KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Rictor it's crazy.
Just watch him as well. Good morning, Welcome to Garden Line. We're
glad you're here. And oh my gosh, I say, if the temperature
drops five degrees off one hundred, fall is here. So fall is definitely
here. I'll tell you one thing. You can look at the calendar and
you know fall is here. It's coming, and you gotta get ready for
it. Now. Thankfully we got a little bit of rain, so people
will start maybe believe him when I say it's time to get out there and
do things according to the calendar's schedule. And here's what I'm talking about.
It takes a certain amount of time for a warm season vegetable to grow up
and set fruit before it gets too cold. So even if it was hot,
you needed to get those things planted so that you'd be ready to go
when it came time for harvest. That when we're looking at things like cool
season weed germination, when we're looking at things like brown patch or infections of
take all patch in the fall, there's a time for all of that,
and whatever the weather's doing, we need to be ready for it. But
now a lot of you've gotten rained. We're all enjoying a little bit cooler
temperatures, and so we are in the big middle of fall, and that's
exciting. I mean, we've been putting up with this summer for a long
time, haven't we. It has been gosh. Back in June, I
was thinking, really already these temperatures, and here we are, We're getting
our break. Cool season weather's coming. The gardener in is being rejuvenated.
And am I bet I'm as excited as anybody out there listening at the fact
that we are finally getting into some cool fall weather. That is important.
One other thing that fall brings us, and don't forget about this is we
are still in hurricane season. But you know, even when there's not a
hurricane, you can have wind damage to your trees. That's why I like
to recommend Affordable Tree Service. You know Martin spoon Moore, he knows what
he's doing, and I would suggest seriously having him come out take a look
at any trees you have any questions about what does it look like? Are
there some limbs that need to come down. He's not going to prune it
if it doesn't need to be pruned. But are they ready? Are they
ready for any kind of windstorms we might have? Also, we're coming up
and when we get into the real cool season on primetime for getting a whole
lot of pruning done. And if you want to get on his schedule,
you need to go ahead and give them a call because they do book up.
Remember when you call him, tell him your garden line listener puts you
at the front of their line, and make sure that you get on that
schedule to have that pruning done. You can give him a call at seven
one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Seven one three, six
nine nine twenty six sixty three. Deep root feeding is going to start about
mid October. They're gonna beginning to put that down. But one other thing
I want to mention. If you're going to do anything around a tree,
it is you have a lot in your control before the damage is done.
After the damage is done, you are fighting an uphill battle to try to
save the tree. Call Martin, haven't come out. Look, Hey,
I'm gonna put in some lines here, some water lines, you know,
other kinds of underground utilities, or I'm looking at putting a patio in over
here, have him look at it, advise you and guide you on how
to do it right. That is money well spent. Hey, those trees
are very valuable to your landscape. Martin Spoon Moore seven one three, six
nine nine twenty six sixty three. That's affordable tree service. We're gonna head
out to the phones now and talk to John v Out in League City.
Hello, John v Good morning, Skip and garden Line. I question this
morning is on canalow seeds. I went ahead and I took all the seeds
out and I dried each individual one and I had them in a plastic ziplog.
So I'd like to know, like I'm going to plant each one separately.
Yes, and then okay, so what you want to do is,
first of all, now that they're good and dry, you want to put
them in a air tight container. You could use a little glass jar.
You could use a very good freezer type zip block. Those are not perfect
for air air type, but they're good. I use those a little pop
down lid plastic containers that really seal it well. And if you have any
little descant packets, the little things you get maybe when you buy a bottle
of supplements, or they come with our electronic equipment when you buy something,
throw one of those in there and that'll help pull some of the water out
of the air. You're gonna be planning those next spring, for next late
spring and summer, so make sure and get them stored right right down on
them. Any information. If you came out of a candle loope, you
probably don't know what variety it was. If it also, if it came
out of a cantalope, unless you know the variety, it probably was a
hybrid. So you may get a mix of things, okay, And I'm
going to plant them individually and containers before they start to grow, So I'm
going to separate all that out. So you think in March I should go
ahead and plant. And what kind of soil do I use? Yeah,
just a good quality seed starting mix or a good quality, well screened,
fine, very fine textured type of a potting soil. We have a lot
of goods heirloom as a really quality potting soil that they sell for indoor plants,
but it's okay for seeds starting too, as long as the seeds aren't
too tiny, and cantalope seeds are not tiny. We're wonderful. Thank y'all.
You have a wonderful Saturday to all of you. Thank you, and
you too, Thank you very much. I appreciate your call. You know.
I was talking about the fact that we can have storms come through and
knock out the power and it doesn't just take a hurricane to do that.
And I think that if you want to be ready, you need to have
a quality generator, and that would be a Generac automatic standby generator. Now,
Quality Home Products of Texas is the place you need to go to get
one. And here's why. By the way, their website is qualitytx dot
com. Seven times they've won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award seventy seven thousand
satisfied customers. When you buy something, you want to know it's a quality
product. Which Generac automatic stand by generators are They come on automatically? I
mean, you may be in Timbuctwo on a two week long trip your power
goes out. Don't worry about your freeze or don't worry about your refrigerator.
You're not going to come back to the worst smell on Earth. You're going
to come back to something that's still nice and frozen, ready to go.
But the other reason that I think it is important to buy from a quality
place like Quality Home Products, is because the service is right. They'll tell
you the truth about the product. They will help guide you. They have
a lot of different kinds of generators, different levels, whole house generators,
or maybe just to run some particular essential items you need. They run on
natural gas or liquid propane, sit outside just like an air conditioning unit.
They have a twenty four seven three sixty five customer support team. That's why
they've won better Business seven times in a row. A free ten year warranty
through October eighth. We're running short on that time. Don't delay. Free
ten year warranty save you over a thousand dollars. Right there, QUALITYTX dot
com or seven one three Quality give him a call. We're gonna go out
now to Tomball and talk to Mel. Hello, Mel, good morning.
Share. I was going to put down some pre emergent I think it's coming
up on that about that time. But on the bag of nitre foss,
I believe it says that you can't put it down until like a year after
you laid sode. Is that something to that or what tell me the product?
It's a nitre foss what is it? Gosh, it's a pre emergent.
Okay, is it barricade? Do you think yeah? Yeah, I'm
sure I think yes it is barricade. No, No, you don't have
to you don't know. You're fine on that barricade. I would probably put
that application down in early October to get ahead of your cool season weed germination.
So we are just very short time away. Remember, follow the label.
You got to water it in and mel put it on at the right
lake rate. The label is there for a reason, and you do it.
You do it at the right rate. That is important because don't overdo
these kind of things. You do it at the right rate so it works
right and you don't have to worry about any kind of other issues. All
right, I have a real quick second one. I do not like weed
and feed, but I've got so a dead gun winning weeds out there.
Can I put that stuff down on side or not? All right, I'm
gonna have to hold you. I'm going right to a break. I'll come
right back to you, and Walton, you'll be the very next stop well,
good morning. You are listening to Garden Line, and we got a
lot to talk about today. With the rain and a little bit cooler weather,
fall is here. Some of you have delayed a little bit and doing
the things we needed to be doing along the way, But we're gonna get
you caught up. Don't worry about that. Just stick with us. We're
gonna go right back to Mel. We were having a conversation Mel and Tom
Ball, and you were I think talking about a weed and feed or something.
Yeah, with regard all the weeds and stuff that have come up since
I didn't put down a pre evergional last time. I do not like weed
and feeder on stuff. I don't use this stuff, but I've got an
area that I can use it on and it's got some of that sting.
Is that going to hurt the start at all? It would be helpful to
me to know what the things in that weed and feed are. Could be
post emergent, could be pre emergent. You see what I'm saying it it's
kind of hard. Weed and feeds a real generic term, and so in
general it shouldn't if you follow the label carefully. Now, if we were
in the heat of summer. There are certain post emergent products that can be
stressful of the grass when it's very, very hot, but we're out of
that now, and so I would at least the worst part of it,
just make sure that it is going to work on the weeds you have in
the stage therein. In other words, if you have existing weeds, a
pre emergent's not going to help. If you have grassy weeds, a post
emergent broad leaf is not going to help. So just make sure that.
Yeah, that's why I do like doing the fertilizer and we control separate because
we can be more prescriptive that way and going after the specific situation. But
just read the bag, look at your weeds, and I think you can
you can decide. I appreciate it, Thank you, sir, all right,
you bet, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, he was
talking about the Nitrofuss products there that Nightrofuss has their Texas three step that is
a fall program. Now why do we talk about it as a fall program?
Well, all summer I've been telling you use fertilizers with lots of nitrogen
in them, like a three one two ratio and things like that. Now,
we're going into fall, we still need some nitrogen. We just need
a little bit. We need a little bit, but we really need some
of the phosphorus and especially the potassium. And here's why phosphorus is helping with
the root system and our grass plants. They've had a lot of root loss
this year. This well, I don't need to tell you what's happened this
summer, but it's been hard on them. When we go into fall,
the potassium does two very important things. Number one, it helps the plant
be ready for drought, which is always good to have potassium in the ground.
But it also helps build winter heartiness. And if you've got a weak
plant going in, if we have a rough winner, you especially need to
have the kind of anti freeze that potassium helps that plant develop to protect it
for that. But the most important reason we fertilize in the fall, this
will be a surprise for you, is because our plants come out in spring
stronger. Your new spring growth is starting off with the energy that you built
in the fall. With a proper fall fertilization. That is really important and
that's why we do it. So what is the three step one You're going
to treat your lawns with Nitrofoss Fall Special that is a fertilizer designed exactly for
that for our area here in Texas. Number two is nitrofust Barricade that is
a pre emergent weed control all of the cool season weeds, the things that
last spring we're all over your lawn. Those are cool season weeds, hend
bit, chickweed, annual bluegrass, on and on down the line, carpetweed.
Those are all prevented with an early October application of Nitrofussarcade. And then
the third step is Nitrofus eagle tour fung decide that has a systemic fung decide
in it that moves into the plant, does a little bit of curative,
but especially protects them going forward. Because brown patch season is coming. This
is when takeall patch also begins to infect again when we cool off, and
you need all three of those for that to work. You can find Nitrofus
three step program and all Nitrofus products at plants for all seasons two forty nine.
You can find it in Channing Gardens out in Richmond and Lake Hardware out
in Angleton. We're gonna go now to Walton in Lake Jackson, Hey Walton,
Hello, Hey, good morning, Skip, Thanks for taking my call.
Yes, about three weeks ago I talked to you about restarting my front
lawn. Almost Saint Augustine grass has died where we got the idea that we
would like to wait to spring to do that, but in the meantime we
would like to remove all of the dead grass into so uh rye grass so
we can have a nice lone doing the doing the winter. Okay, And
I want to ask, I guess is that okay to do that and to
kill that in in the spring? If so, what brand of rye grass
should I use? You said kill or till it in the spring? Which
word did you use? Killed the rye? Okay? The only yeah,
you can do that. You have a green line. You get to do
a little mowing in the winter time if you don't mind doing that. But
remember in the spring you need to have kept it mode at a decent height.
And then in the spring you're gonna have to deal with that organic grass
that is on the surface. You're gonna have to kill it, get it
out of there so when you lay the new side it can touch the soil.
You don't want it sitting on a bunch of hay from the dead rye
grass, right, you want it sitting on the soil, So you're just
gonna have to face that when that time comes. But yes, that would
be fine. I would use that. There's annual rye grass and perennial.
I usually like a mix of a little annual on a little perennial. The
annual comes on faster, the perennial has a little better color. So you
go in, you know, what are you at in Lake Jackson? I
would talk to maybe one of your Ace hardware stores out in that direction,
ask them about if they have some mix of Right, it's a little early
to be putting it out, but that's okay. Just give it a little
more time and sometime maybe out in mid October or late October, even begin
to think about planting that. All right, okay, all right, well,
thank good luck with it. Okay, thank you sir, Yes,
sir, thank you for the call. Appreciate that. Hey, I was
looking the other day and Quality Feed got a bunch of baby chicks in,
which they do all the time. I mean, all their customers know,
they're constantly new shipments of chicks coming in at Quality Feed and Garden Company.
They're on Luzon Street in the kind of north central Houston area for those who
aren't familiar with that. They used to be a different location when I began
going to them a long time ago, but now they're near the intersection of
equipment and a lesion on Luzon Street. They're open Monday through Friday nine to
six today. They're open Saturdays nine am to four pm and Sundays eleven thirty
to four pm. They've been a tradition since nineteen twenty eight going by there
and looking at their old time seed rack and they carry a bunch of heirloom
seeds. Just anything you need for your garden, they're going to have it.
Ever fertilizer wer I talk about all the products to control pests and diseases
and insects and things, quality pet food. I mean, they really have
a lot of very very variety when it comes to chicken feed and all the
products you need for your chickens. Now, they just got a shipment in
a couple of days ago, but I'm telling you people know about quality and
they go there to get them, so don't delay. They do get shipments
in regularly, but go check them out and again quality feed Coode dot com.
Real easy to find them and to go see and I think you'll love
it. It's one of those old time feed stores. Just a lot,
a lot of fun. You know. I've been telling you that fall is
coming. We're here. Here we go and Plants for All Seasons up on
two forty nine where Louetta comes into two forty nine, just north or Louetta.
They have gotten a shipment of several really nice things. They have all
kinds. Well, first of all, they have mums. Mums are already
appearing out there. That is nice. It's some beautiful solosias that are going
to carry all the way up to the first frost. The same thing is
true with marigoles. Marigolds shine in the fall, and this is a great
time to plant marigoles. It's too early to plant pansies, for example.
It's not cool enough yet, So get you some color in now. If
you're in to succulence and cacti. Oh my gosh. A brand new shipment
out there at Plants for All Seasons. You know. You can go to
Plants for All Seasons dot com or give him a call two eight one three
seven six sixteen forty nine. One of my favorite things about a quality company
like Plants for All Seasons is they have staff that know what they're talking about.
They direct you, they help you have success. They've been family owned
since nineteen seventy three, and you don't stick around if you're not really impressing
your customers. And that is exactly what Sherry and the whole team do out
there at Plants for All Seasons. You're listening to Guardenline and we're gonna be
talking a lot about fall things today. I mean that that is we're just
on the on the verge of all of that. By the way, I
want to remind you that my lawn care schedule is posted to the website Gardening
with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. It tells you what
fertilizers to apply when, whether you want to use synthetic, organic, they're
all listed on there. A lot of good information on taking care of those
kind of things. I've also put up a couple of new things to the
website. I think just yesterday week maybe day four yesterday, we got these
things put up there. One of them is stress related tree decline and death.
It's all about what's been going on with our trees and what stress does
and how that works and why and how we eliminate it. And you need
to be doing that because trees that have been going through this summer are really
in tough shape. Secondly, there's one on lawn care in the drought and
dealing with the lawns and just because it rained in an area doesn't mean those
lawns are in the clear. We need to understand that how to properly water
and save water really important to be able to do that too. Another thing
you need to be doing with your lawns is the aeration and the top dressing.
