Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor, so please
just watching as good morning, good Sunday morning. It's going to be a
great day for gardening. I can tell you that for sure. Hey,
you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, And here
is a phone number for you to write down. By the way, when
you listen to garden Line, always keep a pen and paper handy, because
who knows, we'll be giving out a website or a product name, or
other kind of information that you just may want to jot down, like our
phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two and two fifty eight seventy four. Well, we got a lot of
different things to talk about today, and at the eight o'clock hour, we're
gonna have Jay White from Texas Gardener Magazine in the studio with us, and
we're gonna talk all kinds of things about gardening and Texas Gardener Magazine. If
you're not familiar with it, you certainly will be after today. But to
start things off, let's head out to League City and we are gonna talk
to John V. Hello, John V. All right, I'm not getting
the sound there. I'm gonna put that back on hold, and if we
can get John V back, we'll try that again. Let's see one more
time. Are you there, John V? Okay? Well, I was
I was looking at some fertilizer bags the other day when I stopped in let's
see, we're oh Southwest for Yeah, I was at Southwest and just looking
at the collection of things that they have and Satha sweet green, and it
just reminded me of nitrifile sweet green. Last year, the demand was so
high that, I mean, they couldn't keep up with it, and this
year they've got a stock and they're ready to go. So if you were
wanting to try it before and you didn't get a chance to, well,
here's your chance this summer. We've got plenty of that around. The sweet
green is an eleven zero four fertilizer, so it's got a decent amount of
nitrogen, to say the least for an organic type fertilizer. It's basically a
molassa space fertilizer. And so what happens is you put any kind of a
sugary substance like that carbon which is basically contains a carbon molecules on the soil,
and the microbes go nuts. They just kick into high gear. They
break it down, and then as they go through their life cycles, the
nutrients are all getting released and your grass just has a really nice blended feed
coming out as a result of it. Now you know, the nitrofist products
are available all over the place. You're gonna find sweet Green in places we
all I mentioned Southwest Fertilizer, ace hardware stores are gonna have it. A
lot of our home and mom and pop garden centers are gonna have it.
But sweet Green is one that if you're looking for an organic fertilizer a little
higher nitrogen boost, that's when you ought to consider it. Works very well,
Very impressed with that. Let's see, do we have John V ready
to go? Let me try one more time? Hey, John V?
Are you there all right? Well, we will eventually solve that problem.
We will eventually solve it and figure out what's going on. Otherwise we're gonna
have a long monologue today. Get the collared things working. You don't need
that much of me, that's for sure. Okay, well, I'm discovering
that what happened here is operator error, so we'll get that fixed. Sorry
about that, folks. Yesterday I was talking a lot about lawns and some
of the tips to success with lawns and some of the things we do that
loves our lawns too much. In other words, we create problems overwatering and
over fertilizing and all that. And I'm gonna continue to talk about lawns a
little bit here as we go through this morning, because I know a lot
of people are having questions and I want to go back and discuss a little
bit about some of the insect and disease issues that we have to deal with.
In the meantime. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get to some callers
here now that we've got the bugs worked out of the system. Well,
John V. It's taken an Act of Congress, but here we are.
How goodness, skip and garden line, Good morning everybody. Yes, now,
I bought a plant from the Native Society of Plants Native Native Society Plant
People at Unity there Houston on Earth Day a few years ago, and there
aren yellow and red buds and they are for the snap drag the dragonflies and
the butterflies and all their pollinators. But I don't know the name of the
species, but their planet's quite close together. Should I separate them out?
Yeah, I'm not figuring out which plant you're talking about, but let's just
talk in general. Do you feel like they're crowding each other out where it's
just you know, becoming too thick. Yes, And the leaves they're turning
and um, they feel I feel like they're they're uh, they need more
space, all right. And this is a perennial or shrub. Does it
die to the ground or does it come back up? I mean does it
Is it always above ground like a normal shrub? Oh, it's above ground.
Yeah, it's like the kind of like a shrub, the kind of
a yes. Yeah. So what I would do, I would wait number
one right now, Boy, trying to move them is a death sentence for
a lot of plants. And so because you're gonna no matter how much you
try, you're not going to get but a fraction of the root system when
you dig it. So I would say, let's hold on and when we
get to a bout first to November something like that, maybe late October first
to November. That would be a time to wet the soil well so that
the plant is well hydrated and it's easier to dig. And then the next
day this is in the fall, the next day dig it up, move
it to its new location, set it in water in the soil so it
settles around the root system. Put it at the same level it was before,
and it should be just fine. The distance between plants, you know,
if you're looking for a head, you plant them close. If you're
looking just for individual plants, you you get them far enough apart. Not
knowing what plant that is, I can't tell you how far apart to plant,
but you're seeing how ye, so you should kind of get an you
should have an idea how far you want them apart. And I can send
a photograph over next time. But thank you so much. You'll have a
blessing, wonderful fun day you as well, and thank you for the good
luck with that native plant. I would like to see if I'm kind of
curious what on earth that might be. All right, you're listening to garden
Line this morning, and we're here to talk gardening. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Now, if you
live down on south of Houston down exactly to be exacts, it's on Highway
three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. We're talking about going
all the way down in the neighborhoods of League City, Santa Fe, San
Leone, Bay Cliff, Clear Lake City, Elcomina, Reale. You get
what I'm talking about. And now where am I talking about? League City
Feed? League City Feed has been going since nine or since forty years ago
when West and Madison Funderbergh's grandfather built it in what was an old Okrah patch.
And I always say anything that begins in an Okra patch can't be a
bad deal, right Well, League City Feed is that kind of feed store
that where you go in, you know they're carry their bags out of for
you. First of all, they're gonna have everything you need. The fertilizers
we talk about, they're there. The pest control products that you might need
are gonna be there. They have been carrying these quality fertilizers for your lawn
for a very long time, and you can just depend on when you go
in there, they're gonna have what you need. If you got backyard chickens.
They've got everything for that, of course, the feed and the bedding
and the feeders and waterers and everything else. They're going to have supplies for
all your other animals as well, And so if you get a chance,
stop in at League City Feed. They're open Monday through Saturday nine to six,
so you can swing by there on your way home from work, which
is really convenient. And then on Sundays they're closed. Here's the phone number.
Write this down so you can give them a call. Two eight one
three three two one six one two. We're gonna take a break right now
and we will be back. Our phone number in the meantime if you would
like to get on the boards is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Well, good Sunday morning. It's going to be a great
day for gardening. I can tell you that. I hope this afternoon you
got some plans to get out visit one of our garden centers. I don't
know, maybe get a little bit of work done in the yard here and
there. As you go about it, looking outside it's dark outside. If
it's dark at your neighbor's house, time to bang on the door. Tell
them they're missing garden line. They will rise up and call you blessed.
Today, they'll rise up and call you something else, but eventually they'll rise
up and call you blessed. Hey, if you're thinking about retiring and you're
a gardener and you would like to find a place that is where you can
continue your active lifestyle and just really really enjoy life in general, that's going
to be a Dell Web community, specifically the Dell Web community down in Full
Sure. It's just outside of Full Shure, two miles outside on FM three
fifty nine. Del Webb's got the inspired designs we expect from them, a
lifestyle programs designed around you that we expect from them, and this one has
a community garden as well. So I cannot think of a better setup than
to have a beautiful home, beautiful community, just walking pad, just all
the beauty that comes with Dellweb, plus the opportunity to be part of a
community garden where you can enjoy growing things and visiting with other gardeners. Go
to dellweb dot com forward Slash Houston for more information or give them a call
to eight one four to five nine zero six zero nine Before break, I
was mentioning some of the issues that can happen in our lawns, and this
is a time of year where chinch bugs are starting to rear their head.
Now, if your lawn is dying or it's you know, going downhill,
that doesn't mean you have chinch bugs, but it means you could. Chinchbugs
love hot weather. They typically start next to a curb, a walkway,
sidewalk, or a driveway or some other reflected heat site. They especially like
it out there between the curb and that sidewalk where you have that kind of
useless strip of grass that is out towards the street. They love it in
there. And chinch bugs cause a grass to start looking like it's drought stricken.
It starts to just die back and shrivel up, and it just doesn't
It looks like a kneed's watering you water and nothing happens. Well, that's
probably chinch bugs, Especially if it's on the sign out in an area like
I described to you want to move quickly. You can easily go online figure
out what a chinch bug looks like. They have different looks for the young
ones and the old ones, and so you just kind of get a glanse
at that and then go out there in the lawn, get on your hands
and knees in the zone between healthy and dead part the grass. And if
chinch bugs are the problem, you're gonna see a lot of them down in
there, and then you note a treat. That's pretty easy. Side web
warm are very hit and miss. They're always around. You know, they
don't arrive from somewhere else. They're here. But we occasionally have years where
they're just really bad, and then a lot of times they have years where
we don't really notice them at all, or maybe there's a few, but
it's just not worth worrying about. And so you just have to watch for
that when you see the signs that you're walking across your yard and it's just
like little moths flying up out of the grass as you walk, they fly
a little distance and go back down and settle in the grass. That's a
sod web worm behavior, and so that's probably what you're dealing with. You'll
also notice them chewing on the leaves. They are primarily nocturnal in the caterpillar
stage, the damaging stage, and so you may go out at night and
see them feeding, whereas during the day they're not up there on the grass
where you can see them. You can put a tablespoon of soap into a
watering can and add a gallon of water to it, and then just drench
it around an area where you think that it's like the grass is going away,
that blades are disappearing. Drench it on there and just watch and you
will see them coming crawling up That so poarly irritates them. And when all
the little caterpillars are coming up out of the thatch and stuff there you go.
You know you got them time to treat for sure. So just a
couple of tips there on some of the more common insect issues that we deal
with in the heat of summer. Speaking of tips, if you are looking
for a roofer that provides you with quality products and quality workmanship, and we're
talking unparalleled here. That's Brinkman quality roofing. Brinkman Roofing. They have been
around for fifty years here in the Houston area. You don't stick around that
long without doing things right. They warranty their stuff for twenty five years now.
There's all kinds of roofs. They can do. The standard shingle,
of course, the standing seam metal roofs. Those are excellent. And then
they even have a solar powered ship. Are a solar shingle. I should
say when the sunshines on the shingles that are on the roof, that they
are actually kind of attractive in my opinion, that it creates energy for you,
so you don't have to put panels on top of your roof above the
shingles that they are the roof. Go I'll tell you what. Give him
a call to eight one four eight zero seventy six sixty three or go to
Brinkman Quality in Brinkman Man has two ends b R I n K M A
n N quality dot com. You will find out all kinds of information about
Brinkman. And I tell you Jason and the team he's put together, they
will do it right, and they'll get it right the first time and they'll
provide a very very quality service and follow up. That's how you stay in
business for fifty years. Talking about the lawns, we were discussing some of
the insects that attack our lawns in the summertime. We also have some diseases
that we look at at this time of the year as being things to keep
an eye out for one of the common ones. And this occurs more earlier
in the summer, but it can also occur now. Is a gray leaf
spot and it looks like the name of the disease. You pick a grass
blade and it has gray spots with maybe a purplish surrounding area around the gray
spot on the grass blade itself, and when there are a lot of them,
the grass blade just shrivels up, because I mean it's it's like the
spots of essentially taken up all the grass blade. It looks it looks bad
for sure. It is made worse by excessive fertilizing and excessive watering, and
it really loves shady areas. It can occur in sun But if you go
into a shady area and you keep it too wet and you push it with
too much nutrient, you're going to see gray leaf spot show up. So
the first step is culturally, don't do that. Fix that, stop that,
and it will often kind of go away on its own. There are
also fun decides that you and spray for it, because when you have it
right now, you need to shut it down right now, and then long
term we're going to culturally avoid predisposing the grass to the gray leaf spot.
