Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's show crazy, just watching as so many peas seep hot zicas,
not a sad credits. Good morning, Good Saturday morning. Glad you're joining
us today for garden Line. One of the early birds, so congratulations on
that. I hope you got a cup of coffee in your hand, if
that is what you like, or a cup of hot tea for those of
you who enjoy hot tea kind of helps open the eyes. I had to
open my eyes this about four o'clock, so I do need a little bit
of coffee here and there to help get me jump started the first thing in
the morning. If you'd like to give us a call this morning, that's
what we're here for. Answer gardening questions seven to one three, two,
one two, five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I have been really busy this past week getting some things done
outside. I've got a lot of stuff going on. Of course I do.
It's spring. You do too, or at least you could, uh
there's early waking up of the lawn that's happening right now. Our grasses or
you know, I always say that our southern grasses, Saint Augustine and Bermuda
grass, there's always your grass. Those are the big three. They are
slow to wake up in the spring, slower than a teenager on a Saturday
morning. So if you've got teens in the house, you'll see signs of
life. What sometime after lunch today you get the idea and our grass is
the same way. We'll talk about that today. What do we do right
now to take care of our grass? How do we keep them happy?
What kinds of things are going on in the vegetable garden. I planted a
bunch of different things. I've got some new tomatoes in there was I got
my original planting in earlier, but a couple of others that I planted a
little late. I started a little late from seed actually under a light indoors,
and so those had to go outside. All the peppers are in out
in the garden, and then I've always got experiments. I think one of
the fun parts of gardening. You know, there's the meat and potato stuff
that's like you got to grow a tomato, maybe you got to grow up
a pepper or a potato or squash or whatever you like to grow. And
then there's the stuff you haven't tried before that you just want to try it.
And there are some really cool things that ninety nine point nine percent of
gardeners around here or any given area haven't tried before, and you ought to
try it. Maybe you'll try it and you don't like it, but maybe
you'll try it and you have a new favorite. And that's why I always
think you need to be experimenting or trying some new things you haven't tried before.
Tomatoes are the queen of the garden. Have you ever grown one upside
down? It's a novel see, but you can do it. It's kind
of fun. Gives a neighbor something to talk about. They talk about you
already don't worry about it. But lawns are the big topic every day on
Guarden Line. That's the one we get the most calls about. And we're
happy to take those calls. If you've got broad leaf weeds, for example,
that are plaguing your lawn, and you know you're just looking at where's
my lawn? All I can see is the broad leaf weeds well wherever the
sunlight hits the soul nature plants of weed. And last summer was tough.
We got some open space in our grass and here comes the cool season weeds,
which is what you're looking at now. Now, if you want to
do an early green up, now's the time to do it. And Nitrobos
has a product that's there, fifteen five ten that also includes a TRIMEC,
which is a broad leaf weed control product. Now, trimes available a lot
of different kinds of forms. Basically what it is a combination of different post
emergent broadleaf weed control products I'll put together in one so you get the broadest
spectrum that you can. So we're talking about all the different cool season weeks
like chickweed and clover and dandelions coming out now or has been out, hind
bit and cleavers or belgrow plant, all those are going to be controlled with
TRIMEC and you need to do it soon. Number one, The early green
up time is now. So this is an immediate release fertilizer. It's nitroposces
again, it's their fifteen five to ten and it includes trimech in it.
When you're shopping color is always helpful to do these kind of things. And
I think that if you will look for the one, the nitroposs product fifteen
five to ten that has the trimech in it, that one is important now
that would be there to call it a teal colored bag. It's a blue
ish, it's not the dark blue, but it's a teal colored bag and
it says wheed feed fifteen five to ten by Nitrofish. It's sold everywhere,
just like night fross is sold everywhere. Where do you get it? Well,
you can get it at Bearings Hardware and this isn't that and on on
West Timer you can get it at Anys plantation yep out there in for those
of you who live in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Very handy for you.
Hiding and feed on Stuber Airline also carries this and other nitro Fass products.
Give you our number again if you'd like to give us a call. It's
always the early birds usually get on pretty quick because you know, when things
heat up then everybody's interested in talking. But if you're awake and alive and
have a question, now be a good time to get a quick quick in
and answer. Love to visit with you seven to one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. I was out at a plant trestas nursery. It was about a
week ago, a little over a week ago, I think, and just
visiting with Sherry about some of the things going on out there and their products.
Boy, they're loaded with tomatoes and it's not too late to plant tomatoes.
You can still get those in. Go ahead and do it. It's
a great time to plant in fact. And their peppers they're over just it's
unbelievable the peppers that they have, herbs and flowers, and well, you've
been to Plants for All Seasons, you know what kind of selection that they
have. I think also you need to know this that the advice you get
there that alone is worth the price of admission is they say, skilled people
that can help you find the right plant, that can help you solve your
plant problem. Take them a sample, take them a picture so they can
say, yep, here's what you need to do. Put it all together.
At Plants for All Seasons and Plants for All Season has been around since
nineteen seventy three, and they truly are a place that a lot of Gardner's
revere. When I was in there, I felt like I was heading downstream
during the spawn of salmon. As you know how they're all jumping up going
the other way. I felt like that's what was going on, because they
they were hopping because people know, when you get there, you're gonna get
good plants, you're gonna get good advice and everything like that. Hey,
Plants for All Seasons dot com. That's our website. If you want to
give them a call, just dial two eight one three seven six sixteen forty
six two eight one three seven six sixteen forty six. And when you're there,
take a look at the pottery. I got some pottery last year from
the folks of Plants for All Seasons, and oh my gosh, you know
it's just beautiful. In fact, I'm several of those pieces this week.
I'm going to be potting up, putting some flowers in because they are so
beautiful. Well, we're running into our first low break here. We will
be back. If you want to give us a call, Josh, we'll
get you on the board. Seven to one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you this morning. We're
going to jump right into the phones, and first thing we're gonna do is
head out to Lake Jackson and talk to John. Hello, John, Hello,
how can we help? I have a percentme tree that for the last
five to six years in the spring it buds out and loads up with percimmons.
And I have put nets over to keep the birds out, try to
keep the squirrels out. But it seems that within six weeks ninety of the
precinemans drop off, and our harvest maybe six down to one a year.
Wow. And I have done everything I can think of. I've pruned it.
Sometimes I put food steaks in the ground. I might have lost what
to do? Okay? Uh? Do you know the variety offhand? No?
I do not. It came with the house I bought back into.
Okay, that's fine. Persimmons are real bad about casting their fruit off,
especially when they set too many, or if they go into a stress early
on when the fruit are young, they'll cast off. It could be a
pollination issue. Some persimmons will set just fine without pollination. Some of them
do better if there's another variety to help. But Once those things have been
on long enough, then they're not going to get cast off, you know.
But early in the process is where you lose them. And the only
thing I know to tell you is just think about the stress thing. I
doubt that's happening every year. But if lack of water, too much water,
I don't know, some sort of a stress is bothering them. Then
the next thing would be just to get you another percymontry. I'd be helpful
to know what variety it is the one you have, but we could give
a good guess at it, and maybe you could get with the cross.
That may help a little bit too, because it'll set some seeds in there
that will help hold the fruit on the plant. Well. Twenty fourteen,
fifteen, twenty sixteen, I have bumper crops, Okay, Yeah, I
mean it did good for the first three years and then it just kind of
been going downhill. And in the last five years it's been really bad.
And like I said, I might have lost what to do. Yeah,
I am true with that last about the spress. And you know they said
that no ferilizer, food, steaks. I tried everything. Yeah, it's
not a lack of nutrient that's doing that. So the only other thing that
I'm thinking about is did a neighbor have a tree that you know was taken
out in the process of what you described. I don't know why for someone
that sets fruit well is now not setting are you? Are you getting plenty
of sunlight on that plant or have trees maybe grown? Okay, we're taking
out all the goods here in terms of an answer. Let me think about
it some more. I'm gonna ponder look into that one a little bit.
I've not run into a tree that set well and then later didn't that we
can't identify a particular stress or problem with. So I'm gonna have to leave
it at that. John and uh, just yeah, I don't have anything
else to think about on this one, but I will look into it because
I don't like to get stumped, and so we'll see what we can find
out. Appreciate it. Thank you for the call. We're gonna now go
to Ron and camp Logan. Hello, Ron, Yeah, good morning,
thanks for taking my call. You bet I lost part of my Saint Augustine
yard in the drought last year and I planted a replanted it. Did the
filling sod put it down came in pretty good. But I'm getting a weed
popping up in that area, so apparently it came with the sod. Okay,
I've got some pictures of it, and I wanted to get permission to
send him into you to have you take a look at him. Okay,
yeah, that would be fine. I'll put you on hold in the bit
and Josh can do that. I think I can just tell you though,
if it is. If you're seeing the weed now and it's a let's say
it's some size, it's not just like a tiny seedling coming up, then
it's a cool season broad leaf weed. It could be a perennial weed like
dykhata. It's not a broad leaf weed. It's it's almost like a fern.
It'll stick up, I mean, just going up three or four inches,
kind of in clumps, if you will, Okay, well, believe
it or not, that's a broad leaf because anything that's not a grass or
a sedge a broad is considered a broad leave, even though the leaves are
not broad like in the case of your fern like weed. There are several
weeds that get that description. If you want to send me a picture,
that's fine, but I would say, have you done your spring early green
up yet. I put out barricade the second week of February, and I
did my green up two weeks go. But these weeds first started showing up
probably two three weeks ago. Okay, it is a cool season weed.
Okay, Well, since you have the fertilizer already down, I would grab
a product. Oh and I makes a post emergent spray product called weed Beater.
There's weed Beater Ultra. The spray is a good one to use now,
and I would spot spray those weeds with it. Be careful to use
the right rate and shut them down right now. And yeah, I tried.
I did that with the weed free zone. I've had good luck with
that on different weeds, and the weed free zone didn't seem to impact it.
All right, Well, send me a picture. Let me see the
lawn from a little bit further back, and then get as close as you
can get to that weed. Make sure it's in sharp focus, and send
that to me. I'm gonna put you on hold and we will take it
from there, all right. Uh. You know, the the last week
or week before I was visiting with Tys fix my slab foundation repair and just
picking his brain. And that guy he listen, he's been doing this for
twenty three years here in the Greater Houston area, and he knows. He
understands why foundations crack, how the movement occurs, and most importantly, how
to fix it. Uh, there is a process to doing it right,
and Ty does it right. In fact, the three things that I would
say to remember is he's number One's going to show up on time, he's
going to give you a fair price, and he's going to fix it right.
And you can go to his website fix myslab dot com, fix myslab
dot com, or you can call him two eight one two FI five forty
nine forty nine. Now, if you've got issues with the driveway that's cracking
and you know, slanting up like it's turning into a mountain range, either
way, I can get in there and he can float that thing up and
get it in the right spot, have it level again, and save you
all the money of pouring a new driveway. So you need to get a
hold of him fix my slab dot com. Don't wait. If you got
cracks in the sheet rock, cracks in the brick, if a doors are
sticking, don't wait. Just not going to get better, and it can
get a lot worse. So give them a call. I want to head
now out to Montgomery and we're going to talk to Albert. Hello, Albert,
Hello, Skip, How you doing this morning? I hope you're doing
well. I'm doing great. Uh. I got a bunch of trees on
my I got an acre and basically two types of trees, schuemar red oak
and a nutall oak and uh okay, I read trees. They're all about
six eight feet tall. And the schuemar red are really blooming, leaves are
coming out looking great. And the nutalls I have nothing, no blooms.
I'm am I just too worried here or impatient or so. There's there's no
buds pushing out. Is there leaves coming out on it? No? And
they're still alive, you know. I scrape them and they're green, but
there's buds. Come give it a little more time. There's different reasons that
could be a little bit more of a sleepy head. I've never noticed a
difference between nuttall and other red oaks in terms of how early they leave out.
But would I would give it some more time if it still has green
branches on it. I think it's gonna be Okay. There's always a possibility
that that's not the case, and there are a number of things that could
have caused the demise of that tree, but I think just give it a
little more time if you still see the signs of life underneath the bark.
Okay, all right, Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that.
I appreciate that very much, Albert. Whenever you're doing spring planting, and
I am doing spring planting, I'm just saying, this week I'm going to
be planting up some flower pots with some color plants. I've got a lot
of bedwork to do. I'm revamping a bed and then gonna I've got a
rose, I'm gonna dig up, move it aside on a tarp, get
that bed revamped, and put it right back in immediately. And yes,
you can still do that. And when I do has to grow six twelve
six is what I'm going to pour on the plant root system when I plant
them, I do it right after planting. Drench the root system because you
want to water them in after planting. Anyway, we'll just water them in
with has to grow six twelve six. Water it tells you on the label
how much to mix put in a watering can drench it over five days later
or a week later, do it again five days later, a week after
that, do it again, and those three applications will help that plant get
a root system established. It's got all the things that the plant roots need
to thrive. So just add water as they say, has to grow six
twelve six. Widely available like all the Medina products are. Let's head out
now to Jim in clearly pay Jim, good morning. Skip. Have a
little bit of a long problem that I brought on myself back in twenty two
when I overfertilized and got some brown patch out of it. Okay, had
the long hot summer and killed off a good bit of the remaining glass.
I've got a lot of bears patches under an oak tree that I keep well
trimmed, but I'm still on the schedule. I did a very light brown
patch fertilization at the very beginning of February, very light though. I've got
about two thousand, five hundred square feet and i used probably about ten pounds
of the brown patch. And I've since put on some barrier, and just
yesterday I put down some as M. But I'm wondering if I'm able at
this point to do the green up. Oh you can, yeah, you
can. Now you haven't in some of the products you were naming. I
didn't hear was there a fertilizer in there? Since January first? Have you
put any down? Yeah? The nective foss beer that was the only thing.
Well, the barricade, though, that is a that is a pre
emergent. I meant. I meant to say brown Patch, Mike Frost,
brown Patch and the brown bag that should have been well, you should you
should have that should have been applying a something to control the diseases. I'm
just here. Here's the thing. The brown bag nitrophas is a false special
fertilizer, and so I'm going to assume you haven't put an actual immediate release
nutrient down yet. So I would go ahead with the Imperial lawn fertilizer that's
a fifteen five ten and nitrophos. Imperials designed to be a quick release,
which is in the spring. That's what we want. Things are a little
cool relative to summer, and the fertilizers that are slow release are going to
be real sleepy heads right now. So you would use a quick release right
now and night. Foss Imperial is their red bag, and that is the
one that I would use. Follow the label carefully. You're going to use
seven pounds per thousand square feet. That's the right amount, seven pounds per
thousand square feet. Okay, And then I did do the three step last
fall. Should I repeat the eagle at this point? You could? If
you've already got the big brown circles. It's a little late to do much.
When is things warm up, those spots are going to green up again.
So I think at this point in the season, if you're already seeing
the circles, I wouldn't do the eagle at this point. It would have
been helpful earlier as more of a preventative. I don't have any of the
brown circles at the time. All right, okay, I think you're good.
