Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Rector, so
pleazy just watch him as who tell us so many tissicking not a sign the
sun beaming. Well, good Saturday morning. You are listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Rector, and we're here to answer your gardening
questions. Give us call it seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two and two KTRH and Josh, we'll get you on
the board. We can we can talk about the things that are of interest
to you. First of all, glad you're here this morning. I see
you with a cup of coffee in your hand. Kind of one and a
half eyes open maybe at this point in the game. That's good. We'll
take that one and a half eyes. Look next door. If if the
lights are off at your neighbor's house, bang on the door, tell them
that they're missing garden Line. They will thank you later, maybe a long
time later, but they will thank you. I appreciate that. Hey,
there's a lot going on right now, you know, this heat is it?
I mean, it's like a broken record talking about the heat all the
time, complaining about the heat. But that's what we do. And agriculture
is a lot of times you know, it's too dry, too hot,
too cold, to wet, you name it. We've always got something to
have to deal with. But that's okay, that's part of the challenge of
it. This heat is no reason that we can't continue to be gardening.
The heat tolerant plants options that we have, just that there's a lot of
them. There's plenty if you do want flowers, doant vegetables, shrubs and
trees and vines and perennials, just all kinds of things that we can grow
and take care of and enjoy. And in fact, one of the things
I encourage people to do when they're considering, what can I do to make
the house landscape look better? Sometimes we call it homescape, or the whole
area around your your house, not just the landscape of gardens and everything else.
What can I make it do to make it better? Get out there
with a cup of coffee early in the morning while it's cool, and you
won't you know, faint in the yard from the heat. Just get out
and walk around, take a look at things, does it look like Typically
in spring, there are so many things that want to bloom that our landscapes
look great in spring, and then summer comes and summer turns our landscape into
the sea of green that I talk about green grass, green shrubs, green
groundcovers, green trees. Maybe different shades of green, but all green.
And that's fine. Green's a pretty color. But what about other colors?
What about colors for summer? Well, we have those kinds of colors that
we can enjoy. I'll talk about a few of those in a little bit
here. And then there's the fall season. And fall is also a good
blooming season. We don't have the number of flowers that we do in the
spring, but we have a lot a lot of things we can do.
The annual color that we do going into fall, I'll talk about that is
we probably get torn further into August. Some of the things we could be
planning at the end of August or least September for good fall color. But
we have fall blooming plants, the plants that they wait for fall. Things
that are gonna make your fall garden look great. Copper canyon daisies, a
little yellow blooms waits till fall to bloom. A lot of our gingers,
well some of our gingers. The head Ditium is a white butterfly ginger for
example. It's typically a late summer or fall blooming plant. It looks beautiful
Mexican bush sage Savia lucantha with its kind of purple and white bloom stalks.
Beautiful beautiful plant. But it waits till fall and fall blooming plants bloom then
because the nights are getting longer. Long nights means the triggers the plant into
the bloom response. Plants use day length for a lot of things as in
fact, the day cycle, that diurnal cycle affects a lot of things in
plants. And for some plants they bloom in the fall based on the long
nights. There's other plants that bloom in spring based on short nights. As
the nights begin to get get shorter and shorter as we're going from like winter
into the summer season. As in that transition, as those nights get shorter
than you find some of our vegetables like onions or a arugula, you know,
just beats and carrots, and I think they send up a bloomstalk and
because it's time for them to bloom. So a lot of things are guided
by that. So when you're looking at a landscape, you want to be
able to choose plants that are gonna bloom through the year or they're going to
give color of some sort through different times of the year. And that's part
of the planning. That's why I like getting out with a cup of coffee
or tea or what a chocolate, whatever you want throughout the year. Kind
of walk around, take a look at things. As you drive around town,
notice what's blooming and what's not. As you go to our garden centers,
I mean there's the easy one. I mean they just look around.
You can see what's blooming. That typically is what's selling because people want to
buy plants when they have blooms on them, although that's not really the always
the best thing to do. Sometimes when I go buy plant, I'll buy
the strongest, most robust, good looking plant there's there without looking at doesn't
have a bloom right now on it, Because if I get a good,
strong plant and get it growing, I'm gonna have a better bloom than someone
who buys a scrawny plant that has one bloom on it that it's trying to
support, and it just kind of takes it a little longer to hit the
ground running. That didn't mean a blooming plant shouldn't be planted. I'm just
saying, don't demand that there'll be a bloom on it. In fact,
some of our some really good plants of the past have just not made it
because they don't look good in a garden center, you know. I remember
Salvia indigo spires was slow to come into the market, never really took over.
And it's because in a in a six inch pot, even a gallon
pot, it's kind of hard to make it look really good because it just
kind of gets big and grows and floppy, and at that stage it doesn't
always look its best. So don't let that fool you. Figure out the
plants you want. Go out and garden center knows what they're talking about,
and let them point you to the things that are going to be dependable.
Weekend, still enjoy our blooms. It's a good time of day too to
get out there and be doing any kind of watering you need to do.
This time of the day tends to be better pressure. But also when you
water. Let's say you're water in a lawn. You give it a good
soaking like it should have on an infrequent basis, and it dries up pretty
quick because the sun is going to be up here in a little bit and
things are going to warm up. That water will go away. So you
minimize diseases to some degree by watering super early in the morning. You can
also save on your water because it's not evaporating away as fast as it would
be if you tried to water during the heat a day. In fact,
i'd say a certainly after ten am, I maybe put a little earlier than
that. I wouldn't be watering anymore. I would make sure that all the
watering gets done by then, because otherwise it's just it's just wasteful. You
know, you're spending money buying drinking water to evaporate and make Houston are humid,
like we need that, right, Well, you get the idea.
Hey, we're gonna take a break our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Okay, you're good morning. You're listening to
garden line. We are here to visit with you, a boy. Whatever
you're interested in regarding gardening. Give us a call seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four and we can talk about the topics that you
might be wondered about. I tell you one thing, when you have a
question, you know that somebody else does. Especially in an area as big
as Houston, you lot a lot of somebody else's do have the same question.
So feel free to ask away and we can discuss it. I want
to you know, what would you consider to be a components that make up
a good community to live in? You know, a from a home and
hobby and everything standpoint. Well, I would say that having a beautiful home,
having a comfortable place, a place where the whole community is designed around
the residents and around active lifestyles would be that. Now, as a gardener,
I would also say I'd want a community garden in the community because I'm
a gardener, right. I garden at home, but I never have enough
room. I don't know if you feel that way, but it is never
enough room to grow all the things I want to grow. So maybe you
don't want to dig up the backyard, just go have a community garden.
Well, I know about a community like that, and that is the New
Dell Web Community It is out on it's actually pretty close to Fullshure about two
miles from downtown Fullshure on FM three fifty nine. This new Dell Web community
has a community garden that I'm working with them on getting set up so you
can enjoy the beauty of Delweb as well as having a community that has a
lifestyle program built around you. And that's what Dell Web's all about for adults
age fifty five and better that are active. That is a Dell Web community.
So I can't imagine a better combination of things than something like that.
Go on line to dellweb dot com slash Houston. You can find out more
information there. Just give him a call. It's two eight one four five
nine zero six zero nine. It was discussing the different plants and things that
really look good in the summer heat. And one of my favorite ones is
red Bird of Paradise. It's a Saycilpinia pool kirima. Why do I say
pool kirama because I want you to point out that the Latin says it's a
pretty plant. That's what that means. It is a beautiful, beautiful plant.
Sometimes we call it pride to Barbados. It's got beautiful orange red,
bright orange red and yellow blooms. There are other forms that have slightly different
bloom color, but that's the one you see pretty much everywhere. It takes
heat like nobody's business. In fact, prior to May, it doesn't even
really want to grow. I mean, it's slow to wake up. But
once it gets going, it just goes and goes and goes through the heat.
Driving around Houston yesterday, I saw one out by the street in a
little parking lot, kind of a rundown shopping mini shopping center kind of parking
lot. Obviously, the weeds were struggling to stay. Nobody's water in that,
nobody's fertilizing it. And here it is just blooming away, attracting by
the way, swallowtail butterflies. And so that's a cool reason to have a
plant like that. That's a good one. See when you plant something like
that, it makes it look like you have a green thumb. Because you've
chosen the right plant for the area. It's going to do well. So
many other good plants, you know, the yellow bells esperanza, the one
we called gold star, is an outstanding plant. There's a lot of different
kinds of Esperanza, and they're all, okay, they look they're pretty.
But gold Star it'll start blooming when it's like just above knee high, like
pocket high, and it just blooms and blooms. It doesn't get so terribly
huge compared to some of the ones that can, so it can be managed.
Most people don't print it enough, but it can be managed. Gold
gold Star Speranza blooms all through the year. Another one that just blooms and
blooms and blooms. I would say it blooms any day. It's not freezing.
Just about that I really number one. Okay, let me put it
this way. They're each plant typically has its seasons, and that's okay.
We have some wonderful bulbs pop out of the ground, put on their show
and disappear and they're gone for the year. There's nothing wrong with that.
That's part of the cast of characters. You know. It's like a giant
stage your landscape, and there's a play going on, and there's actors entering
stage right and leaving stage left, and those are the that would be the
bulbs. They walk onto the screen, they smile at you for a while,
they do their thing, and then they walk off the screen and there's
other actors that are sitting there all the time. They're almost part of every
scene right there. They're there. And our plants are that way too,
and that is that is important to have plants that are in a mix that
provide us with something all the all the year round, we have those those
kind of plants. And when when you have that kind of plant mix,
you're able to just anytime you walk out, it's pretty to be outside.
It's beautiful out there. You're enjoying being out there, and it just I
just think it's the way to go, makes makes it so much much better.
Oh, the one I was I was about to talk about while ago
is Thryalis. Thryllis sometimes called shower of gold because it literally is a shower
of gold and yellow blooms and once it kicks in blooming in spring, it
just blooms and blooms and blooms. I've seen it blooming in late fall,
just continuing on. It's a resistant deer. Do not love this plant.
Now, don't tell your dear that, or they will eat it just to
spite me. But that's how deer are. But it is a good magnet
for your butterflies gets about five to eight feet tall and six to eight feet
wide, but if you shear it, you can keep it smaller than that.
And it always is good to shear plants that bloom on the terminals the
ends. And here's why. Every time you shear a branch back, it
sends out several shoots. Well, each of those shoots will then have a
terminal that can bloom. So you increase the number of blooms by sharing appropriately
those plants. If you're putting anything out in the ground right now, it's
touching go and you want to make sure you keep that original root area watered
so that it survives and established. You can still plant. You can do
that. It's just a little bit of a challenge. But if you're going
to do that, I would ascid you get you some has to grow.
The six twelve six six twelve six has to grow is just an awesome product
for a number of things. It's got the the good combination of nutrients,
and it's got medinas oil activator for biological activity. It's got hu humic acid
seaweed extracts. You can use it for all kinds of fertilizing. I like
to use it for watering in new transplants, just because it got that high
phosphorus content and the other things that really stimulate that root system to help that
new plant get established that's has to grow six to twelve six. You can
get it in a hose in spray if you want a water or a large
area, but I like to get it in just a quart has a little
built in cup for measuring, so you can put it in a watering can
and watering in those new plants. It's just one of the ways to use
it. But that's the way I like to use it. Well, let's
head out to a test acita and we're going to talk to Cheryl. Hello,
Cheryl, good morning, Hi, good morning. Could you hear me?
Okay? I can okay. I put last night about seven o'clock it
was still ninety three degrees, but I put thirty percent vinegar. I mixed
like I have a gallon's prayer, and I mixed like half a gallon of
the thirty percent and maybe a fourth of a gallon of water. And I
put epps and salts and dawn in there. And I'm wondering how long because
it says like twenty four hours before you should water. Do you still recommend
that? Well, yeah, that's that's pretty good. It shouldn't even take
that long. If vinegar is gonna work when you put it out, it's
gonna work. I had I guess you haven't had a chance to see the
results yet, right, because it was so late when you put Yeah,
I went. I went out just a little bit where I called you,
and some of the weeds looked like they're gone. But I don't know what
this weed is. It's just like a big stick, you know it.
