Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Ricter. Just watch
him as a sign good, good Sunday morning, on a good day for
gardening. You are listening to your garden Line. I'm your host, the
Skip Richter, and we are here to answer your gardening questions. Perhaps it's
some plant identification of problem diagnosis, just subgestions lady for a bet garden or
floral bad, any kind of horticultural questions, fair game. I love visiting
the gardeners about things going on in the lawn. And there's a lot going
on in the lawn the vegetable garden landscape right now. If you'd like to
give us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four two one two fifty eight seventy four. And we're going
to start this morning by heading out to hobby to talk to Fanise Panise.
Congratulations on being the first caller on garden Line on an early Sunday morning.
Are you there all right? Well, while we try to get Fanise back
here on the air, are you there? Answer? Good? What can
we talk about this morning. Well, are ended up going to get some
of those trees that were given away? Uh? I forgot the organization,
but I got three PCU tries in Uh. Obviously they weren't whooping and water
while they were there, but when I got home, some of the leagus
already turned in black on the tip and you so, but I watered them
because I want to make sure that uh uh put them in the ground the
proper way as they try to and uh and they're actually being given a way
to Uh. One of my wisest relatives they lost well they lost her brother,
but either way, and uh so they moved out to the country and
uh, they don't have any trees there, but I'm going to give them
the three picantries, okay, And I want to know more less what to
do? Are these trees growing in containers right now? Is that how you
go? They're getting containers? Okay, Well, i'd hold on term.
Just see if you can get them back on their feet. Adequate water in
the container. And it's you know, I can't tell you how much to
apply or how often to apply it because depending on whether it's in sun or
shade, whether the container drains super well or not well at all. I
mean, there's just a lot of variables. But just you can dig your
finger down in the soil and the container a couple inches and if you feel
it and it feels moist, it's okay. If you if you feel it
and it's now get a little little on the dryer side, go ahead and
give it another watering. In general, they're probably gonna have to water them
about once a day, maybe every two days, depending on how big the
tree is, how many leaves it has, and how big the container is.
But one of them is at least four foot tall. Of the other
one they're somewhere like three foot tall. Okay, But want they're going up
towards the Cleveland area is what kind of soil you do I need? Well,
I don't know that you need it. It's like they're already in a
container, they've got their mix. When you get them up there to plant
them, if you can give them a soil that is not a heavy clay
and up in that area there's a lot of sandy loams and silty sands and
stuff like that. But anyway, just a well drained soil, but a
soil that that has some moisture to it. You know, if it's a
deep deep sand, pecan trees are not gonna be as happy. They're gonna
be drought prone in that. So just plant them at the exact same depth
that they were in the nursery. However deep that cylinder of soil and roots
are, that's how deep the hole should be, not an inch deeper,
if anything, they could be you know where the topmost route is right at
the soil line. All right, I'm so another word to get to build
up sound, which trying to say that don't don't put them too deep.
In other words, yeah, don't don't put them too deep. That's not
good for any plants. But you know, pecans are not going to like
that very much. Just you know, when you get through planning and walk
away, what was the top of the soil and the container should still be
the top of the soil. You know, it shouldn't be higher or lower
or anything. I mean, you know if yeah, yeah, the top
route tells you kind of where to plant it. Actually that that's the best
way to go. All right, all right, I appreciate sir. All
right, well, good good luck with your trees. Thank you. Appreciate
that call. We are going to head out now to Kingwood, but first
let me give you the number if you'd like to call in seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four and let's head out to Kingwood and talk
to Angelo. Well, good morning, Angelo, How are you today,
sir? I'm well, thank you? Okay, great? Yeah, I've
been guarding the same plot now, probably close to I don't know, twenty
five thirty years. Bilipinos grow great, My Italian peppers grow great, My
Hungarian peppers grow great. But my green bell peppers I grew about five years
ago, a couple two years in a row, gets lots of flour,
bears no fruit. Well I tried it again this year and it's the same
thing. Everything's grown great. I got heavy, getting good produce out of
a good good product out of the peppers. But the bell peppers, the
green bell peppers flowers fall off and no fruit. Is there something I'm missing?
Is it a different makeup of pepper or what because it just doesn't bear
fruit. Well, that's very strange. Yeah, I know, I can't
understand it. Yeah, the same species of plant, so correct, I
don't know. I don't know why that would be. I mean, pollination
is obviously occurring in the pepper patch. But the thing that gets me as
three or four years ago it did the same thing. I took a break.
I said, I'm not going to waste my time, time or money.
And now this year plants are very healthy looking, just no fruit.
Yeah, we're early enough in the season where you know, certainly the heat
and things like that are not bothering stressing the plants. The leaves look good,
healthy. It's a stumper. I don't you know, with some plants,
we can push the nitrogen enough to affect effective fruiting and fruits up.
It's just not the likely what you're describing. That's a little bit grabbing at
straws. But it's a possibility. Um, I don't know, what do
you remember the variety that you got out there? Yeah, it's bonny plants,
Okay, but the bonnie folks they have, they have a bunch of
different varieties that the right. Oh it's not it's just a it's just a
just all green bell pepper. It's not a California wonder or anything like that.
It's just their green bell pepper. I was wondering if I would put
some triple thirteen. You know, I usually spread it out between the plants
and put some grass overtop, and it just fertilized. I wonder if that
could be a problem or that could be a solution. Let me let me
think on this one. Angelo, Can you hold Jill after break? I
need to take a break right here, and let's come back and finish this
discussion. Thank you. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter Our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Well, good Sunday morning, on a good sunday for gardening, being outside
and getting some fresh air. I planned this afternoon on doing a little bit
of that myself. Well, we've been talking to Angelo this morning, and
I want to come back here to see if we can continue this conversation.
Angelo. I was thinking about what you were saying on what would be the
difference between the different peppers you have, And certainly varieties and species are different,
but one other difference is is bell peppers are a little more personickety about
the temperatures. Now, we've had good temperatures, but if it ever drops
below sixty, for sure, they're gonna have trouble with fruit setting, and
we've had a few kind of crisp nights. So depending on when you put
them out, you know, when they had the blooms on them, and
when we had some of those crisper knights, that could be a factor.
And I know that's just a little bit of a stretch because overall we've had
good weather. But that's about the only thing I can think of right now
that would be distinguishing between your different kinds of peppers where only the bells are
not setting for you, right so only the bells, And like I said,
it's been below sixty a few times and they been out maybe probably going
on, you know, three weeks. But it's just amazing how just one
plant does it. Let me ask you one more question. Fertilizing my peppers,
I usually don't do it, but sometimes I will put some like I
said, triple third teen in between the rows and cover it with my grass
clippings. What other fertilizer I have those containers that go on your hose like
miracle growth. What do you suggest for just overall spraying and fertilizing, Well,
I would say overall, yeah, I wouldn't do a one one ratio
unless a soil test says, wow, you're low and phosphorus. Otherwise I'd
keep that in middle number a little more, a little lower down, depending
on the kind of soil you have. So it's kind of hard to say
this is the exact fertilizer you need. Now you can go out there and
find something that's like a vegetable fertilizer, and that would certainly be a good
choice. And sometimes those have a little higher phosphor sent them. But I
tell you, I use a wide variety of things on my vegetables and they
just do well. They do well. The main stay for me is putting
a lot of composts into the soil when I'm working up a bed to replant
the next crop. And then you know, you can use a slower release
fertilizer. I like to do that to give them a little more gradual feed.
You just don't want to overdo it. But I tell you the modern
tomatoes, peppers and things that they can really produce heavily if you give them
decent plant vigor. Not so would you suggest that, Like you don't want
to talk about the miracle grill bottle you put on the end of your hose
and then you just is that pretty good for this an overall fertilizer. Well,
it gives you an instant boost, but it gives you a very temporary
boost, and so you're doing it often. Now. The other thing about
that is you're paying a lot per pound of nutrient in that kind of a
fertilizer. You're paying for the convenience of just being able to spray it on
you. If you don't see anything wrong with the triple thirteen between the rows,
I would avoid the triple thirteen just because most of the garden tests I've
seen they didn't need that ratio of nutrients. I just I'm not a big
fan. It's fine to use, people have used it for decades, but
we've kind of gotten away from it. In the old days, triple thirteen
was everything, and now as we're looking more years of experience with soil testing
and seeing what's going on, it's kind of like moved to the side and
we're looking at other fertilizers now unless a soil test says, now, that's
what you need, and I think you're going to find that's rare that it
says that, right, So that middle number has to be lower or higher
than the other two. Well, it depends on again what's in your soil,
but it depends also on the crops that you're growing, and you're going
to see you're going to see a variation. And I in my gardens,
I don't put a higher middle number on my vegetables. And it's because I'm
adding over years as you add compost. If you fertilize, you know,
with fertilizers that have the phosphorus in them, know this that the first and
the third number, especially the first number, it comes and goes a lot
phosphorus. Once it's there, it sticks. It's part of the soil.
Very little lowering of phosphorus over time. I'm in the soil. And so
that's my approach. But let your plans tell you're a better yet, let's
have a soul test and see what they say. Yeah, I think that's
a mess route. Okay, thank you very much, So I appreciate it,
all right. Yeah, and Angela, by the way, I'm gonna
be out. I'm going to be out in Kingwood next this coming Saturday,
Yeah, yesterday, happy, Yeah, to be happy to meet you.
Bring some pictures of what you got in your garden. Out there. I'd
like to see though. That's eleven thirty to one thirty pm and it's a
K and M as in Kingwood. Are all right? You're bringing any freebees
out there? I am they. We're doing some giveaways. We got some
giveaways that we're doing a pretty significant little fertilizer giveaway, I think every thirty
minutes while we're out there. So we're gonna have to sound good. I
probably see you there, but have a nice day, you two take care
of thanks. Right, all right, you're listening to garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter, and we are talking about all things gardening.
Our whole purpose here is to enjoy ourselves as we as we go through the
show, and also to enlighten and to guide. I guess you could say
there's a lot of gardening advice out there. Have you noticed that the social
media often drives me nuts for a number of reasons, But when it comes
to gardening advice, I just read stuff all the time, and about I
don't know sevent it falls into that's not true, or that's only true in
certain circumstances, or well, that's only true in other areas other than where
we are, right now do you see what I'm saying? And or it's
not. It's just not practical. If you want to pose a picture and
become an influencer and stuff and have this little unusual little thing you designed,
that's fine, but other people should not try to grow that particular thing that
way. And you see this with the wall filled with two leader pop bottles
hanging upside down with plants growing in them, you know, and you can
set it up and make a picture, but that is just it's just not
a practical way to grow things, and you're not going to have success in
many cases for a number of reasons. One is lighting is often inadequate in
the especially when it's the pictures taken indoors. The amount of soil that's in
a little pot bottle is not that much the tedium of watering, and some
of these pictures there's like fifty pop bottles hanging on the wall and it's like,
okay, are you going every day? Do you really want to do
that? And then what happens when they drip out and it splashes on the
wall, you know, at your indoor house or whatever. Anyway, lots
of examples, but it's just not true. And that's what we're here for,
to try to provide some unbiased, research based advice. In other words,
something that's been proven. And it's a pet peeve of mine and everything.