Hey, Jim, I got to run for a break here, but
thank you very much for the call, and good luck with all that you're
doing out there in the lawn. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to guard Line. Appreciate listening
today. You know the weather is slowly warming up now We've got two cool,
crisp nights coming up here. We've got two of them, and then
it's going back up again. And you know, each time that we move
another day, another week is certainly another month forward. We are just getting
warmer and warmer, and our plants are going to continue. Right now,
they're growing at a pretty good rate. It's going to pick up a little
bit with the slight warming of the temperatures. And when I think about beautiful
color in late spring or even early spring, really the bougainvillia is just a
gorgeous plant. Don't you agree with me? I mean, isn't aren't bougain
villa is just stunning. And when the weather heats up, they're happy with
that. I mean they live in climates where it is blazing hot, where
the humidity is hot, you know, high. It's just amazing. And
RCW has got boogain villas like you would not believe. They have tree forms
we call those standards in the boogam villa that's been trained to have a single
trunk coming up and then it has this big round top full of blooms,
full of colors. That boogam villa isn't hanging baskets. I mean, there's
just a wide variety out there. And you know the colors of bougainvilla,
I mean they are stunning, so many good options now, RCW. Of
course they're gonna have roses. They specialize in a bazillion kinds of roses.
They're gonna have trees, all the ones you want to plant. Now is
the time to get any woody ornamental planted. Every day before summer you get
it done is another day that plant has to get settled and get some roots
down so summer watering is easier on you. The website RCW nurses dot com.
If you haven't been there, it's where two forty nine comes at about
way eight and that it just makes it really easy to get to and when
you go, you are going to come home with color, a lot of
beautiful, beautiful color. Uh. This week I said I was some outdoor
things this week. Another thing I'm having to do this week is take care
of some indoor plants. I've got a whole bunch of houseplants that have outgrown
their container. And it's not that there's some sized plant where I have to
bump it up, but when every time I turn around I'm looking and I
need to water it again because the schedule I use for my other plants that
are inadequate sized containers isn't enough. That plant needs to boom up to a
bigger pot holds more soil, holds more water, skip doesn't have to water
it as much. That's kind of how that works. And when I bump
them up, I want to tell you there is a quality product's distributed by
Nitropuss called jungle Land. Jungle Land has an outdoor one and then I'm going
to be using an indoor one that has water crystals in it. These are
little crystals that soak up many times their weight in water. So if that
pot gets a little dry, the roots are going to have encountered the crystals
and they'll be able to absorb moisture out of those crystals, so that if
I forget the water, it's a little more forgiven. And that's from jungle
Land, and jungle Land, you know, can be found everywhere because it's
distributed by Nitrofoss. So where you get it, well, how about enchanted
forest out there in Richmond Rosenberg. How about growers outlet way up in Willis
Yep. They have it as well, in RCW Nursery, you're just talking
about them. They're going to have the nitropuss products as well. I'm going
to head to the phones now. We're going to start off by going to
Champions Forest and talking to Barbara. Hello, Barbara, Hello, Skip,
It's nice to talk with you. I have identified a weed that I've got.
It's called poeanna and it's taken over quite a bit of a dead section
of the yard and I'd like to know if we Beater Ultra will take care
of it. Weed Beater Ultra is not going to take care of the poanna
that's there now. It is setting seed and it is soon going to be
turning brown and eyeing out and all those seeds are waiting. They put it
on their calendar in October to start sprouting in your yard, and that's when
you want to use a pre emergent herbicide product at that point in time.
Okay, all right, Well, I'm trying to pull up what I can,
but there's some sections that are extremely large, and that's what I thought.
If I could spray something on there, and I know about the seeds
and that's what I'm concerned about, Well, we'd Beater Alta is a bonaide
product. It's a spray on product and it's good for broad leaf weeds.
That the cool season weeds that you're looking at, Yes, but that not
the grassy you need to prevent that. Now the night you mentioned I think
you mentioned nitrophiles. Nitrophiles has something called barricade, and that's what you're going
to want to use in October. But if you go online to my schedule,
have you seen it yet online? Yes? I have. Okay,
Well there's two of them. On's just how to mow, water fertilize your
lawn. The other one is all the problems of the lawn, how to
deal with it, and on there I have exactly when you need to apply
it and what you need to apply. All right, That's what I needed
to know, so I'll be sure to do it all righty Will. That's
a great day, you too, Thank you. I appreciate your call very
much. Yeah, that getting ahead of those weeds is really really important because
it's easier to prevent a weed than it is to kill it once it's up
and growing. Okay, that is just it's just a fact. So when
we can prevent them, we want to do that. And the first way
we prevent them is making a dense, healthy lawn. That is very important,
a dense, healthy lawn, and that's done by proper mow, water
and fertilized. That's why I put that schedule out. You follow that schedule
and you will create density that chokes out a lot of your weed problems that
come from seed. And why not reduce it as much as you can,
and then if something escapes, we know how to go in and control those
things as well. If you haven't been up to ana plants in a while,
you need to go. It is a load of color right now.
I mean they got marigals in, they got palladiums in for those shady areas,
and there's all kinds of other plants. And A and A Plants always
has a good supply there on the east side of Montgomery on one oh five.
Those of you in the neighborhoods around like Conroe there in your backyard,
by the way, their crews also do some early work in your landscapes.
If you need to get in get some cleanup and bed of beds and things,
go give A and A a call. The number is nine three six
five ninety seven. Fifty seventy and you can also get them online by going
to Montgomery Nursery dot com. I'm gonna see here. Let's go ahead and
we're going to go to Pearland and talk to Don. Hello, Don,
I got a couple of minutes. But let's see if we can solve it.
Yes, how you doing? I've got to put down the green up?
And in some section on my laune is the lead. I mean,
the grass is yellow and I would just wonder if I was to spray those
area with the salt activated, would that help it? Well? It could?
It could. In the spring, we often have yellowing due to iron
deficiency, and as the soil is cooler, and when we get when it
stays a little wet, we get some good rains and stuff, the grass
will often show a yellowing that it then grows out of. I want you
to go out and I want you to pick one of your blades of grass.
Is this Saint Augustine done? Yes? It is. Pick a blade
of grass that's looking yellow and hold it up to the sky and look at
it up close. And if you see streaks vertical lines of yellow and green
alternating across the blade, that's iron deficiency, so you can put on iron
supplements. Medina product you're talking about is going to enhance microbial activity, which
helps turn the iron that's available on organic matter into forms that the plant can
use. And you can see benefit from that as well. It's not adding
iron, it's it's helping make the soil more active to release the iron in
this case, specifically the iron that your plants need. So those are two
ways to go about it. A lot of times, if it's not too
bad, if you wait a while, it's going to get better. But
if you want to just hit the ground run and keep that grass looking good,
you need to do those supplements. Okay, Dann, thank you,
that's what I need to know. All right, don thank you. I
appreciate your call. We're going to take a break here for another news break
and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I want to come back. We're going to go straight to Brian and James.
Welcome back to Garden Line. Good to have you with us today.
Enjoy talking about gardening and enjoy helping people have more success with their plants.
That's what we're here for. You know, a number of years ago.
I lived up in Willis and shout out to those listeners up in Willis,
and I had bees in the backyard. I had I had a couple of
hives and really just enjoyed the fascinating world of bees. Plus you get honey.
If you have a garden you need pollination done, why not have a
beehive in the backyard and you get the honey. And that is to learn
how to do that is very important, and the Bee Supply will help you
do exactly that. In fact, they've got classes, they're beginning bee keeping
classes. They're underway. March ninth is the next class, which is today,
So I'm not going to say next. It's going on today. March
twenty third comes after that April thirteenth, and they have three more through the
spring season where you can go in. You can get a number of hours
of training, A lunch is involved in it, and you even get to
go out and see do some handling of the beehives themselves. Suit up and
go out there and do that. Thebsupply dot Com that's a company, thebesupply
dot Com out in Dayton. For those of you who aren't interested in bees,
you just need to go and look at the observation hive and maybe take
one of their honey tours where they give you a lot of different samples of
honey to try and you just learn about how it all works, and that
I'm telling you, I promise you you'll be fascinated. It's incredibly educational,
it's incredibly entertaining, and I just was blown away by the knowledge of the
folks out at VB Supply in Dayton. Let's go now to Chapel Hill and
we're going to talk to Brian. Hello, Brian, Good morning, Skip.
I've got a question for you, and what I want to do is
plant some native grass. I've got about two and a half acres and oh
probably a third of it is long around the house, whereas is pretty much
pasture, well not that it's weeds. And so I want to plant some
native grass and get that to grow and mow it a couple of times a
year. But I'm not sure how to go about it. I don't know
if I need to till it up or disc that area up, or can
do is broadcast it out and will it take hold well? Getting it to
take hold with a real thick stand of not just the grasses, but all
the dead material on top of the ground, it's hard to get the seeds
down there to the soil with sunlight. If you could, if you could
mow down the any height of weeds and grass and then do a light tilling
now and then throw the sieds down, that's what I would do. Do
you already have a seed mix that you're planning? No? I don't.
He's been kind of looking around. Yeah, are you wanting Are you wanting
a pasture look or do you want something a little a little more managed,
a little bit lower rate or lower height. I'm sorry, Well that's where
we get into a confert with my wife. I like more of a pasture.
Okay, well, I'll let y'all work that out. There is something
called the South Southeast Texas Native Seed Mix, and you ought to consider that
one. Now you're actually up in Chapel Hill, So another thing you could
do is call the Native American Seed. They're out in Junction, Texas,
and they have blends for every region of the state and they will take time.
You can go on their website too and learn about it. Native text,
Native American Seed, Native American sled in Junction, Texas and I'm just
going to send you to them where you're going to learn a whole lot more.
And also if you choose to buy some seed. Hey, Brian,
thank you, I need to run another call here. Appreciate that very much.
For those of you in the tom Ball area, your hometown feed stores
D and D, they're on the west side as you head twenty nine to
twenty west, they're right out there where they're loaded up with plants right now.
And at D and D you're going to find the fertilizers I talk about
here on garden Line. They've got the microlife, they've got the nitropos for
example. They just have the whole nine yards everything you need, including composts
like airloom SEL's compost and the veggie and herbex from Marylom soils. So there's
always something happening. And in the spring they get their baby chicks in.
For those of you who want to try the backyard chickens, you just need
to go there. Just go to D and Defeat two eight one three five
one seventy one forty four to eight one three five one seventy one forty four.
I think you will be very impressed with the place with the selection that
they have, and it's just I always enjoy going by and visiting with Jeff
and the folks at d and Defeat. I want to go out now to
West Chase and we're going to talk to James. Hello, James, Hello,
Skip. I'm using Southwest Fertilizer fifteen five ten fast release and slow release.
For somehow I mixed up the bags and I put out the slowly release
first instead of putting a fast out. Okay, so how long before I
need to let the other one sit before the before I can put the fast
release back on. Yeah, no, I would. I would just hold
off. You're okay, you're okay for now. If you wanted to put
just a little bit a very light application of fast release, you could do
that. I don't know how heavy you did the slow release. No,
no, no, it was a regular uh covering five five thousand score feet.
Okay, it's already down, all right, Okay, So now maya
is well, when can I put the slow lease? I would give it
a couple of months and see how it's looking. Certainly within three months that
you could use the fast release in the summer. What you're going to do
is split it and do a half rate, and then about four weeks later,
do another half rate. So you're you're creating a slow release by splitting
up a fast release into more more than one application. Uh, that's a
question. You also may just want to Bob at Southwest and ask him what
is what does he expect the release time on his slow release to be?
So he could he could tell you that better because he off the top of
my head, I can't remember what kind of forms of nitrogen does it have
in it? Oh? It's five? Right, Okay, Well I would
encourage you to do that. I think that pretty well. Don't worry about
too much anyway you go, you're gonna be okay, but you'll get some
benefit. Well, I just wondered, so please explain to me one more
time. What when to release it? I mean put the fast release.
Well, no fast release already on there. That's okay. You've got me
turned around. Now if you put the fast release down, then so you
put the slow release down slowly sound first. Okay. So what I'd do
is I'd wait two months and then I would put the fast release down.
I'd split the application in two. So you were going to put seven pounds
per thousand square feet for a full application, I would put about three pounds
per thousand square feet or three and a half if you can get it down
that low, and then wait about a month to put the other three and
a half on it, and you'll give a gradual release. Hey, I
got a run, but I do, thank you, and good luck with
that. But do call Bob there. He can help you with that.
It is hummingbird season. You got to get out there and get those hummingbirds
taken care of. They have the ruby throat. They come here for a
while, rest up because they just had to cross the gulf to get here.
So you want to get your feeders out right now. It's also nesting
season, so do you have your boxes cleaned up and ready for them for
birds to nest? In? Pick up the Nesting super Blend at Wildbirds Unlimited.
Wild Birds Unlimited. It's easy to find one. Just go to wb
U dot com, WBU dot forward slash Houston and you'll find the locations of
all the wild birds around here and the nesting Superblind. Write that down Nesting
Superblin. It's loaded with proteins and oils and the carbs that they need.
For when they're raising new sets of young very very important to do, and
boy is it ever an important time to get out there and start feeding,
taking care of those songbirds. Make sure they got water too. By the
way, I'm going to be out of take Anti Rosenporium today after the show.
I'm making a bee line up there. I'll be there at noon now
ANTIQ Rosenporium. By the way, the website's antiqu rosenporium dot com. They
aren't just roses, they are roses on boy do they ever have a selection
of the old roses. And they're even developing roses of their own. They're
actively pursuing that right now. But today is the spring celebration and tomorrow I'll
be there today from twelve to two. First, I'm going to do a
talk on beneficial insects. I hope you'll come and listen to that. It's
actually going to be with pictures and slides and I even have a little bit
of video and stuff. It's pretty cool. You'll like it. You'll learn
all about what are the beneficials that you already have, and how do you
take care of them and why are they so important? And then I'll be
at a table, and I'm gonna be given away some big old jars of
Microlafe fertilizer. So probably about ever fifteen minutes given a jar away. I've
got some little samples to there, bring me some pictures, bring me some
plants and ziplock bags that have issues or that you want identify it and we'll
talk about that. And I'm want to tell you something. Forget the fact
that I'm talking. Just going to Antique Rosing Forium is a wonderful thing to
do this afternoon. I hope you'll come out. I look forward to seeing
you, all of you up there in the Brian College Station area, the
Navisota area, all the region Brenham and all that whole region around antiq Rosing
for him. You got to come out and see the place. If you
only give them a call nine seventy nine, eight three six fifty five forty
eight, but just come out, come out and see for yourself. Let's
meet. I'd like to meet the people who listen to garden Line. Look
forward to seeing you. Hope you can make it. Katie R. H.
Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's
crazy gas a trim. Just watch him as gods many spotzy gasms come.
Welcome to garden Line. Got to have you back. We are talking about
all things gardening, and I tell you, if you are not a gardener
in the spring, I don't know what to say. I mean, they
be a gardener the spring. How about that? For folks that have never
tried gardening before, who have tried and felt like you failed, that's why
we're here to help. And you do not have to fail at gardening.
