Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Ricter. It shows gas can
use a trim. You just watch him as worlds Gas. Many good things
to sup botas in great gas. You did Savos jobs back again. They're
not a SidD Glasses and gas and the sound bemon of between the gas.
Well, come, welcome to garden Line. We are here, live and
well and ready to go with all kinds of gardening talk. What are the
topics that are of interest? What are the topics of interest? Do you
have any particular questions that you might be interested in gett a little help with.
Well, that's why we're here. You can give us a call seven
to one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t r H and we'll be happy to visit about those kinds of
things. Boy, this weather has been interesting, hasn't it. These storms
that are coming through not so bad this last one, but before that we
had a couple of doozies. And when people end up dealing with things out
in the landscape from storms, typically fallen limbs, excessive water standing after a
storm, it just reminds us of the things that we need to do to
prepare for them, and then also maybe talk a little bit about the things
we do afterwards. When you have a branch that has been broken on a
tree, you of course need to remove it. But when it comes to
how to remove a branch, a lot of folks aren't aware of that.
And if I were to simplify it as much as just down to the basic,
here's a visual picture for you. If you're following a branch down the
say it attaches to the trunk. You're following it down toward the trunk.
Right before it attaches, it flares out, and so if you cut that
branch off where it attaches to the trunk, you have a big wound because
it has flared out. If you go out to just a little bit,
you've moved outside of what's called the branch collar, and you're making a much
smaller cut. If you move out further, it will die after you cut
it. That insection will die and you will be left with a stub,
which is a rotting piece of wood that prevents the branch from closing over that
wound. So there's a sweet spot in there, and that is very important
when you're making those cuts. The branch collar has the ability to heal more
so than trunk tissue does. So cutting off that color is not a good
idea, but making the cut at the right place allows it the best chance
in the world to be able to heal and go fast, or at least
heal what relatively fast for what a tree would be doing. Let's go ahead
and go to the phones this morning. We're going to go to Kingwood and
talk to Salvador. Hey, skip by doing today. I'm well, sir,
good Hey. I got three citrus trees that are in thirty gallon pots,
the lemon and the grapefruit. This is a second year they've been out.
I brought them in for the winners because I was tired of losing them.
Well, the lemon tree has lost maybe half a sleeve, but now
it's blooming again. But the grapefruit tree when they were out there, when
I brought him out there to begin with this end of the winter, they
were bright green and fresh looking. Now the grapefruit tree is almost a complete
yellow. There's some green in it, but it's yellowish. There is fruit
growing on it. I just wondered what happened, okay, as it went
from green to yellow. Can you describe what changed first, and was it
older leaves, younger leaves? Did they just turn completely I'm going to say,
did you say older leaves? Yeah, further down the branch, you
know the No, it sort of all happened at once. It gradually I
noticed it. But now it's pretty much you know, it's it's yellow.
It still looks healthy, I guess, But it went from a lush green
to this, and the whole tree is like that. Okay, Well,
I don't know what it could be. And it was before the rains even
happened, too, so I know it's not fluttered or anything like that,
right right, Well, chances are it's not a nutrient issue for a tree
to change that fast. Staying in the same soil is not going to be
a nutrient issue. It's going to be a water issue. And water logging
is one of the more common causes of a situation where the plant starts yellowing
and dropping its leaves. Well, that's the thing. The grapefruit tree did
not drop its leaves. It's just staying a yellow a lemon drop. Like
I said, half the trees. But now it's blooming back again. All
those crouts are coming back. Okay, so it's not dropped its leaves,
it's turning in. Nope, not at all. Well, I still would
check soul moisture. If the yellowing is all over the tree, yes,
I have trouble attributing that to any nutrient because no nutrients changed dramatically in that
short amount of time, and the soil there are nutrients that are mobile the
plant can move them around. They are nutrients the plant cannot move around.
And so to see the yellowing all over rather than in old leaves or new
leaves or whatever, I just don't see a nutrient related to that. Was
there any chance that you sprayed the tree with anything or sprayed something? Never
do I spray the trees ever. Okay, rid in the garage for about
it, I don't know, maybe a month just for those cold times.
Yeah, I think we're talking about something in the soil in terms of sole
moisture. It pots have drain holes, hopefully it does, and those drills
can become clogged. Are these pots sitting on the patio or are they sitting
out on the sting and the lawnder the plastic you know, the gardeners when
they put in the trees and the house as well, I grabbed a bunch
of them, their thirty gallons, okaying around. I do know that I
move them around when I cut the grass, so they're not you know,
blocking the rain and the flow of the water. Yeah. So that they
have holes at the bottom around the sides of the pot. That's really big
holes. Yeah, so that the gardener you know what the gardeners where the
people put in people's shards and when it curst building those big black yell have
you treated the yard with anything? Nope? Okay, well we didn't see,
but that that this is when they just came out, So we didn't
see that had nothing to do with it. They were already yellowing probably about
two weeks after being taken outside. Okay, all right, they just kind
of let it play out and see what happens. Like I said, the
lemon tree is just coming back like it's brand new. Now, Yeah,
I think, I think so. I would just to be sure, I
would fertilize them with a product for centrus. Follow the label, don't put
too much in there, right, just follow the label and let's water that
in and see give them a little bit of time. But that all yellow
is quite a mystery because you've kind of eliminated a lot of the things that
might have led to that. You know. The soil was from a one
of the A stores. It's a citrus palm soil good okay, and last
year they were growing great. I bought a lime tree this year and it
hasn't been effective. Well it's like you know, crystal, just very lush
green. But so I basically I'm just gonna move the pots again, make
sure it's draining boil. You know, with all this water, I could
see what you're saying, but it did happen before this, So just let
it play out and see what goes on. Yeah, I don't you know.
You've we've eliminated chemical problems, we've eliminated nutrient problems, We've eliminated sort
of drainage problems. I'll just let mother nature take its course and hope and
pray it works. I think so. Uh So that would be my suggestion.
I'll call you maybe a month to see you and give you an update
and see what's happening. That would be That would be good. I'd appreciate
that perfect all right, thank you sir. Yeah, but do that fertilization.
I will thank you if the tree turns around, it can do some
Wait, what was the fertile What should I put in there one more time?
Oh, a citrus crius type of food and like a citrus food or
something. Yeah, just a product that's labeled for CRUs. We we are
all our fertilizer sponsors that We've chose them because they have high quality. All
of them have quality ingredients, and we have Centrius food. So now I'm
just trying to see if that's the problem. This could not be the problem,
though possibly correct. I don't think it is so tast it happened and
how all over the plant it happened at once? Okay, Well, like
I said, I'll touch back to maybe next month. I'll tell you what's
going on. Thanks, thanks for your info. I appreciate your call.
All right, our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna take
a little break here. It is time for a break and then something.
I'll be right back, all right, Little Leonard Stannard first thing in the
morning, there could have you with us on guard line today. We are
look looking forward to visiting with you about questions you might have seven to one,
three, two, one, two, five, eight seven four.
Plants for All Seasons has been around since nineteen seventy three. They're right there
off of Tomball Parkway Highway two forty nine, just north of Luetta, just
right on Tomboll Parkway. And then you know, when a company's been around
for that long, you know that they're doing some things right, and they're
doing a lot right. And Plants for All Seasons I like to say that
if you've got a brown thumb, go in there and they'll make it green.
And the reasons for that is, you know, we don't believe in
brown thumbs here, we believe in it. We say that they're uninformed thumbs.
Well, when you walk into Plants for All Seasons and talk to very
knowledgeable staff there, you're going to get directed to the procedures, to the
diagnoses, to the supplements, to the fertilizers, to the pest control,
to whatever your plant needs that has been accurately diagnosed. That is kind of
how they do things. You can take a place, you can take a
sample, a picture maybe on your phone, and they'll help you with that.
You're also going to get the right plant put in your hand plants that
belong here, that grow here, and plants that fit the setting that you've
told them you want to plant this plant in. That is all part of
going home and having success. They carry all the fertilizers I talk about here
on guardline and a number of different quality soil and mulch based products right there.
Plants for All Seasons. Dot Com is their website. Two eight one,
three, seven six, sixteen forty six. I want to go out
now to Pearland and we're going to talk to Melvin. Hello, Melvin,
Hey, good morning, Scoop. You doing Bud, I'm good, sir.
Okay. I've got two peach trees. One is a red barn,
the other one is a mid pride. They both got plenty of peaches on
it. So the question is what time of the year did they naturally ripen
on the tree, And then what is the best method for picking them early
and trying to get them to ripen or soften up off the tree. And
your reason for picking them early is what birds? Well, it got so
many of them on there, you know, Okay if they all at the
same time, yeah, you know, then I've got the bombard people with
peaches or cut them up, freeze them and stuff like that. All right,
well, okay, here, here's here's the thing. Peaches are primarily
ripening in June and in July here in our area. Uh, that is
primetime peach season. You may get some that ripen towards the end of May,
but those are not That's the minority of the peaches. When a peach
ripens, it turns from green to that blushed color that everybody recognizes as a
peach. But the way to really tell if it's ripe is to find us
that's not in the sun. You know, wherever the sun hits the peach,
it's going to be pretty red. But if you find like where a
leaf lays across the peach, or sometimes right up at the top where the
stem attaches, or just the underside, backside, you'll see a change from
green to kind of a shartruse yellow color. And as it gets toward that
yellow on the side that doesn't have sun, it's probably getting ripe. You
can also squeeze them just a little bit, and if they give to the
pressure of like your thumb, that's another sign that they're very ripe. You
can pick them a little bit earlier. But the peaches are not a fruit
that has the ability to ripen off the tree. They're not like a tomato,
for example, that you can pick it a little finish. So you
need the peach to at least be at a firm but sweet stage before you
pick it again. If you let it get mushy, you know how that
turns out. It's called peach cobbler. But if you just look at those
signs, I think that's the best. And now it's just another reason why,
you know, as I recommend trees for people, I try to get
ripening over a period of time. You know, get a peach that ripens
two weeks after the peach that you that you already have that kind of thing,
just to spread that out a little. Yeah, right now, there
you feel them and they're very hard. The red barn has like got beautiful
blush on them, you know, beautiful looking peaches there, but when you
grab them, they're actually very very hard. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
the commercial folks pick peaches at that stage because you cannot ship a peach that
starts often, and so they just look at the color, the color on
the side where the sun isn't making it look riper than it is. I
think that's your best bet. And then tastes some taste one you kind of
get an idea that way, what that color should look like. Yeah,
but that's good. That leads me in the right direction, all right,
Melan, I gotta tell you, I've heard about a lot of people with
problems, but haven't too many peaches. I've never heard about anybody that had
that problem. Usually i'd say that's a that's a way to make a lot
of people happy. Maybe you can trade them for something you need. Yeah,
the red barren is so loaded that the limbs are just kind of like,
oh my god, down, Oh okay. You know they're pretty much
almost the size of tennis ball. You know, Well, remember in the
spring, you want to thin your peaches out. If you can thin them
out by the time they reach about thumb size, that's the best. But
I'll put mine. You know, if you open your hand as wide as
it will open, the distance between the tip of your thumb and the tip
of your little finger, that's how far peaches should be on a branch in
order to full size. And one, yeah, I should offend them out.
I did not do that. You know, that's just all right,
but appreciate it. Enjoy your so and keep it up there. Thank thanks
with the call. Appreciate the call very much. Our phone number if you've
got a question something you would like to ask seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four out
in the lawn. It is time to do your summer fertilization if you haven't
done that already, and I would recommend at this point in the season that
you choose a slow release fertilizer. And what is that, Well, that
means a fertilizer that especially the nitrogen in the fertilizer is not just a form
that dissolves away and is immediately available. When we do that, we end
up with a flush of green growth, meaning you get to mow a lot
more and overdoing nitrogen actually causes the plant to have less of a root system.
I know it's hard to imagine, but I've seen the studies and the
pictures of the roots and how they look in different nitrogen levels. So if
you have a fast release, for like, you can dose it out in
small doses. But that means fertilizing just a little bit a whole lot of
times. What I'd recommend is that is a slow release, and that is
going to have nitrogen informs that release gradually over time. It's also nice when
we get a gully washer rain that doesn't all just dissolve and wash away.
Nitropos Superturf is that kind of fertilizer. Nitrofos Superturf was designed for our area,
for our southern turf cress. It's like Saint Augustine and Bermuda and Zoysia
and our hot and humid climate. It will help cut down on moy up
to twenty five percent just by evening evening that growth out. Now you're going
to find nitrofoss super turf at OspA ace in the woodlands for example. You
also find it at plants for all seasons. I was just talking about right
there on two forty nine Tomball Parkway and plants and things up and run them
another good source for nitropost products like the super turf. If you are mowing
your lawn, and I know you are, you have a decision to make.
Do you return the clippings to the turf or do you remove them bag
them. I want you to think about something When you put nutrients on the
ground, the grassroots take it up, and what do they grow with it?
Grass runners and leaves blades, grass blades. When you then clip those
grass blades off, you're taking some of the nutrient that you purchased and you're
going to put it in a bag and set it at the curb where the
trash comes and hauls it away. That's called renting fertilizer. Your nutrients.
You paid for good nutrients. They're gone from the property. When you return
your clippings to the turf, those clippings release a perfect blend of nutrients.