I guess I need to get on one soap box a day. Can
you allow me that? If I go out this year and someone gives me
a tomato variety and says it's the best thing ever, and I plant it
and it doesn't do well, and then I now know this variety is no
good for here. That is inaccurate information. In research, we do something
called replicating. We may plant five different varieties of tomatoes, and we may
plant five different replications of those five sets, so that when we average the
production over different locations, I mean, maybe this spot in the soil is
better drained or less drained, maybe this spot over here has more or less
of a nutrient, or more or less sun or whatever. It evens it
out, and we get dependable information from that as a result. And that's
how we need to be getting our gardening advice based on that kind of experience,
because otherwise we end up with things like you know, someone says,
I grew at tomato last year, and I went out there and I let
me make up something here. I put certain brand of Seltzer water in the
soil, and the production was unbelievable. And see that. What we say
in the science world is correlation does not equal causation. I know that's nerdy.
What that basically means is just because two things happen at the same time,
doesn't mean one cause the other one. Okay, And that's the kind
of information we try to give you here on garden Line, stuff that you
can depend on, stuff that is based on proven results. And I just
think that's the way to go. The one thing that would disappoint me most
would be to shoot from the hip and give you something that I heard somewhere
or that seems like that might be a good idea, and present it as
absolute, ironclad fact because you go out and don't have success with it,
and basically I have failed you as a gardener. I'll put it that way.
I want, when I give you some suggestions and advice for you to
take them home to them and have success. And we need to figure out
why if that didn't happen. But that's what we're here for. So you're
listening to garden Line. We're about to go to a break here, but
if you'd like to get on the boards, Josh, we'll get you up
there for us to talk with you at the next segment. Just write down
our number seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And good morning to Nikki.
How are we today? We're doing good? Happy Saturday and Saturday.
Hello, we're into Sunday. Are I think your fan club is sleeping in
because I have not yet today I had to say hi to Nikki response,
but I bet they're coming. Well, good morning to you. Well,
good Sunday morning, which is still dark outside, but the sun is coming
up, and when it does, good to get out and see what's going
on in the yard. We've got a little bit of rain here and there
probably, but you know, the way I look at it is rain just
helps the garden get better, and so if it keeps me in for a
little bit, that's fine. I'm ahead wrap back out when it stops,
because gardening is too much fun, too much fun to miss. Hey,
I am your host of garden Line. Skip Ricter and our number. You'll
want to write this down seven one three two one two, five, eight,
seven, four, seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give a Josh a call and he will get you on the board so
we can visit about the things that are of interest to you. I was
kind of ranting a little bit before break about the importance of research based information,
and that is important because you know, if you think about things for
your own health, like someone says, here's a new medicine on the market
that you need to t and you knew that they had not done an extensive
trial on a lot of people to find out does this work? And number
two, what are the drawbacks that we see popping up as we use it?
Well, you wouldn't be very confident in that a medication would you for
your own body? Well, in a less perhaps important way, in you
know, in terms of life and health. When we're looking at information online
about gardening, the same kind of thing applies, and we want to make
sure we're doing well with stuff now. And we have a lot of sponsors
on the show, and you know, you may be thinking, well,
you know that person is a sponsor, so that's why they're talking about it.
You need to understand something. I look at it this way, my
reputation is on the line, and so I'm not going to read a sponsor
in that I don't believe in their product, that I haven't tried their product,
that I haven't looked into it deeper, that I haven't if it's something
the kind of a thing that I would just because of where how whatever I
live, I wouldn't happen to use that thing specifically, I will talk to
people that do and I'll look into it, because when we sponsor something,
we want you to have success, and it's not just you know, someone
shows up and buys a spot and so we say it absolutely not, I
don't do that. I'm not gonna do that. And I know Randy felt
that way too. It when many years of hearing him he needed personal experience
with things. And I think that's good because it's like the world is already
filled with enough information about people saying you gotta get this, you gotta buy
that, you gotta get this, and you know that's not what we want
to do in terms of just well, you know, here's a sponsor,
let's talk about them. It's it's people we believe in and the products that
I talked about here most of them I have used extensively myself, and the
ones that I haven't I'm in the process of using. But I've looked into
it, I've I've talked with people that are using them, seeing how things
are going with it, and I'm going to believe in it, and so
I just want you to be aware of that. I'll try to tell you
when I don't know something. I'll also try to give you my best guess,
but warn you. Okay, this one just went from I know to
based on all the science of how things work, this is what I think
you're going to have good success with. But that's the disclaimer is you know,
it's what I think, and there's a big difference between that. All
right, Well, that's enough about all of that. We are we're looking
at a day where we're probably going to get some drezzling here and there,
and so if your plants are being wet by rain, you need to be
aware of the fact that diseases often will follow that. Not all diseases,
but a lot of bacterial diseases and a lot of fungal diseases need a film
of water over the leaf, the right temperature, and a number of a
certain number of hours for that spore to germinate or for that bacteria to proliferate
and to infect the leaf and to cause a problem. So if you have
a plant that's prone to disease problems and you're going to do something in a
spray form about that, you need to do that after the rain stops,
go ahead and make that application. And that is the reason why if you
wait until you've got spots all over your leaves, maybe your bacteria or just
filled with I mean you're a peppers or filled with bacterial spots, or your
tomatoes a fungal spots or whatever the plane your rose with black spot, you
need to do that treatment afterwards because just think of it as a seed of
a weed on the leaf. That's what a fungal spore is like. And
you get that seed wet and it's going to sprout, and when its sprouts,
here we go. So we need to move in pretty quickly with something
that we're going to do, and that way you avoid a lot of problems
and it helps bring it under control things and get out of hand when you
wait too long. Doing something early is almost always better than doing it late
for a number of reasons. I've talked about this before, but for example,
let's say you're going to use on our again, like BT on caterpillars.
Well, if you catch them when they're young and voraciously feeding, BT
is amazingly effective on them. As that caterpillar gets older and older, and
it's just you know, it starts to think about, hey, I think
I'm going to become a cocoon pretty soon here and then then a moth.
Well at that stage BT asn't as effective, So just keep that in mind.
Early is better. You're listening to garden Line, I'm your host,
skip Rictor our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Don't ask me why I'm gone to Texas. Why in all the world am
I here? Because I do love to hear those Texas fiddle and dance and
say and drink my lord, start Dallas. I have a little old elpason
you can hear Bob will Mill macke me. You know, when I'm here
in Western Swing, I don't want to start talking. I just want to
keep listening. I think you guys, if you've listened to me more than
a show or two, you probably have figured that one out. You're listening
to garden Line, I am your host, Skip Richter, and we're here
to answer your gardening questions. Whatever you want to talk about regarding gardening,
maybe it's some ideas for a new a new landscape area, or something that
some plant you've been struggling with. We're here because we want you to have
success. Gardening is a fun, relaxing, rewarding hobby, but like anything,
it can become frustrating and you can feel like I can't do this,
and you can feel like this just isn't working, and I don't have a
green thumb and all that kind of thing. Well, there are no brown
thumbs. There are uninformed thumbs. And so if you want to use a
thumb color, listen to garden Line. Work with us will help you,
and we will turn a brown thumb green. But essentially, what you really
need is not some spec usual innate you know, magic that makes plants grow
like some people think. Well, Grandma had a green time. Everything she
touched was green. Grandma knew what to do. You know, Grandma spent
a lifetime learning out of garden and talking to other gardeners, and she you
know, she sort of had a knack for it. But she had a
knack for it because she knew what to do. And that's what we're here
to help you have. So nobody needs to fail at gardening, you know.
I say that, and then I think about that. One of the
most famous horticulturists in the US, I believe it was him, J.
C. Ralston, that said this. He said that in order to be
a good horticulture she got to kill a lot of plants, something along that
that lines. And yes, we do learn by doing, and we learn
by failing and stuff. But overall, as we learn, we get better
and better and better. And you know, if we're going to kill a
plan, it's going to be because of something unusual that happened which we learned
from, or it's going to be, you know, some unexpected weather event
like we've had and so on. But to get your knowledge, love a
lot and your experience level, it just makes it more fun. And it
absolutely I know I'm biased, but it absolutely is the best hobby in the
world. It gives you health benefits, it gives you mental benefits, and
those are huge. The benefits of gardening, just the esthetics of making your
place more beautiful, just the health benefits of making your garden more bountiful,
good fresh food to put in our mouths. We know that what we eat
is what primarily our number one health problem. It's because of things that are
going in our mouths and the fact that the couch is a little more comfortable
than walking around. So that those kinds of changes is what gardening can offer.
And gardening can literally make you healthier and make you happier. And so
let's talk about whatever you're interested in. The number seven one three, two
one two fifty eight seventy four. I did want to visit a little bit
about some fruit and nut things today. While we're talking, we get a
few calls on people that are wanting to grow fruits and nuts and things like
that. You know, the challenge and the key to success, for I
guess with fruit is number one good sunlight. If you've got a little backyard
full of trees. It doesn't matter how much you like peaches, you're gonna
have trouble grown a peach. Peaches need fruit in general needs. I'm gonna
say six hours of sunlight and more is much better, but let's just say
six. Now, there's some things like figs and blueberries that both can get
in a little less. Don't put them in deep shade and expect anything but
a little less, and they still produce pretty well. Citrus is pretty good
about producing in a moderate amount of sunlight. Again not too low, but
where I would say no, don't plant a peach, maybe yeah, blueberry
figs. Citrus will do pretty good there. I think it'll. I think
it'll get buy and do all right. Just remember that you're growing fruit to
have a nice sweet fruit to eat, right, And how do you it's
sweet and a fruit, Well, that's carbohydrates. And carbohydrates come from leaves.
But leaves only work when the sun shining, So that's kind of how
it works. The leaves of the food factory. Imagine this factory, you
know belching smoke up in the Midwest, except without the Midwest and without the
smoke. There's a factory in the leaf that is producing the food that fuels
the plant. And we call fertilizer plant food, and I do too,
I understand that, But technically it's the fertilizers the elements that become plant food.
In the plant, the plant makes its food and he uses all those
important nutrients that fertilizer provides to make carbohydrates that fuel the plant. But the
factory only works when the power is on it, and the power is the
sunlight. So when the sun goes off, imagine you've got a giant auto
manufacturing factory and someone turns off all the power. How many cars are going
to come on that? Right? That's how it works on your leaves.
And when we start trying to cheat sunlight and still have productive quality fruit,
we're gonna have a problem. So sunlight would be one of the most important
things. We can talk about some other things that are good to success with
fruit, but would I would first consider the amount of sun in the area,
and after we do that, we'll talk about things like important drainage.
Certainly what species and varieties you're planting, that's probably right behind sunlight. That's
probably the most important. Maybe we'll visit about that a little bit after we
come back from breaks. If you're listening to garden Line, I'm your host,
skip rictor if you'd like to give us a call, have Josh put
you on the board. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
two one two k two eight ktrh. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line
with Skip Rictors. Just watching a good Sunday morning on a good day for
gardening, as is every day you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skipp Richter, and we are here to talk in gardening with you.