This is very importan. My favorite folks for doing that or green Pro
Green Pro is they know what they're doing. They provide a quality core erration
that pulls the plugs out of the ground. That is important, and then
they put a first class finely ground compost on top to move down into the
soil. You can dial you can dial them up two eight one three five
one green two eight one three five one green or go to green Pro Texas
dot Com. It's important to go by there. Their deal is five ninety
nine plus sales tax depending on the location. Of your yard and the size
of your yard, and they can get you set up. Don't delay.
It is very important to do this. To book them by the fifteenth of
September to get ten percent off. All right, what's time for Nicky News
Network? If you want to get on the board seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four. Well, I'm a believer that fall is
coming. I'll tell you that a little break in the weather, Like I
said, when it's one hundred degrees, when it drops five degrees, I'm
going to call it fall because it is. Look at the calendar. We
got to get these things done that need to be done in the fall,
and a little inspiration from a drop in the temperatures sure makes it a lot
easier. One of the things that I was talking about fertilizing a while ago.
One of the other things you need to remember is asomite, and that's
trace minerals. What are trace minerals. Trace minerals are minerals that are absolutely
essential for the health of a plant, but they are only needed in small
amounts. The fact that they're only needed in small amounts does not make them
anytheless essential. And azamite is a mind product. You can go to Azamite
Texas dot com if you want to learn more about it. But we put
it down to make shot make sure that we get those trace elements on our
lawns, and it's really simple to do. Forty four pound bag will go
about six thousands, twelve thousand square feet, covers a lot of area.
Because remember these are trace We're not putting them out in huge amounts. Doesn't
change the fact that they're absolutely essential. I use it my vegetable gardens too,
because it just you know, you want your vegetables to have all the
nutrients that your body needs as well, and it just helps ensure that as
well. That's asamite. Asmite easy to find when you do your fertilizing.
Just follow up with an asamite this fall and things will be all the better
for it. I was mentioning that I put a couple of fact sheets up
on the web, and I'd like you to go take a look at them
if you get a chance. It's gardening with Skip dot com. That's the
website, that's where I'm going to be putting everything, and we are slowly
getting those things up there. I had just did one on caring for lawns
and extended drought and heat, and talking about the things a few little simple
things that we can do to help get our lawns through. We miss water
our lawns. How do you water properly? We talk about that, We
talk about the what do you do when you have an irrigation system that doesn't
spread out the water evenly? Have you ever noticed that? In fact,
when you look at this sheet, go look at it, and what you
will see is pictures of a lawn where in the shade the grass is alive,
and in the sun the grass is dead. They cut back on watering
to the point of actually killing the Saint Augustine in the sun, but it's
alive in the shade. What does that tell you? That means not all
our areas need the same amount of water in the sun. You can haul
a little hose out there. If you've got an irrigation system that's watering everything.
Why water areas that if you're trying to save water and keep your lawn
alive. Why water areas that are already Okay, you can drag that little
hose out there, and you can save your lawn in the sunny areas,
And that those kind of tips are what's in that sheet. The other sheet
is on stress related tree decline and death, understanding how stress kills trees.
And here is one thing to remember. You may look at a tree and
say it's alive, it's okay, and then a week later you look at
it and it says if it died overnight, Well it didn't. While it
looked okay, it was under severe stress. And at some point the systems
start collapsing and the tree goes out fastness, too late to do anything.
How do you alleviate the stress? How do you avoid the stress? That's
very important because the value of a huge tree to a landscape, it's huge,
it is huge. On that web page two, I've given you five
other really good resources from the International Society of arbora Culture from the Texas Forest
Service, and they all help you understand how to care for these very valuable
parts of your landscape. If you live up in the Grimes County area,
we're talking up toward Brian College Station way round Navasota. All that area.
Grimes County Feeding Farm is your hometown feed store. They're just a couple of
miles west of two forty four on State Highway thirty out of Carlos. So
if you're coming out of Brian College Station, you're heading out Boonville Road.
That direction, you'll get to your hometown feedstore, Grimes County Feed and Farm.
For those of you who live in Iola and bead Eyes and Rohnes,
Prairie and Shiro and Richards and Anderson. This is your hometown feed store for
the neighborhood's like Kingswood and Murewood. They're just down the street from you.
They carry the fertilizers we talk about. They carry the products we talk about.
I was in there the other day talking to mister Roy about the tree
hugger sprinklers that they have, and they were set up for those to help
you get your trees through the stressful summer. Grimes County Feeding Farm, they're
gonna be open today in about an iron twenty minutes, so you need to
get over there and stock up. It is time to get ready. We're
talking about getting ready for fall. That's how you get ready for fall.
Stopping by Grimes County Feed. We're gonna head out now to West Houston and
talk to Dell. Hello Dell, Oh, good morning, Mack. How
are you this morning, I'm good, dell, what's up? Well,
I just hope I haven't messed up too much. I was so determined to
leave my weed in my backyard that had flowers on them, so because I
had so many honeybees. But now I want to put sad down. I
have put down cardboard, got rid of the weeds and stuff. I'll put
down cardboard and I have put compost on top of that. I don't know,
do I need some top soil? What do I need to do?
I mean, how thick? Well, if you're gonna lay side, you're
gonna need to get that that cardboard out of there, just because it's gonna
impede rooting it. Roots will get through it in time, but it's done
its job. The compost on top and the cardboard have done their job and
blocking the weeds and shutting things down. So when you're ready to lay side,
you just pull it off. Water the area well, because that's another
thing cardboard does, is it slows the moisture movement into the soil. And
get a good soaking a couple of days ahead of putting side down, and
then just lay your side. Follow the instructions on how you lay side and
how you water it in and keep it moist and it'll be fine. But
if you're gonna do that this fall, you need to do it right away
because we need time for that side to get roots in before we get into
November and the root growth starts to slow down a lot. Well, I
didn't know that I would have to pull all that cardboard up. So are
you telling me no matter if I put a thick layer compost and top soil
on it, I can't leave it. Well, if you put a thick
layer on it, you could leave it. Yeah, and it's gonna rode
underground. I'm just saying the cardboard sitting on top of the soil with a
little compost on top, that's not the ideal thing for the roots to go
down into. If you can get a little soil over it and you want
to do that, that's fine. If it's too much work to pull it
out, that's fine. But just know you want the sod soil that comes
in that you lay down to touch connect very well with the soil below,
and so that maybe soil you add on top of the cardboard, that's fine.
If you want to go that root, that's okay too. So how
thick. Should I put the top solid in, I'd put a couple inches
on there, and okay, yeah, yeah yeah. And the compost even
if would it happen if I added more composts because I had now, I
wouldn't add more. If you've if you've covered it the cardboard with enough where
you don't see the cardboards, you're good, okay, because okay, I
appreciate it. Thank you very much, you bet, thank you very much.
We're gonna take a break right here, Maureen, you'll be next up
when we come back. Phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Well, good morning. You're listening to Garden Line,
and boy, do we ever have a lot to talk about today. It
is time for fall. It is it's time to get ready for fall.
It's time to plant for fall. Before you put the green stuff in the
ground, you gotta put the brown stuff in the ground. What am I
talking about, Well, I mean soil prep. Soil prep, soil prep,
compost, organic matter, the stuff that makes the plants succeed. That's
important. Don't PLoP a plant into an unprepared plot. Say that ten times.
It is important to get the soil right, and Heirloom Soils is a
great way to get your soil right. You know, Airloom has their veggie
and Herb mix a lot of retailers. In the next couple of days they'll
be getting a lot of fresh new inventory coming in from Heirloom Soils. They
have been working overtime to get all of this ready for fall. Check out
their veggie and herb mix. It is excellent for many things beyond veggies and
herbs. They also have in bulk the rose soil, the leaf mold compost,
and to the veggie and herb soil. You can have it delivered dumped
on the driveway, you can go pick it up with a trailer out at
the porter location, or you can have them bring a supersac which is a
nice, neat clean giant bag that holds a cubic yard of soil. Now
they're open for their bulk sales out there and Porter Monday through Saturday from seven
am to five p m. Go check them out online, Heirloom Soils,
and you will find that they have a wide, wide variety of products,
quality products. Heirloom Soils of Texas dot Com. We're gonna go now out
to let's see, we're gonna go trying to find my screen here. Marty
in Fairfield, Hello, Marty, good morning. Skip question. You talked
a lot this summer about taking care of your indoor plants, and I've I
just never have any luck. So I want to go get some of that
microlife indoor plant solution. And how often are you feeding, slash watering your
indoor plant? Okay, that's the orange orange bottle that you're talking about there,
that's the one to go for. Its micrust. The orange bottle easy,
easy to find, and you can do it a couple of ways.
You can mix it a little stronger and do it once in a while,
or I just put it in pretty much at each watering. I put a
little bit in at a more deluded rate. It's there's not a right or
wrong either way. We'll work. But you just shake it up and pour
it into a little water. I used have a little gallon jug, you
know, an old milk jug or something that I used. If you have
a nice watering can, that's good too, but just give it a good
soaking when you water, and always have that in there. It's got micrubs
in it. It's got of course, the nutrients in. It's like a
seven one. Gosh, the last number is not in my head right now.
I should know that seven one three or four seven one four, I
believe anyway, it's it is an excellent project. I've been using it for
a long time now and very pleased with it. Okay, good because I've
never had much luck on indoor plants, and okay, he talked a lot
about it. So that's my project for the warm A day's ahead. All
right, Well, there are there any the keys to success with indoor plants,
just going back over the years and all the gardeners I've talked to.
Number one, is it an enough light for that species. That's very important.
That drives the fuel for the whole plant health system. So without sunlight
doesn't matter. Soils, fertilizer's water, you know, all that is secondary
if it doesn't have good sunlight. Secondly, don't over water, don't keep
it too wet. Some people tend to do that and you end up with
root rots and those both are easy to fix to Just focus on those,
make sure they're right, and then a quality product like that bio Matrix by
Orange Bottle, by microlifill work very good. All right, thank you so
much, Thank you, Marty. I appreciate that call very much. Well,
it's rained, and what does that mean to our soil. It means
our soil is going to swell up. When it gets dry, it shrinks,
when it gets wet, it swells. And that movement wreck It just
wrecks foundations, driveways, sidewalks. I mean it's hard on things here in
Houston. Drive down the streets down in Houston. All the water lines that
have been broken and they've tried to repair them, and it's like driving across
the top of the rocky mountains going down the street. Fix my slab foundation
Repair, Ti Strickland's company. Fix my slab foundation Repair. You can go
to fix my slab dot com. Call them two eight one two five five
forty nine forty nine free estimates if you tell them you're a garden line listener.
They do sidewalks, they do slabs. Do you see cracks in the
brick? Do you see cracks in the sheet rock? Do not delay.
They're on time, They're price is fair, and they fix it right.
Fix my slab dot com two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine.
We're gonna head out now to Lakeside of States and Talctor Marine. Hello
Marine, good morning morning. I have I'm working with my Christmas cactus.
I have two of them, and my problem is at they're inside, and
of course with the air conditioning going, the soil is dropping out or drying
out. Excuse me, Okay, So I watered and I'm just gonna go
quickly. What I've done basically not too much, just sprayed the mist at
the top of the soil because it really looks kind of crusty and the result
of overwatering or not enough water. Both of my plants are kind of getting
weapy looking, so I'm not sure. I've had them almost a year.
I did listen carefully to the previous call, but I was thinking of changing
out the soil. So you start me off with that. Every you think
is right, I would say changing out the soil is probably the least likely
issue to deal with. But you can take a little finger, dig it
in there about an inch or too deep and feel the soil. It's either
going to be soggy, wet, or too dry or just right, and
you want just right. Don't let the name cactus fool you. In Christmas
cactus and Thanksgiving cactus. They need moisture. They don't live in the desert.
They live in a moist environment. That doesn't mean it means moist and
so trying to get that right is going to be important. If they're wilting,
hopefully it's because they got a little too dry, because if they're wilting
because they're too wet, there could be some root rots involved. In that
case, maybe pulling it and repotting it could be necessary. But I would
try to just I would feel the soil first. If you can't determine from
that, you can turn the pot upside down and kind of bump the pot
and pull it upward off the root ball, so you're holding the plan upside
down in your hand while you pull the pot off and look around and see
if you see nice living roots or if it's a bunch of brown water soaked
rotting roots. In that case, you take a knife, butcher knife kind
of thing, just sort of cut away the outside and then put some fresh
potting soil in there and put it back in the container and go with that
touching, go keeping it just right, and I think you'll be well off.
Don't put it in full sun, but get in in as much light
as you can. Well, it's not a foot away from my southern exposure
windows. Okay, all right, well that's that's plenty light. Plenty light.
Yeah, you sound like, give it a check. All that out,
Give us a call back on another day if you after you've kind of
gone through this, If you if there's anything you're wondering about, well we'll
walk you through it. Okay. My last question with this plant, these
plants, is I don't really see much root when it's fell over. Okay,
so one of them fell over. So what kind of a root system?
Uh, it's a fairly fine root system. It's not a big thick,
you know, spaghetti sized roots everywhere on the outside of the pot.
So just just when you look for it, you'll you'll see what I'm talking
about. Just take your fingers, scrape away some of the outer ball.
Hey, I'm gonna have to go. If you want to hang on till
after, that's good, I'm fine, Thank you. I will call you
back all right, Thank you. I appreciate that. Take care, Bye
bye. Our phone numbers seven one three, two one to five eight seven
four seven one three two one to fifty eight seventy four. Hey, today
I'm going to be at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show. Now,
that's from twelve to two pm, from noon to two pm. That's at
the Lone Star Convention Center in Conro. All of you up there in Montgomery
County, I hope you'll come. Those of you in North Harris County.
It's not too four of a drive up there, and it's a great show
every year too. We're gonna be giving away some Nelson products out there,
and I look forward to visiting with you. I'll do a one hour seminar
on what you need to know going into fall, and then I'll be there
for another hour at a table just to visit with you. Answer your gardening
questions, bring me photos, bring me samples, whatever you want to talk
about. Give me something to look at and good sharp focus if it's a
photo, and we'll be able to help you out. That's the Montgomery County
Home and Garden Show today, twelve pm to two pm at the Lone Stark
Convention Center in Conro. Kt our H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH guarden Line
with Skip Ricord. Just watch a good morning. You are listening to garden
Line. We're here to talk about everything related to gardening, and boy,
is it ever a good time to do that. Got a little break from
the weather. Fall is coming. I mean, we know it could have
a little warm spell come through again. But we're all right. We're on
our way now. It is time to get things done. It is time
to take care of our plants that have been struggling along. And boy,
if you've looked at the lawns, if you look at trees this summer,
and I know you have, it's rough. It is rough out there.
If you happen to live out in the montbelle View area Mount Bellevue area,
Texas feed Stop, that's your hometown feed store. We love our feed stores
here on Garden Line and Texas feed Stop is the old fashioned kind of feed
store. What do I mean by that? I mean it's part of the
community there. They are a youth from the community to work there. They
carry your bags out when you buy stuff, you don't have to lug all
that stuff around. They give you that kind of service. That's how Brian
and Hope Rhodes run things. I mean, it's just the family owned store
that treats you like family when you come in and they carry everything you need.
