KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Ricord's crazy just watch him
as Wood us so many pleas to see clubs back kicking. Well. Good
Sunday morning, looking out the window. It is dark outside. Look out
your window and check your neighbor's house, see if there's any lights on.
If not, go back on the bang on the door and tell them they're
missing garden Line. They will rise up and call you bless it. Actually
today they'll rise up and call you something else. But eventually they will be
so appreciative if you're turning them on the garden line. We are here to
talk gardening with you today, and by the way, thanks for listening.
I'm always glad to have folks willing to get up in the morning and enjoy
a little bit of time visiting about all kinds of things gardening, and that's
what we're here for. I was at a restaurant yesterday and when I got
out of the car to walk across the parking lot, there was this big
area of just weeds, just you know, whatever nature had planted. There
is what was growing. But I noticed this flat carpet and it was it
was just growing in a totally unwatered, weedy spot. But it was coming
over the parking lot asphalt. It was like two feet over the parking lot
asphalt and the little white flowers on it, and I thought, I saw,
I knew what it was, and I just had to said, I
gotta go check this out. And sure enough, it was a something called
frog fruit. Now, frog fruit is a little it's a groundcrever. You
know. We call things weeds because they're growing where we don't want them,
right, Saint Augustine grass and a corn patch is weed. Okay, So
weed, just me is two things determined weeds. Number one, our opinion
what we want, hint, and number two is it growing in the place
we want it to or not? And so anyway, so this little frog
fruit weed, which I've seen all my whole life kind of been impressed with
as a groundcover, it was just coming right over the parking a lot of
me. It's one hundred degrees outside. I don't know where they were getting
water. I don't know how it was surviving, but boy, did it
ever look good. I need to post that to our Facebook page. Take
a look at it. But it's you know, it's a native it's a
native weed, and it just does does super super well. Here. One
of the reasons that people like native plants is that they just know how to
survive where we are. I mean, they've had to live through this.
You know. We act like summer is the first summer we've ever had every
year when we moan and complained about how hot it is, and boy,
it sure did get hot early this year. And I understand the complaint.
I do it myself. But the fact is, when plants and native plant,
most likely it's able to survive in the conditions we have, unless we
just go into one of those record never happened before kind of years, which
I don't want to do that anymore. So anyway, talking about this frog
fruit, because it's so darn tough. It makes an excellent ground car I
was driving through I don't remember what part of Houston. Somebody had used it
along the side of their yard beside the street and their privacy fence, just
as the groundcover, and it was beautiful. It stays low and it's the
little white flowers are kind of interesting. They're very helpful to beneficial insects.
I do know that, so that's another reason to grow it. And you
know you're gonna find native plants at places that specialize in them. I mean
everybody has a few, but some people really stock up in it. And
that well, an example that would be Buchanan's Nursery done in the Heights.
They' that is what they're about. I mean, they love love native plants.
Now, don't get me wrong. If you want beautiful house plants,
if you want vegetables or herbs or fruit trees, it's all there. They
got it all. But boy are they good when it comes to natives.
And I just was looking today. They had a They have a number of
shrubs that they're featuring that attract birds. And this is a time of year
when we think about hummingbirds, for example, the plants that hummingbirds like.
And there are a lot of great plants, and I've sit here just for
an hour naming hummingbird plants. But when it comes to shrubs, you know,
things like coral berry, things like beauty berry, things like Yopon holli,
even those are There are a number of awesome plants, very beautiful,
and sometimes they are natives, but there's selections that have been made out of
them. Like there's a Saratoga gold yopon, so instead of the red berries,
it has kind of a golden berry on it, very pretty, really
attractive, And I think you need to consider as you're doing your landscaping.
You can have a plant there. It's green, you enjoy it's a shrub,
but why not also get the benefit out of it of attracting birds into
the yard. Birds that are going after those berries. And so, anyway,
just kind of some random thoughts here. And by the way, if
you've never been to Buchanans, it's on Eleventh Street and the Heights. You
can go to Buchanans with an s at the end. Buchanans Plants dot com
find out more information about them. But I like wandering through that to you
one thing on a day like today, I appreciate the garden centers with a
big old tree and them because it allows you to get a little bit of
shade when you're shopping. It makes it downright pleasant. You know, we've
kind of acclimated and accepted that here we are in summer. Just remember this
fall is coming and planting season is already here for fall. What do I
mean by that, Well, I mean tomato plants. It's time to put
your tomato plants out, pepper plants, things like that. Many things in
the vegetable garden that are warm season are going in now so they can ripen
in the cooler day as a fall And now's the time to start transplants.
If you want to buy some broccoli seed and start your own broccoli, well,
this is a time to get it done. So when those transplants are
ready to go in the weather's kind of broken a little bit, just go
and enjoy it. It's really easy to do, really easy to do.
Lots of tasks out there in the garden this time of year. I know
it's hot, but hey, that's why we have morning times when it's cooler.
And you know, even late day, once you get the sun baking
down off of you, you can get out and get a lot more stuff
done. It's just good to be outside. If you haven't fertilized your lawn
this summer, you need to get that done. For sure. We're about
to head into the fall season. We'll where we will put our fall fertilizers
on. But right now would be a good time for something like Nitrophost's product
Sweet Green. Sweet Green is an organic products about eleven percent nitrogen, and
I think it's great. It about eleven percent is a lot for an organic
product. Organic things tend to be a little lower in concentration than that.
It's pretty high. But it's a it's a molasses based product through a microbial
interaction. They've created the combination of natural molasses and then microbes. They've made
this fertilizer that just as rocket fuel for the microbes. Because microbes love sugars,
especially the bacteria for example ten of ice seats and let's see what else.
Archaeas and other microbe loves sugars. So when you put this on,
you kick them into high gear. And when you've got happy microbes in the
soil, you're gonna have happy plants, in this case, your lawn.
Now, where do you get sweet Green, Well, where do you get
the whole panoply of nitrovost products. You're gonna get them pretty much everywhere.
All our ice hardware stores, good feed stores, a lot of our home
and garden centers, most of those we talk about here are going to carry
nitrovost products. So it's really easy to find. But if you want to
get a bag, go ahead and get that done. Get it done now.
It'll be available fairly quickly in this particular form of this product, and
then you'll be ready to go. A few months from now, we're gonna
be talking cool season and you'll be ready to go for that. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give me
a call, Josh and get you on the board and we'll be talking to
you. First thing. You know, good Sunday morning. You are listening
to garden Line and we're here to talk about gardening. This would be a
good time to grab a cup of coffee, sit down, let your eyes
waken up, waken up, wake up, and we can I don't know
what's your questions. We want to talk about lawns, you want to talk
about shrubs and trees, or I love talking about plants that attract birds.
I just think that's a win win just doing that a minute ago, but
that it just makes sense. Think about your garden out there. Your garden
is a multi sensory enjoyment. Look, we were made to be in a
garden. We just it is in our genes to be in nature. Now,
maybe you're not the gardener who just dreams about getting up digging in the
dirt and playing and all that. But I can tell you whoever you are,
being in nature matters. That's why in Japan, forest bathing is so
big of a deal. Just getting out. What does that mean? Well,
by the way, just in case your brain doesn't go to the wrong
place, it means just walking through the forest, just walking through and just
soaking in nature and getting all the junk cleared out of your head and being
part of that. And gardening is that way. So again, even the
non gardeners out there, by the way, we're trying to convert you.
Even the non gardeners out there can recognize it when you go out early in
the morning and you hear the song of birds, when you smell a fragrance
floating across the air that's coming from one of your plants. Do you see
what I'm saying. Of course, there's the aesthetic, the visual, but
it's all part of creating an environment that affects so many parts of your body.
I'm truly serious about this. Your brains benefits to everything from kids with
add to adults of dementia. We're talking about physical benefits, and we're just
talking about that peace of mind, blood pressure, all the different factors that
are part of our health. Gardens are the answer. They really are.
They really make a very very big difference. And that's why we encourage people
to create that kind of oasis, that's their little corner of Eden. And
it'll be different for everybody. Some people want cactus and rocks, some people
want azaleas and ferns. Some people want just stuff you can eat, vegetables
and fruit and herbs. But most people want a little of a lot of
things. And that's what we're here to help you with. We're going to
head out to Belair and talk to David first thing this morning. Hello David,
Hey, how are you doing well? Thank you? So boxworld,
box would decline overwatering, underwatering. I don't know what my problem is.
I have a whole bunch of box with that are suffering there. Unfortunately,
I had to put in a new lawn and flower beds and prepared my soils,
got a mixture of composts and such, and I'm trying to keep these
things looking good. But talk talk about how can I make but some of
them are browning out and neighbor. My neighbor next door has a line of
a couple of hundred feet of it that some of them are telling me about
it. Okay, So, and the browning is a random here and there
down through a group of shrubs or is it like one shrub turns completely browned
and then another one turns completely browned? Both unfortunate. I had a line
of one gallon a right, said, I put it had about six months
ago, and they started spurs, okay, and then so, so here's
what's going on. There's things in your control and there's things not in your
control. What's not in your control would be a soil disease like a fusarium
verticilium, one of those fungal wilts of the soil that gets in and kills
the plant. You're not going to protect against it very well. It's just
going to happen. And that's unfortunate. But that's one of the one of
the things that boxwood can come to. Another one is nematodes if your soil
is very sandy, especially but not only nematodes can get on a boxwood,
and there's not a cure for that. But you would see that when you
wash soil out from around the roots, and you see little knots all over
the roots that would be nematotes. The things you can control are watering too
much water or not enough. Both are not good, so you don't boxwoods
don't want to be in a swamp where their roots can't get oxygen. But
at the same time, they are especially fairly newly planted when don't have an
extensive roots system, and you've got to water that little cylinder you put in
the ground, you know, for a long time, not just that spot,
but you've got to make sure that stays moist because that's where all the
roots are right after planting, and it may be months down the line before
they're really getting some roots out and becoming a more resilient plant. So that's
that's kind of the thing through the watering. Uh it's a little touching go
early on. But too wet, too dry is what's in your in your
control. Well, my dads are it's not swampy, want to put it
that way, in the well drained okay, and I'm watering every day,
okay, but you know they don't stay to too wet Okay, But uh
so there's no thought no fun drench or applications. Not for those fungal wilts
that I mentioned. Uh, there's just not a good control for those.
There's some types of fungi we can do a fungal drench for, but I
think we just got to be real sure we're finding the right thing that's causing
the problems with them. Uh So with the with the yopons and the watering.
You know, it's always hard to tell people how often to water,
how long to run it because ever irrigation systems different, ver soils different.
But I would dig down, yeah, and a well dig down about four
or five inches. Just feel the soil and you don't have to do that
every type of water. Just kind of get a fuel for where are you
and you'll know when you reach down there and feel the soil, especially near
the roots system. And again, just to reiterate, a plant that hasn't
been in more than a few months, it still has quite a limited root
system around the base of that plant, So the watering target is more around
the base of the plant. Then then it gradually moves out to making sure
the whole bed stays well. That's pretty much what I would have to offer
on that boxwood David, I you know, I know it's it's frustrating,
but that that is something we're dealing with. There's there's other diseases. I
think you mentioned boxwood blight that's out there. There's a lot of things it
could be. But when it really boils down to it, putting them in
a good soil and keeping it adequately moist is pretty much what's in your control.