In fact, I would say, you don't fail a gardening, you just
give up. Don't don't give up because it's always a new start. It's
just information, Like they say, just add water, Just add water to
plants. Just add information to the gardener. That's what turns the brown thumb
green. Is good information. Planning the right varieties. What are they planning
them correctly? How do you do that using nutrients and water wisely and in
the right way. We can talk to you about that, making sure you
have mulches. You know, there's a lot of aspects of gardening. There's
just a little bit of information turns the brown thumb green, and we're going
to try to turn your brown thumb green today. By the way, one
good way to turn your brown thum green is to go out to Warren Southern
Gardens. They have an excellent supply, excellent supply plants. It is spring,
and it is definitely spring out at Warren Southern Gardens. The excuse me.
The place just looks like a showplace with so much beautiful color, just
gorgeous, gorgeous colors. All kinds of plants that you would want they're going
to happen there. They specialize in that they've got your heirloom soils, for
example, to give you top quality mixes to grow your plants in. They've
got a nice selection of some of the spring flowering trees, of the shrubs
that you would want a plant. It's just the place to go. I'll
just make it real simple. It's just the place to go. Out there
in Kingwood. You've got warrants and you've got Kingwood Garden Center as well,
and both of them are places you want to be at. They're both open
seven days a week, so that makes it also very very convenient. I
hope you go as them. If you don't even live out in the Kingwood
area. You need to go see Warren. Southern Guards is just outstanding.
We're gonna go now to a task Asida and talk to Sandy. Hello,
Sandy, good morning. One quick question for you. I used Nitrofoss triple
thirteen on my yard and I've been trying to get it at ACE and they
keep telling me that their supplier, the warehouse, is out. Okay.
Is there another store or garden center that I can find this at? Well?
Probably? Uh, Sandy, I want to talk you out of using
triple thirteen. Okay, the grass. If you chopped your grass blades off
and sent them to the lab and said what's in it, they're going to
tell you there's a three one two or a four to one two ratio of
nutrients. Triple thirteen is a one one one. You get a lot of
extra phosphorus that you don't need, and so I would switch over Nitrofus.
They have their Imperial, which is a spring greenoup product. It works very
very well. When we get into the warmer season, we'll start using their
Superturf and that's kind of a let's say a four to one two ratio,
which is good. Lots of nitrogen in there. It's a slow release.
So right now you want to look for the nitrofus red bag that is the
Imperial, and you want to look later for the silver bag. As we
get a little further in. If you go online to my website Gardening with
Skip, that's me Gardening with Skip dot com, there is a lawn care
chart from January to December. What do you do? And it guides you
in all of this stuff. It'll answer questions you didn't even know you had.
Okay, so you recommend nitrofos in imperial, now, yes, I
would do the Imperial as the early green up, and then later you're going
to go to the superturf. That's a silver bag. But we'll that's on
my stone. I would probably start that about if you do if you do
the greenup now, I would probably say mid April, I would go ahead
and start with a slow release. You could wait till late April, since
you're getting a little bit later start on the green up. But either way
is fine. Yeah, okay, okay, I appreciate it very much.
All Right, Sandy, thank you. I hope that helps. Let's see,
I wanted to I wanted to go out. Let's do this. I'm
going to hold off just a second. On a call we were talking about,
you know, where to find things and where to find products and whatnot.
Southwest Fertilizer for those of you anywhere on the southwest region of town,
even outside of town. I know people that drive from pretty far away away,
like even north of Houston to come down to Southwest Fertilizer because when you
go there, they're to have everything that you need. Everything that you need,
and I mean that every fertilizer I talk about, and or every time
we answer a question on how to kill a bug, how to kill a
how to control a disease, how to kill a weed. They have all
of that and more, and they have knowledgeable staff. So pull up a
weed from your yard, are two or three, put them in a bag,
go see Bob and his team at Southwest. Bob and Aaron and the
whole team there. They know what they're talking about and they will take you
right to the product and tell you how to use it. And that is
very important if you're an organic gardener. They have all of the above fertilizers
and pest control in an organic form. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. I'm telling
you, if they don't have it, you don't need it, and that
I'm serious about that. That is a fact. Let's go up to Cleveland
now and we're going to talk to Sonny. Hello, Sonny, Yes,
good morning. How are you doing Goodil is a particular show. I got
a question for you. I bought some roses off a couple of stores and
they left them in the you know those pots that comes with it, and
already producing flower buds and everything else, and I wanted to plant them in
the ground. Do you really recommend a rosset soil or can I just buy
a regular soil and put some rose fertilizer. Well, you would want to
use a fertilizer, but you would also want to make sure and get a
good roast soil to plant. And you are just a stone's throw away from
Airline Soils, which is up in the Porter, Texas area. Uh,
and they bag soil uh and sell it all over the region. And so
you're you're not going to have any trouble finding a quality rose soil from from
the Porter Texas. Yeah, they're they're down in Porter, but they they
sell in a wide variety of areas. I don't know a supplier in Cleveland,
but I do know as you drive down the interstate, you're going to
come to Porter and you're going to have a couple of locations there where you
can find, uh, the the rose soil. All right, thank you,
right, you take care? All right, thank you, Sonny.
I appreciate appreciate your call. You know, the airloom soils. It's they
just have so many things. If you need, I mean, what do
you need? Let me just put it that way, what do you need?
Do you need leaf mole compost in bulk? They've got it. In
fact, they just picked up a new site where you can buy bulk leaf
mole compost from heirloom soil. It's up in the Tombol area. It's it's
called Beyond Paradise Nursery on huff Smith Corville. So if you're in Tomball,
just go about a mile or two northeast and you're there and they got the
bulk of it, so you can get quality leaf moll compost. That's the
one we use for for top dressing our lawns. That's the one you can
put on your garden as a malt. That's the one you can put in
the soil and mix it in Airloom soils has all those quality products, and
the stuff is made out there in the Porter, Texas area, but it's
sold by bag in a wide variety a multitude of places all over town.
I'm gonna have to take a break right here, and when I come back,
Carolyn, you'll be the first up. Our number is seven one,
three, two, two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to guard Line.
Thank you for listening today. We're as grateful when you listen to guard
Line because it gives an opportunity to reach more people. And my goal is
how can we make Houston even more of a gardening paradise. We already have
so dead got many wonderful nurseries that I say any major city in America ought
to be jealous because you go north, south, east, west, central
and Houston and you've got a destination nursery. I mean, you really do,
and that's amazing. We live down south where it gets really hot and
where it can be muggy, and where our souls can be like a clay,
uh and on and on yep, and that's that's the way it is
here. But we can grow a lot of stuff. There are plants that
like the conditions we have, and there are ways to help plants get through
the conditions we have. And so there is no reason why your yard shouldn't
be green and beautiful, while your flower beds are full of color, while
your home just pop. While there's no reason why your home shouldn't just pop
when people drive by and see it. And then the backyard, the herbs,
the flowers, the vegetables, all those kinds of things as well,
you can have that right here now if you are doing any kind of a
transplanting and I'm gonna be I was talking about having to pot up some house
plants and also pot up some plants that are going to go outside for color.
The folks at Nelson Fertilizer have a product called nutri Star Genesis. Now
it's a six one three fertilizer. It's got beneficial bacteria, the endo and
ectomycorrhizal kind of fungi that really helped the roots take up nutrients. It's got
humates to help with the soil. It's just it enhances a biology the soil.
And it's got that six one three. It's a good ratio for early
growth six to one three nutri Star Genesis Transplant Mix. So how do you
use it? Well, you take your plant that you're going to transplant,
You go to your container and the soil you're going to use and the container.
You just mix the nutri Star Genesis into it and then set your plant
in and it hits the ground running. I did it with some vegetables this
spring. Amazing, amazing results. You could put it in the soil and
mix it in with the soil as well around a plant that you're putting in.
But I'm telling you, anytime you are going to be using potting soil
to grow things, throw a little Nutristar Genesis Transplant Mix six one three in
there and you'll see what I'm talking about. It is excellent, excellent in
the plant response. I want to go out to Southwest Houston and talk to
Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning. I've gotten my feese in from
Baker Creek and on the bush beans, they recommend six session planting. I've
already done the overnight soaking. Then well those seeds that have been soaked keep
for another couple of weeks so that I could plant half of them now and
half. Then No, when you do the soaking. What happens is it
initiates the germination response. Biochemicals inside the seed start to move around and and
here it goes. And once that starts, that seedling cannot dry out again.
And you can't just leave it in water. So you got to plant
what you got or find some of the restorm. Okay, okay, Oh,
and you suggested being being trying something new. Yes, so I'm planting
tree okra. Okay, Oh is that from Baker creeting? Is that from
Baker cree correct? All right, well it's going to get big and that
that Okra. I want to tell you this, Carolyn, is going to
be a little slower to come into. It takes a little longer than some
of our other varieties. But if you want something fun new novel, we'll
give it a try to reocra. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a
type from Africa that they sell. All right, well, good for you,
good for you. Try something new. Yeah, that is that's one
of the fun parts of gardening. Hey, when we think spring and lawns,
we think about getting them fertilized. Right, Well, I won't tell
you what else you need to think about. You need to think about your
micronutrient applications. Now, you can do this anytime of the year. As
amias product I'm talking about. You can put it on now, you can
put it on in summer. You can put it on January if you want.
Because what it's going to do, it's gonna move down to the soil
where the roots are and it's going to provide that tiny bit of essential trace
minerals. All plants need around twenty different nutrient elements, and how many numbers
are in a fertilizer bag typically three, So what about the other seventeen?
You want to make sure the plant that there's plenty for the plants there,
and that's what asmite does. You can go to ASMIT Texas dot com to
find out more about it. The only thing I want you to remember,
or the last thing I want you to remember about it is don't put it
in the same hopper as your fertilizer or the same hopper as your like barricade,
primergent or something like that. You want to put it in separately in
an application. You can do it the same day, immediately after, immediately
before, but just put it in its own application so that when you do
the setting. You get the right amount out because it doesn't take much.
A forty four pound bag will cover six to twelve thousand square feet. It's
trace minerals, but it's essential minerals. Let's go to Marcy in northwest Houston.
Now, hello, Marcy, Hi, did good morning? I have
a potion. I bought the tenacity and the hervis Do I put that only
on on a club clover weed or I can use it for any other weed
on my grass? Tell me again what the herbicide is? It is?
Uh? One is tenacity tensity? Okay, tenacity and the herb herbicide is
I don't know really the name of I know, I just you just put
it together with the blue ink and you can spray, you know, the
weeds. Okay. Uh. Well, I don't know how you got a
hold of that one, but you don't have to tell me on the airth
But that is a that is a typically a commercial herbicide application. Yeah.
Yeah, and so uh, let's see, you're gonna let me think about
this, man. It's basically going to control your your broad leaf weeds pretty
effectively. Yeah, and so you would want to do that, I would
do it. I would do it right away, because the weeds you have
now are cool season broad leaves. Later in the summer we'll have warm season
broad leaves that are big enough to see and deal with water. Water you
okay, I spray them weddy, Yeah, all right? Well what what
what? You sprayed? The tenacity? Uh huh? Okay, all right,
well there there you go. You should be But I can use it
in in other weeds. There are winter weeds. Yes, what you see
now is winter weeds are blooming and setting seed right now. The summer weeds
you don't see them, but they're germinating right now. They are germinating.
And then when they get big enough that that you would be able to spray
something on them, or you could just use a pre emergent herbicide to prevent
them from growing and establishing in the first place. And that okay, okay,
go ahead. Let me ask you this that the flower they're coming down
from the oak tree, can I leave it on the ground and needs a
quick soil? I have to pick it up? No, don't pick it
up, Nobody. God does not pick up the oak catkins in the forest.
It's nature, right. It just falls to the ground and it makes
the sol Richer. Don't worry about it at all. They're a little bit
of an annoyance on your sidewalks and stuff. But no, no problem using
Marcy. I hope that helps. Thank you very much. I appreciate you
very much. Appreciate your call. Yeah, we're talking about killing weeds that
are already existing. Nitropus has a fifteen to five ton which is a fast
release product. Now is the time to put it on, but also has
trimec in it, and the trimeach gets on the weeds that are broad leaf
and it kills broad leaf weeds that are growing in your lawn. And that's
the cool season weeds. Water the lawn slightly, just enough to wet the
leaves and then put the product, the Nitropuss with the trimec out on.
The particles will stick to the weeds, they'll move into the weeds and that
will kill them. It's a teal colored bag, so a teal color bag.
It's a nitrofoss product. And then after a day or two, after
you've done that, go ahead and water the lawn with about a half inch
of water to move the fertilizer and the product it's up on down into the
soil surface. Okay, that will work really well for you. Where do
you get nitropos? Well, where do you live? You get night FROs
anywhere you live, for example, plants for all seasons up on two forty
nine they carry nitropos. Plants and things up in Brenham they carry nitro fross.
All spaws, nursery down in the woodlands yep, or actually it's up
in the woodlands, I should say. Oh, Karkandol Road they carry nitrofoss
as well. We're going to go now to Cyprus and talk to Rick.
Hello, Rick, Hey, good morning, so chacking my call. I
talked with you several weeks ago, a couple of months ago at UH at
Town Lake and showed you my my garden that I was gonna build. Well,
I built it and I planted it last week. I have herbs in
it and uh like rosemary and basil from arugula, peppers, tomatoes, onions
and hives and and everything's looking really good. I've planted them all from small,
small plants, and and so far since last Sunday, everything's still there
and it all looks great and they look perky, and they're going up.
But I don't know is how much to water them? Okay, there,
my house space is kind of north south. They're in the south part of
my backyard, and uh, they're in the sun most of the time.
There's a tree behind my sins that gives them a little bit of shade there
in some parts of the day. But I don't want to over water.
But but I'm not sure how much and how often too water? All right,
well, it's it's in a raised bed. So I don't like answering
questions with put this much of water on this often because there's so many variables.
Go out and feel the soil, whatever season you're in, whatever you're
watering, and feel the soil about four inches deep, and is it moist
or not? You want it to stay moist, and so you would water
as much as that takes. So that'll be a lot more a lot more
often in the summer than winter. It'll be more often in a sandy soil
or a very chunky organic bed mix than in a clay soil. So see,
there's a lot of variations. And so if I told you, well,
put a half inch a week on in those beds, I just don't
know that. But I would say this time of year. Probably a moderate
watering once a week would be enough in the absence of rainfall. Gotcha,
and I use that. I use the soil from plants for all seasons.
Okay, I told them when I was going to plant, and that's what
they gave me. Now here's my other question. Ok I gotta do it
real quick, Okay, real quick. They didn't have onion plants, but
they had these dried They looked like green onions, but they were really yellow
onions, and they came in a big bundle. And I really didn't know
what to do with those, so I just planted them a little ways down.
Was I supposed to soak those in water? No? No, you
don't have to. You could, but you don't have to. No,
they're good. Only question, just just this. As they begin, keep
them moist. They have a very shallow root system, so keep them moist
and then fertilize them in small amounts regularly. You at this point you need
to get those growing as fast as you can. You're going to have smaller
onions this year with the late planting, but you will have onions, and
small onions taste just as good as big ones. Hey, thanks a lot,
Rick, I appreciate that. Good luck with that garden. Sounds like
you're well on your way. Have you been out to Nelson Water Garden out
in Katie. I'm telling you it is a showplace. This is another Destiny
Nation garden. Just think of it as the West Houston's destination garden. Nelson
Watergardens is a garden center, so you can get all kinds of plants there.