It's just a fun It just comes out by itself. There's really two,
two big leaves, and they don't seen the one and die. Okay,
Well, I when you were saying the mix there, you said thirty percent,
and then it sounded like you're maybe mixing it with a third water,
like three parts of one part water. Okay, right, so that's going
to take your thirty percent vinegar down to uh not ten percent, but lass
may eight. So you're getting it down to where it's eight percent should be
effective. But I wouldn't go much lower than eight. If you really want
to do a good job, thirty percent is a lot. And be very
very carefully don't splash it in your eyes for sure. No, yeah,
because I wore a mask and the glasses and I was I was covered up.
But should I not put any water in the hosen sprayer if I use
it again? Just to if you're going to use it, I would not
do a hosen sprayer. I would get a low pump up. I know
it's a little more work, but you want to make sure and get it
right on the weeds you don't like. You don't want it to drift over
to other areas. You don't need to put so much on that it's running
off the weed. All you have to do is what the foliage and then
move on. You don't want to drink some soil and stuff. So I
think you just have more control with a little pump up sprayer. But if
you use a hose in gosh, you just got to make sure you're getting
it concentrated enough. That may be a bit of a chop. All right,
Okay, thank you, hey, thank you for the call. Appreciate
that. Cheryl our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. If you live up in the Grimes County area, what's Grimes County
that's the county that Nevasota is in. Up there toward College Station. Grimes
County Feed and Farm is your hometown feed store. They're about two miles west
of FM two forty four. The Roy family is the local family owning and
operating. They've been around the community for a good while now and they know
that community. They know the producers in that community, and they supply what
they need where. They carry the fertilizers we talk about here on garden Line.
You can find things like tree hugger sprinklers and the mosquito dunks and other
things there as well. Quality dog food in general, pet food in general,
but certainly all your livestock feeds are available. They stock fish twice a
year. You can go in there and sign up for all the things you
need for a farm pond. Maybe you need fish food or some aquatic herbicide
to keep the weeds down. They got it all Grimes County Feed. I
love going in and visiting with Chris and the family out there. If you
live in king Oaks, if you live in Mirwood, they are your hometown
feed store. In fact, they are just a skipping a jump from College
Station Room's prairie beat Eyes, Iola, Anderson Richards, all those communities out
there. I love going in to Grimes County. Feed we are. We're
gonna be talking when we come back a little bit u more about some of
the summer planting and success with summer planting. Our phone number, by the
way, is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
Josh a call, he'll get you on the board. When we come back,
we will talk gardening with you. I would like to hear from some
folks today about what some of your favorite summer flowers are. If you've got
some ones that have just proven to be dependable for you, then let's hear
about it. I'd like to hear the things that you find most interesting.
I'm certainly talking about some of the ones that I do. But here comes
the news. Good morning, you're listening to garden Line, and we're here
to talk about things that you're interested in gardening. Gardening. That would be
the phone number you need to write down. That's seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna head out to your valley and visit
with Mike. Hello, Mike, Hello, how are you listening? Excuse
me, how are you listening to us in your valley? Is this?
Are you listening online? Um? Well on my phone? Okay, I
just pull you up on the radio and and I usually you listen to it
on the in my trunk also, okay, so good good. Now,
I used to live in sugar Land. I just got used to it,
and uh, you know I like listening to that station. All right,
Well, how are things out in the land of Garner John Knacks, Barner
and Garner Park and Dolph Risco. Right, that's right, hot and dry?
Hot and dry? Okay, well, hot and dry. That was
I probably would have guessed that one. But how can we help you today?
We we this year. It's the first time I've ever noticed them.
M we have some type of a I guess a beetle or almost looks like
a blister bug, but it has an orange ring around the outside of the
shell. They're about a half an inch long, and they're crawling everywhere.
They're paring off. They're on the tree trunks, they're on the walls.
Uh, you can't walk ten feet without seeing some run across the sidewalk.
And my neighbor doesn't have them. They've just seemed to come wild around our
property. Well, I'm trying to figure out which beetle you're talking about based
on a Are you pretty sure it's a beetle and not just a little bug.
Well it's not. It's not a little but uh and and I was
more concerned. They talked a lot about that kissing beetle. Yes, kissing
bug, kissing bug. Kissing bug. Yeah, right, that causes chaga
in the animals. Yes, I do not think it's that. Okay,
Well, I tell you what. It sounds like a bug to me as
opposed to a beetle, Believe it or not, there's a difference. The
beetles are going to have a hard shell like you're from me with jim bugs,
right and lady beetles. Right, we shouldn't say Jim bug. We
should say Jim beetle. But they've got a hard shell on the back that
splits in the middle, kind of lifts up so they can fly a bug
its wings full like across each other, across the back. And it sounds
like you're describing. Oh gosh, I'm gonna say the name of it in
just a minute. But it attacks trees that let's see, what would it
attack out in your area. Well, anyway, it feeds on trees and
okay, I have a lot of pecan trees pecans, Yeah, okay,
Well, um, so when you're seeing them, they're not eating plants.
They're just there, is that right, right, They're just moving around.
Yeah. I think they're an amazing ritual, right, Okay, Yeah,
Well, I you know a couple of things that usually those are not anything
we treat for because the damage is not significant, even though there are a
lot of them. I would if it's what I think it is, and
probably we ought to put you on hold. If you got a picture of
one, send it to me. And I'm talking about later on the show
when I see the picture, because I want to make sure I'm talking about
the right thing. But a general purpose insecticide is gonna be effective. You
know, they get it on them, they crawl through it, things like
that, It'll be effective in controlling them. So that would be something like
a bifentthren type product would would provide a little bit of residual if you want
to spray the surfaces where you find these bugs crawling or gathering or whatever.
The fact that they can fly means you're you're just not going to nuke your
whole environment to try to kill them, and so I might lean toward ignoring
them if you can, but that would be the way to control them,
because no, I haven't I haven't seen them fly. I don't think they
have wings. Okay, all right, well you know what, they do
have a hard shell. We need to step on them and tell there you
know, it has a pretty tough shell. All right. That is sounded
more like a beatle again. So I was leaning toward something called a boxelder
bug or one like that. In fact, you might want to when we
get off the call, jump on online and see if it looks like a
boxelder bug. If not, send me a picture of it. I'm gonna
put you on hold. Mike and Josh will give you a way that you
can email me a photo if you'd like to do that. All right,
Thank you very much, hey, and thanks for Colin. Thanks for listening
out there. This is good weather to go get your enter tube and go
play at Garner Park, you know that, right, that's right? All
right, we're about eight we're about eight miles south of Garners. Oh my
gosh. There are a lot of college students that would love to live there.
Yeah, are here right now. I bet they are. Well.
You take care of Mike, thanks for the call. Got you on hold
and Josh, we'll pick it up now and make sure and get a hold
of you. One of my favorite places to go visit to get plants is
Buchanans and and it's because there's always something new going on there. Number one,
it's a great place to shop. You got the big trees around and
stuff it. You know, it's kind of cooler, especially in warm weather.
It's nice to be able to just kind of walk the nursing and enjoy
that they're gingers or cocumas. The house plant selection they have, especially natives,
native shrubs, and then like herbs, like how many kinds of rosemary
do you need? I mean they've got probably five or more kinds of rosemary
there Buchanans Plants. I mean, it's a it's just a great place to
find a lot of good things. A new shipment is citrus in not too
long ago. Buchanans Plants is on Eleventh Street and the Heights. If you
haven't been there before, it's eleventh Street, go up in the Heights,
six to eleven East, eleventh if you want to put it into your map
app, but just go online goog buchanans Plants dot com. Buchanans Plants dot
com. Friendly service people that will help you. They walk through the help
you shop if you need help with that. What's a plant for this area?
Take them a picture. They can kind of guide you to the things
you need. That's that's that's our mom and pop garden center. That's Buchanans
Plants. That kind of service. Let's let's see, We're gonna head out
now to Austin and talk to Tommy. Tommy, is this the city of
Austin or where are we? Yea sir Austin. I'm from Houston. I
just moved up here about a year ago. All right, so I still
listen. Good? Thank you. Got a question on parsley when it bolts,
I know it supposedly gets bitter. Is that for starters? You know?
I have not tried eating partially after it bolted, so I don't know
with some plants that is the case, but I wouldn't. I would try
it. Just taste a little bit and see. Okay, just want to
I don't want it to seed. I mean, is it something I can
cut back and yes, let it start growing. Okay, you can't what
I what I would do because I'm always interested in in promoting beneficial insects,
because they're out there helping you do your job, or they're doing the job
in the garden for you. I will let mine bloom partially. Arugula beats.
A lot of things bolt and bloom, and just leave those blooms for
a little while and it'll help beneficial insects. And then as they fade,
you just cut that bloomstock off and take it out of the garden. And
that way it doesn't have time to ripen and mature and cast its seeds.
Okay, And then a quick question another one if you had a chance to
grass. I've got like two or three dry spots, you know, probably
three by three out in the backyard that are looked like I know they're getting
water from the sprinklers. Um, it just seems like maybe the swool is
not in a good condition as something I can do to them in that well,
Tommy, can you hang on. We're in a hard line for a
break here, and I will answer that when I come back. Thank you
for that call. By the way, if you'd like to get on the
board seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Like Moses,
sleepies out of your eyes and let's get going with garden line. It's seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. By the way, I
was in the yard the other day and taking a filling up a feeder.
I've got one of those, a Lemonator squirrel proof bird feed from Wall Birds
Unlimited. That is a Cadillac And the fun part of it is watching squirrels
try to get in there. I mean they if you follow the instructions on
how to set it up, you're gonna have a lot of frustrated squirrels,
which makes me very happy. When I'm buying bird feed, I want to
buy the feed for my birds. By the way, now is an important
time for your birds. It's hot and dry. You need to have water.
Always have water out there for the birds. That is a significant thing
for them, and besides you want to bring them in. Also, what
is it called nesting super blend that they sell there That is an excellent one
for summer feeding because things like bluebirds, cardinals, chickeneese, wrens, they're
still nesting and they need feed, food to supply and nourish and whatnot.
They're going to be your birds are molting soon. That comes a little later
in the summer. But when they mold, they need a good quality feed
as well, and so Nesting super Blend is the one you need. But
if you want to know more about wall birds unlimited and see this eliminator Cadillac
of bird feeders, squirrelproof feeder, go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston.
There's seven of them, seven wild birds around the Greater Houston area.
There's Katie and Kingwood and Cyprus, West Houston, Belair, Pearland and clear
Lake. It's easy to find one near you. And birding is such a
great backyard hab hobby goes really well with gardening, or at least I sure
enjoy being out with the birds. Well, let's go back to Tommy and
Austin and Tommy, we were going to switch over and talk lawns. Right,
Yes, sir, I got burbuna grass. Just for the record,
I've got three spots in my backyard. Everything is great, except for those
spots are drying out, okay, And I know that they're getting water from
the sprinklers. But I'm trying to figure out they're evidently a soul problem there,
and I'm trying to think company to probably benefited or amend it, you
know, make it a better source so it will hold a little bit moisture
better than what it's doing. All right, Well, it's hard. It's
hard to you know, improve the soil once you got the lawn in.
But you can do things like deep tie narration and also the top dressing of
composts to gradually build the soil. I would do something first. I would
set out some little straight sided containers. I mean, it could be a
bean can, it could be a rain gage, it could be a coffee
can, it could be a tuna, fish can, cat food can.
Put them all around, turn on your sprinklers for twenty minutes or fifteen minutes,
and then see how much you catch and look at the difference in the
amount between containers. That may just be a spot that isn't receiving the volume
of water that other spots are, as you said, could also be the
soil's a little different there. A number of things could be going on,
and so it's hard to you know, have here's one answer as to what's
happening in that situation. I'd first check sprinkler uniformity though that is that's one
thing to consider, and then secondly, if you've if you're going to do
something to try to help it. I think the deep tin narration and compost
top dressing is probably in the best bed. But you can't really do that,
Uh, compost dressing this time of the year. Is that correct?
Well, you could, you know, it's just compost and and it's you
need to and your way over there in Austin and I don't know, I
used trying to think of who the suppliers where I used to live there years
ago. But you need a good quality, well screened leaf mold compost if
you can find all of that in that area, not just not something that's
woody and chunky that your more is going to knock around, but yeah,
high quality. Well I can say I kind of know it's the soil because
I'm I haven't did the water. Okay, that's just forth how much?