You hear me talking about fertilizer. Anything I mentioned is going to be
out there at Texas Feed Stop. Now, maybe you don't live in Mount
Bellevue, maybe you live in Baytown. Is so close to you it's your
hometown feed store. If you're on Interstate ten at Highway one forty six,
just go a few minutes north, a few minutes north of I ten on
one forty six and you are right there. You'll see them on the right
hand side. They carry all the different things you need for you your lawn
and garden beyond fertilizers as well. They have an excellent supply. So are
you dealing with pests or diseases or weeds or anything like that. Do you
want quality feed, quality pet food, quality feed for your farm animals.
They've they've got it all. Texas Feed Stop in Mott Bellevue real easy to
find and really pleasurable to be part of. Become part of the family out
there, get treated like family at Texas Feed Stop. Our phone number if
you would like to give us call is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three, two one two five eight seven four.
I've been talking about the importance of good turf care and of good tree care
coming out of the drought up to now, just specifically talking about the effects
of drought on us, and it's it's been brutal. It's been a tough
one and we need to be taking care of our plants when we're going into
fall. Our turf needs quality care. It has been through absolute turf hell
this summer and we have got to give it the relief that it needs.
So what does that mean, Well, let's think about this. Your turf
has lost roots during because of the drought and intense heat that's going on.
Maybe you had chinch bugs hit and take out some as well. Maybe you
had to take all root rod hit and do some damage as well. We've
got to get that turf back in shape. No. Number One is water,
and we've gotten some rain, but if you haven't continue to give it
a good soaking about once a week, applying about one inch of water because
it is not cold out there yet. When it cools off, we're going
to cut way back on the water. In fact, we need to cut
back on the water when it really cools off. And here's why brown patch
or it's now called large patch, makes the big brown circles, and it
likes to hit when we get a little coal run in and some rain.
Typically October's a general time where we begin to that kind of thing. It
can happen a little earlier a little later, depending on where you live in
the weather. But in order to be ready for that, your turf needs
to be strong and it needs to not be mismanaged. Here are the things
that make large or brown patch very happy. So if you want to make
brown patch not, if you want to avoid it, don't give it what
makes it happy. What makes it happy is too much water wet all the
time, either over irrigating lots of rainfall can't control that, or poor drainage.
That's why we talk about air raiding your lawn, and that's why we
talk about building quality soil over time. Soggy conditions make it happy. Over
fertilization with nitrogen. Don't use the summer fertilizers that we've been talking about all
spring and summer. Now switch to a fall fertilizer. It's got lower nitrogen
levels. Very important, very important to avoid exacerbating. How's that for a
nickel word. You're brown patch problems, your fall large patch problems. So
the other thing is mowing too low. Some people like to It's like they're
trying to make a golf course green out of Saint Augustine. Let it be
not too high, not too low, but at the right height. That
is also important because you can predispose it to issues by mowing it too low.
So those things are the things you want to avoid. Don't mow too
low, don't keep it too wet, don't push it with nitrogen. Now,
we do want to fertilize with a quality fall fertilizer, and that is
going to be one that has less nitrogen than summer, but plenty of potassium
in it. Especially those are very important. Potassium helps with drought resistance,
it helps with cold tolerance. But here's the most important thing. I had
a church bus just tell me one time. He said, the most important
futilizer of the years of fall fertilizer. And at the time I thought,
okay, that that doesn't seem right. I know what he was saying,
and that is that when your grass goes into winter, it needs to go
in strong because when it comes out in the spring, the health of that
grass is primarily determined by what was done to it in the fall fertilization wise,
that is the strength that it uses to start growing. After a while
in the spring, it's getting roots down and it can take up fertilizers we're
putting out at that time, But initially that fall fertilization is very, very
important. I'm gonna go calls to get if you have not considered the Arbourgate
one two three system. I talk about it all the time, So if
you've been listening to the show, you've heard about it, you really need
to give it a very close hard look. It is the one two three
easy way to take care of everything you need forever. Plant you got.
Number one is a food. It feeds anything with roots. Arburgates Organic food
complete is a four four three plus calcium. This is a great one to
be putting on the fall. Two that has the microbes in it. It's
got the things that your grass needs to grow. It's got the things that
your plants need to grow. Just whatever has roots. Apply it. Organic
soil complete. It is a soil that contains also expanded shale and it will
be. It could be used for any beds you're building. It's perfect for
that. And then third organic compost complete again, two different kinds of composts,
lots of microbial activity and more expanded shale. Expanded shale over time.
Every time you add it, you're making your clay soils better and better and
better. And it's all at Arburgate Arburgate dot com. By the way,
I'm going to be at Arburgate next Saturday, not today, Next Saturday,
September twenty three, from eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll be there for
two hours, so please come out and see me, bring me some pictures
and things less hawk. I know you're excited about getting out and doing some
fall things. I can't think of a better way to spend next Saturday,
even coming out to Arbigate to do just that. Well, we're pressing hard
against another one of our breaks. Robert. We will come back to you
when we come back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning, we are talking gardening.
Why not. It's garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we got a lot to talk about. This is the season for that.
Hey, you hear me talk about tree hugger sprinklers all the time, and
I know in some areas we've gotten some rain. But I'm telling you you
need to always have a tree hugger on hand. And here's why. When
you plant a new shrub, tree, rosebush, whatever you're planting like that,
a woody ornamental, you're gonna put the tree hugger around it and it'll
help you water that spot where the roots are. When you put that thing
in the ground, it doesn't have a root system yet, it's all in
the little pot. Tree hugger can help you water it that way. As
you get trees it need a little boost. Tree hugger helps you water that
tree's root system because it waters the area from the trunk all the way out
to the outer branch spread. Depending on the size you purchase, there's a
seven inch, eleven inch, fifteen inch. You can go to tree Hugger
Sprinklers dot Com and find out more. You need to have one hanging in
the garage at all time. We're about to enter fall planting season, another
good reason to have a tree hugger sprinkler on hand. We're gonna go out
to northwest Houston now and talk to you, Rubber. Hello, Rubber,
good morning. I have one of those probably out of left field questions.
All right, here goes. I grew up on a farm, just a
couple of models out of Burton, Texas, and of course we grew all
of our vegetables, most of them, so I really came to love vegetables,
especially all those in the cabbage family. Okay, here's my question.
I've had some people agree with me on this and some who don't. When
you go and buy cabbage or broccoli or even califlar out of the store today,
to me, it doesn't have near the flavor that I was accustomed to,
you know, years back. And I understand that what gives cabbage,
the cabbage family it's taste is a sulfur in the cabbage. Is that?
Is that true? It's a sulfur like compound that the vociferous vegetables produce.
Yes, but what have they done? I mean, some people don't agree
with me, So now it's as good as ourspin, but not not to
me. Well, a couple of things are going on there, Robert.
The variety they grow, how fast it grows, and the temperature that it
grows in makes a big difference. If you've tasted any of those, from
kale to cabbage, do you name it? In the cool season, when
it's cool, they taste sweeter than and when it gets hot they become skunkier.
I guess if you want to refer to them that way, the other
thing. And I found this in my life too. Barber Strissand wrote a
song a long time ago called Memories, and one of the lines and it
was could it be that it was also simple then? Or has time rewritten
every line? And I think sometimes our memories, you know, of the
wonderful times of past. It's kind of hard to compare something from years ago
to something from now. But I'm not saying there isn't a difference. I'm
just saying if you want the quality, getting good varieties, planning them at
the right time, and harvesting them at the right time, we can grow
things like cabbage in a wide range of time here in Texas, but the
quality of it is going to be cool season for sure. Well. I
remember when I was a kid, my grandma wouldn't make cabbage, and she
would cook it to death, almost so it had a little green it's not
the way to cook at with man that it had flavor. Yeah, I
just don't see the flavor in it anymore. Well, I grew up not
eating spinach because mine came out of a can and still got cooked half to
death to where it started becoming less green and more gray brown. All right,
Well, okay, Well, I just wanted to get your on that.
Get into the ground, get it growing fast, get some cool weather
on it. Try some different varieties, see which ones you like. We
used to grow flat nuts. Still a good because we make Sara kraut makes
good crowd. Yeah, that's right, that's right, all right, thanks,
thank you very much, sir. Good luck with the vegetable garden.
Sounds fun out there. You know, Nature's way resources is and has been
for a long time, a purveyor of quality soil. And if you've listened
to me one time, you've heard me say by the brown stuff before by
the green stuff. Spend money on the soil before you spend money on the
plants, or do them at the same time. If you're going to a
garden center, you're gonna buy something. Didn't do that. But if you
don't make sure you're putting the plants into soil that's quality. You're gonna have
problems with them. Nature's Way has soil that is quality. They originated so
many of the important composts and soil components that we talk about today. I'm
going to be out there by the Way on September thirtieth. September thirtieth there
in their Fall Garden Special, and I'll be out answering your questions, doing
diagnosis, visiting for you about whatever we want to talk about. It's gonna
be a one heck of a shindig. They're gonna have food, music,
and vendors and adult beverages. The kids are going to get a scavenger hunt,
all kinds of fun for little ones. There'll be a demo class at
nine am on creating, enchanting fairy gardens, learning the magic of miniature gardening.
Now, if you want more information, you can just check them out
Nature's Way resources. They are easy to find. The phone number you want
to call is nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety. You can
buy their products bulk, you can buy them in bags, but whatever you
do, get a quality product like Nature's Way before you put your plants in
the ground. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh
a call, get you on the boards, and we will talk about the
things that you are interested in as long as you're gardening. That if he
goes beyond gardening, I can just give you a wild guess. And that's
worth ever penny paid for it. All Right, Well, one thing I
want to talk about now that we're in the fall season is fire ants.
Fire Ants are a major issue here in Texas gardens and landscapes. Anybody who's
moved here from had a lady call one time, not on the radio,
but to the Agrilife Extension office where I work, and she was literally in
tears and the first words of her out of her mouth was does everything bite
in Texas? She had moved here from somewhere else. I don't know what
else she encountered, hopefully not a rattlesnake or a copperhead, but she was
not impressed. Well, fire ants do spoil the party. But fall is
the best time to take care of fireants. We fall us football season,
so they say tackle fire ants in the fall. Well, you can control
fireants a number of different ways. There are baits that go out there and
the workers find the bait and bring it back and it kills the queen,
kills the mouth, and it works very well. And then there are mound
drenches or mound dusts or mound granules or whatever, where you pour it on
the mound to kill the mound. Now, if you go the second way
only, you're playing whack amole because there's fire at mounds that are colonies that
are underground but they haven't come up with the surface yet. You don't see
them, and so if you're just treating the ones you see, you're playing
whack amole with fire ants. So what we do is, first we do
a bait in a very low rate to a large area. If you can
get your neighbors on each side to do it at the same time, that's
even better. Neighborhood fire at control programs work because they work effectively, but
they last a long time. Now there are organic and there are synthetic options
for both baits and for mound treatments, so you have options there that is
very very good. There are a lot of quality products out on the market.
I can't name every one of them. In the world. I only
know of one organic bait. There may be more, but not to my
knowledge anyway, And that is the coming Get it. It happens to be
a fertilane product and it's based on spinosid. But then there's there. You
know, there are synthetic baits like amdro and extinguish and others. It worked
very well. But however you want to go about it, just remember fall
is an important time. Let's knock them out going into faull. They don't
want to be out when it's blazing hot, believe it or not. But
if you want to know if you can treat for fire ants on a day
number one, if a training, don't treat. But what you want to
do is throw a paper chip or a Tunican lid or any kind of oily,
a hot dog, piece of hot dog out there in the grass.
Come back fifteen minutes later. If they're fire ants on it, it's time
debate. It's as simple as that. Get the baits out, follow the
label, don't dump them on the mound. Sprinkle them around the mound so
that they go out and they find them. But remember it's not just the
mounds you see. So a very very low rate according to the label,
to your whole yard. That is a very very good way to go about
doing it. I was visiting with some of the folks out in China Gardens
while we're talking about some fall things and things to take care of in the
fall, and it just reminds me and I'm gonna be out there too later
this fallow tay about that when we get closer to it. But they've gotten
a new shipment of vegetables. You know, we were just visiting about cabbage
a moment ago. They've got a lot of their Crucifer's vegetables and I saw
some kale out there. They've got, you know, all kinds of things
that are far the fall season, both warm season vegetables and the cool season
vegetables going out now. It's a great time to get out and get some
of those when you're out there. By the way, if you've never been
to Enchanted, you have to go. It is. The name Enchanted is
good. It is enchanting. Enchanted Gardens is if you're in Richmond and you
go north toward Katie direction, you're going to get to Enchanted Gardens. They're
on three fifty nine on the Katie fulsher side of Richmond. Their website enchanted
Gardens Richmond dot com is it now. They're open Monday through Saturday eight am
to five pm, and tomorrow they'll be open from one to four. Lots
of time to get out there, and oh my gosh, with weather like
this, what a great day to get out and visit Incented Gardens. They
got a new selection of sense of areas. That's a mother in law's tongue.
I don't know if you've ever seen those before, but the standard types,
if that's all you've ever seen, you gotta go out there and see
these. While you're out there, say hi to Ali the cat. He's
supervised in that area. But it is pretty impressive out in Incented Gardens.
Always a great place to visit, and you're not If you want a plant,
you're going to find it there. They have a wide, wide variety
of things. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was
talking earlier about Nitrophis's three step program. This is a fall program. Now.
When you are wanting to have the absolute best lawn you can, you
need to deal with things like good nutrition, dealing with weeds, dealing with
a disease pest for example. Well, the nitros three step has their Fall
Special that is a fertilizer designed for the Gulf Coast for fall application to do
what I was just talking about a minute ago, and that is putting the
potassium and a little phosphorus into your plants along with just a little nitrogen,
not like the summer fertilizers, to get them ready for fall. There is
nothing more important to take a lawn that is struggling forward than putting a quality
fall fertilizer like Nitrofoss Fall Special on it, and it's very very important.
Secondly, if you're dealing with weeds, you've got to get ahead of them,
and the easiest way is to prevent them rather than to try to kill
them once they're growing. So Nitrofoss Barricade in the early October season is a
good time to get out there because hen bit, chickweed, clover, annual,
bluegrass, carpetweed, all of those weeds that just plague us in the
spring. You can shut them down before they get started. And thirdly,
the third step eagle turfun decide by Nitro fosts that will be not only protective
but also curative and prevent things like the large patch of the brown patch that
we're about to deal with, and also take all root rot that infects in
the cooler, milder times of the year, and getting ahead of that will
be important as well. Again, if you wait till the big brown circles
up here, it's a little late to do much good. So if you've
got a lawn that has been plagued with this year after year after year,
in addition to the cultural things I talked about earlier, this nitrofost product the
Eagle is going to help prevent that problem. But you've got to get it
down ahead of time before all that start to happen in the lawn. You
know, our lawns are weak, they're stressed, and if your lawn has
gone through drought this summer, a product that prevents the weeds from coming up
is going to be important. Because here's the deal. Wherever sunlight hits the
soil, nature plants of weed. That is just how it works. When
sunlight hits the soil nature plants of weeds. So you if it's too late
now to make your soil dens again, or your grass dens again, but
you can at least prevent them with that. Hey, you're listening to Garden
Line. We are going to go to the Nikki News Network, but if
you'd like to get on the line, give Josh your call at seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. All right, we play all
kinds of music garden Lot. Here we go. You can thank us later
for that. Hey, I've been talking about the important taking care of your
lawn for fall. It is so important. We have got to get nutrients
to the plant to get it ready for winter, to get it ready for
spring, to recuperate all that was lost during this intense drought and stress.