But what are they specialized in water gardens? We're talking about ponds,
We're talking about waterfalls. We're talking about something they invented, the disappearing container
fountain, big beautiful glazed urns with water running over the sides and down into
gravel where it recirculates. Yep, they have those, and I can try
to describe them on the air, but it won't do justice. Go to
the website Nelsonwatergarden dot com and go there by the way. They welcome people
to come in and just enjoy walking through it. You will be inspired.
Time to take a break for Nicky in the news our phone number seven,
one, three, two and two KTRH. Welcome back to garden Line.
Good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
And what are we doing we're entering gardening questions. We're hoping you have a
more beautiful landscape, a more bountiful garden. And that's just important. And
you know, one of the parts of that is being able to get the
supplies you need to do that. You're going to need fertilizers, you're going
to need to control pests, diseases and wheats. You are going to need
mulches for the top of the soil. You're gonna need all the tools like
hoe hose, a garden hose, and on and on and all those and
where can you go for a one stop shop that's near you, Well,
Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware has forty stores in the Greater Houston area and there's
one near you. Ace Hardware carries all the fertilizers that I talk about.
You're going to find your mulches there, your bedmo type things. You're going
to find everything that you need and staff that is friendly and helpful to get
it in your hands so you can go home and have good success. Is
a time for new wheelbarrow, you see what I'm talking about. They're going
to have it all plus a lot, lot or you can get pretty much
anything you need for your home, for your outdoor areas, and certainly for
your gardens at a hardware acehardware dot Com. Go to that. Go to
Acehardware dot Com find the store locator and you'll get a map with a lot
of red dots on it and you can find the ones and that's more than
one, that's right nearest you. I'm going to go out to Tomball,
Texas, and we're going to talk to Rick. Hello. Rick, I'm
well, sir, how can we help today? I'm making a raised bed
and I'll go A couple of weeks ago, maybe you talked about this place
to get this soul that's been pre mixed and it's really great stuff that live
in Tomball and I do not remember the name of them, and our ward
to go get it, you said, okay, you say, roses.
No, what's the plan? Well, I have a raised bed? Okay.
Uh, So you're to plant flowers or vegetables or what kinds of thing?
Vegetables? Okay, So what you're going to want to do is get
get you a vegetable and herb soil. Of vegetable and herb soil, it's
real easy, easy, easy to find. And so if you're up in
the Tamboi area. They're going to be a number of places that carry the
heirloom soils vegetable and herb mix and so that is the one you're looking for.
Where are you going to find it up there? Let's see, I
believe you can if you go out just on the northwest side there's beyond Paradise
Nursery and Supply. They're on a farm to market twenty nine to seventy eight.
It's it's just about a mile outside of town. You're going to find
heirloom soils there. You're going to find them out. I believe they have
it out. Yeah, they do have it out in D and D Feed
and Supply. That's twenty nine to twenty west of town, just out there,
just a little piece there. They're going to have to have the same
soil that you said. Someplace did a special blend in a mix. You
could pick it up in either bulk or some huge I don't know, yes,
that that was probably probably uh there is. UH. Heirloom Soils makes
a quality, wonderful product. I was just telling you about those. Uh
and Nature's Way, which is way up forty five toward conro also makes a
great product. That they'll bag and they'll bulk up there. And I've talked
about both of them. I don't know who specifically I was talking about when
you heard that, but either way, you're not going to go wrong.
Okay, Well, I'm I'm right down the road from H D D N
D the feed. Yeah, I just go by there. Uh, tell
Jeff, Tell Jeff that, you know, you talk to us and the
heirloom vegetable and herb and I know he carries it, you know, with
spring and people shopping like crazy, he may have to get it get another
shipment back in, but I know he checks that on hand. All right,
Thank you, sir, Thank you. I appreciate that call very much.
Oh boy, yards. We care about our yards, and our yards
struggled last summer during the drought and heat combo that just hammered them. We
also have a lot of clay soil around here. Glay soil does not take
in water very fast. Clay soil does not drain well, and it's an
issue. And when you have a lawn that you really need to renovate and
to get looking better green pro those are your folks that do that. They
go out, they do a deep time aeration. They pop a core out
of the soil and drop it on the surface. That's the kind of aerration
you want, not just a spike that pushes the hole open, but you
want to pop a cora soil out and leave it on the surface. Water,
nutrients, organic matter all go in those holes and the root system and
oxygen very important, and the root system thrives as a result. The green
pro folks can also do a compost top dressing that goes hand in hand with
the aeration. You can do one or the other, but I would recommend
to them both, and it's easy, easy to find them. They do
about a forty five mile radius up there in the north and a little bit
west part of Houston. So if you live in Spring Cyprus, the Woodlands,
Conroe, willis Magnolia up in Montgomery, you are down to iten Katie,
West Houston, even maybe central Houston. They are going to serve those
areas and just call them get a price. Now, when you do this,
it is an investment in your lawn. It's a lot less expensive than
residing, I'll tell you that for sure. And an occasional deep core aeration
with compost top dressing will really make your launa show placed that. That's one
of the things that I think makes the most difference in terms of the beauty
in the lawn is taking our clay soils and opening them up a little bit,
getting some oxygen in there, getting some organic matter down in there.
We're going to head out the phones now and talk to Jeff. Hello,
Jeff, Hey, Skip, I just you were just talking about heirloom soil.
So my garden has went to the next level since I started using them
a couple of years ago. I really love it. Yeah, quality stuff.
Just give a plug for them. And who never runs out of it
is Southwest Fertilizer, Isn't that the truth? They always have a huge supply.
If you need forty bags of something, they've got, Oh, you
don't have to call ahead, all right. Yeah, Well that's why I
like the I like to talk about Southwest because you just know when you're going
there, they're gonna have everything. You know, some places could be good
places, a lot of other good things, but Southwest is that's what they
specialize in. Anyway, I just love their soils. They have taken my
garden to the next level. I just want to let you know that,
well, thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that. I know Bob would
be happy to hear that. I appreciate your call. Well, what Jeff
was talking about is the brown stuff. And if you've listened to garden Line
at least once you've heard me say take care of the brown stuff, and
then which will help take care of the green stuff, or first comes brown
stuff, then comes green stuff. A lot of gardeners who have no idea
what they're doing will go to a nursery, see beautiful plants, take them
home and PLoP them into an unprepared plot. That's almost like Peter Piper picked
up picker and that plant will struggle because it needs help. Plants live in
their root system, meaning the root system is what supplies the daily water,
the daily nutrients that are required for growth. Roots need oxygen, roots need
microbes, roots need good soil, and quality soil helps. If you go
to a garden center to buy plants, go home with a bag of quality
soil. We have a lot of different soils appliers, a lot of sources.
Actually you're going to find these things that the Ice Hardware's and the Southwest
Hardware's and our garden centers that we talk about. They all are going to
provide you that because they know the plant you're taking home needs a good home,
and a good home is quality soil. We can't stress that enough.
It's a lot easier to get excited about vegetables and flowers and shrubs and all
that stuff as opposed to just the bag of brown stuff. But the bag
of brown stuff that is what is the most important thing in success with your
plants. That's the key, that's the secret sauce. And you've got to
take care of the soil in order for that plant to have a home that
it wants to live in and thrive in. I think I made that point.
I hope you heard that, but so so very important. I literally
could talk the whole four hour show just about soil because it's that important.
Let's take a little break seven one three two one two ktrh and we'll be
right back. Welcome back to Guardline. Hey, it's good to have you
with us today. What do you want to talk about. That's what we'll
talk about. Just give us a call seven to one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
If you are planting a tree, or if you did plant a tree this
winter or spring season, or even really last last fall, which is also
a good time to plant. The three sixty tree stabilizer product is one you
need to know about. And here's here's how this works. It's a very
sturdy, stiff arm. Think of it that way. One end attaches to
the post and it'll attach to bigg around fence post. It'll attach to a
metal t post. It's designed for that to hold on tight. The other
end is a strap, a soft rubber strap that goes around the tree and
allows a little bit of movement. A little bit of movement is important because
when you bend in stretch a plant regularly, it causes the plant to grow
stronger tissues. In the case of a tree trunk, we're talking about lignan
compounds and think the wood of the tree is stronger and not likely to snap
off during a real strong storm. Three sixty tree stabilizer is like that.
You can put one on a tree. You can put two, put one
and the other at right angles, so like one's point in north south,
the other's east west, and that way, whichever way the wind blows.
It's going to control it. You don't have all those guy wires going out
to the ground. These the fence posts are very close to the tree and
you're not tripping over them. It's easy, it works well, and they
last. You can get them at places like Orgeshid and gardens of those who
way down south toward Alvin Southwest fertilizer. You know I said, if they
don't have it, you don't need it. Well, yep, they got
three sixty tree stabilizer. You're going to find them at nurses like RCW and
Buchanans and Arborgate and plants for all seasons, and there's more coming soon.
They they are just widely, widely available. Don't plant a tree without taking
care of it. We're going to go now to Mary and Billina Park.
Hello, Mary, Hi, Hi, Hello, welcome. Welcome to garden
Line. Thank you. I'll listen to you every weekend. But I have
a problem that has come up. And we have a huge tree in my
son's front yard next door and it's just in full bloom, but it's been
loose in limbs and leaves and I need a phone number of an arborist so
we can would like to save the tree, but not in the shape.
It's the end. Yeah. Absolutely, Here you got a piner pencil handy?
Sure too. Okay, you need to call You need to call Martin
Spoon Moore. And here his company called Affordable Tree Service. Affordable Yes,
Affordable Tree Service. Here's his phone number seven one, seven one three six
twenty six sixty three. I'll say that again, seven one three six nine
nine twenty six sixty three. If you'd like to go to the website,
it's Afftree Service dot com. Okay, I have that too, Thank you
so much. All right, I'll listen to you every weekend and love your
show. Thank you. I wondered who it was out there listening. Now
I've met her. Thank you for the call. Mary, appreciate that very
much. Yeah, Martin. He can do anything pretty much that you need
for your trees. I mean so certainly, things like pruning, for example,
trimming them up, advising, consulting. He charges one hundred and fifty
dollars to come out for a consultation. But if you hire him for service
work, that one fifty is you've already paid toward the service work, so
you get that back if you will. But he can't, you know,
just go running out to ever tree in Houston, and just for curious questions
people have, so he sets that that way, and that's that's a very
reasonable thing. I'll tell you this, just for him to come out and
to look at your tree and tell you stuff about it, that that alone
is worth more than the one fifty. Are you going to put anything around
a tree, like a sidewalk or a drive where you're going to dig a
trench and run a utility line. Call Martin first, because you can do
significant damage to trees by damaging their roots, and he can advise you on
the best way to do that. And for those of you listening, it's
aff Tree Service dot com or seven one thirty six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. We're going to head out now to Richmond and talk to Doug.
Hello, Doug, Hey, Skip, how are you doing this morning.
I'm good. I have a question about Medina plus soil active. It's also
folier feet and you recommend that from time to time. Yeah, I've got
one of the relatively high quality hose in sprayers. I'd like to use that
to spray all my citrus. Have four different kinds of citrus in my backyard.
I'm curious. My improved myer limit is blooming like crazy. Can I
spray this on blooming citrus and not have to worry about damaging the blooms.
I've never tried that. I don't see why it would damage the blooms.
If you want to be maybe try it on a little bit first. It's
not a salt based fertilizer. Some of the liquids that people use commonly or
salt based, and I would worry a little bit about that on the bloom,
especially if you mix it too strong. But with with the medina,
you're not gonna have to worry about it. And you know, when it
comes to Folier, I talk about the hast grow six twelve six, which
can be used folier, but medina a lot of other things. You know,
they've got the seaweed for example, they got the fish emulsion. Those
are all great to use folio as well. Now, the thing about citrus
doug is it's got a waxy leaf and water rolls off so and the thing
about Folier feed is that you want to spray upward to get the bottom leaf
surfaces, especially because that's where the stowmates are that open up, and it's
easier to get the water and nutrients in it, and you want to do
it early in the morning. So if you're going to try to use them
on a citrus, make sure your spraying is going up and make sure you're
doing it early before the day heats up while the stowmates are still open.
Okay, well I'm playing on washing in some micro life citrus. Yeah,
fertilizer, yes, excellent. I want to just wash it in with the
with the medina plus you can do that. Well, I'll just spray it
on the top too. But if the fertilizer is going to be it's mostly
to just activate the trees. Yeah, that's it. Well, you know,
everything you do to help that tree is going to be helpful. I
mean, the soil products that have humates in them and the microlife naturally slow
releasing, gradual organic fertilizers are going to be helpful, you know, spraying
things that enhance the tree, and all these different products have different things that
they are better at doing, you know, so like fish emulsion versus seaweed.
You know, they each have the things that they offer and the has
to grow the six twelve six that is, And it's just another example,
you know, that it has its own strength. Very good. Well,
thanks a lot. I appreciate it, all right, Doug, thank you.
Have fun with that's interest. Now you know. The rule on garden
Line is I don't charge for advice, but I do expect half of your
harvest. Just drop it off at the station and we'll call it even.
Okay, it sounds good. Thank you, it's good to talk to you.
Oh, we're having fun here. We're having a lot of fun.
If you want to get out and have some fun, you need to get
to RCW Nursery. I was talking about them earlier, but RCW is it's
just a showplace right now. I've been bragging on the boogain villias, every
kind of boogomvillia form, the true little mini trees, the hanging basket they
got all of that. The colors are outstanding. But RCW is not just
roses, although they are roses, not just trees, although they have excellent
trees, but they're also color plants. All the color bed things that you're
going to plant, all the hanging basket things you're gonna plant, they're at
RCW Nurseries RCW nurseries dot com. They are right where Tamba Parkway two forty
nine comes into Beltway eight, so it's easy to get to and when you
go, you're going to be impressed. But you need to get there now
to see the boogain villias and get one before all your fellow shoppers run out
there and grab it right from under you. That that is the fun thing
about spring. Early bird gets a worm. We need to come up with
one of those for gardening, like the early gardener gets the bougainvillia he's going
out shopping or her boogainvilla. It depends on the color you want too,
because you know, some things are so unusual that they tend to go first.
We like the unusual stuff. That's how we roll as gardeners. It's
a lot of fun to be a gardener, that's for sure. Hey,
I want to talk about a couple of things first. I'm going to be
at Antique Rose Emporium today twelve to two from noon to two ANTIQ Roseenporium.
They are having their big Spring Shindig out there, and I'm going to be
giving a talk for about an hour on beneficial insects. I promise you I
will tell you a lot of things you didn't know that will help you come
home and enhance the beneficial insects population. That, by the way, is
doing free pest control for you out there in the garden. I'll be at
a table. I'll be giving away several big old jugs of micro Life sixty
four fertilizer. So sign up when you're there, put your name in the
box, and we will be given away those about it for fifteen minutes,
and I'll be give my samples as well. Uh. If you're out and
about and just looking for some other fun cool stuff to do. March tenth,
Uh, the Plumerius Society is having their meeting and they're having Andy Chi
Dester to speak. I'll tell you more later about that. Katie r h.
Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's so crazy, Trim, just watch him as so many good things.
Septsy Well, welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening this morning.