Yeah, But I get out there weekly and give it extra water just to
you know, help it out because it's in those spots there. You're like
that that's it. So it leads me to believe it's a soil. I
was trying to figure out a best way to kind of condition it. That
would kind of be a you know, make it. Putting the holes in
so you can get some air in, so you can get some compost in
and everything like that is probably the long term that's gonna be a gradual improvement.
But I think that's what i'd suggest based on what I'm hearing from you.
Okay, I appreciate you. Op Hey, thank you for the call.
Tommy. I appreciate that. And he's talking about the soil. If
you live in the Houston area, your soil moves, especially if it's a
glay soil. And what do I mean by that, Well, when it
gets dry, shrinks, When it gets wet, it swells, and that's
what causes our foundation problems. It could be the foundation of your house.
It may be a driveway, it may be a sidewalk. You need to
talk to the folks that fix my slab foundation repair. Ty Strickland, the
owner of the plays. They know what they're doing. They've been doing this
for twenty three years. They know what's happening. So are your door sticking?
Do you see some cracks in the exterior brick or maybe in the sheet
rock in the house. Sooner rather than later. Call now. If you're
telling them you're from you're listening to garden Line, they'll go give you a
free estimate. They always show up on time. I love that about a
service place. That's a rare thing. They show up on time, they've
got on time, they have a fair price, and they fix it right.
Go to fix my slab dot com, or just give Tie and folks
a call at two eighty one two five five forty nine forty nine. Well,
I have a little bit of a crack in one of the back closets
in our house. And it's just it appeared when we had that horrendous drought
of last year. And I tell you it just I know better. I
should have been keeping the foundation moist around the outsides to prevent that. But
anyway, it's what happens. It is definitely what happens. If you're gonna
be out and about today. I've got an idea, why don't you go
by Arbergate. Arburgate Nursery and tom Ball is always a pleasure to visit.
I mean, there's always something going on. Now you've got all kinds of
beautiful tropicals like the hidden gingers and things like that that just looks so very
good. But they have plants for butterflies right now. They have plants that
they sell fruit plants year around, which is amazing. Their gift shops are
unbelievable. While you're there, though, ask them about their one two three
completely easy system that is a food on organic food, a four four three
plus ten percent calcium organic food that feeds pretty much anything that has roots.
Right, they have a soil for any application, and that soil has some
shale included in it, which is important. And then they have a compost.
And the compost is just another case where you've had two different kinds of
composts, but you also have that shale in there. And with the shale
mixed in you get the benefits of the organic matter, which is important.
But organic matter it oxidizes away over time, sale stays behind, and it
helps keep that soil open. And when you're dealing with a difficult, difficult
soil situation, that you're not going to do better than one of their one
two three products, especially that compost complete in the case of improving the soil
internally, we're in the season where we do get a lot of storms,
and here comes hurricane season. We're in the big middle of it. You
need to call Affordable Tree about something. Do you have any limbs that are
dead? Do you have any weak limbs, their limbs hanging over your house
or something else of value, maybe the power lines coming into your house.
Don't wait until now you have no power. Call Affordable Tree now talk to
Martin Spoon Moore and his wife Joe. It is worth calling a professional.
It's seven one three, six, nine nine twenty six sixty three. Or
just go to aff Tree Service dot com. They will do everything you need
from the standpoint of maintaining your trees, including stomp grinding, deep root feeding,
consulting. Affordable Tree. We've been listening to garden Line. We're gonna
take a little break here. When we come back, we will talk about
number one, the things that are of interest to you. I've got a
few topics in mine I'd like to visit about as well. Our phone number
seven one three, two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Gift shash your call and you'll get on
the boards when we come back from break. I believe we're gonna start with
Sandy and then whoever calls in next. It's a good time to get on
the board. Right now, we can get to you pretty quick. Appreciate
you listening to Guarden Line. Hey, tell your neighbors about it too.
In the meantime, we'll take our little break here. We will soon be
back KATRH Garden Line. It's not necessar early endorsed any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scared Rictord.
Just watching this Saturday morning. This is gonna be a great day for gardening.
I can look outside and I'll see it right now. In fact,
now be a good time to be out gardening. Got enough light to get
outside. It's still kind of cool as far as as far as we call
cool in the summertime. If you haven't done your lawn fertilization, it's time
to get that done. Something to carry you through the summer, so don't
delay. I would pick up product that's going to be gradual release over time.
That's the way to feed lawns, because that's the way lawns eat.
They're kind of like us. We don't eat our whole month's supply at one
time. We eat by day by day by day, and that's how our
plants feed as well. That's why I like Nelson Slow and Easy. It's
a twenty two to ten ratio fertilizer. Slow and Easy is designed to release
gradually over time. Just the you know, the chemistry of it, the
way that they put it together gives you that gradual release, and that is
so important. When you get a flush of growth on your lawn, you're
gonna get top growth at the expense of root growth. You're gonna make chinch
bugs happier, You're gonna make a lot of the diseases that can come into
our lawns happier. We just want to gradually feed it over time, and
that's what Slow and Easy does. That's why it's called slow and Easy or
slow and easy. The Nelson Plant Food folks, Dean and the whole team
out there make a lot of quality fertilizers and for the lawns in the summertime,
slow and Easy is the one I think you need to be extra aware
of. And if you haven't gotten it done yet, go ahead and get
it done, because again, fall is coming someday soon. Hopefully we're going
to end up doing our fall fertilization and other issues, but for now we
want that gradual feed over summer. Let's head out to Cypress and talk to
Sindy. Good morning, Sindy, good morning. If how are you well?
I'm well? How can we help today? Um? I was wondering
if I don't know what's going on here? Okay? Um, I was
wondering. I have some plants I love. One is in the croton family
and m but it's not It's not my croton, but it's in that family.
It's got large um red lines in it my room, and it's just
going tall. I want to know how I can train that. Is this
plant growing indoors or outdoors indoors? Okay? Um? Some plants are difficult
to make bushy by pruning. You know. The fiddly fig, for example,
loves to make long, straight, tall stems, and you just can't
make it make a bush out of that one. I don't know specifically the
plant you have, if it's like a croton, probably not going to do
real good at making it bushy. You could try. The other thing you
might try is doing something called an air layer. It's where you put moist
sphagnum moss or even potting soil around the stem in an area where you've wound
the stem and cover it with plastic. I know that sounds like what is
he talking about. We'll just go go do a search online for air layering.
Air layering laying. It's easy to do. And so when I've had
tall things, like for example, a drassina, a corn plant gets real
tall, you just go up and do an air layer on it, and
once you got roots in that, you cut it off and then you can
drop that down and put it in a pot. So you may have more
than one plant in the pot, or maybe you create you another plant.
But if you've ever noticed the corn plant, the drassinas that have like a
little stump that's cut off and two sprouts coming out below that stump, some
plants will do that, and it would be worth giving your plan a chance,
and at least if not, you would end up with the new plant
you created being something shorter that you could plant in a new pot. Also,
um I have the outside the Hawaiian something or another um. They're light
green and like a maroon, and they grow tall and they have to grow
in three and I'm China. I don't want it. But we've tried digging
it up. The roots are so um big. It's an outside, yes,
but I don't know how to how to I'm not trying to be mean,
but I want to get rid of it. Oh okay, uh,
I gave them away when they were a baby. But so it's in a
pot. It's not in the ground. No, it's in a pot.
Okay. You just kind of have to dump the pot over and shake all
the soil off of it to get rid of it. You may hack it
back so it's easier to work with, but that would be my suggestion the
whole. I think you're talking about Hawaiian tea plant and based on your color
description of it there and those are beautiful foliage plants. But I think just
kind of shaking all the soil off, I'm getting it out of the pots
so you can reuse that pot. Maybe you don't even can't even get the
soil off because there's so many roots in it. Yeah, I was helping
when it froze that it would not come back up. Okay, that sounds
like a plant you might want to keep around saying, if you can't kill
it, I understand it grows some beans and stuff in it, and I
don't want to My patio is already pots in it. Yeah, I would
just I would just slip it out there. You know who knows you put
it on a curbside, somebody they decide to take it home with them.
Do you think I can send you some pictures of the plants that I don't
know the names of. Yes, yeah, let me put you on home
that's your email, Okay, yeah, go ahead and do that, and
then if you don't mind, maybe following up with a phone call maybe tomorrow,
and we can talk about the ones that you send pictures up. All
right, sure, absolutely, all right, you take care and Josh will
get that call and we will we will go from there. You know.
Up in Dayton, Texas, the Bee Supply is the go to place for
anyone interested in keeping bees learning about bees. They have their beginner classes once
a month now during this season out in Dayton. You just learn everything you
need to know, and they've got every supply you could need there and they
walk through it with you. They understand what it's like to try to start
keeping bees from scratch. They can help you have success, and they will.
They're so good at that. Paul and the folks that at b Supply.
Just go on line to the b supply dot com. Also, if
you just want to go on a honey tour, call them up about that.
They have free honey tours they do about once a month out there,
and oh my gosh, it is so very fascinating. I just love love
that. It's good to get out and enjoy that. By the way,
I was talking about watering the other day and the importance of watering properly,
and a little sprinkling here and there is not the way you water. The
way you water is you give your plants a good deep soaking and then you
wait and let the swell dry out a bit, bring oxygen back in,
and then you give it a good soaking again. And if you've been squirting
your plants every other day, especially your lawn, that's too often and you're
promoting disease, you're promoting shallow rooting. Go to water my yard dot org.
They have an app on the Apple Store and at Google Play. Water
my yard dot org. You can get a free email that it comes right
to your box and it tells you exactly how much to water and when you
need watering, and it just doesn't get any easier than water my yard dot
org. Let's take a break our number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. David. When we come back, you'll be first up.
A little bit of a flash back to our conversation about partially a little
bit earlier. Let's see. You know I've been talking about watering and the
importance of proper watering in the heat, and also of equal importance is soil
preparation. And it's so easy to get excited about plants and just come home
and PLoP them down and the unprepared soil that is in the spot where you're
going to plant them. Take time, put composts in the ground, amend
that soil. If you need some expanded shail and a heavy clay, a
considerable amount of expanded shil will help a heavy clay, get that done.
Do you need raised beds for drainage, get that done. When you do
all of that, your plants have a better root system, so when it
rains too much, the water drains away and they don't drown. When it
doesn't rain enough, it's got good water holding capacity and has good aeration as
well, and one place where you can find the quality soil that you need
to do all that would be Nature's Way. They're up in Conra. If
you go up Interstate forty five about that where fourteen eighty eight comes in,
you just turn right and go across the railroad tracks and you're a Nature's way.
Now. There's summer hours Monday through Friday eight to five, Saturdays eight
to two, and closed on Sunday. So hey, you got time today
to get out there. They have a great variety of lots of native plants
and they just keep improving it. I was visiting with the folks out there
the other day and they were talking about some plants are bringing in and just
kind of renovating that whole area and it's going to be really, really cool.
Every Friday is Fungal Friday. Ten percent off bag mulch bag products rather
and twenty percent off bulk products. They got like two to three thousand yards
of fungal composts out there. I mean, it's there's not a higher quality
they I'll say it this way. They kind of invented the finely screened fungal
compost. That is the top quality of anything you can use for top dressing
a lawn or amending the soil. Nature's way resources well worth a visit,
and you're not going to do better when it comes to a quality quality soil,
amending, mulch product, all those types of things. Let's go out
to Tumball and we are going to visit with David. Hey, David,
good morning, Good morning, sir Hey. In a previous house I had,
I had I think they called it a climbing big This thing attached itself
to brick and it attack itself. Anything, yes, is on the house
I'm I have Now I was considering putting that where I have an open space
of a brick on the house. And my question is is there any other
type of fig or climbing, type of attaching buying that blooms that you're aware
of? Well, I should be able to name something right off the top
of my head. Do give me just a minute as we're talking, maybe
I'll think of one. You know the thing about another? Go ahead?