Because think about this. To grow a grass blade, you have to have
the right balance in that grass blade of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, minuscule
little elements, trace minerals, things like manganese and zinc. They're all in
the blade. And so it's nature's own perfect slow release fertilizer. A study
done by text A and m many years ago, they looked at the nutrient
value of clippings. And if you take all the clippings from one year of
mowing and you had it analyzed, and then you got the pounds of nutrients
that were in those clippings you would weigh more apply nutrients with your lawn more
than your fertilizer spreader. I will say that again. We fertilize our lawns
to give it the extra boost. Nitrogen, for example, is volatile.
We need to keep adding some to it. But your lawn mower puts out
more nutrients than your fertilizer spreader does. And so to bag those and have
mauled a ways just wasting. You can do that now when it rains too
much and the grass gets at tall. Yes, I bag some of mine
the other day. I hate to have to do that, but I did
used it as mulch and flower beds and some garden beds that I had.
But in general, let that clipping go back into the lawn and feed your
lawn. All right, we're gonna take a little break here. It's time
for the news. Seven one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back to
garden Line. How many of you remember the arches. Okay, we're going
way back. I remember, Okay, here we go. Brief story.
I remember that on the back of cereal boxes for a little while, they
would print little records. Yeah, they press into a plastic that was over
the back of a cereal box, and you could cut them out and put
them on your little forty five record player and play the records. And it
was super sugar, crisp sugar. Of course, that was a song by
the Archies. I'll never forget that, all right, those days are gone,
as they say. Well, I have been talking about recycling your clippings
and the importance of that, and it is important. It is something we
should do. There is some place for organic matter on your property to go.
It could go back in the lawn in the case of clippings. It
could be ground up and used as a mulch. In the case of leaves
or branches or things. Most people don't have a grinder to do that kind
of thing. I run over my leaves in the fall, some of them
I run over with the lawnmower and just chop them up real good, so
I can use them as a little fine textured mulch on the surface of the
ground in my vegetable garden. That works pretty well. But remember that that
nature recycles naturally. Have you ever seen a deer in the forest drake and
leaves, or a cow in a meadow bagging clippings? Of course, not
that nature has a way of taking what grew and turning it back into the
soil and making the soil better and the soil better in the process. Even
grass plants, you know, grass plants live about a year. Excuse me.
The roots of a grass, it's an individual root lives about a year
and then it dies. Now it's pushed a channel through the soil and growing
and it's just all kinds of microbes that are going all proliferating around that root
because of the things the roots feeding them. And then is that as it
dies, now you have a passage for air and moisture to move down in
the soil more readily. And so if you do a time lapse, imagine
the grass plant sending down a root and it dies, and then here comes
another root and another root. Of course they don't all die at once.
It's a process. But in that process the soil is getting loosened. It's
having organic matter put down into it. We do that, we buy compost
and we speed up the process put it down in the soil. But nature
does that naturally, and so taking advantage of that system, the healthier your
lawn is, the better your lawn is doing the better your lawn will do.
How does that sound. The better your lawn is doing, the better
your lawn will do. What does that mean? That means you've got a
healthy lawn. You've got good coverage, your weed problems are being minimized,
you've got an active growing root system that is enriching the soil. You've got
nutrients from the clippings that are going back into the soil, and so all
of that creates a more beautiful lawn too. Again, it doesn't mean that
we don't have things to do like fertilizing. We do. But nature system
which we are taking a notch up in terms of having a nice, beautiful,
uniform, dense lawn. A nature system is to take care of itself.
The better your lawn is doing, the better your lawn will do.
So good healthy dense lawn. That's a secret. If you go to my
schedule on guarding with skip dot com and let's see, if you go there
on the lawn care schedule, the lawn care schedule, it talks about how
to mow properly. Do you know there is a way actually to mow properly?
And it talks about the importance of returning those clippings and creating a dense,
healthy lawn. If you go to the weed schedule, the weed management
schedule in red letters right in the middle of the page, I'm going to
read it. The first and most important step and weed control is to build
a dense, healthy turf over time through proper through proper fertilizing, mowing,
and watering. Remember, wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed.
All Right, those are some thoughts. I think it's a little bit
on the academic side, But I think as you understand that it starts to
make sense, and the way you go about gardening and the way you look
at problems in the lawn starts to kind of evolve a little bit and we
just become better gardeners as we do. Remember, there are no brown thumbs.
There's uninformed thumbs. And for you lawn rangers out there, hopefully I
just informed the thumb just a little bit there. Our phone number, if
you'd like to give us a call, is seven to one three two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Your
Ace Hardware stores, Yeah, the forty Ace Hardware stores in the Greater Houston
area. They stay stocked up on the things you need to have a more
beautiful landscape and a more bountiful garden. That would include things like every fertilizer
I talk about on garden Line, like composts and mulchz that you hear me
talk about here on garden Line. They have the pest control, the weed
control, the disease control products you need to have success in the case of
things like here's mosquito season. You can buy your mosquito dunks there. You
can buy a fogger there if you're going to go after them that way.
Just whatever you're trying to do to have a beautiful, beautiful landscape and a
bountiful garden, ACE can help you with that and also help you with making
your outdoor living a nicer experience. First of all, no mosquitos. Second
of all, a really sweet barbecue bit, you know what I'm talking about,
Like Trager, Big Green Egg, wherever, those kinds of things they've
got that they can get it all set up. Go to ACE check them
out Acehardware dot Com. Find the store locator so that you can find the
ACE Hardware nearest to you. Pick up your fertilizer, your FIREMNT control time
still time to do that, and mosquito repellent this weekend at ace, I
was complaining yesterday about the mosquitos and their outbreak, and one of the things
I have to do when I get home is clean out my gutters on the
house. I had just not noticed this, but I have a certain kind
of well. I have cypress trees that pretty sees little feathery leaves, and
those things will really clog up a gutter well, and I hadn't noticed that
they'd built up. And when we had this gully washer and it was overloading
the gutters, Uh, it came over the sides of the gutter and a
normal gutter. That shouldn't happen. But I need to get up there and
clean that out because I guarantee you there are mosquitoes that are reproducing in that
area. Mosquitoes just need a little bit of water and a little bit of
time to lay an egg, get the larvae, and here comes the adult
mosquito coming out of it. And we need to make sure and stay away
from that and avoid it. And that's what's going to happen in my house
for sure this week it's time take a break. Our phone number seven one
three two one two ktrh. I'll be right back. Welcome back to gardenline.
Good heavy with us. What do you like to talk about today?
I've been going on about some of the natural systems out there, how to
have a beautiful, dense, thick, healthy lawn, and why the practices
we do help achieve that. For us, that is our goal to have
a beautiful, dense, healthy lawn those of you who love lawns, and
boy, judging from percentage wise of the calls, we get lawns and trees
or by far the top two topics that people are interested in. I mean,
we get, you know, questions on plumerias and roses and bugs and
diseases and everything else. But I'll tell you LUNs and trees, that is,
those are very important to people and they should be. Trees are a
valuable, valuable asset to the landscape. They shade our homes, which in
the summertime can help significantly on air conditioning electric bills, for example. They
also provide shade for us as we're sitting outside. I have a cypress tree.
I complain about some things about that cypress tree, but I tell you
I don't complain about the fact that when I go outside and sit underneath it,
it is nice and cool. Even on a hot day, there's a
nice break. If we have a breeze, we have a big fan.
I have an out back that is my artificial breeze if the breeze refuses to
blow, Because a breeze makes a big difference. But trees are valuable.
Blooming trees are very gorgeou and when you decide to plant a tree, you
need to think about it for a while. Think about what do you want
out of that tree. Some people will call and say, what's a good
tree to plant? I lost the tree, what's a good tree to replace
it? Well, what do you want? Do you want a big spreading
shade tree. Do you want something that's ever green or something that is going
to lose its leaves and allow the sun through in the winter or does that
matter? Do you want something that blooms? How big? Do you want
it to be? Little tree over a patio area or again a big giant
shade tree. All of that helps us determine what are some of the options
to have success with your trees. But think about trees, they are a
long term investment. If you live in that house for the rest of your
life, A quality tree could last that whole time. I really could.
It's a very, very valuable investment and I think an important decision. So
let's not take it lightly. Let's choose some good, good types of trees
that are gonna survive for us and fit what we want them to be able
to do. I was talking about our schedule online and if you go to
gardening with Skip dot com, you will find that schedule that will guide you
in both lawn care and lawn pest disease and weed management. I talk about
it a lot because I've put together a lot of information into these two schedules
in hopes that they'll guide you because you're gonna have questions next week, next
month, next season, next year, and you can always refer back to
this and as we do updates to it, I'll let you know. But
the nice thing I think about these schedules is they're color coded and they cover
January through December, and they give you options both synthetic and organic for both
fertilizing, insect control, disease control, weed control. Where we have those
options, they are there listed on the schedule, and that makes it really
easy for you. A lot of people print that out and make it and
just you know, take it with them when they go shopping, because that
way, you don't have to remember what it was that you were wanting to
get, or what the option B and C is for you. You got
them right there. I'm going to be doing another appearance before we hit the
summer season here, and that will be two weeks from yesterday at Wildbirds Unlimited
in bel Air. Now. Warbirds Unlimited stores are fun to go to,
you know, just on any given day, but I hope you'll consider coming
out and meet me there at the wild Birds Unlimited. I love to meet
people that listen to the shows. That's just always fun. It's one of
my favorite things about the whole gardening world is meeting gardeners and talking to gardeners.
Warbirds Unlimited has an excellent selection of everything you need for birds. I'll
be there because they're there, they're the experts on birds. I'll be there.
If you've got plants you want diagnosed, you can bring a sample in,
you can bring a photo in. If you have plants that you would
like to have identified. Maybe it's a weed. Maybe it's a beautiful plant
you saw somewhere. Bring me a picture. Let's look at it. Remember
when you take pictures and bring them or email them to me. If we're
dealing with an email question, it's important to take a picture of the plan
and it's setting, and then also a picture of what distinguishes that plan up
close. Like if it were a disease spot, let me see it up
close. If it's an insect, let me see it up close. If
it is a pattern in the leaves or a blotching or a lack of color
or whatever, let me see it up close and make sure it's in sharp
focus before you hit sent. One last thing, if you're going to be
emailing and with email, I can't answer the emails of everyone in the in
the Greater Houston area, so we connect those to the show. But if
you do email me a photo, please attach it rather than embed it into
the text. When a photo is embedded in the text, I have to
go through a couple of steps to be able to save it and really zoom
in better to see it better. And when it's attached, it's real fast
and that makes it a lot easier. So if you would attach them rather
than to bed them. That would be helpful anyway. I hope you come
out next or not next two saturdays from yesterday, June fifteenth, right in
the big middle of June. That's easy to remember. Wabird's unlimited in bel
Air. Look forward to seeing you out there. Back at the house,
I was working on some beds that had been neglected for a little while,
and I finally had some time to get out and do some revamping of those
beds. I was taking out some really heavy clay that we had in the
beds from a trench that had been dug and the clay had been just set
there because I didn't want it put, you know, in the yard and
other beds. And I'm moving that clay out, and then I'm bringing in
quality bed mixes to work into the soil. Things also like expanded shale to
work into the soil, and that makes it's really helpful to be able to
do that. I'll talk about a little bit more of that in a moment.
Let's go to Conro now and talk to Larry. Hello, Larry,
good morning, Skip. How are you today. I'm well, sir.
How can we help good? I sent you a couple of pictures yesterday in
reference to some trees I put in some hollies, Yes, okay, And
I was just asking if you'd recommend that I put those in in Oh,
I guess October. Hey, Larry, I don't see those pictures, do
you. Let's see here? Isn't here to show up as from Larry?
Is that? Or does email begin with some different letters or things? The
email would come be s is in Sam b as in Victory owas in Oscar
b as in Bravo four three SV I don't see it? Will you resend
them? And when I come back from break, if you want to hang
on the phone, you can do that. We're about to have to take
a break here. But if you will re send them to me or just
call back, we will try to dive into that. Okay, yeah,
let me get yeah, let me get back and make sure I get with
your assistant there to get that email correctly then, because I received it from
them yesterday. Okay, Okay, here, I'm gonna put you on hold,
am my producer. You're going to give you my email address. Thanks
a lot. All right, we've been listening to Guardline. We're here to
talk about the things that interest you, How can we help you have success?
That is That is exactly what we're trying to do here. You know,
gardening is I think the most wonderful hobby there is out there for a
lot of reasons, but it is one that is daunting to some people.
And it doesn't need to be like we say, there's no brown thumbs.
There's some informed thumbs stick around. We'll be right back and we will continue
to inform your thoughts to KTI r H Garden Line with Scamp Richard's trip.
Just watch him as a world, so many good things to see. Boss
S, welcome back to the guarden Line. Good to have you with us.
We are looking forward to visiting with you about the things that interest you.
That is what we're trying to do here on the Garden Line. Make
sure that we help you have success, as I like to put it,
a more beautiful landscape and a more bountiful garden. We're gonna head back out
to Conroe to talk to Larry. Larry, I've got your photos and taken
a look at them, and I think the first thing I would say is
think about what you want the plant form to be. Do you want a
tree with a you know, a bear trunk coming up and then a top
that has all the leaves and foliage on it. Are you looking for more
of a wall of foliage it goes to the ground or what do you think
there? Well, I'm definitely I wanted to look like a tree more than
a bush. Okay, well you're well on your way to that. The
trees, they look pretty good. Actually, I think you obviously have spent
some time making sure they're well watered. Get them through, you know,
when we come into this next year, just remember the root system is still
very confined, so just make sure that the original root ball and a little
beyond that does not dry out. So you'd recommend trimming those up Pruningum,
yeah, you could clean up the trunks to the height if you want uniformity.