If you'd like to give us a call, have just kitch you up on
the board. It is seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking about
fruit before we took that last break, and I mentioned the importance of sunlight.
I mean that is like number one, if can you give it sunlin
or not, that will that will be the foundation for whether you're successful.
Number two is soil drainage. Very few types of fruit can put up with
poorly drained soil. For example, a Mayhaw native fruit produce plant out in
East Texas. They can put up with some wet soil. But when you
when you think of your typical fruits, you know apples, pears, blackberries,
peaches, and so on, plums that they need good drainage and so
you need to give them soil that when it rains too much, the access
goes away. They want moist soil, but they don't want to be in
a swamp and they won't do a do you know peach roots? And I
guess this would be true with plum trees too, because they're typically grafted on
the peach. Uh is that when when they're underwater, when they're anaerobic,
cannot get oxygen, they produce a substance called hydrogen cyanide. Now how does
that sound as far as a good thing to be around the beach roots and
the soil. Uh, they just don't put up with it. So drainage
is really important. Uh. Picking the right cultivar and the right species in
fact, is really important. I was listening to somebody the other day was
asking about, you know, can you can you grow a m what was
it? Almond? Almond here in the Houston area. Well, I will
say I'll never say never. You know, if I say you cannot grow
an almond, someone'll call in and go, oh, I had an almond.
And you know, as we come to find out, it probably didn't
live long, probably didn't produce well, but they had an almond. They
got it to survive well. Almond is basically a peach. It really is.
I mean, look at the look at the shell around an almond,
and look at the pit around the peach, and they look alike or similar,
and that's because they are similar, very closely related. But instead of
eating the fleshy outer part on an almond, we eat the seed inside of
the pit. And in our climate it is number one. Are because of
chilling hours and the way they work around here, we often find almonds blooming
too early and as a result they get hit by a frost. The other
thing is they need to dry when they reach that stage where you know,
the fruit has been formed and the seed has been formed, and now it
needs to shrivel down the whole outside what would be the peach around the almond,
It just shrivels away into a little leathery, little leathery piece. And
we don't have the climate that allows for that good drying, and we have
rots and other things that occur. So picking the right species is important,
but picking the right variety is important too. And one of the biggest things
on varieties is the chilling hours. So when we talk about chilling hours,
now this does not apply to our citrus, for example, and a lot
of the tropical kinds of fruits, but apples, pears, peaches, plums,
per simmons, you know a lot of things. It does apply.
And here's what happens. When we go into fall, the buds on the
tree that are the bloom buds going to be next year's crop, they go
into a dormancy, a chemically induced dormancy. They cannot sprout because there's an
inhibitor keeping them from it. So if in late December, you know,
we have five days of eighty degrees, they're not going to be able to
come out of it because they're chemically inhibited from doing that. But over the
winter period, when we have temperatures around forty degrees forty forty five, especially,
that inhibitor starts to break down. And I like to compare it to
a little time bomb that's clicking click click click on its way down to zero
and then boom. Well, when we have the right temperatures, that little
egg time or time bomb, whatever you want, it's moving pretty quick.
And so for every hour that we have of time in the day, we're
getting an hour of chilling. And then there's times when the temperatures a little
warmer, a little cooler, and the time clock slows down or stops all
together. And so here's the deal. When that time clocks clicked down,
and it says my buds are no longer inhabited. When the weather's right,
I'm going we have some warm days, they're going to pop out and bloom.
Now for a super low chilling requirement, Peach, that could occur way
too early, and we're almost indefinitely going to have another frost that takes them
out. And so that's why chilling is so important. I'm going to pause
on that for a minute, if you'd like to give us a call seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to head out
to Spring and we're going to talk to Shannon. Hello, Shannon, Well,
good morning. Skip. In my compost pile, I found a volunteer
avocado starting. Okay, so I've put it in a pot and it started
to go leave and mind you, I'm up and paid semi professional part time
pat killers. Okay, Well, I would like to I would like to
know what I mean. I don't intend to get any fruit out of it,
but but what what can I do? To keep it alive just to
kind of see what it's going to look like. You can you can pot
it up, or you can plan it in the ground and watch it.
It is going to be very cold, tender, and so if it's in
the ground, unless you do a whole lot, it's going to freeze.
Okay. Now, there's there's several types of avocados, and then there's even
hybrids between types. Okay, so when you go to the store and you
buy those almost black, bumpy avocados, that is not a hardy type.
They're the kind that typically gets sold. But there's also avocados that have smooth
skin and a greenish skin even when they're ripe, and those kind are the
hardier kinds. So if you go to a good garden center around here and
you buy an avocado to try out, they're going to be selling you the
kind that has a better shot at cold heartiness. They're still not extremely cold
hearty, but they're going to sell you that better shot, and that that
would be the Mexican type of avocado. If you if you try the Guatemalan
or West Indian types, they probably won't survive most of the freezes outdoors.
So I would If you want to grow it for fun, that's fine.
If you want to grow it to get an avocado, I would buy a
tree of a good variety that's going to have its best chance here. Okay,
great, Great, Do you have time for one more question? Absolutely?
Well, let's see I have thirty seconds. We can start it and
maybe hold you a lot after break if you like. Okay, And I
would just wondering if you are aware of a food safe paint. I grow
veggies and containers, but they're just so ugly, So I just was wondering
if you're aware of a food safe paint. You know, I'm just going
to answer that one. I'm not I'm sure they are paints out there.
I'm sure that a lot of paints are probably okay once they dry and stuff,
But I'm not going to be the one to guide you that. I
would go to your local Ace hardware store where they sell paint, and I
would ask them that question and see if they can can give you any direction.
Okay, all right, thank you so much. Every good day.
Thank you, Shannon. Appreciate the call. You're listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Rickter. Give us a call. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, good Sunday morning. On a good
Sunday morning for gardening. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, And if you'd like to give a scholar number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. And I just wanted to give a couple more comments to
kind of finish out that what I was talking about on fruit and nut trees
and Jerry and Anna I see out there. We're gonna get to you real
quick here. I talked about the importance of sunlight. I talked about the
importance of drainage. I talked about the importance of picking species and varieties that
want to grow here. That's important. And I just want to add to
that also that some types of fruit require pollinating. Apples almost all they're going
to require pollinate a second variety for pollinator. Peaches are not plums, some
don't, a few don't, most of them do pairs. Most of them
benefit from pollinating as well. Blueberries, you're going to have bigger berries because
with better pollination there's more seeds, which allows it to be a bigger berry.
So in general, many of the fruit trees will require a pollinator.
So make sure when you if you buy that kind of fruit tree, that
you also purchase a variety that's going to bloom at the same time and help
pollinate each other. And another reason to go to an independent garden center where
they know their products and they know to tell you that. A lot of
places, a lot of the big national stores, they're not going to have
the staff that understands that and is going to be able to direct you.
So what happens you go buy a particular kind of fruit that needs a pollinator,
you plan it. Four years later, you call garden line, it's
just not producing. It blooms every year. Well we just lost four years
before you get the information that you really needed another variety. Don't let that
happen to you. Hey, we're going to go out to the phones now,
the number seven one three two one two five eight seven four, and
we're going to start with Jerry. Good morning, Jerry, good morning,
Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate your show. Yes, sir,
thank you. I have I have probably forty or fifty foot tall pine tree
that there are two places on the base of it have scars that are through
the bark and into the wood, and it, I don't know, it
almost looks like sawdust coming out of them. I've sprayed. I just want
to know if there's anything else I should be doing if it's going to kill
the tree. Okay, Well, if you're seeing sawdust, that's a that's
a border that's working on the interior deadwood of the tree. And while we
don't love to have things two and through the you know, structural strength of
the tree, it's not a threat to the health of your of your pine.
If it were a bark beetle, which is a very significant threat to
the health of a pine, then you would see little globs of sap on
the outside. So the fact that it's I've had the pine bark beetle before,
I know what the holes and that kind of thing, Yeah, I've
seen them before, but that's not what this is. Yeah, I mean
it's like a you know, twelve inch high by maybe six inch wide scar.
Okay, two of them. Well, anytimes there's physical damage to any
tree like that, you're gonna get that kind of wound on the trunk.
And when it kills the bark. Then you're down to the inner wood,
and that's not good because then moisture gets in there, decay begins in there.
But on a pine, they just don't close over. They don't callous
over as rapidly as many other tree species would, and so they will gradually
start to close over. But there's really nothing you can do about it.
There's no spray to make it close over faster. Don't paint the wound.
That's not going to be helpful. You might if you're concerned enough about it,
depending on where the tree is, what's near the tree that you might
be concerned. If it did break in a storm in the future, you
might have an arborask come out and take a look at it and give you
an assessment about what you should do. I think nine chances out of ten,
it's just going to be a wait and watch and take care of the
tree. I've seen some things on the internet about going in and scraping it
out and trying to get to good wood on each side of it, and
you know in the essentially the bottom of the scar, is that going to
help. No. I The only part of that that I'll go along with
would be, you know, if you've got dead bark in there, dead
pieces that just helps hold moisture behind them, and you know, pull that
loose pieces of bark or any kind of thing in the way out of there
to open it up so it air dries better. But beyond scraping out wood,
and I wouldn't do that, But again, I would have a certified
arbist come or an arbreast that is trained and knows what they're doing, to
come out and take a look at that and be able to give you that
assessment. Again, my best guest, having seen a whole lot of pines
in my life and these kind of issues, is it's going to be a
wait and watch. Yeah, clean out any debris that's in the way.
But in general, I think it is what it is. But the arbist
can come out and make a statement like, you know what, structurally,
here's my concern with this tree, you know, or I don't have a
concern at this time. All right, all right, I appreciate it.
Have a good day, you bet, Thank you, Jerry, appreciate that
call. Let's now head out to Laporte and talk to Anna. Good morning
Anna, good morning Escape. Thank you so much for taking out or appreciate
your help. I've been listening to the Garden Line way before and Randy,
So anyway, I really enjoyed the show. Yeah, thank you. It's
an honor to be part of a show that has a history, you know,
going way back, I mean through Dewey Compton, Bill Zac, down
Burrows and all the different and of course Randy, who really I think made
to show what it is today. Yes, so I have problems. Did
you pull up my pictures? Did you send me an email? Yeah?
I think an email yesterday. Okay, Now what I'm having problems with is
something is I have a lot of greens I eat out of my garden.
I have colored, charred everything. So anyway, but something is eating some
of my greens and I just didn't know what he would be or how can
I get care of it? Okay, well, Anna, I did not
get it. Not sure why. But after we get you talking, I
want to put you on hold and you can talk to Josh about trying to
get I would like to see those pictures, but I can tell you this,
if it's greens. There are two insect types that typically bother them.
One as beetles, little small beetles that eat holes in the leaves, and
then there are caterpillars which can also eat holes, but often eat from the
sides of the leaves in not just hole. Beetles are pretty much on greens.
Beetles or pretty much just things that eat holes in your leaf, whereas
caterpillars holes on the leaves. So I can it sounds like beetles, I
can it? Treat it? Okay, let me ask you a question.