We also need to deal with diseases. There is large patch and brown patch.
There's also take our root rack coming and we got to deal with that.
And microlife has made a way to do just that. First of all,
the microlife bioinnoculent. Now the bioinoculant, it doesn't take a lot of
it, but you're putting it out there in the lawn. And what it's
doing is it's providing the microbes that help combat combat plant diseases. That is
very important. Think of it as a probotic like we would take a probotic.
So when you put out the bioinoculant, you are, let's just say,
making a hostile plant surface for the diseases. At one on attack.
You've already got things there that are not friends of the diseases that you've put
down with the bioinoculant that's helping deal with that. Secondly, very important not
Microlife has the brown patch. It's a five one three that makes it a
fall fertilizer. You've got little debt lower on the nitrogen and you're getting that
potassium up in a good level there. Microlife brown patch five one three is
going to provide those nutrients in a good ratio gradually over time as it releases.
It's an organic product and it's going to do just that for it,
and that combination is really important coming out of the fall that we just had
Microlife brown patch. That's the orange bag by the way, five one three
and the bio inoculant. I don't know what is that kind of a purple
not purple, kind of a uncolored challenge, sorry, but it's not red,
not purple. Somewhere in the middle they're violent. How about that.
I don't know, but you know what I'm talking about, those two bio
inoculant and brown patch, those two Microlife products. You need to get those
things down soon. I would start at the end of September on those being
organic, They're going to release a little bit slower into the soil, but
they're gonna be there for it, and they're gonna get your plants ready for
the fall. Very important. You can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find
out where to buy them. They're available all over the place, but excellent
products for what your law needs. Right now, we're gonna go to Montgomery.
Now we're gonna talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, how
are you doing. I'm good, Wow, wonderful. I was wanting to
ask. I thought of another question, but the first question is how how
cold hardy is a silver dollar eucalyptus, because I'm putting it in my Japanese
zen garden and I don't know whether I should plant in the container or into
the ground. Well, I am not familiar with how silver dollar compares to
the other eucalyptus species that are varieties are out there. Eucalyptus in general is
marginally hardy. You can drive around Houston some of the big highway exchanges that
you see around town, you'll see a bunch of dead trees. Those are
eucalyptus going out toward the airport on the north side and on the south side
as well. Because I've seen, yeah, go ahead, I've seen those,
but not the silver dollar. That was sort of a unique plant for
you know, it's very aromatic, and I like to yeah, it doesn't
really get big. Yeah, I think that's and that is the way I
would go. I hadn't gotten to that yet. But the size is important.
You can also protect it even if you don't protect the whole plant.
If you can protect at least the base in the lower stem or lower drunk
areas like that, then when you do get a hard coal phreeze, if
you've kept the bottom alive, you're you're right back in business really quickly.
So I wouldn't try that eucalyptus. It wants to be sixty feet tall,
but the silver dollar would would give it a better shot. My other question
is, I know you you probably have the bikus fiddle fikas. Yes,
huh, okay, I do two have three large ones. I've talked to
you about this once before. I wanted an air layer because I need to
cut it back. And have you ever been successful rooting it out without air
layering? Uh, I haven't even tried. It's it can be done,
but it it's that is a little bit of a challenge of a plant in
many ways. It really is, because I've tried it a couple of times
and I lost the tops you know where I cut it off, and yeah,
well you know that was it, you know, And Jim, the
air layering is just it's just a win win, I mean it. You
can root almost anything with an air layer. And so okay, I got
I got it going. Now I got a couple of them going. I
want to see what happens. They're not quite ready yet, I don't think,
but okay, I'll check it out, all right, but good luck.
Thanks a lot. About the silver dollar eucalyptus, I think I'm just
planting in a container and move it in the first year or so. SU
can find one that well, that'd be okay. Yeah, you got all
right? Well, I know, I I know monrovia celsos, so you
know you might you're up in Montgomery. You might try it out at Ana
Plants and see if they can get it for you up there. If you're
not able to get it there, I would drop down to Arburgate. I
know they carry a lot of Momrovia plants and and see if they if they
might be able to get it if if they're also close to you, they
should be pretty close. Well, you know, I checked with the Arbourgate
and she didn't have the silver dollar eucalyptus, but she said they had.
H it's called a blue something eucalyptus is supposed to look similar. Yes,
h huh Yeah, Okay, I'm not left us experts, so I'm gonna
I'm not gonna be much help beyond that. Not me either. That's why
I was asking you, because I can't find anything on the internet thing about
it, but just says, you know, generally speaking, as you can
lift this, aren't co hardy below fifty or forty or something like that.
Yeah, I get it. Hey, good luck with that, and thanks
for calling. Hey, thank you appreciate that very much. You know,
ACE Hardware is a place where you know you can find what you need.
I don't care where you live in town. There's thirty nine of them here
in the Houston area. When you're thinking, hey I need a fertilizer from
my lawn. Hey I need some weed control, some disease control, some
pest control, there's gonna be an ACE near you. You can go to
ACE Hardware dot Com, go to the little store locator on the Ace Hardware
dot Com website, and I think you put in maybe your zip code or
whatever, find find the closest ones to you. There's gonna be more than
one, so they're going to carry all the fertilizers. I brag about here
on Guarden Line. I was in ACE Hardware just a while back and we
got hung up in the barbecue section. Oh my gosh. There we were
buying baskets for the little basket you put for fish on your barbecue and for
grilling vegetables. I used to have one of those, and I lost it
or rusted. I don't know what happened. I got some of those at
ACE the other day. They're great, and you know, if it's outdoor
living, ACE is going to have it. But especially taking care of your
lawn, we're talking about the products you need to do. You need to
take care of it now. Here's fall. It's here. It's time to
get buy ace, get the products you need and make sure that you give
your lawn the best chance ever of going into winter strong, really really important.
Well, you are listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. If you will give Josh
a call, he will get you on the board and when we come back,
you will be first up. Don't forget. I will be at Montgomery
County Home and Garden Show today from twelve to two pm at the Lone Star
Convention Center. I hope you come out and see me. Ben All,
since I heard that one, I think as basity rollers, I believe Saturday
night. Yes, a du Hey, you're gonna be planning this fall,
at least I hope you are. There is not a better season for planning
woody ornamentals, for planning perennials for planning herbs. I mean, just on
and on than fall. It is awesome. And when you do that,
have has to grow six twelve six on hand. Here's why I like it.
Number one. It's got the NPK in, it got plenty of phosphorus
to help with the root development. It's got microlight or Medina Soil Activator to
stimulate biological activity. The folks at Medina re put together a product here humate
humic acid is in it and seaweed extracts as well to stimulate fruiting and blooming.
So what you do follow the label mix it in water. You put
the plant in the ground, You water it in with the has to Grow
water six twelve six, and then a week later, do it again.
A week later, do it again. Now you can use it on and
on. You can keep going and use it for other things as well.
But I just think in order to ensure you paid money for that plant,
you paid money to get the soil ready, let's now just spend a little
bit, just a little bit to make sure that plant is successful and gets
off to a good start. And that's exactly what the has to Grow six
twelve six can do. Works super super well. For that. We're going
to go out to Clever Leaf and talk to Gordon. Hello, Gordon,
let's get more and how are you doing well? How are you today?
I'm frustrated? What's up? My quick question? Virginia button? Would I
ask you about that? Last week? Yes, I bought some celsius.
I bought some blind Side, and I bought some fahrenheit, and so I
sprayed it with fahrenheit first last week and it leaves are turning purple. So
that mean just dying apparently, right. It could be that, or it
does that under stress too, But go ahead, let's I'm interested in this
concoction you've put together here. Go ahead. Well, I always spread it
with the fight. I didn't can do all three, Okay, but you
know I bought the celsius because of the high temperature thing. Fahrenheit has a
restriction on temperature. Yes, But my main question is once it starts to
like die or you say, going into stress mode or whatever, should I
pull it out or just leave it sit there and die. Yeah. So
the time I would say pull button weed is when you're just trying to get
those buttons a little seed pods out of there so it doesn't get even worse
next year. You're not gonna pull it in the sense you'd pull other weeds
to get rid of the weed. I'm a Virginia buttonweed. It's just gonna
break off and everything. But just to get the seeds out, that would
be fine, right, But my problem is I have a massive amount.
So yeah, that's grabbed them. Yeah, that's not gonna be practical,
Gordon. Yeah, I grabbed a handful and I put a big old hole
in my yard. You know, so well that whole let's think of it
this way. That hole was there. Buttonweed was just occupying it. So
unless you pulled you're seeing you pulled up grass when you tried to pull up
the button wheat. No, No, it was just like a massive button
wheat roofs and stuff. Yeah. So next year, when you first start
to see it coming on, you have to kind of watch for it.
That's when you need to start after it. And button wheat is not a
one, one and done spray thing. You're going to have to do it
a couple of times. Follow the label. It'll tell you wait this long
and then do it again. And the products that work it well against it
will eventually take it down. But it's it's not a miracle cure fast.
Okay. Well, correct is all the ones that it selfiest and the blindside
says suppresses it doesn't say control. That is right. That that is true,
and there there are some other good products out there that can help with
that. I know that let's see what does bonide call theres Oh, the
names you are escaping I don't have right in front of me off the top
of my head. Fertile home has a wheat free zone that works pretty good
on it, but again you're weakening it. And so again, don't spray
your whole on either. Find the buttonweed and spot spray that. No need
to put that problems. That's what I've been doing. Okay, that's what
I've been doing. You're on, Yes, you're on the right track.
But let me add one more thing. Anything you do that makes a long
thicker and denser and better is going to help. And if you can avoid
overwatering, because when it's very wet, buttonweed is even happier. So make
it a little less happy by not keeping it too wet. Well, I've
been listening to you since you've been there, and not on water. I'm
along, but once a week, like you said, put it rained a
couple of times over here during a week, so I don't need to war
every day. But I got my cargo load, yes, it last week,
Yes, And I cannot do it next week or the too early.
You know, I would probably wait and do it in early October. And
here's why. It's got a primergeon in it, and those last for a
certain amount of time. You don't want to wait too late to put it
down. But if you, if you put it down and water it in,
it'll then begin preventing weeds for you. So you could put it down
at the end of September, or I would probably let me look, you're
out in Cloverlely. Yeah, it's kind of either way is fine for you.
You could do it in September, you could do it in early October,
but don't wait past early October. Okay, first week October. I'll
just I'll throw it down there you go. Hey, thanks for the call,
and good luck with that. Sounds like you bet? You bet.
If you live down south of Houston, you know I'm telling you you always
need to improve your soil, and the way you do it is to go
to Snamulch. Snamulch has quality soil. They have quality mixes, and this
would include amendments, light compost, and other bed mixes. It would include
multch that goes on top of the soil. Do you want a good quality
ground up native hardwood maultch. They've got it. They have a lot more
than that too. If you're down in Rocheron or First Colony or Fresno or
Sun Creek Estates anywhere down in that area. They are on FM five twenty
one near Highway six and twenty eight just north of Roe Sharon. You can
go to Sienna Mulch dot com. They're not open tomorrow on Sundays, but
they are open today till two, so this would be a good time to
get out there. If you need to order, they will deliver within twenty
miles for a small fee. And while you're there, the fertilizers I brag
on are all there and plus more at Sienna Mulch. Sienna Mulch down north
of Roe Sharon, Sienna Mulch dot com. I'm gonna go real quick out
here to Kevin and West Houston. Kevin, let's see if we can get
started here. I'm gonna run out of time, but maybe we can get
get taken care of. Are you there all right? I'm gonna put Kevin
back on hold, Josh. Maybe we can figure out how to get him
back if we have any time left. You've heard me brag on vego beds,
and I don't I don't know what to do other than to tell you
what I think about something. And Vego is one of the companies that I
literally approached them. I have seen their product and been impressed with their product
and said, you, guys, I would love to brag on Vego on
guarden Line because it's it's that kind of product. There are not many products
out there that I went and said, Ben, we got we need to
have you as a sponsor garden Line. Vegogarden dot com is their website.
But if you are looking for I would say the perfect bed and here's why.
If you don't want to use treated wood, Vego Garden for especially for
you organ at gardeners, that is very important. If you don't want to
take the room of a cinder block out in your garden to use in all
your garden space for eight inch wide cinder blocks on each side of the bed
plus walkways, Vego Garden is it. It's then it's a metal that is
very strong. It has been treated so that it will not corrode and rust.
Then they put a USDA certified pain on it. By the way that
metal treating. They tested that at A and M Universe just for how effectively
is this at protecting the metal and of course it passed with flying colors.
They are they're a Houston company. Here's another reason to have Vego. It's
modular beds. How big what shape of a bed do you want? Call
Vego. They've got it. You put it together whatever you you know.
Think about playing with Legos, I mean, what do you want to build?
You can build it. And the same is true with Lego, with
Lego, with Vego, Vego like Lego, ve Ego garden dot com.
It's easy to find. Check them out online. You will be impressed.
And a lot of our local garden centers are now starting to carry the Vego
beds as well. Don't be fooled by all the pretenders out there on the
market. Go with the one that was first in the United States. That's
Vego Garden Beds. Well, you're listening to Garden Line. We're about to
take a break here our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we
come back, Ken, you will be our first up. I do want
to remind you that after the show today, I've got a great idea good
outing come out and see me at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show.
That's always a great garden show anyway. I'll be there from twelve to one.
I'm going to be giving a one hour seminar on what you need to
know to get your lawn, your trees, your vegetables, your flowers,
everything this fall in top shape. Then I'll be there at a table for
one hour. You can bring me samples of plants to identify, to diagnose.
Can bring me pictures, make sure they're in sharp focus. I look
forward to meeting out there. I'm gonna be given away some Nelson Plat food
while I'm out there as well. Yet another reason to come out to the
Montgomery County Home and Garden Show today again, twelve pm to two pm.
Come out, let's meet, love to see you. Don't forget that the
new lawn care schedule is online at Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip
dot Com. When you go there, you will also find dealing with trees
and drought and dealing with lawns and drought really helpful information. Hey catch you
the next hour. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with
Skip rictor just watching as wos. Good morning on a great day to begin
our fall gardening. If you haven't already, I hope you have already,
but if you haven't, don't delay. Now is the time to get started
with that. Lots of things we're gonna do. You know, fall is
a great time to plant trees. I mean it is. It is when
you plant a woody ornamental tree, shrub, woody vine in the fall.
It has all winter to establish roots, to get ready for hopefully not but
another summer like this one next summer. Well we hope we don't get there,
but even a regular summer is brutal on the first year for a tree,
and planning now is important. And Verdant Tree Farm has got the trees
you need. Verdant Tree Farm is well, it's Verdant Tree Farm var da
nt treefarm dot com. They've got two locations at three locations, excuse me.