Well, so are there places I can take around out camples to have
them technically tested to see it or the stol What is in what would be
in your control would be when a plant is dying and it's like this,
I've lost half the plant, dig it up and send it to the state
plant Clinic up in College Station, and there's a fee that goes with that.
But if you'll write down in this address it's Plant Clinic dot T A
MU dot E d U, and just follow their instructions for how to package
it. You can drive it up, you can mail it up, whatever
you want to do and they will get it in. They'll they'll culture it
out on a Petri dish under a microscope and determine exactly what it is and
if something can be done they'll they'll tell you, I'm gonna have to leave
it at that. I need to run. But thank you, bet,
thank you for the call. Appreciate that a lot. If you are,
if you're happen to be out in the League City area, we're talking about
South you know, Southea, Houston, your hometown feed stores, League City
Feed, League City Feed West and Sister Madison Thunderberg have been running League City
Feed for a while now, you know, it began over forty years ago.
But Leak City Feed is open Monday through Saturday from nine am to six
pm. They're closed on Sunday. They're going to carry the stuff that we
recommend, all the fertilizers, they carry, soils, and then of course
they have a great selection of different kinds of pesticides. You might need,
herbicides, fungicide and secticide, premium pet foods. If you're into backyard chickens,
they've got what you need down there for your backyard chickens, from feed
and feeders and waterers and everything. But the chickens. I say, so,
League City, Clear Lake City, I'll come into real San Leone Bay,
Cliff Webster, all that region. League City Feed. That's your hometown
Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. If you want
to give him a call to eight one three three two one six one two.
You're listening to the guard line this morning. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. I am in the process of setting up a visit
out to the new Dell Web community, which is in Full Shirts on Highway
three fifty nine, a couple of miles from downtown Full Shirt, and the
reason is I'm helping them with a community garden that they've got going in.
Now, if you know anything about Dell Web, you know they design communities
for active adults age fifty five and better, lifestyle programs built around you,
beautiful homes, beautiful walk trails and paths, and now on top of it
all, wow, a community garden. I mean, that's like the icing
on the cake right there, in my opinion, and I would say in
a lot of years too. Because you're listening to a gardening show. Dellweb
dot com slash Euston will get you more info, or you can call two
eight one four five nine zero six zero nine find out more about that Dell
Web difference. I can't wait to get out there and see how things are
going and visit with them a little bit more about this stuff that's going on
out yet at the new community. Always exciting to have a new community coming
along like that. I'm going to talk about a number of different things today.
I guess we'll need to talk about the weather and the heat and all
kinds of stuff like that. You know, speaking of weather and heat,
if you're in the market for a new roof, maybe your roofs get a
little bit older, maybe you've had some damage done to it, you need
to call the folks at Brinkman Brinkman Roofing. And why do I say that,
Well, because when you hire anybody to do work on your home,
what do you want? You want a reasonable price, you want honesty,
and you want work done right, and you want it done in a timely
way. And that all is Brinkman. They've been here fifty years. You
don't stick around for fifty years without doing some things right. They stand behind
their work and the product that they put up there for twenty five years.
We're talking about all kinds of roofing. Two shingles, the standing scene.
Metal roofs that they design right on your property. They put them together right
there so they fit like a glove. Also, they have which I think
is the coolest thing, timberline solar shingles. How can you do better than
that? Your roof is your solar panel. Brinckman Quality dot Com is the
website two eight one four eight zero seven six six three. Well, good
morning. You're listening to garden Line, and we're here to talk about whatever
you're interested in related to gardening. That's the topic that I'm a most comfortable
with. I was thinking about this heat and the you know, the hot
weather, the drought, the different things we deal with and our plants deal
with. And it always amazes me that plants live through what they live through.
You know, we sometimes wonder why did my plant die? My question
is why is anything alive right now? I mean one hundred degrees. Think
about this. Go outside, touch anything at two o'clock this afternoon, in
the full sun, go out and touch something, Touch a picnic table,
touch the concrete and asphalt. I mean everything is hot, hot, hot.
So those tree leaves that are out there, the plant leaves that are
out there, they are being baked on, and their temperature could rise up
to the point where it literally cooks the plant if it weren't for the plant's
ability to transpire water and evaporatively cool itself. It's that evaporation. It's a
water going up the plant and out the leaves. It's cooling those leaves.
So that's just a miracle in and of itself. But can you imagine if
that plant starts to not get water. You know, it gets a little
thirsty. Water's not flowing as well. Maybe it's because there's not water in
the soil. It's just finally pumped that whole reserve dry and it needs water.
Maybe it's because something's wrong with the roots and they're not functioning properly.
Or there's a borer in the trunk that is cutting those tubes that go from
the roots to the top and preventing good flow of water. We even have
diseases. We're talking about a lot ago to a data the boxwoods, you
know, something like verticilium and fusarium. Those are wilt diseases. They get
in and they plug the plumbing and the plant looks like it's dying of drought,
but it's noting a drought, but not because there's not soil water necessarily,
but because the water can't get up there to do what it has to
do to keep that plant alive. There's just a lot going on. It's
really amazing that the plants or as resilient as they are. But what's in
our control is when we're gonna plant plants, get the soil right, create
above ground drainage with a raised bed if needed, create internal drainage by improving
the soil, and then keep it adequately moist, a good soaking letting it
dry out a little bit, and a good soaking letting it dry out a
little bit, keeping that plant adequately hydrated. It's like us, right,
if you go out and work in the sun and you're not drinking water,
you are a ticking time bomb and things are fixing to go south real fast.
Well that's true for our plants as well. They can take it,
but they need our help. But what they don't need is for us to
put them in a swamp, thinking well, they must need lots of water,
so I'm gonna just you turn it into a bog garden. They don't
like that, and in fact, in that in the kind of heat we're
experiencing. The fastest way to kill a plant is to remove all the oxygen
from the roots by oversaturating it. Because I mean, in an it's within
a day that plant is under serious stress. Because remember what I said about
the leaves cooling by with the water. When you submerge a root system and
exclude the oxygen, it starts to shut down. And I've seen plants in
standing water that the plant's wilted. How can that be, Well, it's
because the water has to move up through an active living root system, and
if it doesn't have that, it's gonna die, and it's gonna die fast
in this heat. So what does all that mean? Water? Right,
they need moisture. They don't want to be drowning. That's the key,
and it really simplifies a lot of things when we're talking about that. Those
of you live out in Kingwood are fortunate because you've got two awesome garden centers.
You've got Kingwood Garden Center and you've got Warren's Gardens Center. Kingwood Gardens
is over in Stone Hollow, Warrens is over on North Park and they always
have something exciting happening. When I love going out there. Because when you
walk through the place, there's just color everywhere, and color is what we
need right now. You know a lot of times our landscapes become a sea
of green in the summer, and there's no reason for that. Put a
big, old, gaudy hibiscus out there and it will catch everybody's attention.
In fact, if you get a beautiful hibiscus, you can put three pink
flamingos next to it and no one will notice them because they're not the gaudiest
thing in the yard. The hibiscus is absolutely beautiful, beautiful Circuma Ginger's in
the shade, Oh man, some new arrivals I got out at Kingwood and
Warrens. They are just so pretty because in a shaded area with bright light
but shade, they thrive and the blooms are gorgeous. The blooms are awesome
for cut flowers, they really are. They're awesome for cut flowers. And
one of the things that I really like that Warrens has gotten in out there.
Kingwood has them too. Are the calandra called dwarf fairy duster. Imagine,
oh gosh, how do I describe it? Just like a pincushion of
red pins all coming out of a little spot. Awesome, beautiful, go
out there, asked to see the Calandra. The powder pink puff is another
name for it. The fairy duster is another name for it. By the
way, on August nineteenth, write this down nine am to ten am at
Warren's Garden Center nine am to ten am a free program on fall garden soil
prep and they will walk you through the whole thing, that broken record that
I always brag about about. You gotta get the soil right. You gotta
get the soil right before you plant. They'll walk you through the whole deal.
And so I mean the space is limited, so go ahead and make
sure and preregister for this. But it's called Cultivate a Harvest of Abundance,
and it's at Warren's Garden Center, Ruggers nineteenth from nine to ten. Believe
me, if you go there and listen to what they say, you will
have better luck. You will have better success. Your plants will perform so
so so much better, really really important. You're listening to Garden Line our
phone number seven one three, two one two five eight seven four or two
one two k t r H. That is another way to do it.
I was looking. I was check social media for a lot of the our
sponsors and things, just to see what are they getting in, what's going
on, what's happening. And a D and D feed out in Tomball by
the way, for anyone over in the Tomball area. D and d's your
hometown feed store in a greater Tomball area, even heading out west of there
down to twenty nine twenty. D and D feed by the way, they're
about three miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty. Family owned
by the Dover family, been been doing this since nineteen eighty nine. They
expanded this summer and now they've just I just was looking. They've got some
new new product in new new layouts and things that are it's just really cool.
I got to get back over there and see this, because when I
was looking at the pictures, it's like, dang, I thought I was
there recently, but here it goes again. They just keep improving. They've
got all our fertilizers we talk about. You know you're gonna get soiled there
from them. The ones we talk about are going to be available. They
carry plants seasonally out there now if you have a pet, high end pet
food lines, Origin, Diamond, Victor, Starpro. They've got that their
feed store. So you know they've got livestock feed and products to care for
your horses. They also have products for cleaning a pool. They've got products
for controlling pests and rodents, the little rodents out there. D and D
Feed on twenty nine twenty about three miles west of two forty nine in Tomball.
Go buy and check it out. If you haven't been there in a
while, you will be very surprised and very impressed by what all they have
going on there, your hometown feed store up in the Tomball area. We're
about to take a little break here. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If Josh you call, he'll get you on the boards and
before you know it, we'll be back and we'll be talking to you.
It's a it's all, it's all. Well, good morning on a Sunday
morning that is going to shape up really nicely. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and we're here to talk all kinds
of things gardening. Now, I you know, mister broken record. When
it comes to soil, here I go again. But it is the most
important thing if you want to build up a bed, whether it's a garden
bed and vegetables or flowers or herbs, whatever. If you want to create
a soil bed and you want it to do well, you need to consider
arbigates one two three completely easy system. What is one two three one.
It's a food four four three fertilizer plus calcium that feeds pretty much anything with
roots. It's a soil for any application. That's their organic soil complete.
That soil contains large particle sand. It contains expanded shale which helps those clay
soils. As you build up more and more shale in the soil, you're
going to have better and better and internal drainage. And then the third part
continues that process organic compost complete that has a lot of expanded shale in it
as well. It's got two different kinds of compost, you know, just
chock full of microbial activity. One two three makes it completely easy. A
food, a soil, a compost all from Arbourgate. Go on line to
arburg gate dot com and you can find out more. If you have been
out there in a while, you need to go. It changes all the
time. I mean I've been out like sometimes I've been out like two weeks
in a row, and it's like there's a whole new group of plants that
just came in. I guess you could say that sometimes two days in a
row. They're always getting shipments. There's always something happening, so it's always
fun to go out. Check out the folks at Arburgate. Our phone number
is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. The I need to get I'm on
a run these days. I was in Santonio last week at the Texa Nursery
and Landscape Association show. I'm going to be out in Alpine in West Texas
with the am Horticulture Department and a retreat they're having out there in educational retreat.