How big would you say the holes are? Are we talking about like a
bebe or how bigby? Okay, So this is gonna be a little hard
to find. But if you want, since it's greens and you're putting the
whole thing in your mouth, I try to go to the safest thing you
can possibly think of, right, and you can always wash your produce,
and if it's labeled for it, it's okay to use it. But I
would look for a type of BT. And this is important, very important
distinction, that is for beetles, not caterpillars. If you look on the
label at the at the BT where it says at the bottom basillostherne gensis,
this is what's in the product, it'll say san diego after the BT,
but go to a good garden center where they can direct you to the right
one, or you'll be wasting your money. Right. Well, I'm surrounded
by say, real good ones, so we'll do that. That's good.
Well, that's all I did. That's all I need. And now thank
you so much for all the information you provide us. Well, thank you
very much, and I appreciate the call. Anna. Yeah, that you
know, it's interesting. I think the future of pest control in the garden
is really making a shift. We will always have products that are chemicals,
organic chemicals, synthetic chemicals that are out there that are going to kill bugs,
they poison bugs, or they give bugs a disease, and those kind
of thing. That's always going to be here, but more and more we
are seeing biological products like BT. And you know, the original BT was
just for caterpillars. And then I mentioned to Anna that we have the San
Diego strain is for many types not all, but many types of leaf feeding
beetles. We've got the mosquito dunks. We talk about those a lot here
on the show. That's a BT Israeliensis strain that works on a mosquito larva.
You know, we have a BT for fungal n larva and on and
on, and we're seeing more of those kind of products develop. And then
there's some other cool things happening that I will talk about when we get back
from break. I like to spend a little bit more time on that.
But it is an interesting world whereas we learn more about how nature works,
and we'd make new discoveries about what's going on in nature, then new products
are starting to appear, or new approaches that aren't just spray it in the
face and kill it. They're they're a different approach to how pest control works.
And I think that's that's pretty cool. So anyway, uh, fortunately
for you, Nikki is here to save you from me nerding out about strains
of microbes and tell us some exciting things happening out in the world around us.
Twitterville has gone insane. Well that's a short trip. What happened,
I'll tell you all about it, all right. Good morning, on a
good Sunday morning. I see light. That is a wonderful thing. And
even though there's some clouds in the sky, I can tell you this can
be a good day to be out and about. You know, may have
to dodge a little rain according to what the weather man is saying. But
hey, don't let a good, wonderful afternoon like this get away from you.
You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we are here to answer your gardening questions. You know, one of the
things I love to do is to go roundtown and just stick my head in
the door and a lot of these businesses that we talk about here, all
the independent garden centers, you know, the feed stores that we talk about,
these hardware stores that we talk about, and just earlier it was Friday,
Yeah I believe it's Friday. I had stuck my head in the door
in a couple of Ace hardwares just to look around and see what's on the
shelves. What have they got? And you know, every time I do
that, I'm stunned at the amount of products that they have. I mean
everything you can imagine. And often when I go in there, I see
something new and it's like, oh, this is on the market, let
me read about it, let me learn about this. In other words,
the bottom line is if you need something, they're going to have it.
They got they got the fertilizers we talk about, they got the products we
talk about and then some uh and it's just if you want to find an
ACE near you, go to ACE Hardware dot com, Ace Hardware dot com
and there's a way to find the ACE near you. It's it's real evident
on the page to get to it and they can direct you to that.
Now, if if you will write on your calendar for Saturday, the twenty
ninth, this coming Saturday, I'm going to be at K and m Ace
Hardware in Kingwood, K and m Ace Hardware in Kingwood from eleven thirty to
one thirty pm. And I invite you to come out, bring me your
plants, bring me your photos, just come out to talk about. Hey,
here's an idea I have. I want to run it by you.
Do you think this would work? I'd love to do that. It's good
to meet you. Gives you the opportunity kind of with some one on one
time with me to eye to eye, just kind of talk about some of
the questions you might have. Heck, it's even okay to bring pictures and
brag about you know this rosebush or whatever, you're your hibiscus or whatever.
We can do that too. But that is this Saturday, four twenty nine,
April twenty ninth, K and m Ace hardwareing Kingwood from eleven thirty two
one thirty. I hope all of those of you up in the Kingwood Porter
and New Caney, you know that whole area. I hope you'll come out
and check it out. And if you want to drive from Acrosstown, that's
good too. You know, often on these appearances we have people that come
from pretty far away and that is just a whole lot of fun. Well,
let's head out to talk to Jim now on the phones. Good morning,
Jim, Good morning, skip. Quick question for are you about two
and a half three weeks ago? I had two resawt about four hundred and
fifty square feet of my yard. The question is is it too early to
apply the next round of fertilizer. Yeah, it's a little early. Can
you tell me what ratio of nutrients or what type of product you used before?
Initially? I use the fifteen five ten? Okay? Okay, sweet
green? Yes? Oh, sweet green? Okay, sweet green should be
eleven. Let's see, what's the two numbers eleven? It's the first numbers
eleven? Well, it was the fifteen five ten is going to be an
immediate release and you're going to get a good response from that. It's not
one that I would expect to carry you all through the summer unless your soil
is already in a really good shape. You're returning your clippings and you know
you've already built the nutrient content. But I would say probably about six weeks
after that application if you wanted to come in with something that would carry you
on through the summer, that would give you, you know, a longer
a longer feed time. And right now the one that I'm I'm most interested
in, you know, or the products that are going to give you that
kind of gradual feed because we're about to go through that long see season.
And since you use the fifteen five ten nitrofis also that super turf, it's
got the nineteen percent nitrogen. That would be the next one that I would
go to, and that'll give you that'll take you all the way through until
it's time to fall fertilize. And how long before I apply that, I
would do it about maybe six weeks after the first application the fifteen five ten
you put down, you just want to give it some time. That's gonna
last a while. I mean, it's not like it just lasts a week
or less. A good while, but then you want to the more extended
one as you go for it. And now you could have put the super
trift down earlier too. That's fine, but I think, considering where you
are, that's how I would go about it. Okay, appreciate the hell,
Thank you, sir, you bet Jim, good luck with that.
I hope you have a beautiful lawn, and I bet you will. You
know, we have such wonderful growing conditions for Saint Augustine that when it gets
hot in human here in the summer and you don't want to go outside,
as long as there's water in the soil, Saint Augustine's gonna be very very
happy, very happy. Well, you're listening to Garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions. I'm
about to head to a break, but I invite you to give Josh a
call get on the board so we can jump right at it right after the
break. That's seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I've
forgot all about the sweat and then dig and every time I go out and
big all the two things, gotta get to some home grown tomatoes. I
love that song. That's not the Guy Clark version. I believe that's a
John Denver version, but it's still a good song. Right you're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are here to answer
gardening questions. So give us a call. Got just a little bit of
time left in this hour, and then we'll be back again. Seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. And I am seeing someone coming on the line there,
but I'm not sure who we got call. And I wait just a second,
see if a name pops up, and we will move to that call.
I've been talking about fruit trees today. I've been talking about pesticide changes
today, and I want to continue that last one just a little bit.
What I was basically saying is the day of our pest control option just being
poisoned. The pest that is going away. And I think it's a good
thing. Now. When I say going away, I mean not that those
products are going to go away. We'll always have how to poison a pest
products, but we're seeing a day where we have more options than that,
and it's come with the biologicals. You know, BT's been around a long
time, a very well known biological but we keep learning about other biologicals.
Now, this is a nerd alert, and so I just want to give
you a little bit of a warning before I go into it. But I
think you will find it interesting. There's a product that's another bacillus, and
the basillus is not BT, but it's basillis a miloliko phacians. That is
a long word after It'll say seven forty seven. That's like the airplane seven
forty seven. Basillis a miloliko phacians is a unique new basillus to us in
terms of having a product that colonizes the root. The bacteria gets all around
the roots and it fights root right organisms on the route, but it releases
substances that make the plant grow different above ground. So something like powdery mildew
that would be attacking the plant would be somewhat hampered by the fact that the
basillis a miloliko phacians product is down there on the roots. Now, go
to a good garden center and ask him about that. Say, this is
a new basil you drench on the soil. They're gonna know what you're talking
about. There's several manufacturers now that make it, at least two that I've
seen in the Houston area, and it's just a new way approaching it.
And so my point is that we're seeing a lot of new ways of doing
things. We've learned that plants and microbes live together and they interact in ways
that make it difficult for diseases or difficult for insects, and now new products
are appearing that take advantage of that. I think that's kind of cool.
We had a question of someone looking for a landscaper and the one that we
would recommend here on Garden Line would be Peerscapes. Peerscapes has been around a
long time. They are up in the Cypress area. That's where home base
is. They serve of course a much bigger area than that. But the
folks at Peerscapes can really direct you to the kinds of help that you need,
the kinds of product or structures like hardscapes and if you need landscape lighting,
and on and on down the line. But I would I would give
them a try. And response to that, I'll tell you more about Peer
Escape soon. Let's go now to the phones and talk to Gordon in Missouri
County, Missouri County. Am I reading that right? Missouri County, Missouri.
All right, Gordon, how are you today? All not too bad?
Enjoy the show and everything. I've got account of a weird question for
you. A couple of years ago when a storm came down through here.
You know, I lost about twelve trees. A lot of my trees got
tore up and everything. But I had a lot of pecan trees. And
I know probably what the answers are going to be. But all of the
coon trees, they just started. The leaves just started coming out on them
a couple of weeks ago. And my best pecon try, I got to
have no bad limbs, no broken limbs or nothing. It has a sprout,
dying, any leaves or anything. Yet? Is that basically tell me
that thing has died. I wouldn't give up on it yet. Pecans are
a little slow to come out, even though they are coming out now,
but they're not one of the fastest things to come out. It would be
very unusual for the eas we have had in December to have killed your pecan
tree. I mean, in fact, I would say it's almost impossible.
I don't know why it's not coming out. It's not going to be a
chilling requirement thing most likely. Do you know, Gordon, was this pecan
tree? Did it come from a seed that the squirrels planted or is it
one you bought and planted? Well, to be honest with you, this
is I've got five acres down here and everything neat pecan trees have been here.
I ended up getting the property back from my grandparents and everything, and
the countries have been here forever, okay, And this is just one tree
that was kind of by itself. But it's a eat the countree. It's
always developed real good. Yeah, but you know, I'd give it more
time. We're about to head to break here, but I'd give it more
time, Gordon. I think it's probably still going to come out. There's
nothing you can do about it either way right now, so just be patient
and watch it. That is going to be a seedling pecon so genetically it's
going to be different than every other pecan or in your place, just like
all people are different in one way or another. And this may just be
kind of a characteristic that you hadn't noticed that it was a little slower normally,
but let's give it some time. I'm going to hope for the best.
And I just because the chances of something over essentially over the winter completely
killing a tree that was fine last year, that's that's pretty slim. But
thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. You're listening to
garden Line seven one three two one two five eight seven four. KTRH Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip director. Just watchings good Sunday morning.