Oh, I'm sorry. Another issue is if I do plant something like that,
are there any known hazards over long term to the house since you're kind
of covering up where the brick and the lab meet. Yeah, you want
to be real careful with that. It's not going to hurt the bricks at
all. The whole fast that the climbing fig and other those kind of plants
have will not damage the brick. They may leave some kind of organic matter
behind where they stuck, and eventually that little piece of organic matter would ride
away or something. But that's not a problem for patried surface because it is
a problem. Um well then is why is there anyone you might research it?
But I'm looking now, is there any type of one that blooms?
Yeah? I am I am sitting here in my head trying to think.
I may have to ponder that one a little bit. Um appropriate. The
other thing about all these climbers on your house like that is just no,
they're going to try to encroach other areas, so there's gonna be a pruning
job up there to keep them in place. Secondly, what almost almost almost
weakly, you had to prune that crazy thing that could be true to do
it. And the Yeah, the climbing fig on some surfaces, it doesn't
hold real good, and you'll just get this whole sheet of it that's just
peeling back from the wall, you know, as gravity kind of pulls it
down. That happened when we were out a Bear Creek park at the Extension
office. We had some that was falling off the surface doing that. It's
not real common, but that can happen. Also, it's a little bit
cold tender. That's the other thing about climbing fig that we would worry about.
You know, I'm not sure I'm going to come up with a good
plan. I was thinking about trumpet creeper, trumpet vine, and boy,
that is just a monster, vigorous mess. I don't think I would want
to attach that to the house. So I'll yeah, and I'll be listening
if you come up one let me know, all right. You know,
another another thing that my solve some problems is to put a big climbing structure
up there of some sort that it could grab onto twine in, grow in.
You don't have to have the whole fast that way, but that would
just be another thing to consider. All right, all right, thank you
appreciate that call. Thank you very much. Kingwood Garden Center. I don't
know if you've been there before, but you need it. You need to
go if you haven't it. It is an amazing place that the plants,
the people that help you, you get the kindness that you expect. And
they have a they have a blue butterfly bush plant in it. I don't
know if you've seen this. It's a clardendrom. I believe it's claridendum ugen
dns is the name of it. But it's light blue flowers. There's a
very pale blue and then a darker blue, five paddles and with anthers curling
up. It literally looks just like a little blue butterflies all over the plant.
Really cool, kind of fun. It also attracts butterflies, by the
way, but if you haven't seen one of those, you need to check
it out. And Kingwood Plants has them. That's an especially cool plant.
They're going to have those filling stations for microlife and Nelson plant food. You
bring your plastic jars back in, save a little money on fertilizer and avoid
adding plastic to the environment. Kingwood Humble, a Tascas seed, a Porter
Lake Valley, New Caney or Skinam Valley ranch. Not like what am I
thinking? New Caney. Those are all places that this is your Hometown Garden
Center, the Kingwood Garden Center, and Warren Southern Garden Center. Warren is
over on North Park, Kingwood on Stone Hollow. Pretty cool. But checkout
king Would when you go in there. Ask them to see their blue butterfly
plant, the clarodendron. That is just really cool looking stuff. You're listening
to Guardline. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. If you are looking for some projects to do
on the inside of the house right now, this is a good time plant
wise to start doing some of that summer propagation. For example, I've mentioned
earlier doing an air layer on a very upright plant, something like a decina,
something like a corn plant. I do it with some of the ficus
varieties as well, getting creating a rooting up there on the stem so that
you can cut it off and drop it down, and something that's long and
lanky and really getting above the windows where it can get good light. You
can lower it that way. I just go online you can learn about air
layering. It's not hard to do, It's easy to do. But this
would be a good time too to begin thinking about the fall garden if you
want to do some transplants of warm season crops. So maybe you want to
grow some peppers for transplant, or you want to grow some tomatoes to transplant
out those kinds of things. Now it's a good time. Start those indoors
in a very bright area, best yet to give them a good quality indoor
lighting to get those seeds started. Move them right out into the brightest shade
you can find. After they get up and going, don't leave them indoors
too long, and they will really make a beautiful plant. So when it's
time to put them out a little bit later, when they're ready to go,
you have a good start and you can just transplant them right out there
in the garden. If you are looking for a source of all kinds of
supplies for gardening, and I would by that, i'm you need fungicides,
Do you need fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides. Do you need tools for your
gardening? Do you need to buy the fertilizer we talk about here on garden
Line. Maybe you need molts or compost or soil amendments from the companies that
we talk about here on Guard Line. Well, Southwest Fertilizer is your one
stop shop. Southwest has been a Houston lawn and tradition since nineteen eighty five,
I believe you know, and Bob Patterson and his team there first rate,
knowledgeable, friendly, helpful. When you walk in there, they know
what they're talking about. So take them a sample, take them a picture,
let them look at it, and they can direct you to the solution
that you need for that. And they'll tell you if that's fine, that's
not a problem, that's good, or you know, they won't guide you
wrong, and that is so important. You want to be able to when
I walk into a store, I want to trust the people that are answering
a question that I ask and know that I'm not going home with something that
won't fix it. They just sell me something that they think might work.
That's not what happens at Southwest. This is like our mom and Popton garden
centers we talk about. These are knowledgeable folks. They they're local, they
know what works here and how to get the job done. And by the
way, also you need to get that more blade sharpened so it makes a
cleaner cut, looks better and overall in your in your yard, they can
do that. They also have a little small engine repair where they can do
some of that as well. So, hey, one stop shop for a
whole lot of good things. Let's that out to Conro and we're gonna talk
talk to Turker. Hello, Tuker, Is that Turker? Hello? Yeah?
It tum So. I'm calling in. I'm visiting my family Don Conro
and I was just listening to your radio show. I do live in mid
Lothian, Texas, down by Dallas up forward there, okay, Um,
I have a bermuda grass on my yard. Um, it's a brand new
home. It's about the year older, year old, and I keep having
brown patches on my yard. I can't seem to get it all the way,
even when it comes to the grass color and and about like how thick
the grass is? Do you know any a good places to go over there?
We're up in the area, a good store or something that will be
a good resource for me or what I should just how do I approach the
problem? Yeah? So is the discoloration like year around or is it more
in the summer or the winter or it is uh pretty much year around.
It just gets worse in the summer. Okay, worse in the summer.
Yeah, you know, I could make guesses and stuff, but I tell
you that you've got a very knowledgeable garden center up there. It's called Rigsby's
Garden Center. It's in Missilothia, and Um, the owner and I went
to college together. I lived the same bit. In fact. Interesting this
may not mean something to you, but it will in the Houston folks.
Randy Lemon, Scotty Rigsby and I all lived in the same dorm at A
and M at the same time. And Scotty is he's like very you know
up there with the Turk Texas Nursery and Landscape Association leadership, and he knows
what he's talking about. That's Rigsby's Gardens. They're over on oh my gosh,
trying to remember. It's a shady grove road in miss Lothika. If
you go there, asked to talk to Scotty, tell him you talk to
Skip and and just he'll get you set up. All right. Awesome,
thank you, thank you, all right, Turker, thank you very much.
I appreciate that. Hey, if you're looking for a quality landscape job,
you need to call the folks at Peerscapes, Jason Garretty and his team,
they know what they are talking about. They very very skilled, very
knowledgeable. Their designers can create the beautiful home place that you want. Do
you need some irrigation repairs done? Do you want some lighting put in?
Do you need to improve drainage? They'll do it two eight one three seven
zero fifty sixty or Piercescapes dot com. I'd like to be gone, shade
know its where we've been and he's gone. Good morning, you're listening to
guard Line on a good day, gardener. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you would like to give
us skle, we would love to talk to you about the things that are
of interest to you. Hey, if you're thinking about retiring and you want
a community for active adults age fifty five and better active adults, we're talking
about lifestyle programs designed around you. Well down in Fulscher, in fact,
two miles from downtown Fulcher on FM three fifty nine. Dell Web is building
just that and this community on top of it all. This is important for
garden Line listeners. They've got a community garden going on that I'm helping them
with. So I can't imagine a better setup than the quality of dell weeb
construction, than the amenities the Dellweb offers in a community. It is,
it is a community. It's not just a house share buying and also having
a community garden. Hey, go online if you want more information, check
them out, discover that Dellweb difference at delweb dot com, slash Houston or
call them two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine, easy to
remember. Let's head out to Spring and we're going to talk to Peggy this
morning. Hello Peggy, good morning. I've got a problem. I've got
it in my vegetables. All right? Are they ants that bite you?
Yes? They do? I like fire ants or do you think, well
they're hurt pretty bad? Well that would probably be a fire ant then here.
So in a vegetable garden, it's hard to find things that are labeled
for fire ant control, that are labeled for using in an edible crop garden
like vegetables. There is one product that I know of, only one that
I know of, and I'm pretty sure that's the case, and that is
called come and get It. Come and get It. It's a fire ant
bait, I believe for a loam makes it. You're gonna find it a
lot of garden centers, and it's actually organic. It uses an ingredient called
spinosaid as the natural insecticide that's put on this bait. So the ants pick
it up and it gets them. I would scatter that. Just sprinkle it,
not don't pile it up, don't dump it on a mound, and
just sprinkle it everywhere because ants need to go find it. Do it early
in the morning, are very late in the day when the ants are foraging,
because you don't want the sun to bake down on it for two days
and start to turn it rants that you want it to be fresh. Okay,
okay, okay, I appreciate it. Yeah. Oh and Peggy to
find out when the answer foraging, Just take anything that's oily and put it
out there. It could be like a little section of a hot dog.
It could be potato chips. It could be a tuna can packed in oil,
you know, the empty can that fire ants will go to that and
within fifteen minutes they will be on it if they are actively foraging. So
I like to use potato chips because that's just they're easy to see. But
that that tells you when to apply your product. That sounds good. Thank
you for the call. We are gonna let's see. I'll tell you what.
Let me give your phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. I was gonna wanted to discuss soils and nutrients a little bit.
There is a there's a concept called the Lee Biggs barrel. Lee Big,
I think justicely big Leave. Long time ago a fellow discovered and they
didn't discover. He determined and used the example of a barrel to explain soil
nutrients and the importance. And here's what it means. So if you imagine
a barrel, it's got all these slats going top to bottom, you know
the old wine barrels. And if you were to cut off one of those
slats, I think they call them staves. You cut one off maybe six
inches from the top, another one you cut off about ten inches from the
top. Another you cut off two feet from the top. And then you
try to fill that bucket or that barrel with water. It's only the water
is only going to go up as high as the lowest stave, right,
it just runs out there. Well, the concept just to say that whatever
that nutrient is represented by the lowest stave, that's what the limit to your
plant growth is. So if you want your plants to thrive, they have
to have everything. They have to have every nutrient that they need, not
just the big three nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but if it's an
essential nutrient, even trace animal elements are often essential nutrients. It's got to
have that. And so how do you know you have that in the soil?
Well Number one, do a very extensive soil test and no, but
number two use a product like azamite. Azamite is a mind product comes out
of the ground up in Utah and it is sold, it's created into it's
created, it's developed into a granular that you can put out with a fertilizer
spreader. And if you will follow the instructions and apply that about once a
year, you can make sure and have a good stock of all those nutrients.
Because you remember, it didn't matter what the nutrient is, It doesn't
matter if it only needs a minuscule amount for plants in the soil. If
you don't have it, if you don't have enough of that, then that's
going to be the limit on your plant growth. I use it in lawns
for sure, but I would use it in gardens as well. Go online
to azamite Texas dot com. They'll have a lot more information online, and
it's available pretty much everywhere. We talk about here on on garden Line.
We are looking at that time of year when getting out and gardening. You
know, the heat is somewhat stifling, and so we get out in the
mornings. But I just want to say a couple of things regarding your health
my health out in the garden. Heat stroke, keat stress, heat exhaustion,
those kinds of things they can sneak up on you. Of course,
heat strokes the worst, but even heat exhaustion is a significant problem. And
you know, when I was young and invincible, I would just do things
that physically will probably kill me now because I was invincible, at least in
my own mind. I was. But I remember the first time I had
heat exhaustion, and it was a mild or a moderate case, but it
scared me, and it made me realize the stuff sneaks up on you.