They keep expanding West Houston at barker Cypress, down in pair Land on
Broadway Street, just a few blocks from Killing Steakhouse, and then up in
the Heights where Yale Street comes into I ten. There's another Verdant there.
It's a turnkey deal. You go there, you pick your tree out,
you get to choose which one you want. They'll put a tag on it,
they'll bring it, they'll plant it for you. Do you on the
instant pizzas up to seven hundred gallon trees that they got there. And when
it comes to palms, they have the right palm for any budget. I
mean excellent, excellent and knowledgeable about how to do it right. People need
to plant the tree right and Verdant Tree Farm notes exactly how to do that.
They have a one year warranty with installation tempers that discount for military and
first responders. If you're thinking about a tree, don't delay. This falls
the time to get that done, and Verdant will have a great selection of
trees that are chosen to do well in this area. We're gonna go out
to West Houston now and see if we can catch Ken. Hey Kenny there,
Yeah, good morning, we'll Good morning, you bet I got.
I wanted to call about a Japanese maple tree. About four years ago I
bought one from Cornelius, a little one, I guess. The trunk was
about half an inch in diameter. Planted it and it grew four or five
years, and the trunk got about four inches in diameter or bigger, and
then one fall it just died. All the leaves turned brown. I thought
maybe it was just turning over the season, but no, all the leaves
just turned brown, almost seemed like almost overnight. It was just a few
days and it just quit, and so I cut down I did. I
replaced it with some others, smaller ones. I guess the diameter of the
trunk was maybe quarter of an inch, less than half an inch. And
planted them in the flowerbedgs in my front yard and they started growing okay,
and then this year they begin to wither. And I think they're following the
same pattern that the other Japanese maple did. And so it may be that
Japanese maples were just not supposed to grow in my yard, or I don't
know if well they ought to they ought to be grow a bull. Japanese
maples are a little bit of a challenge here, but there are some varieties
that do well. A Japanese maple wants to have its roots in the forest
floor, so you need a very high organic matter soil you need to keep
it always mulched, to keep the soul surface cool, to help, you
know, hold in soul moisture and so on. They would like to get
a little bit of sunlight, but not late day blazing hot sun. So
if you can give them a very bright dapple shade and provide the kind of
soil I'm describing, keep it adequately moist not wet, you'll give them the
best shot that along with the particular type of Japanese maple you plant or are
going to be part of successor failure. Yeah, I have no idea.
What variety was you know one of my guiding grocery store Okay, well,
don't do that anymore. Yeah, well I know how that goes. But
grocery stores, big box stores, places that are selling all over the country.
That that doesn't mean that is locally you know, uh, chosen stuff
or thought like we want to have here. You're you're you know, you're
kind of inside Houston, I believe, right. Yes, Okay, I'd
go over to to Buchanan's Plants and and go see they do a really good
job of carrying things that do well here and see if they have any Japanese
maple I haven't checked for that recently there, so I just don't know,
but I think probably not a good choice for a tree. Well, no,
it's not the most resilient, definitely not native tree for here. But
I've seen them do well and they can be done. So you know,
two things. Number One, I could say old plants something else so it'll
be easier. Or I could just say, well, if you want to
try it, here's how to have success. And that's kind of what I
just could you suggest another tree that that's small, that am I using place
of the Japanese maple. You know, there are there are trees, and
then there are shrubs, and then there are things that are kind of in
between the two, and it sort of depends on what you want out of
the plant. You know, Japanese maple is pretty small to call it a
tree. We prune them into tree form, but they they're not that big.
Redbud there is a Texas redbud and a Mexican redbud that are very resilient.
They also would like a little break from the hot afternoon sun, but
they're not nearly as picky about it as Japanese maple and Texas and Mexican redbud
are both regionally native. There is something, oh gosh, what's it called
Bohinia A Mexican can't even say Mexican. Shoot, the name is escaping me
right now. Bohinia is the proper name for it, or a Mexican orchand
tree that does well and can take the heat, and it needs sun because
it's a it's a good bloomer. And that would be another one. And
I know they have those at over at Buchanans for example. Okay, all
right, well, thanks for the advice, yes, or thank you for
the call. I appreciate that very much. You know, another place you
might want to try for those is r CW. R CW Nursery has an
outstanding selection of trees. You know, they grow their own up there north
of Houston, up in Plantersville. They've got a farm out in that area
and they have everything from fifteen gallons up to two hundred gallons. And now
I haven't checked their list of just all the trees that they do grow.
They could tell you that, but if you're in the market for a tree,
you are not gonna You're not gonna do better in RCWY. They bring
them in Their nursery is where two forty nine, which is tom Ballparkway where
it comes at de Beltway eight, and they've always got plenty of stock on
hand. You know, when I think RCW, I think of trees,
I think of shrubs, I think of roses, and then everything else.
I mean, if you need bedding, plants, whatever, you're looking for,
fruit trees, excellent selection of fruit trees at r CW Nursery. They're
not hard to find, being right there where two forty nine comes into boat
Way eight. You can go to RCW Nurseries dot com find out more about
them. It is a great place to visit, and if they don't have
it, they can probably get it for you. I'd give them a shot
at it because that is what they specialize in. Well, let's take a
break. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
will be right back on garden line. We are here to answer your gardening
questions. That's what we love to do. And boy, is this ever
a great time to be alive as a greater Houston area in fact really Texas
gardener in general. We are getting out of the horrible summer. We just
went to are we got the products and the plants to get things right,
to get things fixed, And that's what we want to focus on. If
you happen to be in the League City area, you are so fortunate because
you have League City Feed as your hometown feed store. West and his sister,
Madison Thunderberg, they they've taken over from their dad down to League City
Feed and it is a great old time feed store. You can give him
a call at two eight one three three two one six one two. They're
open Monday through Saturday nine to six, so after work you can swing by
there and get what you need. Closed on Sunday, so get by there
today if you need to grab something. But we're talking about every kind of
fertilizer that I talk about here, they've got it. It's easy. If
you need even you know, stuff like azymite, they've got that there.
They've got the pesticide, the herbicide, the fungicides that you might need,
quality pet food, League City Feeds got it. Do you need things for
your backyard chickens, I'm talking about the supplies or the feeds or the bedding.
They've got all of that. League City Feed is a great place to
stop and to shop. They're on Highway six, or excuse me, Highway
three, half of Highway six. They're on Highway three, a few blocks
south of Highway ninety six. So if you're in Clare Lake, El Camino,
Webster Bay, Cliff, Lamark, Dickenson, Santa Fe, League City,
of course they're your hometown feed store and you're fortunate to happen there,
go check them out. We're gonna head out now, let's see, we're
gonna go to Clear Lake and we're gonna talk to Lane. Hello, Lane,
good morning, fit thanks for taking my call you back last time I
asked you about planting new plants and how much you know soil I should put
down? And I went to the heirloom soil calculator good and I got okay.
I calculated be like one hundred and thirty three one cubic foot bags of
soil I need, okay, And how much of it do I need to
put as rose soil? And how much is quality compost? Now you're building
the whole bed out of this or you're mixing it into soil you have?
How are you doing that? Oh? Well, okay, I had to
rip out all the existing bushes and and so the the existing bushes were there
since nineteen ninety nine. Okay, okay, well, so you're just building
up the bed with it. Sounds like, yeah, I'm gonna till it
first, get all the roots out, ye, and then okay mix so
right, So get the roots out, lay down about three inches of rose
soil, till it in to the soil. You have lay down more rose
soil and then more rose soil to get it to the level you want.
But that way you get a blend, and that's better than just throwing something
right on top of it. If I were you, I would call them
out at Heirloom Soils and I would say, look, I need one hundred
and thirty three bags. What would it cost me to get a super sack
dropped off here? Or what would it cost to get the soil delivered and
dropped off? And do the price comparison, because at some point it's cheaper
to get bulked than bags. And depends on where you live, how much
you're buying and what you're buying and all of that kind of thing. But
just do a quick check off. Go ahead, Okay, it doesn't sell
me, It says that. Look for vendors to buy from it and it
points me to Leak City Feed. Well, yeah, League City Feed's got
it. I mean you better tell League City though, if you want one
hundred and something bags, because I doubt that they may not quite have that
on hand at all times. So you can go either way. It works
good infair. That's convenient for you to go there and just grab it and
do it. Then do it that way. That's good. Okay. How
come they price different laries on big box stores on Rose Oil and you know,
well, a lot of times the product you get at a big box
is just not like what you're going to get from our local vendors. It's
just not I've I've opened bags of stuff called potting soil from stores like that
and when I open it up, it's got wood chips in it. I
mean it chunks of wood and that is not a quality true soil mix.
Now, if you're going for something bigger, like a bed mix, yeah,
it's going to have a little bit of compost to finally ground materials in
it. That may be some woody in there, but it's the quality that
that's the bottom line, and you know, you get what you pay for.
That's about all I know to tell you, Uh, okay, why
of the better stuff? Okay, how much is how much compost do I
need to mix in? Well, if you do the rose oil, you
don't need to mix any compost in. You just grow straight on. Yeah,
you don't need to do both. Now, if all you were doing
was just amending some soil and you know you mean, you could do the
compost alone. But the rose soil is already going to be a good blend.
Just mix it with what you have a little bit so you don't have
a sudden interface from your current soil to the nice, super quality rose soil
on top. Okay, okay, well, good luck with that line.
Thank you, good luck. I can't wait to hear about that bed.
I have talked to you about Nitrofos products and their three step and three step
if we are in three step season, and what is three step? Well,
first of all, it's a fall fertilizer, a quality fertilizer designed for
Texas Gulf coasts, soils and lawns in the summer. That's as simple as
that. It's called the Nitrofoss Fall Special. It's a winter rizer, you
can call it that too. Basically, what it means is you're putting it
down now to help your lawn recover from this hallacious summer we just went through.
To get good storage of carbohydrates going into winter to make it strong so
when it comes out in the spring it is in top health. Very important,
perhaps one of the most important fertilizations you do each year is in the
fall. Step two a barricade, which is a pre emergent weed control.
If your lawn is thin wherever sunlight hits a soil, nature plants of weed,
and a lot of lawns are thin or worse after the summer that we
just had. Barricade will stop the broad leaf in the grassy weeds from germinating.
And finally nitrofoss eagle turf fungicide, and that is to not only protect
the plant, but also to do a little bit of what we call kickback,
a little curative to help keep that turf healthy for optimum disease control.
Now, all of this needs to happen in early early October. It would,
I would say, that would be your prime time. And here's why
I know some of you are listening to me up in Buffalo, Texas on
Interstate forty five. Or Louisiana, are New Bronfels or here in Houston or
Galveston, So it's kind of hard to give all of you one specific time.
But by the time we get into October, it's time to fertilize for
fall it is. You need to get it down so it can do good
until by the time we get into later in November, grassroots are slowing down
and not redoing as much as they are in October, So don't delay.
If you want to prevent weeds, you got to get it done in early
October. They're gonna be germinating. We get a little cool front in here
and need some rain, it cools off. You need to get ahead of
that or you're too late. And finally, you need to do the fungicides
early on because large patch, the big circle's brown patch that is going to
happen, and whence the circles appear, it's too late to cure them.
It just doesn't work that way. You have to wait till spring for them
to regreen up. So getting it ahead of time. All three Texas three
step a Fertilizer Fall Special, the Barricade for weeds, and the Eagle Tar
frongeicide for diseases. You're going to find all these great night frost products at
retailers such as Warren Southern Gardens out in Kingwood, Ace Hardware Sinkle Ranch are
the grower's outlet up in Willis. We are now going to head out to
Conrow and talk to Sherry. Hello, Sherry, Hello, good morning,
Good morning. So I have I inherited a bunch of camelias and I fertilized
them in the spring with a little bit of a semite and some microlifacidifier.
Good and they usually do a second fertilization, but with this drought and heat,
I haven't done it yet. Is it too late to do a light
A lightilization? A light one would be okay. You know, we're not
trying to push stuff into real late season growth, but in organic products like
that are going to help improve the soil. They're going to improve the root
system, and they're going to gradually release over time. And that acidifying microlife
is a good one for use around. You said azelia, right, camelias.
Excuse me? Okay, well, the same thing, blueberry, blueberry,
camelia, Azelia, gardinia, all of that, even hydrangees would be
good to use. That on. Okay, perfect, I appreciate that.
And then a second question. I have a magnolia tree that has sprung up
from out of nowhere. It's quite a few years old now, probably maybe
four feet tall. Okay, is it still possible to move that? And
should it be done in the wintertime? Moving a magnolia is touching go.
The only time to move it would be late or late late fall, when
we get to us, say early November. That'd be your best shot because
it's got leaves on it. It's not deciduous, so it's easier to move
deciduous plants in the winter because there's no leaves to lose water. But if
you can dig it and get as much of the root system as you can
and move it quickly, get it right back in the soil and watered in,
well that'll give its best shot. But I just gotta tell you,
magnolia's loved to pout about being moved like that, so it's a little bit
of a roll of the dice, all right, right, Okay, great,
well, I appreciate that. Thank you, you bet hey. I'm
gonna be up in Conro today at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show out
at the Lone Star Convention Center. So if you get a chance, come
out there and see me. I'll be there twelve to one and I'll get
a little talk on fall. And if you got any questions or samples or
pictures or things you want to bring in for me to diagnose or identify or
whatever, be happy to do that too. Sherry. Good to talk to
you, and I appreciate your call. You know, September is hummingbird month.
I've had hummingbirds coming through my backyard for a while. I've got the
wild Birds Unlimited. They're high perch feeder. I think it's the best one.
I've got several hummingbird feeders, but that absolutely is the best. One.
Comes in four different sizes. They also have something called nectar defender.
You put it in there in the water, and you know sugar water in
hot weather, even warm weather. I mean, it goes bad one to
two days, but if you will put the nectar defender in, it'll take
it as long as ten days before it starts to need to be replaced.
You can make your own nectar with four parts of water and one part of
white table sugar. Do not put color in it. Hummingbirds don't care about
that. The feeder is going to attract them in. That's why there's color
in the feeders. Now, Wabird's Unlimited is the place to go for anything
that you need, I mean anything related to the birds. Wawbird's Unlimited stores
or seven of them all around the Houston area. You can go to WBU
dot com forward slash Houston to find yours. Don't delay anymore. This is
peak month and there's a lot of other things coming up in the world of
backyard birding that you need to get ready are from birdhouses to other kinds of
winter bird feeders. While Bird's Unlimited has it all and they will get you
set up really really well. We're about to have to take a break here
for the Nicki News Network. I did want to mention to you those of
you out in Kingwood who love to go to Warrens and Kingwood Garden Center,
and I don't I don't blame you one bit. They are close today,
they're doing some inventory work, but they will be open tomorrow, so make
sure and get back out there. They are stocking up for fall and the
stuff they have on hand. If you've ever been to either one of them,
you know how outstanding they are as garden centers. Quality staff knows what
they're talking about. They point you to the things they want. Don't forget
write this on your calendar. It's around the corner September twenty first at six
pm. September twenty first, six pm, fall into Prosecco event. This
is their gartending class and it's at Kingwood Garden Center. That's Kingwood Garden Center
dot com. They're gonna tell you how to grow herb and how to use
them in a garden to glass mixology class. Ooh that even rhyme nicki O
sounds fun, doesn't it. Yeah, good place to hang out September twenty
first. But remember hang off on today because they're doing inventory. But get
out there tomorrow. They'll be back open and ready to go. Our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right
back, all right. Welcome to garden Line. We are glad you're listening.