Looking forward to that as well. But in the meantime, what do
they say, the cobbler's kids go barefoot? My lun, My lun needs
some help. It's time to put a little bit of fertilizer, and I've
got some on hand. I've got some of the green bag Microlife that's the
six two four number one organic fertilizer sold here in the Greater Houston area and
just a very very popular product for a very very long time. And it's
got just tons of essential microbes, essential minerals and it you know, it
says sixty four, but it has way more than just nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium. Put that with the humans plus the purple bag. That's how I
like to do it, because the humates plus got some nutrient in it,
but the main reason it's air is it's concentrated compost in a bag, lots
of beneficial microbes and lots of a variety of different kinds of nutrients. Think
of that one two punch green bag, purple bag, sixty four green bag,
humates plus purple bag. With that combination, you're getting your lawn set
up and ready to go, because next thing, you know, for too
long, we're going to be putting on our fall applications of fertilizer to get
our grass strong and going into winter. The stronger your grass is now,
the dentrier lawn gets now, the less weed problems will happen in October when
all the cool season weeds are germinating and so let's block every bit of sunlight
from hitting the soil by creating a dense, healthy lawn. That's really the
secret to the whole thing. Pretty simple works, works, very very well.
One of the things I'm always interested in is what plants are people using
to get color at different times of the year. For a lot of nine
gardeners, you know, spring is the gardening season. That's when gardening fever
hits. That's when every kind of plant you can imagine is for sale and
you can plant it some of them. If you've chosen well and gone to
a quality nursery that knows what they're talking about, you're going to enjoy them
for a long time. If you just do an impulse purchase, maybe at
a place you went to buy a hammer, so to speak, you're probably
going to come home with like a fusha that will live about somewhere between seventeen
and twenty three minutes before it dies at your house. Actually in spring,
they do okay, but they're just not made to last year. But that's
okay. We have plants that are like that. But what I'm saying is
pick a quality plant, find a good nursery knows what you're talking about We
talk about those nurseries here all the time. They understand what it's like to
be a newbie gardener. They understand what it's like to need help, and
they listen and they direct you in that way. Another place that's like that,
by the way, is Southwest Fertilizer. Bob Patterson and his team at
Southwest They've created a store that has everything, and I literally mean that,
I mean every fertilizer. I would talk about the soils, we talk about.
If you need pesticides and insecticides. Hey, maybe you're aganic person.
You're not going to find a better line of organic selection than Southwest Fertilizer or
herbicides. It's exercise funger sides. Maybe you're the guy that the first site
of something with six legs wants to call in an apalm flyover. Southwest has
everything that you would need as well. You can bring his samples in,
you mean pictures in. They'll get an eye on it. Oh, by
the way, they have that kneeling bench that I've been so big on now
all this season. Once you go pass for the first time, you wake
up in the morning and you're swore and you don't know why go buy a
kneeling bench because it will change your life. I mean, you can sit
on them and work in the garden. If you need to get on your
knees and get back up. They got the handles you can get right back
up again and get going. I'm telling you I bought one for my older
sister, and I like to point out that she's older to her just thinking
she's getting a little decrepit there, I'm going to help her out. Well,
first thing, you know, I got me one, and it's like,
oh dang, this is really really cool. Bob's got those in stock
at Southwest Fertilizer. He also has the soul probes. So fall fertilizing time
is coming. Why not have your soul tested and let's just get a look
at where things are and then you can purchase, you know, your fertilizers.
Accordingly, Southwest Fertilizer has everything that you would need. By the way,
where is Southwest Fertilizer will Southwest Houston corner of Bissonette and Renwick. You
can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com find out more information there. Well,
I'll tell you we about to blow through the first hour here. This kind
of went fast today. Guess what at the eight o'clock hour, eight o'clock
next hour, but the hour after that, Sherry Harris is going to be
coming in for plants for all seasons, and we're going to talk all kinds
of things gardening. Any of you who know Sherry know she is an absolute
wealth of knowledge, very very knowledgeable, been gardening and helping gardeners here in
this area for a long long time, and that kind of experience is priceless.
And I can't wait to get her on the on the show, pick
her brain a little bit and talk some fun gardening things that we're doing here.
Well, we are getting close to the end. Our phone number,
by the way is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two katr H. We're a little short to take another
call now, but if you'd like to call, have Josh gets you on
the board, then we can talk to you when we're ready to go again.
That won't be too long now. If you live out in mont Bellevue,
we're talking east to town out ten Texas. Feedstop is your hometown feed
store. I mean that I the first time I went in there, I
was so impressed Number one, Brian and Hope Rhodes. This is this is
not just a business to them. This is being part of a community.
This is enjoying working with people. You know, they are kids locally to
help out there. And by the way, they carry the sacks of feed
for you, which is a really nice thing. But they also make sure
they stock everything you need and they greet you and they're friendly and they're helpful.
If I talk about it on gardening line, like all these fertilizers,
the soiled products and other things they've got them there. They've got the pest
management types of things you might need as you get in there. Now.
Texas feed Stop is just a few minutes north of y ten on Highway one
forty six and Montain Bellevue. But they're so close that I mean, if
you live out in Baytown, Texas feed Stop is still your hometown feed store.
Well, I hope you will give them a check out because I know
you'll be impressed by the way, and they do have plants from time to
time out there, but it's just the good old days of where you walk
in and you're treated like family. Go check it out and you'll see what
I'm talking about at Texas feed Stop. Well, I'm gonna take a little
break here. I believe it is time to crank up some music and get
ready for the next hour. You're listening to garden line. What do you
want to talk about today? I'm talking about house plants and stay inside and
play with the house plants. You want to talk about seeds starting. It's
time to get the cool seasoned vegetables starting go and especially the blue leaf cruciferous
vegetables. The cold crops like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, its teined plant,
tomatoes, tumbled plant peppers, lots of things. Tin plant flowers.
By the way, at the end of August every year, I love to
plant marigolds. Marigolds are affected by spider mites in the heat of summer,
but when you plan them at the end of August, they go into fall
and the spider mont populations are crashing due to the weather and daylink things like
that, and they just absolutely glow right up until the first frost. And
whether it's the big palm palm types that's my favorite, the African margoals of
pom pom types of French miracles, whatever it is. Hey, another thing.
We're getting ready to plan. We'll be right back. KTRH Garden Line
does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scared Rictor. It's a smell crazy just watching
as well. Good morning, good Sunday morning, beautiful day outside. Good
time to be outside too. By the way, this is the time of
day we're gonna get a lot of good stuff done out there. And remember,
just because it is hot and you're tired of hot, and it's dry
and all, that doesn't mean that this isn't a very important time in the
garden. This is a time to be purchasing plants. It's time to be
planning some plants. This is time to be getting ready for fall, getting
your soil ready for fall. There's a lot going on because at some point
in time, this weather is going to break, and it's not that far
away from us right now. And when it does, we need to have
done our business now that we need to be getting done so that at that
time we're ready for our gardens to thrive. You know, for example,
you wait until it cools off. Lola being and said, oh, I'd
love some tomatoes and fault it was too late. Then you got to get
that done. Now, that's what it's all about. Hey, if you
have a little piece of property and you would love to be able to get
out there and enjoy moving things around, getting things done, accomplishing work in
an easier way. Maybe need to build some fence, Maybe need to haul
some bags of malts, or maybe you have a dump of composts out there
that you need to move around the garden. Takes front end loader to do
that, and that would be a commode attractor. Orange is the cobode is
the original Orange. Actually, one of my favorites of all the ones that
Lansdowne Moody has on the lot is the Caboda L twenty five oh one L
twenty five oh one. I mean it's got electratatic transmission. It is a
it is a sweet ride, and you can trick it out with your front
end loader, with the mower behind it, all kinds of things. Just
go out there and sit on one. Just trust me on this. Just
go check it out and you will be able for sure to picture yourself getting
a lot of good stuff done in a very short order with that kind of
Caboda, the l twenty five oh one, Lansdowne Moody. Their stores all
around the area. You can find one near you. Not a problem at
all. But here's here's the deal on the whole Caboda and Lansdowne thing.
Right now, they're having an incredible deal, zero down, zero interest,
eighty four months. That's seven years. I mean, can you imagine that
there's not a better time to purchase, take home and enjoy your new Caboda.
The combination Caboda and Lansdowne Moody. You're just not going to do better
than that. Go to LM tractor dot com if you want to find out
more information. They can tell you all about it right there. Let's head
out now to Baytown and we're gonna talk to Robin. Hello, Robin,
Hi there, I have a question about my yard. I am getting lots
I live in Baytown and I am getting lots of areas in my yard that
are just they're they're just splitting, they're turning into holes. I mean,
you can tell that the ground is really dry. And are you talking about
cracks on the soil cracks exactly, huh okay, and they're big they're they're
not small, they're they're huge. Oh I know, you got that clay
soil out there, and when clay gets wet, it swells. When it
gets dry, it shrinks and the cracks gets a big You can lose a
small dog down in the backyard. That's exactly what's happening. So that's why
I'm so concerned, because my dogs are starting to they don't see them,
I guess, and they're starting to fall in them. Okay, okay,
well that is there's Hey, you just gotta apply water. I mean,
the way close those cracks is to get the soil wet and it'll close right
back up again. So that takes a good soaking, and you know,
you may want to. If I were you, I wouldn't just water it
one time. I'd water for a while and then just let it soak for
a while, and then water for a while, let it soak for a
while, and we call that cycle and soak. But you can do that.
Let's say let's say today was your watering day. I mean you could
get up, have your Do you have an automatic system or do you drag
hoses? Don't? I do? But I don't. It's broken. I
got to get that thick, all right. So you drag the hose out
there, you turn it onto an area, you run it for a while.
I don't how long depends on you know, the slope and everything.
You don't want the water running off, but let it run for Depending on
the kind of sprinkler, it'll vary, so I can't give you a time,
but just a good while and then move it to another area, and
then move it to another area. Just have a little timer going off every
now and then on your phone, and as you circle back around, it'll
have about give it about forty five minutes to soak into one area before you
rewater that area. And after about two or three loops of that, you
can get some good moisture down in the soil and that's really going to help
your plants, your tree roots. Go ahead, Can I put any Can
I put dirt in there? Can I start filling it with dirt? No,
you don't want to do that, and it's going to close back up.
It's a lack of water, and if the soil is so dry,
it's cracking. Like you're describing the plants that the trees and shrubs and things
that have roots out in that area, and those reach way out past the
plant on trees and shrubs. I don't have any because it's my backyard where
my dogs are. So okay, it's just grass. Everything's in the front
yard. It's just grass. Okay, well the grass itself. If you're
getting cracks like that, I'm surprised that grass is still alive out there,
because that's as it's it's not doing real well at all. So let's give
it a good soaking. You don't have to do that all the time.
And if today were your water day and you did what I described, you
wouldn't have to water for another week. You could get yeah, you could
get boy, just do it once a week as long as I'm doing a
good water as long as you wet it deeply, and in fact it's good
then to not water for a while and let it dry out just a little
bit, all right, Robins, Okay, okay, it sounds great.
Thank you, bet good luck with that. Yep, boy, dry dry
shrink swell, Oh boy. We have a lot of issues we deal with
here because of that shrink swelling of the soils. Hey, if you're an
active at adult age fifty five and better, and you would like to find
a home and a community where you could retire. But I don't mean just
go out to pasture. I'm talking about an active lifestyle, enjoying these best
years of your life. That is Dellweb Now Don and Fulsher on FM three
fifty nine, about two miles from downtown. Fulscher is a new Dell Web
community that has a community garden going on in it, and that community garden
is something I've been helping them with. In fact, I'm planning a trip
back out there again to check on things and see how they're doing. You
can go online to dellweb dot com slash Houston to get more information or just
give them a call to eight one four five nine zero six zero nine.