You know, you're going along doing what you've always done, and all of
a sudden we're talking about a life and death kind of situation that can creep
up on you. Take care of yourself, don't do that. Take care
of your skin too. I know I'm your mom preaching to you about all
this stuff, but just trust me. We want to keep you around as
listeners. We won't juda have a good, happy life and lots of years
of gardening. And there's a reason people wear lung sleeve absorbent like a cotton
type shirt out there in the sun. It's to predict their skin. There's
a reason we were a big hats, a reason where I always wear a
hat. You know, I got my straw hat all when I'm out in
the sun. And you want to protect your skin because skin damage is cumulative,
and it just just makes sense use those SPF through the roof products that
will keep you from from burning. Nice, long, happy, pleasant life
of gardening. That's what we're aiming for. Hey, let's head out to
Mont Bellevue and we're gonna talk to Jess. Good morning, Jess, Hey,
good morning. I just had an answer for that girl's problem with the
fire ants in the garden. Okay, Viper, it's labeled for vegules and
it will kill fire ants, just like any fire ant killer will. I've
had a horrible time with they going from a marsh from my oakra and you
just sprinkle that viper out there and it'll kill them. And it has a
vegetable gardening label. Yeah, it's label for vegetables. You can even put
it in when the ants getting your chicken feed. You can even sprinkle viper
in the chicken feed and it will kill the ants. Not heard to check
it. Well, that's very interriting. I'm gonna have to check that out.
Yeah, now that's gonna be one of those contact killers. And what
I was recommending was a bait, but you can use both. I like
the baits because they suppress all the ants, even the ones that don't have
mounds. You can find to treat with your In this case, you're talking
about viper. But I'm gonna look into that. That's interesting. I did
not know that it's a whole it's a whole lot more fun to kill them
than to bate them. Though. Hey, thanks for the call. I
gotta take a break, Jess. I appreciate that information very much. Yeah,
it is fun to it is fun to kill him. Our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be right back.
Good morning. You are listening to Garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We had a
caller last segment there, Jess called about viper as for friance in a vegetable
garden, and I just I was going checking that label out because I'm familiar
with the viper that's the liquid, and I just want to I want to
point out for anyone listening that there is a liquid viper that you cannot using
a vegetable garden. But the dust form that he was talking about is labeled
for vegetable gardens. That was news to me. It is a synthetic perirethroid
man And interesting enough, those two products with the same name, one dust
when liquid, they're not the same ingredient. And that happens a lot,
and it drives me nuts. It really drives me nuts. You know,
everybody knows that roundup is glypha sate, right, it's the spray it on.
It kills pretty much anything you spray it on. There is a roundup
for lawns that they sell, and you thinking, or what were they thinking?
It's used for weeds and lawns and it doesn't kill your grass because it's
not the same ingredient. Is what everybody knows of is roundup? Image does
that same thing too? By the way, I'm I'm ranting. By the
way, just give me a little room here. Image. There's the image
for nuts edge, but there's an image for broadly I feed control on your
lawn. But they keep that same name, and it's very confusing. I'm
surprised the company lawyers allow that. I mean, can you imagine if someone
was told you can use roundup for lawns and your lawn and someone went and
bought regular roundup and their lawn, well, that would kill all the weeds
in the lawn. Of course the lawn itself would be gone to. But
anyway, viper, Yeah, the dust type. Make sure it's the dust
type, not the liquid type. If you wanted to follow that with a
just a treatment of the mound itself. Again, for Ferrance, I generally
leaned toward the baits because they work. It takes them a little will to
work, not too long. But the mounds you don't see the bait's control
that you can do it. On the mounds you do see, but sometimes
there's ones you don't. In that way, you just kind of get ahead
of it. Well's head out to Greg and pair Land. Hello, Greg,
Hey, Skip. A couple of months ago, I had a company
put in some new San Augustine soil about five hundred square foot, just kind
of in different areas. One main area though, And when I watered it,
I tried to go buy instructions. I watered it two times a day
for ten days, and then one time a day for a week after that.
And then after that, of course, is the weather's been really hot.
But after that, after a few days, it would kind of it
would start turning brown and I'd have to water it again, and and I'm
kind of I'm just sort of at a loss as to what to do.
They put down, they said they put down some fertilizer. Don't know when
they put it down, don't know what time, but they went to home
depot to get it. So but in places it looks pretty good. In
some places it's pretty sparse, and I didn't I didn't know quite quite what
to do at this point. Hm that's interesting. Um I would get a
hold of whoever put it down and find out exactly what they put down.
My questions would be, well, number one, what was it? But
it was there weed control products in it? Was it a weed and feed?
Because those kin have some issues, the broad leaf types, and when
it's hot can burn the some some of the pre emergent weed prevention. If
they overdo it can cause inhibition of the grass roots. They're not able to
root. And for a new side being pretty young still, that would be
a bad move on that especially. Yeah, I ask them to put down
good top soil underneath it, okay, And I wasn't here when they did
it. Some of the edges, you know, are kind of coming up
like a carpet. Most of it's good. You know, where it's green,
it's it's fine. But the dark areas, it's kind of loose on
the edges in some spots. Okay, Well, some of that may happen.
It there's it's a process. You got to get the soil prepared underneath.
You got to get the side down. I also water the soil before
I put the sod down, because you want to be able to get roots.
You want that side sitting on top of already moist soil, not dry
soil. It's hard from the top to get that moisture all the way down.
I mean, you can do it. But yeah, they didn't do
that. Yeah, I'm sure that. Yeah, and that helps. But
you know, just here and brown, I don't know really what else to
say on that. It sounded like you did a good job with the transition
of getting it, giving it time to get roots down out of that side
into the soil. And yeah, that's the secret to being able to We
just keep weaning it back and you know, eventually you're looking at twice a
week and then eventually once a week as you get it well established. But
okay, now, assuming they didn't put down anything that was harmful, you
know, just maybe a regular kind of fertilizer. And again two months ago.
If that is the case and it was just some sort of regular fertilizer,
it's time for me to fertilize again. Would it be okay to go
ahead and fertilize or use azamite two or so? How long ago did you
did? Two months? Two months? Yeah, it would be okay to
do that again. I would use the slow type stuff though, that's what
we're talking about, you know. Yeah, and you talked about Nelson earlier.
Nelson they make that a slow and easy it's a twenty two percent nitrogen,
but you put it out at five pounds per thousand square feet so it
does not burn, but it graduate okay, And now I always use nitrofoss.
Does Nitrofosse makes something slow release like that? Absolutely, the Imperial.
It's the silver bag, Nitrofoss Imperial. It's a ninth Oh good, and
that's what That's what I've used before. Yeah, okay, silver bag.
If you're buying nitrofoss, that's what you're looking for. That's that's good.
Well I'll give him a call and try to try to figure it out.
All right, Thanks a lot, good luck with it, Thank you,
Thank you, great show, Skip, Thanks well. I appreciate that.
Thank you, sir. Our phone number seven one three, two one two
five eight seven four. Been time back. Some creepy crawleys today about those
fire ends and things. If you want the expert on the creepy crawleys,
that would be Scott McGrath McGrath Pest Control. You can give McCall to eight
one, four six nine eighty two forty. Or just go to mecgrath pest
control dot com. They've been doing this they you know, started by Scott's
dad in nineteen seventy four, but forty nine over forty eight years. I
know, still family run. They take care of all pest control needs.
I'm not just talking about insects. They do that for sure, But you
know, do you need rodin and raccoons and squirrels excluded from getting up in
the roof. You're dealing with mosquitoes around the outside of the property, termites
in the house and so on. They don't require you to sign a contract,
you you know, and they don't give you this five hour window like
we'll show up sometime Thursday and then you're lucky if a company shows up at
all. No, they tell you the time and they're there at that time.
It's that old fashioned service. It's it's only a company and running it
right. That's Scott McGrath and McGrath pest Control. It's it's old time service
with today's technology again two eight, one, four six, nine eighty two
forty or just go to MacGrath pest control dot com and you can find out
all that you need lots of good information. Well, we're about to take
another break here, so go ahead and hold off on taking another call,
But if you would like to give us a call seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four
If you have a question, I ask you earlier, what is your favorite
kind of warm season flower? Like? What kinds of things are looking good
this time of the year that you're like, Maybe it's something you grew up
with, maybe it's something you use all the time, or maybe a neighbor
as it and you just admire it every time this time of the year.
I'm gonna talk about some warm season flowers as you come back, but I
would like to hear from you. What are your favorites? What do you
like? And we talk about those a little bit. I bet it you
may even think of some that don't come to mind, and I'm trying to
come up with a list. That's what we're here for. Garden Line is
your calling, Garden Show here in the Great Houston area we are We're here
to answer your questions. We're here to guide you and direct you. My
goal is for you to have success in your garden. I want you to
not say you have a brown thumb because you don't trust me. You may
have an uninformed thumb. We can fix that. You don't have a brown
thumb. You just need the right processes, the right plants, the right
planting and time and you can have success. And that's what we'll start up
again the next hour. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip
Rictors. Just what well, good morning, good Saturday morning. It is
beautiful out there, and this as all days, it's a good day for
gardening. We are here on guarden Line to talk about things that you are
interested in. And our phone number if you'd like to give us a call
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Now, we love
our feed stores here on garden Line, and if you live in the Magnolia
area, Spring Creek Feed that's your hometown feed store. They're just they're in
Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight, so just minutes away from Graham Parkway
Highway two forty nine. They carry the fertilizers that we talk about here and
they carry the supplies that you need to have a successful garden. Not just
garden supplies. I mean that's the herbicides, funge sides, pesticides, fertilizers
and whatnot. The pond supplies that you may need. Friendly staff is always
available there at Spring Creek Feed And it's just nice to walk into a place
you remember at the show Cheers where everybody knows your name, the little place.
It's kind of a place you walk in and you're greeting and it's a
friendly face and you just feel like you're you know, you're part of the
group. There at Spring Creek Feed Center. They have all the livestock feed
you need, all the pet feeds that you will need, quality pet foods
like you know Victor Purina, all kinds of good things for your pet.
If you need hay shavings, betting, if you need delivery, they do
have a delivery service as well, and if they have to special order something,
they will do that at Spring Creek Feed Again. They're in Magnolia on
FM twenty nine seventy eight, just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway to
forty nine. We're gonna head to the phones this morning, and we're gonna
now go to Friendswood and talk to Charlotte. Hello, Charlotte, high skip,
good morning. I have two questions for you. The first one is
on azalias and I have formosa azaleas. They're very old, probably about thirty
years or even older, and I haven't been having any problems with them in
recent years. But this year, on two of them, they have developed
a like one branch that is wilting and will die. So I cut it
out. And I remember this happening long ago, but I can't remember what
to do. But now a second branch on each of them is going through
that same process. Okay, well it could be different things. You know.
The first thing we think about azalias will be watering. If there's a
spot that's not getting adequately watered. Maybe you know, you have a little
spray or sprinkler and some olda just blocking it from reaching some area or you
know what, how however that's happening, if water in that certain section could
be a reason for that. Another thing or root rights. Root rids typically
on azaleas are going to happen when the area can stay a little on the
two moist side. You know, it could be from irrigation, could be
from rainfall. It doesn't matter. But it gives a root ride a chance
to move in to the root system, and then you would just have to
use a drench to manage that root rot within the plant. But I hate
to go right to a drench when we don't know for sure that that's what's
causing the die back. So I am. I usually only water once a
week. We've been getting enough rain lately that I haven't had to water,
but maybe three weeks ago we weren't getting enough rain, okay, And so
I have to hand waters, so I don't have a sprinkler system only.
Okay, Well, if you're handwater, and I'm sure you're doing a good
job putting the water everywhere around the area. So I guess the only thing
I would say about handwatering is sometimes we can feel like we gave it a
good soaking when we didn't. And so just make sure that when I handwater,
I will come back to the spot three times. You know, I'll
water and all around and it starts to run off, and I move down
to water something else, and I come back and water it again. And
you know what I'm saying, it's you always think you've put a lot on
and then after handwatering, dig down you've wetted about a half inch deep.
