's it's
worth doing a little bit to invest in it and make sure it's around for
another one hundred years longer than you and I'll go around. Yeah, well
hundred maybe too long and wait it's old. Okay, all right, thank
you very much. All right, thank you for the call. I appreciate
that call very much. If you live in the you know, the kind
of north central downtown area of Houston, your home down feed stores, Quality
Feed, Quality Feed and Gardens Center. I mean all the folks up in
the heights and just all around in there. I used to go to Quality
Feed when there are another location downtown. They've now moved if you're not aware
of this, but they've moved to eighteen thirteen Luzon Street. That's near the
intersection of Equipment and Illusion and Quality Feeds open Monday through Friday, nine am
to six pm, so you can head buy there on the way home from
work every day if you want. Today Saturday's nine am to four pm and
tomorrow Sunday eleven thirty am to four pm. It's been a tradition in Houston
since nineteen twenty eight. Kenn and Chris owned it for thirty two years now.
And I mean they all the fertilizers I talk about, they've got them
there. All the soils I talk about, they've got them there. Do
you have backyard chickens, You need to know quality feed. I don't care
where you live, because they're getting chickens in about every two weeks, the
new chicks coming in. They've got the feeds, the feeders, all the
stuff that you need. You want to source a local honey that's quality feed,
pet foods, everything you would expect from a feed store. Anything your
plants and need, from fertilizers to soils, to compost to multis to pesticides,
to herbicides to fungicide, all of it at Quality feed. Go to
Quality feed coo dot com, Quality feedco dot com. Ken and Chris have
really created a wonderful hometown feed store. You are fortunate if you live anywhere
near that area. But again, if you're looking for the backyard chickens,
that is the place you need to go all through the year. All right,
we are going to be heading to a break here a little bit.
I did talk about about one thing though. If you're putting new transplants in
the ground, some people have callida. They're talking about planning this or planting
that you need to be aware of. Has to grow six twelve six.
Has to grow six twelve six got a high phosphorus content which is important for
root development and for flower development. And this has to grow contains the NPK
the six twelve six, but it also has medinas oil activator, stimulant,
biological activity. It's got humic acid, it's got seaweed extracts. You can
use it for a fold of your feet. It's not going to burn your
plants. I like to mix it in water and drench it in with new
transplants. Do it when you plant, do it five days later, do
it again five days later. Has to grow will get your plants off to
a good start. Has to grow six twelve six plant Food. Well,
good morning. You're listening to garden Line and I am your host, Skip
Rictor. We are here to talk gardening and we are gonna jump right on
it. We got a bunch of calls that are holding, and so we're
gonna see how many of those we can get through this morning. Elizabeth out
in Tomball, how are you this morning and how can we help? I
am doing well. So my question is that I have a very persistent one.
I think it's pepper vine growing between my sidewalk and some landscape break.
Okay, and I cannot pull it up. I should try I cut it.
I've done everything I could see right, so I'm hoping, and of
course it's right by the front door. Yeah, so I'm hoping I can
learn kind of how to kill it or get rid of it permanently. Okay,
we can do that. I'm kind of talking about this a lot today.
But there's a product ingredient called trichlopier t R I c l O p
y R. When we're dealing with anything that's a shrub tree or vine we're
trying to get rid of, whether it's poison ivy or pepper vine or Hackberry's
coming up in the fence line or tricyle pier is the way to go.
You can buy it. It's sold in many brands, It'll say. Often
brands say something like a brush control or poison ivy killer or something like that.
The triklopier is the one that you were looking looking for, and you're
up there in tom Ball. I'll bet you you can find that at Arburgate.
I bet Beverly at Arburgate is going to have some of that. I'll
bet you that DND down down the road there and tom Ball is also going
to be a place where you're going to be able to find the tricyle per
Okay, is this something I have to use the baggy method more? Or
is this just painted on? And so if it were a little like a
little mini tree coming up in the fence line, I would say cut it
off and paint the stump but on on the pepper vine. If you can
just paint it along the vine themselves, like where they come out of the
ground, just slathered on. I'll put a little bit of like a cooking
all canola oil or corn oila or something like that from the kitchen in with
the trichopier because it makes it stick. Farmers use a rancher version of that,
and they put diesel oil in it for the same reason. They makes
a little diesel because it makes it stick to the stem of the brush.
They're trying to kill it in the pasture. So anything you can do like
that. You can paint it on the outside. And if analyss it's just
a real thick plant with real thick bark on it, that the stem treatment
will work just fine. You don't have to cut it off. Yeah,
try just be careful because it's a brush killer. You know, you don't
want to drench plant. You don't want to like soap the soil with it
because it can cause damages. But when you use it, I try to
avoid the spraying just because of drifts. So I like that just painting it
right on there. I get me one of those little phone brushes from the
you know, the paint store, you know, the little phone brushes on
a wooden handle, and just dip it in that and paint it right on
there. Okay, thank you so much. All right, thank you.