It's going to be a good day for gardening. It's a good weekend
for gardening. A little of overcast guys today, but that's Okay, nice
breeze outside, and it's just an excellent time to get out and get things
established. He who hesitates his loss, right, it's a it's always good
to do things at the right time and to get a good early start,
and that is what we're talking about right now. It is so easy on
a plant right now, the weather we're having, mild weather, easy conditions
to survive and thrive and establish in. And so this is a good opportunity
to get that done. I hope you'll take advantage of it this weekend,
both today and tomorrow or really excellent days. I was talking before the break.
We were discussing, you know, taking care of citrus trees and whatnot,
and some of the things that could be sprayed on them. The Medina
products spray up on that as a liquid feed, for example, and we
mentioned Microlife and the ordinance of putting a quality product down on the soil as
well. And Microlife has a wide variety of products. I mean, the
standard green bag we use for our lawns, by the way, I use
it for pretty much everything. They have a particular fertilizer for the citrus plants
that you might have, but they also have something called humants Plus. It's
the purple bag of microlife and hum mats plus. It has four percent potassium
in it. But you're not putting it down just for the nutrients. You're
putting it down because humus is concentrated compost in a bag, and it's taking
all of the goodness of compost concentrating it down into a particle. And humus
helps the soil. It helps create structure, so you get oxygen down in
the soil, so water and filtrates better so roots can thrive better in the
soil. It is a haven for beneficial microbes that are in working in concert
with your tree roots and Microlife fertilizers are widely available. Pretty much all sponsors
are selling them these days. But just go to Microlifefertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer
dot com and you will find where you can get these as well as learn
more about other other particular products that might be of interest to you. So
remember this spring when you're doing your six two four fertilizing with microlife. The
green bag also put out some of the microlife h makes plus because again that
is part of your long term soil building, which equals plant performance. In
the case of your lawn equals plant performance increases as well. Our phone number
if you would like to give me a call and ask a gardening question is
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Have you been to enchanted forests down in
the Richmond Rosenberg area? So those of you down there that haven't been,
you just get on the highway going into Houston, the interstate there and head
north towards Sugarland. Chended Forest is off to the right. They're on FM
twenty seven fifty nine FM twenty off to the right, well before sugar Land.
If you want to get McCall, it's two eight one nine three seven
forty gosh, ninety four forty nine. I'm going to do that one again,
two eight one nine three seven ninety four four nine. You are going
to be stunned from the time you get out of your car at the color
that they've got right now, and intended forests and those bougain villias that are
just such gaudy, gorgeous plants. Yep, they got a lot of those
as well. By the way today at the end of garden line starting at
ten am. Louis tomorrow from heirloom soils. We were talking about them earlier.
Louis is going to help you get off to a good start with making
a garden bed. He's gonna talk to you about it, talk about the
things we put in and why they're important and how that works. And Louis,
in fact, he's calling it making your bed. That's a good one.
Louise is always fun. He's always he's funny, but he's very very
informative. And if you're gonna head out to a Jenny gardens today would be
a good time to do that visit with Louise. Or you're gonna go shopping
tomorrow, that'd be another great time to visit him down there. I enjoy
talking about gardens and plants. Of course. It's just a lot of fun
to grow things and one of the most I think one of the most pleasurable
things is to plant a seed and watch it come up and watch that tiny
dried bit of the tritis shee once held in your hand as a seed become
a beautiful plant loaded with tomatoes or flowers or whatever you're growing it for.
That whole process is fun and when you have success. It's just good.
When you buy a tomato, don't you picture? Can't you taste the tomatoes
you're going to grow. Now, when you go home and don't have success
with it, that's disappointing, but it's unnecessary. We can help you have
success. It all begins with tomato. For example. It's important to have
good soil, brown stuff, brown stuff, brown stuff, good nutrients in
this to a part of what we call the brown stuff. Picking the varieties
that do well, putting them in sun and keeping them adequately moist but not
drowned, and you can have success too. It's not that difficult. And
soil is critical. And the folks at Ciena Mulch have the soil that you
need, and they're down south down towards Rows Sharon direction. They're going to
sell you bulk, they're going to sell you bags. Yes, they have
the landscaper's pride in the heirloom soils both available. They have every fertilizer I
talk about on garden Line here and Ciena Mulch will deliver within about twenty miles
of the location, which typically is on FM five point twenty one near Highway
six and two eighty eight just Arthur Rose Sharing. They're open today until two
pm, so if you're going to go by, don't delay. Close tomorrow,
but call them up. Check them out. Go to the website Sienna
Mulch dot com. While you're there, you're going to see gorgeous mulches.
You're going to see unbelievable selections of various rocks. Whether you need little river
rocks to create a drainway in your garden or if you want beautiful flat rocks
to create a patio, They've got all of that and then some At Sienna
Mulch. They will help you take care of the brown stuff, that is
for sure, so that you can have success with your plans. Probably one
of the most common calls I'm getting right now is the call about weeds in
the lawn. What do I do? I got weeds in the lawn,
and we talked about the things that you can do to manage your lawn weeds.
Most of the conversations now are the the weeds that you see, the
cool season weeds. That's the clover, the hen bit, the chick weed,
all of those things that you see right now. But what's going on
unseen right now is down at the soil surface. Weed seeds are germinating for
warm season weeds and nitrofoss barricade is designed to stop that. I don't care
if it's a grassy weed or a broad leaf weed. It is in secret
seclusion, planning to spoil your beautiful lawn show when late spring and summer arrive,
and you can prevent that with nitroposs barricade. You want to put it
down at the label rate. Always follow the label rate. It is the
rate that works best and won't damage. And the label rate is very important.
And then watered in with about a half inch of water. A half
inch of water moves it into the soil surface to create that barricade over the
surface. Now where do you get it? Well, are you in Katie,
Go out to Ktas Hardware They've got it. There. Are you in
the Memorial area Memorial Drive, Ace Hardware City has got it. And down
at Stanton Shopping Center in Alvin they've got it as well. We're going to
take a break. I'll be right back seven one three two one two ktr
H. Welcome back to guard Line. Glad you're listening today. What do
you want to talk about? That's what we'll talk about Just give us a
call seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four seven one
three two and two fifty eight seventy four. If you don't already know it,
you need to know this. The Arburgate Nursery up in Tombul, Texas
has a wonderful new parking lot in the back. It's off of Triischel Road.
Trishel is a little road that as you're driving down twenty nine to twenty
and you're passing Arburgate before you get there, Trishel goes around behind Arburgate and
then after you pass Arburgate it comes back down into twenty twenty again. So
even if you miss it the first time, you just drive past and you
catch it the second time. Great all weather parking lot. It is wonderful
easy access to the nursery. Now while you're at Arburgate, you know what
you're going to find. You're gonna find every cool plant that you can imagine.
They always have fruit treats for sale at Arburgate, and now's a great
time to get one and get it planted. Their selection of herbs and tomatoes,
their selection with annual flowers is outstanding, and at Arburgate, the staff
is incredibly knowledgeable. You know Beverly and Canon and all of the staff there.
They greet you, they answer your questions, They take you to the
plant you need. They give you ideas, they help you resolve problems.
Maybe you've got an area that's too shady, Well walk over the area where
they keep their shade loving plants and tell them what you're looking for. I
need some beautiful white plants. I need some plants that will do well in
this or that situation. They'll set you up while you're there. Remember brown
stuff, brown stuff, brown stuff. We talk about it. We talk
about it, we talk about it. They've got the Organic Food Complete,
which is a fertilizer, organic fertilizer. They've got Organic Soil Complete, which
is a soil blend that you plant right into and it has the expanded shale
in it. And then the Organic Compost Complete, and that is a compost.
We're also with the expanded shehal Listen. Organic matter is wonderful. It
breaks down in time and goes away, turns towards humus. The expanded shell
will help keep those clay particles apart and keep that soil open for a longer
period of time. We're going to go out to League City now and talk
to Dina. Hello, Dina, Hello, how are you? I'm wonderful
today it's spring and I'm a gardener. Thank you for taking my call.
I have ragweeds that's taking over my flower bed. I'm pulling it up by
hand, but it's killing me and I'm trying to figure out how to get
rid of its ragweed. You have flowers in the bed now, Yes,
I have lantana in the bed right now. When you pull up what you're
calling ragweed, does it not just have one little plant with the troth system,
but it has like a sideways structure, stem like structure going under ground?
Is it has? When I pull them up, they come up real
easily because they're not that big right now. But when when they get big,
they get tall, but the lead their leaves are smaller with more leaves
on it. Yeah. Uh so with with the flowers around, it's not
safe to use a broad leaf herbicide just because a little bit un draft and
do damage what I have done. And is this a big flower bed or
a small area? It's a huge flower bed. Okay, the length of
I'm not going to finish my sentence, then that's it's not a good solution.
Uh, if you can get it cleaned out. What I've done in
my gardens is put down newsprint or any you know, brown rolls of craft
paper kind of thing down on the ground and then throw them malch on top
of it. You want to wet the paper so that it sticks down in
holes and that will create a barrier. If it's just mulch, some of
those weeds with extra energy can push through it. But if the paper will
work pretty well for you and it's you know, you got to get the
weeding done and then immediately put the paper down and immediate put mulch on it.
And that is one technique that paper will decay away in time, like
meat, paper, paper wrap kind of like that, or cardboard. I
use newspaper. A newsprints a little harder to find these days, but there
there are rolls of paper that's kind of like paper sack paper, Does that
make sense? That kind of thing. You can do that as well.
Uh, that gives you several months of help. I would encourage you if
you're doing any transitions in the bed, when you pull out the old stuff,
that's a good time to hit those weeds and because you can use stuff
on them. Then that that because you don't have your desirable plants in the
spot. Another shout out I want to do is I had called Program to
do composts in my yard. Fertilized and composts, Yes, and they don't
come as far as League City. But the gentleman referred me to clip Cliff
Landscaping. He's on Facebook, and he came out and did it and did
an excellent job. He fertilized it first and then he put the compost down.
He left my place cleaner than before he left. He didn't, so
I wanted to give a shout out for him because Program won't come this far
to League City either, right. So that's right, that's the League City
area. You're kind of out there on the edge of the world. And
Green Greenpro is a great surface service. They do a really good job.
But you're He preferred me to this guy, and he said if he does
a good job, call me back because he says I need some contact in
League City. Yeah. Also, I had one more question. Would crab
and lobster Neptune Crab and lobster do well putting it down before put the cardboard,
so they save the calcium helps keep the weeds from coming up. I
don't believe that about the calcium helping weeds, so I would not I would
not use it for that. Would you use grabbing lobster in your garden bed?
You can? It's an organic material. And uh so, people that
have nematods, that's a good thing to do because the things that can attack
nematodes, the kitan in those sea creature shells. Kitan helps feed the things
that attack nematods. So it's not going to kill all your nematodes, but
you're creating a soil that nemetdes aren't thriving in and are having a hard time
with. But that would be the time I would use it. And I
get my compost from Hornhey Garden Hora Gardens in Alvin. Yeah, and he
has an mix of composts and stuff, so I get that from him.
You just know all the good places down there. Yeah. Every time I
go to Hoges, I was like, oh now you got that. This
spring I went out there, I was like, good night, I didn't
know you had that many fruit trees. He's always got something. Yeah,
he's got great prices too. Well, thank you. So much for the
recommendation, and that's what I'll do. I appreciate that, all right,
Diana, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very much. Since we're
talking about southeast Houston down there with the League City and whatnot, League City
Feed, that is your hometown feed store for that whole region. You know,
Lovemark and clear Lake City and Santa Fe and Dickinson and Webster, all
that region down there. League City Feed. They've been around actually the building
was built forty years ago in what we used to be an Okra patch and
it's just your great old time feed store. You know. They help you.
They care stuff out for you. If I talk about a fertilizer,
they've got it. League City Feed, including things like asimite and soils like
heirloom soils for example. They just carry it. All things to control pest
diseases and weeds, they've got it. They have a high quality pet food
selection, a really good pet really good things for your pets. Now.
They are on a Highway three, just a few blocks south of Highway ninety
six in League City. They're open nine to six, so after work every
day after work, you can just swing by there and you have time to
grab the stuff you need, and that include Saturday too, nine am to
six pm. Closed on Sunday. But go to Lake City Feed. You'll
get everything you need. And I just enjoy always going in there and visiting
with Wes about what's going on. We're going to head now back out to
the phones and I'm going to talk to Cleveland or Brian in Cleveland. Hello,
Brian, Hello, sir, how are you? I'm well, I
got a question for you. I have quite a few fruit trees and I
have two pop all trees on the way, and I know when they're young
they kind of need some shade. But at what age can I put them
or what height can I put them in? Like full sun? Well,
that's a good question, and it's a gradual answer. It's not just real
specific. Papa is in the forest where it occurs. It's an understory and
as a result, that's why you know they generally don't like the brunt of
the sun. How are you going to shade them in the early days?
By the way, Well, there three to four feet tall the ones I
ordered right now, That's what I'm trying to figure out. I could either
do a sunshade and I had some grape arbors made that I could potentially put
them under that and just move the arbors later, okay, as get older,
Well, you got them coming in, so I would I would do
that, and I would orient the shade if you can, so that at
least from noon on through the afternoon you're getting a break from the hot sun.
That and a big shade cloth could do that. It allows the air
to go through, so it's not likely to blow away in the wind,
at least not as much as a tarp or something would. Yes, sir,
so about what? But how old or what height? Do you think
I could like let them have the full sun that they require to produce.
Is there is there a number of the or is it just going to watch
it? Yeah, it's a gradual thing. If you're buying a tree,
it's is it. Did they give a variety name for it? Yeah?
I think one of them is Pennsylvania. I think I remember the other Those
have been grafted, and so when you graft, you you get a head
start. And because you're taking older wood to graft onto a young rootstock,
and as a result, you're going to get your production. I don't know
the age of production on popa off hand. Uh, but you could go
look it up as to how many how long it takes to begin production.
And that's about the point where you'd probably want to start to give it a
little more light because it's going to be bigger. It's gonna be bigger any
hard to it's gonna be hard to shade at that state. Well, yeah,
I know, I know that they require the full sun to produce.
I just didn't know it. You know what age are we talking that they
could you know, take the full sun text? You know that's right?
Okay, Well, good luck with it. I appreciate your call. And
uh yeah, like we say, we all require half of your produce for
the free answer you just got so just leave some Papa's on the doorstep at
the radios. Yeah, take Eric. I appreciate that. Brian. Good.
Good to visit with you. For sure. Nature's Way resources is up
on Highway forty five Interstate forty five. If you go up toward Conroe where
fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia, you just turnet. Turning toward Magnolia,
you go the other way across the railroad tracks and your Nature's Way.
They are having their big shindig on March ninth, and guess what day March
ninth is today, and they'd be from nine to two. They're gonna have
speakers, They're gonna have stuff for the kids to do. They're gonna have,
you know, grab a little sip of sangria to walk around and enjoy
yourself. Make sure and leave room in the car. You got to bring
plants home. Did you know they have a really nice growing native plant nursery
there they do. You're going to load up on bags of whatever product you
need. And Nature's Way has every kind of soil product, soil enhancing product
that you would need. They carry it there, or you can just give
them a call. Haven't come deliver it to where you live. Remember the
brown stuff, and nobody makes brown stuff better than Nature's Way. John has
been doing this for years. He created ros soil, he created leafmo composts,
the things that are now standards in the industry. He knows how to
do it. Nature's Way resources there on. If you want the address,
it's Sherbrooke Circle, Conrod, Texas, or you can call them nine three
six two seven three twelve hundred or go to the website. It's easy Nature's
Way Resources dot Com. Well, it's time for us to take another little
break here. If you would like to get on the boards, give Josh
a call it seven one three two to one two kt r H and Rich,
Dina and Cookie. We will get to you when we come back.