It's amazing how it takes a while to soak it. And with the demands
of this temperature that these temperatures we're having now, I guess it's possible that
it's a little low on the watering. Other than the root rot or the
watering, I guess you might just check some branches that are dying to see
if they're splits in the bark. And if you see vertical splits going the
length of the like the direction is the branch, that is a sign of
cold damage from last December, which caught some of our plants. But I
would throw that in the mix. It's probably not what's causing this on azaleas.
But if you get that kind of damage, often as we get into
the heat of summer and the demands are high, those branches just aren't going
to be able to move the moisture up into the foliage like it needs to
at the rate it needs to. So that would be another thing maybe to
check for. What um okay, I will do that. What about if
it is root rot? What is this strench that you're talking about, you
would look for something called Subdue sub Due Subdue. It's a root rot fungicide.
There are there are some others out there, but I think Subdue may
be the easier one to find. It's going to be a little difficult to
find a product as specific as that. If you don't find it, like
your local ace hardware stores around you, you got several of them down there
in the great you know, greater Friendswood area, you may have to call
go ahead, yes, go ahead. You may have to call Southwest Fertilizer,
which is in southwest Austin over by Bessonette And because they carry a wide
variety and it's probably worth a drive over to just go and get that.
But check check around your area and see if they If they carry us Subdue,
it's just not going to be as common. But explain to them you're
looking for a root rot product. Okay, okay, thank you. And
my other question is on roses. So I had a rose bush that I'd
had for about seven years, a shrub type rose and um litter, and
it bloomed beautifully. This spring went through a second um real big flush and
then um in um late June. It just suddenly literally one day was fine,
the next day started looking terrible, and it was dead in a couple
of days. I've dug it, my yard men have dug it up,
but I don't know whether it's all right. Well yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can replant Charlotte in that area. It roses again when the demander
as high as they are. Little things being wrong can take a plant down.
Uh, you know, it could be a drench or something like that.
It could be a it could be that the sole moisture is too high,
too low. There's just a lot of things. These plants are just
pumping water as fast as they can to keep cool on these hundred degree days
and anywhere near that, and that's probably what happened with your rose. But
you know, I'm kind of looking back in time without seeing the plant,
so it's it's my best guess on it. But hopefully I would go ahead
and replant that same area. I don't know any reason why you wouldn't.
I think that'll be just funny. I'm gonna have to head to a break
our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Sean
when we come back you'll be the first up. Now, there are men
who make history, there are men who change the world, and there are
men like me to simply find the ride girl. In that very moment,
it all that comes clear what I'm meant to do, the reason I'm here
out every night, I thank the Lord I found you, and every time
I'm put my arms around you, I feel like free gets to hole Lisa.
Good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning. We're talking gardening today. Good
thing to do on a show called garden Line. Right, I'm your host,
Skip Richter our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. I was thinking the other day about, you know, this hot
weather and trying to how do people just have success with their plants and things.
I'm watering some stuff on my patio quite a bit because I got it
in slightly smaller containers than I probably should. It's time to bump those things
up. As a result, I'm having to water them more often. But
what I was thinking about is the succulents that are so popular. Now,
that's a great way to go because if you forget to water them. These
things they're from arid regions, right, they know how to survive. They've
got leaves that are succulent that whole moisture. Just think of cactus. I
mean that that would be in poster example. Well, the folks at Enchanted
Gardens at in Richmond, they have the awesome selection of succulents. I mean,
they have every other kind of plant you can imagine right now, but
they're succulents. Check out the hanging baskets and some of the other forms of
the succulents. They have really beautiful things. And these are things you know,
you get a little hanging basket up there. If you had petunias in
it and you forgot to water it once or twice during the day, you'd
probably be in big trouble. But with succulents, they're more forgiving and it
just makes it easier. So if you haven't gotten into succulents yet, and
by the way, they are a really popular high item these days in the
gardening world, check them out at Enchanted Gardens and Richmond. That's Enchanted Gardens
Richmond dot com. The Lenderman family has been part of the community since nineteen
ninety five. Out there. They have the knowledge, they've got the educated
staff, they've got the products you need, some of the fertilizers we talk
about, and on and on. They've got it. They're open Monday through
Saturday eight to five thirty and on Sunday from ten am to four pm.
A good day to get out and visit enchanted gardens out there in Richmond.
By the way, they're out on FM three fifty nine on the Katie Fulscher
side of Richmond. Let's head over to Pinehurst now if I can find the
button and we're going to talk to Sean. Good morning, Sean, good
morning. How are you? I'm well? How can we help today?
I'm having a problem with my Saint Augustine yard lawn. I feel like I
may have a shake all patch, but I'm not sure. Okay, the
grass is standing out, dying, turning yellow inside. You can once it
dies, of course, you can just rip it right out. And it
seems to be approaching moving across the lawn. Okay, if you're very irregular
area, you know, not like clearly defined lines or strips or circles or
anything like that. Weah, it's kind of a triangle area, kind of
where the yard meets the sidewalk in the driveway, and it's almost like a
straight line, kind of moving on along the yard. Okay, well,
my first guess is that you may have chinch bugs. And you can go
online and do a search for chinch bugs and image search and see what the
little critters look like. They're about an eighth of an inch long. The
adults are black with some white on their back. The young are kind of
a bronzy orange red with a white band across their back. But when you
get on your hands and knees and get right down there and pull back and
look at the thatch, just look around, you're going to see these little
tiny things. If if it's chinch bugs, they're gonna be a lot of
them. And look in the area between healthy and dead. If the dead
they've killed, you know, maybe they're moving into the healthy. They're sucking
the juices out of the plants. And we're singing. Seeing a lot of
problems with chinch bugs right now, and so I would check for that.
If you don't find chinch bugs, then maybe the take all root rode as
a possibility. The way to diagnose that for sure is to have the lab
the State Plant Clinic take a look and determine if that's what it is visually
what you described sounds a little bit like take all as well. But my
first guess is going to be chinch bugs, and then take all is what
it is if it's not chinch bugs, assuming that area is already getting adequate
water. Yeah, I was afraid I was maybe over watering, but okay,
well then it's gonna be one of the us too. But let's start
with the chinch bugs. Go online and look it up, see what they
look like. It's really easy. Just once you look at them and you
see what you're looking for, you just get down there and again go to
the area where it's starting to decline, because that's where the most bugs sucking
on the grass are going to be. That's why it's declining. And if
you don't find chinch bugs, then let's move toward a takeall patch assumption.
Okay, okaykay, Well, thank you very much, sty you bet you
good luck with that lawn. Yeah, you know that as I was visiting.
In fact, just the other day this week, I was visiting with
Sherry Sherry Harrow from Plants for All Seasons, and we were just talking about,
you know, the chinch bug samples they've been getting in and some of
the things we're seeing, and yeah, it's pretty significant. It's been going
on for a while now. Chinch Bugs normally, you know, we have
a spring, late spring, early summer population, but it's usually not too
bad and then later in the summers when they're really bad. Well, they're
really bad now. They're they got a head start, I guess. By
the way, the Plants for All Seasons that is, you know, it's
just one of those nurseries. You have to visit the selection. They have
the knowledgeable staff, folks like Sherry and he whole family. You know,
the Plants for All Seasons. Folks know what they're talking about. It's been
family owned and operated since nineteen seventy three, the Flowerty family. You can
bring them samples of a plant. You can bring them pictures for diagnosis.
By the way, if you're going to take a lawn sample in, you
might want to take a section out of that area where I talked about between
healthy and Dad. Just cut it out with a little butcher knife, a
little four by four four by six inch plugs, slip it into a ziplock
and zip it up and get it over to the garden center. They're gonna
be able to identify it and if chinch bugs are in it, they'll find
them and they'll tell you what you need to do for it. Go online
Plants for All Seasons dot com, or just give them a call two eight
one three seven six sixteen forty six. And while you're there, check out
all of the amazing beautiful plants that they have. They got a great selection
of booga villas right now, and oh my gosh, if you want those
beautiful southern perennial hibiscus, they are loaded up. I know they have the
Lunar series, which is kind of a semicompact series. But you're not gonna
have trouble finding some great stuff at Plants for All Seasons. Our phone number
seven one three two one two five eight seven four you'd like to give us
a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Yesterday we
kind of I kind of living in two different places right now. And when
we're down here in the Houston area, I greet my plants who've said where
you've been for the last four or five days, And I was greeting them
and watering my house plants and just you know, enjoying that indoor gardening aspect
and what I do with my plants, my house plants, it's a constant
application. It's a Biomatrix orange label for Microlife now Microlife Biomatrix, the orange
label. It's a seven one three, so it's out a decent amount of
nitrogen in it to support the foliage growth. It's also got beneficial microbes,
which that's what it's all about in the root system, is the interaction between
beneficial microbes and the roots and the soil, and that is how nature works.
And if we can recreate that even in a houseplant is a good idea.
Now, outdoors the blue label, the Ocean Harvest Microlife Ocean Harvest Blue
label. It's a four two three fish based product. Excellent for drenching your
outdoor house plants. Now it's not going to burn, it's not going to
burn at all, and you can even dilute it down and use it as
a folior spray if you'd like to. But indoors the blue light the orange
label seven one three Biomatrix. Outdoors the blue label, which is Ocean Harvest
see see excuse me, fish based product. Be kind of Mother Nature with
your microlife. Go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com online Microlife Fertiliser dot Com.
You can learn about these ducts I'm talking about. See what I'm talking about.
Believe me, they're gonna give you really excellent results. We're gonna go
now to let's go to Austin County and we're gonna talk to Doris. Hello,
Doris, Hi, how are you this morning? Well? I'm well,
how are things in Austin County? All right? Well, all right,
just just hang on, it'll change. It just may take about six
months. Yeah, then we'll complain about that too. Yeah, that's right.
What's up? I need some information on where I can find some Billy
Stevens Hollies in either three to five gallon containers. Okay, I do not
know Austin County garden centers. I know, you know, I'm they'll be
in Houston. We don't have any here, sail one or two? All
right, Well, Nellie Stevens Holly, I you know, I'll tell you
what I would do. I would call um. Let me think where you're
gonna You're gonna find those, probably at garden centers. You know, like
you come in from your direction, you come in, you're gonna you can
easily get over to uh u Arbigate up there in tom Ball, you know,
coming across, if you're heading across that way, they're gonna probably have
I'd give them a call make sure for sure, uh that okay, they're
you know that they're gonna have it. I think they will. Verdant Tree
Farm also is on um Let's see, it's on the west side of town,
over by Bear Creek Park where Highway six and ten come together up in
that general neighborhood. They carry a lot of very large hollis too, and
so if you're looking for a larger version of that, they're probably gonna have
it there. But again I would give them a call before you know,
you just drive over. Oh okay, I will do that, Thank you
so very much. Yeo. And do you know have for party plan them?
Oh? Nellie Stevens would probably put them about eight foot It depends.
Here's the trade off. The closer you put them, the more money costs
to plant them. You're right, because you're putting more plants in down the
row. The further apart, the longer it takes for them to fill in
and be solid. So we try to kind of end up in a medium
there you know where it will make a solid row. But if you want
individual plants that you just see them separated like a row of soldiers, then
I would put them a little further in eight feet apart for sure. Now
this is gonna be for a privacy screen. Ah. Yes, you definitely
won't get them close. I mean you could, gosh know, e Stevens,
you might could go as close as six foot apart, but I think
eight foot would be adequate. Yeah, it just just gonna take a little
longer to give you the clothes between the two plants that a six foot spacing
would do. But also talk to talk to when you go get them.
You may end up going to one of these places and there's another Holly that
they suggest you consider instead, and so, but they'll be able to tell
you the wepth on the plant too, all right, Okay, Arbi Gate
arbur Gate would be the closest to you coming in. Yeah, I think
so. Thank you for the call, Doris. I appreciate that very much.
We're gonna take a break our number seven one three, two one two
fifty eight seventy four. When we come back, Jackie and David, you'll
be the first two up. I'm gone, hard working combine driver hoking up
the road, looking five miles an hour on my internet, you know,
harvest three mile car playing all their home. Hey, good morning, it
is a beautiful Saturday morning. You're listening to garden Line and we are here
to talk about gardening with you. I hope you enjoy yourself this afternoon and
rest of the day tomorrow as well. These are just you know, these
aren't days that are lost to gardeners. There's always things that we can do
if you I've got a shrub. Actually it's been in a pot for a
long time and I need to get it planted, and I just keep putting
it off. But I think I'm gonna go ahead and just get it done.