Maybe you are a veteran gardener, been gardening for fifty years, maybe
you're a master gardener, or maybe you're on the other end of the spectrum.
We call that the green side up beyend where you know you have to
tell people when you plan a plant, put the green side up. We're
glad you're listening. We are here for all kinds of gardeners to help you
take it to the next level and especially take it out of this summer into
a successful fall season. Gosh, it has been brutal, brutal, brutal.
You know, I have almost never had disease insecting weed problems in Milan.
And you know it's not that I'm some expert. You know. I
always tell you there's no such thing as a green thumb. There's an informed
thumb or an uninformed thumb. And I know that to have a good lawn
and avoid the problems, you just need to take care of it right.
And you need to keep it dense. It chokes out most of the problems
that it has when it's dense. But boy, this year it's like all
hell broke loose. I've got take all root rot appearance. I have areas
that I went for a two week vacation, actually not vacation. It was
actually a couple of business trips and I was gone and something went wrong in
the watering system in an area did not get watered at all. For two
weeks in the sun and just flat head drought kill on that area of the
lawn. Then to make to add insult to injury, have you decided to
quit listening to guardenline yet to add insult to injury? Take all root rot
moves in so drought and chinch bugs was a third of the trifecta. I've
got all three in my lawn. I'm dealing with all three of them.
Yep. I know the cobbler's kids go barefoot, but I'm telling you it
is possible to bring that lawn back. And one of the things I'm gonna
do then this is important for your lawns, is the deep tine aeration.
You want a core aeration. What does that mean? Don't just rent something
that presses a hole in the ground. Har somebody that can get a core
errator and really Greenpro is one of the top companies you're going to run into
anywhere, especially here in the Greater Houston area. They pop cores of soil
out so it looks like you had a little dog convention on the lawn right
there, with all the little plugs of soil sitting on the surface. Then
they top dress it with quality compost finely screen top dressing. So now you've
got oxygen in the soil. Now you've got that compaction being combated with aeration
and top dressing. Now you're getting organic matter down into those holes and root
growth is stimulated. And it's one of the most important things you can do,
especially now with what we've just been through going into fall. They they've
got a ten percent off for Gardline listeners. You have to tell them your
Gardline listener and you have to call them by the fifteenth of September to get
the deal, which we have just passed by one day. Oh my gosh,
I'm just in here reading the text and realizing that whatever you're looking for
though, they're going to have it. It is a quality, quality product
that they put out. It's a quality service that they do. They know
how to do it, and I'll tell you this, it will make a
huge difference in your lawn. Their prices start at five ninety nine plus sales
tax, depending on where you're located, how far they have to go to
get to you, and the size of your lawn. But that is a
great deal and it is a single thing that has lasting effects. You know,
a lot of things we do are temporary to the lawn. This is
something that will give you months and months and months, if not a whole
year or more of benefits from just this one change. And remember things like
large patch or brown patch, they're favored by soggy, wet conditions. So
if you've got a dense lawn that's compacted, low lying, and this is
going to help alleviate that so that it is not such a favorable place for
brown patch to take off and to go. We're gonna go out to Patrick
now in Missouri City. Hello, Patrick, good morning. Yeah, yeah,
Hey, so far, so good by, Bob. Caught fire?
How do I treat it? Patrick? Or are you talking about your long
caught on fire? Yeah? So like it? Burke Like, yeah,
it is the Saint Augustine. What yesh, it's dead. You're gonna have
to replant. H Saint Augustine does not have underground runners and so you're gonna
have to replant it. Okay. And where would I am about shabrock enthusiasts?
Where can I get bulbs at your local garden centers? Wherever your local
quality garden center is going to be, You're gonna be able to buy bulbs
there. They're gonna have a good supply. I've been having a hard time
for shamrock bulbs. I would just call around. You know, you're not
too far out from the enchanted gardens and Shannon forest out there in the Kingwood
area. I know that that Bob at Southwest Feed and Fertilizer he gets some
bulbs into. That's not too far away from me. I'd give one of
those a shot and see how that goes. All right, Okay, yeah,
well, good luck with that. I appreciate the call. You know,
D and D Feed up in Tomball is your hometown feed store if you
were up in that Tomball area, and I always love going by there.
They just expanded this summer. That Dover family opened it in nineteen eighty nine,
about three miles west of Highway two forty nine. On twenty nine,
twenty their new expanded store has a lot more things and stuff. It was
already an awesome place to go before that, now even more. You want
a quality dog food, high end line like Origin, Diamond, Victor Starpro,
they've got it. Do you need pests and rodent control? You know
we're entering that season where rats and stuff getting up in the attic or doing
whatever they do. D and D Feed has got the things you need to
control those and then any fertilizer I talk about, and many of these other
products you know, the heirloom soils for example. They have lots of vegetables.
You know you need something for your lawn, your garden, you want
to make it better. They bring plants in from time to time. It
is a great place to visit. Easy to get to. Three miles west
of two forty nine and Tomball. D and D Feed your hometown feed store.
They'll treat you like family and they will make sure that they supply you
with quality products so you have success. That is super super important. We're
gonna go out to the Woodlands now and talk to Charles. Hello, Charles,
good morning, Skip. I enjoy your program. Thank you for taking
my call. Unfortunately I nursing bad back, so okay, hopefully I can
get through that. Skip. Two questions. One is we grow roses several
types, including hybrid teas and miniature roses. In every spring we get attacked
by spider mites, just all of a sudden poof, they're there, right.
Is there any way to prevent that from occurring? No, you can't
prevent it, but you can manage it. And there's a couple of ways.
There are mite de sides that you can spray with. What I do
for mine is I get a strong blast of water. There's different ways to
come up with this. The little Hosen sprayers where you can put out a
fine mist at a high velocity. You know, I've been talking about the
little water ones where they put out large, coarse droplets for watering your plants.
I'm talking about a blast. And if you go underneath a rosebush,
even if you do it once a week or once ever ten days and just
blast the undersides of the leaves, it knocks the mites off. The ones
that manage to hang on that wet environment. They don't like that. They
like dry, hot and dust. And I have kept spider mites in control
that way on a lot of plants. Now, without the right kind of
tool you mentioned, bad back bending over with all of those Hosen sprayers gonna
be kind of hard to do. But that's one thing I do. But
anytime you can blast the undersides of the leaves or devise something to do that
with that would be helpful. Otherwise you're needing to go if it's not too
hot. Insecticidal soaps spray upward from underneath the plant will work pretty well on
spider mite. You don't have to do it often. The goal is just
to keep them kinda in check, and so that is some ways you can
do that. Okay, Well, thank you for that. I had one
other quick question. All right, Charles, I'm gonna have to get you
to hold I'm going on a hard break here, but I will come right
back to you when I get right back. Our phone number is nine seven
nine, or excuse me, eight seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. We'll be right back. Well, I don't know if it's
flood and down in Texas, but I know that we're happy to see rain.
So it's kind of a interesting thing to sing a song about the Blues
about it raining. Right, you're listening to garden Line, and we're happy
to be here, and we're happy it's been raining a little bit, and
we're really happy that the temperature has dropped at least five degrees below one hundred,
which I officially say means it's fall. Let's have some fun with fall.
Right. Speaking of fall, if you are looking to take care of
your lawn. You need to have a fall fertilization put down in early October.
You can start it in late September if you want, especially for those
of you a little further north, maybe you're listening up in Conroe or north
all the way up to Buffalo or someplace. Yeah, you can started a
little late September. But as we moved down in the Greater Houston area down
in this area, we're looking at early October is a good time to get
that down now. Nelson Plant Food they have something called carbo load. Carbo
Load is a ten ten twenty. It's designed for fault. It's got that
good boost of potassium in it. And potassium think of it this way.
Potassium is what helps the plant make its and a freeze. It helps it
be not only drought resilient, but it helps it be cold hearty, and
it sets your lawn up to come out strong in the spring. The beauty,
health and growth of your lawn in the spring is all about what you
did in the fall. That's how this works. In a grass plant,
it takes a while for it to warm up in spring for the grass to
put on new roots start taking up fertilizers so that your spring fertilizers are doing
what we want them to do. But if you don't do the fall fertilization,
your grass is already weakened and then it's now it's having to deal with
winter and try to come out without any energy at all. So I can't
stress enough the importance of a quality fall furtlizer and Nelson's Plant Food carbo load
is exactly that. Nelson's has a lot of great lines. They've got color
Star, Nutrastar, turf Star, Nature Star, It's all good fertilizer and
it all works very very well for your plants and especially for that lawn.
You need to do that. By the way, I'm going to be up
at the Conro Montgomery County Home and Garden Show today and I'll be doing a
seminar, but I'll be given away from Nelson for Eliza while we're out there,
and I hope you'll stop in and check us out. We're going to
head out now to the woodlands and go back to our conversation with Charles.
Hello, Charles. Yeah, it's just one other quick question. I have
a raised bed around I guess it's on the north side of my house,
and I have some twelve eighteen age trees that have seeded and grown there.
Is it a good time to transplant them? Or should I wait till later?
Do you know what kind of trees they are off end? You know
they are deciduous. I think there's some kind of an oak tree, but
I'm not absolutely sure. Yeah, deciduous is good enough for me, So
I would wait until probably late October or early November to do the transplanting.
That way they're gonna be. They will probably won't have fully dropped their leaves
by then, but they'll be about to. You could wait a little longer
if you want, but dig them up, get as much of the root
system as you can't can be primarily a tap root if you seeded them yourself,
So get down and get that. When you replan them, put them
in exactly the same depth they were growing before. Not deeper, not shallower,
just same depth. Water them in really good, and they have all
winter to get ready for spring. Okay, so late October then or in
of October our early November either one. Okay, okay, Well, thank
you for your help, Yes, sir, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much, We're going to go out now and talk to
Ted in Kingwood. Hello, Ted, good morning, how are you well?
Thank you great? Hey. I've got a quick question. I'm looking
for a source of planting dates for annuals. I love the not wait seeds.
So if they get the package of one hundred, I want to plan
one hundred of them and then I give them away to my neighbors and friends.
There you go and all year long. And I have a little greenhouse,
and so I was looking. I don't know where I could find the
source so that I know when the plants like stocks and petunias and geraniums and
all these things. Is there a place that I could find that information.
There are some places out there, there's not like a one stop shop on
that. That's probably something I need to work on for my website. That's
a great idea. But I can give you some general guides and it's not
really specific as to when you have to plant any particular thing, but in
general, when we get to late August through probably about the month of September,
your warm season flowers can be set out in the garden, not started
from seed, but set out in the garden that'll carry you all the way
up to the first frost. When we're looking for cool season, we can
already be planting things like dienthus a Lysson stock. I'm trying to think,
I'm real quick, come to mind, you know, the ornamental cabbage and
ko that would be more of an ornamental kind of thing. We could already
be sending those transplants out now, and then it needs to cool off a
little bit more before we do pansies and viola. So I would wait probably
to set those. I should have started the seeds for them a lot earlier
that you probably you probably should now if you if you, you know,
if you wanted to start some now, you could probably still get them out
there and get them going. But most of those, in general, you're
going to count back six to eight weeks and start the seed. Some things
take a longer time, and some things the seed is like dust, and
it's very difficult without really controlled situation to get them planted by you get them
off to a good success. Yeah, appreciate all you do. You're doing
a great job, think sir. I appreciate that. Good luck with those
seeds, yeah, Kingwood, it's always fun starting things from seed. I
love to do that well. You know, the key to a successful garden
is to give plants the conditions that they want to grow in. And you
know, our gardens have come through this summer and it's just been brutal.
I just no two ways about it. I mean, maybe you had access
to water, and you could water, and you did water properly and adequately.
Your plants are alive, but it still has been a long, stressful
day, day, eternal day. It's been a long stressful summer that has
taken its toll. And you've heard me talk this morning about the importance of
fall fertilization, the importance of getting ahead of weed problems, getting ahead of
disease problems on our lawns. No matter what area of the landscape we're talking
about, your plants need help and we need to be giving them that now.
And the first step is adequate soil moisture. The soil needs to be
wet adequately and deeply in order for it to do its best. That's as
simple as that. Secondly, quality fertilizers put out at the right time,
choosing the right products for lawns. It's got to be a fall fertilizer.
Just set your three one, two, four, one twos. The summer
and spring fertilizers. Set them aside. You can bring them out next year
next spring, but for now, go to a fall fertilizer. That's really
important. And no matter what kind of product you're looking for, whether it's
these fertilizers, whether it's disease control products, whether it's herbicides, you're gonna
find it. At Ace Hardware. They carry everything. They just do.
It's a one stop shop for more than just fertilizer. Anything you need for
your lawn, your garden, keeping your trees happy, pest control, disease
control, weed control, fertilizing, you name it, it's all there at
Ace Hardware. You can go to Ace Hardware dot com and go to their
store locator and find the Ace Hardware near you. With thirty nine stores,
there are more than one near you. And so when you need to run
down the street and get something to put on your lawn, they're gonna have
it. They're gonna have all kinds of things for outdoor. You know,
it's finally becoming pleasant to go back outside again. Maybe it is time for
a grill for some football season barbeque and outside. Maybe you need some new
lawn, furniture, outdoor lighting or decor, on and on, all the
power equipment, the tools you need out there. It's Holiday's Hardware. You
pull in there, you drive home. You got everything you need to have
a beautiful lawn, a bountiful landscape, and it just makes it simple and
easy at As Hardware. Hey, I'm about to take a break here and
we'll be back after a bit. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Talk to Josh. You'll get you on the boards and you'll be
first up when we come back. When I get out of here, I'm
heading to Montgomery County to the Home and Garden Show up in Conro at the
Lone Star Conventions that are right across from the Texas A and m Agrilife Extension
Office. And by the way, if you live up in Montgomery County,
you need to know about the Texas A and m Agrilife Extension Office, Michael
Potter, the Horde Agent, and their master gardeners. They're just a wealth
of information and beautiful gardeners to go visit. Uppet Montgomery County Home and Garden
show. I'm going to be giving away some Nelson plant food. I'll be
giving a one hour seminar on the things you most need to know to have
a beautiful garden and a bountiful landscape, a beautiful law. Just come and
listen. I'll be talking about all kinds of things like that and taking your
questions and I'll be at a table for an hour to answer gardening question.
So grab that weed you want to identify, take some pictures and bring me
those photos, and sharp Focus will diagnose and we will help you get good
success going. 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. Good morning, Welcome to garden Line. And oh my gosh,
if you have a drop of gardening blood in your system, you should
be getting a little bit excited right now. Break in the temperatures, arrival
of a little bit of rain, and look at the calendar and it says,
hey, don't delay. It is time to do the false stuff.
Time to get ready for that. And here we go doing just that.