You know, some of them branch a little lower. You could remove
the lower branches. Just figure out what the heights you want it to be
and then prune them out. Remember that leaves develop where sunlight, where there's
sunlight, So if your top of the tree gets real wide and broad,
it's going to shade out the lower areas and you're not going to have foliage
down in lower areas, So just do a little selective printing, not sharing
them like a shrub, but a little selective printing to shape them as you
want them, making sure that the lower leaves are reaching out and getting sunlight
as well. When you trim they grow at the bottom of the tree,
at the bark right near the ground. Does that encourage growth more to the
top of the tree, Well, it does. Trees are going to to
grow anywhere that there's sunlight. You're going to see branches sprout, shoots come
out, You're going to see leaves growing and things like that. When you
allow that to go on, there's a certain percentage of what the roots are
taking up that is going into those branches, and especially if they are branches
that are not going to be permanent on the tree, then when you cut
them off, you've you know, you all the resources that went into making
that branch are taken away now and it would have been better to make the
decision a little earlier and to have those resources go into the growth that is
more permanent. Sounds good. That's what I'll do, all right, sir.
Thank you, very thank you, sir. A good day. Yeah,
thanks for the call. Appreciate that a lot. I'm having trouble here
with my buttons. Okay. Earlier I is going on and on about nature
and taking care of the soil and whatnot, and lens Scaper's Pride is a
company built around that. Landscaper's Pride has like twenty seven I believe different products
that are out there on the market, things that improve the soil, you
know, compost, soil blends and whatnot. But I want to talk about
what goes on top of the soil because you think about a forest, the
rich some of the richest soil on Earth, and you've got a lot of
organic matter that's decomposing on the surface, and that's called malts when we get
it into a garden. They have the black velvet molts, unnaturally dark molts,
not dyed, naturally dark, beautiful, beautiful molts, very velvety in
depth. They have a hardwood molts based on true hardwood shredding trees, not
plump, not a pecking pallets like some companies will do. They have a
pine bark molt, which is our most popular and it's a beautiful pine bark.
That last pine bark lasts a little bit longer, doesn't decompose as fast
as some of the other maltes might do. And then of course the Garden
Magic Soil, that's the blend that in addition to the chicken pellet fertilizer,
it gives you about three months of feeding. That soil has. It's based
on pine, it's got humus, it's got screen pine, and it also
has composted rice holes. So again several different organic materials decomposed back into a
quality growing mix for plants. All at Landscapers Pride. All you have to
do is go to Landscaperspride dot com and you can find out more about the
products and also where to get them. Let's go now out to Champion's Forest
and talk to Barbara. Hello, Barbara, oh skip, thanks for taking
my call this morning. Sure, I am unundated in some areas with ki
linga, okay, And what can I use on it? It's I don't
want to damage to Saint Augustine if I can avoid it, okay. Kay
Linga is a lot like nutgrass, and in terms of it being related,
it's very similar to sedge, and it is a little more difficult to control
than than nuts edge is. And so what what I would suggest you probably
are going to want to get something with halo sulfur on in it. And
I know that's a that's a lot of a lot of word there, but
basically something like heritage. Excuse me, not heritage. I just went blank.
Sedge hammer, I'm sorry, sedge hammer, sedge hammer, or there's
sedge ender. Also, sedge hammer and sedge ender are both products that will
help you will need to apply them more than once, and so they not
said the kalinga is probably not a one shot deal. Thet if I use
a pump up sprayer and spray it and it happens to hit some of the
Saint Augustine, that's okay, just just follow read the label carefully, and
follow the label carefully, try to target the kilinga. But the sedgehammer is
designed to be used in lawns, as is the sedge ender. Right,
I appreciate that. I'll get to that today. Well not today, it's
still too wet. Yeah, but as soon as things start to dry out
a little bit. And just a one more note, sedges, including Klinga,
they love wet conditions. And it doesn't mean if you let your lawn
dry out, they're going to go away. It just means that the wetter
it is, the more they proliferate, and the more of a challenge it
is to bring them under control. And this season it's definitely hit all spots.
Yeah, we're not in charge of the clouds, are you. No,
we're not so yeah. Well, I tell you, I see a
lot of folks that weigh over water their lawn way more than the lawn needs.
And so just keep that in mind, you know, be a little
stingy with the water out there. Well, where I live, I don't
have to water too much because the way the drainage is set up in our
patio community, the water runs downhill and guess who lives down there? You
go, all right, all right, Well, uh then maybe the way
to get rid of kilinga is to call a realtor. Well, I don't
think I want to move. I like, hey, Barbara, thank you,
appreciate it, Thank you. I have a great day, you too.
We're going to take a little break. Seven one three two one two
k t R. Hil be right back. Welcome back to the guard Line.
Good to have you with us today. If you have a question that
we can assist with our phone number. The number you need to call is
seven one three two one two k t r A seven one three two one
two k t r h uh Nitroposs has a number of different fertilizer products in
the market. One of them that I find very interesting is sweet Green.
And I say interesting because this is a different kind of an approach to fertilizer
based on a molasses type material with microbial activity on it. Uh. It
has an eleven percent nitrogen content that is very high for an organic type material.
When you put it on the soil, that carbon based material, the
molasses based material, the carbon it really reactivates the microbes in the soil,
especially beneficial bacteria. These microbes need carbon in order to thrive and grow,
and when you add this to the soil, you get a rejuvenation and a
real increase in bacterial numbers. This is why organic gardeners like to put molasses
on the soil for example. They recognize that and sweet Green will give you
a nice greening up. It'll dissolve away as the rainfalls or as you irrigate
move down into the soil and you see that result. Because it is going
to be available, you can use this more than once through your summer season
to continue to just provide the amount of green and growth that you're looking for.
You're going to find it at Enchanted Gardens down in Richmond Rosenberg, at
Shades of Texas up in the Woodlands. You also find it at Fisher's Hardbor
both the one in South Houston on South Moore and also the Fisher's Hardware and
the Port on South Broadway Street. Makes it easy to find a lot of
availability of these and other nitro fuss products. I think that with the rain
that we've had, our lawns are doing pretty well. Actually, in fact,
the only thing I've noticed is I saw some yellowing in my lawn the
other day, and it was a beautiful green lawn, And there are just
some areas that are just starting to yellow a little bit. And I think
that just an excessive amount of water maybe to drain is not being as good
as it is. I don't know what else going on there. I'm keeping
an eye on it. Maybe add a little iron key late to the soil.
Iron key late is a form of iron that the soil doesn't just tie
up immediately like it would regular iron, and iron key late, just judiciously
applied, can help with that lack of color. Let's go to pair Land.
Now we're going to talk to Greg. Hello, Greg, Hi,
Skip. I've got a lawn that B and B put in a bunch of
new San Augustine saw it for us about five weeks ago. They did a
beautiful job, did a beautiful job. And what I need to know is
is it okay to do anything now you would with a regular established lawn,
from fertilizer to bug out max to anything. Is there anything I shouldn't do
with this lawn? Yet? After almost five weeks, most of the time
turf comes in with a as I put it a charge of fertilizer. It's
got some nutrient in it, and it doesn't need nutrients for a while.
It's getting a root system down. Been in five weeks now you've got a
pretty good root system. You can go by one of two ways of looking
at it. One would be to say, wait a month at least maybe
six weeks before you start fertilizing. Okay, so you're getting close to that.
The other would say, when you've had to mow the lawn twice,
it's probably time to start fertilizing. And that's what and that's what we've done.
It has been mowed twice. Yeah, so it's got enough of a
root system to where we're not worried about it being not established. And so
you could do any of those things that you want to do. Look at
the color too. But if you're going to do a fertilizer, I would
do one that is a very slow release one, gradually releasing those nutrients over
time. Okay. And and and I use nitro fas is it the it's
no, it's not the red bag. It's a silver bag from Nitropos.
It's called super turf. Yeah, superturf, silver bag. Really easy to
find. Uh. And and just to apply that, follow the label on
Nitrophos super turf. You're going to put about five pounds per thousand square feet.
I believe I need to check that label again and may be a little
off on that, but I believe it's fine. Okay. I think on
my fertilizer spreader, I think it goes to fifteen and I used about ten.
Does that sound about right? Yeah? Probably? So, yeah,
that is okay. That is a difficult thing because we had all these brands
a fertilizer and all these brands of spreaders and things. One way that I
put it. Is this a walk behind spreader, It's got wheels, it
is h it's like a broadcast. So generally if you put it a notch
or two above halfway, so you said you have you had a fifteen notches
on it, Yeah, fifteen, and I usually do about ten. Yeah,
nine or ten would be okay, Yeah, don't you won't. Don't
go over ten. But I'll tell you something else. There's nothing wrong with
going like way lower than that. And you go across your lawn and then
at the end you see how much you have left. And it may be
that you've put almost two thirds of it out, so you need to back
off a lot, or it may be that you need to add more.
But if you just do it in one trip across the lawn, you could
run out before you get to the end of the lawn. And so I
like to go a little light until I figure out with my spreader and this
product, this is about what I want to set it on. Anyway,
that's just a little little extra things. Not know that that that's great.
One more really quick thing I've got And I talked to you about this before
and everything worked out beautifully. But I planted a big yucka tom Sonyana and
it just got through blooming and it's got a few blooms left before they're about
to all fall off. Is it okay to cut off that bloomstock now?
Or should I wait until it dries out? You can cut it off now
if you want. Okay, Yeah, that's good. Well, that takes
care of everything. That love your show. Thanks a bunch, Hey,
Thanks, Greg, appreciate you being a listener. Okay, all right,
bye bye you bet bye bye. Mother's Day. Mother's Day was passed.
Does that mean we quit giving gifts? No, there's always a day for
a gift. Father's Days coming up. Now. When you think about gifts
and you think about somebody who already has everything, what would be a good
suggestion. Maybe it's just a housewarming gift. This is a great I have
a great idea for you. Wa Bird's Unlimited. Wild Birds Unlimited has all
kinds of things birds and most people enjoy just watching birds, or sitting out
on a patio and listening to their songs and watching their antics. Whether you
need a little bird waterer, a little bird bath as they call it,
if you need a house for birds, if you need a feeder for birds
Wildbirds Unlimited. How's all that? Including a really cool book called The Joy
Bird Feeding by the founder of Warbirds Unlimited. It makes an excellent gift from
housewarming to whatever event, to just hey you're my friend. Here is I
just wanted to do this for you. Wild Birds Unlimited is six locations around
town. Go to WBU dot com, forward slash Houston, or hey,
I have an idea for you. I'm going to be at Waldbirds Unlimited.
It's coming up two weeks from yesterday, June fifteenth. I'll be at the
Waldbirds Unlimited and bel Air. So come on over and see me and we'll
talk about some great ideas for gifts or maybe you want to buy something for
yourself. Let's head out to Hoffman now and talk to Greg. Hello,
Greg, how you doing. I'm good, sir. What's up? All
right? I'm in here. You're telling about these mosquito dunks. Yes,
and I was warning Are they safe around animals and stuff like that? Absolutely
safe. Birds can drink the water, the cat, the dog can drink
the water. It is. The reason is this is a disease of the
mosquito larva. And so I mean if a lady beetle K drank the water.
It wouldn't hurt it because it's not it's not a mosquito larva. Okay,
cool, cool good. I got a few animals and bought me some
of the mosquito dunks. Could. I've been hearing you talk about them,
and yeah, yeah, good, And I read up on it a lot,
but I just wanted to see if my mind was reading the same way
it was reading. Yeah. No, this is you know, there are
a lot of pesticides out there, and we always concerned about, you know,
side effects and stuff. I can't think of anything with less than those
side effects as a mosquito dunk in terms of all the things we care about
in the backyard, from people to pets, to beneficial insects to birds,
you name it. All righty, well, get sure, do appreciate it,
and thank you. You have a wonderful day, SIRVI. You bet.
Thanks. I appreciate the call. Good luck those mosquitoes. I tell
you, we've all got a battle on our hands. Oh I know it.
I'm battling them already, so all right, but take care great right,
yeah, mosquitos, mosquitos, boy, they have been they have been
proliferating at my house, you know, and you got to be diligent.
I had here, here's just an example. I was in my garden and
I had I spread leaves in the walkways in my garden. It just makes
an all weather pathway. They decompose and then periodically I harvest if you build
the walkways and put it in the beds, because it's composted leaf material.
Uh. And I had an extra bag of leaves that I set off in
a corner and kind of forgot about. And I was walking by the other
day, just cleaned things up, picking things up, and I saw that
bag and it had rained on it, and of course there were these little
small puddles in the bag. Mosquitoes can proliferate in that they can breed and
go through their life cycle in that look for places where you have standing water
that you can get rid of. And if you have standing water, you
need to keep mosquito dunks or the thing to use makes it so easy.
Each dunk lass about a month, I believe, releasing that disease of mosquito
larvae into the soil. Well, we're gonna take a little break here for
the news. Our phone number if you would like to give me a call.