It's a good Sunday morning, or all kinds of things gardening back This
afternoon may being good out, being a little bit of showers here to get
some stuff done back this would be a good time to go buy maybe a
new house plant. I was visiting some nurseries around town looking at the different
kinds of house plants that they have for sale, and it you know,
if COVID it was such a negative event overall for us, I've ent or
a negative disease issue to deal with as a country and all the negative impacts
that it had, but one positive impact was it sent more people into gardening,
and house plants suddenly became interesting and everybody wanted them because hey, if
you're cooped up in the house, right you need more. And people kind
of went crazy. I mean the prices of house plants and the obscure plants
that many of which are difficult to control, that appeared on the scene,
difficult to control, difficult to get to thrive and stay alive. You know
that that wasn't such a great thing, but the variety was amazing, and
I probably added four new species of houseplants I'd ever grew before during that time,
and I think probably a lot of you did too. But it's always
fun to get a new plant. Really cool decorative pots, you know,
some of our home grown nurseries just have an outstanding pottery and and maybe things
that hang. We for a family member this week, we purchased a hanging
container. I think we were up at I was up at Buchanans, I
believe, and looking at some things. I saw this container. I just
really needed to get it, and I got me one of those got three
herbs to go in it, and it'll hang in a window in their home.
But it's just really cool, you know. I mean, it's certainly
they can go over there and snip some herbs off and enjoy them. It's
not your typical houseplant, but if you get them in enough light, herbs
can grow inside in the window, and I think that's kind of fun,
especially when you add a container. That just makes overall a really good effect.
But so don't let reports of a little bit of rain stop you from
continuing your gardening activities. And if I can, in any way get out
to a nursery even in between storms, I like to do that because you
know, on rainy days people tend not to get out. And that's your
chance. They say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When
life gives you rain, recognize that's a chance. When you could a garden
center, you kind of got the folks. There's less of a crowd.
You got folks counted to yourself, and you can visit and have a lot
more time to ask questions and cruise around and see things. And I just
think that's kind of a tip of the day. But don't let her rain
keep you from getting out and enjoying the garden centers. You're listening to garden
line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer
your gardening questions. That's what we do. Give us a call the phone
number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. This morning. We've talked a lot about
lawns, and you've heard me say it before, but the things that make
the phone ring typically seem to be the three teas, trees, turf,
and tomatoes. Nobody calls me about the co Robbie. I guess one day
I'll get one call. Probably if I keep saying that, somebody will give
me a call about it. But you know, tomatoes is the king of
the vegetable garden. Everybody loves tomatoes. There's every year there's new tomatoes to
grow, and they just keep coming up with new ones. It used to
be that only the professional seed companies and universities we're breeding tomatoes, and that's
still going on for sure, but homeowners are starting to get into it.
And there's a group of tomato enthusiasts across the kind tree that are part of
developing new types of tomatoes and they share their seeds around. They have dwarf
types of tomatoes and larger types, and all of these are unproven in our
area, or at least buy and large. I mean, if someone tries
them here, we begin to learn about them. But we're talking about hundreds
and hundreds of different kinds of tomatoes out there, so you can't test them
all. But it's fun. Here's a gardener. Here are a group of
gardeners that are getting out. They learn how you pollinate a tomato, which
is a little a little bit of a trick to learn how to do.
It's not hard. And then they start crossing them and they share their crosses,
and they get things other people to cross and they tryump. That's part
of the fun of gardening. That's kind of like that gardening two point zero
I talk about you gardening, you know one point zero? That is how
do I make my lawn green? How do I keep my trees alive?
What's a good tomato to plant? Those kind of things. Then you hit
the stage where you start learning about plant propagation. You start learning about plant
breeding, and it's fun, I'm telling you. When you get a hang
of it and you learn how to the basics of doing it, it is
a whole new aspect of this expansive hobby that we call gardening. Not for
everybody, I'm sure to go out and do plant breathing, but for a
lot of you. I bet it is, and we should talk about that
sometime. Well, speaking of talk about that, sometime, we're going to
go to the phones. The number is seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. We're going to head out to pair Land and talk to
Cheryl. Hello, Cheryl, Hey, how are you this morning? Well?
I'm good. How are you? I'm good? Thank you. I
have a couple of questions. I had my husband planted all of Martini's I'm
not sure the botanical name for that, but it was well before mlis.
We shouldn't have, but they were selling them here at our local nurseries.
So we planted several to try to grow as a privacy hedge, and they
survived the threes. Some of them are doing okay, but most of them
lost their original leaves and put off new leaves. And then I'll also have
an issue with dogs. Two male dogs that keep um marking on them.
I can't get them to stop, so one half of them is dying.
I think that's the reason. Okay, So I was wondering if there's anything
special I can do. Okay, um, I planted them. They were
probably about a foot tall. Now they're about three feet tall, some of
them, some of them not that tall. All right, now, you're
talking about sheryln a true olive shrub, an olive tree. Right, No,
it's called an olive martini, and it's a shrub, and it's a
variegated shrub. And the botanical name is I can't I can't think of the
botanical name. It starts with an e. Oh. You're talking about agnes.
You're okay, yes, yes, okay, h all right, Well
you were really close to bumping on a break, So we'll talk a little
bit and then I want you to hold on, and I think you may
have some other questions and we'll get to those when we come back after that.
Eli Agnes is a good evergreen shrub. Generally, it can you know,
occasionally you can have things that will knock leaves off of plants just due
to weather. But it's it's a good one. It should do pretty well
for you. I mean, it's not like the top pick of all the
shrubs I would recommend here. But let's let's when we come back from break,
let's drill down a little bit further, because I think we're gonna go
a little deeper than a few seconds will allow. You're listening to garden Yeah's
you're listening to the garden Line. And I'm going to be back here in
just a moment, and Matt, we will get to you as well,
if you'd like to be on the board seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. You're listening to guard Line on a Sunday morning, that
as is always every day a good day for getting out there and gardening.
I'm your host, Skip Ricter Our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. While ago, I was talking about heirloom or excuse
me, enchanted gardens and enchanted for us, and I didn't give you the
email or the web address, and I want to give you that. It's
you need to check it out. You know, if you're if it's pouring
inside, you can't get outside. Online it's good time to peruse things.
And if you go to my enchanted dot com, my enchanted dot com,
that word enchanted at fifths these places, I mean they are unbelievable. And
maybe you know enchanted gardens, but you haven't been to enchanted for us.
You need to go to both of them because there they were unique in their
own way and absolutely cool. Ten am to four pm today my enchanted dot
Com. Check them out and I promise you you will not be disappointed.
We're gonna go back to the phones now. We were talking to Cheryl and
Herrol. You had that olive martini right that you. We were discussing growing
and you were having some problems with it. It kind of died back a
little bit, and the dogs are giving it a hard time. Is that
right? Yes, yes, that's exactly right. We planted it because we
wanted it to be a privacy hedge. Yes. So it hasn't grown as
quickly as we thought. I guess it's been in the ground about a year
and a half and we have about seventeen of them, so it's a big
investment. We want to get them to grow. Yeah. So is the
drainage decent around them? I think it is. But we do have a
what do they call that a high water you know under the ground water table?
Okay, yea, yeah, we do, and it's you know,
on the perimeter of the lot where it drains that direction. Okay, well,
let's see if we can help them. But if not, it push
comes to shove, we may end up having to go to you know,
when we hit the November time, lifting them up, kind of getting that
soul built up a little bit better to improve the drainage. If indeed that
is going to be a limiting factor, but I don't want to assume that
just now yet. In the meantime, they just need a good fertilizer,
and they need a fertilizer with a lot of nitrogen. So what you would
put on your lawn I would use for these So what I'm kind of product
you normally use, you know, nitro files and Nelson's plat Food, Microlife.
There's a lot of brands out there that have a quite product. But
go with one of the terf fertilizers because they're higher in nitrogen and with a
shrub, you're wanting to push vegetative growth and get that going. So I
would probably put a cup or two of one of those fertilizers out per bush.
If you're going to go with the organic, would probably put two to
three or four cups even around them, and they're going to gradually release it
over time, hopefully get that. Get those plants go, and they like
full sun, so if they're in shade, they don't like that. That
thing about the winner hitting them, that's unusual because the eliagnes, specifically the
olive martini too, they're hardy, way further north than here. Now.
December caught our plants off guard. So something that should have been way hardy
may have gotten hit because it wasn't ready for the cold. It was living
the life of Riley, thinking it's in a tropical paradise and all of a
sudden, boom, we're freezing. That's a little exaggeration, but that's kind
of what happened in December. So I would just fertilize them. Let's see
if we can get them going. If not, why don't you call us
back and we'll talk about maybe consider and redoing the area in the meantime.
One last thing, Cheryl, if you have a post hole digger or a
sharpshoot or something, you can dig a hole straight down. With just a
small hole straight down, I would go down about a foot and a half
with it and then fill it with water and then come back in twelve hours,
twenty four hours, forty eight hours, How long does it take for
the majority of that to drain out? So you know you have at least
a foot of drainage underneath those plants. That's going to tell us if we
got a problem that we're going to have to deal with in terms of soil
drain nige. Okay, that was like a great idea. Thank you so
much. You bet, yeah, let me ask you one more question,
all right. When we initially planted them, we did have area, you
know, right around the soil, like a ring around them with dirt,
and the grass is grown up around a lot of them. Should I clear
that back and molt around them? You absolutely should. If you talk to
a shrubb or tree and they could talk, they would tell you I do
not want to be able to see grass much have it growing all the way
up to my trunk. That's competitive with them, and so you need to
get that out of there and as wide as you can. I know,
esthetically, you know you don't want to have a twenty foot wide bed for
a shrub, But as far as the plant's concerned, the further the grass
is away, the better. So don't just move it a foot away,
get further than that if you can, and then the mouls, yes,
would do a very good job for them. Well that mays solve a lot
the problems. I'm going to give it a shot. Thank you for your
time this morning. We're gonna hope it does. And thank you for the
call. And you don't feel free to call us back as we go forward.
We want to get these things growing and looking their best for you.
We'll go out now to the woodlands and we're going to talk to Matt.
Hello, Matt, Hey, good morning, Skip. I'm almost sorry to
bug you with this, man, but I am fighting a losing battle with
look to be field mice in my garden. They've destroyed everything save the cucumbers.
Oh boy. And I feel like I've tried everything from ultra sonic you
know, solar powered deals to know, homemade trap, traditional traps. I
just don't I'm about to give up. Man, I'm losing this one big
time. All right, Well, don't give up. There's a lot of
devices out there, majority of them don't work. Don't work. Well,
I had, you know, the first time I ever noticed rodent problems in
the garden. That's a broccoli, and I went out, and you know
how broccoli has all the little tiny tight flower clusters on its head. It
was like little flower clusters had been chewed off, but just the little round
ball cluster flower on the ends. And I couldn't figure out what was doing
that, and I kept watching it and looking at it, and finally I
realized it's rats coming in that are doing that at night. And I've never
had that problem before, so I understand how rats and mice can be a
problem. What I would do if it were in my garden as I would
get some of those outdoor stations where they have bait and it's a poison for
the rats and mice, and you put them in. Sometimes they come in
a weather proof cover so that you just set them out in the garden and
don't worry about it. Other times you may homemake a little umbrella type something
cover to keep them out of the rain. You want to keep your pets
away from them, and that's one of the nice things about these ones with
the covers. They're designed so pets can't get the stuff out of them.