Welcome back to Guardline. Glad you're listening today. I am looking forward to
your question. You can give us call it seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven three fifty eight seventy four. Let's go out to
spring. Now we're gonna talk to Rich. Hello, Rich, Good morning,
sir, morning Skip. I sent you a picture of my Saint Augustine
lawn that uh has really popped greened up, really nice, dark and I
think it's the result of two things. I used the Nelson slow and easy,
and then I also did a liquid application of diesel exhaust fluid and I
was very skeptical. I looked at it online. I said, wait a
minute, it's urea and water and it really it really worked. Well,
yeah, I'm not I'm just not going to comment on it. I've heard
of things like that, people using it. I just, uh, we're
just getting outside of the labeled applications of things and stuff. So your lawn
looks good. Uh, and uh it certainly does. I see your your
pop out there and he seems to be happy with the place as well.
Yes, yeah, all right, And so you basically just want to tell
me about that or did you have a question. No, I just wanted
to share and see if you you know what you knew about it, and
if other people were interested. Yeah, I'd like to. I'm not going
to comment on I have heard about it before. I know people that talk
about that using that and uh, but I'm just trying to kind of stay
with the products that are basically made and sold for gardening. So I'm gonna
I'm gonna turns pass on going any further. Thank you though for letting me
know. And uh, I always especially especially appreciate getting a photo so I
can see things that are going on. Well you take care, sir.
Uh. We're going to go now out to League City and talk Noe.
We've already talked to Dina today. What what's going on out there? Accidentally
with the wrong call, all right, so now let's go to Sillsby and
talk to Cookie. Hello, Cookie, Hello, how you doing today?
I'm doing fine. I have a question actually about three different weeds, and
they all might need the same thing. So let me tell you what I
have. I have a weed that's coming up my yard. It looks like
a chive. It has a small white flower on the top of the little
yold center and when you dig it up, it has this little small bulb
at the bottom in the ground. That's one weed I'm having a problem with.
It seems like I dig him up and they just, you know,
keep popping up. And then I think this is the time of year you
take care of Virginia button weed. I really don't have a lot. I
have a little, but it's and I try to get there and pull up
in the morning when the ground's damp, and sometimes I get off the root
and sometimes I don't. But it seems like it's the gift that keeps on
giving, you know. I just have a little bit here and there.
And I'm actually in for the third weed for a neighbor of mine who has
an infestation of dollar weed. Oh wow, is it pretty extensive? His
infestiation it's fairly yeah, fairly large. Well, let's start off with the
first one. The first one is either wild onion or wild garlic. It
doesn't really matter what uh and that weed. If you're going to get something
that has like a two four D type product in it, that can be
helpful. There are some other products that that are pretty effective that are combinations
of things. You just got to get it on the plants and stay with
it because every time it gets the leaves up, then the next thing,
you know, we're dealing with We're dealing with the fact that it's replenished the
bulb and now it's even a stronger weed than it was, right yeah,
and so that you don't want to give it a chance to come up for
control. Okay, right, okay, So what I put on it or
you get into that, well, I'm well, a product that contains two
four D so uh yeah, now four D two come a four h D
as in dog. Yeah, and it's in it's in products that have TRIMEC.
It's it. You can buy it individually and spray it, or you
can use you know, other other things like that. I want to go
on to the Virginia button read if we could, uh the product I would
get. There are more than one product that's label for it. But as
far as something you can get a hold of you can do something called celsius
celsius like fahrenheit and celsius uh. And it it is available. It's doesn't
take much of it. It's a little bit pricey. But the thing that's
good about it is you can use it even when the weather warms up a
little bit. It can be in the low nineties and it's still locy to
you celsius uh and it will Can you spell that for me? So I
don't, Yes, yes, c E l s I U s celsius and
so that that would work. There are combo products, you know that.
They'll have the two four D, the hubdi Camba in them, and some
other things. Not all of them are labeled for Saint Augustine. I would
use the Celsius. It's good to have it on hand because it fits a
niche a niche a niche that other control products don't, mainly being able to
use it safely in warmer not one hundred degree, but in warmer temperatures,
and it would work well. The Virginia button weed single applications may not do
it. Cels is pretty good, but just be ready to come back and
get it again. Don't give it a chance to get up and growing.
Okay, okay, and then a pre emergent that prevents the seeds of it
from germinating would be another good thing, and that would be something we would
do very early in the spring, like a barricade type product brought. I
cannot put that down, that barricade. You can if you get it down
before the weed seed germinates, okay, and follow the label, use it
at the label rate, and water it in with the half inch of water.
Sure, okay, thank you so much. You bet you take care.
One of my favorite garden centers to visit and I try to get around
all over Houston as much as I can because number one, I love doing
it, but it helps me step up the date on what's available. One
of my favorite garden Buchanans down in the Heights. Buchanans Native Plants. That's
the full name, Buchanans Native plants. They specialize in natives and they have
natives for all of the region. They have natives for just the huge Houston
kind of general heastonary. They even delineate them that way if you if that's
what you want now, they are going to have lots of things color Yes,
shrubs, Yes, trees, yes, fruit, yes, house plants.
Oh my gosh, yes, it's unbelievable. Right now, you got
to go by if you've never seen Tangerine Beauty crossline. Tangerine Beauty crossline cross
lines a native plant. Tangerine Beauty is a cultovar of crossbine and it's just
gorgeous. The blooms are in clusters or big old flowery trumpets that are a
tangerine color. And it is a wonderful plant to use in the right spot
and need something to grow on. But just go by and look at it
at Buchanan's Native Plants. I'm going to be there, not too long for
not next weekend actually, but Buchanans Plants is on East eleventh and the Heights
and the website is Buchanansplants dot com. Check that out. You will find
there a wealth of gardening information. They have really put a lot of quality
stuff online to kind of guide you in your gardening success. Always a good
day to visit out of Buchanans. The other day I was out getting some
areas of my lan ready for SOD planning. I'm going to be planting sod
in some areas where I lost grass last year. I think I've mentioned it
before, but I took a two week trip away and the worst part of
summer. My irrigation system for some reason didn't come on, and the chinchbugs
and brown take all root rode. It's kind of like when the cats away,
the mice will play. I think I've never had that problem before.
Chinchbugs or take all root rod in my lawns. I had a little take
all while back, but when I leave town, it's like green light,
he's not here, and they take out sections of my lawn. And I
know some of you have dealt with that as well. When you're planting turf,
you want to let it warm up just a little bit like we're having
now in the next few weeks. You can plant turf all the way through
summer. Of course it does well, but it's a little easier to kind
of get it in and get it established. The demands aren't so high,
like one hundred degree July day or August day. You can plant turf,
but the grass is kneading water and it hardly has a root system when you
first get it, so you're having to retake care of it easy, but
prepare the soil first. Randy used to say, he'll phil, he'll fill
till till something like that. You want to get rid of any weeds that
you have, and I've been doing that so I don't have competition. Right
when I laid the terf. You want to fill in any area that you
need to fill in, and I'm doing that this week because let me be
planning the week after. Well, it's time for a break now. Our
number is seven one three, two one two fifty eight seventy four and I'll
be right back. Welcome back to the garden line. Glad to have you
with us today. I was talking earlier about my law and the fact that
I lost a huge section of it. A lot of you have experienced that.
I get a lot of calls on that, and a lot of people
email or ask about it. Maybe your landscape kind of went through the same
thing. Maybe it's time to turn lemons into lemonade. And here's what I
mean. You're going to have to replant. So let's back up a step
and let's think about what do you want your place to look like. You
know, the folks at Peer Scapes, they are specialists in designing outdoor living.
They are you know, from a deck to an outdoor patio, stone
patio, Do you want a barbecue pit, kind of built in kind of
area with a do you want a rock for example, a beautiful rock section
where you've got flagstone and you have rock walls, maybe water coming over the
water fountain type of thing. They can do that. Do you need your
irrigation system checked? Because they are specialists in fixing it and poorly designed,
poorly operating, poor repair irrigation wastes water and costs as plants. How about
a fire pit in the backyard? You see what I'm talking about? Anything
you need Pierscapes, It just it's unbelievable how versatile and how widespread they are
and so professional. Their landscape designs are gorgeous. They are absolutely outstanding.
So you know, it just makes sense to deal with a professional when you're
trying to create that kind of outdoor beauty, and Pierscapes they make it easy.
I mean, for crying out loud, they're easy to get a hold
of two eight, one, three, seven oh fifty sixty. You can
go to their website puerscapes dot com just to get an idea of some of
the kinds of projects they can do. But big or small, they're able
to turn your area into a place you want to go out and live in.
That's Puerscapes. Our phone number is two excuse me seven one three two
one two ktrh which offer it that way this time if you like to dial
by the letters. I mentioned earlier that woody ornamentals need to be planted asap.
Can you plant them twelve months out of the year. Yes, in
the heat blazing heat of summer, it's hard to give them enough water to
stay moist, but not so much that you drowned them. It can be
done. It can be done, But why not do it now and give
your newly established woody ornamentals weeks and weeks to be able to get a root
system established so it is a little more resilient. That first year or even
two is a touch and go tough time for trees. Verdant Tree Farm has
a selection you need. They grow a lot of different kinds of trees.
When it comes to palms, hardy palms, then they can get you set
up. They know how to do them, they know how to establish them,
and they have good plants too. By the way, when it comes
to other types of trees, maybe a beautiful deciduous tree. They can get
you fixed up on that as well. Verdanttreefarm dot com ve er d a
n T Verdant which means green Treefarm dot com. There's a location in West
Houston, Parker Cyprus, a location in the Heights where it and Yale come
together. And down in Pearland there's a location as well, just a few
blocks from Killing Steakhouse on Broadway Street. Verdant Tree Farm they're an easy call.
They will help you pick out the right kind of tree and then you
choose the actual one you want. They bring it, they plant it,
and if they plant it, they guarantee or they offer a one year warranty
with that installation included with the installation burden tree form I. You know they
when they talk about trees, one of the sayings is the best time to
plant a tree is forty years ago. The second best time is today,
And that is really true. You want to have success because when you look
at a home and you look at the value of a home, big beautiful
trees are critical. Now, back if you go back in time and someone
had planted a trash tree, well about the time it should be a big,
beautiful, stately tree. It's coming down because of all kinds of issues
with limb strength and diseases and other things. So pick a good tree for
that. But the time to get it done is right away. It adds
to the value of your home so much, enhancing the value of your home.
And we love, we love a beautiful tree for a lot. And
listen, if you live in the in Texas anywhere, are brutal and a
shade tree over an outdoor sitting area, it's worth its waiting gold, absolutely
worth its waiting gold. For those of you done in the Richmond area.
In Chenni Gardens is a place you probably be in there, but if you
haven't, you absolutely need to go because you live nearby. And there are
people that come from long distances. Talk to somebody from Austin, Texas one
day out in Chenna Garden and they drove over to Houston. See what I
mean about. We're lucky here to have these kind of places. They drive
all the way here to go to in Chenna Gardens. Now the website,
you need to go to the website so you can learn all about the place,
how to get there, how to call them, and everything Enchanted Gardens
Richmond dot com. And if you're in Richmond and you go up north Katie
direction, Katie Fullsher Direction, FM three point fifty nine, that's where they're
located. It's easy to get to. And when you get there, your
jaw's going to drop because it's big and it's spread out and beautiful, and
you will under and wonder and what are you gonna find? You're gonna find
my favorite spring flowering tree. Chinese fringe doesn't get too big, stays a
moderate size, you know, compared to big shade tree, and it is
beautiful. It's billows of fragrant, shaggy white blooms in the spring. Yep,
they've got those there. You're gonna find one of my favorite new plants
for bedding color and hanging baskets. And that's the supertunias. I used to
plant the bubblegum v I'd love the bubble gum r It. It's a good
one still around. They have a new one called Supertuna Vista Jazzberry. It
is pink on steroids. And these supertunias they put so many blooms. I
can't quite figure out how the leaves get sunlight, because I mean it is
wall to wall blooms, just beautiful, season long color. And it's at
enchanted gardens because they always stay up to date on the latest things when you're
planning these things up in a container. The jungleland putting soil I was talking
about earlier was using the indoor, talking about using the indoor one with the
crystals on my plants. They have an outdoor version as well, and it's
distributed by Nitrofoss, so you can get it anywhere you get Nitrofoss. This
product has quality Canadian blond peat mixed with four different types of aged organic materials
and micro riises of fungi, and your plants just do well. Remember brown
stuff before green stuff, even if the brown stuff's in a container. You
want the best you can get so your plants can perform. Where do you
get it? Shades of Texas up in the woodlands, they've got it.
You can get it in shanted gardens. I was just talking about them.
Down to Richmond Rosenberg. You can get it a lot of different places,
including Fisher's Hardware on South Broadmoor and Broadway Street southeastern the Port area. They
carry these Nitrofoss products as well. We're going to take a break for the
news and I will be back in just a bit. I want to give
you a number so that you can write it down and call it call us.
I hope you listen to Guardline with a pinner and a paper handy,
because we're always giving out different things that you want to write down so that
you can remember them. Our number is seven one three two one two kt
r H. Now after the show today, I am going to be going
out to the Antique Rose Emporium for their big shindig. It's a two day
shindig today and tomorrow. I'll be there today from twelve to two, and
I hope you'll come out to see me. If you've got samples you want
to identify it or diagnosed, or photos of the same, make sure the
photos are in good focus. Let's talk. We'll get you on the right
track out there. I'm going to start off with a with a talk about
an hour indoors. I've got slides and video and everything about beneficial insects,
and I promise you you will learn things you did not know about beneficial insects,
and you'll realize that it's more than just lady bugs. Everybody knows lady
bugs. There's a lot of other good, beneficial insects that will enhance our
gardens because you know they're doing the majority of us control for you. You
think it's you and the spray wand but in an actuality, the reason we're
not waiting through our gardens knee deep in aphids is because of a lot of
beneficials that love to eat aphids. How do you attract them? How do
you keep them? Then I'll be at a table where I'll be giving away
some jugs of Microlife sixty four fertilizer. Yep, you can win one about
every fifteen minutes or so, we'll give one away. I'll have also some
extra samples of that to give away while we're out there. So make sure
and get out there and let's talk. Let's find out what is of interest
to you. Just in the way of a reminder, Tomorrow, the Plumeria
Society of America is having their early season Plumeria Growing Tips Meeting and it'll be
at the Bay Area Community Center on East NASA park Way in Sebrook, located
in clear Leak Park, clear Like Park. Excuse me and Esther from Medina
is going to be there talking about spring soil prep. And Andy knows a
lot about all kinds of things related to gardening and soil prep. She knows
how important that is. There will be some other presentations there as well.