We got a wide open board here if you'd like, here's this a
great chance to get on uh seven one three two one two kt r H
seven to one three two one two kt r H. I would like to
ask a question and when you come when we come back, if if you
call, would you think about what are some new things you want to try
in the garden you haven't done before? Maybe you heard me talk about birds
or birdhouses. Maybe you heard me talk about the mosquito dunks, or maybe
some kind of plant. What are you going to do different this year?
Gardening is about growing in more ways than one. It's about growing in your
gardening skills and growing in the in the number of things and the types of
things that you have. Will be right back, welcome back to guarden Line.
Glad to have you with us today. If you'd like to give us
a calf seven one three two one two kt RH and we're going to head
right out to Friendswood and talk to Charlotte. Hello Charlotte, Good morning,
Stip morning. I would like to ask you about white I think their white
flies in my yard. Okay, I've had them at least a year and
I kept thinking they would die in the winter, and I applied bug out
Max about three weeks ago. And I cannot tell that there's any difference.
Okay, Now, describe what you're seeing. How big are they and when
you walk through the yard, what do they do? Okay, So,
especially early morning when I walked through the yard, they just fly up in
cloud, almost like a cloud, and they are very very small. I
mean, I can't part of it's my vision, I'm sure, but I
can't really make them out very well. I just know that there are clouds
of white Okay, Okay, you know, I don't think that's white flies.
Number one white flies. Our turf is not a target for white flies
eating. There are there are many kinds of little gnatlike creatures that it could
be coming from. It could be fungus gnats. They eat on organic matter
decomposing in the soil surface, and they love wet conditions. It could be
a lot of different kinds of things. It is not a pest of the
lawn though, so other than the fact that you got these little credits flying
around, it's not something you need to be concerned about with your lawn.
Okay, Well, that's good. To hear. Yeah, it's always good
to seem to be dying or anything. But it just bothers me. Yeah,
I understand. Well, you know, I mean we could you could
spray a insecticide out there, and for the case of these, I think
you would need to go to a spray because the the product used is going
to dissolve and go down into the lower thatch and soil area and and do
its work down there. But I think with something like this you probably need
a spray that you can get all over the foliage of the grass and stuff.
It. Just remember what you know, Nature has a lot of interactions
going on, and very few of the things are pasts that are out there.
So I always try to avoid disrupting the balance. Uh, you know,
but if if you need to get rid of them, that that is
possible. I just not if it were my yard, I don't. I
wouldn't. I would just ignore it. No, I'm fine with ignoring them
if if it's not going to kill my grass. Right, it's not not
those things. If your grass dies, it's because of some mills. Okay,
Okay, thank you very much, Thank you, Charlotte, appreciate that
very much. Now that you and I have just decided we don't have a
problem there. I guess we can go solve world hunger and deal with some
big problems. Right. Get the bills paid. Thank you, Charlotte.
I appreciate it. You take care. Yeah, that is for sure.
If you are wanting to have a beautiful lawn and landscape, I want to
tell you about peer Scapes. Peerscapes has been around for a good while and
they're professionals. They've got designers that can go in and I mean then recreate
whatever you're looking for. Do you want a beautiful outdoor rock patio area.
Do you want it to have outdoor lighting, landscape lighting? Do you want
to have work done with an irrigation system to improve drainage to like I said,
pretty much what you need. Do you want to have a whole new
beds put in and design? They can do all of that. Pierscapes is
a professional. They are professionals. They absolutely know how to do it right
and you can go to their website. Do this, Go to their website
and see what I'm talking about. Pierscapes dot com. Piercescapes dot com.
You will be very impressed with the kind of upscale work they can do,
but they can do work on any kind of a home setting. And they
have a quarterly maintenance, so maybe you just want someone to come in once
a quarter clean up the flower beds, put in new color, malt the
flower beds, you know, do some trimming and fertilizing and all that type
of thing. Check the irrigation system. Perscapes can do that too. Just
give them a call again, make it easy for you pierscapes dot com or
two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero. Now we're going to
head out to Kingwood and talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, good morning
Skip. I had a one question and asking your advice about lawn fertilizer spreaders.
I'd used the Trustee Scott's Speedy Green for about twenty years and recently the
one of the wheels fell off of it, so I thought I would just
go replace it with the same kind since it had been such a good one,
and I got online the new ones have terrible ratings and you know,
their very poor quality. So I just my yards about six thousand square feet,
and of course it's broken into some big parts, some little parts,
or you know, in the front yard, there's probably three areas in the
back about six. I used a hand fertilizer and so I get better control,
but it only holds about four pounds and so it takes a long time
to spread the fertilizer. So I was calling to see what advice you had.
Do you use a walk behind the spreader or to use a handspreader?
I used a walk behind for fertilizer. If I were putting out fire at
Bait, I would use a handspreader. Uh do you mind sharing what what
brand you use? I don't mind. I was just thinking about it as
I figured you'd ask that I think it. I think it's a Scotts brand.
To be honest, I had to look at the brand. Uh it's
uh yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the Scotts. And I don't remember which
way it's a it's a good but let's say a medium range of Scott's spreader
and it works well for me. That's fine. Yet I got it over
at uh Southwest Fertilizer, bought it from Bob over there, and and it
Yeah, I've been pleased with it. Yeah yeah. Have you bought it?
Was it recently or have you had it a quite a while ago,
about a year ago, and then I've gone through a lawn transition. I
planted a new lawn a couple of months ago, and so I haven't had
to fertilize yet. I'm about to start, but it's the on came in
with such good nutrient charts. It is still looking good. But I'm about
to put this low release out to take care of the rest of the season
up to fall. When you put out grub killer, to use the walk
behind for that also, you can. Yeah, it just depends on how
big of an area you're going to cover. Most of the time, I
would not cope my whole lawn in an insecticide for grubs. They tend to
be more of a problem near outdoor lights. You got a porch light or
something where all the june bugs are, and you see them more in kind
of hotspots like that. To be honest, I just have not had a
grub problem that I've had to worry about in a very very long time.
I do it mainly as a preventive to keep the faral logs out of my
yard. Okay, oh well, okay, but I mean they'll come in
rooting for earthworms and a lot of things. But yeah, I know what
you're talking about. Yeah, armadilla's too. They love the Yeah, yeah,
I have lots of armadillas. All right. Joe Hey, thank you,
Skip you Bet, I appreciate you. Carl, thank you very much.
We're going to take a little break seven one three two one two K
t r H. I'll be right back. Come back to garden line a
little memory of Tobeque. Well we are. We're discussing a variety of different
kinds of things today. I've been doing a little bit of, I don't
know, going in depth a little more on a few topics. I like
to do that every now and then, just to kind of get some understanding
of what's going on behind the scenes in gardening and why we have success,
why we do what we do. One of the questions I get periodically and
probably should get more based on driving around and seeing how things are planted,
is how far apart do you plant things? How far apart do you plant
like annuals in a bed or shrubs down down a hedgerow? And uh,
one answer to that is do you want fast or do you want to save
money? Which is more important to you because of course you put things closer
together and you get faster fill in, but that comes at a cost of
more plants. You can put them further apart, and you may take a
while to get it to fill in, but you bought less than the way
of plant. So it's kind of a trade off there. And in general,
as a very general roll of thumb, I think about how big a
plant's going to get, and I'll plant it at about fifty percent to seventy
five percent, maybe eighty percent of that distance. So if you've got a
shrub, and I'll make the numbers easy. If you've got a shrub that's
going to get ten feet wide, that would be planning them five feet apart
for a very fast fill in, or up to about eight feet apart for
a slower Okay, so fifty to eighty percent of the distance. You have
to consider too, how fast does a plant grow. If it's something that
just crawls, like Texas Mountain Laurel grows very very slowly, probably gonna put
something like that a little bit closer because it's going to take a long long
time. If it's something that grows fast, well, then a little further
apart would be That'd be another factor in how far apart to plant things in
flower beds and whatnot. There's some great online tools where you know, it'll
tell you I'm putting in a plant, here's the bed area, and I
let's see, I need to plant these x inch you know, inches apart
or so, and then it'll tell you how many plants you need for that
area. And that's very helpful going in. Just remember that always, I
always have an extra plant or two or three around, because sometimes something happens
to one plant, and that way, you've got the one kind of sitting
in the on deck circle and you can just pop it right in little Astro's
reference. You can pop it right in to that spot. So just having
an extra one or two is a little way to head your bet some And
then I end up putting those in a container or something like that, because
you know you can't get rid of a plant that's perfect health. Well let's
go back to the phones. We're going to go to Spring and talk to
Rich. Hello, Rich, good morning. Skip struggling struggling with trying to
tell the difference between kalinga and nutsedge. Okay, all right here, nuts
edge has a more upright growth habit. It's gonna get taller than Kalinga gets.
On top of nuts edge, you're going to have some you're gonna have
a cluster of what would be a sedge bloom doesn't look like a flower.
And then the seed set that's more open, and it may it may cover
an area, oh, I don't know, two inches across or more.
Kalinga the top of it where the seeds would be. It's more like small,
fuzzy, almost round ish types of things sitting right in there entire So
maybe the individual ones would be about the size of, you know, one
of your smaller fingernails or something like that. Kalinga, there are some,
so Kalinga is the one that has it. It almost looks like a mini
pineapple if you will in the middle. Yeah, yeah, something like that.
That would be Kalinga. And then nutsedge is just more open. And
you can do an online search for nutsedge and Kalinga doing image search and it'll
it'll direct you to you. There's yellow and there's purple nut sets. So
student kinds of nutsedge that are most common around here is very selective herbicide skip
that will take care of both without hurting Saint Augustine. I would go with
sedge hammer or sedge ender, and you will need especially with the kalinga it's
harder to control. You will need to be ready to do more than one
application over time, maybe six weeks apart. Just watch it and see you
don't want to overdo that. But sedgender or sedge hammer both are pretty effective.
Well, do appreciate the help, Skip, Thank you you bet take
care. Appreciate that call. We're going to go out now and talk to
Greg in Katie, Texas. Hey Greg, Hey, how you doing,
Skip? I'm good? Today is Greg Day. You're the third Greg.
I don't know what's going on. They don't give you enough time to send
it. I mean that was the first one up. Sorry about that.
I'm trying to send it. I thought last week about webworms into trees.
I am sending you a picture I think it went now where a tree is
completely full of them. It's in the green space right next to my house.
My house has a lot of trees that are sixteen to seventy eat taller
more. I can't get a hose or anything else up high enough to break
up the webs, so right now the webworms are falling on us. And
that's disgusting. But I'm concerned because they're all over. I mean, there's
hundreds of them. Are they going to be eating the grass and the plants?
No, they don't eat grass. There are other plants that they can
eat. Wow, I see the photo, Holy Macarel. What kind of
plant is that? I don't know. It's a tree in the green space
next to me. But I have a lot of trees in my yard.
Like I said, we're sixty and probably all the way up to eighty feet,
and there's all sorts of my neighbors the same way. The webworms are
just crawling all over the fence. That is, for those of you listening
to me talk about a picture on the radio, which is not a good
not good radio. This multi stem shrub is completely white with webs and there's
not a single living leaf on it that I can see. That's amazing.
So those webworms, there's not much left for them to eat on there,
So there's no sense spraying it at this stage. Blasting the webs off wouldn't
be a bad idea, just getting it cleaned up. They are the tree
is going to bush the bush, it's going to come back out, and
as it comes back out, you want to spray the foliage with an insecticide.
There's organic and synthetic options, but spray it with insecticide so that any
webworms that remain don't just go right back to town, because if they eat
a leaf that's been sprayed, it will kill them. And that is the
goal on this. This is worse than I've ever seen on a plant like
that. I'm gonna I'll come in in the email later, but yeah,
that's what I would suggest. Just watch if you start to see a little
bit of a webbing form on any other plant around there, then spray the
plant with the insect side. Most of sexercides don't last that long, so
you don't want to just spray because something might show up. You want to
wait until you see it actually has. Like I said, most of our
trees are sixty seventy or tall or be tall, and there's nothing I can
do well. That is true, but I haven't seen anything like this anywhere
in town. And in fact, there are a few years where we see
the cons taken almost completely leafless, but not very common. Very interesting.
Thanks for the thanks for the photo. Good luck with that, but do
stay with it and be ready to go when they show up somewhere else.
They got probably two more generations this year that we're going to see of those
things. All righty, okay, thank you, thank you. Wow,
that's interesting. All right. Well here at the end of another hour,
Sarah, we didn't quite make it to you, but you will be the
first up when we come back at the after the top of the hour news.
Just a reminder again, I'm going to be at Wallbird's Unlimited in bel
Air on Saturday, June fifteenth, two saturdays from yesterday, and I'll be
answering questions, looking at samples and just folks. Listen to garden Line at
r H Garden Line with Scamp Richards Trim just watch him as well. So
many things to say, sig welcome back guarden Line. Good Davey with us
today. Looking forward to visiting about the things that are of interest to you.
Let's just hop right on that and we're going to head out to Sarah
in clear Lake. Hello, Sarah, high Skip. I have been gardening
in my yard for thirty five years. And when I very first started kind
of landscaping the yard which had never had anything done with it, I planted
these azaiahs called Gumpos and they were little dwarfs. I mean, they didn't
ever get any higher than like two feet ever, and they had these beautiful
kind of dusty rose ballooms. And I cannot find them anymore. I've been
to Arburgate, I've been to mos Nursery. I cannot find them. Or
do they just not grow them anymore? Well, I'll tell you what.