But I would just put those out and always have fresh bait in them.
You can buy the bait, sepparate and ref fill them, and you're just
gonna have to stay after it because they will go to that and it will
be effective. But you need to you need to get them out there.
You have to move them around a little bit to figure out where the best
spot is. You know, sometimes those things we're running along the basement or
the foundation of your house, you know, they kind of take that path
around. You can kind of figure that out as you mess around with it.
Okay, well, I appreciate that. Why so it's just here,
I'm about at my wits end here, I understand. Yeah, you bet
well, Good luck with it, and keep us posted on how that how
that goes. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we are here to answer your gardening questions. If you will give
us a call at seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, we will be glad to
get you on the board. We're gonna take a break here in a little
bit, and if you called during that time, Josh will get you up.
So when you come back, you're going to be right in the big
middle of the show and we can we can talk about what you're interested in.
I always find the shows. Although I like to drowne on, I
can't. I admit that I find the shows are most interesting when you guys
are calling and we can discuss the issues that you're having. And sometimes you
may feel a little bit like, Hey, I'm not an expert, you
know, and I don't want to call in and I don't I'll have a
silly question. Don't worry about that. We can take care of you.
There, let's run out real quick. We got about a minute and a
half here, Danette, good morning, and how can we help Hi?
Yeah, I was causing about it so all a bad that I want to
lead do again and I need to get some more saus for it. Okay,
what kind of flyers do you want to grow? I want to go
out the roses and the judgments. Ah, good, good, good choice.
You need to look for something that's called a rose blend, some sort
of soil. There's some good ones out there. You know, you're out
in the Texas City area. You got you got some quality place you can
go to Thunderbergs, the feed store. We're just talking about a little bit
and League City Feed for example, and so on. Get a look for
a rose soil, tell them that's what you're looking for. If you need
a whole lot, you order it directly from one of the soil producers.
We got we got some delivery abilities around here. But that will get you
set up to success. All right, it is no, it is no,
okay, all right, Well good luck with that. Hey, thank
you for the call, Tonette. I appreciate that. I don't know what
happened, but the phone's just lit up here in a minute. Those of
you who are talking to Josh and getting on the board, good for you
if you'd like to join them. Seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven to three two and two kt r H. Well, you
are listening to garden Line on a wonderful day for gardening. Indoors are out
to get as much as you can outdoors and have fun indoors in the process
too. We are available for calls if we got two folks on the board.
Helen Marty, I'm about to get to you. If you would like
to call and be on the board. Seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's
go out to Alvin first, and we are going to talk to Helen.
Hello, Ellen, Helen, how are you. Yes, it's Helen.
Thank you. I have so many questions to ask you, but I don't
know how many you want to limit me to. Let's dive in and we'll
see how far we go. Okay, I have had a tree pop up
in kind of my area. I have about three feet from the house to
a sidewalk and right there a tree popped up like a year and a half
ago, and it's already to the top of my roof and I'd love to
have it transplant it. Somebody said they thought it was a type of mulberry
tree. Is it too late to transplant a tree? It's a little late.
You could probably get by with it, but it'd be better to do
it in the fall. That's the best time to do, late fall and
winter. Oh, I know that. I at eighty three. I'm not
able to dig it out myself and to find someone too deep, you know,
dig down deep, because the bottom, the stem or root or whatever
is right up against the sidewalk. Well, Helen, you can give it
a try, but I'm going to advise against it, and here's a number
one digging. I just leave it and wait till next year. I would
not transplant. And I know, I know you call it because you want
tresplant, but I'm just I'm just being honest with you. I ever mind,
it's gonna be very hard to dig it out of there and get a
good root system. Mulberry is it's a It's a decent tree, but it's
not one that's gonna add value to your property twenty thirty forty years from now
like a long left quality tree will do. Plus mulberries, I mean,
you know they have their pros, but they also can be a little bit
messy. So that's just one of the thing to consider. Okay. But
if you decide if you want to do it or not, I'm just telling
you what i'd advise. Okay. The next thing is the lawn. I
lost like almost half of my lawn to the drought because I couldn't get out
in water it. Now some of the same now Augustine is coming back,
but the other weeds are in. Would I have to try to chop up
the weeds before I lay pallets of graph Now I would? I would get
rid of them either by spraying or by a little rototilling. If they're not
too tall, if you've mowed them low, you can probably rototill, but
in some ways that doesn't really fully get rid of them. So usually I'll
start with a spray to get rid of them, but then get that new
side down. But do it pretty soon, get it done, because you
want to have a lot of time to fill back in, and with proper
care, it'll do that. Okay. The other question, gentlemen called about
his peppers that he was losing the blooms. Yes, what degree did you
say that the peppers would do this? Well, j they dropped below sixty.
Below sixty, we start to see some bloom set problems and pepper,
especially bells, they're a little bit. The hot peppers aren't as sensitive to
that as the bells for some reason. Oh okay, we have a church
community garden and since I can't do anything, they asked me to purchase peppers.
So we went down and I just wonder if we should maybe court jars
over them if it's going to be below sixty. Well, no, I
wouldn't worry about that. We plan them when we plan them at the right
time. We want to be well past the frost when it's warming up and
they're more willing to go then. So two weeks ago, yeah, and
so typically we don't have that kind of temperature. By the time they've grown
and they're really trying to set some fruit, it's warmed up a little bit
more. So I don't I don't worry about that a lot. But I
guess you know, if we're going to have an unusual coal spell, you
could you could go ahead and do that. I generally I don't worry about
it. I just let them keep going and they're going to be fine most
years, so that you could cover them if you felt like that. But
you know, if a court jar covers it, that's too small of a
plant to worry about protecting. I mean, the plant's going to survive,
but that's too small for it to try to put a pepper on anyway.
Well, I see, okay, okay, Well I appreciate it. Well,
thank you very much, and thank you very much for the call.
Michelle and Marty. We see you guys out there. We are getting close
enough to a break here where I'm gonna not try to get started with you.
If you will hang on, you will be the first that we come
to Marty year first, and then Michelle. You're right afterwards, we'll get
to your questions. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Seven one three two one two kat r h On. Hey,
Now, well, good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and we're here to answer your gardening questions,
which we are about to do in just a moment, with Marty and
with Michelle. If you'd like to be on the air. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, let's start by going out to Fairfield
and talking to Marty. Hell oh Marty, good morning, Skip. I
hope you're doing well. I have a question. You suggested not cutting our
roses back all the way down to a third, but just as much as
we thought would be good. And this is the first year my piece Rose
has actually had hundreds fifties, twenties, a bunch of roses, and I'm
so excited. But the problem is though, that they're all doing the bud
draw where they don't open. Okay, I guess that's what it's called,
and I don't one year I used OZMA code on the few that came out,
and it helped a little. But I just don't know what to do
to make this poor little rose. It's happy now, but I don't know
how to make them open. So the rose blooms are forming, but they're
not opening up for you to see. Well, some of them are,
but they're kind of got a mild not mildew. They're kind of brown on
the edges, okay, And some of them that don't open are brown on
the edges. All right. So here's what's probably happening. There is a
petal blight. It's a fungal disease that in wet conditions will affect the petals.
And when you have a bud and it's trying to swell up and open,
if the outer petals are killed, it's like they become a dried restriction
that keeps that bloom from opening properly. And I think that's what you're seeing
now. There are other things that can affect roses. Certainly, thrips get
inside and piece is kind of a light colored rose, you know, as
you move to lighter color, we often see thrips, although they'll attack all
kinds of colors. Of roses. But I think what you're looking at as
a petal blight, so that can be prevented with a fungicide spray, or
just if you've got a sprinkler that's wetting the bushes, then change to drip
irrigation or you know, redirect it to keep from frequently wedding, because that
just makes the fungal blight kind of issues greater. But if you if that's
not the issue that you can control, then I would consider a fungicidal spray,
especially when we're going through wet weather like let's say today, that storm
blows suit and you get a little wet on your roses. Following that up
with a fungicidal spray can help cut that down, reduce I would go with
more of a regular fungicident. I'm gonna have to look to see on that
pedal blight what the best ingredient would be. But I've yeah, I've never
heard of that. Yeah, the Concend is more of a like a surface
ster kind of product, and that's okay for some uses. I think we
would probably want to go with something a little different. I'm gonna have to
look at that in another break here and see if I can come up with
an actual ingredient for you. But if you go let's see, you're calling
from up in the woodland. No, you're done in fair fair Field,
Okay, so you're real close to Plants, Row Seasons and Arborgate very knowledgeable.
If you go right down two forty nine, you know, to RCW,
all those places are going to be able to direct you to a product
for that particular problem. And I would do that because that way they're going
to send you to something that they carry in the store. And if I
give you a name of a chemical and you go and they don't have it,
well then we're cut up a creek. So I trust all three of
those places to not direct you wrong on this. Yeah, and Sherry both
that they can help me. I'm sure, but I just I've never heard
of it, so thank you very much. I will look into it.
Yeah, we'll just tell them. You talk to me and there was a
pedal blight and you need something for that. But remember you gotta you know,
once the roses are brown on the outside, it's a little late to
do anything. So you got to stay ahead of it, which usually means
following the rain with the spray. If you did before the rain, the
rain would blah it off. So you see what I'm saying. Okay,
makes sense, Okay, very good, Thank you so much. All right,
Marty, thank you very much for the girl. Have a good day
you too. It is good to talk to you, Michelle. We are
about to hit a break time here. I tell you what. Let's let's
go ahead Michelle and get started, and then I think you're gonna have to
hang in for break after break for the answer. How about that? Sure?
Good morning? How are you, sir? I'm well great. Um.
So I have about a four year old elderberry tree and the leaves started
turning yellow. It's about six foot toss, so it's doing well. But
then the leaves started turning yellow, so I thought, well, probably lacking
iron. So I gave it some lime and it turned nice and green.
Now it's turning yellow again, so I don't know if I need to have
more lime on you know, go ahead, yeah, Michelle, I don't
think the line the line may it may have turned better after the line,
but I don't think that's what did it. So yellowing of the leaves,
if it's the young leaves, the newest growth, then maybe that was the
iron deficiency, and I'm actually would probably work against you on that, so
you would rather have the pH a little lower than higher. If iron deficiency,
I would find something called key lated iron. Now you're up in the
area where you can get to A and A plants, and they're going to
probably have a key lated iron. I would call them, talk to Cathy
there. Keylated iron releases iron slowly to keep that plant happy. Anytime you
add compost, you're adding iron along with everything else because it's in the ingredient.
Anytime you're enhancing your soil like that, or an organic fertilizer in the
soil, they're going to have all the different nutrients on them, but the
key lated iron directly. If it's the yellowing on the new growth, okay,
all right, growth, it's If it's on the old growth, I
would look to you know, it could be a lack of nitrogen, probably
not on elderberry, but it also could be a water problem in the soil,
a temporary drought, saggy web conditions can all cause yellowing on older growth,
as well as a few other possibilities. Okay, thank you so much.