Pretty common, pretty common thing that we see here. So providing a more
of a gradual feed, more of a natural kind of slow gradual releasing cycling
of nutrients is important and a product that works really well for that is Microlife.
Microlife in the lawn care world of summer. You think of microlife as
two bags, a green bag and a purple bag. The green bag is
the six two four that is the standards a number one fertilizer organic fertilizer here
in the greater Houston area. In fact, it reaches way beyond the Houston
area. Microlife green bag provides that nutrient. It is broken down by microbial
activity as you put it down into the soil and it releases even it's organic
matter that's in it. And then the humans plus is the purple bag,
and that is just concentrated compost in a bag. So you've got a just
a load of microbes that you're putting down to stimulate the activity in the soil.
When you water in a microlife like that, you're going to get not
only the sixty three essential minerals that it provides, but you're also going to
get a lot of a stimulation in the root. You can go to Microlife
Fertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out a lot more about it,
and you can also find out where you are going to get it.
And because that's important as well. 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'm going to continue on talking about some turf diseases and then maybe
we moved toward a happier topic than disease and pestilence. Although disease and pestilence
does make the phone ring. The other disease that is really showing up now
and has been for a while is take all root rot. Now, its
name tells you something about it. It literally rots the roots without roots grass
dyes, and it can take a very large area of grass out and just
flat kill it. It's an opportunist. It needs moisture and order to do
well, it needs to have a weakened grass plant in order for it to
really do its primary job. And with a weakened grass plant, you are
going to be able to take all. It's going to be able to move
in and cause problems. It primarily infects in the fall, a little bit
in the spring as well, But when we get into summer and the demands
are so high, the fact that it's taking away the root system at the
time when the grass needs the most water. That just leads to brown areas
in the lawn, large irregular brown areas. They can be in shade or
sun. You know, there's not a shape, there's like the round circle.
It's not the round circles you see in the fall. So take all
the root rot is one that we have to look out for. I'll talk
about it a little bit more. If you thought about putting a tree in
the yard, and you you know, you're just thinking about, well,
what's a good kind of tree? And when is you know what, Where
can I get a good deal on a tree? Where can I get a
quality tree? Where can I find somebody that knows what they're doing when they
plant it? Well we're talking about tree farm and right now they're doing Christmas
in July sale. So through the month of July. Guess what, check
the calendar. You better hurry the Verdant Tree Farm at all three locations,
the one out on Barker Cyprus, the one you know down south in Paarland
on Broadway, and the one up and the heights at Yale and ten all
three. You can get ten to fifty percent off the tree when you buy
the install. And you want to buy the install, you want them to
do that for you. Go to Verdant tree farm dot com and find out
more. Little wake up music from garden Line. You can thank me loader
later. Right now, just enjoy your moment of zen. Turn it up
loud, wake up the kids and the neighbors. Hey, you're listening to
garden Line. We're just having some fun this morning with music. I'm your
host, Skip Richter our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Give us a call. Let's talk about the things that are
of interest to you. And if you live out in the Monton Bellevue area,
I want to tell you about your hometown feed store, and that's Texas
Feedstop. I just really enjoy Brian and Hope Rhodes. First time I met
him. Did they just make you feel like you're part of the family,
Just really welcoming. Feel you'll feel that as a customer too. I'm not
kidding when I say your hometown feed store. It is now. They're out
there on Highway one forty six, just a few minutes north of I ten
out in Baytown. So that's close enough to where as far as I'm concerned,
you know, anywhere around the Mont Bellevue community. I mean, go
all the way down to Baytown and they are still your local feed store.
They're right there. When you go in, you'll see what I'm talking about.
They've got everything we talk about. When it comes to fertilizer, you're
going to be able to buy it out there right now. They've got a
really interesting selection of a lot of things for those of you that are hunters,
you know, from the different kinds of supplements, the different kinds of
feeders and whatnot, just all the bling and supplies and whatnot that you need
getting ready for the upcoming hunting season. But when you look in the store
overall, you're going to find that everything you would need to take care of
your lawn in sex sides, pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, all of that
is available there. And of course there are a feed store with the old
fashioned service carrying the sacks out to the car for you. They're going to
have the quality feeds that you're looking for, and they're going to have everything
else that you might want for your home and garden, including things like the
mosquito dunks that we talk about and many many other things. Texas Feedstop I
just enjoy going and you will two again on Highway one forty six, just
a few minutes north of I ten Texas Feedstop out in Mont Bellevue. I
was talking about some things going on with the lawns and some of the issues
that we have to deal with, and the last one was take all root
rot. Now, take all root rot. It literally kills grass. The
large patch that we get in the cool season. A lot of folks still
call that brown patch, that was an earlier name, but large patch,
brown patch, whatever you wanna call it. You get the big circles.
But that rots the leaf off the runner and then they regreen again when the
weather warms up in the spring, so it doesn't flat kill the grass in
most situations. Take all root rot kills the grass, and so that's a
concern. The times to treat for it are really in the fall and in
the spring. And I've got two new schedules coming out. One is the
lawn care schedule, which is like you know, the fertilization schedule, when
to do what, and what your options are, includes information on mowing and
watering and you know, just culturally taking care of your lawn. The other
one is more of a pest disease and wheat schedule, and that one is
going to address take all root rot as well as the other diseases I talked
about, such as great leaf spot that I just mentioned a little bit earlier
ago, and of course the brown patch, a large patch that occurs in
the cool season. But that is the time, the fall is the time
when you want to treat for that. Now you're seeing your lawn die now,
but again it's because the disease has done its damage and the demands are
just too high for the grass to keep up. Sometimes we add insult to
injury by misusing herbicides on the lawn, especially as the weather gets hotter,
or we just feel like if a little is good, a lot is better,
which is never the case when it comes to pesticides and herbicides, and
we can make take a lot worse because we weaken the patient, the grass
plant. But anyway, I'll be telling you more about those schedules as we
get them posted. But that is getting really really close and take all.
That's a mess, but it's also a reminder that our number one goal in
gardening is the cultural care that creates and sustains a healthy plant. Whether it's
a lawn, a rosebush, a tomato plant, it doesn't matter. When
we create the environment where that plant can thrive. It all begins in the
soil. But when we create that environment, then we avoid the majority of
our plant problems, and if we have some, they're not as bad.
When you weaken the patient by not mowing the lawn right, not fertilizing right,
not you know, providing the nutrients that a plant needs, not preparing
the soil first with a lot of quality products like a compost and like expanded
shale and a clay. When we don't do that, then it's like we're
on a pesticide treadmill, just constantly fighting the next problem that's coming along.
So we start with the cultural We do the right things to set that grass
up for success, set that tomato plant or that rosebush up for success,
and then it's easy to do the other It's just really easy. And one
one example of all that is is out at Arbogate. They've got their one
two three system and it's exactly what I've been talking about here. They've got
a food that feeds anything with roots, and that would be under all organic
six orcuse me four four three plus ten percent calcium four four three plus ten
percent calcium. It's a it's an all organic granule. It's going to have
a lot of the micro microbial activity as well going on with it, a
lot of a lot of additional organic matter as you put that down too.
Then you follow that with an organic soil complete for example, that if you're
wanting to build up beds, if you're wanting, you know, to add
to array bed or something that you have anywhere you need to add soil.
Organic soil complete is that because it has compost, it has large particles sand,
and it has the expanded shale that lasts and lasts keeping that soil open
and draining internally well. And then the organic composts complete. The third part,
well that's got shale too. And so I mean just everywhere you go
here when you use that one system from arbour Gate, you're setting your plants
up for success. It's what I was just talking about. You can go
to Arborgate dot com. They're out there by the way in Tomball about a
mile and a half west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty and that's
where you can get these kinds of quality products and do what I've been talking
about, and that's set your plants up for success. So talking about the
lawns and the take all and the root rot and all these different kinds of
things that we do with. There are a few other pests that we have
to deal with occasionally, but generally they're not much of a problem. You
know, they're they're kind of easy, kind of easy to handle, not
a big deal to deal with if you haven't have a little piece of property
out there and you would like a nice tractor to really make work easier,
or in my opinion, just to have some fun out there. That is
the Caboda L twenty five oh one from lansdown Moody. Now, the combination
of Lansdowne Moody and Caboda that is a win win deal. I mean,
you can go online to LM Tractor dot com or you can go to Caboda
USA dot com to find more about cabodas but LM tractor dot Com will tell
you about the deal that's going on. Unbelievable. They've extended it zero down,
zero interest for seven years. That's eighty four months. You can't do
better than that. Combination Lansdown, Moody and Caboda Tractors, one price,
one package. All right, we're gonna take a little break here and when
we come back, we will take your calls again. The number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Well, good, good
morning, good Sunday morning. It's a beautiful day. I can already see
it out there in the skies. I'd be a good time to be outside
right at this moment, this afternoon, A good time to get out there
and get some visits out to your favorite garden centers, your favorite feed stores,
and the places we talk about. I always enjoy going out. You
know, I've been doing this for a long a long time, and I
don't think I ever go into a garden center that I don't learn something.
There's always some plant that's like, okay, what's that? I mean,
that's a new one. And again, you know, forty something years of
doing this and learning about plants and whatnot, I there's always a new one.
There's always something cool coming along. There's always I don't know, just
the products that are out, the new things that are out to solve our
problems. The tools. I love tools, by the way, I just
I just have to have to have more toys to play with, and so
I probably have eight hundred ways to break up the soil. But you know,
it's fun, so getting out and doing that, it's just it's it's
inspiration. And you know, visiting a garden center being able to see the
the types of things that they have set up in their displays. You know,
some beautiful displays and maybe multiplant containers where you just look at it and
you go, Okay, this just works. It's beautiful and it gives you
inspiration. A loot of the garden centers you know that, well, the
ones we talk about, the the mom and pops that were so proud of
here. They'll take you around and they'll help you recreate that container, or
they'll suggest here's here's a couple of plants. It would be good trailing over
the edge of a container. Here's a nice upright plant for the center that's
really beautiful and striking, and on and on down the line. You can
create a container for the blasting heat of summer, container for the cold weather
that eventually will get here. We wish it would come sooner rather than later.
We're listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. I was outside yesterday and just in a
kind of a garden location, visiting, and I noticed the mosquitoes. I
guess I don't know where they were coming from, because we haven't had a
lot of rain lately. We had some, but not a lot. But
somewhere there's some stagnant water. Maybe it's a saggy roof gutter, maybe it's
the catch basins under your pots. I mean, all a mosquito needs about
a thimbleful of water and a few days to be able to go from the
egg to the larva and eventually come out as the adult. And so all
we need to do is leave them a little stagnant water. They don't like
water that moves. They like water that is perfect still, and if it
has rotting organic matter in it, they're all the more happy. So there's
your gutters on your house, and so what do we do? Well,
we use mosquito dunks. Number one, Remember everything starts cultural. You dump
out the water every where you can. You don't leave it just sitting there.