If those two places can't find them, they must not because they have an
extensive ability to go out and find and bring plants in. Now. I've
never asked them to order anything. Well, is that something I can do?
Yeah? I would do that. I would talk to them and say,
can you order this particular plant. I'm not familiar with that particular Azalia.
The name sounds for me, I think I remember back when when it
was talked about a lot. It's g u m p o. Is that
it? I think so? I think so. I think that's right,
the Gumpo Azalia. I'm just gonna look right here and and see if I
can see. Yeah, Monrovia carries it, and I know that Arburgate orders
from Monrovia. Okay, and so far we'll talk to Moss. They they
can do that too, I'm just saying it it. I haven't asked Moss
about, you know, some of their plant sources and things, but yeah,
gumpos apparently still around. Yeah they were. They were a great little
plant. They're not as vigorous as you would like. Really have to take
care of them, but I still have two, miraculously an every year.
They just are a delight when they bloom because the color is just so pretty
and I have not seen anything else like it. Yeah, well that sounds
pretty cool. Well I'll go right on down and ask them. Thanks for
your help. Thank you, good work. Well, I appreciate it.
Thank you. Take care. Uh yeah, there's always some new plant coming
along, and there's always old plants that we fall in love with, and
sometimes they stick around. Sometimes they become very difficult to find. You know,
we're not talking about tomatoes, but I can tell you a dozen tomato
varieties that I used to love that you just don't see anymore. They're just
kind of not around. Some of them. The breeders don't even do them
anymore, so that that's a sad thing. But when you fall in love
with the plant, you need to be able to have it around. Uh
Medina has come out with a new fertilizer product. It's a liquid that goes
on the end of your garden hose and it's called super Grow Plus. And
I'm very impressed with this product. It's a sixteen zero two fertilizer. Now,
one little quart bottle is going to cover about four thousand square feet,
take you about ten minutes to get that job done, and you can do
it now, you can do it a couple of months from now. It's
primarily going to release the nutrients now, but about one fifth of the nitrogen
in it is going to be gradually released over time. It has a wonderful
concoction of things like molasses and humic acid for examples. Those are excellent.
A seaweed extract is in it. Iron a chlated form of iron specifically,
isn't it So if you had a little yellow spots and whatnot, I would
just try this out. Grab you one of those court bottles of Supergrow Plus,
hook it up to the hose, and go over the lawn. Hit
those spots that are looking a little on the yellow side, and I think
you're going to see a difference from that. Now. This is one of
many has to grow or many products from Medina, including has to grow,
has to grow plant food, has to grow for lawns, and then now
has to grows super grow plus all good products from Medina widely available in our
area. It does really, really well. We're going to go down to
Steve and Mission Bend. Hello, Steve, Hello, ships. I have
lived in the house that we are in for about thirty one years and we
have a brand new problem in our backyard. And I'm told they're called webworms,
and they they've covered a tree in the backyard with webs, and those
little worms are crawling all over our patio, furniture, all over our yard.
Okay, how do I get rid of it? Well, if you
got any leaves left to eat, you can spray those leaves and it'll kill
the webworms. That We've got organic options, and we've got synthetic options that
will buy up the fastest. The fastest I would probably you could either do
something called spinosaid SPI n O s A D, or you could go to
what are called synthetic paritheroids, another synthetic parrethoids and the ingredients there are many
ingredients, but they all in and th h R I N SO resmethrine ci
fluthren. Yeah, those kinds of things end in thren and there's only one
that's organic, and that is pyrethrine. All the rest are synthetic, and
the pardon son p y th h r i N. Pyrethrine does not last
very long in the environment, and so if you want an organic I would
use the spinocid instead spinosaid, but the synthetic perrethroids are going to last longer.
By Fenthren is a very common one, okay, But again you got
to get it on the foliage, so breaking up the web with a little
stick, a strong stream of water, whatever. But the sooner you get
it to them the better. The older the caterpillars are, the harder they
are to ule. Do we spray the whole yard as well, Only the
plants that have the webbing or the start of webbing on them. They webworms
like a lot of different kinds of plants. But there's no sense in spraying
something that hasn't gotten a little bit of a start of the caterpillars, or
you'll it won't stick around long enough. Okay, thanks, thanks, good
luck, appreciate the cost. Yeah, thank you very much for that.
Talking about bugs, and things. Night Foss Bug Out Max is a granular
product. You put it down your lawn, you water it in, and
it controls, oh gosh, over one hundred and thirty different kinds of insects,
I believe, And within forty eight hours you got total control. And
that control is going to last through the summer. It sticks around so very
persistent, and it'll control ants and fleas and ticks and chinch bugs and sod
webworms. And by the way, we're entering the season for chinch bugs and
eventually sod webworms here. So Night Foss bug Out Max is the way you
can get ahead of the game or to catch up, and they've gotten ahead
of you. You'll find them at Hiding Feed on Stubner Airline. You'll find
them at Plantation Ace Hardware out in Richmond Rosenberg, and at the two Bearing
Hardwares here in Houston on Businette and on West Timer. It's time take a
little break, and when we come back, I will head to Richard just
you'll be first out. Good to have you with us listening today. Enjoy
getting outside and getting some things done this afternoon. I hope if you'd like
to enjoy just taking care of the flowers and the vegetables and whatnot, kind
of walking through and looking things over. You know, they say the best
fertilizer is the footprints of the gardener. I say the best pest control is
also the footprints of the gardener. You know, you catch them right now.
Webworms are just everywhere. People going crazy about web worms, and they
should. I mean, they're they're, they're they're everywhere. But they started
off as a few little kind of pillars on a leaf somewhere on a tree,
maybe several spots, but they start off that way. And if you
see them at that stage, a little squirt of the right insecticides and you
got them under control. When you don't happen to notice them in time,
they may already be so far ahead of things it's hard to catch up,
or there's very little left to save on the foliage of a tree. So
just an example of how getting out and checking things early helps. In fact,
I'll say this stand by this that if you want to use the safest,
the least toxic pesticides, and if you want to have the most benefit
from them, the earlier you do it the better. As insects get older,
as caterpillars get older, like things like BT isn't as effective against them
as it is when they're very young. And then there are some insects like
stink bugs and leaf footed bugs where a boy, you don't catch them early,
you're gonna have to go with some pretty potent stuff and definitely not an
organic product in order to get them under control. So just a little tip
the footprints of the gardener. Catch it early, act early, and you
have the widest range of options and the safest options that you might want to
spray out there. All right, just a free tip for the day.
Let's go to West Houston and talk to Richard. Hello Richard, Hey,
good morning, Skip, how are you. I have good? That's wonderful.
I have a two year old camellia that's on a trellis and we want
to transplant it today. Are there any precautions and steps we need to take
after we move it that you would recommend? In particular, Boy, transplanting
your camellia today is tough. You're probably going to lose some lot of foliage
on that plant when you do. Getting as much of the root system as
you can wider is more important than deeper. Okay, so is it going
to be put somewhere on your property. Yes, we're moving just from one
side of the yard to the other, rich soil to rich soil. It's
a good, good situation. So the less disruptive you can be to the
roots, because digging it, no matter what you do, is going to
be extremely disruptive. But the less disruptive the better. So what I do,
And I moved a rosebush a while back like this. I cut a
circle around the plant, cut down, and then I took my shovel and
went underneath. So maybe I was oh, probably six or eight inches deep
something like that. And I went underneath and then got about halfway and I
slid a tarp underneath the plant. You know, lean it one way,
slide the tarp under, then cut loose the other side, and just slide
the plant right up on the tarp and drag the tarp to the new location.
You can move a very heavy piece of soil with dragging a tarp,
and the one person can do it, but two for sure. You get
it in this new spot, dig a hole that's the depth and size of
what you got, and just slide it right into that hole. And then
water it in very well. Build a little burma soil around it if you
can, so that when you water, the water soaks right into that spot.
If the area is somewhat sunny, definitely cover it with some sort of
a shading cloth. However, you can rig something up to help it,
because it's not going to have the roots to supply water to the leaves and
it'll all turn brown if it can't keep water to the leaves. Well,
that's very informational. Do you apply anything like a root stimulator or just water?
Now you can't. You can do root stimulators. There's a number of
different things. Are based on vitamins, I'm based on hormones. I'm both,
but that won't hurt anything at all. To add well, great,
I had one special request. Would you allow me to wish my gardener wife
a happy enniverse street nast Julie. Okay, anniversary to both of you.
That's good. Well, thank you. Yeah, she's the she's my gardener
and love of my life, so thank you. I just have to ask
you, now, uh, when you said when I people talk about their
gardener, they're usually talking about somebody they hire to come in and take care
of things. Does she do all the work around that place, making everything.
She does most of the work. I have to give her all the
credits. She's certainly the brains well and uh, I do some of the
labor, but she's the brain. Okay. Well, I refer to that
as German gardening. It's it's getting work done by the sweat of your frow.
Thanks a lot, Richard, I appreciate your call. Have a good
okay anniversary to both of you. Well, that's good, that's good.
Gardening is a fun thing and and and to do with you know, a
spouse or friends or family. Uh, it's just enjoyable. And I'm fortunate
to have several people includ my wife and the family that enjoy getting out a
little bit and doing some gardening. And uh, I don't know, it's
just more time to relax and enjoy more of that psychological benefit that gardening brings.
And in so many ways, gardening brings peace of mind. It's a
way to wind down when you are dealing with stresses. It's a way to
unwind. Uh. It's just a just a good activity out there. Well.
Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one, two, five, eight, seven four or by
email at Garden Success at TAMU dot Edu. Garden Success at TAMU dot Edu.
We've had storms recently and we saw a lot of big limbs come down
and do a lot of damage, including knocking out the power here through huge
sections of the greater Houston area. Well, when hurricane season arrives, which
it did yesterday officially and goes all the way through November, you need to
think about getting Martin spoon Moore and his team from Affordable Tree to come out
and do some selective pruning. That would be trimming away any dead areas in
a tree, doing other selected pruning, making sure your trees are safer than
the heavy winds. You're basically setting your trees up for the best they can
be in terms of storm readiness. Now, you don't want to have a
tree fall on your home or a giant limb fall on your home or other
valuable property. So if you have any dead trees or huge dead limbs,
would definitely get those out now. I can't express enough the importance of proper
tree care coming into this storm season, And as we learn just the other
day, it doesn't have to be a hurricane season. To have major damage
to our trees, call Martin spoon Moore. Here's his number seven one three
six twenty six sixty three, seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty
three. His website aff Tree Service do aff Tree Service dot com. Martin's
been doing this for many years here in the Greater Houston area. This is
a family operation. I mean, he and his wife. They answer the
phones. If you call and Martin or Joe doesn't answer the phone, well
hang up. You call the wrong place with affordable in the name Affordable Tree
Service dot com. I hate it when people lose major limbs on trees because
typically when nature prunes a tree doesn't do a very good job. I'm just
saying, you know, when you get a limb that breaks and rips and
strips the bark down and things, those wounds are very slow to heal,
if they heal at all, and that's why it's important to avoid that at
all costs, if at all possible. If you would like to give us
a call, seven one three two one two five eight seven four is the
number. Dan Nelson out at Nelson Plant Food has been concocting some quality fertilizers
for a very long time. You know, Nelson Plant Food has the Color
Star line, They've got the Turf Star line, the Slow and Ease.
They have other lines as well, but in the Turf Star line, Bruce
is s brew and Slow and EASi are the two ones that I like to
talk about in the summertime. Bruce sprew is a quick green up product,
but it has a couple of types of slow release fertilizers, so you do
get a gradual feeding over time as well. So I would say it's front
loaded to the fertilizing now and then backloaded to the gradual release flip that around.
Slow and Easy has a little bit of available fertilizer right away, but
it has some very long release nitrogen chemistries in it that will provide you release
for over four months. So when you use Slow and Easy now, you
do not fertilize again until the fall. Fertilization Slow and Easy helps feed the
microbes in the soil, It helps acidify the soil. It just provides that
kind of turf growth that makes nice even growth for even you have a spike
in mowing problems, you don't have a loss of root system due to overfertilizing,
slow and easies and excellent products from Nelson Plant Food as many of their
products are excellent and well known and well loved. Here. You've probably have
used the color Star before. Hey, have you ever used their Boogain Villa
food? Those of you who have Boogain vellas, Nelson has an excellent Boogain
Villa food as well. And it really for any vine. I mean,
do you have a Virginia creeper? Do you have a passion vine? Do
you have a trumpet hondisuckle of vine? Butterfly vine, Carolina jessemine. You
know that's the one that blooms yellow in the spring, jasmines, and you
know, whatever it is, Boogain Villa Food is an excellent choice for all
of those you are listening to Guardline and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
And we're gonna run real quick here to Jimmy and Conrad. Oh hey,
Jimmy, do we have a Jimmy? All right, I'm gonna have
to put you on old Jimmy when we come back from a break. We
just don't have enough time really to go into the call. When when we
come back from a break, you will be our first s up and we
will discuss what is of interest to you before we go into break. I
just want to remind you my schedules are online that cover your lawn through the
year January to December. One is the lawn care schedule. The other is
the lawn Pest Disease and we'd management schedule. Gives you all the products organic
and synthetic, tells you when to apply them and to control or two feed
whatever you need to do in your lawn. They're both free and they're both
at Gardening with Skip dot Com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. All right,
I'm gonna turn it over to the news and we'll be right back.