And discovered that doll Web difference for yourself, and now the doe Weeb difference
for gardeners. I just think that's the coolest thing in the world. You're
listening to garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Listen. If you've been busy and you haven't gotten that summer fertilization down,
you can still do that now, don't delay, though, Let's get it
done because fall season is coming. One product that I think is just a
chemistry that is outstanding and works well is nitrofossis Superturf nineteen four ten. That
is a When I say the chemistry of it, I mean it's designed so
the nitrogen and the nutrients aren't just all released at once. It gradually releases
them over time, which is how grass takes up nutrients. When we do
a dump of an extra amount of nitrogen, we have all kinds of problems
we've created in our lawns. Slow release super Turf's nineteen four ten. It's
a silver bag and it's going to be sold everywhere that nitro FoST is sold.
Our great garden centers sell nitro FoST products, our feed stores sell ace
hardware stores. Nitro FoST products not hard to find at all. But don't
delight, go ahead and get that down. Now is the time to get
that done. Well. We're going to take a quick break here seven one
three, two, one two fifty eight seventy four and we'll be right back.
Good morning, Hey, good morning. You are listening to Garden Line
and we're here to talk about gardening in that a coincidence. We hope you
give us a call if you have something you'd be interested in visiting about.
It's seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We're gearing up,
by the way, next hour eight o'clock, we're gonna have Sherry hera
from Plants for All Seasons in SHARE's a wealth of knowledge those of you who
know or know that gardening in this area and helping gardeners in this area for
a long time, and just really looking forward to getting Sherry in here and
kind of picking her brain on some gardening related things this morning, So make
sure and stay tuned for that. We uh, you know, I wanted
to mention something that is really of interest to me lately. You know,
with gardening, you there's things you're interested in, and then you kind of
go through phases. You know, maybe it's your herb phase, and I
mean you quit growing herbs. It just means you're just learning about herbs and
all these new herbs and you go to some other phase. And for me
right now, I'm just really fascinated by the pollinator in the butterfly gardens.
I just think they're so so cool and uh, you know it was looking
the other day. We have a passion vine, a passion vine that has
the Gulf Fridle areas on it, the little black and orange spiky caterpillars and
the beautiful orange butterflies, and just the when you create a backyard landscape where
you've got larval food sources and then adult nectar sources, you're gonna have butterflies
show up. And I noticed that the folks at Enchanted Forests done in Richmond,
they have really got a good selection, and they have had a good
selection of all kinds of butterfly attracting plants, you know, for example,
the things that like ru and then the citrus family. You're going to get
the swallowtail butterflies. By the way, this is the coolest thing. If
you've got kids that they'll love this. The caterpillars will affect bird poop.
I'm serious. They look like bird poop until they start moving around sticking the
orange horns out. If you've got kids, you got to do this.
But all kinds of good good products out there for caterpillar and butterfly gardening.
And you need to feed the larvae, you need to feed the adults,
and you can have the flying flowers in your landscape that we call butterflies.
In fact, I was talking to Danny Lenderman out there a while back,
and he was saying that they they have, you know, with all their
plants. They got so many plants. They've got all these caterpillars that are
there. And if you go and say, hey, I need a swallowtail
butterfly caterpillar, you got any, they'll pick one off and give it to
you to take home to put on your plants, so you can have butterflies
right at your house. That's got one of the mini services that they offer.
And Chanted for Us they're expanding their vegetable section. I'm really excited about
that. And if you've ever shopped out there, you know they got these
big giant trees, so it could be eight hundred degrees outside, and it's
just a pleasure to walk around and shop in the shade and everything that they
have. But seriously, you need to check out and Chanted for Us out
in Richmond. They are if you're in Richmond and you're kind of heading towards
Sugarland, they're off to the right down South fifty nine. Easy to find.
But when you walk in, it's like I had no idea this was
here. It is the most beautiful, cool place and fun shopping place that
I can imagine. I was really surprised the first time. I went very
impressed with that. Well, let's head out to northwest Houston. We're going
to talk to Clifford this morning. Good morning, Clifford, good morning.
How are you doing this? I'm good. How can we help today?
Well, I'm calling and I had a big tree on a front yard,
you know, cut down and they grind to stump and I've got all that
stuff. I've got all that stump grinding. You know about a sable food
diameter and a yord. It's it's kind of mount just a little bit.
They told me that when they rain, need to sneak, so I need
to know I need to put dirt on it and to resaw it. Uh.
You know, when when they leave all those woodchips from grinding in the
soil, two things happen. Number One, those woodchips are going to start
to decompose and in the process are going to tie up some nitrogen because there's
a lot of carbon in them, and the microbes need nitrogen and carbon for
that to work. And so I would sprinkle some extra nitrogen fertilizer on the
area, and I do it now, and I probably do it another maybe
three or four weeks a little bit more, and then three or four weeks
a little bit more. And you're just helping to speed up that decomposition,
to get those big old woody chunks on their way to breaking down. It
is going to settle down. Number one, they fluffed up the soil.
I don't know. If you've ever dug a whole or a trench, you
know that you put all the soil back in and then later it sinks down.
You wonder how did that happen, But it's just how that works.
But from digging the soil. But then in addition to that, all that
wood in the soil going away as it decomposes, it is going to sink.
So it does need to be mounded up a little bit. I don't
know that I would add more soil to it. You could at this time.
If you can get a soil that fairly closely matches what you have in
your yard, if it's if it's dramatically different, that's going to be a
spot in your yard that always looks a little different, always grows a little
different, and so you want to match it as close as you can if
you're gonna bring soil in. But yeah, it's getting the nitrogen on there,
keeping it moist, always keeping it moist. So you know your goal
is, hey, i've got basically what you got is a bunch of chunks
of stump underground that are going to decompose away. And that's a lot of
volume, a lot of volume of Okay, has mound a little bit,
so I won't worry about the soil. Need to tho a high content of
nitrogen, higher nitrogen county. It's something that's lucky. It's what we recommend
for lawns anyway. You know the ratios we say three one two four one
two, like a lot of that first number, not much of the second
number. That's what you're going for. You wanted to hire first number high
first number. Yeah, okay, then and just own that area only over
the whole York. Well, we're trying to get those wood chips on their
way to we'll put decomposing as quick as we can. So that's what we're
having for there. You know it's gonna take a while. I mean,
you're going from a situation where you had a big old tree stump and giant
roots all through the soil to now you want to make it a yard.
And that's not gonna happen overnight, but if you'll do what I'm saying,
it will get there faster sooner rather so for as planning so little, you
know before decomposed for us before I do that, at least a little initial
settling, I would, because that's when you may see, you know what,
I'm gonna have to add a little bit more to this because it is
going to keep settling. But the ultrogen down water down. You can scratch
it into the soil to get those fertilizer particles kind of down in the top
inch of soil or so and then watered in really good and get that process
started. That That's what I would do, and then just watch it and
adjust accordingly. Okay, then so so so if if I'm just gonna take
a little bit, I'm gonna let you go. Should you know I want
to be able to be at least have a lawn by mixed ring, I
guess, yeah, that's what we're aiming for. I would you know it
you can still plant grass and you could put grass on it because even if
it sinks down, you can add a little soil over time. But I
just like to get it as good as I can before I start putting plants
in a bed, because then things become more difficult to do. Okay,
all right, it's bed time to kind of go down a little bit.
We we're watered in and nitrogen it to delp and here you gotta get some
time, all right. It's been a hot so me and a household.
Oh man, the grass that had a hard time now so I got time
to do that well. With moisture and nitrogen, that wood is going to
start rotting fast. It is so hey, Cliff, thanks for the call.
I appreciate that very very much. You know, years ago, my
wife and I were done in the Houston area and we were volunteered for Star
of Hope. We love Star of Hope. We believe in Star of Hope.
Star of Hope has their love and action vans that go out and reach
out to homeless people on the streets with prayer and shelter recovery programs. The
thing I like about Star of Hope is it's not just a handout. It's
not like here's some money good luck and handing out money at the street corner
amounts to that. Put those dollars into Star of Hope. I mean,
you know the cost of what a cup of coffee, you can provide a
meal. Two dollars and eighty cents will provide a meal for somebody, and
they serve over six thousand a week. They bring people in. If you
move in with Star of Hope, they will take care of you. They
will get you set up, they will teach you how to interview for jobs.
And of course they got the rules. You got to apply. You
got to apply to the I mean, which is how it has to be.
But as a result of that, they walk with people through the course
of the whole year and then some to help them get their feet under them,
hope to get their life back around under them. And I know those
folks though you listening are You're compassionate people, You care about people. You
don't want to see your money wasted, but you don't want to see people's
lives destroyed either. Star of Hope is a way you can know that every
dollar you're giving them is making a lasting difference. It's helping people overcome substance
abuse, it's helping people. You don't think about this if you lost everything
and you didn't have a car to go get to a job, you didn't
know how to apply, how to effectively interview for a job, or how
to hold a job and do a good job. That they have all of
that, along with the spiritual growth, the life management skills. It's all
there s h mission dot org, sh mission dot org. Check them out
online. And I hope you will join me as a supporter of Star of
Hope Emission if you're real strong about that. I really believe in the Star
of Hope and the things that they do. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Now, anytime we get rainfall around here, and believe
it or not, it's going to come back. Anytime you have standing water
from past rains or irrigation over irrigation, or maybe the water that stands in
a dog bowl underneath a plant, in that catch basin, not on your
patio, that's where mosquitoes will thrive. A mosquitoes can lay egg and a
thimble full of water, and they can raise their little larva and come out
as adult mosquitoes in a very short time. So you go from enjoying sitting
outside to it just being miserable because all the mosquitoes around. Mosquito dunks fix
that. Mosquito dunks are natural. They're a disease of mosquitoes. It's a
little bay donut. You toss it out there and it floats on standing water.
They also have granules, by the way, which is what I would
use if you had a big area and you want to scatter the granules everywhere
to get that that mosquited disease all through faster. But a duncill last about
thirty days and cover about one hundred square feet of water. The check out
your eaves of your house. I'm not the eaves, the gutters on the
house anywhere they're sagging. Mosquited Heaven is stagnant water with decaying organic matter.
That's still that's what they want. Mosquito dunks fix that where They available everywhere.
Our independent garden centers, our feed stores, we brag about ace hardware
stores. They all have mosquito dunks. You should have some on hand because
it will be raining again and that way you're just ready to go and avoid
you know, recapture your beautiful outdoor areas and make them pleasant to be in
at the end of the day instead of surrounded by little tiny blood sucking vampires
nikki flying everywhere and you know as they land on you and tie me or
you'd be positive or a negative or what? Taking donations, Yeah, taking
sense or whatever whatever donations are out there. One of my favorite places when
it comes to looking for a quality tree is a Verdant Tree Farm. Verdant
Treefarm dot Com is the website you can find them. They I'm excited that
they've got more than one location. Now, you know, these just be
out there on Bark or Cyprus in West Houston they're still there. But down
in the pair Land area on Broadway West Broadway you can find a Verdant Tree
Farm there. And if you go up to the Heights area Yale at I
ten kind of in that region, there's another Verdant Tree farm down there.