But number two, you use a mosquito dunk. Maybe you've got a
little pond of water and you throw a mosquito dunk in there. It'll dissolve
over the course of a month. And it is a disease of mosquitos only,
and so it won't hurt your pets, it won't hurt your fish,
it won't hurt the birds that come out or other wildlife. It only affects
the mosquitos. But what a wonderful thing to have it to a mosquito to
get a disease and die. That's how I look at it. Mosquito larva
is what it works on. By the way, they also have granules,
So if you've got a really large area, you can just take a handful
of granule and scatter them all through it so that you get the ingredient that
disease of mosquitos in a wider area than just a dunk, eventually reaching out
to all areas. But in general, the dunks super super well, and
you're gonna find mosquito dunks all over the place. All our garden centers carry
them. Ace hardware stores carry them. You know, you can find them
down Southwest feed for example, or Southwest fertilizer. I'm sorry, they're they're
easy to find, not a problem at all. But I think anytime we
can avoid a problem culturally, that's great. Anytime we can choose a product
that is a target, that is an arrow, not a grenade, that
is a good thing. And here's what I mean by arrows and grenades.
And by the way, there are organic arrows and grenades, and they're synthetic
arrows and grenades, but an arrow. Imagine this crowd of pests and an
arrow flies through and it hits one target. A grenade lands in the middle
and kills everything in the vicinity. Right, And so we have pesticides that
basically nuke everything that's there. Organics there is an organic one or two,
most of those are gone now off the market. And then certainly synthetics we
have those kind So when that happens, you throw the balance of nature off
and then typically what comes back is a pest problem. And I need to
talk about that more in detail on maybe a future show. But when we
can use an arrow and essentially make I guess what the army would call a
surgical strike. You know, we go in and essentially we're going to get
the bad guy and try not to do any collateral. Well, that's what
you want to do in your gardens, and that's why those mosquito dunks work
so well, because you know it's not going to kill all the other good
things, even the little aquatic life in the pond, the insects, and
it's not going to kill those. It's just going to kill the mosquitoes.
And BT that we spray on caterpillars on our foliage is another arrow. In
fact that the mosquito dunks have a different strain of BT than the caterpillars do,
but it's basically the same type of organism. So whenever you can go
in and just do an arrow, that's better. And the longer something is
sticking around, the more like you're going to get the collateral damage. So
something like BT, for example, you sprayed on a leaf and two days
from now, it is not killing caterpillars anymore. It's done. It doesn't
last in the environment, it goes away. But I consider that a good
thing now. So those are just some things to think about when we go
about managing pests and things that are in our lawns and our gardens, you
know, in our landscapes and giving us giving us trouble like that. Who
want to avoid those? If you happen to live up in the Tamball area
and you have a chance to go out to D and D Feed, you
are visiting one of the quality feed stores, our favorite feed stores here throughout
the Greater Houston area. D and D. They're about three miles west of
Highway two forty nine on twenty nine twenty in Tumball. As you drive out,
they'll be on the left. Now. The Dover family has been doing
this since what I think they opened in nineteen eighty nine. They expanded this
summer, lots more space. If you need quality dog food and all kinds
of snacks for dogs. My dogs always ask if they hear I'm going to
D and D, would you pick us up some things from their little dog
deli over there. But they've got the Origin and the Diamond, the Victor
starpro of course, gardening, all the fertilizers we talk about, they carry
them. The soil products that we talk about, they carry them seasonally,
they'll have plants that are that are all kinds. You know, there's vegetables
and different kinds of fruit, trees and citrus and whatnot. They've got all
that. If you've got pests like rodents that are up in the attic and
getting in, they can take care of that, and then things to clean
your pool d and d is just it's got everything you need and it's a
nice friendly experience to stop in and to be able to enjoy the folks there
as well. So this morning I was talking about lawns, were talking about
some of the common problems that we have on our lawns. One thing I
want to mention now is we have a very interesting cycle of seasons here in
the greater scenario really the whole region of Texas always from San Antonio, Louisiana
and so on. We got this long blazing summer that laps over into almost
May and October just about but I would consider that May and September or almost
summer months in my opinion. And then we have this fall season that can
be very erratic. You know, cold can come or it can not come
for a very long time. And then we have I like to joke and
say we have five days of winter, we just don't know which five days
that's gonna be. When a culfron comes to and it gets really cold.
That's, of course being facetious, but it's not too far from the truth,
and so trying to manage our plants and take care of things in that
kind of setting that can be a little bit of a challenge. And what
we need to do is time things right. So when we come back,
I'm going to talk a little bit about the vegetable gardening and in fact,
let me just begin with a couple of points. Right now, even it's
blazing hot outside, it's fall gardening time now that we're not planting broccoli,
but we're getting the soil ready first, and we need to take time to
get that right, because if you fix your soil and create the perfect soil,
if you do nothing else period, you're going to have a moderate to
good amount of success with your vegetables, just for that one one thing,
and then there's some other things we need to do. So when we come
back from break here in a bit, we're going to talk more about vegetable
gardening and what do you do right now, whether it's a container garden,
whether it's a raise bed garden, whatever. What can we be doing right
now and how to get that done so that we have success in the fall.
That is what we're aiming for. You're listening to Garden Success. I'm
your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Give Josh a call and he'll get you on the boards and we
can talk to you when we come back. I don't know, you get
some questions about lawns, maybe some questions about trees, maybe me mentioning vegetables.
Oh yeah, by the way, okay, we'll talk about that,
pest diseases. I don't know, we even talk about your houseplants. Summers
a great time, A great time to pay attention to your houseplants because you
know, we need a little excuse during the middle of the day to get
inside into the air conditioning, out of the heat. I talk about little
tips for houseplant success as well, if you would like that. Hey,
we appreciate you listening to Garden Line. We're about to take our break here
at the top of the hour, and remember at eight o'clock. We have
Jay White with Texas Gardner coming in. We're gonna spend an hour visiting with
him about all kinds of things gardening. So if you have some questions about
Texas Gardener Texas Gardening, g us a call during the eight o'clock hour.
Let's visit with Jay as well. KATRH garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KDRH Garden Line
with Skip Rictord. Just watch you well. Good morning. You are listening
to garden Line and we are here to talk about whatever is of interest to
you. Maybe you have some questions plants, identification, just some advice on
success with success with gardening. That's why we're here, is to help you
be successful. That that is the goal. Listen. Gardening is a fun,
rewarding hobby and we want you to have fun and we want it to
be successful. We want you to feel the rewards of it, and we
can help with that. We can give you the advice, the direction,
help you with not only setting things up right, which is very very important,
but also continuing to care for your plants and the way that they need
I mentioned I mentioned that this is the beginning of the fall gardening season.
So how can that be, Well, you know it is, and here's
why. As we go into fall, we are headed toward a traffic jam.
That traffic jam is it's finally cooling off enough for some of our warm
season plants to be able to set fruit again. And that would be things
like tomatoes and pepper's, eggplant, a squash, cucumbers, green beans,
all of those kinds of things can have a really nice harvest in the early
to mid days of fall. Then the cool season crops are going in like
broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower. Then we end up with lettuce and spinach and
carrots, and you get the idea, all kinds of things coming up in
the fall. So what do we do now, Well, if you wait
until fall to plant a cucumber or a tomato, you're not going to see
any harvest. It just doesn't have time. So we need to be planting
things in the summer. Like now, it would be a time to get
some tomatoes out there. Now would be a time to get eggplant or peppers
out there because they need to grow create a good sized bush that is going
to have a lot of blooms, and when it's hot, those blooms will
fall off. But then as we get a little break from the weather,
they start setting and then we have a wonderful, wonderful harvest time. So
now's the time to get that done. Now's the time to get the soil
right, to get that soil built. And you need a quality soil,
as we always talk about, a good quality soil that drains well, that
has good compost content. If you've got a very heavy black clay, you
might need to put in a little bit of shale, expanded shale in there
as well, and that will also help with that. So these are the
preps we're doing now. And I realize that at twelve o'clock in the middle
of the day during this time of the year, not a lot of gardening
is going to get done. But by taking it slow and just doing a
little bit at a time, that's kind of what I'm doing in my garden.
I kind of take one bed at a time and work on it,
and maybe one bed I'm just cleaning out all the old stuff and put down
some compost, and the next time I get out there, I'll mix it
in and you know, you get the idea of what I'm talking about.
Now's the time to do that. And I can't think of a better way
to have a vegetable garden or flowers or herbs for that matter than a vego
garden bed. No vego garden beds what they are, it's it's a it's
kind of a corrugated metal bed that is treated to prevent rust and to prevent
corrosion of the metal. And they'll last a very long time, way longer
than treated wood will last in your garden. And then on top of that,
they put an attractive paint that's USDA certified. By the way, the
material that's used to stop rust and to stop corrosion was evaluated at a Texas
A and M lab. It's a very very superior way to avoid those kind
of metal problems in a bed. So these beds stay cool. People have
asked me that, well, doesn't metal get hot? Well not when it's
very very thin metal and it is painted. And when I say very thin,
I mean thin compared to like an iron bed that you see some people
using. But this is a very reinforced, sturdy metal bed that you it.
If I were to if someone calls and says, Look, I'm going
to do a garden for the first time. I got one shot at this.
What do you recommend do I plow up to back forty? What do
I do do? I would say, just do it. Just get a
Vego bed because Vegos modular. You can put them together, different shapes and
sizes and all that kind of stuff. Very easy to do and very attractive
to Go to Vego Garden v egogarden dot com and you'll see pictures of what
they have. And by the way, their beds are available at a number
of our local garden centers I've seen. I keep seeing Vegos here and there
as I go around, So you when you're out chopping for plants, you
can also pick up a bed to bring home. But it's just a quality
product. By the way, it's it's it's for here in Houston. This
is a local company and one of the first things that ever came out in
ways in the way of a metal bed, especially here in the US.
I believe maybe in the first one in the United States to come out like
that. But there's a lot of fake wannabes out there on the market.
Vego v Ego that's the one you want. Wow, we're talking through that
whole segment there pretty quick. Our phone number seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
If you've thought about retiring, you want a good quality place where you have
a beautiful home, where you have a wonderful setting, you know, walking
paths and trails, where there's activities for you to do. Because you know
you're not just going out to pasture and just sitting a rocking chair. I
mean you're going to get out you continue to enjoy and lead a very full
and active life. Well that we're talking about Doughweb Communities, the one out
in Full Shirts a couple of miles outside of downtown Full Shirt on fifty nine.
They are just that it's in the process of being completed. Now they're
gonna have a community garden as part of that community community garden that I've been
advising them on. If you want more information, and I hope you will
check this out dellweb dot com, slash Houston or just call to eight one
four to five nine zero six zero nine two eight one four five nine zero
six zero nine. I'm going to remind you again that in the eight o'clock
hour, Jay White from Texas Gardner Magazine is going to be joining in us.
Jay as an old friend, I just think the world of Jay and
his wife, Sally. He's the owner, operator, if you will,
of Texas Gardner Magazine and that magazine has been going on a long time.
We're going to talk a little bit about that. But if you have some
questions that you would like to ask and we'll get Jade a way in with
us here, please do plan on calling in on the eight o'clock hour when
we will have Jay here. So that's something I'm really looking I've been looking
forward to this for several weeks. Actually, a chance to get and you
know, just talk to him, visit with MJ is just always a wealth
of knowledge and a pleasure, a pleasure to be around the Ace Hardware Group
here in Houston has I just think they have created something really really special.