I appreciate that call Elizabeth very much. Let's go out to Cyprus now and
talk to Diane. Hello, Dianne, how can we help Hi? I've
got several questions I need to ask you about concerns about our yards. Okay,
our neighbor next door they have an area out front that started turning really
yellow and it's kind of moving towards it into our yards. That very likely
probably chinch bugs. I mean, we've really struggled trying to keep our yard
has been beautiful because we've lost parts of our yard and that previous draft had
replaced some of our grass and everything looks so good, and we're concerned about
that and what we should do to treat I know that one time you mentioned
about that. I think it's a Texas Data and part of culture, a
lab that you can send the sample into. And should we do that or
should we go ahead? And do you think it's probably chinch bugs? Okay,
I think it's probably not. It could be chinch bugs. That chinch
bugs Usually you've got green grass, it just starts to dry up. It
may have a little yellowing to it as it does that, but generally it
dies pretty quick. As the chinch bugs move out and attack further and further
out into the grass. It could be something called take a whole root rot.
And I think if you wanted to go online and look up what chinch
bugs look like. They're about an eighth of an inch long. The adults
are black and white. The young or kind of have a kind of a
reddish brick red color to them, with a white band on their back.
You can get on your hands and knees, get down in there and look
for them. Or you can do this, go to the zone between healthy
and dead, not the green, not the brown, but the yellow,
and get a get some dish detergent, you know, just any kind of
a like your washing dishes at the sink. Put about a tablespoon into a
gallon of water, and you probably need about two gallons of water. But
in a watering can drench it over about a three by three square yard area
and then get the other gallon and drench it over the same area. And
then just watch if your chinch bugs in there, they will come crawling up
on top. You won't have to dig down to find them. That irritates
it, and that would be a tast If you want to do the sample,
you want to go um, let's see, you want to go to
the State Plant Clinic and it's called plant Clinic dot t A m u dot
e edry. You kind of treat out there for a minute and stay plank.
Here's the website plant Clinic. That's one word, dot t A m
U dot e d u. If you will hang on, I will have
Ryan get with you and give you an email address. And what I'm going
to send you is a link to a video I did on YouTube telling them
how to take a proper turf sample. And you need to take the rock.
You need to send them sick turf, not healthy turf, and not
dead turf. They can't do autopsies at the lab that they can do diagnoses,
and so uh, just let me put you, put you on holden
and I ask you. Wanted to ask you one other quick flakes and how
often in this heat? I mean one of the things we were going to
do at the end of June, we were scheduled to do our fertilizing,
but we were concerned about doing that with this extreme heat, that it might
burn our yard, even though we tried to water as much, you know,
because we haven't had any rains. So what do you what do you
suggest about that? Uh, you should fertilize you should fertilize at the right
rate and you will not burn the grass. When you fertilize, then immediately
water down, get your body okay, you know, about a half inch
irrigation or something on it, and get it watered in. It'll just do
fine. If your grass is needing fertilizing, if you hadn't fertized last summer,
this would be a time to go and get that done. Okay,
since I know we're trying to mow just like every two weeks, even though
our grass gets a little bit high. Yeah, and we kept cut it
high to be since we're trying to preserve it as best we can. That's
all. That's all good. It's all good, So just keep that.
But okay, but when you fertilize, take the first number on the bag
of whatever you buy. Take the first number and divide it into one hundred,
and that tells you how many pounds of that fertilizer to apply to a
thousand square feet. So you can do a length times width and figure out
how big your lawn is. And let's just say I'm gonna make up make
up a thing here. Okay. Let's say that what you purchased had about
twenty is the first number. Twenty goes in one hundred five times five times
twenty as one hundred, So you would need five pounds of that fertilizer per
thousand square. So you can do that with fertilizer you buy. It tells
you how much to put out. Okay, well great, okay, Now
you're gonna switch me over to your information. Yeah, John, put you
on hold and Josh will get you the email. Send me an email or
tell you know. Josh will give you my email. He'll send. Yeah,
he'll tell you what to do. All right, all right, I'll
tell you what. I'm gonna take a break here. I want to tell
you about org Lawn. Now. You have heard me talk, i'm sure
many times about green Pro. Green Pro's a great summer service. They do
a lot of the core aeration and compost top dressing. Well. Green Pro
has change their name to org Lawn now and they do that still, but
they also do organic lawncare in general. Maybe you need fertilizers or micronutrients or
bug prevention. If you will call and tell them you are a garden line
caller, they have a garden line special twenty nine nine nine twenty ninety nine
plus tax will get you whatever they think you need most as a liquid feed.