Verdant has trees of all sizes, I mean all the way up to seven
hundred gallons. If you want instant shade. They've got palm trees for any
budget. And boy do they ever have an awesome selection. Hey, go
to Verdant, walk around, pick out a tree, put a tag on
it, they'll bring it, they'll install it, they'll plant it right.
Ten percent discount for military and first responders and a one year warranty included with
the installation ed Verdant tree farm. And the best time to plan a tree
is fifty years ago. The next best time is today. Yeah, you
can go. That's it. That's what we're talking about. Hey, we're
gonna take a break here for NICKI and the news seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. I know, well, good morning, good
Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line, looking forward to visiting with
you about the things that are of most interest to you. I keep talking
about how even though it's hot, even though it's like ow man, it's
fall, ever going to get here. Now's the time you gotta get stuff
done now if you want to be ready for fault. That's just how it
works. In fall, we're gonna be planning vegetable gardens. In fact,
we already are right now. Some crops. The cool seasons hits in the
fall. In fall we can put in perennial herbs. Not a better time
of the year to plant perennial herbs, perennial flowers, woody shrubs, woody
vines, trees, anything like that. Then the fall season, it's just
it's just the best. It's the best season we can plant twelve months out
of the year here, I mean, we really can. We live in
that kind of a climate. But with that season coming up, why not
be thinking about, now, how do you get ready for it? You
know, what does the soil need now? If you if you're planting a
tree. This is just a tip, by the way, we always talk
about improving the soil. You know, so if you're putting in a container,
you want good quality soil. If you're putting in a new flower bed
or shrub, maybe a vegetable bed or something like that, you always want
to have this perfect soil blend that you've created for plants. When it comes
to trees, however, you know, if you think about something that's going
to be you know, sixty feet across this giant plant, which is a
tree, is a plant, and it's got roots reaching two and a half
times the size of the height through the tree in all directions. I mean,
that is amazingly wide root system. To go dig a little hole and
put compost in. It accomplishes nothing. In fact, it works against you,
especially in a clay soil. When you dig a hole in clay,
that's called a bathtub. It's an underground water holding bathtub. That's how clay
works. That's why we build up raised beds. That's why we amend the
soil through a large area for smaller statured plants with things like expanded shale.
But just remember this, don't put stuff like that in the planting hole.
That tree's got to live in the soil where you planted it. Now,
if it's a very small tree, maybe a medium sized crape myrtle something like
that, yes, you can create a giant raised bed with lots of improved
soil, very wide and help it out a little bit. But that's different
creating a bed with a blend of quality soil than digging a hole and just
filling the hole with potting soil or something the equivalent thereof. That doesn't do
any good. In fact, what often happens is roots at the sides of
that hole and they just circle. It's almost like a terracotta pot or something
under there. They're just going around in the clay and they're not venturing out
as well as they could. So for tree planting, pick a tree that
wants to be where you live. You know. That's why you know bragging
on Verdant tree Farm. I'm gonna go and they're gonna sell stuff that grows
here and I don't just because you like a tree planted Colorado blue spruce.
Boy, are they ever prettiest? I wanted the nursery show this past week
and I was thinking, what is that doing in Texas? That is not
supposed to be here? And it won't live here, It won't do good
here. Plant trees that belong here. Native trees trees are very well adapted,
and when you do that, you are setting yourself up for success.
We can talk more about tree planting and stuff like that later, but just
a tip. Now's the time to get ready for all kinds of fall planting,
because it's coming and if you do the work now, you'll be ready
to go when it's time to plant the plants later. That is important.
So it's kind of like a lot of things in life. You know,
you think ahead, you know, we all think we're invincible and we're just
going to go on forever doing things and suddenly realize, well, oh,
it's about time to retire here, and you know what, I didn't prepare
for retirement. Well, the time to prepare for everything is now. Now
is the time for gardening and all kinds of stuff like that for your lawn.
If you haven't done any summer fertilization and preparation, for example, this
would be a time to put down a good slow release product like Nelson's plant
Food Slow and Easy. I like Slow and Easy. It's a twenty two
two ten. That's a lot of nitrogen, but you're putting it out at
a rate where it's not a lot of nitrogen. You're putting it out at
about a rate of about five pounds per thousand square feet, so it goes
a long long way. But that powerhouse blend, I mean it is going
to gradually feed your lawn over time, so you can't burn a lawn.
When you apply something like It's slow and Easy at the right rate at the
right time, it's just gonna be good. It's gonna carry your lawn on
into fall really well. Nitrofoss has a lot of things in their turf Star
line. Another one I like is Bruce's Brew it's an immediately available fertilizer.
It's a little bit of a gradual, but by and large it's going to
be available when you put it down. And they have a feather light that's
an eighteen two eight that I also like. It's one third of it is
feathermeal, which is a natural product that's put in there. We're gonna be
talking about their carbo load in the fall. That is an important one to
put down when we're going into the winter. But Nelson Plant Food, they're
designed to work here. You know, for over twenty years, Dean Nelson
has been making commercial grade quality turf grash fertilizers available to homeowners. And that
ain't even talking about their Color Star line, their Nutra Star line, their
Turf Star line, their Nature Star line, just lots of quality products there
with the folks at Nelson's Plant Food. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two and two fifty eight
seventy four. We're gonna take a little break here in just a bit,
and when we come back, we are going into our last segment. And
I just want to remind you that at the eight o'clock hour, just around
the corner. Sherry Harra from Plants for All Seasons is going to be here.
Now, those of you who know Sherry knows she is a wealth of
information. She has been gardening and advising gardeners in this area for a long
time and she's heard it all. I'm sure she's advised all kinds of things,
I'm sure, and we're gonna pick her brain try to find out what
all is inside there that can help us with the way we garden. So
please stick around for the eight o'clock hour. You definitely do not want to
miss that at all. One thing that I enjoy about the Houston area when
it comes to plants and plants supplies and plant products is a fact that we
have thirty nine Ace Hardware stores here. Now. When I was growing up,
Ace Harder was just your little hometown hardware store, and that was good.
It was a good one. I like that. I don't know.
Skip forward a couple of decades and I walk into an Ace Hardware and it's
like, holy cow, they have everything you can imagine. I mean,
I've been in Ace Hardware's with fudge bars. I've been in Ace Hardware stores,
you know, with an ice cream shop. I've been in Ace Hardware
stores with jewelry that, you know, just really cool jewelry for ladies,
that just amazing stuff. That's a hardware store for crying out loud. But
Ace Hardware is going to have the fertilizer I talk about, it's gonna have
the soil mixes. I talk about, it's going to have all the products
you need for controlling pest diseases and other things in your landscape. And with
thirty nine of them, not hard to find one. Go online Ace Hardware
dot com, Ace Hardware dot Com and look for their store locator and you
can find the one near you. And I say the one near you.
You're going to find the three near you because they're with thirty nine there are
Ace Hardware stores everywhere. It's easy, easy to get in and find the
things you need. Ace Hardware Store in twenty twenty two, they raised almost
half a million dollars for Texas Children's Hospital. They're always doing stuff like that.
When you go in, by the way, sign up for their Ace
Hardware Reward program, you can earn money back on your purchase. I belong
to that, and I think it just makes sense because trust me on this
one. You may go in there thinking you need a bag of fertilizer or
something, but you're going to find yourself coming out with barbecue supplies and who
knows what all from ace hardware. Let's take a little break here seven one
three, two one two five eight seven four or two one two ktr H.
Give Josh a call. He'll get you on the board and you'll be
the first we talk to when we come back. Jealousy, Well, good
morning. We are glad you're listening to garden Line and we're here to talk
to you about things that are of interest to you regarding gardening. Our phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. I was sitting out in the backyard this
past week enjoying my bird feeder. I've got one of the wild birds unlimited.
They've got that squirrel excluding feeder, and I don't know whether my favorite
part of it is watching birds come to it and feed on it, or
listening to squirrels using language that I cannot use on the radio up in the
tree because they can't get into the darn thing. I mean it is to
say something as squirrel proof is like saying a plant is deerproof. I'm always
hesitant to use those two deer proof and one sentence because they'll prove me wrong.
But this feeder is amazing anyway. I enjoy the feeder. But now
is the time to be feeding your birds, because it's always a good time.
But our birds are molting right now, all the way into August here,
they're still doing their molting as they get new plumage, and it's important
for them to have a quality food. And birds has one call that's it's
a nesting super blend, that's what they call it, and it's just good
to use all through this month. I love their feeds because their feeds are
high quality. They're not filled with all the little red bibs that birds are
not going to be interested in eating. And when you buy a dollar worth
a wild bird bird seed, you're going to get a dollar's worth of stuff
that birds are wanting to eat, and that is important, very important.
They've got the feeders. It's it's hummingbird season, by the way, so
we absolutely need to be getting those hummingbird feeders out right now. And they
have some high quality when I love their high perch feeder. That's a one
I just got recently, about two years ago, actually, but I got
I got it, and it just it really works well and the hummingbirds really
really are attracted to it. We're gonna head out to Conro. We are
going to talk to Jim. Good morning, Jim, good skip. I
called you last week and since you's some pictures of a red maple I had
planted last fall, and I think it has been overwatered even in this drought
time, and I wanted if you had had or can't, take a look
at him and see if there's anything I can do or do. Am I
looking at free planning, Okay, and this would be an email from Jim
that in the email is zero three one two. Okay, tell me a
little bit about this. I'm gonna look for that email as you we're talking
here, but tell me more about the red maple and what you're seeing.
The leaves had been drooping most of the summer, and of course assumed that
it was not getting enough water, even though I hadn't watered it in several
weeks now, but I figured it had to be a meeting water with all
of this lack of rain that we've had. But I went and I watered
it just a week and a half ago. I guess I gave it a
probably ten or fifteen gallons, And since then it's just gotten worse. The
leaves are turning brown. Last week when I sent you the pictures, there
were probably about ten percent brown, and now it's it's probably eighty percent.
M wow, Jim, I'm not seeing your email. I'll keep looking.
As we're talking about, I see it drumming. I found it drum and
red maple. Yeah, and so you planted at last November. So that's
a great time to plant it, by the way, it gives it the
best shot. But it still has a pretty darn limited root system, you
know. I mean it takes time. You know, I had that tree
grown from a seat in that spot. It's root to be reaching two and
a half times a tree in all directions. But right now you still got
a pretty pretty confined root system. It's establishing well, but I just think
the key is to keep that soul moist. And it's hard to tell you,
you know, water for this many minutes a day or this many days
a week. The soils vary, the site varies in terms of sun and
shade and other things. But dig down and especially around maybe where the original
root ball was and maybe two feet out from there or so, and just
take down about four or five six inches and feel the soil and get a
fuel for it. And it's going to take a lot of water. That
tree is pumping a lot of water. And if you can keep the area
where most of the roots are moist, it's going to have the best chance
that it has. Soggy soil will kill plants. Dry soil will kill plants.
And let me, I'm trying to pull those those photos that you sent
me up here as we're talking, but yeah, I see this a lot.