When I say Ace Hardware Group, I'm talking about thirty nine locally owned and
operated stores. You know in the greater Houston area around you can find an
Ace Hardware ever where you go. And that is important because if you need
anything that we talk about, like a fertilizer or a soil mix. If
I start mentioning pesticides or herbicides or fungicides, you know that you might need.
They're going to be at your local Ace Hardware store. They just are
that complete of a store. Of course, it's a hardware store with all
the things hardware. Of course, they have the coolest barbecue section you'll ever
find in the world, with things like brands like Webber and Tragger and Big
Green Egg and so on. But when it comes to gardening supplies and products,
they've got it there. And ACE Hardware is everwere Ace Hardware dot Com.
Just go there, look at their store locator you hoving you put your
ZIP code in, for example Ace Hardware dot Com. I promise you there
are two or three Ace Hardware's within a reasonable drive from where you live,
maybe just across the street. ACE Hardware is one of those kinds of sponsors
that it's just easy because they have everything, and I can just tell someone
go there and know that they're going to be treated right that no matter what
they need, even if it's electrical or plumbing repairs they're trying to do,
Ace Hardware is going to be able to direct them very very well. You
are listening to garden Line and we're gonna take a break. 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 and he will get
you on the boards. Well, Kim, tonight, I'd got to feel
something, right, I'm so scared than kids. I follow my chair and
don't wanna I'll get down the stairs. Well, the letting me joke as
to the right here, I asked, alrighty, we're talking gardening this morning
on garden Line and our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four and we're gonna head right out to Santa Fe and talk to Lynn
this morning. Morning Lynn, God, good morning, sir. My question
is I'm trying to find out word in the world. Can I find Louisiana
velvet olkushad the original, not not no fight, but the real Louisiana velvet.
Well, I'd have to do a little bit of search. Um,
if it's an older variety like that, you might be able to find it
at Seed Savers Exchange. That is one company that specializes in keeping some of
the old heirloom type things around. Oh gosh, there's another one that's escaping
me. I'm gonna have to think about this just a minute, len offhand,
I don't know exactly on that specific variety, but that's all right.
I know it's hard to find and you probably don't have no answer right up
there, get go right? Well, maybe maybe perhaps you do some research
if you can, will and give me a call back. I think I
think you're call answer and man has my phone number. Well, I'm not
gonna be able to call you back. But what I'll do is I'm gonna
find it, and if I can find it, I'm gonna talk about it
this morning on the air. How about that? Or if y Another option
is I can put you on hold and have Josh I tell you how to
get an email over to me, and then I can. That'll give me
time to hunt it down and I'll reply to that. If I don't reply
on the air, I can do the email. Okay, okay, Now
what would you recommend? You want me to stay on hold or hang up
and then bend this way listen to the radio. Well, why don't you
hang on hold? Let's get that, Let's get you the email address and
just send me your question that way and that way. I'll I'll see it
and remember, you know, tomorrow two days from now, whenever I'm in
the emails working, but I will try to find it in the meantime and
say it on the air. Yes, sir, I'm computer alliterate. I
don't have a computer. I don't use an email. I'm just the old,
regular, old country boy. That's all. That's one that's good with
me. Lynn. I'm going to say it on the air then for you.
Okay, okay, yes, sir, thank you there you bet you
take care, Bye bye, our phone number seven one three two one two
five eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two five eight seventy four.
I love I love Oprah kinds of questions because I love Ora. I
don't know if you guys know this, but I do have a little bit
of an obsession when it comes to Okra This summer. I've got a bunch
of varieties in my garden that I've bred over the last two or three years,
and I'm trying out the different you know, breeding lines and seeing how
they're doing. And I'll pull them up the minute I know I have.
There's not gonna be a good one, pull it up, and just keep
weeding my way down to find some of the better ones and hopefully we'll come
up with something. I'm trying to get an okra that is a little more
compact, because some okra gets sata you got to hire a helicopter to come
in to pick it. And then I'm trying to get an ochre that's also
very ornamental. So I mean, if you want to plant along your privacy
fence, it would be a beautiful shrub row along the privacy fence. And
in addition to that, of course, you get the okra, which is
what it's all about. But anyway, just some things to play around with.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, Dean
Nelson started Nelson Plant Food back in nineteen eighty three. Nineteen eighty three,
Wow, I was just finishing up my master or my bachelor's degree at TEXAM
back in those days. He has created a beautiful professional grade fertilizer line.
I mean, you know, they've got the color Star line, they've got
the Nutrous Star line, which are just excellent little containers where you know,
you get your fertilizer and it's an little plastic container. So you've got some
house plants, you've got some patio plants. You just want sprinkle it around,
some rose bushes and so on. They've got that. But they also
have the turf Star line of fertilizers, and this includes about six different kinds
of products that are all very good. The one I tend to recommend most
in the summer would be there Slow and Easy. That's a twenty two two
ten and it's really a powerhouse blend. And because the way it's designed,
the way they created this fertilizer is the nitrogen that's in there. Twenty two
sounds like a lot of nitrogen. Well, you don't put as much fertilizer
down. You put about five pounds per thousand square feet with a twenty two
percent nitrogen fertilizer. But it's going to gradually release that you know, you
get a gully washer rain the day after you apply it. It's not all
gone and washed away. It's still there because it's a slow release and it's
going to feed for weeks and months going forward. That's Slow and Easy twenty
two to ten if you're looking for the color of the bag, it's a
dark blue, beautiful dark blue color turf star from Nelson. That's the Slow
and Easy twenty two to ten. When we're talking about things getting ready for
the fall garden, which has kind of been a I guess the latest topic
I'm discussing this morning. You want to get a good planting chart, and
there's a number of good ones out there. I know Angela Chandler the Gardening
Academy, they've got a great planning chart. I know Bob with Well back
back in the day when urban harvest, you know what, it was just
getting started, I mean from the beginning. Really, they've had some really
good when do you plant what schedules, and they're out there, they're available.
You can find them the brows or the Harris County Agrilife Extension Office has
a chart I did a long time ago, and it is also another option.
It just kind of helping you time things. But you want to pay
attention to those kinds of charts because if you've moved here from another part of
the country, our seasons are just so different that you really need some time
to get your gardening feet underneath you. When it comes to when to plant
what here in the Houston area, and that is very important. There are
windows, for example, at the end of August, we have a window
where we can plant potatoes, not sweet potatoes, but the Irish potato that
you know, the red new potatoes, and we plant those typically using a
whole potato. I saved mine from spring garden and store them indoor and use
the small ones and the fall to plant because we got this window. And
if you plan at the right time and keep them growing, you will harvest
a nice harvest of potatoes before the first frost going out forward. So that's
just an example of why we try to do things at a certain time.
Let's go out to Magnolia and we're gonna talk to Jopo. Am I saying
that right, yes, Popo, how can we help Papo? Well,
I would just stall in to ask you about morning glory trees. Okay,
go ahead. I've got a lot of those, and I don't know if
there's coming to you here in Houston, but let me tell you this morning
glory tree. It's got so many flowers. I was gone for eight days
game back and they're still alive. So they they're really good with the heat.
And you were talking about planning, you know, oh around your finch
lines. These morning glory trees would be really good for that because there's some
there. There are probably a lot of them there about a treets golf Yeah,
yeah, right, well, uh, morning glory tree is a beautiful
bloomer and it produces huge clusters of blooms, and they like a morning glory.
It's going to open. One bloom is going to open during the morning,
and it's be open during that day and then it's not. It closes
up and it's done, and but there's a bazilion blooms waiting right behind it.
In some areas, especially you get down Florida direction and stuff, they
worry about its invasiveness. I have not noticed that as a big problem here,
but they will recede around. But boy, they have big, beautiful
blooms. The pollinators love them, kind of a pinkish typically a pinkish color.
There is a white form out there too, But yeah, it's a
good one, I think. Using the term tree, I know, I
know, that's one of the names of it. I'd rather call it a
morning glory bush because it typically has a bunch of a bunch of stems coming
up out of the ground. Oh, it definitely have a bunch of them.
I call them trees because they get so big. Yeah, they did,
and they kind of trim them down if you want to. And then
you don't want to trim them down because they got so many blooms and they're
so purty. And I got people driving by my streets and they just ye
slow down and look at them. And yeah, and they probably some people
don't know that. They're actually telling everybody that goes by. They're telling them
good morning, you know, they're telling them. I had I had a
state there yesterday, and well my sister did. We had a lot of
a lot of people and I gave a lot a lot of cuttings and seeds.
Yeah, you know, have you ever seen the seat on those Yes,
I have. They do produce a lot of seed. Hey, I'm
gonna have to head on here, but thanks for thanks for bringing that one
up. There actually was a semi compact variety that was found in San Antonio
a number of years ago, and I don't see it in the trade anymore,
but for somebody who do, they get so darned big. The semi
compact one may be good for some people, but I appreciate your call for
really good, really good. For the heat, you bet, yeah,
it never it never gets too hot for that morning glory. By the way,
those of you who are nerdy about plant names, it's Ipomea, Carnia
or carnea. Yeah, Ipomea Carnia. Ipomea is the genus from morning glory.
Have you have you been by Buchanans plants lately, because if you haven't,
you need to get by there. There's always something happening at Buchanans.
Just another tip to It is blazing hot outside, so this afternoon you're gonna
get out and shop around. Check out Buchanans. There's lots of beautiful big
shade trees out there. Sure easy to wander around through there and see all
that they have. Their native plant of the week is Texas sage, which
is grows wild out in you know, west to San Antonio. Out in
that country. It's an evergreen shop. So many varieties have been developed.
Some of those are greenish, some of them are very silvery color. We
call it barometer bush because when you go through a period of high humidity or
hype, soul moisture after a hot, dry period, it will just produce
a bunch of blooms that are fragrant. Remember gene Autry, the sage and
blooms smells like no, is that? Now? That was? I think
you have a different song. Sage and bloom smells like perfume. Deep in
the heart of Texas, it's not gene A. Excuse me, I'm in
my own little musical world over here, but yeah, it's it's a wonderful
plant. And they've got a Buchanans and what else do they have? Will
any house plant you can imagine is going to be there if you need stuff
for the shade. They've got a wonderful selection of shade plants. A beautiful
gift shop too, by the way, so check them out Buchanans Plants dot
com. It's six to eleven East eleven Street in the Heights. I love
going by there. It's just always remember how I said, you go to
a nursery and you always learn something. Every time I go in there,
I probably spend an extra thirty minutes to an hour just because I stop and
go, oh, what is this? And especially with the natives, they
had a lot of new things that you're just not gonna find everywhere. I
didn't know that was in the trade. Well it is a Buchanans plants.
Well, we're gonna take a break here our phone number seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're gonna go to news with Nikki.
Well, good morning. You are listening to Garden Loan and we're here
talking gardening. That makes sense, doesn't it. I'm your host, Skip
Rector, and here is a phone number you want to write this down.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Let's head out now
to north Shore and we are going to visit with Donnie. Hello Donnie,
Hello, Skipper. Hing to you in the crew. I wanted to find
out what's your best recommendation to held as a humidity and heat. But there's
grass that can't take can't take this heat with all the brown spots appearing.
Oh boy, you know a lot of things can cause brown spots, and
so we probably need to drill down a little further and figure out what's going
on. How big are they? Are they very distinct or it just kind
of in general? And areas gradually browning? What are you seeing mostly out
in the front there probably about six ay, a weapon three to five feet?
Oh okay? Are they irregular in their shape? They're not round or
anything long strips or anything like that. Yeah, some of them are.