I appreciate you. All right, good, thank you for the call.
Well, we got it done before break. If you're listening to garden
Line, write this down seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor, so
just watch him as well. Good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden
Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number. We
need to write this down so you can give us call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
That Nicki's talking about the weather and this rainstorm is going to blow through.
So just think of it this way. The rain today is just going
to freshen it up outside a little bit, and then you can head out
for a wonderful afternoon visiting with some of our quality local garden centers. Maybe
stop in at one of our feed stores. I love feed sort. It's
it's always fun to get to go into a well stocked feed store, maybe
an ACE hardware store. Boy, once you're inside there, you kind of
get a little bit of everything that you might need from plumbing to paint too.
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What a combination. I want to talk about some things that are related to
trees in a moment, but it looks like we need to stop for a
moment and go talk to Kevin in West Houston about a similar topic. Well,
hello Kevin, Hello sir, how are you? I'm doing well?
Thank you? How can we help? Well? I have a Schumart oak
I believe, okay, And when I bought when I bought it four or
five years ago, it was a twenty gallon when I bought it, and
it balloomed a couple of years. Well, then I bought an above ground
pool and some overspray from the chlorine got on one side and it burned it.
And so I just I tried some over the counter stuff and it looked
like it was dying and it came back, but it looks weak on the
north side, the all everywhere else around it. It's growing, and over
time it's starting to grow around the dead part, right, but the dead
part is kind of deep, and so I'm just kind of concerned that the
core is going to be dead and it grows. It's at the base right
now, that's a good eight inches in diameter, and I'll just wonder if
y'all had any vice. Yeah, that's a good question. I would.
I would check those branches and what appears to be dead, just making sure
they are, but that that could be, you know, it could be
the chlorine issue, it could be some of the freeze issues that we've had.
Maybe some of those branches were still actively growing when our December freeze hit
and hit them normally or un abnormally hard. That when normally a regular oak
like that is going to survive, it just fine. But I would just
I want to be extra sure before I take them out. But once you've
determined to know they're dry, they're brown underneath the bark, there's no life
there, go ahead and cut them back as far as you need to to
get the dead out. And you're right, the living branches from the sides
will eventually kind of work their way into that area and into the oak tree
didn't have a brain and go, oh, I've got a gap over here.
I got to fill it in. But what happens is branches shoot out
in all directions from our shoots come out in all directions from branches, and
so you're gonna get some going that way, and just encourage those. Although
that seems like a big holedal, go ahead, but at the base it
seems dead on the north side. Oh, and it's growing. It's growing
around it. Oh, I see what you're talking about. So go in
that that open gap and any loose bark anything like that, just kind of
scrape it out of there, get it cleaned up, and where it says
it's growing around it, it will eventually close back over At the size of
your tree is and the species of tree, the Schumard variety of red oak,
it's gonna it's gonna grow fast and it will close that area over.
So your number one goal right now as good healthy growth. Try to avoid
the anymore of the you know, the chlorine kinds of issues and whatnot.
But I would get a quality fertilizer for trees. There's a number of good
options out there, or even just a good lawn fertilizer used in that area
on a tree like that, because you're gonna need to fertilize a large area,
keep the grass and weeds as far away as you can mulch it.
And I think that you're going to find that shumard covers over pretty good.
I would not worry about it this early in the life of the tree,
and f it was an old tree, just kind of barely hanging on.
Okay, you know then it's probably not going to close over, but this
tree is going to have the vigor to do it all right. Thank you
you, Bet Kevin, thank you for the call. You are listening to
Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are going to
give you the phone number for you to write down and call it because Josh
will get you on the board and when we come back from break, we
can talk seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four and it's all be clear. Hopping along
when loggins in the scena right into our next segment. Here we go.
We are gonna head straight out to Magnolia. But first let me give you
the number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well,
good morning, Bruno. What's up today? Well, I've got a vine
problem. I have about seven acres and magnolia and a good portion of it
is wooded, and there's all kinds of buns growing everywhere, big large diameter
green ones, and there some wild muscadine grapes. I think they're domesticated ones,
but someone planet or going everywhere. So I keep going through and clipping
them, but it seems like a lot of them are coming back. In
looking online and YouTube, there's people that suggest wrapping a paper towel around it
and coating it with roundup or something and putting the plastic bag over thousands of
vines. So I just can't do that right. Here's what you need to
do, Bruno. You need to find a product with an ingredient called Triclopier
t r I c l O pyr. It's in ranch products for brush control,
it's in homeowner products for poison ivy and brush killer types of things.
Triclopier. Now, if you can, if you can cut the vinyl if
it's a sizable vine, you can cut it off and paint the fresh cut
surface directly with the tricolopier. When I say paint, I mean you know,
use a little foam brush or something to put it on there. Or
you can mix it with a vegetable oil and you can spray it on the
sides of the vine, on the on the edge. And now if you've
got a lot of bark on the vine, that's not going to work as
well, although the vegetable oil helps it soak in. I will sometimes take
it like a weed eater and just kind of whack up the sides of the
vine a little bit, or take a little hatchet or a machetti type thing
and make some little downward slices into the sides to wound it. That helps
that ingredient to stick and to get into the vine. But that is going
to be the fastest way to cover acreage and get rid of your vines.
All right, What radio of oil to that, I Am gonna depends on
the vine you're going after. But if you will do it a Google search
for brush Busters and uh, let's say Texas A and m Agrilife. That
is a program that used to be available online. I don't see as many
of the publications, but if you search for that, it'll link you to
that kind of information. And so there'll be a brush busters for you know,
this particular weed or that particular weed that you're dealing with. But there's
an information on what's called a cut stump treatment. And then there's a basal
spray. And the basal spray is where you have the diesel and it'll tell
you the ratio to mix with the tricyle pier so that the oil I said
diesel, it could be diesel oil or it could be vegetable oil where it'll
help it soak in and hang on and then the product will do it will
do its trick and it's very effective. All right, thank you very much.
Well, good luck with that. I appreciate the call. Thank you
so much for calling today. Our phone number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. We are in our last segment until next Saturday.
So if you want to talk gardening, you need to hop on the
lines now so we can see what you're interested in and discuss it. Let's
go out to Katie now and we're going to visit with Ring. Good morning,
Ring, Good morning. Skip. Say, we just bought a house,
a new build, and the builder put in the backyard in front yard.
But the backyard is a problem, and he didn't use any top soil,
and it just looks it's just like impossible to keep enough water on it,
and about a third of it looks dead no matter how much water I
put on it. Is is that a custom here I keep in San Antonio?
I mean, is that a custom not to use tops? Oh?
Well, it's it happens in a lot of places, and sometimes they bring
in a soil. Some areas if you're in San Antonio, are up in
the Austin area. I was there and we used to call it red death.
They would bring in this red soil that just was horrible for plants.
But builders are interested in the houses, and they're interested in plopping some plants
down and heading down the road to build another house. And then you're left
oftentimes with the results, and that's what you're dealing with, and there's not
a great answer for that. What I'm going to recommend is that you build
your beds up with a quality store bought bed mix, and you can have
those delivered in bulk. I would spread a little bit like let's say you
want to do a rose bed or a flower bed over here, I would
spread a little on the ground rototil, spade mix, whatever it is to
kind of break that interface between the crummy soil and the great stuff you're putting
down, and then add more to it on top, so you sort of
blend out that transition from the quality bed mix like a rose soil, into
the soil that you have. I mean, you're not going to excavate the
whole soil on all the property and bringing all new soil, and you don't
really have to. Now for your lawn, you can do a similar kind
of thing where you add some composted materials down to it and then move into
the nutrients and fertilizers that are going to get those l it's in that your
long grass is going to need. But I think that's going to be your
best bet, and I would strongly recommend you spend a dollar on the brown
stuff before you go spending a lot more money on green stuff, meaning the
plants that you're putting in, because to put a plant into that kind of
condition, it's just a recipe for a long term disappointment, and so let's
get that sol fixed and then all the wonderful plants you want can go in
it and they're going to thrive for you. Okay, they're going to replace
the sad this week. Okay. Should I demand that they rip this up
and put topsa. Well, you know that'll come at a cost putting in
some topsa and you're gonna need to bring in quite a bit to make a
big difference on it. I probably would go in with a blend, maybe
a soil with some compost type material, blend, have them mix it in
really well. So this is a new construction, right, yeah, okay,
so you don't you don't have tree roots all over the place. They
can run a rototailer over a large area and break it up a little bit,
get it leveled out right, and then put the sod in on top
of it. That'd be ideal. If you just need to go straight in,
I would at least put a little bit of a compost down and mix
it in to create a good, good foundation to have that topsail sit on
and go in. Then just watch your watering, keep it moist but not
too wet. And you hear us talk fertilizers every day on guard line,
and you do need a good lawn fertilizer. I would let the lawn have
about two weeks to root in before you start fertilizing, because it's not going
to have the roots to take up the nutrient, and then begin your summer
fertilization regiment to give it the best chance. Yeah. I already started fertilizing
here to try and bring this back, and it helped a little bit.
But yeah, it looks like it's never going to be a lush yard.
It just looks like it's it's just struggling too much and the weeds are winning
on the Yeah. Yeah, the weeds are just a sign that your lawn
is not doing what it should do. That that's true. One other thing
wreck you might consider, and it don't do this right after you lay the
side. It needs to be rooted in well. But you might try a
core aeration with a compost top dressing, and that basically means they're pulling plugs
out of the soil and dropping them on the surface. That's what a core
aeration is, and it works, it works really really well. And then
you finish that with compost on top. Now, you can do some of
that yourself, or you can call a company like Greenpro. They advertise with
us. They do it, that's what they do. They're very skilled at
it. They got the equipment to do it. But whether it's a do
it yourself or hiring someone like that to come in, I think that's going
to help. Well, that's going to get oxygen in your soil, it's
going to get organic matter in your soil. But just give your lawn at
least two or three weeks to root in pretty well before you start the core
aeration. Okay, okay, sounds great. All right, for the hell
you bet, thank you for the call. We're going to go to Archie
and pair Land. Hey, Archie, we're bumping, not close to a
break, but let's see how much we can get done for a break.
Okay, morning skipped, good morning. Back in October, i'd gone over
to Germany to the Passion Play and October fish came back in. My backyard
had just turned almost brown or yellowish green. And I called Randy and he
said, whoa. He said, I can't believe you'd let your yard get
that way. And I said, well, you know, I've gone and
my brother didn't recognize what was going on, and I didn't know whether I
had, you know, moths in the grass or whether it was something else.