For example, maybe you do need a fertilization, or maybe you need
an addition of micronutrients, or maybe you need to do insect prevention. Whatever
you need, that's what they'll do for twenty nine ninety nine. Now they
are putting out seaweed. They're putting out bug prevention for a lot of people
out here in the heat of summer. This will cover up to ten thousand
square feet of grass. And if you go over ten thousand, it's gonna
cost a little bit more, but I mean ten thousand a lot of a
lawn area. They serve Katie Cypress, Houston, Sugar Line, Richmond.
They use as many organic inputs as possible to keep your lawn looking good.
Here's the number. Write this down eight three two three five one zero zero
three two or just go to org lawn dot com. Anybody grew up in
the seventies. I bet you've heard that one before. How you're listening to
garden Line, I'm your host, Skipper Richer, and we're hearing to answer
your gardening questions. You know, I want to tell you about the Enchanted
Forest update, that's what I'm calling it, at least today, Ended Forest.
If you're on the Richmond area, it's one of the outstanding garden centers
you have a chance to go to down there. Chanted Forest is one if
you're heading up toward a kind of sugarland direction off to the right, just
south of fifty nine. One of the things I like about Enchanted Forest is
the beautiful trees. I mean, when you're talking about shopping in the summer
and you want to be able to walk through a beautiful shaded area that is
inspiring, and all the plants that they have and everything, and it's you're
enjoying the shade of the trees. Right. That's Chanded Forest. But they
have everything. They have every kind of plant you can imagine. They have
all kinds of things to go with your plants, the supplies, the products
we talk about here on garden Line. But they just seem to be knocking
it out of the park when it comes to things for butterflies and things for
pollinators. It is amazing the number of adult attracting plants and the number of
larval food sources. For example, they've got the white vane Dutchman's pipe.
The arrists lookia I embriata. It's kind of a groundcover like thing. It's
a perennial groundcover. It's about six twelve inches high, about two three feet
wide, and the pipine swallowtails just go nuts on it. In fact,
you need to buy a number of these because when the butterflies come in,
they're gonna chomp away their larva are but that's how you get an adult butterflies
to have a larval food source. You can use it to groundcover in a
shady area. You can put in a hanging basket. It works really really
well. Now when you go to Enchanted for us, you have knowledgeable staff.
You know, Danny and Clay are they're on site, they're walking through,
they're talking to you, they're helping you. All their staff they take
the time to help you because they know that for you to have success,
that's the goal. A happy customer takes a good quality plant home, knows
how to take care of it and knows how to use it, knows how
to they help you pick the plants that fit the area that you need.
And I mean that's just the way to do it, and they do it
right. There at Enchanted for Us, so check them out Enchanted for Us.
You can find them on a Facebook. They got a great way facebook
page. Lots of good information on there, but Enchanted Forest definitely worth a
visit. We're gonna head out to the phones now. I believe We're gonna
start in Space Center and talk to Becky. O, Becky, here are
you this morning? I'm good? Can you hear me? I can?
What's up? We'll have a greenhouse and I've learned to not overwater, but
because I have overwatered, my leaves are yellow. And is there anything I
should do to help them greener? Leave them alone, let them dry out,
Let it dry out a little bit, keep it moist. I mean,
you know it's touching. Go you don't want to SAGGI what you don't
want to dry? But let it dry a little bit and it should be
fine. You know, in this intense heat, sometime in a greenhouse it
just gets way hotter than it is outside. I know you may have some
good ventilation, but sometimes it's hard to keep up on a hot day.
And if it just excellent, excellent ventilation. And my husband put a fan
in there on top of that, so that's I'm going to know, are
there certain plants I have in there that should be outside. I have a
cover over the greenhouse that came with a greenhouse, and it's wonderful, but
I have onions in there and they died. And I don't know if it's
because I overwatered or what. It's because it's summer. The onions in the
garden are dying too. They can they can't take the heat. Yeah,
okay, what about cucuvers and Zucchini's same thing too darn hot. It's just
about time to plant those again for fall. So I would say once we
get into probably cucumber, zucchini, Yeah, sometime in August, we would
go ahead and put those in seeds and get them going. So then when
it finally cools off, you know they have they're ready to go and set
fruit. Yeah. Just two blakest okay, So okay, what about okay,
two more things? You see milk peppers keeping Yeah, yellow squash is
like zucchini. So what I said about cucumbers applies to yellow peppers. Keep
the plants going, fertilize them, watering, and get them bigger and bigger,
because when fall comes, they are going to set again very well,
and you'll have a bigger plant and a lot more peppers to hang on it
as a result. Okay, all right, all right, I appreciate it.
Thank you so very much. Great, have fun with that greenhouse.