Okay, alrighty Well, we could be talking about an insect that's attacking something
like a chinch bug, for example. We could be talking about a disease
like take all root rot. It could be just a spot where, you
know, when the sprinkler comes on, that area doesn't get as much water
as other areas that you're long, just because the sprinkler patterns don't quite overlap
right there. So there's a lot of different things that can cause that.
I think what we probably need to do done is have you sent me a
picture of it in that way, if you can show me the thing from
a distance and then you know, kind of come up closer, like you
know, maybe a foot away and take a picture with your hand in the
picture or something to show scale, like a pencil, you know, for
example, and let me get a real good close look at it. I
think I can do a better job because right now the possibilities are too wide
for me to know really what to tell you. Oh okay, all right,
I'll be happy to do that, all right, send it to this
number, Texas to this number. No, no, I'm gonna put you
on hole right now, and Josh, who who took your call, he's
gonna get back on and he's gonna tell you how to email me a photo.
Okay, okay, all right, Just the next question real quick?
Yeah, sure, what's the name of the place you'd be advertising? Uh?
In the heights? Uh? You can? You can just Native clements.
You cannot. Uh, They're they're easy to find there in the Heights.
You know, they're on eleventh Street, and it just it's really easy.
You can you know, you got a little maps on your phone or
something. You can find them real easy that way too. Okay, yeah,
all right, you will not be disappointed. Really fun to walk through
there and see all they have. Okay, all right, I'll do that.
All right. Here you go on hold, and thank you for the
question and hope to help you further. Now we're gonna head out to League
City and talk to season. Hello Susan, good morning, Skip, Good
morning, UM. Enjoy your show. I used to listen to Randy called
to talk to him several times, so thank you for continuing the tradition,
Thank you and apologize for the street noise. I'm on a run. Okay,
I want to ask you about watering. I'm said, he's going to
start water rationally pretty soon. Okay. I'm talking about watering two three times
a week. Okay. And I've been watering my plants every day. So
how do I do I kind of start to get them used to the het?
What do I do you do? What are we talking about a yard?
Are we talk about flower beds or vegetables? Or what are you?
What are you watering? Um? I have flower beds, I have a
planter, I have young trees in the ground. Okay, all right,
Well, the restrictions will not affect your plant or watering. It's going to
be more of the beds and in the lawn and things like that. You
can eat, can carry water out to a plant, or any day you
want, as many times a day as you want. In fact, with
a planter and this kind of heat, we may be depending on how big
the plant is and how big the planter is and the kind of soil in
the planter, you may be watering once ever two days, or you may
be watering twice a day, and so that's the planter. But actually,
you know the city doing that is probably doing you a favor. And here's
why I say that we do not need to be water in every day or
even every other day. If it's a lawn, I water my lawn about
once a week. You can water them twice a week. But if you
give it a good soaking when you water and then you don't water for a
while, that water eventually is used up in the soil and it brings oxygen
in the soil and that helps develop a deep rooted plant that can with stand
drought. And so then you give it a good soaking, you're not letting
it almost die before you water it. You're just letting the soil dry out
a bit before you give it another good soaking. And I think with a
lawn, I would say twice a week is the most often you should need
to mow to water your lawn. You can also apply that same principle to
flower beds. The deeper rooted the plant, the less often you have to
water. So a shrub you can be water in it ever two weeks because
it's got a good big root system that maybe a little stretching it in the
full sun depending on the species, but you get the idea. But when
you're down to a little, little tiny flowering plant, you know, six
inches high, well yeah, you're going to water that a little more often,
but still a good soaking is the best way to do it. Hey,
let me tell you you're you're running around the neighborhood. But if you
can remember, water my yard, just water my yard all one word.
Dot org org. It's an app at the Apple Store. It's on Google
Play for Android phones. But are you can go on your computer water my
yard dot org. You put in your zip code there and sign up and
a local weather station near you that's measuring all the things that cause plants to
use water, like sunlight and humidity and wind speed and temperature. They will
send you an email. This whole deal is free. They'll send you an
email saying, hey, your lawn has used you know, three quarters of
an inch of water so far. You need to water it. And it
makes watering really easy. You just have to coordinate that with your watering days
according to the restrictions. Okay, so um, what do you mean by
a good stopping is turn it on for thirty minutes? It's not time it's
volume of water. So if you be talking about sprinklers that you're watering with,
yeah, and I'm talking about watering my you know, like the young
tree that over your So when you turn on the sprinkler, if you get
anything with straight sides, like a tuna fish can, a cat food can,
a you know, a vegetable can from the pantry, or a rang
gage, and you set it out in the lawn, how long do you
have to water that? How do you long do you have to have your
watering system, your sprinklers on to catch somewhere between a half inch to an
inch of water. That's how long you water. And so you may have
to water a wall, let it soak, water wall, let it soak
on your on your given one. Let's say you're watering on Tuesdays or something
on that day and early in the morning you would you would water, let
it soak, water, let it soak. But once you do that once
and measure it, then you know how long to run your system, because
everybody's sprinklers are different. Look us all right, all right, thank you,
thank you, I appreciate the call. Have a good a good run
through the neighborhood. Wow, you're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Director. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. If you live in central North part of Houston, anywhere
in that area, Quality Feed and Garden Company is your hometown feed store.
You can go online Quality feed dot Com there at eighteen thirteen Luzon Street,
which is near the intersection of Equipment and Allusion. For those of you who
are familiar with that area. This is not the original location I used to
go to of a little wall back. They moved, and boy it it's
still the great thing. I mean, it's still the same tradition that they've
been doing since nineteen twenty eight. You can find everything we talk about here,
plus much much more. Pretty much anything you need for your garden is
going to be a Quality Feed and Garden Center. Just talk to Kenn and
Chris, tell them what you're looking for and they will take you right to
it. Quality Feed coo dot com. All right, we're gonna go ahead
and take a break. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Well, good Sunday morning. You are listening to the Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions.
Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
if you'd like to visit about something related to gardening, your yard, your
garden, your house, plants, whatever kind of thing interests you. You
know, Nitrofoss makes a lot of quality fertilizers. I mean, they really
have an excellent lineup of all kinds of things, and we love to talk
about them here. They you know, they've got their Sweet Green that I
talked about a little bit earlier today. That is an organic fertilizer. It's
eleven zero four. But the thing I want to mention right now is their
insect products. We've got things like the bug Out Max. No. Bug
Out Max is something that's a granule. You put it on your yard,
you water it in and if there are chinch bugs in there, it will
get them. If there are side web worms in there, it will get
them. They also have a system product to it, which is their Nitrofoss
fire ant killer, and it works quick. It doesn't allow the queen to
escape, kills the whole colony to prevent new mounds, and either way you
go. Nitrofosts with the Bugout Max or the nitro foss fire ant killer.
You know that you're going to have products that are part of the true,
tested, successful program that they call their Summer Essentials program at nitro Fosts.
Now nitro Fosts is going to be available in a wide variety of places.
Certainly all the many many ACE hardware stores are going to carry it. Our
mom and pop garden centers are going to carry nitro FoST products. Not difficult
at all defined throughout the Greater Houston area. This morning, I've been kind
of going through some of the things to be thinking about this time of year
out there and the lawn, the garden, and the vegetable gardens specifically,
and I was talking about the importance of planning at the right time. You
need to get things planted at the right time in order to have success because
there's a win. I mentioned the potato window is typically about sometime about the
third week of August somewhere, give or take a week in there to get
those down because you know, it's hot, hot, hot, and if
you cut potatoes like we do in the spring and put them in the soil,
they're just rot. So we use the whole small potato. Just plant
the whole thing and it'll work out. And just find all our vegetables have
the windows like that, and you need a good quality schedule, and there's
a number of them out there you can use. I'm eventually going to put
one up on garden Line on the new website that is coming and we will
get that out as well. But for now, just I mentioned several good
ones that are out there. Angela Chandler at the Gardening Academy, the Urban
Harvest has great schedules. Bob Randall and his book on Gardening in this Area,
which by the way, is a book you can't live without if you
live in this area. Awesome, awesome, a lot of good information on
window plant what from years of observation and research. And I tell you something
that I've discovered here that you can say the Houston area, but it is
a lot of areas. I've done some research for the lawn sheets lawn care
sheets that I am in the process of finishing up. When you look at
what soil temperature is which affects when weed seed sprout. If you look at
you know, you go all the way up to tom Ball, you go
all the way down towards Galveston, you know, on the east side are
or in Sugarland and Richmond that area and so on. It varies a lot.
And then in Houston it's actually warmer, which a lot of you know
that. But the actual temperature that when we would expect a particular weed to
germinate when it comes to the spring, it's going to happen earlier than it
does outside the city of Houston. And't that interesting. Well, folks like
Bob Randall, they've been here a long time, they've been paying attention Angela
two and they understand that, and they give you a schedule accordingly. Speaking
of planting and things, enchanted Forest has got an unbelievable selection of peppers out
there. I mean, just a lot of different kinds of peppers. And
you're thinking, well, peppers are summer. No, peppers are spring through
summer and fall. Fall is the best pepper season of the year. And
I mean that if you had pepper plants, I hope you're holding on to
them because that bigger plant and fall is going to produce way more than your
plant you had in the spring. If you haven't planted them yet, get
them done right now, and get those things growing. Don't worry about pepper
production. Initially, get the plant growing. Make a big plant peppers or
ornaments. The bigger the Christmas tree, the more ornaments you can hang on
it. Right, That's how it is with peppers. And Jenny Forrest has
that they've they've got some great sales going on on a lot of their pots.
I don't know if you've been out there and seen them, but they
have the most whimsicle containers. There's one called a pothead. There's a pot
leg, not a pothead in that sense, but like thy head that you
grow your plant out of pot legs and pot angels. All they're available.
It's a really cool line of pottery. Lots of different things going on like
that. You know. I just enjoy going out and visiting with Danny and
Clay. There's always things going on. When I think about pollinator plants,
think about enchanted forest. When I think about quality, quality employees that can
help you, that are knowledgeable, that will take time to walk through with
you, that is enchanted forest. So where is inchended forest. Well,
if you were in the Richmond area and you head toward up towards sugar Land,
but down south of thirty five. That is going to be the direction
you get. You can go online and find inchanted forests. They're not hard
to find. But right now is a great time to visit another place with
giant, beautiful trees. So if it's a hundred degrees outside, you just
wander through in just more or less in the benefit of shade, being able
to do all your shopping. So don't delay, go ahead and get these
things going. The peppers need to be get going as soon as possible.
And it's just one of the bazilion things that they have. Their their selection
of pollodiners at Chended Forest is like no other. I mean it really is.
In fact, I was out the other day. I was talking with
Danny and he said, yeah, people come by and they need some caterpillars.
They will give them. They can take them with so you buy.
You're gonna buy a milkweed and they'll give you a caterpillar to go with it.
So there you go. You have a captive audience. You're about to
have a crystalist and a butterfly coming out of it. And they have all
kinds the ones that like passion vine, the Gulf fridlery caterpillars. They'll they'll
give you some of those two free caterpillars with a plant, so you're just
right and set up. I think that's a great idea. By the way,
Well, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricter,
and we're here to talk about whatever is of interest to you. Along
with what's of interest to you, I like to talk about things that I
think you are or should be interested in. And one of them is the
fact that it is hurricane season and when hurricanes blow through, they can take
a heck of a toll on our trees. And that's when you discover,
oh, there was that narrow angle branch up there that should have been removed
a long time ago, because now it's split and it's landed on the power
drop coming into your house, or worse yet, your house, or worse
yet, your neighbor's maserati that your tree limbs over. They might have an
opinion about that. Well. Affordable Tree Service Martin spoon Moore and his wife
Joe. I was talking to somebody about them yesterday. Martin and his wife
Joe. Affordable Tree Service has been doing this for a very long time.