And what your symptoms are showing is leaf scorch. It's the tips of
the leaves are burning, the margins the leaves are burning, and then eventually
the whole leaf is burning. So something's wrong in the soil gym, and
it could be drought, it could be dry soil. It could also be
anything that's preventing that flow of water and nutrients from the soil up into the
tree. The amount of brown you have on that is very concerning, as
I'm sure you are concerned about it. There's just not a lot of green
left, except out towards the ends of branches. Check the trunk for any
kind of cracks, check around the base for any kind of damage, but
mostly just check that soul moisture level it. Overall, the site looks to
me like maybe it needs a little more water. That may be some something
you want to look a little closer at. Yeah, from what I can
see, I can't see the very base of the tree. Hopefully there's not
multipled up against the trunk. But from the pictures that I see, I
just see a tree that has been lacking moisture for a good while. And
it could be due to a lack in the soil, or it could be
due to something preventing that flow all the way up into the tree. Okay,
all right, Jim, good good luck with that. Ken me posted
if you If you want to call back later, we can talk about it
again. If anything develops in a different direction, be happy to do that.
You're listening to Guardenline our phone number seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Have you thought about having solar panels on your house?
You know those big panels that they put up there on the roof. I
have a better idea. Why not a solar shingle. That's right. They
have solar shingles. Brinkman roofing cell solar shingles, and Brinkman's been doing roofing
here for fifty years. They fully warrant their stuff, you know, twenty
five years of service. I mean that is that is a good warranty.
And you don't stay in business for fifty years if you don't treat customers right.
And that means give them a good quality product, give them good quality
workmanship, and stand behind what you say you're going to do. And that's
Brinkman. Twenty twenty two. They won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award.
Brinkman Quality dot com. That's our website or you can call them two eight
one four eight zero seven six six three when you do ask them about their
timber line solar shingle. So the solar panel is your roof. It's not
on your roof, it is your roof. And that and I actually find
him quite attractive when I first thought what does that look like? And I
went and looks it's quite attractive. It really works well. And so instead
of sitting around like we are right now, complaining about the sun and the
heat and everything else. Why not turn lemon is into lemonade and make a
little electricity out of that whole deal? That would be that makes sense to
me, at least, I liked that I thought of that kind of idea.
Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you're listening to garden
Line, we're gonna be back here at eight o'clock. I we're gonna talk
to Sherry Hannah from Plants for All Seasons, and we trust me come back.
It's going to be a wealth of really awesome information. That lady.
She knows her stuff, and we're going to pick her brain about it.
I was the other day about water in my houseplants with Microlife's Biomatrix. That's
their orange label bottle. It's a seven one three that includes a lot of
beneficial microbes, and even a houseplant route benefits from having great microbial content working
around the route to do all the things that microbs do for the roots.
I use it for my houseplants. In fact, just yesterday I mixed up
a batch and with water and a bunch of plants with it, just keeping
them healthy, happy, doing well. They also have the Ocean Harvest that's
their blue label. These little court bottles. I mix them into water.
I like to put them in a watering can for the outdoor. For the
Ocean Harvest. That's a fish base, so I use it outdoors. It's
a four two three again good microbial content. You're not going to burn plants
with it. In fact, you can delute it down and use it as
a folior spray on your plants. If you like to go to Microlife Fertilizer
dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com you can learn more about these products, but
can also learn where you can get Microlife. Here in town and in town,
in the Greater Houston area and pretty much everywhere is going to carry Microlife.
You hear me bragging about a nursery, a garden center, of a
feed store, a Ace hardware store, they're gonna have micro Life. We
got a lot of folks out there on the board, so Jerry and Cooper
when we come back, we're going to visit with you a little bit.
When we have Sherry here. Our phone number if you'd like to get on
the board seven one three two one, two fifty eight seventy four. So
stick around. Think about some questions that you might have for Sherry Harris.
Sherry is I enjoy visiting with a number one. It's a lot of fun
just to enjoy to be around. But she's also just so knowledgeable. Every
time I talk to Sherry, I'll learned something, and that is what we're
about to do when we get to eight o'clock hours. So I hope you
stick around with us. We look forward to visiting with you some more.
We've got a lot of garden Line left to do here today. Remember garden
Line every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am, so tell your
friends and family about it. You can also listen to it by podcast.
We'll be right back. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with
Scared Rictor. It's a smell crazy, just watching as a wood, so
many good things. Well, good morning, good morning, on a beautiful
Sunday morning. It's a good day to get outside a little bit of gardening
downe this afternoon. Our go visit some of our garden centers because they we
have a lot of great garden centers here in the town and I always brag
about that, but hey, it's a good thing, you know. It
just is a good thing because you have a selection in a variety like none
other. I mean, it's it is I enjoy that. For me,
it would just be like, what do you want to do today, I'm
gonna go to the park to go to six Flags, or I know,
I just want to go to a garden center. That's what makes me happy.
If you haven't fertilizer lawn this summer, it is time to get that
done. Go ahead and get it done. Fall fertilizing is coming, but
now's the time when we're keeping our lawn dents. So when the fall weed
seeds germinate in October, there won't be enough sunlight to help them get established
because your lawn has become denser and dentser and sweet green. By nitrofoss as
a fertilizer that will do that. It is an eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer,
and that's a high amount for a organic fertilizer. It's made of a molasses
base with some microbial activity that just puts everything you need into that product in
terms of nutrients and nutrient availability. Just get your Nitrofuss Sweet Green wherever you
buy Nitrofoss products, which would include ace hardware stores and home and garden mom
and pop garden centers, you know, like the ones we brag on all
the time here your feed stores. A lot of our feed stores carry the
Sweet Green as well. Easy to find, easy to use, smells wonderful,
and probably most not probably most importantly of all, it works. That
is what's important. We're going to head out to Waller and now and talk
to Richard. Hello, Richard, Hello, first time caller. I've got
a question I'm hoping you can help me with. It's been going on for
years and never bother to call in. Why can't you find and buy Saint
Augustine seed? Okay, used to be some on the market years ago and
it just didn't take off. And there's reasons for that. Number One,
it's hard to get Saint Augustine to make a lot of seed where a seed
company could harvest it and get it and sell it at a reasonable price.
Number Two, when you plant seed, it is harder to get grass started
because that little tender seedling has to be really cared for and through that process,
whereas with side it's just a lot more resilient. But the main reason,
Richard is the most or varieties you just can't get them by seed.
They couldn't make a seed from them anyway. And so when we recommend Saint
Augustine, there's a new one coming out from Texas A and M called Cobalt
that is going to make it's a Saint Augustine that's as drought resistant as a
lot of our bermudas and sosias can be. And so something like that you
couldn't have by seed. So do you want it to be resistant to take
to Saint Augustine declined virus, which our good varieties are. Those kinds of
things are just not gonna be available in a seed anyway. But the farms
down in uh Wharton, let's say, or that that are growing it over
Invider Texas. That the farms are growing it, they got to be planting
some kind of seed to start with something. They're growing it. They're doing
it. No, they don't. They plant sprigs of Bermuda zoysia and little
strips of Saint Augustine. If you look at how they harvest a farm.
Imagine this like a like a football field, but it's Saint Augustine. They
cut the strips out of it, but they leave a little strip in between
the strips they remove, and it just crawls back across there and fills back
in and then they can reharvest it again. Gotcha, Okay, gotcha.
So there's no such thing at home depot. If you find Saint Augustine seed
on the shelf, don't buy it that. I mean, I don't know
how to put any cler in that. All right. I appreciate your help
very much. All right, bye bye. Yeah, it's you know how
it goes. And speaking of our lawns, and we need to water them
properly, and we have. You have a free tool available to you,
by the way. I've talked about it before, but it's the water my
Yard app. Now. You can get it for Apple Store, you can
get it for Google Play for your Android devices. You can go online to
water my yard dot org orgy water my yard dot org and check it out.
Here's the deal. There's little weather stations all through the region. You
don't even notice. Some they're small, they're out there, they're collecting solar
radiation, humidity, temperature, windspeed, all the things that determine how much
water grass uses or doesn't use. Okay, and they will send you a
free email once you sign up. They send a free email to you based
on your closest weather station telling you exactly how much water your plant is used.
And they know that they've done the research to know with all those factors
as it gets hotter, cooler, humid, dry, et cetera, they
know how that affects water use. And so I got one last week that
said I think it was point five eight inches of water needed on my lawn.
And that's a science based answer, and it's free. All that technology,
that expensive technology is available to you for free with water my yard dot
org. We're going to go to cypress and talk to Melanie. Now,
Hello Melanie, Hello Skip. I just was moving for the last two weeks
from our old house, and I left the sprinkler system lining about real early
in the morning about three times a week. And it looks good, especially
the shaded area. But I have an area I just went over and thought
it's about a twenty by twenty foot where the grass is like white. I
mean it's not brown, it's white. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
So I started walking. I put on the sprinkler, and that area
has always been bad. The sprinklers don't really hit it real good. Okay,
So I just is there any hope for it? Or I had put
out I will tell you this, about three weeks ago, I put out
bug out because I saw a few spots and I thought, well, maybe
there's some bugs getting in here. I did put that out, Okay,
so I know if it is bugs or if it's or if I can make
it come back alive, you know, with you know, fertilizing it or
I don't know what. And it's it's a Saint Augustine grass, right,
it's Sant August okay, yeah, and it's in full sun. Yeah.
So you just gotta keep soul moist, and I, you know, go
out to those areas, dig down a few inches with a little hand trawl
and just feel the soil because you know, we can sit here and talk
about how often the sprinklers come on and run and things, but there are
a lot of variables there. The bottom line is is your soul moist at
the root zone or not? And that's what you can just walk out real
quickly and determine. And you don't have to do that every time you water.
You just like, right now, do it and see what does it
need. The bugout will take care of the chinch bugs if you put that
out at right at the right rate. And so we're going to eliminate them
from the picture. Maybe they were involved, but they shouldn't be involved now
if you use the bugout now. And I just think the neglect because I
was unpacking and I just never went over to the house and then all of
a sudden it was like, oh my gosh, I probably could have caught
it sooner. Should put anything like any kind of fertilizer on it, or
yeah, I would, I would use I would use some fertilizer just to
kind of help it along a little bit. And you can do a couple
of things. I mean you can you can put out a dry granule fertilizer.
We talked about a lot of good products you're on the market. That
sweet Green that'd be a good example. It's got plenty of nitrogen in it,
and so you would do that. Let's see Sweet Green seven ten eleven.
You're gonna put about ten pounds per thousand square feet on the sweet green
on the lawn. So just consider how big the lawn is by enough to
do that. Watered in really well when you do it and get it down
because we want to give it a pretty good quick boost and it will accomplish
that for you. What is the difference between sweet green and slow and easy?
Oh gosh, that's a long answer, and I have to go to
a break. Bottom line is sweet sweet green, sweet greens of molasses and
micro based product. That that's what it's amounted to. And the slow and
easy is based on a lot of different kinds of ingredients that helps stretch out
them feeding over a long time. Okay, I'll just stick with the sweet
green right now. And it's okay to fertilize aze is it? Famelia is
now right? It is okay, do it moderately and watered and well.
Okay, all right, thank you for that call. Hey, we're gonna
take a break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy for well.
Good morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are talking gardening this
morning. You know, I don't have to tell you how hot and miserable
it is outside. Well, can you imagine being homeless at this period in
time? You know, people are homeless for a number of different reasons,
sometimes of no fault of their own. And when when you think about how
do we compassionately help people that are in situations like that? The first thing
I think about a Star of Hope. You can go to a Star of
Hope mission. It's sh mission dot org, s oh mission dot org to
learn more. But I can tell you this, when you donate to Star
of Hope, they don't just give handouts. They bring lifestyle change. They
help people, over the course of a year, turn their life around,
get a job, get on their feet, and it is hope not just
for them, but in many cases, perhaps a mom with some children that
are living in a car. It is a generational change. At Star of
Hope. You're listening to garden Line and we're talking grass today. Boy,
question after questions, all about lawns and things. Let's go to Humble and
talk to Wilburt. Hello, Wilbert, Hello, how are you doing today?