Good to have you with us listening today. Enjoy getting outside and getting some
things done this afternoon, I hope if you'd like to enjoy just taking care
of the flowers and the vegetables and whatnot, kind of walking through and looking
things over. You know, they say the best fertilizer is the footprints of
the gardener. I say the best pest control is also the footprints of the
gardener. You know, you catch them right now. Webworms are just everywhere.
People going crazy about web worms, and they should I mean, they're
they're, they're they're everywhere. But they started off as a few little caterpillars
on a leaf somewhere on a tree, maybe several spots, but they start
off that way. And if you see them at that stage, a little
squirt of the right in sexicides and you got them under control. When you
don't happen to notice them in time, they may already be so far ahead
of things it's hard to catch up, or there's very little left to save
on the foliage of a tree. So just an example of how getting out
and checking things early helps. In fact, I'll say this stand by this
that if you want to use the safest, the least toxic pesticides and if
you want to have the most benefit from them, the earlier you do it
the better. As insects get older, As caterpillars get older, like things
like BT isn't as effective against them as it is when they're very young.
And then there are some insects like stink bugs and leaf footed bugs where boy,
if you don't catch them early, you're gonna have to go with some
pretty potent stuff and definitely not an organic product in order to get them under
control. So just a little tip the footprints of the gardener. Catch it
early, act early, and you have the widest range of options and the
safest options that you might want to spray out there. All right, just
a free tip for the day. Let's go to West Houston and talk to
Richard. Hello Richard, Hey, good morning, Skip. How are you?
I have good? That's wonderful. I have a two year old camellia
that's on a trellis and we want to transplant it today. Are there any
precautions and steps we need to take after we move it that you would recommend?
In particular, Boy, transplanting your camellia today is tough. You're probably
going to lose some lot of foliage on that plant when you do. Getting
as much of the root system as you can wider is more important than deeper.
Okay, So is it going to be put somewhere on your property?
Yes, we're moving just from one side of the yard to the other.
Rich soil to rich soil. It's a good, good situation. So the
less disruptive you can be to the roots, because digging it, no matter
what you do, is going to be extremely disruptive. But the less disruptive
the better. So what I do. And I moved a rosebush a while
back like this. I cut a circle around the plant, cut down,
and then I took my shovel and went underneath. So maybe I was oh,
probably six or eight inches deep something like that. And I went underneath
and then got about halfway and I slid a tarp underneath the plant. You
know, lean it one way, slide the tarp under, then cut loose
the other side, and just slide the plant right up on the tarp and
drag the tarp to the new location. You can move a very heavy piece
of soil with dragging a tarp, and then one person can do it,
but two for sure. You get it in this new spot. Dig a
hole. That's the depth and size of what you got, and just slide
it right into that hole, and then water it in very well. Build
a little burm of soil around it if you can, so that when you
water, the water soaks right into that spot. If the area is somewhat
sunny, definitely cover it with some sort of a shading cloth. However,
you can rig something up to help it, because it's not going to have
the roots to supply water to the leaves. And it'll all turn brown if
it can't keep water to the leaves. Well, that's very informational. Do
you apply anything like a root stimulator or just water? No, you can't.
You can do root stimulators. There's a number of different things. Some
are based on vitamins, I'm based on hormones. I'm both. But that
won't hurt anything at all. To add well, great, I had one
special request. Would you allow me to wish my gardener wife a happy anniversary?
Name Julie. Okay, well, anniversary to both of you. That's
good. Well, thank you. Yeah, she's she's my gardener and love
of my life, so thank you. I just have to ask you now
when you said when I people talk about their gardener, they're usually talking about
somebody they hire to come in and take care of things. Does she do
all the work around that place? Making everything? She does most of the
work. I have to give her all the reit. She's certainly the brains.
Well and uh I do some of the labor, but she's the brain.
Okay, Well, I refer to that as German gardening. It's it's
getting work done by the sweat of your frow. Thanks a lot, Richard.
I appreciate your call. Have a good thing. Thank you sir.
Okay, the anniversary to both of you. Well, that's good. That's
good. Gardening is a fun thing and and to do with you know,
a spouse or friends or family. Uh, it's just enjoyable. And I'm
fortunate to have several people, include my wife and the family that enjoy getting
out a little bit and doing some gardening. And uh, I don't know,
it's just more time to relax and enjoy more of that psychological benefit that
gardening brings. And in so many ways, gardening brings peace of mind.
It's a way to wind down when you are dealing with stresses. It's a
way to unwind. Uh, it's just a just a good activity out there.
Well our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eights of twenty
four seven one three two one two five eight seven four or by email at
garden Success at TAMU dot edu. Garden Success at TAMU dot Edu. We've
had storms recently and we saw a lot of big limbs come down and do
a lot of damage, including knocking out the power here through huge sections of
the Greater Houston area. Well, when hurricane season arrives, which it did
yesterday officially and goes all the way through November. You need to think about
getting Martin spoon Moore and his team from Affordable Tree to come out and do
some selective pruning. That would be trimming away any dead areas in a tree,
doing other selective pruning, making sure your trees are safer than the heavy
winds. You're basically setting your trees up for the best they can be in
terms of storm readiness. Now, you don't want to have a tree fall
on your home or a giant limb falling your home or other valuable proper So
if you have any dead trees or huge dead limbs, would definitely get those
out now. I can't express enough the importance of proper tree care coming in
to this storm season, and as we learned just the other day, it
doesn't have to be a hurricane season to have major damage to our trees.
Call Martin spoon Moore. Here's his number seven one three six nine twenty six
sixty three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three his website aff
Tree Service dot com. Afftree Service dot com. Martin's been doing this for
many years here in the Greater Houston area. This is a family operation.
I mean he and his wife. They answer the phones. If you call
and Martin or Joe doesn't answer the phone, well hang up. You call
the wrong place. With affordable in the name Affordabletree Service dot com. I
hate it when people lose major limbs on trees because typically when nature prunes a
tree doesn't do a very good job. I'm just saying, you know,
when you get a limb that breaks and rips and strips the bark down and
things, those wounds are very slow to heal, if the heel at all.
And that's why it's important to avoid that at all costs, if at
all possible. If you would like to give us a call, seven one
three two one two five eight seven four is the number. Dan Nelson out
at Nelson Plant Food has been concocting some quality fertilizers for a very long time.
You know. Nelson Plant Food has the Color Star line, They've got
the Turf Star line, the Slow in Ease. They have other lines as
well, but in the Turf Star line Bruce is sprew and slow and easier.
The two ones that I like to talk about in the summertime Bruce Sprew
is a quick green up product product, but it has a couple of types
of slow release fertilizers, so you do get a gradual feead over time as
well. So I would say it's front loaded to the fertilizing now and then
backloaded to the gradual release flip that around. Slow and Easy has a little
bit of available fertilizer right away, but it has some very long release nitrogen
chemistries in it that will provide you release for over four months. So when
you use Slow and Easy now, you do not fertilize again until the fall.
Fertilization Slow and Easy helps feed the microbes in the soil, It helps
acidify the soil, just provides that kind of turf growth that makes nice even
growth for even you have a spike in mowing problems, you don't have a
loss of root system due to overfertilizing. Slow and Easies and excellent products from
Nelson Plant Food as many of their products are excellent and well known and well
loved here. You've probably used the color Star before. Hey, have you
ever used their Booga and Villa food? Those of you who have Booga and
vedas, Nelson has an excellent Boogain Villa food as well. Uh, and
it really for any vine. I mean, do you have a Virginia creeper,
do you have a passion vine? Do you have a trumpet hondisuckle of
vine, a butterfly vine, Carolina jessemine. You know that's the one that
blooms yellow in the spring. It's jasmines. And you know, whatever it
is, Boogin Villa food is an excellent choice for all of those. Uh.
You are listening to Guardline and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
And we're going to run real quick here to Jimmy and Conroe. Hey,
Jimmy, welcome back, looking forward to continuing on here with our next hour
of the show. We're going to head out to who's been online? Okay
Kay in Paarland, Hello, Okay, Hi, good morning, Skip,
Thank you for taking my call. Sure, I was just got part of
the conversation with the lady who was looking for and azalia that she couldn't find
any longer, and I didn't hear what it was. I'm not an azalea
person now, but back in the day when my husband and I had our
first house, we had an azalea. It was back in the sixties and
it was called Macrantha, and it was amazing. It bloomed almost all year,
except like December and January, and it wasn't profuse blooms like azagahs do
now for a month or so, but it just bloomed all all through.
It started in the spring, and it bloomed all through the summer and just
went down in the cold winter. And I haven't seen it anywhere, and
I was just wondering, have you or have you ever heard of it?
Yeah? I have there there's still they're still available. I don't you know,
I don't check all the varieties of our garden center to know, right,
but I think they still can be found. Uh yeah, I just
I was just curious if you'd ever, you know, heard of it.
Okay, well, so it's still out there somewhere if the Okay, thanks,
thank you so much, have a great day. Bye bye you too.
Take care. Let's see here we are now going to head out to
Greg and Conrad. Okay, this is the fourth Greg of the day.
Something's going on. Well it's a different one. Uh hey skip, uh.
I want your ideas on a vine I built a pergola or an arbor
on my back porch. Uh. Anyway, I'm trying to I want to
grow a vine up it. I don't want it to cover all of it,
but uh, you know part of it, and you know, ideally
I was thinking of the Star Jazz niney uh, but I don't know if
it's gonna be able to handle the the full sign and the heat that was
get here in the summertime. No, I've seen it out in full sign.
It can it can take a full sign. Yeah, okay, the
star Jasmin can because you're rewarded with the wonderful flowers. Uh, you know,
the lovely it. It blows a couple of times a year, doesn't
it, uh spring into the summertime kind of. Uh So I would say
it can have more of an ongoing bloom. You may get a little re
bloom balance of it. I haven't really studied that close to to even notice,
but yeah, Star Jasmine. It's real popular in Houston. Typically you'll
see it being used in a lot of ways that it makes a wonderful wall.
You'll see it on like an iron fencing going down the road. I've
seen it on chain link fence, which is the prettiest thing you can do
to a chain link fences. Throw a little star jasmine over the top of
it. You can share it, you know, like as if it were
a shrub. And so it's it's a versatile plant. All right. Great,
that answers that I appreciate it. All right. Just keep in mind
that it is an eager grower. So it doesn't understand that where you wanted
to stop unless you tell it with a hedging tremors. Okay, okay,
thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate appreciate your call. Uh.
Now we're going to go to Louise and West Houston. Hello, Louise,
Hey, Skip, how are you? I'm good, sir, what's
up? Hey? Oh, I just know who I'm talking about. I
just figured out who Louise is. Hey, So you you helped me.
I have a few things. You helped me with the wet worms on Thursday.
And so what I did is I tweeted it with what it was the
systemic uh bray. I think he used an assepate. I believe if I
remember your your your and then and then I let it dry and I have
played the wet worm control and everything died. All those wet worms died.
So I know it's a pup their topic right now. But you know,
if people wanted to see what what was used, they can go to the
Heirlom Soils Instagram and check it out. Oh yeah, yeah, do you
put it on there? Okay, I'll go check that out. I'll put
it on there. Yeah, I put it. So related a couple of
things. Uh, I'm gonna be in San Antonio in on Saturday next week
at the Festival of Flowers. So if anybody is in the west part of
you know, West Houston is closer to San Antonio. WANs to come,
say hi, as a really cool event. And they have a bunch of
vendors, a bunch of your sponsors go there and have boots and stuff like
that. And number three, you mentioned the discount we have going on just
fifty percent off and they have two footbags of the works and cactus. But
Warren Soilent Gardens in Kingwood Garden Center have forty percent off on soils on Heirlom
Soils and all the plants will today Warrens and Kingwood until today. And that
the other the uh, the works putting mix and you know the and the
cactus succulent that ends today too, right, it is, yeah, but
I weren't selling gardens in Kywood Garden Center. All the plants, all the
air them cells products and Poma products are going to be so pretty good deal.
You know, an end of season inventory reduction. You can never get
enough soil or enough molts. Jere My Jerema malts my Maltz quote a minute
ago. I don't know if you were you were listening to that one I
had. I found I found a quote about maulch and now I'm trying to
trying to find yourself say it, say it the right way here? Oh
god, yeah, I listened to it. That that double it or like
a free bags or something. So uh. An easy way to get rid
of that quote is to use the calculator online. There you go, you
do, I know you got one good? Uh that would say you a
little bit but it but it I like to give a funny quote there.
Oh yeah, I always buy three or four more bags. Always. You
never to have more more soil or multile hands. Most doesn't go bad.
If you let us sit there long enough, you got compost. Well,
no, most those go bad. And the reason why is because the decomposition
process kind of stops and then starts bleaching the wood inside the bag. Reaction
Yeah back, yeah, yeah, okay, Well that was it. So
if anybody until Saturday complete. Yeah, I've been to Festival Flowers. It's
a wonderful event. I think when I went it was like at uh Mason
Shriner building up on the Shriners Auditorium in North North Yeah, so it's still
there. Okay, good, Yep. We reached the edge of San Antonio,
not quite to San Antonio with this show, so you're probably gonna have
some people listening that are just outside of town our direction that that are interesting.