They know what they're doing. They're they're honest folks that shows up when they
say they're going to show up. They you know, it's not like,
well, block your Saturday and wait all day wondering if we're going to show
up. No, they give you a time and they show up then and
they can do all the things you need to get your tree ready for that
stormy season. Their phone number seven one three, six nine nine twenty six
sixty three seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three, or
just go to Afftree Service dot com Martin Spoon Moore Affordable Tree Service. Maybe
you need consulting, maybe you need a bid done, maybe you need some
deep roof feeding, stump grinding, whatever it is there where you go.
Before you do anything around an existing tree, call Affordable Tree first. After
the damage is done, it is very difficult to fix and oftentimes with a
bad printing job, for example, that's for the life of the tree.
You can never get back to the beauty that it once could have been.
And if Martin knows how to do that, and he's an expert at taking
care of those kinds of things. You are listening to garden Line and I'm
your host Skip ricter. We're talking all kinds of things gardening. This morning,
I was out getting some plants established. I had some plants that I
purchased. I was planning this summer. Yes, I plant all through the
summer, and every time I plant has to grow is something I has to
do. It's a six twelve six six twelve six has to grow. I
mix it up in water and there's a lot of waste to use. Has
to grow. I like to use it in watering and transplants, whether it's
a rosebush or a little tiny tomato plant that I'm putting in. That high
phosphorus content helps the roots. It's medinas soil activator to stimulate biological activity,
and that is very very important. Soil very important. It's got humic acid,
it's got seaweed, it's the whole deal. And so I put some
in a watering can, add water to it and just drench in my plants,
and five to seven days later, I'd do it again, same plant,
five to seven days later, do it again. Each time you do
it, it just helps set that plan up for success. Has to grow
six twelve six is something you have to do when you put in your new
plants. Whether it's now or going on into the fall season. Hey,
we're gonna take a break. We will be back our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call. You'll
get shown the boards. We can talk about whatever you're interested in. We
are bumping up on the eight o'clock hour and that is when Jay White from
Texas Gardener magazine will be my guest. We're gonna spend a whole hour with
my friend Jay. We're gonna talk about all kinds of things gardening. If
you'd like to give us a call, I hope you will. This is
your chance to pick the brain of the publisher owner of the only statewide gardening
magazine profit you know, first sale profit gardening magazine in the country. A
lot of magazines have gone by the wayside, not Texas Gardener. Texas Gardener
is written by Texas Gardener gardeners like myself, and it's written for Texas gardeners,
and that makes a difference. There's a lot of beautiful, coffee table
type, pretty flower picture magazines out there. This one is get down in
the hands, in the dirt and blow the way. They do have pretty
pictures too. Hey, stick around, We'll be right back. KTRH Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictors US watch as well. That
was a lot of fun. I always enjoy visiting with my friend Jay from
Texas Gardener magazine. Always informative and just I am very grateful that we have
that magazine here in Texas. We're really really fortunate. Like I said,
I read it myself and learn something every single time with every article that I
read. We're listening to garden Line and our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four if you would like to give us a
call find out maybe some answers to questions that you have going on about your
lawn, garden and landscape and so on. You know, I always brag
on our mom and pop garden centers because they're just they're just excellent. I
mean that that's just the way it is. They are absolutely outstanding. And
if you were in the Kingwood area, you are filthy rich with garden centers.
We're talking about Kingwood Garden Center. We're talking about Warrens Southern Gardens.
Kingdom Garden Centers, by the way, is on Stonehallow Drive. Warrens is
over there and NorthPark Drive. But you know at Kingwood right now, that
would be the place that I would absolutely go just to check out a beautiful
gift shop. I mean, above all the other things going on and all
the wonderful plants and all the things they have, they have an amazing,
outstanding gift shop. I love to go in there and wander through and see
what's going on. They, by the way, they are going to be
also featuring their Texas sage plants. This time of the year. There's a
good time for Texas sage, beautiful, fragrant blooms. There's everything. We're
in green to silver types of sate. American beauty beery now there's a native
both, by the way, both these are Texas natives. American beauty berry
does well as kind of an understory. Maybe you've got some tall trees,
it's still bright underneath. American beauty berry has thus beautiful long shoots with clusters
of attractive berries when the leaves fall off. It's just a really nice ornamental.
And again it's a native plant. If you need. We're talking earlier
about different kinds of products. You know, the heirloom leafmo compost, you're
gonna be able to buy it at Kingwood Garden Center. They're gonna have that.
They're gonna have you know, Nelson's cup products and and they like.
There's a number of quality things that you can get there. If I talk
about a fertilizer, they're gonna have it at Kingwood, and they're gonna have
it at a Warren Southern Gardens. If we talk about soils and mixes,
a herb, the maltas and things, they're gonna have them. There something
coming up that's kind of cool. They're having something called the Winding Down Summer
like Winding Down, but with wine. It's an herb infused garden garden.
This is hard for me to say urb infused guartending as in Bartending Summer Series.
So I mean they only have some certain availability, so you don't want
to delay. But it's on August second, so that just around the corner
from six pm to seven thirty pm. It's forty five dollars a person.
But what you're gonna get is you're going to get the opportunity to learn about
all kinds of infusions of aromatic herbs from your garden into various types of spirits
and craft cocktails. Now there, there, you're going to get the opportunity
to create your own little mini herb garden to take home with you. I
mean this amazing. They can do it all for that price, but you'll
get to take it home, and then you'll learn as well, all kinds
of different recipes and ideas like a rich cabernet, a savory chardonnay, a
sultry sangria. I mean this sounds pretty good. Forty five dollars six pm
to seven thirty pm. What a wonderful time of day too, you know,
cooled off and enjoyable to be out there. That's out at the Kingwood
Garden Center. But you know, whether you go to Warren Southern Gardens,
Kingwood Garden Center just amazing places, amazing quality. In their August newsletter,
there's a Heirloo Soils leaf mold compost sale where you buy three and you get
one free. So that is a really good deal there, and it is
always a time to put leaf mold compost out. And they make a super
quality product at Heirloom Soils that you can find in Kingwood Garden Center. You
can also find it in Warren's Southern Garden Well. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are going to go
to the phones here in just a minute, but before we do, I
just want to mention again that if you are a gardener and you are looking
for a wonderful neighborhood for retirement, a place where you have a beautiful home,
a beautiful neighborhood with walking paths and those programs designed around you and your
lifestyle, you know, for active adults age fifty five and better. That's
Dellweb down in Fulscher, two miles from downtown Fulscher on three fifty nine is
a new Dellweb community with a community garden. If you want more information two
eight one four five nine zero six zero nine, or you can go online
dellweb dot com, forward slash Houston and you can find out more information there.
Makes it real, real easy, and I hope you'll check it out
because I think you will be amazed at the Dell Weeb difference when you do.
We're gonna head out now to Mount Gumer and talk to Jim about watermelons
I believe, is that right, Jim, Yes, sir, I was
just going to comment that that woman said about starving them for water at the
end says they get sweeter. Yeah. I've always heard that too. My
uncle used to grow them out there in himstead, and that's what he used
to do. But I guess if you have him coming to fruition, you
know, at separate times, I don't guess, it would be kind of
rough on the little ones. Yeah, it's kind of hard. When do
you starve when do you not? Yeah? I mean it is true that
with different kinds of melons, when you just get a whole bunch of water
rain irrigation, you know it's going to move into the plant and so well,
especially with candle ups, I find a little trouble of that, but
you know they don't have water. Yeah. Well, I also wanted to
make a comment about that guy that was looking for that soil it Nature's way
resources. Yeah. I don't think he went there because there's a place right
before there. It's on the feeder and they have really bad stuff. Yeah,
but a lot of people turn in there thinking it's the nature's way,
But you got to go down a little further and turn where fourteen eighty eight
dead ends into forty five. You know, Jim, then that is a
good point. I didn't even think about that, because you know, I
know, I've never seen anything but quality come out of Nature's Way. That's
right, and the other places. You know, I could give it the
name, but I don't know you want to do that, But it's it's
right on the feeder, so it's like you have to turn off the feeder
road from going north on forty five to get to it, and there their
stuff is poor quality. The Nature's Way. I've never had any problem with
them. I get all kinds of stuff from those people, and their compost
is wonderful. You bet it sure is. Hey, Jim, thank you
for calling and pointing that out. I appreciate that very much. Yeah,
I hope that guy's listening because he needs to go to Nature's Way because there
they got the best stuff. All righty, I think you are on track
with that right there, that is for sure. Well, it is about
time for us to take another break, and we'll do that. If you'd
like to get on the board, call Josh seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Have him get you on the board and rich out
in spring. You will be first up when we come back. That's what
Well, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are
here to talk gardening. Of course, hey, I used to talk about
green Parol all the time. You know, that's a company that does a
deep aeration, the core aeration, and then puts a quality leafmo compost top
dressing over the top of it. That'll transform your lawn. Well, green
Pro is now called org Lawn. Not a sale of a company to another
one. It's just they've expanded and org Lawn is the new company that we
used to call green prow. Org Lawn has a garden Line special. So
here's the deal. Yet, first of all, you have time you call
them from garden Line. But the first application of any recommended liquid for the
new customers twenty ninety nine plus tax. That's it. And so whatever Orglon
thinks you need most for your lawn, maybe it is a fertilizer, Maybe
you need a micronutrient application. Perhaps you need bug prevention, a deal with
chinch bugs or something like that. They you know, figured out what it
is that first one twenty nine plus tax. That is a really good deal.
Up to ten thousand square feet of grass treated. H they're putting out
seaweed and bug prevention for a lot of people now that we're in the heat
of the summer. Now they service Katie Cypress Houston at Sugarland Richmond. They
use as many organic inputs as possible. That is our focus on providing a
quality organic input. Now they can do other things, but in general they
go for the or fully organic or an organic hybrid approach. Seven seasons in
business perfecting their lawn fertilization schedule. Operated by the same folks as Greenpro.
You go online org lawn or glawn dot com or just call eight three two
three five one three two eight three two three five one zero zero three two.
We're going to head out now to Conro and talk to Jennifer. Hello,
Jennifer, good morning, step Can you give me some guidance on watering
Saint Augustine grass? How awesome was supposed to be doing it? And after
it's already brown and crispy? Is there any point or am I just wasting
water? The grass may be round and crispy, but check the runners.
If they're still got some green in them. They'll bounce back. You can
bring them back. So that would be the decision I would make. As
far as watering it, I watermine once a week. I would say at
the most you can water twice a week. If you get past twice a
week, you were you were watering too little, too often, And so
once a week a good soaking. Use whatever rain gage or straight sided can
out. There is your little mini rain gauge to check out how long do
you need to run a sprinkler in order to apply an inch of water?
And that then going forward, now you know how long to run the sprinklers
for your particular long you're gonna not need water as much in sun I mean
in shade as as you do in sun. But if it's all on one
system, then you know you gotta water enough to keep the sunny spots happy.