I'm good, sir. How can we help? I've got Saint Augustine
with a mixture of Bermuda grass in it, and I usually use the nitrofoss
fertilizer. So all right, the meat being the way it is, I
want to know, can I go ahead on and do that fertilize and this
money I think the calendar calls forward. Yes, I want to ask a
qution because it's hot, and then it is good for the bermuda part of
it, because the bamouda is brown looking in the thing. Augustin is green,
right, and that's because muta holds back and saves its water so it
can survive long term. And saying augustine lives like there's no tomorrow and it
stays green until when it when saying augustine turns brown, you've got a big
problem. But yes, you can use it on both. If you follow
the label and apply the right amount, you will not burn your lawn.
You have to put it down and then you want to water it in very
well. And with that combination, Yes, you can fertilize now and don't
worry about it hurting anything. Okay, Because I was wondering if if I
could do I have to scale it down a number. Could I just use
the call for a number that on the label pack you can use what you
got and if you're planning on doing a fall fertilization, which is coming up
here in a couple of months, then you might hold a little on the
hold back just a little bit for right now. Especially if it's going to
be something that's going to release gradually over time, you don't need to put
as much on, but you always want to have plenty of nutrient there for
the lawn to be dense, because, as I was saying earlier, in
October, where all the cool season weeds are germinating, and the denter that
you can get that lawn between now in October, the less cool season,
we are gonna be fighting. Okay, okay, appreciate it now. Also,
I was second board it calls for the bug out now, but I
know some of them bring them patches in these yards. It looked like you
don't know whether it's cheek bugs are software or they just getting burned from from
the heat. Yeah, well, and that's probably true. We do have
chinch bugs out now. I mean that's possible. I haven't heard of sideware
burns yet this year. I mean they're there, but I haven't heard of
a population being a problem yet. But for the chinch bugs, Yeah,
the bug out Maxwell work. The chinch bugs easy to pick out though.
It almost always starts in the sun next to a driveway, a sidewalk or
curb or some other masonry kind of thing. And so when you see that,
it's probably worth going in and treating for the chinchbugs. All right,
Okay, well, appreciate the AMFO. You helped me out one hunt Well,
I appreciate that call Webert, thank you very very much. If you
are looking at your landscape and you're thinking, you know, I like my
house, I like my landscape, but I want more. I want it
to be a showplace. I want an outdoor area where I can get family
and friends in and just have a great time. Piercecapes, that's who you
call. Pierscapes has the designers on staff that can create that design. You
know, it goes beyond your and my abilities to lay out in design.
They know how to do it and they can create that beauty that makes your
gardening, your landscape awesome. Rock borders, hardscapes, new gardens, walkways,
drainage, irrigation, they do it all. Go online to pierscapes dot
com, peerscapes dot com or call two eight one three seven zero fifty sixty.
Let the experienced and professionally trained folks at Piercescapes turn your place is in
into a showplace. That is what they specialize in, that's what they do
well at. We're going to go now to Pasadena and talk to James A.
Good morning, James, Good morning Skip. I'm gotta question about torpedo
grass. How do I get rid of it? Is the what is it
growing in Saint Augustine? Okay, well, I'm sorry to hear that there's
not something that kills torpedo grass and doesn't kill St. Augustine. Torpedo grass
has a characteristics though, where it tends to grow up taller than you're Saint
Augustine. So with that in mind, if you have a wiper type applicator,
you can use a product such as a something that kills everything, like
glyphosate round up type product. Put it on, wipe it just on the
torpedo grass, not don't spray it on your lawn and it'll translocate down And
that's not going to be once in done deal. You're gonna have to go
after several times over time because it is a very persistent, very pernicious weed.
Too. By the way, there are also products that are for grass
only killer that contain an ingredient called sathak sidem. But when you see something
that says it just kills grass post emergent and it begins with Seth, like
the guy's name Seth set that's going to be the ingredient. And again it
will kill your Saint Augustine. But you can wipe it on the torpedo,
let it grow up higher so you can get it on that. Other than
that, those two things are going to coincide with each other and it commingle
and it They're just not something to go in and surgically take out the torpedo.
All right, thank you, scip all Right, I'm sorry to be
the bearer of bad news and I know that is one pain in the neck
weed to be dealing with. Okay, you take care. Hey, if
you live in the see north central Houston area, you know, Downtown Heights,
all through that region, your hometown feed stores Quality Feed and Gardens supply
Quality Feed, Ken and Chris the folks Quality Feed. They've they've owned it
for like thirty two years. Quality Feed's been around since nineteen twenty eight.
So you talk about an old time feed store. You go in there and
I mean they've got this. They've got a seed rack that dates back to
nineteen twenty eight stocked with heirloom seeds. I just think that's the coolest thing
ever. They got all the fertilizers and soils and things we talk about here.
They got all the feed store stuff you would expect in a feed store.
They even make their own Kin's potting soil, and they make their own
Granny's lang mix for chickens. And by the way, I don't know anybody
that gets chickens in as much as Quality Feed. Like ever two weeks it
seems like they got a new shipment coming in. So if you want to
get into backyard chickens, or if you're into it and you want to add
a few more to the flock, they're the place to go. They have
everything you need for your backyard chickens. Go to Quality Feed coo dot com,
or just find them on Luzon Street. They're near the intersection of equipment
and a Lesion. If you went to Quality Feed years ago, like I
did, that was a different location. Fairly recently, they've been in this
new location last couple of years. I Guess and on Luzon Street. They're
open Monday through Friday nine to six, Saturday night to four, and Sunday
eleven thirty to four pm. So it's a good day to get out there
and check out quality feed. You're listening to garden Line and our number seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. This past week, I was at the Texas Nursery
and Landscape Association Show in San Antonio, and this is like the state wide
show, in fact, bigger than state wide. People come from Tennessee and
Louisiana and Oklahoma all over the place to come because this is just an awesome
show. While I was there, six headed came around the corner and Vego
Gardens how to display there? Now, Vego Gardens, that's the metal garden
bed. It's they treat the metal so that it does not rust and corrode.
Then they paint it with the USDA approved USDA IS certified paint so that
it's very food safe. So if you're an organic gardener, this is the
only superior alternative to a treated lumber bed. For example, if you're not
an organic gardener, there's other reasons to love Vego gardens. They last forever,
and literally, if you compare them to like treated lumber, in the
long run, Vego is cheaper because it just outlasts treated lumber and you're not
having to build it and you're not having to, you know, deal with
warping boards and all of that stuff. They are local company, Houston area
company. You go to vegogarden dot com some of our mom and pop garden
centers here Carrie Vego garden beds. There's a lot of impostures out there,
so don't be fooled. You want quality, you want local, you want
Vego garden. I have Vego garden beds myself. I think they are absolutely
wonderful. If I were putting in a brand new garden, that's the only
way I'd do it. As with a garden bed our phone number seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Or you can just uh, you know, give me
a call. Maybe we will talk about gardening. Maybe we'll visit about you
bragging about the tomatoes you're growing in the middle of summer. I won't believe
that one by the way, but you can tell me anyway if you want
to. I was talking about affordable treecare earlier. You know Martin spoon Moore,
the guy he knows trees, And right now you look at your trees
and they're green, but I'm telling you they're stressed unless you have really just
been watering with good deep soakings a lot. Martin can come out and do
a deep root watering, and it's important to do that because when you look
up at a tree and you see problems, it's a little late and it
may be well on its way downhill fast. And when a tree gets stressed,
things like hpoxlan canker in oak trees and elms comes in. There's just
a lot of problems. It's like becomes a Rhoadminos one leads to another seven
one three, six nine nine two six six three are aff Tree Service dot
Com. While they're out there, take a look at the trees. Make
sure ask them, will you look at them? Do you see any issues
with future storms? I got some limbs that need to be removed. They're
not going to sell you something you don't need. Martin is an honest fellow
who does good work, and so you just ask them and if it needs
it, they'll tell you. In that way, you won't have this issue
you're dealing with later when that tree has fallen on the line, drop coming
bringing the power into your house and oh my gosh, is that ever a
mess? Well, Nikki, we're here for the Nicki News Network and all
kinds of things. Plan. I think we need a segment that says gardening
questions from Niki. Maybe amateur gardening question no offense, amateur gardening questions from
Nikki, or it could be the like asking for a friend segment. Yes,
yes, can we do that at some point? Oh absolutely, I'd
love to do that Gardening questions in here next Saturday. We can do that
next Saturday. Right now, I'm going to shut up so you can do
the news. We're listening to garden Line this morning. I am your host,
Skip Rictor. And what are we here for it? Well, we're
here to talk about gardening. What's of interest to you? What kind of
questions do you have? I know everybody is suffering in the heat right now,
trying to keep plants adequately hydrated. It's just a it's just a lot
going on. You know, Folks get concerned as they rightly should when their
plants start looking bad. I was, I don't know where I was yesterday,
somewhere out and about, and I saw a bed full of roses,
and boy, they just looked, i don't know, like almost shark trus
tan looking they were. It was just like the systems were shutting down on
those things. Now they needed water. I'm pretty sure that was involved.
But you know where it gets us hot. It does affect the some of
the processes inside plants, and our plants, buy and large, are pretty
tough and able to take it. If you plant plants that are four here
that do well here, you don't try to stretch the zone too much on
things. But it is an issue that we do have to deal with.
I'm doing transplanting myself. There's well, there's always something to be planted,
and whenever you do, you want to make sure those plants get off to
a good start. Remember, we've got a cylinder of roots. It came
out of the pot and now they're going in the ground, and we need
to take good care of them while they're in that process under stressful conditions to
try to get a root system in. Okay, So a product like hastragrow
six twelve six is ideal for watering implants like that. And here's why.
It's got the six twelve six hiphosphorus content, which is important for blooms and
roots and fruiting and things like that helping that plant get established. But it
also has medina soil activator to stimulate the biological activity, and it's got humic
acid which helps improve ultimately will help improve sol structure. But humic acid is
just a very very rich substance that really helps plants. It just there can't
go into all the details of it, but in many ways, the ways
it functions in the soil and with the roots to help is just night and
day in terms of the benefits that it has. This has to grow six
twelve six also has a seaweed extract in it as well, and that again
stimulates the blooming and the fruiting. So just think of it. It's a
concoction that ever plant going in the ground needs to be watered in well with
something like a Medina hast grow twelve six. Whether it's a perennial, maybe
an herb or a salvia something like that, whether it's a shrub or a
tree, watering in the root systems really well, whether there's a tomato transplant
or a pepper that you're putting in right now. And by the way,
it's time to do that. If you want tomatoes and peppers for the fall
garden, Medina has to grow six twelves. It just works. Well.
We're gonna head out now, and let's see we're going to go first.
I think we're a head to Kingwood first and talk to Fred. Hello,
Fred good million, Skip, thank you for everything you do. Yes,
I've been using six two four Microlife six two four in my lawn for about
five or six years now and it's doing well, and I'm always asking myself
should I use it as my winterizer? And the reason I've gone only organic
in my lawn is because years and years ago we've been in the house for
forty five years, I was using the other synthetic stuff, and since I've
switched to Microlife, it's just doing so much better. But I don't know
if it's the proper thing for the for the winterizer. I also use azamite.