The best time to plant shrubs is in the fall and in the winter,
and trees as well. But you can plant them twelve months off of
a year if you take care of them. And here's what I'm gonna do
when I get it planted, I'm gonna put a tree hugger sprinkler around it.
Treegger sprinkler. You'll get to the end of the host. Got a
little valve and so you turn on the water, and with a valve you
can control how much water it's gonna put out, so I mean you can
have it. These are little rings that go around the trees like seven inches,
eleven inches, fifteen inches. They have different sizes, and you can
turn it on just like two inches high and it's just watering that root ball
of the new pot that you just put in, because that is where you
need the water when you're doing the summer watering, trying to get that thing
established. And then you turn it on more as the plant grows, and
I mean you can eventually water a very large area. Maybe the plant's been
in the ground five years and you're still helping it along. You can do
that. Go to tree hucker sprinkler dot com. Tree Hugger sprinkler dot com.
You're gonna find him at ace Hardburg, our local mom and pop garden
centers we talk about. You're going to find them feedstores that we talk about
tree huggers all over Houston. But it is a great investment in terms of
protective I would not put this shrub in the ground without a tree Hugger sprinkler,
so I know that it's gonna get taken care of and I don't just
get busy and forget about it. It'll be all right, It'll take care
of it. Let's head out to Santa Fe, New Mexico and talk to
Jackie. Jackie, are you listening to us online or what's up out there?
Good morning. My family lives in Houston. So my brother was listening
to you, okay, and I have a gardening question, and he said,
why don't you try to call in? He said, this is a
good question for Rick. So good morning, Rick, I've got my live.
Here's the deal. I know we're on radio. Sill make it short.
I've grown a avocado seed in a jar of water for about six months
and it's about ten or eleven inches tall. And now with all the heat
still in the jar, still in the water, it's even sprouting more.
Now. You know, I have to empty that water about every week or
so and clean it out, you know, and put it back in fresh
water. Well, what's happened is it's getting tall now is the seed is
slowly disintegrating. Yes, so I have to more toothpicks in. I googled
it and Google said I can grow it in water. Well, never wrong.
But now I'm asking you for your opinion. I'm so excited I found
your tree lover thing. Okay, let me ask what you're talking about.
The tree hugver thing. You have to put those around the trees when you
first plan a mite. No, no, no, it's not a complete
circle. It is like it's like if you put your two thumbs together and
like you make a circle with your hands and instead of touching your fingertips,
just open it up a little bit. That's a tree hugger sprinkler, like
the thumbs or the hinge, and it just you push it around the tree
and it closes, and now you've got your circle. And then you open
it up to just pull it back and take it off the trunk. You
put it on a tree that's gotta you know, you put a large tree
hugger on a tree that's gottah. Yeah, okay, what do you think
about my avocados? Seed? All right? Well, yes, seeds have
a storage organ that like a little pinto bean. When you plant it,
you come up and you see the little two halves of your pinto bean when
it sprouts out of the ground, they shrivel away. That's what happens to
an avocado too. You're gonna have to probably if you want to keep it
in water, you can do that. You're going to just figure out how
to suspend it in there, which not too hard to figure out. You
could also plant it up. But you know, Santa Fe, I believe
you're in a six B hardiness zone. So what do you get down to
zero or below as a typical winter low. That avocado needs to not be
anywhere near the outside when it starts. No, no, no, no,
I can't plan it outside or I'll lose it. That is true.
So if I were one of my questions, my brother said, start slowly
adding dirt to the jar of water, which would make it like mud,
wouldn't. I just get you a good quality potting so I'll put it out
of the water and pot it up. And if you want to keep it
in water, that's fine. I mean, you get a big old giant
vase to you know, you just have to how you're going to suspend it.
It's what you said. Eventually, I'm gonna have trouble suspending it all
right, last question in that regard. So then once I transplant it into
the pod, it says to me, I guess I need to put it
back where it is because it's happy in that location. I'm having trouble determining
the location once I transplant it. So what do you think once I put
it at a pot of dirt, just put it back where it's growing right
now in the jar of water. If it's happy, but leave it there.
It's a full sun plant. But if you get it in a really
bright indoor place, you can keep them for a while and they'll do okay.
They just most of our indoor spots are not adequately bright. But the
brightest spot you can give it would be good. Once it's in a pot,
I mean you could set it out during the summertime days and once you
get down where your nighttimes you're going to be around, you know, in
the low fifties, then I would I would bring it in all right.
Well, it's lovely to talk to you. Thank you very much. I'm
hope sick for you, so thank you for your help and I'll be listening
to you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Tell all your
friends in Santa Fe listen to garden. Oh well, thank god, this
is like out of Texas day. We haven't had any international callers. I
would love to have an international caller. If anybody's listening. Oh gosh,
you know, if you need supplies, if you need the fertilized where we
talk about, if you need you know, the soil type products we talk
about, if you need pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, if you need grilling
equipment, paint, plumbing. We're talking about a hardware store here, aren't
we Yes, we are. We're talking about ACE Hardware. Ace Hardware dot
Com. Go to ACE hardware dot Com. Look at their store locator.
There's only thirty nine of them in the Greater Houston area. You're going to
find one. And when you walk in there, I can't think of much
you need to buy. This is not going to be there in the ACE
Hardware store for you. They have things for your indoor your home, they
have for your outdoor patio, you're grilling, you know, they have power
equipment, all kinds of stuff that's available for you through ACE Hardware. And
you're just not going to find more fun shopping experience. I love to go
in there. I end up wandering off and I don't know all these different
sections. You know, each ACE is independently owned and operated, and so
each one's a little bit different, but there's going to be at least one
ace near you. And if you need supplies for your gardening efforts and just
your outdoor living enjoyment as well as indoor living, that's a hardware. We're
gonna go over to Friendswood now and talk to David. Hello, David,
good morning. How are you. I'm well, thank you? What's up?
I've got an interesting problem. I had a well established Japanese blueberry bushes
either side of my door entrance. One froze bad, the other one relived,
and so I couldn't keep it in balance. So I took them both
out. They were established, and I was tired of fighting the freezed bushes,
so I put in some Japanese use and they look great. They were
five gallon. They look beautiful, and all of a sudden, one looks
thriving, green, dark, beautiful, with little light blueberries. The other
one looks pale, puked and brown leaves everywhere. Is it a clay soil
that they're in. It's it's it's a clay soil, but it's landscape.
It's a front of my house, got pretty good soil. How much sun
do you think they get well morning sun directly and in the afternoon no fun.
And that's a good spot for those us. Why the one is not
doing good, I don't know. I would dig down with my hands and
right where the root ball is, feel about maybe three inches deep or four
inches deep. Filth the soil. If it's at all dry, give it
a good soaking. If it's soggy, wet, or you know, you
almost squeeze water out of it, then definitely back off. I think it's
going to be one or the other that's going on. You planted these again,
how long ago? February February. Yeah, they should be getting established
well. So I would just watch that soil moisture. I don't know what
else would be doing what you're describing. I know the demands are high on
our plants, and so any little issues with too much water not enough water
become worse when the demands are supply. The other interesting thing is there's a
dwarf rosebush right in front of each of these, on either side of this
walkway, and again the same thing. The dwarf rosebush is not doing well.
Everyone's doing that. They both have irrigation, both have it, you
know, constant, same programming. All right, David, not no,
let me, let me let me stop you a minute. Let's if you
hang on through break and we'll continue this discussion. We need to take a
hard break here seven one three two one two five, eight seventy four.
And I'll continue with you, David right when we come back. Yeah,
good, Marnen. We are talking gardening, and I hope you will give
us a call if you are at all interested in asking a question about something
related to your gardening efforts. Seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. We're gonna go right back to David out in Friendswood And David,
I think you were describing that around the plant that is not doing good,
the you plant you also had problems with roses? Did I catch that right?
That's correct? You know it's making me wonder what's going on in that
area. Um, I don't go ahead. I know the same thing I've
actually poked around. It doesn't seem like it's too dry, it doesn't seem
like it's too wet. Everything seems to be normal in comparison to the other
side, exactly shorter, maybe some nutrient additional uh, you know, minerals
and stuff to try and add and fertilize that. I'm trying to aerate it
to make sure I could get some stuff in there. Okay, And maybe
it's just has to run its course and keen a bit more time. Well
that's possible, um, you know, but it would be nice to be
able to drill down and figure out what's causing it. I mean, we
we're left to speculation. You know. It could be too wet, could
be too dry, you know, right exactly, And that's that's not It
helps you think through it, but it doesn't get it doesn't tell you what's
wrong. When the roses died, what were the symptoms of them going out?
How did they decline? They decline by just having leaves be less full
and thriving. Everything kind of got shaken down, almost like a windstorm hit
it, and everything just fell off the roses. Everything, all the leaves
fell off the roses. Everything just looks really really sparse comparison to the other
side, which is full and vibrant and lots of leaves and green. Well,
I tell you don't know if it's the soil issue or not. Yeah,
I'm not going to be able to give you a definitive answer, but
I would. If it were my area, I would I would take a
soul test in the problem area if you want it, to take test in
both areas so you can compare the two, see what's the devil. You
go to soil testing one word soil testing dot TAMU dot edu. That's a
state soil AaB at a M. Soul testing dot TAMU dot edu. Click
on the sample forms and click on the urban soul test form. That urban
means it's for yards, guard things like that, as opposed to a posture
or a field. But fill that out, send it down, and let's
see what the results say. And it may be that there's something way out
of whack that you could fix, but that that would be one diagnostic effort.
On the other hand, it may turn out that you know everything's in
order there, it's not that, but something's different and I just don't know
what it is. And if you just keep thinking about what's been done different
here? Did you use I don't know, certain kind of products or whatever,
you just kind of have to historically think through it. And if you
can't come up with anything, let's try the salt test. Kind of dig
deeper and get some diagnosis. There you go, we'll get to the bottom.
Yes, sir, I appreciate that goal. You know, Nitrofis products
are available everywhere, I mean anywhere you go. I was talking to someone
earlier. We were discussing the Nitrofossu Super the super turf, you know,
the one that just has the exact kinds of nutrients we need for summer that
are released slowly, which is what we need for summer. Superturf is a
silver bag. It's nineteen four ten, nineteen four ten. It's going to
release for you know, several months. Really, you do it now and
it will carry all the way through it's time for a fall fertilization. And
super Turf is just one of those products. It's designed it the science behind
it is such it it's going to give you that gradual release. You're going
to not cause a flush of mowing needs and top growth at the expense of
root growth and predisposing it toward ginch bugs or large patch in the fall or
anything like that. That is why we like a gradual relief. And the
silver bag super Turf is the product from nitro Fosts that will do just that.
And you're going to find nitrofosts all over the place. Are ace hardware
stores carry it, a lot of the feed stores, a lot of our
home and garden centers carry nitro FoST products as well. Not difficult to find
in the greater Houston area, and a quality product that will really really work
well for you. I love that, Love the products that are designed for
the soils we have here, for the conditions we have here, and even
for the time of year that we use them. You know, that's a
that's an important factor for sure, something that we need to do. You
know, I become a broken record when it comes to soil, and I
always say that, I admit that, and I will continue to do that
because soil is where it all happens success and the soil is a foundation for
success with a plant. If you put a plant in unprepared soil, unless
you just get really lucky and happen to buy a plant that likes that kind
of soil, you're going to struggle along trying to keep it going and all
kinds of problems. And the folks that heirloom soil create a quality blend of
soils. You know, they got a veggie herb mix, they got a
fruit berry in citrus mix. You're going to be able to buy a leaf
mold compost or something that's a compost shale blend. They're going to have a
rose soil and on and on and on. I mean, you know for
potting soils, they've got that kind of stuff. They just have a wide
for you. Go to Airloom Soils of Texas dot Com and if you're looking
for a large amount, maybe you want to leave more compost, You're going
to do some aeration and compost top dressing if you want, you know,
just a good quality bed mix. See if they can deliver their one qbic
yard supersack to your place. They just dropped the sack on the driveway.