Let's head out to Sugarland now and talk to Neil. Hey, Neil,
how are you this morning? I'm doing pretty well. Thanks. I've got
a summer question, I think to the last one. I've got an indoor
hydroponic seed start and I'm looking to get cherry tomato seeds. I want to
get them started in corner for a fall crop. And most of seem to
say about seventy five days more or less, you know, from I guess
when you you know, plan them to when they actually mature and produced fruit.
So, with all that in mind, or if you've got a better
idea than that estimate, what's a good what's a good time to start indoor
hydroponic seeds for a trade commit fall crop? Today? Today is a good
day. You can do it for the next couple of weeks if you want.
But as as we get into fall, you know, we have these
things like seventy five days to harvest, like you mentioned, Well, that's
seventy five days of the right kind of weather. When we get into fall
and the day length gets shorter and it starts to get a little bit cooler,
uh, it drags things out, and so it takes more than seventy
five days. So we don't want to delay. We'd like to get a
plant up and growing and blooming so that when the weather breaks enough to actually
get some good set on it, then we're ready to go. Now,
you said the ground, Well, I mean, I'm just I've got some
already going, yeah, and big enough to pot, but I'm afraid to
put them out in this heat. Okay, So you're gonna plant them outdoors?
You're just starting them indoors? Is that I'm starting the seeds indoors?
And then when they said hydroponic, seems they go they start up fairly fast.
Point we need to put them in a peat pot. You know,
I'm gonna get ready to put them in the ground. But yeah, I've
got something really that they've got on peat pots that I started too late for
the spring there, but I'm kind of wondering where you should even put them
out in the sun. And it's kind of weather, Yeah, it's it's
a little tough to go directly out in the full sun. If you can
get them a really bright area. They need plenty of sunlight to grow and
do well. But if you can make it morning as opposed to late day
shade or late day sun. You know, from two to five PM is
the worst part of the day, and so if you avoid the sun on
that put them under a shade cloth or whatever, that's fine. But yeah,
you do need to get them growing and just get them and as big
of a container as you can. For example, a lot of times we
start our tomatoes and a little six packs or maybe four inch pots. Well,
in the heat we've got, they need to be in a gallon pot.
They need more soil to draw moisture from, or you're just not gonna
be able to water them enough. You're gonna forget for a while and it
sets them back, and so you don't want them to ever look back once
they hit the ground. You want them to keep going. Okay, good
advice. Alrightny, all right, thank you very much. Hey, go
fun out there and trigger line with those tomatoes. All right, we're gonna
go now to Tom in Baytown. Tom, how's it going, and how
can we help. Oh, everything's going just fine, Sarah, Thank you.
Rose of Sharon. Yes, I've got bright green leaves, an acceptable
amount of flowers for the amount of blazing sunlight. The branches are like they're
made out of rubber, and the whole thing is laying on the ground.
A Rose of Sharon has soft branches. Yes, I brought this thing home
from Michigan about twelve years ago. It's always had that problem, gross to
make flowers, that the branches just aren't strong enough to hold it up.
Yeah. Well they had that big freeze last fall yea and or last winter,
and I had to cut it short. And now the ranches aren't growing
at all, and it well, we're about to run out of show here.
So I'm gonna give you my best, my best quick answer, but
I'm gonna put you on hold when i'm done with that, and I want
ran to give you an emails. I need to see pictures of it from
a distance, and I need to see pictures up close, check them that
they're in focus before you send them to me, because I need good sharp
focus too. And I'll be I'll be glad to help you. It could
be a number of different things. Sometimes when we overdo the nitrogen, we
get a lot of succulent growth that can get a little floppy on us.
That is one possibility that could be causing that kind of growth. Rose of
Sharon. You know, normally it makes a pretty good upright bush and it
doesn't do what I'm hearing you describe. So let me see some pictures of
it in that way and give you much more intelligent answer. All right,
all right, here we go. Well, we're gonna get Tom's information offline
here so we can help him a little bit further. Hey, you've been
listening to garden Line. We are here every Saturday and every Sunday from six
am to ten am. Tell your neighbors about garden Line, especially that one
they won't take care of his yard. Maybe if he listens a little bit
can help him out. We'll be in the nosy neighbor instead of you just
kind of, you know, put him onto us. Here. You can
listen to garden Line of course on KTRH on the air seven forty am.
You can also listen to us by podcast if you got the iHeart Media,
whatever kind of podcast app you got, you can find garden Line and you
can listen to it if you've got friends that live outside the area. We
had three collars from out of state last weekend. We're glad to help.
Just tell them about Garden Line, tell them to find it on podcasts.
Maybe I talked about a product on a show and you can't remember what that
was, Well, go online, listen to the podcast, and you can
rehear the previous shows. Talk to you next day or tomorrow.