By the way, if you are looking for a place where you can find
any supplies and tools that you need for your garden, that's going to be
Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer has been around since nineteen fifty five. They've been
sponsoring garden Line since Dewey Conpton days. I think I'm the fifth host to
speak for Southwest Fertilizer. And it is easy to do because I'm going to
tell you if if they don't have something, you don't need. It thanks
as simple as that. They're down on the corner of Business and run Wick
in Southwest Houston. So all the fertilizers all talk about and then some are
at Southwest Fertilizer. If you are an organic gardener and you're looking for organic
products, you're not going to find a bigger supply than Southwest Fertilizer. If
you're looking for organic and or synthetic products, you're not going to find a
better supply herbicides and sexticides, funger sides, and as I said, fertilizers.
Eighty foot wall of garden tools. By the way, when you're there,
go ask ask them to show you the kneeling benches they have. It's
a folding kneeling bench. It is my I would say it's my favorite tool
of this past year that I have discovered and begun using. And oh my
will it'll change your life. You flip it up one way and sit on
it, flips to the other way and kneel on it. And it's got
handles to get up and down. And you know, as a gardener you
do that only eight hundred thousand times on a good Saturday a garden work.
It will really really help. They can do all kinds of things like sharp
and your mower blade. They're experts at diagnosing and identifying, and they have
the products and they take you to the stuff that works. They don't sell
you stuff that doesn't work. They know what they're talking about and they carry
it all Southwest Fertilizer dot Com always love to go in there. Well,
we're gonna head out now to Humble, Texas and talk to Lawrence. Hello,
Lawrence, Hey, good morning. How are you. I'm well,
thank you? So armadillos are armadillo as visit twice within the last two weeks,
tearing at the flower bed. Okay, I put an appropriate sized trap
out, but I'm guessing it's after grubs or earthworms, well, any any
kind of insects. Yeah, grubs and earthworms being two typical ones. They
grub around in the ground for them, and they find them, you know,
through this hot, dry summer. I mean they break their nose off
trying to get in the ground out in the woods, and they come into
our yards and we're watering them and everything gotten nice soils, So it just
it's really attractive to them to come in. Is it too late to treat
for grubs or insects like that? It's a little late to treat for grubs,
and there's nothing in the ground now that you would treat for to try
to stop the armadillas. Have you had trouble getting them in the trap?
Uh no, it's well not yet. Okay, I have it's burrowed twice
in the same spot. Okay, I'll put the trap right over that hole.
Yeah. You can funnel them into those have a heart, catch them
alive traps, use two boards. It's just like a big v They're bumbling
little creatures and you can just kind of guide them in or I one thing
I recommend is get some elbow macaroni and boil it and beef bull yawn,
and I guess you're what you're basically making as little fake grubs there or something.
Drop those along the ground and don't don't feed them too much before they
getting the trap, but just drop them here and there, lead them in
and that's a good way to get them into those traps, and then you
just relocate them. Well, great, all right, all right, good
luck than Yes, sir, appreciate the call very much. Hey have you
been out to Enchanted Forest? En Richmond? Enchanted Forest? Now, this
is a one if you're if you're in Richmond, you're heading sugar Land Way
off to the right south of fifty nine that leads you to Enchanted Forest.
They are on FM twenty seven fifty nine. And it's an enchanted place.
I mean, you go out there, it looks cool. I think it
looks like an old western town just because they've got kind of a barn look
and stuff. Hey, they just built a new area for vegetables and their
herbs and new structure, beautiful trees. Always pleasant and easy to get out
there and shop. And enchanted Forest. They've got new shipments, they got
shrubs, they got trees, they got fall flowers, lots of great fall
decre having a sail right now on the house plants fifty percent off. And
you know, winter's a great time to have new house plants in take care
of through the wintertime. If you need vegetables, they're stalked up, absolutely
stalked up. You got to go out there and check them out. There's
gonna be some moms coming, you know, within time. Here. The
pumpkins will be arriving pretty soon for fall decorating and whatnot. Enchanted Forrest is
just a wonderful place to visit. Danny and Clay lendermun just do an excellent
job greeting you. They know what they're talking about. And now, if
you really want the experts and Enchanted, talk to Rosie. She's a golden
retriever. She's a supervisor. I'm pretty sure she tells Danny and Clay what
to do every day. Walter White's assistant manager. That would be a cat.
Other members of the cat staff, Basil will Chappie Ininez Taco. Lots
of fun. It's just a fun place to visit and you are going to
find what you need. You will be very impressed if you've not been there
before, trust me, you will not be disappointed. In fact, you'll
be super impressed. To be out an enchanted forest. Let's see, We're
going to go now up to tom Ball and talk to Amy. Hello,
good morning morning. I am going to have my lawn narrated in top dress.
But right now we have water lawn watering restrictions. Okay, I wait
until I'm able to water, or does that not matter? You need to
water a couple of days ahead of the air rating to soften the soil.
It just makes it work so much easier than you know, if it's a
hard picked clay, you know, it's hard to get a narrator down at
the depth you want. So a couple of days ahead of time, if
you're gonna call green Pro and have them do it, just talk to them.
They'll tell you what they want you to do ahead of time. But
you know, who knows, maybe a little later in the week, get
a little more rain in here, and that would be even just more helpful.
You wouldn't have to water. All right, Very good, thank you
very much. All right, Amy, you have fun up there and tumble
we uh, I just I love the different garden centers we talk about,
the different feed stores, we talk about it. It's just fun going out
to those places and seeing and I recommend these because they're good, they're quality,
they have products that belong here, and most importantly, they have staff
that know what they're talking about. Whether it's feed store, a garden center,
you name it. It could be a supply store like an ace hardware.
They know what they're talking about. And that is so helpful. I
can't tell you. People go out and they try to find the cheapest thing
they can find to buy, and you get what you pay for, and
you waste time, you waste money, and it's so disappointing to just buy
junk because you thought you got it a little bit cheaper here or there.
A good quality garden centers, you can give it a good price. They're
going to give you a good quality and they're going to say how to do
it, and that is what is important. Now our lawns have come out
of fall and it has been brew tull on the lawns. And I'm I'll
talk about that a little bit when I come back from break here. Right
now, we're going to take a break phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Ryan. When we come back, you will
be our first step. Well, good morning you are listening to Oline.
Hey. For those of you who have been asking about the lawn care schedule,
you can go to Gardening with Skip dot com Real Simple Gardening with Skip
dot Com. My schedules on there tells you about the fertilizers of fall,
talk about things like a core aerating, and we'll talk about things like trace
mineral supplements, mowing and watering and so on. Also on that website you
will find, in addition to the lawn care schedule, you're going to find
the new thing I put up about dealing with drought and lawns, caring for
lawns during extended drought and heat, and the thing I put up about trees
stress related tree decline and death. Good information to read and understand as you're
going forward. You know, taking care of our lawns is very critical at
this time of the year. They are weakened, they're stressed, and we've
got to do things to help them get strong going into fall. Because the
health of your lawn going into fall determines the health of your lawn and the
vigor of your lawn coming out of winter in the spring. Fall fertilization is
important and Microlife has a product called the microlife brown patch five one three five
one three. It's a little lower level on the nitrogen. Got good amount
of potassium in there, which is really important for cold heartiness and for drought
tolerance. Potassium very important ingredient. All nutrients are important, but potassium going
in the falls, especially when we want to focus on now, I would
do that, but I would also add the microlife bio innoculant that the only
put about ten pounds per thousand square feet because you're not fertilizing with it,
you're inoculating the area with microbial content. And what that microbial content does a
couple of things. There are microbes that fight other microbes. There are microbes
that out compete other microbes. And when you fill your soil and fill your
grass plant surfaces, you know we're talking about the roots and the runners out
there on the surface with good quality microbial content. Disease comes along and it's
a crowded field, and even if the microbes aren't actively attacking them, which
some will do, it also is just out competing them. They're on the
surface, and it just means your grass is going to have a better chance
of recovering from that. So that is kind of like a double whammy for
success in your lawns. Is the brown patch five one three. It's kind
of an orange bag and the microlife bio inoculant. I would call it a
violet colored bag. I'm color challenged, so look for microlife, bio and
oculant, and that combination together would be very important to get on your lawns.
I'd do that at the end of September. Early October would be a
good time also to get those done. But don't delay because the diseases the
large patch are coming and we need to get those nutrients down because as we
get into late fall, the plant root growth development nutrient uptake slows down a
lot, so we want to get those down in time for them to accomplish
what they can accomplish. Now, we're going to go out to John Now
and Spring Branch. Hello, John, Yes, I want to. I've
got kind of a new garden that's got very heavy clay soil. It drains,
uh you know, it's not real wet in a storm or anything.
It drains well, but it's really hard clay. Yeah, Okay, improve
that. Okay, Yes, organic matter that's the secret compost is what you
want. You want to get a good quality compost, you want to mix
it into the soil that you have. I'd probably put initially, I'd probably
put two inches down to mix in. Going forward, each time you go
from one crop to another, you can sprinkle an inch it down and mix
it into the soil as well, just so gradually over time you're improving it.
But that will help the soil structure, It will help the internal drainage
as water moves down in the soil, and it also will release a lot
of nutrients and and really boost the my chrobial activity, all of which are
important. Okay, so I can go over time. Is that Nature's Way
leaf mold composts something I could use? That would be fine. You could
use that. They have some other composts there Nature's Way as well that would
do well for you, and they sell those by the bag and you can
find them in some home garden centers or you can go up there and just
grab it yourself up at Nature's Way. Okay, well I'm not going to
drive that far, but I'm in spring Branch. But okay, well,
yeah, it's a good job they have that product around I see, So,
yeah, they do. They do and any anything that Nature's Way produces
this quality. It's just bottom line. They don't rush things through. You're
not going to buy something thinking it's nice quality and you end up with a
bunch of wood chips. That's not going to happen with Nature's Way. I'm
going to be out there on September thirtieth, so if you're looking for something
to do Saturday the thirtieth, I'll be out there. I hope you come
out and see. Okay, well I'll try and get out there. Yeah,
that's a good that's a good quality product. Now I've I think I
have alkaline soil. Okay, And I notice Microlife has an acidifying fertilizer.
Yes, should I try that? You could. I don't normally put that
in vegetable gardens because we focus on our acid loving plants with that product.
But it is a good blend of nutrients for your for your vegetable garden as
well, So I would have no hesita. You could. And you said
you use the word think there, so I might suggest you have a soul
test done just to check all your nutrient levels, not just pH but you
may there may be a nutrient that let's say magnesium was low in your soil.
Well, that's not in normal fertilizers, but we would need to address
that, and a soul test would tell you if you need to. Okay,
where would I have that soul? Do you have a pen or pencil?
Handy? Yes, sir? Soil testing dot TAMU dot ed U TAMU
as in Texas A and M University. It's a state soil soil testing dot
TAMU dot DDU. Click on the urban soil test form. You can find
the forms on the page. Go to the urban one and fill it out
and they'll give you the results for a yard or garden. That's what urban
means. All right, Okay, thank you sir. You bet good luck
with that. You're probably some of you're probably tired of looking at the tawny.
I know tawny's a color too, but it's not the color we want
our lawns and gardens to be. You're probably looking at a tawny landscape thinking,
man, I'm so discouraged. This has just been brutal. What am
I going to do? Let me tell you what i'd suggest you do.
I'd suggest you call Peerscapes talk to Jason Garrity and his team there at Peerscapes
and just say, look, I need you to come in here. I
need you to transform this landscape and get it back looking beautiful again. Maybe
they redesign some beds, Maybe there's some areas that need to be plants that
need to be in the sun, that are in shade. You know,
you see what I'm saying. Let them turn it around and get it right,
and if you call them soon, you'll be ready to go for fall.
Fall is big planting season, so we need to get any design we
need done. Who knows. Maybe you want to throw in a rock border
or a walkway, or maybe you got an area that doesn't drain well,
or maybe your irrigation needs some work on and on down the line, and
keep listening things they can do. They can do it all. Pierscapes dot
com two eight one three seven zero fifty sixty. Go from tawny to beautiful
with pier Scapes. You're listening to Garden Line our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm going to head up now to
Magnolia and talk to Ryan. Hello, Ryan, Hey, how are you?
I'm good? What's up. Okay, so I did. I had
a good Saint Augustine yard. It's soil tests and everything. They recommended twelve
twelve twelve, a lot of it. So probably put like two hundred pounds
a twelve to twelve on over I don't know, a month and a half,
all right, And it made my sat perfect. The soul test recommended
twelve to twelve. That's great, okay, all right, so you got
that down, got that down. The Saint Augustine pretty much looked perfect whole
front here it's perfect. Half the back year it's perfect. And then I
started getting a bermu to take over, which I've been fighting for a couple
of months. I've used lots of post submergence. Nothing seems to kill it.
I was always told that the Saint Augustine would choke out the Bermuda,
but it's actually done the opposite. Yeah, yeah, wouldn't. Saint Augustine
gets stress. Bermuda gets the upper hand if it's a sunny spot. There
is not a selective to kill Bermuda and not Saint Augustine. They're just not.
And so what I've you got a couple of options. You can just
live with the two mo regularly at a higher level to give the Saint Augustine
it's best opportunity. It's not going to make it kill all the bermuda,
but that's an option. Or you can go in and just spot treat and
you're gonna kill your Saint Augustine and kill your bermuda and then let the Saint
Augustine creep back in doing if you're gonna choose that, doing it, going
in to fall before too long while the bermuda is actively growing is important,
Or you wait until spring and do it. Then that is not a great
option, but it is one of the few things you can do to deal
with it if you can't stand heaven of both. So there's there's no other
grass that I can overseed with airy and overseed with it will help choke out
bermuda. No, if it chokes bermuda, I'll choke Saint Augustine. And
Bermuda's going dormant and the winner, Saint Augustine just kind of slows down because
it's cold and the days are short and the h and things like that.
It's it's turf, and turf basically is what you're looking at, and we
just you know it is Okay, let me put it this way. As
it gets more droughty, bermuda has the advantage. As you mow lower,
bermuda has the advantage as you move into shade. Saint Augustine has the advantage.
And one is not going to run out the other one completely. But
that the getting bermuda out of Saint Augustine. There's not a great way to
do that right now. Okay, So you kind of post because it is
like it's a sunny, sunny spot which is like plaf in my yard,
and that's where dab or applicator that I used to just dab a product on
the bermuda. You're gonna get a little on the Saint Augustine, but don't
spray, just dab it on there. And if you just stay with it,
you're always gonna have these little brown spots. But you just stay with
it and you can slowly work your way out of it. But it's it's
gonna be a long term and there is no quick fix, and there's no
one fix, or you just give up and see the bermuda or guest go
there. Yeah, Augustin's easier to kill the bermuta grass. Yeah, I
could tell you how to go the other way. But but uh yeah,
there's anyway. You get the idea. Thank you for the call. Good
luck up there, have fun. Thanks. Yeah, you take care,
you take care. You know. If you got a little piece of property,
you know he's calling from Ryan's up in Magnolia. If you got a
little piece of land, got a few acre ors something like that, you
need a Lansdowne Moody Caboda tractor. They've got one. It's the L twenty
five one. L twenty five one. It is a sweet riot, got
a hydrostatic transmission and Lansdowne is making this easy. And they're making it easy.