Thanks a lot, Louise, all right, thank you, all right.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two KTRH. Give him
my producer a call and we'll get you on the board. We just cleared
out the lines with that last call. We've got some open lines. So
we've got a question you've been wanting to ask, Well, this would be
a good time to do that. We got one more hour. We're about
to put this show in the books for the weekend. One more hour of
garden Line coming up. Remember that garden Line is also available by podcasts,
So whether you use the iHeartMedia podcast app like I do, or you have
other podcast apps. You can find garden Line and you can listen to past
shows. So when you're wondering what was that quote, he said, well,
what is the that you just mentioned? You can go back and listen
to past shows and enjoy that. Just a reminder too, you can listen
live on the heart Media app. So you could be out in your garden
right now with the phone in your pocket listen to the garden Line. LI
to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rict. It's crazy Trim just watch
him as well. God us so many birthdays to suppazy gess not a sign.
Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us. We
uh we're here to answer your gardening questions if you got any, and you
give us a call. Seven one three two one two kt r H seven
one three two one two kat r H. Let's head out to Katie and
talk to Laurel. Hello, Laurel, Hi, I have noticed on my
tomato plant that we have the stink bug. And I understand that's the same
as the leaf put it bug right, same same damage. Yes, okay,
I sprayed uh uh well is that strong enough to get rid of them.
Uh, you cut out on me when you named the product. What
did you spray? I sprayed Captain Jack's Dead bug? Captain Jack's dead Was
it Captain Jack's deadbug? Brew? Is that what they called it? Oh?
I think it's just Captain Jack's Dead bug. I don't know. I
had to. I put it in a pump sprayer, two tablespooze per gallon.
Okay, what I'm trying to remember what the ingredient is in Captain Jackson?
I think shot I thought of it. Probably is. I was going
to check and make sure. Spinosa is very effective against webworms, but it's
not effective against stink bugs to speak of. So what's your Yeah, what
you're gonna need is something that has more of a more of a punch to
it. And at this stage, when the stink bugs are adults, or
the leaf footed bugs and they have wings that can fly around, it takes
a more potent spray to be able to take them down and get rid of
them. Something that is what we would refer to as a synthetic parithroid.
Uh. And those are products that end in the letter's thren t H R
I n H. There's permethrin, there's by fen Thren. There's a lot
of thrends out there. Uh, the only one that's organic is I just
went blank. I can't say the one that that's going to organic. Yeah,
I'll be honest. I don't pretend to be organic at all. I
just want my vegetables. Well then yeah, then then go with with a
product. You're out there at Katie kt Is Hardens a couple of hardware stores
out in the KT area that are going to carry these products for you.
And I would just recommend you you go to one of those, and I
think you're going to find good successor you're up near I ten. I'm on
Mason, so the eighth hardware on Mason's Night. Okay, good sounds good.
Okay, do you have a particular product, I mean, can you
name a specific What are the the stink bugs are on tomatoes? Yeah?
Yeah, you're gonna have to find something that has tomatoes on the label,
something that's labeled for edibles like the tomato. And I don't have in ahead
every product that they carry, you know, out there on the shelf.
But if you if you go and give that a just look for something with
Thren in the name. And that'll work. There are some other chemistries out
there that will work pretty good for that. It just has to be labeled
for tomatoes and that that's the challenge. Okay, great, okay, thank
you very much. All right. Yes, oh and one one tip,
Laura, spray early in the morning. They tend to be a little more
sluggish, so you can get around and get spray on them than they are
later in the day when when the weather, when the weather heats up.
Okay, okay, thank you very much, thank you. I appreciate appreciate
your call very much. Thank you, Bybie. Our phone number if you'd
like to get us a call is seven one three seven one three six two
six. Excuse me, seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
I'm looking at other numbers while I'm trying to say a different number.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four r KTRH if you like
to go that route. We have talked about a number of different things today.
I wanted to discuss a little bit briefly about having success with containers.
I think that containers are underutilized in our in our landscape. You can put
a container just about anywhere, right so if you need to move a plant
and it's in a container, it's really easy to do. I like geraniums
in the springtime, they're out in full sun doing just fine. When it
starts getting hot, it's too much for them to be in full sun all
day, so I move them into a spot with the morning sun and they
do fine. It's just containers reversatile. You want, though, a container
with adequate soil volume, because here it is hot, and it's hot twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week when we move into summer,
and so that plant is pumping a lot of water to keep itself cool.
And if you don't have a good volume of soil, you're not going to
have a good bank account of water, and it'll be limited and the plant
will tend toward getting drought symptoms like wilting or some other setback. You want
to keep those things growing. So whatever the plant you're growing, depending on
the size of it, just get a container that's a little bigger than you
probably think you need, and I think you'll be better off that way.
Make sure you get a good quality mix in it, a good quality mix
that drains adequately well. There are a number of good things that you can
use many different kinds of soils and mixes and blends, but make sure it
drains really well. That's important in order to have that because you wanted to
whole moisture bit which you also wanted to drain well, and then pick plants
that do well in the summertime. And a good garden center can help you
with choosing those kinds of plants and even combine them in a container if that's
what you're looking for. A good garden center example would be Nelson's Water Garden
and Nursery. Nelson's actually Nursery and water Garden out there in Katie, Texas
is an outstanding garden center. They have a wide variety of plants. And
then Nelson's have been in the business for a long time and they know their
stuff when it comes to quality plants. Now you know, they originally became
literally nationally famous with the water garden part of the business. They can set
up ponds, they can set up disappearing fountains, they can set up waterfalls,
they can do all this kind of thing. Stock them for you with
water plants like lilies. Water lilies are very beautiful, and many other plants
they can stock them with a fish. They have all that there. They
can come out to your place and do it, do it, set it
up, or they can advise you if you're doing it yourself, on how
to go about doing that yourself. But at the garden center, you're going
to find a wide variety of things that do well here. Every time I
look at what are they talking about right now, what they just get in,
it's like, oh my gosh, that is an excellent choice for our
area. So that in and of itself is worth a trip. But you
got to go for the inspiration. When you get out there and you see
the place and you see the water, you hear the water, you're gonna
want water for your backyard or your patio or wherever you want to put it.
Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens in Katie. That's a website Nelsonwatergardens dot com.
Nelsonwatergardens dot com. It's on Katie Fort Benroad, So you just turn
to the right when you're heading out ten toward Katie, to the right on
Katie Fort Benroad, and it's a stone's throw right up there, easy to
find. And again I promise you you will love it when you go,
and you should take some friends with you when you do it because they will
love it too. Really good relationship time. On a very brief trip right
out there to Nelson Water Garden our West Houston Garden Center here on garden Line.
Folks at Microlife have they've been making fertilizer for a long time and they
focus on organic types of products. And you can find micro Life products that
are in a liquid. Their liquid products from fisher moulsion to seaweed to fertilizers
in a liquid form. You can find them in the granular form. Right
now, we're thinking about lawns. It's lawn time and Microlife's six two four
green bag, the green bag, that's an excellent product for lawns, but
I'll tell you this, it's an excellent product for a lot of things.
Use it my vegetable gardens. That it works very well out in there.
It doesn't have to be on a lawn, but it is a standard for
Microlife for lawn care. They have the Humates plus concentrated compost in a bag.
Humates plus is the purple bag and it is a concentration of composts down
into that final stage called humus that is the final decomposition stage of organic matter.
And with humates plus, you are stimulating the microbial content in the soil
as well as adding some because it does contain microbes and microhizal fungi, those
fungi that grow in association with a plant's root and reach out, making the
root more efficient, more effective. It's all there in a bag microlife,
humtes plus. Whenever you are going out and fertilizing, just keep in mind
that you want to get things spread out evenly. And I mentioned this in
a call a little bit earlier. But what I'm using a new fertilizer or
a new spreader and trying to figure out the settings. We have our rule
of thumb, which is you know to basically, when you are using a
push behind spreader in other words, of spreader on wheels, just go a
notch or two above half. So if they're twenty notches, then set it
on eleven or twelve. See what I'm saying, And you want to get
that right, But early on I will often hedge bed a little bit,
and I will make sure and maybe go light the first trip over and then
go crossways again, because that first trip will tell you are you getting the
right amount down or do you need to increase it a little bit, do
you need to lower it? So start by aiming for about half, just
as a tip until you figure out how to use it. It's time for
us to take a break. We are going to be right back, Tiffany.
You'll be first up when we come back. The days of the singing
cowboys, a lot of that was even before my time or Rogers's case,
g Autry. You know, back in those days, when you watch the
old black and white Western movies, it was easy to know who to shoot
at because of the color of the cowboy hat. If it was a white
hat, that's supposed to be a good guy, if it's a black hat,
that's supposed to be a bad guy. Don't you wish bugs wore hats
so we'd know whether they were beneficial insects or pests that we need to squirt
in the face of something. Just a thought, just a thought. We're
going to go out to cypressnow and talk to Tiffany. Hey, Tiffany,
Hi, Skip. We absolutely love your show. That was cute about the
bugs. Yes, we do wish that we try to have fun ever now
and then, all right, yes, you do. We love we absolutely
love your show so much and you So we have two crate myrtles in our
backyard. We moved in this house. It'll be five years this June.
So they were planted five years ago and they've been healthy. They're about ten
feet tall. But on one of them and they have the white blooms.
So the one on the left, it's I noticed on the mark that it's
covered with these tiny little they sort of look like ants, but like termite
maybe looking things. And then some of them are a little bit larger like
ants. So I looked in the beds thoroughly and there's no ant beds.
I just wanted to know what you suggest. And I was listening to you
yesterday and you were talking about how some crp myrtles the bark is not the
gray color, it's more the cinnamon, and that's how ours is. It's
more of the cinnamony color. But it's sort of flaking off a little bit
too, Okay. So just wanted your advice and what we should do.
So when you're seeing these ants, are they on both the branches and the
leaves, are just you're seeing them on branches or leaves it looks like just
the branches. To be honest with you, I mean I have to like
put my glasses on and really look the branches in the main trunk. Okay,
are you Are you noticing any Black City material on the surface of the
branches or anything. No, No, that's one thing I haven't seen any
of. It's just kind of like that cinemon color and it's a little bit
flaky. Yeah, but yeah, but just no, it's none of that
blackstood. I've had that before. In our create myrtle. We have a
smaller one in the front, and we've had that before. And but no,
these these don't. Yeah, this doesn't have it on there. Okay.
So when answer on trees, they don't eat trees? Answer not a
tree pass But when answer on trees are shrubs or any kind of plant,
usually it's because there are some insects that they're taking care of on that plant.
And okay, so aphids would be an example. A scale the the
insects that produce honeydew, a sugary water substance, which is why we get
Black City mold. Those insects. Ants actually are taking care of them and
protecting them because they can go up with their antenna and they can rub on
the insect and they produce a drop of sugary water the ants can drink and
feed on, and so okay, that's usually what's happening. If you got
ants and you're not seeing city mold, I'm not sure what it is that
you're seeing. If you would like to send a picture of like the trunk
where you're finding ants, if there's are they in groups or are they just
kind of here and there. There's a lot of them, I mean,
not really in groups per se, but there's like yesterday, I mean like
Friday, I looked and that was the first time I noticed them, But
yesterday it seemed like there was a lot more just crawling all over, not
really in groups, but just kind of crawling everywhere. They're up to something
and it's not eating your plant. If you would like to take a close
up picture and get it in good sh our focus and send it to me,
I can take a look. I'll probably see some scale on those plants
when I look at it, but I don't know. That's why. Yeah,
to see a photo. If you'd like to do that, let me
know and I can put you on hold and the producer can give you an
email to send the photo to. Yes, I definitely would like to do
that for sure, and I can send them. Yeah, we're about to
go to church. But I'll definitely send it next Saturday, so you can
look at it and I'll call back. That's good anytime during the week.
I will answer it on Saturday on the air. You can call back.
But just the closest you can get, the better I can see the ant
or whatever the insect is, I'll be able to do a better diagnosis.
Okay, I'm going to comment on that a little bit more in a moment,
but so you may want to stick around, keep the radio on as
you're on your way to church. I'm going to make some more comments.
Absolutely, we absolutely will. We listen to as long as we can.
And I have one more question if you have time. Okay, we have
a tiny little bed to be It's like on the west side of our driveway,
so it doesn't get any shade. It gets full sun all the time,
and we have just a little green bush we like to plant something beside
it. I'd say the bed is about four by like five feet, and
I mean it does get the full sun and so you know, our daughter,
our little one, she loves daisies. Like I thought about planting daisies
or I don't know, but it needs to be something that can really handle
full sun. And I know you talked about this salvia, but we have
mainly orange and yellow flowers in our yard. That's kind of the color scheme
we like to stick with. Is there anything you recommend orange and yellow?
There is a little zenia with tiny flowers that look daisy like they're white.
They also have an orange and a yellowish gold form and it's called narrow leaf
zenia. It spreads more like a little lava flow. It's not like regular
zinias that come up as cut flowers. This one will stay probably no more
than probably a ten inches or so high, and it just sort of flops
out, but it's constantly in bloom with these little yellow flowers that are little,
maybe about the size of a quarter, but there's a lot of them
and it makes a real pretty mass and you can get those colors that are
in your scheme. Ooh, that sounds very pretty, Okay, narrowly zinnias
zen and so that would be that would be one option. Let's see full
sun marigoles can take hot weather. The spider mices get on them pretty good.
But marigols are another one that's gonna have the yellow and orange coloring that
you can choose from, so there's some very dwarf type. You want something
to stay small enough to fit the setting, so that would be enough for
you. Just have to watch for the spider mics. That's the problem with
marigols in the summer. Gotcha. Okay, Well, thank you so much.