That is from two to four thirty tomorrow Sunday afternoon, the Area Community Center,
East Nassa Parkway in Seabrook. I hope you can go out and check
them out, because I promise you will learn a lot. Katie r H.
Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on
this program. Welcome to Katy r h. Garden Line with Skip Richt.
It's so crazy, Trim. Just watch him as so many goings to zeptasy.
They're not a sad Welcome back to Garden Line. Lad you're sticking with
us today. We've got another hour left before we put this show in the
books, and I head up to Antique Rose Emporium for their big spring shindig.
I'll be giving a talk. I'll be answering your gardening questions up there,
and listen. You got to go just to see the place. I
know a lot of you have not been and you need to see the antique
rosing part. It is cool. It's like a trip back in time.
You know you got the antique roses. There's your trip back too. But
the place is just a showplace. It's really cool and there's gonna be a
lot of good information going on, not just myself on some time. I'm
talking about all the talks that are going on out there for their big spring
shindig. We are going to get to the phones. First thing here,
jump right on it. We got Bob in Jersey Village. Hello, Bob,
Hello, how are you today? I'm good? Good? What's up
today for you? Quick question? Do berries point? How soon after you
see them blooming? Are they right? Did you say? Do are blue?
All right? The way you understand that deberries are black berries? Along?
Got it? Got it? Okay? Well they turn, they go,
they the berries red and then and then it starts to turn black.
You won't to let it fully turn black. If you pull on it a
little bit, it'll pop loose. If it's fully ripe. It also the
berries are shiny, and they lose the shine dolls a little bit, and
that's another sign that they're hitting the ripe stage. But if you're pulling on
one and you're having to have a wrestling match with the planet to get it
off of there. It's probably not right. Well, I'm seeing them bloom
right now. They're blooming, yes, now, yes, And I'm just
wondering how many weeks? Two weeks, three weeks? Boy, I can't.
Yeah. I grew up picking blueberry dewberries, Bob, and I can't
tell you how long it is from bloom to harvest on those things. I
never paid attention to that. But yeah, just watch out when you start
reaching down at the ground to pick stuff. Uh yeah, well you find
or you find a copper head in there too, So be a little careful
out picking them. But they're they're fun, fun, fun, they are
all right. Thank you all right, Bob, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much. Uh. The product turf Star Weed Dator,
I've had a lot of people asking me about it. It seems to
be a lot of excitement about it right now on the on the market.
It's a newer product, not brand new, but newer, uh Turftar weedaters
by Nelson Fertilizer, And what it combines is a post emergent weed control with
a very gradual release fertilizer over time. So instead of saying weed't weed and
feed, just say weed and weed now feed feed over time. That's the
better way to put it. It will kill broad leaf weeds and so you've
got them. It's all the cool season weeds you're looking at. Wet the
grass just enough to wet the surface. You're not water in the lawn.
Immediately put down turf star weedonator. It sticks to the wet grass surfaces.
Give it a day or two to just kind of soak in, and then
you can water with about a half inch of water to move the fertilizer on
down into the ground and to have that plant set up for a very gradual
release. It's going to go on for a couple of months at least.
It's a very good gradual release fertilizer, and it doesn't just release everything at
one time, but it gives you the long term feeding. So if you
look at my schedule that we talk about a spring green up and then a
long term this would be more of a long term type of feeding with turfstar
weed needed by the folks at Nelson. I'm going to go out to East
Houston now and talk to Steve Hello, Steve Hi, good morning, Good
morning. On the webworms. If I sprayed this, uh it was BTCo
you had recommended, yes for webworms. Yeah, and if I spray it,
I'm going to start to spray it. But I've still had berries on
my possum haul holly, and I don't know if it's somehow deleterious to the
mocking birds or other birds that come in and feed on them. Not at
all, Not at all, Okay, No, it's just fine. The
thing about BT and the webworms and things, typically people encounter them in their
pecan tree. They attacked me several other species is that BT doesn't last but
about a day and then it's no longer effective. So you need to get
really good coverage, which may mean breaking up webs with a strong stream of
water a long pole if you can reach them, because you've got to get
the coverage to the foliage. The caterpillars are eating, so they eat it
in the next twenty four hours. If you don't get good coverage, you're
not gonna get good control, and you may find yourself spraying again on a
future a future day to give another shot at it. There's another product.
I'm assuming you want to go organic because BT is the organic option there and
spendosaid SPI Nosa D and it soaks into the leaf tissues of the plant.
It's an organic product, and you could also use that and get a little
more longer term control. Okay, okay, either one. Either one will
kill them if you use it, right, Okay. Well, and I
have no webworms yet, but I was going to go ahead and spray just
as a preventative. Yes, okay, Well they'll be they'll be hatching out.
We have a little webworm in the spring sometimes, and then the fall
is when we really get them, late summer early fall, and that's when
you really need to be watching for them. The the spring app typically well
anything can happen in nature, but typically I don't see the major defoliation type
stuff in the spring, but in the fall we do. Yeah, I
guess I had seen mine in the on my own and I have never seen
them. I have a pecan tree in my backyard and I have never seen
any in the in the in the fall, but I do see them in
the spring. And well, yeah, interesting maybe now are you are you
talking about webs out on the branches? Are you talking about webs in the
little like the v crotch of the limb where two limbs come together. No,
on the absolutely on the branch, okay, and you can and I
can, yeah, of course I can see the small worms in there.
And while I got you on the phone, well, I have about thirty
have about thirty seconds street and then I will uh, how to how to
control squirrels from eating my my green pecans? If you have any suggestions,
and thank you. Yeah, let me let me just say that that is
a challenge. There's not a good way to do it. If you have
an isolated tree that you can keep them out of, meaning there's not a
power line going for them to jump from the power line to the tree,
you can put a flashing strip around the trunk so they that they can't jump
above you, and you can have low limbs. They'll get on the get
up that way too. That's one technique. Other than that squirrel fed pecan
or a pecan fed squirrel is one of the best eating dumpling meat you'll find.
So I'll just leave you with that. Yeah, yeah, But unfortunately,
I don't think my neighbors would like to be shooting. Yeah. Yeah.
Law enforcement and ballistics. Yeah, you got all kinds of issues.
Hey, thanks for the call. We're taking a little break here. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to guards Line. We're in our last forty
minutes or so of the show today. If you'd like to give us a
call, now's the time. I'll be back in the morning, six am,
right and early to do this again. Nursery options here are so amazing.
I talk about it all the time, but I'm telling you, if
you have always been around the Houston area, you may not know just how
good we have it here. We have so many good options and one of
the best nurseries for all of you. If you're going down south and west
tarched seabird direction, Moss Nurseries in your backyard. I would encourage people to
drive a distance to get there because they have a huge variety. And here's
the thing. The trucks, it's just like lined up down the block to
get into Moss Nursery. I'm talking about multiple trucks today, plant loads from
Texas and Florida and California. And then next thing you know, there's five
deliveries of vegetable plants from some of our local growers coming in last Thursday,
for example, they started arriving at seven thirty in the morning. Fifteen delivery
loads later. There were plants on tables and aisles and sidewalks everywhere. They
have thirty kinds of hanging baskets and what kind of plants, shrubs, vegetables,
trees, the outstanding health plants selection like you've never seen. Do you
like the spring bloomers, the old fashioned stuff like the formosa and Judge Solomon
azaleas. There's a lot of the new repeat bloomers too, and camellias.
And Jim just got in more of those old African masks. You never know
what he's gonna buy, and you never know when you turn a corner what
you're gonna see when you wander through this acres of nursery. Mos Nursery is
not just another garden center. They're on Toddville Road in Seabrook. Here's the
website maas Nursery dot com. This two a's two eight one four seven four
twenty four eighty eight. I always like to go out there. We're gonna
go talk to Barbara now in Conroad, Texas. Hey you doing Barbara,
I'm doing this fun. How about you skip. I'm gonna make it.
I'm gonna make it, all right. We live up here off one oh
five and call road, and course they widen the road, and now I'll
get a lot of road noise. And I'm looking to find if some kind
of trees that I can plant that'll absorb some of that noise. Okay,
okay? And how far how far do you think the road is from you?
Oh? Probably about one hundred two hundred feet? Okay, all right.
There are several principles at work, and I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about
that. Number One, you want an evergreen, because evergreens have the blocking
foliage on sound, blocking foliage on year round plants do not remove all the
noise. They just what are you can muffle the noise down a little bit.
They do a pretty good job of that. The closer the plants are
to the sound, the better. Because if you were to draw a line
from the sound to your house, and you were to put a plant like
five feet from the sound, those it's blocking ways even though that are higher
up that it does a better job of blocking, is what I'm trying to
describe. Right by your house, you'll get you'll get decent blocking as well.
But I would also do it in layers. If you have a row
of shrubs followed by a road of taller trees like a liva for example,
where you'd have canopy that goes up higher. That is important also in the
blocking of the sound. Okay, I've got some high trees. I mean,
I've got full, beautiful trees. Okay, okay, Well, so
you're looking for the specific kinds of plants, right, that's right, yeah,
okay, So yopon that's trimmed makes a nice hedge. A Southern wax
myrtle that's trimmed makes a nice tough hedge as well. There are things like
Japanese u if you plant them close enough together, they may and shear them.
They make a nice wall. And this is going to you're gonna hear
this. I'm saying it over and over again, because every time you share
a planet, it gets denser, and so the sound blocking gets better if
you just let plants grow wild and naturally they tend to not be so dense.
And so the show a seven foot fence that I could plant something up
against. Yeah, and I've heard evergreen we're really good. But yeah,
any particular top of evergreen. Well, the ones I've given you are already
or evergreen. The Carolina cherry laurel is evergreen again. Needs this shearing,
and it needs a fairly well drained soil. It doesn't like a swamp,
but it will do well, creates a beautiful plant. There's just a lot
of good options out there. I'd probably in general stay away from junipers and
arborvitis. They can do a good job. The Eastern red cedar gets really
big in time, but it does a good job. But typically you're not
gonna find it in the tray very much. But those others, I mean,
ship will do fine. Any fast growing type of caroline cherry low is
pretty fast growing. Uh really, the shared youpine, the shared southern wax
myrtle moved better, pretty good pace. Uh So, I think you're gonna
I think you're gonna like what those do. Holly's are fine. They're a
little more of a challenge to get established. But hollies, uh do Okay,
they don't grow real fast. Some of them, once they get their
roots down and get going, they have a good growth rate though. All
right, any idea of where I could find these junipers, I mean those
plants. I'm gonna have to go after this. Uh A and A plants
out in Montgomery is not too far away from you. I would start there
and talk to them, ask them what they have, but also ask them
what they can get. They may be able to order them and bring them
in for it. All right, thank you very much for that call.
I appreciate that, barber. Uh you heard me earlier talking about microlife humates.
Now, hummates are that it's the final stage of decomposed organic matter.
It's the stage it's going to help the soil structure at microbial activity around the
humates will be excellent. And when you use humates and get that over time
working its way down into the soil, you're going to end up with a
better soil structure, which is important. It's the purple bag from microlife humates
plus the numbers on the bag are is zero zero four because we're not putting
it down just for nutrients. We're primarily putting it down to enhance the soil
life and therefore enhance the root system and to build the soil structure over time
as well. Microlife humates. So when you get that green bag of sixty
four to fertilize your lawn. Grab a bag of microlife humates to follow that
up with always good to build soil. Over time you're listening to Garden Line,
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions.
If you have a question you would like to ask, just give me
a call at seven one three two p one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was in an ACE
hardware store the other day looking at their BARBIEQ equipment, you know, and
they've got of course, I always talk about ACE because they're gonna have every
fertilizer, they're gonna have your soil products, they're gonna have your insecticide,
fungicide, herbicide products for weeds, and all the tools and stuff. But
it's the place to go for outdoor living. You know, do you need
Do you want a beautiful string of those I like we call them beer garden
lights, but it's a little string of light bulbs, very low wadded or
LEDs that you hang out to create that soft glow ambiance outside. Yeah,
they got that. They got barbecue pits too, and they got from the
top of the line stuff we're talking about like Trager and a Big Green Egg.
They also have weber pits and all the I was looking at all the
stuff that goes with the barbeque experience and they have a ton of it.
Uh. You know, you go in there and if you like things for
indoor in the house, beautifying and creating, maybe like a farmhouse, look
all kinds of stuff like that is going to be a Ace Hardware. Go
to the website Acehardware dot Com. They have a store locator and you can
find the stores. There'll be more than one near you at Acehardware dot Com
to the store locator. But if you hear me brag about it or recommend
it as a soil or a fertilizer here on Guardline, you're going to find
it in the Ace Hardware stores around the area. I love this time of
year because it's a time where there's excitement and new hope, and I feel
it. I've been doing this for many years and I still every spring.
I just get gardener giddy inside. Ooh, I'm gonna have to trademark that
gardener giddy. The excitement of that new variety you're trying out of something of
the luscious tomato. Of the beautiful flowers I was talking earlier about, like
the bubblegum Supertuna and the other one, the newer one. You just think,
you know what, what if I put some hanging baskets and really beautified
this area around here, wouldn't that be cool? Yes, yes, it
would be cool. It enhances the area that you're growing. But just remember,
anytime you are working on transforming your landscaping gardens so that you have a
more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, you start with fixing the soil,
right, brown stuff before green stuff, and Nature's Way Resources is really
the one that essentially created and established the quality soil market. And they John
Ferguson, they created the herb soil working with the Houston Herb Herb Soil,
Rose Soil, I'm sorry, working with the Houston Rose Society. They have
soil for vegetable and for herbs that does very well. They've got the mineral
enhancers that do very very well. They have multi is all kinds of quality
mulchies and they can tell you what you need. They know what they're talking
about. Talk to John, talk to Ian out there and you will find
what you're looking for. They have it by the bag and it's available in
some garden centers as well. You can pick it up their Nature's Way or
in a garden center. They've got it by bulk. You can call them
in order. But today, just as a fyi, is their Spring Garden
Festival. It's from nine to two today, nine am to two pm.
And just go to Nature's Way Resources if you don't know where they are.
If you're heading up forty five toward Conroe where fourteen eighty eight comes in from
the left, then you just turn right across the railroad tracks and you're there.
And this Spring Garden FESTI will be a lot of fun, good talks
and all kinds of things there. But make sure and leave room in your
car because you need plants. By the way, I didn't tell you this
time. They've got a Naty plant nursery as well there, so maybe you
need to attach a trailer. I think that's I think that's the only way
to go to Nature's Way. You need a lot of good stuff. We're
going to go to Tallaquah, Oklahoma and talk to Dina. Hello, Dina,
good morning, how are you. I'm good? Are you listening on
an app or what I'm listening on my Google. Okay, all right,
I got a question. So the temperature shirt is to drop to in the
morning to twenty nine. I have azelias in bloom or not in bloom,
but budge. You can see the color of them. I have hydrangeles.
Do I need to cover them all? If it's going to bloom, you
need to cover it, and if it has tender shoot growth, you need
to cover it. That's too cold, but it doesn't take much drape a
cover over, try to have it drop down to the soil, and just
with the warmth of what's rising from the soil should take care of you.