So he vised me to go out and get some organic composts, which
I did, and I spread it all over the back and it's still even
though some of the grass is coming back. I've got so many weeds because
my neighbor died and that house has been vacant, and the weeds are growing
up because they aren't caring for it. And I think I'm getting the weeds
are from that lot into my backyard now. So I've got you know,
I'm fighting a battle on several sides. Okay. So and used to talk
about putting out microlife. I put sweet Green out about six weeks ago,
okay, And I'm wondering whether I should put out the microlife and the humates
now or try to spray it all with something like you know, we'd beat
for southern lawns or something. Gotcha. I don't know. Well, you're
thinking, right, and this is a complex question with a lot of moving
parts. So what I'm gonna do, If you'll hold on, We're gonna
take a break here. I will come back to you, because I want
to discuss why the lawn died in the first place. I want to discuss
what's probably going on in it, and then some steps that are your next
course of action to get it back to where you want it. Okay,
I can't. I can't do that in twenty seconds. So I'm gonna hold
on to you so you get a better answer and we'll be right back.
Thank you for hanging on. Archie. Hey, we are going to break.
I'm your home teese you tease. Do I want to hear a reward
of this answer. Also, when we come back, I'm going to tell
you where to find a million dollars for no work or no trouble. And
it's legal. How about that for getting listeners to hang round seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four? Is that with you? And if
you want to, you know you got me an old one two town baby.
If you run on my big green track. Dude, Oh my gosh,
that sounds like the national anthem of Lansdown Moody caboda. I had never
thought about it that way before. But you just have to change a color
from green. You need to change it to uh coboda. Colors. How
about that that's the way to go. Uh. Well, let's see,
we're gonna talk some more about gardening today. If you want to talk with
us, it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's go now out to
pair Land and talk to Archie. Well, hello, Archie, morning,
good morning. Where where were we? We were talking about your soil not
being good and you're wanting to get things going. You wanted to get it
to looking good and all that kind of thing. So let me back up
all the way to the lawn died last last summer. Last summer's drought was
long. It was hot, and it was brutal, and there wasn't much
rain, you know, to speak of the in the process of course,
and our lawns took a good hit. And even if they didn't get killed
by the drought, especially Saint Augustine lawns were significantly weakened to allow the take
all organism in. And I have seen so many lawns that were struggling with
take all root rot. And it is a disease that flat kills grass.
Now we can recover from it. And but what we need to do there
are certainly fungicides that will fight take all, but to get that plant system
healthy again, I would definitely go back to what I said before. That's
the deep deep tine core aeration with a compost top dressing. I would use
a quality product, you know, a microlife kind of product put out there
on it. Get that up around the roots. And normally we would say
six two four the green bag for your lawn. This is a case where
I would I would use their ascidifying six two four. And it's not going
to turn high pH into low pH overnight, but it just moves it in
that direction. And that organism take all root route organisms is not like acidifying
conditions. So everything you do to move it in that direction is going to
help, and then you get those nutrients released over time. So where do
we go from there with your question? Well, I mean that you know
again, I mean right now, I've got a lot of different weeds out
there, and a lot of it's dollar weed, okay, and and uh
and I'm I'm not even sure if the if the you know, the the
weed beater for southern lawns to even knock out dollar weed. It'll a pretty
good job of it. There. There's a couple of products that are going
to give you that kind of that kind of control. You're done in Parlanta.
You're near Paralands Hardware. They're they're going to have a wide variety of
those, and you need to go to talk to them very good. Well
they know what they're talking about in there and there you want to hit that
dollar we let's get that done a sap because it's gonna be up in the
mid eighties pretty soon. And after that, we kind of want to stay
away from those products. But that's perennial, so you got to get rid
of it. Okay, Okay, So you're you're basically saying, I need
I need to do the core aeration. I would do number one. I'd
control the diseases and I mean the dollar weed and perennial weeds and things like
that. I would I would follow that after it's had time to kind of
have a few days to move in. I would follow that with correeration and
then the compost top dressing as well as the fertilization that we talked about.
What about hasa mike would be good too. You need those nutrients. They're
the micros and stuff. So well, then go to town. I mean,
let's let's do all of that. Let's get it going and hopefully have
some really good results because you need to have a beautiful green lawn that you
can appreciate. Oh yeah, it's all my roses. That's it. There
you go between Bob out there Southwest Fertilizer and John here today. So oh
my gosh, pretty much everything I need. They I mean, they have
everything you can imagine from your lawn, your garden, you name it.
If you can't find it there, you don't need it. That's right,
all right, good to talk to the RT. You bet bye bye.
You're listening to Garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and we're
here to talk about gardening. Now. We last until ten am on Saturday
and Sunday, six am to ten am on Saturdays and Sundays. So what
does that mean, Well, that means and about another By the time I
come back, about another fifteen minutes or less, we're gonna be done for
the day. So if you would like to be on the air, talk
to me about any kinds of questions you have seven one three two one two
five, eight, seven four. Here's your shot until next Saturday. We
look forward to talking to you. Just tell Josh let's get on the board
and go. He says, who played again? All right, we got
a little bit of Taylor Swift crazy time going on right now. Everybody's excited
about going out to Taylor Swift. I just have to tell you, though
I knew Taylor Swift when Taylor Swift wasn't cool. And when I say I
knew, okay, I'm stretching it. I went to a Brad Paisley concert,
who is one of my favorite artists, uh in New Braunfels, Texas,
and Taylor Swift was back up singer back in that day. That tells
you how far back that was. I believe she's got a little more famous
in Brad Paisley for meantime. So there's a little Taylor Swift for those of
you who are looking forward nixt at it about all the Taylor Swift happenings going
on around town. Right now, you're listening to garden Line. I am
your host, Skip Richter. I am excited to talk about gardening. I
love to visit with gardeners. So if you got a question, you give
us a quick call and we will try to get you here on the boards.
It looks like check. I believe we lost you there. So if
you want a call right back in, we will try to get you on
the board. Not a lot of time left, but Sheer would like to
not have it wait so long as next Saturday when we will be back going
strong again. Here. By the way, I need speaking in next Saturday.
I need you to write this down. Saturday, April twenty ninth,
K and m Ace Hardware in Kingwood, eleven thirty am to one thirty pm.
I'll be there. I'll make an appearance. Come visit, let's talk.
I'd love to meet you. Bring me. You're tired, you're weary,
You're huddled plant masses yearning to have somebody recommend some way to help save
them. And I'll do that. If you've got some plant pictures on your
phone, maybe landscape pictures, we can talk about that. By the way,
ACE hardwarees are all over the Houston area, thirty nine of them.
I mean you can't throw a rock without hitting an Ace hardware. Ace hardware
dot Com is where you can find every Ace hardware around the Houston area that
you can go to get all these things we keep talking about that they carry
and just walk into one and wander around a while and you'll be amazed.
It's like, oh, I could get that here. I didn't know that
that's what you're going to find, and especially when it comes to gardening products.
But next Saturday, K and m Ace in Kingwood eleven thirty am to
one thirty pm. Please show up if you live in that area, I'd
love to meet you and see how we can help you have a more beautiful
lawn and a bountiful landscape. Right now we're gonna jump out to Matta Gorda
and talk to Ira. Good morning, Ira, how you doing sir?
Very quickly, but Ida escapes me. But it's a granulated product like gravel
you incorporated into the soil. It's at the matter places uh force in nature,
water disperses and gathers in the bank and use it as it needs.
It's name ring a bell. Can you freak it? Absolutely? It absolutely
does. You're describing expanded shale. This is a product that's mine. It's
mind out of the ground a shale and then they superheated with extremely hot steam
and it causes those shale particles to expand. So the way I describe it
is, yeah, if you've got a little magnified be like you were looking
at that that uh what is it? A volcanic rock that used to be
on barbecue pits? You know for of whatnot? It It creates holes and
spaces and microbes living there. It holds moisture and it because it's a shale
essentially a little rock type product, it stays that way. You know,
compost accomplish those things, but compost decomposes away, and shale is the way
when you have a heavy clay sail. But here's the thing. You need
to put down about three or four inches of it if you really want to.
Yeah, I've been using this for two years. Right now I'm going
to corporate a new fans are a place to land, and I'm going to
get this right. I'm gonna use the rose so but do all that.
I might even put some all that, uh, some chips and that let's
shame there black lions, Okay, dusting of that. It stirred up in
the in the black specifically black gumbo. Yeah, and then do the show
with the rose food. That's not the rose, the rose soil Okay,
so that's really what I wanted my question. You're cool to use a quite
a bit of that. I like it. I even have flowers growing them
there with the shell and very mental. Okay, Well, if if you've
got a heavy clay, then the expanded sail is what you need to put
down, and I would mix it in. Well, then if you want
to come in and put some rose soil on it and mix it in as
well, and then even add more straight rose soil on top to just grow
in. I always like to change that. You know, if you have
a heavy clay and you go immediate lead to a quality mix like rose soil,
well that's an interface there, and I like to blend that. So
that's why I lay a little bit of it down, mix it in with
what's below, and then lay more of it down, and that kind of
creates a more gradual interface. And I think long term you're just going to
have good luck with it. Sounds like Ira, you're off on a good
start. You got all the right ideas. So thank you. No I
pick that out incorporating up earlier in your show. Okay, you mentioned it,
I do that myself, all right, Well, thank you, thank
you. For the call. I appreciate you calling into the show. You
are listening to garden Line and we're about to head to put this one in
the books. The show will be back next Saturday morning from six am to
ten am, and it'll be on Sunday morning for six am to ten am.
Now, I try to remember to tell you all this, but when
you get up and you're listening to garden Line, because I know every faithfully
right, every day you're there at six am, I'm going to believe that
when you get up and do that, and you look over and you see
your neighbors and the house is still dark, you need to go bang on
the door and tell them they're missing garden Line. They will thank you.
Not that day, I promise they won't thank you that day, but eventually,
if they start listening to garden Line, they will rise up and call
you blessed. So tell your neighbors about garden Line. Maybe before six am,
but either way, we want to help them have a good lawn.
If you got a neighbor that just you know, I mean, it's it's
an eye sort a look across the street. You know what I'm talking.
You know who I'm talking about well, you need to tell them like a
hot garden line too. We can help get them off to a good start.
Our whole purpose of being here on the air is for you to be
able to have a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful landscape, gorgeous lawn
to avoid the common problems people make when they plant the wrong plants, they
don't prepare the soil, they put the wrong kinds of products on. And
that's what we're here for. Well, save you money, right, save
you money by helping you have success with what you're doing. So I hope
that you will tell folks about it. We're also available, by the way,
by podcast, So if you miss a show, or even though I
keep saying have a pen and paper handy, when you listen to the show
you didn't and it's like, oh, what was that product you talked about?
Check out the podcast. You'll be able to hear us about it on
there. And so I look forward to talking to you again next week.
In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful week. We're gonna get
a little rainblowing through today. Don't let that hamper you. Just you know,
get ready to go because the sun is coming out, and it's a
good day to get out and visit your garden centers, and it's a good
day to get out and put that fertilizer down on your lawn. You know,
you never know how much it's going to rain, So my preference is
to not put the fertilizer down before a rain because if you have a gully
washer, you end up losing a lot of it. But to put it
down and then turn on the sprinkles for about a half inch of rain rain
equivalent and water that nutrient down into the soil. Certainly that's true if you're
putting on a pre emergent too, you've got to get it down just into
the soil surface where it can do what it's going to do for you.
Look forward to talking to you next week again on Garden Line.