It's not gonna last forever. In fact, now through October thirty feet
is what I'm about to tell you. Zero down, no money down,
zero percent interest for eighty four months. That is seven years. That's unbelievable.
Through October thirty feet. The L twenty five oh one Caboda and the
lens from Lansdowne Moody. There's a number of lands Down Moody's around the area.
It's easy to find one. Go by there, hop up on one.
You'll see what I'm talking about. It being a sweet ride. You
can also go to lmtrektor dot com to find out more information about that.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
We're gonna take a little break here. Let Nikki come in and tell us
what is happening in the news. And if you'll call joshuall get you on
the board. John, I see there on hold. Will you will be
the first we come to when we come back. Remember, I'm going to
be out at the Home and Garden Show out at Montgomery County today at the
lone Star Convention Center between twelve and one. I hope you'll come out and
see me. I'm gonna have a little one hour talk on fall gardening and
then answer oh your gardening questions. All right, good morning. You're listening
to the last half hour of garden Line today and I'm going to be heading
up to the lone Star Convention Center in Conro, Texas for the Montgomery can
Home and Garden Show. I'll be there for an hour given a talk,
another hour sitting there just answering questions, bring pictures, bring samples. I'd
love to get to meet you. I'll be giving away a little bit of
Nelson plant food up there while I'm there as well, by the way,
speaking of Montgomery County, Ana Plants and Produce there on the east side of
Montgomery, Texas, out in near Lake Conra. In fact, all those
neighborhoods you know, April, Sound Waterstone, Delago, Grand Harbor, bent
Water, Walden, that's your hometown. That's your hometown nursery right there,
whether you're a Montgomery or Conro. Ana Plants and Produce is a family owned
businessman around thirty years and boy do they ever have a great supply of all
kinds of things plants, lots of good fall decorations too, now by the
way, but they always have beautiful plants there and you can wander through three
acres and you know, just outstanding selection all the time, and all the
products we brag on and talk about here, you're going to find it.
Ana Plants and Produce out there on the east side of Montgomery on one oh
five, just on the east side of Montgomery. We're gonna head out.
Now, let's see where should we go next. We're gonna go to Cyprus
and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed, good morning morning. I've got
a problem. I think they're called drift roses or okay, cluster roses,
yes, sir, And I'm getting clumps of red leaves and then just stringy
stocks on them and then just storn's all over along the stock a lot more
than you know normal. What is that? Well, I need to see
a picture to be sure. But your description points toward a disease called a
rose rosette. It's a virus and it is very contagious, and so if
we can determine you have it, I'm sorry. There's no cure but getting
the roses out of their asap, and I can tell you how to do
that if you have to. Don't go digging them up just yet. I'm
gonna put you on and holding a bit here. I want you to tell
Josh, or let Josh tell you how to send me photos. Send me
an email with photos, several photos, some very close up and good sharp
focus. When you say thorny and we say red and all that, I
want to see those areas. I'm about eighty to eighty five percent sure that's
what you have, but we need to be one hundred percent sure before you
go pull them up plants. If you do have to pull them up,
you're gonna want to slip a trash bag over the whole thing, bring it
tight around the bottom. Because there's a little mite on those roses. It's
so tiny it can float through the air and it'll get on the other roses
nearby or downwind from you and your neighbor's roses, and it just spreads a
disease that way. But you know, it's not like that soil is ruined
or anything, but we need to get it diagnosed quick. And so,
yeah, I pull up roots and all because sometimes when you leave a root,
you get a little resprout and it's a virus. So it's all through
the system of the plant. It's not just like a fungus setting on the
leafs somewhere. Okay, And then do it? How do I prepare the
soul before I plant something else that should have been a different hole or same
hole. No holes don't matter. Just get the roots that you can out
of the ground, Get all that out of there, and then give a
little time, you know, do some adding of compost and organic matter,
getting the solve kind of worked up like you would for when you're planning a
rose, and then go for it from there. All right, I'm gonna
put you on hold because we need to need to move on. Make sure
and attach the photo of the email. Don't embedd it in the text.
It's easier for me to slim in when you attach it. All right,
thank you very much. Let's see We're gonna go now to Hurta and spring
Branch. Hello, Hurta, good morning. I have two questions. Ones
about a night blooming jasmine. Okay, it's in a pot, in a
plastic black pot. It's right the middle of where I want to plant some
other plants in the fan patterns. So how can I help you with this
jasmine? Hurta. Well, Uh, if I move it, I may
just leave it there. Okay, I think the roots have grown through the
holes in the pocket. Yeah. Either way, you can cut those roots,
cut it, loosen the ground and move it, or you can leave
it there. Either one would be just good. That's a good plant to
have. Oh, yes, my mother had one. I love that fragrance.
Well, and let's see this second question. Oh is about expanded shelle.
Yes, this fan pattern I want to make. There's a giant d
where the sidewalk comes out from the house. Okay, turned a corner.
Okay, Uh, what do I mix that with the soil. Yes,
I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a quick answer on that, and I'm gonna
have to get to another call. But what you want to do is spread
about two or three inches of expanded shale and mix it as deeply as you
can. You want to get a lot of it done in the soil so
that it can do the internal drainage benefits that it has. But that's a
good idea if you have a tight clay. Now, if you don't have
a tight clay, you don't need as much expanded shale. But I hope
that helps. I'm sorry to have to run, but we're trying to finish
up an hour here and I've got quite a few folks hanging on. Thank
you, Thank you very much. I talked earlier about, you know,
the importance of a quality lawn food, and Nelson's having that carbo load that's
a ten ten twenty ten ten twenty, got lots of that important potassium to
carry your grass into winter. When you put carbo load down, you're gonna
be getting your grass ready not only for winter heartiness, but you're also increasing
it's drought heartiness in the process. But when it comes out and spread.
You're just gonna have a better lawn. There's not a more important time before
it, Eliza, You're lawn than right now. And carbo load provides exactly
the nutrients that that grass is going to need to do to do well.
Let's go out to Katie. Now we're going to talk to John. Hello,
John, Hello, sir, how are you? I'm good? How
are you? I'm good. I've got a serious issue with my ligustrums.
I planted those forty one years ago. Okay, never had an issue with
them all the summer of all eleven. Well, describe it to me.
Let's say, it's like they're all burnt. Okay, that's three of the
plants based west from about eleven. The other plants are indirectly than the front
of the house. Okay. The weird thing is where the sun didn't hit
him to still green, but where the sun was pounding them. Yeah,
I mean it's like they're dead. Believes the leaves won't drop. It's kind
of snap planch. I'm having to go to a break. But it is
simple that as a lack of water and the difference in sunlight makes all the
difference in the world, the demands that's the problem. If you dig down
the soil, is it moist? Yes, okay, Well the only other
thing would be if you over water and had saggy soil. That leads to
root rots, and that can cause the same kind of thing. I was
considering cutting them way back. Yeah, well, give it a try,
but I think if they're turning brown, I don't think they're going to come
back. But if you want to wait till spring before you give up on
them, it would be worth cutting them back. Well, I figured,
don't cut them, cut them back the end of February early March. Yes,
don't do it now. You don't want to stimulate growth if there's any
vigor in them. And if I don't see any improvement, yes, I
say July in August, then I go ahead and pull them. Absolutely that
that is a good plan right there, and maybe go with something a little
different for that area. If you repos hey, thank you for the I'm
sorry we're having to run today, but we're just run, thank you very
much. We're going to go to break here a number seven one three,
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Charlie, you are first up when
we come back, all right, you're listening to Guardenline. We're in our
last segment of the last segment today on I guess we're gonna call it the
first day of fall. Right now in that fair we've got a little rain
at least five degrees in a break. It is fall. Let's go,
let's do this. It is definitely time to do it. You know,
if you're dealing with pests in your house, the one place you need to
know one place that's McGrath Pest Control. Scott McGrath. He's been doing this,
gosh. I think business started seventy four by Scott's dad. Still family
run. What forty eight, forty nine years it's been going on. They
know what they're talking about. They're the old fashioned service. What does that
mean? That means if they say they're going to show up, they show
up. That means they don't tell you block your whole day. We may
show up sometime. They tell you the time and they show up at that
time. Highly rated company serves the entire Houston area with McGrath Pest Control.
By the way, here, let me give you the phone number you want
to write this one down two eight one four six nine eighty two forty.
Now you can also go online to MacGrath pest control dot com and find out
more about everything regarding the company. They can do anything you need, whether
it's insects or rodents or whatever you're dealing with mosquitos outside. They deal with
all of that and modern technology and techniques with old fashioned customer service. That's
what sets McGrath apart. We're gonna go over to Charlie now in West University.
How's it going, Charlie? Pretty good? But it's such a picture
of a tree route that's going through my driveway, the whole of the driveway
there. There were two of those actually in parallel. There was one a
little bit west of the other one about ten the other section of the driveway.
Okay, why is the tree doing that? Is it? I mean
it's a very very very very big tree, I understand. Yeah, roots
spreading all over the place. Yeah, they do. They just do.
Roots go whatever directions roots want to go. They go along the surface and
then they get bigger. So what you see between those two sidewalk segments is
the route when it was a little think of a little piece of spaghetti going
through there, and then it just gets bigger. And bigger, and now
it starts pushing and lifting them up. And that's why, that's why you
see it. Roots want to be near the surface where there's good oxygen.
You got a beautiful place, beautiful lawn there. Uh you know, as
big as those trees are, and all the directions. You could probably go
cut that root before where it enters the sidewalk, but that's not going to
fix anything. It just keeps it from getting worse. Ultimately, someone would
have to come in, take the root out and re redo the sidewalk in
that area because you know the lift of damage has been done. Yes,
actually the driveway. But oh okay, but well I will I will cut
that. Yeah, yeah, all right, And I would cut it before
it goes in and in time it'll rot. But still there's gonna be other
roots under there. It's not just that one in the seam that's causing this.
There's other roots under the sidewalk. And again, think of a piece
of spaghetti two inches below the ground and then it gets the size of a
hot dog. Then it gets the size of a golf ball and a tennis
ball, and you see what's what I'm talking about. It just lifts it
just lifts as it grows in diameter, and so that's it. I don't
know that I would want to cut all the roots going down that whole area
because that is very close to the tree, and you know, it's not
gonna kill the tree in the situation in the setting I see there, but
it's not gonna do it any good. I would minimize the amount of that
you have to do. Okay, all right, okay, Well, good
luck with it. And hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that very
much. Good to talk to you. You know, we we deal with
a lot of issues like that with trees, and we try to make plants
get along that don't necessarily want to get along, you know what I mean.
I mean, grass and trees hate each other. I don't know if
you know this, but they do. If you were to say to a
tree, how close do you want grass to be? The tree would say
over the hill where I can't see it. That's true. Trees want a
forest floor covered or roots and no deadgum grass plants down there taking water and
nutrients away from it. And that's why they shade the grass out so they
get the sunlight. Grass hates trees because of that. Very reason, and
so they don't get along. So what do we do. We got landscapes
and we have both. We have to figure out how to make that happen.
And that means keeping the air bright enough for grass, but at the
same time recognizing that it sometimes gets too dark for grass when the trees get
bigger than your options are remove the tree, take major sections out of the
tree, or just turn lemons into lemonade by planting things that are more shade
tolerant. That's kind of how all this works. But we can have them
both. I mean everybody does. Look down the block. Everybody's got trees
and grass. Just know that they don't like each other. And they're getting
along because you're making them get along. Maybe, But bottom line is we
need to take good, good care of them. Speaking of you know,
plants and landscapes and things, when I think about like a shady landscape,
I always think about when I go to Big Cannons plants. They have this
whole area for shade loving plants, and their selection of shade loving plants is
outstanding. It's really good. They also feature native plants. That's what they
really specialize in a by canons as natives but when I say specialized, don't
misunderstand me. This is not just a native plant nursery. This is a
nursery that has houseplants, it has fruit trees, that has vegetables, that
all kinds of things you want. But if you need natives, they have
got one of the best selections you're going to find anywhere. Now, I
want to tell you about a couple of things coming up out there. On
September thirtieth, the Native Plants Society is going to be out there from nine
to noon and they're going to talk about natives and help you as you shop
to find the native plants that will do best here and after this year.
That is our warning call on hey, you need to be thinking more seriously
about native plants that live here and have for eons. That's the kind of
plant we need to get through. The kind of summer we had at buchanan
Zo. They've got a great selection of beautiful cool season color. They've got
the petunias and marigolds like we like to plan at the end of summer to
go into fall and then dianthus and snap drag injury in. They got other
things coming in as well. On October seventh. Write this down. The
Fall Festival at Buchanan's October seventh, from ten am to three pm. They're
gonna have hay riots, pumpkin painting, a moon bounce, face painting,
food trucks and more. It's a free family event. The Fall Festival Saturday
Atumber seventh at Buchanans from ten am to three pm. And when you're out
there, go check out their house plants selection, Go check out their herbs.
Great selection again, knowledgeable staff, quality products. If they sell it,
they can tell you where to plant it, how to grow it,
and how to have success with it. That's what's all about. That is
why we love a quality place like Buchanan's. Plans Well, I believe we're
running to the end of a day here. We're gonna be back in the
morning from six am to ten am. Don't forget. You can listen to
Garden Line on a podcast. If you missed our show, you can go
back and hear some of the things you might have forgotten to write down.
I'll be out now. In in fact, I'm making a bee line pretty
quick here for Montgomery County Home and Garden Show at the Lone Star Convention Center.
Master gardeners up there in Montgomery County. Anybody in the Montgomery County area,
I hope you come out to the Lone Star Convention Center. Let's talk.
I'm going to be given a talk for an hour on all kinds of
important stuff you need to know for the fall. And then I'll be hanging
around for another hour to answer gardening questions, to look at plant samples and
photos and help you out. We'll be giving away a little bit of Nelson
plant food out there as well. Another good reason to come out to the
Montgomery County Home and Garden Show. Well, thanks for listening, garden Line.
We're always glad to have you around. I just want to remind you
that my schedules are online at Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip
dot Com, I will have the article is up there that is the stress
related Tree Decline and Death Stress Related Tree Decline in Death article very important to
read that you need to understand how is stress affecting your trees? If you
look at a tree like you would let's say a landscape flower or a vegetable
plant, where if it's having trouble, you're gonna know it. It's all
wilting and browning and dying. Trees don't always tell you they get stressed,
they get weakened, and problems come in, and there's a lot we can
do to help trees get back on their feet. That's what that article is
about. The other article that I just put up there is caring for lawns
and extended drought and heat. Maybe your water supply is still saying you can't
water, but such and such amounts, such and such times. This article
will help you know how to apportion your water to get the most out of
it, to save that grass plant, very important to do that. I'm
going to be adding a new article coming up on going into fall. Considering
the helicious summer we've had, what do you do about your lawns? And
we got a lot to say about that. Stay tuned and watch for it.
Watch for us on the gardening Facebook page, the garden Line facebook page.
Lots of good information on there. I put posts on there all the
time. You can also follow me on Instagram at at skip Richter. Being
beginning to post a little more to my Instagram account. A lot of ways
to get good information. In the meantime. Hang around, we'll see you
tomorrow morning, right and early six am