At twenty nine degrees, that's okay, that's kind of You're right on the
line there. But don't need any extra shouldn't need any extra heat. So
even if you bought tarps to get out there and put over it, anything
you can cover them with, get them covered for the night. I have
freeze cloth. Okay, the freeze cloth is good stuff too. Yeah.
Indeed, we can hang on through break if we need to. But I'm
about to have to take a break here. But did that answer your question?
That did Japanese the Japanese maple. Can I spray them with water?
Don't spray them with don't spray anything with water. Yeah, that's a whole
other explanation, but I tell you just that, that's all you need to
know. All right, appreciate the call very much. We're going to take
a break here for the news some one three two one two ktr H.
Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us today. Still
got plenty to talk about. In this last half hour of Garden Line.
We are going to discuss a number of things that you need to know regarding
success with your garden. And a lot of that comes from calls, because
we get questions from people all the time. The folks at Landscapers I have
a wonderful selection of just all kinds of brown stuff, the brown stuff,
the first step, the critical step. In fact, twenty seven different bag
products and bulk available too. You can go to the website Landscaperspride dot com
find out more about it there. But the things like their potting soil very
versatile. I mean, add a little bit of gret to it and you
can even turn it into something that's good for your cactus and succulents. It's
a very versatile economical potting soil. Now, the pot dirt is an OMNI
certified organic soil, and listen to this. It is loaded with nutrients,
it's got worm casting, it's got sand and vermiculite and more things in it.
So it's excellent for those annual beds. If you've got seasonal color changes,
you know it's time to put in the spring plants. You can get
a good popacolor with pot dirt from Landscaper's Pride. The Landscaper's mix is designed
with fresh pine bark, risols, pearlite, and even a slow release fertilizer
for improving a bed or for creating a new planting bed because it drains so
well well. They've got a rose mix. It's very effective for any kind
of woody plant that you're going to put in. It's got composted pine and
spagnum and slow release fertilizer. They are just so many products available. Where
do you get them? Let me make it fast and easy. Go to
Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com and they'll tell you all the places widely
available, all the places that you can get their products here in the Greater
Houston area. We're going to go to Magnolia now and talk to Walter.
Hello, Walter, Yeah, I'd like to find out what is the best
fertilizer and put on tomato b asks, you know that. To answer that
question, right, I need a soil test. And here's what I mean.
We have fertilizers they say tomato fertilizer on the label, and they're great
for tomatoes. But if your soil had real high potassium and no phostphish or
real high phosphors or no potassium or whatever, then the best fertilizer for your
tomatoes would be a little bit different. And so I would recommend first to
start with a soil test. For my tomatoes. I use a regular lawn
type fertilizer and I have good success with them because my soil is already a
lot of compost has been added, it's got a good nutrient content, and
that little extra boost and nitrogen is very helpful. But you ask ten people
that question, you're going to get ten different answers. But the bottom line
is you want every nutrient the tomato needs in the soil bank account so it
can draw from that. So where do we get that girl bit. You
go to soil testing at dot TAMU dot edu and I'll make that easy for
it. It's TAMU like Texas a m university and dot edu like the first
three letters of education all colleges and in dot edu soil testing dot TAMU dot
edu and you can send it in on my website gardening with skip dot com.
I have a soil testing made easy publication. It's just an info sheet
that I put together tells you exactly how to take a sole test right so
you get good results. But I'll tell you go ahead. Well, yeah,
I was just gonna say, uh, don't worry about the specific tomato
fertilizer too much. You get to if I talk about a fertilizer like here
for lawns, aside from the ones that have herbicide in them. Uh,
they're going to do fine for your tomatoes until you reach the point where you've
tested the soil and now you're a little more enlightened on which direction you might
want to go. You're not going to mess anything up just to get them
some nitrogen for this year. Yeah. I've always tripled thirtin and had good
luck. But yeah, I didn't something I would. You know, those
long ago were the fertilizers that were recommended. But what we found is that
over time that middle number, it doesn't really go away, It just builds
up, and over time we can get that middle number too high. Your
tomato plant does not take up nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in a one
one one ratio or in the other product you said, a one two one
ratio. It takes up mostly in nitrogen, a little bit of phosphorus,
and a moderate amount of potassium. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't use those,
you know, for the next decade every year because you're heading in the
wrong direction. It's not going to change things one year, but over time.
Okay, we'll send us ass off and see what they say. Appreciate
it all right, and you know the rule on guarden line. My advice
is free. I just ask you to bring half the tomatoes and leave with
the station for me. Well, we can't. We can't amall we made
for con salt. I will. I'll settle for jars of spaghetti impcante.
That's okay, you can do that. Thanks a lot, man, Hey,
I appreciate your calling. Thanks for being a listener. You take care.
That's funny. Have you ever grown tomatoes in a container? You know
you can do that? Right in a container, you can grow any kind
tomato won't grow if the container's big enough. Now it needs to be large
enough, and that's important because I've grown tomatoes in five gallon buckets with holes
drilled in the bottom before, and that's okay. But what I found is
I was watering them twice a day because when water becomes a little less available,
you get slower growth and less fruit set. And you're growing these things
to grow fruit. When water becomes erratically available, it's very watered now and
by the end of the day it's very dry. Blossom undrot is a bigger
problem. So for tomatoes, you need at least ten gallon container, and
you know they'll often they don't tell you how many gallons is in it,
but you get the two five gallon buckets worth the soil about that size of
a container, or you can get bigger, and bigger is okay. It
is okay to be larger because when it's larger. See, a tomato root
system is going to be reaching out three or four feet all directions and then
going down deep too, and so when you put it in even a ten
gallon container, that's a limited amount of soil. And so you got a
water enough to keep it moist, and you have to add the nutrients.
Everything that plant gets comes out of that container, every drop of water,
every molecule of nutrient comes out of the container. So you want that soil
to be top notch, have all the nutrients you need, so quality soil
and quality fertilizing is important. For example, a natche Foss distributes one called
jungle Land. Jungle Land is they have two versions. There's the flour and
vegetable planting soil that's for your outdoor tomatoes that we were I was just talking
about. And then they have the indoor one with water holding crystals for potting
soils for indoor plants. But let's go to that outdoor one. That's what
we're talking about. Jungle and flour and vegetable planting soil and a good quality
mix that is going to drain well and will hold nutrients and will hold water,
but not to the point of being mucky soggy. You don't want that.
Now, where are you going to get jungle land? Well, I
don't know, let's go to the Arborgate up in Tomball. Let's go to
Kingwood Ace Hardware. I think we can find some jungle land up there.
I mean it's easy to find. It's widely available the Shades of Texas too.
Down in southeaston on Genoa Red Bluff, they've got night frost products there
as well, so it's not hard to find. But remember the size of
the container. It really does matter, especially on plants that are going to
get bigger, like a tomato plant, and especially in the summertime when the
weather is so hot. We're going to take a break and come back for
our last segment. If you got a question, can't hold until tomorrow.
Seven one three two one two KTRH. Hey, welcome back to garden Line.
We're in our last segment today and I am looking forward to talking to
you. I am going to be heading up to antichrosen Porium right when the
show's over. I'll be there from twelve to two. I'll tell you a
little bit more about that in a minute, but I hope you will come
out and see me today out there. We're going to start off by going
to Laporte and talking to Samantha Hello, Samantha, Hello, how are you
doing? I'm Wilson. I was just wondering, isn't there a difference between
potting soil and gardening soil. There's a huge difference. Yes, Potting soil
is specially designed. In fact, we shouldn't even call it soil. We
know what we mean when we say potting soil, but it really it's a
growing media, growing medium, and it's got mostly organic matter in different forms.
Sometimes it has things like pearlide or vermiculid in it as well, and
so it's designed to get the most out of every square foot of soil area
that you have. You just put regular soil and the container, the plants
would not do as well. That's what I thought. I keep trying to
convince my husband and he said very no different. So I said, well
I always talk to and ask him, well again, the difference is it
drains better, it still holds water and nutrients, and there's just a lot
more composting material in it. What kind of potting soil would you bought for
house plants? When do you hear it? And then I was just talking
about the jungle land from nitrofoss That one is widely available and it's called jungle
Land that Nitropos distributes it. It's a good one. We have a number
of excellent kinds of potting mixes around here. So it it depends. You're
in Laporte, So you could go to a you could go to an Ace
hardware store somewhere down around you and you probably are going to find jungle Land
down in that area. So, okay, what do you what do you
want to grow in the pot? Can ask you that, Oh, I'm
this my house plants. Okay, so that and he bought me gardening because
he brought me tomatoes. I thought might need to want potting soil from my
house plants. Yes, and he doesn't understand it. Yeah, Well,
Deer Park has a Lumber and Ace Hardware on Center Street. There. I'll
tell you another place. I'm just kind of looking. You're you're not far
away from Seabrook and Moss Nursery carries potting soil as well. Now they may
have they may have the jungle Land, they may have the from Heirloom soils.
Heirloom Soils makes a potting mix alsoom Yeah, but go to Seabrook and
go to Moss. Have you been to Moss nursery before. Oh yes,
sir, plenty of times. Yeah. Well that's whatever they sell for potting
soil is going to be a good quality potting saw. Okay, I so
appreciate it. All right, you take care, Thank you too. I'm
going to head now to Galveston, Texas and talk to Ross. Hello,
Ross, good morning, how are you. I'm okay today? How can
we help today? I just noticed I've got several big palm trees in my
backyard, been there since the storm I just two thousand and eight or nine,
and they're good size or three feet around, probably ten feet high,
and from the bottom they look kind of rotten, like it's kind of rotten
at the bottom one of them. Particularly in the next one too, it's
kind of starting to do that. Uh huh. I know you used to
having pictured. I don't want to do that, but I just wondered from
what I said, if you tell me what I could make. Yeah,
I don't need a photo on that one. A couple things. Palms can
get freeze damage to trunks, that is possible, and that could cause h
you know, some of the tissues in there that are taking stuff up and
down to die and you could get a decay that follows. There are also
some trunk rot organisms that can affect a palm tree. I don't know a
good solution for either. There's not something you spray on the outside that is
going to fix that, and you just the tree itself will often shut that
down and keep going. But that that would be my I guess, just
take care of the tree in general. But I don't know anything that you
can put on it that's going to cure that rot. Fertilizer was some kind
of palm fertilizer that would be. It's always a good idea to provide the
nutrients that plants need. And there's a lot of good quality palm fertilizer type
products you know that'll that'll do do a very good job of keeping the tree
healthy, about providing the nutrients it needs to rebuild, to strengthen, to
recover and what not. Okay, I'll try that, thanks so much.
All right, Ross, you take care. Sorry to hear about that palm
tree. That's no fun. That is for sure, no fun at all.
Whenever you are dealing with the plant that is struggling, just just know
that when a plant gets weak, the things that can attack, the plant
can really proliferate, And so I think a good analogy is to use it
like our human body. If you don't sleep well and you don't get enough
sleep, and you don't eat well, and you don't exercise, you're just
a couch potato. You are more likely to catch a germ that turns into
a sickness and causes problems than someone who's fit. Does that mean a fit
person can't get sick. Of course they can, They absolutely can. It
just means why not put the subject in a better health state. And that's
true our lawns. It's true of our trees as well. And I'll give
you two examples. Take all root rot is a devastating lawn disease. If
just flat kills the lawn, now the one that makes the big brown circles
brown patch in the cool season, that rots the leaves off, and the
long comes back. But take all root rot kills the lon And it's an
opportunist. It's out there. The spores and things are out there. It's
not like someone walks over to your house and drops off. Take all the
spores. They're out there. But when the lung gets weak, it gets
a chance the upper hand. It takes off. Oak trees get hypoxylan canker.
It's a fungal disease. And the pathologists tree pathologist told me that you
can go to a healthy oak in the forest and you can find hypoxylan canker
presence out there. The spores are out there. But when the tree gets
stressed, the disease moves in and now one'll kill a whole tree. And
so what do we do well, going back in time last summer, a
good occasional soaking of the soil to event that drought stress. Avoiding over using
and misusing weed killer type products because they can some of them can get down
in the tree's root system. I generally tried not recommend the ones that have
the potential for that because if people misuse them, then you have that issue.
They making sure the tree is adequately water, make sure it's fertilized,
has the nutrients it needs, so make thing healthy and you can avoid the
issues and the sicknesses that that tree would have to deal with. That's just
a principle of nature. And it's true. You know, there's a lot
of principles of nature that apply to humans and to pets as well, so
if you are dealing with lawns that struggled last year, like I was talking
about, plants struggled and you got bare spots wherever sunlight hits the soil,
nature plants a weed, and you got to get out there. Put you
some barricade down, watered in with a half inch of water, and those
areas where sunlight is hitting the soil, well, when you watered in,
it forms a barricade. And when the weed seeds try to germinate and crabgrass
and grassburr and other warm season weeds, they're either starting to germinate or goun
to germinate really soon. You got to get that down for that purpose.
And it's from nitrofos. And you know, nitrofoss or their products are widely
available. ACE Hardware, for example, carries them. A lot of our
garden centers will carry those as well. It's not hard to find nitroposs products
like the barricade. I'm going to head over to Sugarland now we're going to
talk to Bill, and Bill I've got about one less than one minute,
so let's see if we can help you. Okay, I'll I'll go fast.
My question is I have some pecan leaves and some Japanese blueberry leaves in
my garden and where I have all my plants, And yes, do I
need to get rid of those? Or are they okay to just die?
I knew a guy who had his whole yardist pecan trees, and he had
compost bins that were four feet wide and twenty feet long, and he just
filled them with pecan leaves and made some of the best composts you could make.
Keep them, okay, run them over with them, catch them in
the in the catcher, and and use them as malt or make compost or
whatever you want to do with it, okay. And the Japanese blueberry too,
they're okay, Yeah, same thing. There's no diseases on those that
are going to affect a plant in your garden. Well, thank you so
much. All right, good take care out there in sugar Land. All
right, Well, it looks like we're putting one in the books. I
suspect that I'm going to hear some music here playing pretty quick here. I
just want to tell you it reminds you. In fact, I'm going to
be an anti rosen forum today, and I hope you'll come out to see
me listen. Anti Rosen for him is a showplace. If people drive from
out of state to come there to buy old roses, that is the kind
of showplace it is. It's a wonderful drive out in the country and up
in Independence, Texas, Justice north of Brunham. And I hope you'll come
out. I'd tell you I'll swing by and pick you out and put you
in the car, but I can't quite do that there. But anyway,
I'm gonna be heading up there. I'll be there from twelve to two.
I'll start with a one hour talk on beneficial insight, and I promise you
will learn stuff and you'll get to see stuff. Did you see the movie
Alien? Remember the movie Alien? And that guy one morning at breakfast,
Well, let's just say things with bad with the guy. Well, I'll
show you a video of an aphit where that process is getting started. It's
really cool. Anything bad that happens to an eightph it is fun for me.
After that, I'll be at a table and I'll give away some micro
life fertilizer, the sixty four and the big jugs. I'll give away a
bunch of those. Every a little bit I'll be giving away a little samples
as well, and most of all, I'll be meeting you, talking to
you. Let's look at a picture, Let's look at a sample. Let's
diagnose it, let's identify it. How can we help today? Those of
you in Novinesota Brian College Station. Hey, we're just down the street.
Come see it.