Skip. Like I said, we love your show and keep doing it.
Thank you. Appreciate that, appreciate the call. I've got to put
you on hold, Tiffany, and my producer's gonna pick up and give you
my email so that you can send me those photos. Yeah. I want
to just a couple of comments here, Charlie. You're gonna be the first
up after the break here. I don't have enough time to give your question
adequate time. Aphids and ants have a mutually beneficial relationship. The ants will
literally carry aphids up onto a plant and set them down, and then they
come back to them and in some cases the answer like dairy farmers, they
put the aphids there. The aphids are sucking juices. They're getting that sugary
stuff. The answer taking their antenna and making the aphid produce a little drop
of sweet stuff and then feeding on that stuff. Kind of cool. So
that's why we call them dairy farmers. Now. Also, when things come
to eat the aphids, the ants will defend them. So it's kind of
like, you know, the ant comes in and it says, hey,
uh, what are you going to give me? And uh, in exchange
for that, I'll give you some protection. So in that sense, the
answer like the mafia, So you choose it. Dairy farmers are the mafia
answer putting aphids on plants in many cases, and they're also there for other
types of honeydew and whatnot. Scale can produce honeydew our sugary substances. You
know, white flies can. Uh there's meatie bugs another one that can do
that. But there you go. That's the story of the ants. They're
either mafia or dairy farmers, or maybe a little bit of both. It's
time for a break for the news our number seven one three two two kt
r H. Charlie your first step when we come back. All right,
welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We are
going to head straight out to the phones and talk to Charlie and Lake Jackson.
Hey Charlie, Hey Skip, thank you for taking my call. I
was gonna say, according to my wife, all bugs have black hats,
and I got a problem with squatters and for Wes right, Yeah, I
used to I used to joke about the U in my house. If it
had six legs, it was an instant death sentence. You know, the
court case starts. The first point is it has six legs, A galvel
comes down and it goes to the chair. That's that's how spiders are in
my house when I had kids around. So my question is generally I live
in Lake Jackson, Texas, and so as you can imagine that we're next
to the town that's capital of the world. Is that clue? But you're
talking about so well as I used that cutter back guard, the other guard,
one of those products that spray broadcat of the guard, and it's it's
fairly effective. But when I get close to my house and stuff, I
generally like to at that way. My question is that in order to get
some other bugs and the face of time and everything, h is it okay?
Or is it effective? Just waste my time when I add balance,
prayer and then also the uh, the the big those three ingredients together,
then add the water and then spray. So I'm trying to hit all the
bugs, you know that I'm having it with. I've had some success,
of course on the webworms. But I'm I'm wondering if you have that.
Okay, when you were saying the names and of the mix, uh you
cut out I heard cutter, I think, And but the other two the
other one is permethium, is that, uh right? And then the other
one is mauth ion Okay, And do you know what the ingredient is in
the cutter. It's probably a synthetic perithroid. I believe you're exactly right.
Yeah, well number one, I don't think you'd need to mix synthetic Perrethroids
are all pretty good at killing insects. Of course, each product may have
certain things that it controls. The problem with mixing is the potential for incompatibility.
And what happens is when you mix two things that are not compatible,
they things can change, they can separate out, and so like if you
did dormond oil with a liquid insecticide and water, it would separate out or
will separate from water. So the first half of your spraying, you know,
you're applying one thing, and then the second half you're only applying the
second. Another thing that happens is that they start to clump and or drop
out, precipitate out, like if you shook up some muddy water and then
settled out of it would be the silty mud if it's sat there for a
minute. That happens with incompatibility, or it can happen. You can put
them in a little jar and mix them all up and shake it up and
then watch and see. You just want to make sure that pressure can build
up. He can build up with incompatibility. You know, I think for
a home garden situation, Charlie, I would just spray separately. But my
first thought when I heard those chemicals is they're pretty much all going to do
the same thing. So depending on what you're going after specifically, I don't
know that you need to mix very good. Well, then he answered my
question. I really apprestated. All right, I love your show, Thanks,
sir, appreciate that very much. I do appreciate that. You know,
we're talking about all these different products and things. If you're looking for
a place that has everything along those lines. That is Southwest Fertilizer at the
corner of Businett and Renwick in southwest Houston. Southwest Fertilizer has been around since
the fifties and there's not a product that I mentioned, whether it's a herbicide
or insecticide, or whether it's a fertilizer that Bob doesn't have it. Southwest
Fertilizer they do. And when you walk in there, you're going to be
stunned at just how much stuff they have. Probably one of the biggest lines
of organic products anywhere in town. When it comes to synthetics, biggest lines
in town. You make the choice, They're going to have it there.
They have tools, they have so many other things we're talking earlier about.
I said, I got a fertilizer spread or a push behind one. They
also have the kind you walk behind and turn the knob. I mean,
if you don't find it as Southwest Fertilizer, you don't need it because they
carry so many things. Again, on the corner of Bissinet and Runwick in
Southwest Houston, and here's the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot
com. We are going to go now to the West time and doctor Glinda.
Hello Glinda, Hi, good morning. I am just about to work
in my yard and I was listening to the show and I thought, gosh,
I just need to call and find out. I have a horrible problem
of weeds. I'm sure that's not unique to just me, but it just
seems like it's just awful. I weed, I weed, I weed,
I weed. I can't get rid of them. And the two big things,
of course, nutgrass. I think everybody has that, and I haven't
found anything that really kills nutgrass. And then I had this other weed that
is the best I can describe it as like a wild wandering jew with a
really pretty purple flower. I don't know what it is, but you know,
you really have to dig the roots out to get rid of that.
And I'm about to put in some great bed mix that I got from Cowboy,
and I thought, well, you know, maybe I should just call
and see if there's something some some know, chemical or granule that I can
put in into this dirt or into the bed. Now before it put the
dirt in, what do you think? All right? I just think I'm
doing all this work and paying all this money for this new dirt and mulch,
and I get it. And so the wondering jew type plant that you're
talking about is called tratiscentia and it is a common one. And it's kind
of in between the grasses and the broad leaves. So things that work on
grasses don't really work. Things that work on broad leaves don't really work.
It's a little bit more of a challenge to control the nuts edge. Is
it growing in your lawn or is it growing in a flower bed? Well,
I would say it could well be both, but okay, yeah,
not so much in the in the lawn, it's flower beds, more flower
beds. Yeah, that is a bit of a challenge. You've opened up
a can of worms here, Glenda, and I'm up against Oh do you
mind hanging on? So I can't do justice to an answer with zero timeline,
So hang on and we'll come back to kat. Okay, thanks very
much. Sure our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven
one three two one two K t R H. I'll be right back.
Welcome back. Good to have you here with us on garden Line. We're
entering our last segment of the day, and we opened up a conversation with
Glinda from Westheimer before we went to break and so now we're going to jump
right back into the big middle of it. Well, Glinda, I want
to congratulate you that you have chosen some very difficult control weeds. So that's
off to you for that. The the one that has the purple flowers,
I said, was a tratiscancha spider it may be specifically more commonly called spider
wort. Is it like, oh, maybe foot high and knee high tall?
Or does it stay real low to the ground. Well, it's it's
very straggly, okay. You know, it can be close to the ground,
but it's kind of a climber too. If there's anything, you know,
a shrub close to it, it'll climb up, okay, but it's
just very straggly. All right. Well, that's probably not spider work.
Then that's probably something more like the wandering jew type of plant. Those are
difficult to control. I have seen plants in that grouping, Okay, not
specifically maybe the plant you have, but plants in that grouping. Celsius is
a herbicide that is available over the counter here in the Houston area. It
is not inexpensive, but it is very good for broad leaf weed control,
and it's listed also for controlling plants in that family. Now you have to
try it and see. I can't guarantee you the efficacy specifically against the one
you have, because we still haven't totally figured out which one you have,
but if you've got any weeds in the lawn, Celsius is good. One
other nice thing about Celsius, if you mix it up, go ahead and
use it is it works on broad leaf weeds, but it isn't as hard
on your turf. Do you have Saint Augustine any chance? Yeah, okay,
it's not as hard as on Saint Augustine as most other broad leaves are.
When the temperatures get into the mid eighties and early a low nineties,
a lot of these other products will really be hard on Saint Augustine. Celsius
is not so much. And so when you mix it up you try it
on this I would like to know how it works with you, and if
you don't mind taking a picture, show sending me a picture so I can
see specifically what the weed is and knowing that I have a lot of weeds
that come up in my place, but not everyone in the world. So
I haven't tried every herbicide against every weed for sure, but I would try
that. But I know it'll do good on the summer weeds in your lawn,
so I think that would be a two fer. You could give a
shot to the nuts. Sedge is very difficult to control, and there's a
product called image Image for nuts Edge. Now, like other companies, I
don't know why they do this, but they take a way well known name
and then they sell it with product with ingredients that aren't part of the well
known name product. So there's images that don't have the thing you need to
control nutsedge in it. So look for the label that says image for nuts
sedge that that has that as part of the name of the product. There's
other images, but if you take that one, follow the label carefully,
depending on what's growing there, there are you can have some damage from image
to desirable plants, so that's in your in your beds. There's a list
of plants that you can use image around, and then there are the lists
that you shouldn't use image around. But generally it just tells you what you
can rather than what you can't. Yeah, and it's a spray. It's
a spray you sprayed on the plant, wait about two days, so if
you can target it to the the nutsedge weeds on the foliage weed and wait
about two days and then water it in with about a half inch of water.
Because it moves in the soil and has root activity as well. That's
what that's the reason why. Also we worry about a certain plants using it
around. You can't use roundup around plants. That kills everything you the product
uh oh gosh, sedg gender and sedge hammer. I believe they're just labeled
for launch. I may be wrong about that. I need to check it.
I am actually working on a nut said publication I'm going to put on
my website. I hope to get it up by next weekend. But I've
been I've been doing the research on it, getting ready and working on it.
So hopefully that will be around. We'll be able to you know,
give give you a better a better answer to that than I'm giving you right
now. Okay, Well, wonderful I was gonna say. I was.
I also use something called dead we Brew. It's a bone eye problem.
Yeah, but you know that seems to work but again, those two particular
weeds just seem to be so resilient that you think it killed them. The
next thing you know, you see a new little green leaf poking out of
something you thought was so anyway, Well good, I will try those two
in those two items you mentioned, what did you put the dead weed brew
on? Well, just about everything. I mean, I know, I
know it's a broad leaf killer as well. So I have this other little
weed too that's gosh. I don't know what they're called. You know,
it seems like every time the wind blows, it blows in a new weed.
And so I just keep having different weeds. I'll look at one,
I'll go, wow, I didn't see you last year. Where'd you come
from? Yeah? Well, dead we has two naturally occurring acids in it,
the coprilic and capric They sound about the same, uh and uh.
So if it you know, if that works on something, go ahead and
give it a try. It's it's definitely worth a try. With the nutsedge.
Most of the products that are out there for nuts edge, they they
don't they don't have a surfactant in them, and you need to add a
surfactant. That's something I have learned. Yes, those those slick leaves,
they they don't hold the spray, and so this works. There. There
is a product, the one called uh sedge Hammer Plus does have a surfactant
already in it, so it works pretty good. But yeah, and I
just went and checked it. Sedge Tammer is labeled for landscape beds, so
that but you need to the label. Be very careful, careful with it,
right, Okay, okay, well that sounds wonderful. Thank you so
much. I appreciate your help. All right, good luck with those.
Thanks for the call, Thank you, sure bye bye. All right,
let's in the garden line and we are who we're just a well minute of
it. No time for calls left in this show today. Well, I
appreciate the fact that you listen to guard Line. I just want to tell
you though, when you're looking for supplies and things, Ace Hardware stores have
got them. You know, we're throwing these names around, you know,
sedge hammer and all that kind of stuff. Ace Hardware has got a wide
variety of products for controlling pest diseases and weeds, as well as all the
fertilizers I talk about on Garden Line. So when you hear me talk about
a product, your ACE Hardware store is probably the closest place to go to
get it, because there's forty stores here in the Greater Houston area. Go
to Acehardware dot Com find the store locator. Sometimes when you go to ACE
Hardware dot Com, it pops up and says can we use your location?
Just say yes, and it gets you right there. Ace Hardware very very
effective for finding everything you need in one spot, really really good for that.
I want to remind you that I'm going to be at a Wallbird's Unlimited
to weeks from yesterday. That's June fifteenth. It's a Saturday, after the
show. I'll be there from eleven am to one pm. From eleven am
to one pm, and I hope you'll come out and see me. It
is the Wallbirds Unlimited, specifically in bel Air. There's six of them around
the Greater Houston area. I'll be at the bel Air store two weeks from
yesterday. Bring your samples and all kinds of things out and we'll diagnose them,
we'll identify them, and we'll just sit there and talk and laugh and
have fun. How about that. That's another fun thing to do. I
hope you can figure out by now. I like to have fun. Appreciate
you guys being listeners. Don't forget we do have the podcast that is available
where you can listen to past shows and tell your friends about Garden Line.
We occasionally have callers from all over the country that like to listen in so
wherever your friends live, they can do the Heart Media app and listen live
where they can go to the KTRS website and listen to past shows there.
Well, I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful I just want to leave
you the quick quote. We can complain because roses have thorns, are rejoiced
because thorn bushes have roses.