All right, inch of water a week about That's that's what we're hating
for now. That's in the absence of rainfall. You know, if it
rains right a half inch or two an inch lease, then you know that
gives you a week a week off, all right, Thank you, thank
you, you bet, thank you Jennifer. I appreciate I appreciate that very
much. If you are planting any kind of a woody ornamental, you need
a tree hugger sprinkler. If you planted one last year, you still need
a tree hugger sprinkler. And here's why. Tree hugger sprinklers go around your
tree. You can set them to water anything from little, you know,
tiny one foot circle all the way out to you know, over twenty feet
across. Tree hugger sprinkler has the ability to water a very large area.
So from the time you plant those critical first summer of having water regularly and
small amounts right there on the root ball to keep it going, and then
as it gets roots out to water a little further and a little further.
You can do it all with a tree hugger sprinkler. Now you can go
online tree Hugger Sprinklers dot com find out what realtor is closer to you.
I just find them everywhere every time I'm going in to visit one of our
sponsors. Seemed like there's a tree hugger hanging on the wall, so not
hard to find, but boy, is it ever a well worth the dollar.
Insurance policy for those rosebushes and trees and shrubs and other things like that
that you are planting. Let's head out now to spring and we're gonna talk
to Rich. Hello, Rich, Good morning Skip. I'm ad I wire
and I help many neighbors with their lawns, and a lot of time my
applications come out of my own pocket. So I'm always looking for a cheap
source of either insecticides or fertilizers. And on YouTube I ran across many people
using diesel exhaust fluid to spoon feed in the summertime, because you can make
a gallon which does a thousand square feet for about twenty eight cents and it
comes out to be a fifteen oo. And I'm wondering, do you know
anything about that application? No? I don't and that sounds fishy? Um?
What is diesel exhaust fluid? UREA and water? I mean, but
how do you get diesel exhaust fluid? Are you talking about? It comes
in a tune, It comes in two and a half gallon containers at Walmart.
Many gas stations have it at the pump and it's it's twenty eight cents
a gallon. You use ten ounces and if you do the math, you
can get two and a half gallons at Walmart for nine bucks. If you
do the math and it's a ten ounces per gallon, it comes out to
be twenty eight cents a gallon for a thousand square feet. Well, let's
just say this. A first answer is I don't know, but I am
going to find out. Second answer is that sounds really fishy to me.
I think, yeah, I let me look into it before I come any
further. Okay, okay, I haven't heard that one, and you know
we're broadcasting on the radio here. I don't want someone to people tend to
hear half of what you say, not all of what you say. And
I don't want anybody going home to day and starting to do that because I
really need to look that up for I even have a comment. And that's
why I wanted to talk to you first. I have not tried it yet.
Yeah, like I said, many people on YouTube, but I wanted
your opinion, so, hey, reach any input you have would be great,
you bet Hey, let me can I put you on hold and let
Josh give you an email and would you send me whatever information If you got
a little YouTube club, I'll go watch that. But I'm just going to
do a little research on this one before I thank you very much. I
appreciate you hanging around for that. If you are out and about and needing
any kind of products to help your long be successful, to make your garden
more productive, to control insects, to control diseases, you get the idea.
Southwest Fertilizer is a place you need to go. The way I like
to put it is, if Southwest Fertilizer does and have it, you don't
need it. And that is pretty much true. I was in there in
the past week and looking around and I was just amazed at like, do
you want an organic product to control pests? They probably have four or five
different versions of the same kind of thing. I mean, the choices are
amazing there. So whether you're an organic gardner, synthetic gardener, you name
it, they've got it. We always talk about fertilizing your lawn, and
the best way to know how much to fertilize of different nutrients is with a
soil test. So if you haven't had your soil tested in the last three
to five years, I'd recommend you do that. And Bob at Southwest has
purchased some soil probes where you leave them a little deposit so the soil probe
doesn't disappear on him, and he'll let you take it home and use it
to take your soul sapp up. Makes it really easy to get in and
get a quality soil sample. They've got that there, You bring it back,
you get your deposit back, and you go on about your way,
and that way you fertilize even more intelligently. Now. They also have a
bunch of the kneeling benches that I love so much. I mean, these
things when you're going down to your knees and get back up again, they
are perfect for that. If you've ever worked a day in the garden and
woken up the next morning in the fetal position because you got up and down
so many times, you will sing songs of phrase about the wonderful kneeling minute
that Bob has there are those are super super quality. I need to keep
talking about those more because they really are cool. You can sit on them
or you can kneel on them. You just gotta go see one. They
fold up easy storage really cool. So I mean, I can talk about
Southwest all day, but let's just stop it right there. And leave it
to say that whatever you need and more, they've got it right there.
Southwest Fertilizer. I think you should give them a checkout. It's always fun
to go in there too. And by the way, if you have a
question, you know, maybe you've got like there's a bug I found in
my yard, or here's a spot on a leaf, or here's a picture
of I don't know what. Take it in. Let them take a look
at it. I mean, they know what they're talking about. Bob and
his highly trained staff are very good experts. They know the products, they
know what works. And boys, that's really really important. Summertime is getting
ready for fall time. And one of the ways we get ready for fall
time is fall is an excellent time of year for landscape renovations and for design
changes and all kinds of stuff like that. It is the best planting season
of the year. And if you want to give Peerscapes a call now,
they can help you design and install a beautiful upgrade to your landscape. Maybe
it's just some flower beds in front that need a recreation and a beautiful design.
Maybe you want to create an outdoor sitting area that everybody you know will
look forward to coming over and enjoying those outdoor evenings out there outdoor daytimes too.
Once we get through this blazing heat, well, now's the time to
get ready for it. And so you can give him a call two eight
one three seven zero fifty sixty. That's Peerscapes or to Piercescapes dot com and
you can leave them an online inquiry. They will sit down with you.
They will listen to what you want, and they will look at the landscape
pictures and what's going on and come up with that kind of design. Maybe
you need outdoor lighting, Oh my gosh, landscape lighting changes the world in
the evenings when you're out sitting there and enjoying it. Maybe you need irrigation
improvements. Perhaps the area doesn't drain well. I mean, I can go
on and on Pierscapes Jason Garritty and his team, Bob and Candice and all
the folks. They can do a first rate job for you and really turn
your place into a show place. I think that's I need that kind of
help. By the way, I've joked about this before, but I'm a
plant person, and so what a plant people do. They go to garden
centers and they find plants that they don't have yet that they can't live without,
and they buy, remembering them home plant people. That's me when it
comes to design. If I didn't have help, it would look like a
I went off in a garden center and everything grew where it was planted.
I mean that, you know, that's kind of how I go. Well,
you get the idea. That's why we need the places like that.
I've talked about Brinkman before, but I get really excited when I find about
a company. Find out about a company that's been around fifty years and is
doing a first class job. Number one, if you are not doing a
good job and you're not taking care of your customers, you will not be
around for fifty years. And if you were doing an exceptional job, you
may win the twenty twenty two Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award like Brinkman did.
What does that tell you about that company? That tells me that you can
trust them. They're not a fly by night that leaves a business card in
your door. They live here, they work here, this is their home
turf and Jason Brinkman, this company is just outstanding. You can go to
Brinkman quality dot com. That's Brinkman with two ms at the ends. At
the end Brinkman Quality dot com or callum at two eight one four eight zero
seven six six three breakwind quality roofing. By the way, they'll also do
a solar shingle on your roof. And the solar shingle isn't this big solar
panel on the roof. It is the roof. And I think they're quite
attractive and really amazing that the way that technology has moved forward. So instead
of griping about sunny days of blazing sign in one hundred degrees, you can
go, hey, I'm making money off this deal I'm getting I'm getting electricity
out of this year. That is cool. Yeah, other people are praying
for rain and cloudy weather and you're going, no, all right, Nikki,
we got news coming up here. And I think I heard that you
were talking about maybe rainfall in the forecast to ye. Yes, okay,
Well other than solar shingle people, we're pretty excited about that, Yes we
are. We'll talk about it, all right. We'll give us some news.
Hey our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I saw my miles Jason All the Stars. I've been the guy I
saw Miles Miles Jackson Radio show. Do you get a little bit of yodeling,
a little bit of Western swing, some funky stuff, seventies rock,
Well, we have fun at least. Hey, you are listening to garden
Line our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
and we are going to head up to Cyprus and talk to Melanie. Hello
Melanie, Good morning Skip. So I took your advice yesterday on the bugout
and went and got from an ace and sure enough, I've been kind of
worried. I thought maybe it was a lack of water, you know,
but I have about a five foot strip and it's between the pavement and the
sidewalk, and there was a couple of patches of grass. So I went
ahead and put the bug out all along that area and like lightly water to
the end. And now I just I want to know if I need to
do any follow up with like another maybe a couple of weeks, like a
spray of byfinder in or just watch and seeing what it does. No.
Byfincern's pretty persistent, and so you should be good for a few weeks there
just kind of watch it. We'll see watch your grass, see if it's
any areas you're getting worse. You also might want to apply it right across
that sidewalk to the other grass, because typically Chinas did that too. Okay.
And I'm a little worried about my neighbor because I think they're in heard
okay, and I don't think he's doing anything about it. But I'm fixing
to go talk to him about it. Yeah, I think we both need
to do it. Well, maybe so just and just get down. You
can look for him yourself, but I'm not very good at finding them.
But I thought, well, it doesn't hurt preventative either, does it to
put that on? No, it doesn't. Know. The thing you can
do if you get a watering can and you put one tablespoon of soap per
gallon of water and the can okay, and then you just drench an area,
not a dead grass area, not a perfectly healthy area, but that
zone in between living and dead, drenched that with soap. That soapy water
irritates the heck out of insects and they'll come crawling up out of there and
you can you can see them, and that that works beside web worms.
It works pretty well with chinch bugs too. They do not like that.
It just takes a quantity of water. You really got drench it down in
a spot, okay, and then just see but it's not in the spot.
You got to go outside the Yeah. Yeah, the chinch bugs have
moved on from the dead. There is nothing, no juices to suck on
and consume. They've got to move out into healthier grass and start taking it
down. And if I see them, if I see them, and UM
said, I maybe in two weeks, because I've thought a bottle of that
concentrated by fender, and should I try doing a spray of that? Maybe
do there too, or just check the bottle make sure, yeah, make
sure your bottle is labeled for use on lawns. Uh, there's some product
okay, because by fencing is used by pest control operators and houses and stuff,
and so yeah, if it's labeled for lawns, you could do that.
You know. The bugout is simple and easy to put out. You
don't have to make anything up. I'm hoping this will do it, but
I'm going to be prepared. By the way. I wanted to tell you
one other thing I loved your chip you gave back in the screen about the
tumbling tom tomatoes, Okay, And I put them in a big pot.