I also put you made plus down and I'll also be doing the barricade.
Okay, well, so if it were me going into fall, I
would use their brown Patch product. It is. It's going to have a
nutrient content. But what happens was we're go into fall, is we want
to pull that nitrogen down lower and make sure the third number, the potassium
is up at a good decent level. You know, the six two four
has a good amount of potassium, but it's got a little more nitrogen.
We'd like to shift those over a little bit. And and so that's what
the brown Patch does. Now you can use six two four on any plan
at any time of the year. I mean, it's just a good all
purpose fertilizer. You would do better though once we get into about October time.
That's when I'm gonna start talking about the winterizers and the fall fertilizers and
and that's and the brown Patch is also an organic microlife product. Yes,
it's a brown bag Microlife brown bag. So the two six two four bags
I just bought, maybe I can take them back to one seven Gardens and
exchange them. Well you could do that or just keep them around. I
mean, you know, if I don't know, if you're planting any shrubs
and trees and what do ornamentals this fall, you can put those down in
the ground. That is a product that's adding organic matter, and it's adding
the nutrients and stuff over time. You could use them now too, Fred.
In fact, you could fertilize with them now and then still fertilize in
October with the brown patch material, because our goal right now, Fred,
is to get that lawn as dense as we can by proper mowing, watering,
and fertilizing. When all the winter weeds try to sprout in October,
you do not want sunlight hitting the soil. So I would go ahead and
use the six two four now and just worry about the brown patch material when
we get on October. Okay, sounds like thank you for your advice,
Yes, sir, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much.
Well, if you are, if you're thinking about retiring and you would
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Well, Dell Web Communities are designed for people just exactly like you.
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line listener, you should especially be interested in this. You don't dig up
your back forty. You go to the community garden and there you can gather
with friends and visit and just enjoy growing things. Dellweb dot com slash Houston
will give you more information there, or you can call them two eight one
four five nine oh six o nine. We're gonna now head out and talk
to Tim Well. Hello, Tim, how are you? Can you hear
me? All right? I can, sir. Oh, I've got a
question. I've listened to you a couple of weeks ago. You were talking
to a fellow about mem oil, okay, and you were saying that it
would it would get rid of the caterpillars on my own pan lily so gingers,
okay. I was wearing I've got free range chickens from the Memorial hurt
Room. No it will not. But you know, if I were going
after caterpillars, I would probably use the nime. It's a nime extract.
It's the ingredient is azadiractin. So here's the thing. Nime is kin to
our chinaberry trees and it grows in India and tropics places like that. Inside
that plant seeds is an oil that they press out and it works like any
horticultural oil smothers insects. It's great for little insect eggs, for spider mites,
aphids, those kinds of things. Oils great for that, but they
extract out of it the asadiracting, same tree, same plant. In other
words, the azadiracting is more of an insect growth regulator. And so when
you spray it on a plant and catap pillar eats that plant, it stops
eating and it stops developing. It doesn't go through its molds. It'll never
become a moth and fly around and legs and you know, procreate itself like
that. So I would go the ASA direct and type of name as opposed
to the oil type of name. If caterpillars are your target, I think
I could get that as a ice hard work. I know you could.
Yeah, you just have to go in. When you look and you see
name on a product, just look at the ingredient and it'll say one or
two things. It'll leave this say as a direct in that long a word,
or it'll say nme oil clarified name oil, and that'll tell you which
one you're getting. Hey, I gotta run to a break. I appreciate
the coffe. You want to hang around, you've got more questions. We
can do that, but I gotta just put you on hold for now.
Let's say you're listening to garden Line and we're taking a break. Give us
gods you like to feel on the board. In the meantime, just hang
on. We'll be right back. Hey, good morning. You are listening
to garden Line and we are in the home stretch here on Sunday. We're
here every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am for your gardening college.
You can listen to us also on podcasts. By the way, if
you miss the show, or maybe you heard something in a show that you
didn't write down and now you're trying to remember what it was, you can
go back on podcasting and listen in and get filled back in. We are
going to go out now to Southwest Houston and talk to David. Hello,
David, good morning. I got a question for you about some vines.
Okay, my main one is I have it. I grow moon vine from
seeds every year. Usually there it's the prettiest plant and they open up at
night maybe you place in tonight and they're just gorgeous. Well, this year
they're only opening the flowers halfway and it's tops there and dies. Okay,
and I grow in the park now about in their way? Yeah, a
fertilizer I can give them? Or are you on every day? Yeah?
Are you growing those? You've grown them before and they always bloom well in
the summer for you every year, okay, them like crazy. It's the
first time ever that they haven't. It's not blooming all the way. They
go half the flower will be halfway and stop. Yeah, that's that is
strange I have. I've run across that before, and I've never really nailed
down exactly everything going on. I think that part of it can be related
to the nitrogen fertilization. Sometimes if you overdo nitrogen on something, you just
don't get the bloom response that you're looking for. The Other thing is I
don't I haven't fertilized, by the way, you haven't. Okay, all
right, I'm waiting for you what to do. Okay, good, well
moderate amout nutrition is good, but just be really careful on the overdoing it.
Uh. Have you checked later at night? I know it normally would
open earlier, but have you you know, gone out like other day,
I was at about maybe two in the morning. It was the same.
Okay, the open halfway and I give them. I always grow them for
friends too, because they do it from see and all of my friends and
family owers. Yeah, there's are like normal opening all the way. Oh
they are this year, yeah, right, the same, the same band.
It's just it's just mine that is very strange. Like I said,
I have heard that before. I've never heard a good scientific answer for why
it's it's being that way. Uh. You know, I was going to
start to say, well, gosh, maybe this just brutal excessive heat is
affecting some processes and it's just not quite making it. Uh, because they
open up. They open up when the you know, as the sun goes
down, we're getting lower light levels that triggers them to open up. And
why would they not go ahead and open the rest of the way. You
know, it's one thing if they don't have blooms, that especially would be
the extra nitrogen, which you're not doing. So what's start fertilizing with.
I would just get moderate lawn fertilizer and just put a moderate amount in.
How big are these containers? Oh? Maybe two feet wide? Two feet
wide? Okay? Yeah, I would just just get you a turf type
fertilizer. Is there a particular kind of lawn fertilizer you'd like to use?
I use the organic noxofoss fusing. Okay, sweet green, Okay, that
would be the one to get. Then, I'm the reason I ask is
I'm trying to forget what you already have on hand there. I would do
the sweet green. It's eleven percent, so probably let's say about two tablespoons
uh in there and watered in really good and just watch them and you may
do that again later, but not not much more. Right now, let's
just go kind of easy because I don't want to overdo it. But it's
not it's not a lack of nutrient that's causing that. You know, if
your old leaves are turning yellow and the new leaves are green, well,
yeah, i'd probably need some nitrogen or something. But I also go two
other vines. I want to ask about I grow passion vine and also grow
pipevine. Could I fertilize in with that with the same sweet green or something
different? No, you can. You just again go moderately because those are
all all these you're talking about are pretty pretty vigorous, especially the passion vine.
That one take over the world, is it? By the way,
is that a red or a blue or purple? What kind of passion vine
do you have? I have the passion vines are blue and purple, okay,
and the pipe vines I do the shoot Okay, I don't do that
big one because those I've heard those aren't good for butterflies. Right. Do
you grow the one that's a ground cover'd good at frina? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, that's a good one. That's the one for your butterflies.
So I would just watch the foliage. You know that the moonvine the moonvine,
and to some degree the passion vine can get spider mites that you want
to watch for that. If it's the new growth is green and the old
growth is yellow, that's a sign you probably need a little bit of a
boost of a nitrogen. But let's look at the vine characteristics. Go ahead,
they're all green, okay. It looks super healthy. Well, then,
I you know, I wouldn't sweat too much putting a lot of fertilizer
on them. I'd do the two tablespoons of this week in a two inch
pot. That that's a light dose. But that should be okay, it
should be okay. You're not going to burn them with it, that's for
sure, but I just want to be moderate. I think the most important
thing for you is is consistent moisture in the pot, because boy, can
it ever dry out fast in this water night. Okay, And you got
good drainage, so they're not seeing soggy, is that right? No,
that's that that holds in the bottom. Okay, man, Rid David,
you're doing everything right. You just need to go out and give them a
good talking to. I think, hey, i'd be curious, Uh,
I'd be curious if they turn out where they start blooming better as the move
another month or so in. I would like you to call me back and
let me know that I'm kind of curious as we get into late September or
something, if they're looking a little bit better or not. All right,
well, I should appreciate you, all right, thank you. Sounds like
you've got some really cool vines. We don't use vines enough in our landscapes
here. We have a lot of great vines. Maybe we should just do
a show or we talk about vines sometime. Hey. If you're looking for
supplies and products, you know David talking about the nitrofists, the sweet green,
I mean, if you're looking for all the fertilizers you talk about,
you know, the nitrofists, the microlif the Nelson plant food. Ace Hardware
stores are going to be the place to go for that. If you need
insexicides, pesticides of any type, fungicides, herbicides, They're going to have
that really good selection. I've been very impressed with the selection that they have.
If you're looking for everything else you need from indoor and outdoor, if
you're looking for the outdoor living, maybe you want to create a more beautiful,
unique outdoor space. You know, barbecue pits and all the supplies that
are part of outdoor living. You know it is going to cool off eventuland
we're gonna head outside and enjoy those o ACE Hardware is where you get it
all. Go to Ace hardware dot com, find their store locator and you
can find the thirty nine Ace Hardware stores that are here in the Greater Houston
area, so there are gonna be two or three near you. You'll see
what I'm talking about when you walk in. I mean it is a store
that has all kinds of things for your home, for your outdoors, and
certainly for your lawn and garden there at Ace Hardware. You know, these
shows always go so fast. I mean, here we are Sunday, it's
almost time to shut the show down again. Got about a minute left,
so we don't have time for another call. But just talking a little bit.
We're just talking about vine. So let me let me go out mentioning
a few things about that. The summers here are brutal, and to have
a vine overhead, you know, people think of a grape vine on an
arbor. That idea. That's a great idea. By the way, if
you're going to do that, give me a call because we need to get
you the right kind of grape or you're just gonna not be happy with the
results. But there are perennial vines. It come back year after year like
Queen's wreath. It is a beautiful clusters of pink blooms that the pollinators will
go nuts for and then all the annual vines. You know, a moon
vine we just were talking about. That's a type of morning glory. Actually
it does really well. You mentioned passion vine. Oh my gosh. The
blooms are exotic and beautiful. And you bring in goldfrid Larry caterpillars when you
plant that. They love to eat that. That. We could go on
and on and on. There's woody vines, there's perennial vines, there's annual
vines. There's vines, and the annuals that recede vines are a great way.
I actually have a western wall on my house that the brick is heating
up infernally at the end of the hot day. I'm planning on putting a
lattice covering over that and covering it with a vine. I should have done
it before this summer, but the amount of money that saves I'm going that
wall. Put my hand on the wall of the house at eight o'clock at
night and feel the heat on the sheet rock radiating in from that wall.
Well, we can fix that with a plant. I mean, how much
are you spending on air conditioning to cool a room where it's radiating well into
the night. The heat. There's no sense for that, no sense for
that. We can do it with a vine. Lots of good vines out
there. Don't have time to name them all today, but think about it.
Try some out this sign.