There were like like three of them, and they produced wonderfully. Then it
got so hot and I really thought I was going to lose them. But
I went out every day and I have it in a big container. I
watered them. I'm still getting a few. Yeah, you know not,
but there's there's there's a there's flowers on them, like, there's going to
be more. Okay, how long you keep going, well, as long
as the foliage is Yeah, as long as the foliage is healthy and not
chewed up by or taken down by spider mites or diseases, they'll come back
in the fall and you'll get more. You can also cut some of the
tips out of those shoots, the longer ones that are trailing over. They
slash them in you know, sink full of water. Just slash them vigorously
like you're washing off all those spider mites that are hiding under there, and
then stick them in a glass of water and they'll root, and then you
can replant new containers for fall. But they'll root within a week or two
you're gonna have lots of roots and you just plant them up. Oh,
thank you very much. My god, I'm not going to find any probably
this time of year at the nursery, so I'll go do that. That
is probably true, Yes, that is probably true. Okay, well,
thank you very much. I appreciate your help. All right, thank you,
Melanie, appreciate it. Okay. When someone starts off a sentence and
says, well, back and when you told me to do such and such,
I just think, oh, where's this gonna go? And it's always
a relief to go. And it worked. That's good. Not that I
don't think what I recommend works, but you know, there is operator error
out there too, so I can't take full credit or responsibility. Oh my
gosh. Hey, speaking of that, as you're talking about the nitrofis,
the bugout Max is just a good quality insecticide in terms of killing a lot
of different kinds of insects that you might have out there. I mean,
you know, if you've got the chinch bugs, certainly works on that,
works on the sideweb worms, and you know other kinds of insect pests.
It's it's really easy to apply. It's a granularity to put it out there
and water it in. He'll do the trick for you. Also for fiance
nitrofiles has that fiance killer that again, it works quick, it doesn't allow
that queen to escape. It kills the colony to prevent new mounds, and
it's real simple. And you know, nitro FoST you're going to find them
all over the place. I's talking about Southwest Fertilizer, while Goo there,
they're gonna have nitro FoST products, lots of them there. All the Ace
hardware stores are going to carry nitro FoST products. And you know most of
the mom pop garden centers I go into just have plenty of nitro FoST products
as well, So it's not hard to find those there. Let's say ubiquitous.
So if you're dealing with some summer passing the lawn, that is a
good option for managing those kind of challenges. Well, you're listening to garden
Line our number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, Ace Hardware stores
are another thing that's you bequitous. Here in the Houston area thirty nine locally
owned and operated stores in the Greater Houston area. You can go online to
ACE Hardware dot Com find their store locator and just see what I'm talking about.
They are everywhere. I'm looking to map right now of the Greater house
Scenaria and this is I read dots everywhere. I mean, it is so
easy to find an ACE and ACE carries all the fertilizers we brag on,
they carry the soil products, They carry a wide variety of pest control products,
pest management, weed management, and then everything else that you know from
a quality hardware store. I just love a place where you go in and
you're greeted and a friendly person. They take you right to the product you
need, and they can even assist you with how do you go about using
it? That's ACE Hardware. That's the difference when it comes to a quality
store like an ACE Hardware. Ace Hardware dot Com find one near you.
Yea, Hey, you're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions. Our last few minutes
is coming up here. We got a couple of callers on holes, so
we're gonna We're gonna leave it at that. You know if you've got if
you've got plants in the house, if you've got plants on the patio,
you know, container plants, color plants, those kind of things. I
want to say about two liquid products from Microlife that you need to have.
First of all, indoor orange label. It's called Microlife Biomatrix. It's a
seven one three fertilizer. Got a high nitrogen level there, and that's important
because our house plants are basically foliage plants for the most part, and you
need good vigor and they do that. It also has a lot of beneficial
microbes and microbes they work with the roots. They are the secret sauce of
the soil. They protect roots from disease, They help break down nutrients and
provide them to the roots. I mean, we've spend a whole show just
talking about why microbes are critical for success. And it's in the orange label
Biomatrix seven one three. When I go outside looking at plants on my patio,
well that's when we switch over to the blue label. That's an Ocean
Harvest. It's a fish based fertilizer. It's a four two three and it
just does an excellent job. You can dilute it down and fold your spray.
It's not going to burn your plants just as and you know we say
four two three, Well, when you're looking at an organic product, it's
got a lot of other stuff in there. Those are just the three numbers
that have to be on a fertilizer bag. But there's a lot more to
Microlife natural fertilizers in just the three numbers, and that is important. Hey,
Microlife fertilizer, you can find it everywhere. If you go online Microlife
Fertilizer dot com, you can find out where to buy Microlife in your area.
And you can also learn more about this orange label and blue label that
I keep bragging about, the Orange Biomatrix and the Blue Ocean Harvest. Check
them out. I think you will find, as I did, that your
plant performance is just really going to excel as a result. Let's go to
North Houston and we're gonna talk to league. Hello. Lee, Hello,
how are you doing? I'm well, thanks. I have to put you
on faker phone because I can't I can't hear good okay, so it might
be hard for you to hear me alrighty, But what it is is I've
got I take my I have an inside bunol and you know, naturally have
to take him out to go the bathroom, and you know he gets full
of pleas and I can wash him and dolls recommend anything in the yard that
will get rid of them. Yeah, you gotta go all out. You
need treat the yard. Uh and something like the Bugout Max by nitrofis sprinkled
out in the yard and watered in. That would be one step. You
need to make sure you don't get the fleas in the house too. And
there are that's the problem are here too. But I bought them and I
forgot what kind of powder it is, but my nephew used it outside and
everything. Yeah, but I ain't sprinkled it all in my carpet. Yeah,
okay, and it's not killing them. Okay. Well, there's there's
two ways to go buy it, but you really got to kind of do
it all at once. You don't want to play whackam You don't want to
play whackamole with fleas. Uh. So treating the yard outside wherever flea outside
is getting a treatment. And then you're you're using the little products that you
put on a dog. Typically it's an oil product. Vetan narians can sell
it to you. Uh, you can also buy it over the counter.
That is like drops you put back behind their neck, on top of their
back, but where their shoulder blades I guess come together. You put it
right there. It soaks in and it is a systemic within their body.
That is, when the feet fleas feed on the dog, it kills the
flea and and those are very successful. And then there's things called insect growth
regulators that you can put in your house if you want, and they just
they don't kill fleas, they prevent them from developing normally. So if fleas
drop eggs and they're starting to hatch out and they are a larva, they're
never going to grow up into a flea, So you can I would go
to an ACE Hardware near you and tell them what you're after and tell them
you need a multifaceted approach. But remember you gotta do it all because if
you just kill them in the yard, your dog's just going to car him
around and drop more in the yard. If you just kill him the dog
he's going to run out in the yard and pick up more. You get
the idea, you've been through that rodeo. Yes, sir, well I've
got NightWare. I got a kind of dogs. Yeah, but I tried
to just walk him, uh in my yard. You know, are just
down just enough, they're going bring them right back in. He don't stay
outside because he's a bulldog, you know, and he don't like dogs.
He will kill them. So you know, I keep them on the leash,
okay, you know when I take him out. You know, I'm
a responsible pan on them. Yeah, okay, well you're do And you
know you got the idea just that stuff I'm saying that the little little tiny
tube of stuff and you just put some drops back on the top of the
dog back there. Uh. Then when the dog runs down the street and
picks up a flea on the way home, that flea bites him and that
flee is getting you know, it's getting killed as a result of that.
So that that is an important part of that. But go to an ACE
Hardware. They're gonna have the whole nine yards and they're gonna be able to
set you up. You can get a good quality a good quality feed store
too. I bet you if you went into quality feed. I don't know
where in Northeastern yard, but they're not too far from you. Quality feeds.
Yeah, there's an ice that I don't know maybe same right miles from
Sorry, ice hardware. Okay, well, all right, that's good.
That's good. But a lot of a lot of good options. Hey,
good luck with that, all right. I'm sure they appreciate it. Sorry
very much, Thank you for call, Thanks for being a listener. Let's
head out to the galleria area and we're gonna talk to Carrie. Hello,
Carrie, Hi, can you hear me? Okay? Do we still have
carry there? I'm here? Hey, how can we help today? Hi?
I have a beautiful persimmetry and I've been trying to amend the soil,
finding lots of grubs, but I'm afraid to put stuff down there because I
don't know what's good, you know, because it's inheaedible fruit. Okay,
So I'm gonna make your life easier today. Don't worry about it. Don't
worry about them. Grubs are not a major pesta percimmons. They prefer to
chew on the roots of grasses. Uh, and that's their favorite thing.
But you are not going to have a fruit tree that goes downhill because our
scrubs in the ground. You're just not really Yeah, you can, you
can sleep sleep well. Well, Um, what I have is bugout Max.
Would that fee that will kill him? That will kill him? It's
got fan go ahead, yes, yes, it's by panthern and um would
harm the fruit? No, No, it's not going to be systemic.
Bugout Max is not going to go up in the plant and therefore be president
in fruit. So you don't have to worry about that. But yeah,
I'll kill grubs you just you need to. We're getting kind of late in
the season, but go ahead and get it done sooner rather than later.
Right, And they're little, they're the little ones that are really hungry,
that's the ones we're after there. They tend to go down deeper by the
time it gets this hot in this light. But yeah, that's you can
take care of them. My new schedules that are coming out are going to
have an insect control schedule and it'll talk about the different times to treat grubs
in the different ways we can go about that. So but yeah, you
can treat them. It just just know that it's not the fact that there's
grubs there. There is of no concern to your fruit tree. Well,
but also we have possums and m armagil ah. Okay, well there's a
whole whole other deal. Yeah, I haven't seen them doing that, but
um, you know it could happen. That's true. Though. They're grubs
are tasty, and I know it's hard to imagine as a human, but
Normadella will cross Interstate forty five taking its chances with the eighteen wheelers to get
to a grub. Well, thanks for your health, Thank thanks for the
call. I appreciate that. Have fun with those percimmons. Well, I
love persimmons. Percimmon bread is one of my favorite, you know, in
the fall. I don't know, they're just it's just something about just the
sticky, gooey It's like you're eating a bag of jelly when you eat a
good rite percimmon. I just love those things. And boy, they're good
in baking types of things too. I used to I lived in Missouri for
a little while in the southern Ozarks, and they had the wall per simmons
out there like we do here, and I would just pick them when they
were just about to, you know, fall off the tree. Just you're
already that they're no longer firm, because boy, you do not want to
eat in a stringent per simmon. You will learn with the word a stringent
means that'll bucker your mouth up. But I'd pick them and just throw them
in a shoe box that I carried around in the pickup seat with me and
in the fall, and you're gonna watch them and you can kind of see
something go pretty far. It's like, oh my gosh, this thing is
just about to turn into just a sack, a loose sack of jelly.
Well, that would be a good per simmon. Also, And when it
freezes, they're going through that cold freeze and then thawing out in cold freeze.
That helps take some of the astringency out of them too. But I
mean, I'm ending up talking per Simmons here, Old David. It's I
love that fruit. It's a good fruit. It's a fruit that I used
to tell people. You know, there are stringent types that you do need
to let it fully fully, fully soft and ripe, and that you want
to enjoy that way. And then there's anna stringent types. You just about
to eat them when they're crunchy and they do okay, you get the idea
well, we've run out of time for today's It's like it's about time to
start the music. There were good, but yeah, I enjoyed percentage.
I like the stringent types over the firm, non astringent types for flavor wise.
But here's what you gotta do. You gotta get in the bathtub and
have your significant other hand you the per semon because when you get through eating
a fully ripe, mushy percimmon, it's going to be dripping off your elbows
and oh it's a wonderful experience. And then you can just turn on the
shower and clean up and you're ready to go. How does that sound like
for like a plan? Well, I don't know if that's scientific advice,
but it's kind of advice we give out here on garden Line. Thanks for
being a listener and thanks for hanging out with us today. We will be
back again next week on Saturday and Sunday six am to ten am. We're
also available by podcasts, so if you've got a higheart media podcast app,
great, got another one. Look for the garden Line and you can catch
up on some own shows as well.