You empty it out. I mean, it's real simple, easy to do.
Airloom Soils of Texas dot Com. They also have a really good online
calculator. Their soil calculators the best I've ever seen. I mean, if
you need to know how many five gallon buckets or soil or in a qbyard,
you can figure it out with that calculator. That's what I'm talking about.
Really versatile, really helpful, and a good quality product there with the
heirloom soils. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you'd like to give us a call. We're going to
be hitting a break here in a little bit and we'll come back after that
and be glad to take your call at that time. Listen, if you
are looking for a place to retire, a home, a community for retiring,
you're not going to do better than a Dellweb community. Dollweb they build
their community, they design them around you. This is a community designed for
active adults age fifty five and better. They've got those lifestyle programs that are
part of the community. Yes you get a beautiful house, of course,
yes you get an awesome community, but it's the programs and it's the Dellweb
difference. And this particular community going in in Fulshure on three fifty nine,
it's less than two miles from downtown full Sure. They have a community garden
going in that I'm helping them with, and that is kind of cool.
I mean, to be able to have all of the Dellweb plus a community
garden as an additional I can't think anything better. Go to Dellweb Houston dot
com for more information or just give McCall two eight one four five nine zero
six zero nine. Well, we're going to be taking a break here.
We will be back after the break again the number seven one three, two
one two fifty eight seventy four Josh will get you on the boards. Still
waiting for somebody to tell me what their favorite warm season flowers are. Surely
we've got some favorites out there. I mean, I can tell you mine.
Be glad to do that. Maybe that's what we'll do when we come
back from break. Talk about that a little bit, as well as getting
to your calls. Hope you're enjoying listening to garden Line. For those of
you listening outside of the state, Wow, that's pretty cool. I haven't
had any outside the country listeners yet. Maybe someone from Hollow. How's the
two look question? I don't know. I bet you have a two look
expert in Holland you don't need to go leave of that. Thanks for listening
to garden Line. We look forward to talking to you when we come back
from break. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip
Rictord. It's so smellyp just watch him as wound was the club's back ticket.
But they're not an All right, we're entering our last hour of this
Saturday morning here on Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricord. If
you'd like to give us a call, the number is seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two k t r
H. If you live up in the Montgomery area, and when I say
Montgomery area, I'm talking about Montgomery, l Conro Walden, bent Water,
De Lago, April Sound, you know, even the Woodlands and Huntsville.
Willis direction. Your hometown garden center is Ana Plants and Produce. They're right
on the east side of Montgomery there, right on Highway one oh five.
Ana Plants. They've been around for over thirty years and it just keeps getting
better and better there. They're open seven days a week, nine am to
five pm. They have knowledgeable staff that can help direct you right over three
acres of every kind of plant you can imagine, shade trees, nut trees,
fruit trees, citrus. Do you need vegetable and herb plants? How
about perennial annual color. They can sell you stuff that will blaze through the
summer, no matter the temperatures. Just give them a little water, they'll
be fine. Palm trees, succulents, bougainville Is, roses, I mean,
on and on, and an excellent selection of things to decorate around the
deck, the patio or out in the gardens. Maybe you need a gazebo
cover, maybe a trellis or a topiary, some yard art, concrete statuere
you see what I'm talking about. They carry the products we talk about here
too, the fertilizers and the different kinds of soil blends and bags that you
need. A and A plants in Produce is your hometown nursery up in that
area, and they do such a wonderful job. It's a pleasure to visit
there and just see what they have now because they're always coming up with some
new and cool stuff. Let's now go out to a task acita. We're
gonna talk to Shane this morning. Hello Shane, good Morning's hid morning.
I have a question. I've been living in my hall now for a couple
of years here in Tatsa Cita, and the previous owners they planet it's suite
gum tree. There's things about man, I don't know. Fifty foot.
I think the thing is massively okay, and it covers minority, it covers
the majority of my yard. Of course, it's dropping those little little seed
pod balls all over my yard. Um, I'm just curious. Is there
any sort of like a hormonal treatment or anything that I can do, like
before those things start popping out, that maybe I could prevent them from coming
out. That is a good question, and I'm gonna entern off the top
of my head here, but there's a there's a product called Florel Flo r
e L that is a natural plant growth regulator kind of product, and it's
used for different things, and in the back of my mind, I think
that it can be used for causing the sweet gums to not develop those balls.
Um. Yeah, it's a it's called a fruit eliminator. It's kind
of a growth regulator kind of product. And I'm gonna pull it up here
as we're as we're talking about it, see if I can give a little
quick look to it. But I believe Florel would do that. I think
it's labeled for that for that purpose exactly. H prevents new new since I
can't even talk. Present prevents nuisance fruit on ornamental trees and shrubs. They
use it from knocking mistletoe out of a tree. It doesn't kill the mistletoe,
it just kind of knocks it out. But anyway, h yeah,
I think that I think that would work. You just have to follow the
label instruction on how to do it. In fact, the brand is by
Monterey Chemical and they even have a little street right, yeah, they have
a little picture of a sweet gumball on the label. The boy, when
I look at that, I feel the pain as a child running through those
barefoot is not a happy thought. So it's not. And of course,
you know, we're you know, my wallets and I were trying to keep
our beds on nice and treaty, you know, and it's like, you
know, you get rid of layers of malts because you're getting rid of all
these you know, sweet gumballs at the time. And of course, like
you said, you know you're walking through the barefoot all right there you good?
Okay, Well, well I appreciate it, Thank you so very much.
You bet there is your solution, at least for now, and that
if you are looking for a good, good deal, on a tree Verdant,
which is they quality trees, quality growth, excellent choice of selection of
species. By the way, for our area, Verdan is having their Christmas
in July sale. Now that this discount is on the trees, not on
installation, but it's ten to fifty percent off the tree when you purchase it
with the installation. So you purchase the tree, get your discount, and
then they will come and install it for you for your normal installation costs that
you would have for planting a tree. You can go on line to Verdant
Treefarm dot com. They've got the location out in West Houston on Barker Cypress.
I was, you know, talking about that earlier when somebody had called
in from uh, you know, outside the area, Austin County, I
think Doris and she was looking for a plant. They also have a location
in the Heights in the Woodlands area, that's right where Yale Street and I
ten come together, and down in Parland on Broadway. You can find Verdant
Tree Farm as well. Go to Verdant tree Farm dot com and learn more
and don't delay. I mean, this is a unique opportunity. The Christmas
in July stale going on at all three of their locations. We're going to
head out now to League City and talk to Merble. Hello, Myrtle,
Hell, Hello, good morning, good morning. I have a question about
my yard, so I can spring. There were spots in there that were
dying, shying augustine grass, and so my grandson takes care of my yard
and he fertilized and it seemed to be filling in pretty well. I didn't
pay much attention to it until recently, and all of a sunny, the
part it filled in was a lot darker and growing faster. It's not saying
Augustine. Something else. Oh, do you have any idea what it could
be? It's yeah, it could be a lot of things. Is it
a grass or is it not a grass? It looks sort of like a
grass. But he's taking over the Saint Augustine. It's killing out the Saint
Augustine. I'll tell you, Myrtle. Our herbicides to kill that stuff are
very specific in many cases. And so what I'm going to need you to
do is take a photo and get up. Okay, show me the whole
yard in one photo, and then come up real close close as you can
and take a photo. But make sure before you send it that it's in
really sharp focus. And I'm going to put you on hold in a minute,
and Josh will get online and he'll give you the address to send me
the photos and if you can get them, if you get them to me,
you know, within the next thirty minutes or so, I'll answer it
today. If not, I'll pick it up and talk about it tomorrow.
If you want to call back in then, but just make sure and send
that photo. And when you do, if you will attach it to the
email. Not Sometimes people will embed a photo in the text, you know,
to paste it in the text, but attach it to your email.
Use the little paper clip on your you know, the little paper clip for
attachments, and uh, that way I can zoom in and get a much
better look. Okay, Okay, I don't know. I'm not sure I
know how to do that. Okay, Well, if you get it to
me, can you email? Can you email me a photo? Or do
you have someone maybe your grandson that could help with that. He's not here
right now? Do that maybe next week? Next week? I can't I'm
getting ready to go to church. Yeah, I get that. I get
that. Well, So it just it's it's just hard. I mean,
you may you may have basket grass, which is very different. It's not
a grass, and just call it that. You may have doveweed, you
may have a broad leaf weed. You may have you know, a grassy
weed, and I just can't suggest something to kill it until I know for
sure what you got. Okay, if they can bet bet, Thank you,
Thank you so much for the call. I'm gonna have to run to
go to break but seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four,
if you'd like to get on the board, we'll be right back. Hey,
good morning. You're listening to garden Line. We are in our last
hour on this Saturday morning. And our phone number if you'd like to call
in seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Did you know
that Microlife fertilizer is the number one selling organic fertilizer in the Greater Houston area
and Microlife is there's a reason for that. It's a quality product. What
I would do and my lawn this time of year is used the green bag
sixteen oh four or sixteen oh oh my gosh, six two four. I'm
talking about a highway now. Microlife six two four or in the green bag
is kind of the standard for all kinds of fertilizing, but it's especially good
for lawns. You know, sixty three essential nutrients pushing natural good root growth.
I like to use it with the humates plus. That's a purple bag.
That's like concentrated compost and a bag. I mean imagine concentrating composts down
into a granular form you can apply through your fertilizer spreader. That's the purple
bag humates plus. So the sixty four green and the purple humates plus.
It's a good idea to use. Hey, you know, I would buy
some extra of the green too, because that's not just a lawn fertilizer.
Do you want to use it in flower beds? Do I use in vegetable
gardens too? That is a really good blend for a lot of the vegetables
that we grow. Go online Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out
about these products, learn a little bit more about them if you like,
but also find out where you can get them and the inswer to that is
going to be pretty much everywhere if it's a good quality nursery and ace hardware
store. You know, some of our feed stores and things. They're gonna
have microlife product. Let's go now to West Houston and we're gonna talk to
Larry A Good morning, Larry, Good morning, sir. How are you
doing? I'm well, thank you. What's up with you today? I
have some great myrtles that when about a month ago, the bark was exfoliating.
I didn't notice it until I kind of pulled it away and there were
some white looking very small. I could could just take a cotton swab and
took a little of it off and made it into a real little ball and
stuck it on there. And it has immensely disfigured the bark. Okay,
so I tell you, I'm ready to tell you what it is and what
to do about it. If you're ready to cut to the chase on it.
That is you sure? That's great myrtle bark scale and it has invaded
here from another country. It's an invasive pest. Of course, great myrtles
are from another country too, so but that often happens. So y myrtle
bark scale loads up. You get this little white things you're describing. You
also get a lot of city mold. There's a lot of black city material.
When the crepe myrtle bark scale builds up, it just creates a lot
of sugary water that gets on the surface and things turn black. It's a
trick to get rid of. Now here's the thing. You can use oils,
but in summertime you gotta be real careful with oils when you spray,
so you're primarily using those. In the cooler season. There are systemic insecticides.
It will go up in the roots and kill the bark scale, but
honey bees will receive those and other bees receive those insecticides from the blooms they're
they're in the plumbing of the plant, so the nectar can be affected by
that. And we hate to hammer honeybees anymore than they're already being hammered honey
bees and native bees as well. So I'm really cautious about using a malifion.
Plus what can I use directly onto the crepe myrtle bark scale. Well,
the malithion would be fine when you in the spring, when the crawlers
are coming out. So the old bark scales you're describing, they're honkered down.
They got their mouth part in sucking the juices out of your crape myrtle
and a malifyon spray with the top's not going to work. But they have
babies that little babies that hatch out and they go crawling around to set up
shop like mom did. And that's the stage where malothion works, even a
good insecticidal soap, where a horticultural oil works very well. But you got
to catch them at that stage. And for that stage, there's one little
trick you can use, and it's to use double sided sticky tape. And
so if you will put some double sided sticky tape around the branch here and
there in different places where the crape myrtles are, and then in the spring,
just kind of every few days, watch it and check it and you'll
see the little crawlers that get up there and get stuck on that sticky tape
as they're trying to move out for mom to other parts of the branch.
And that's your queue that now I need to hit it hard because all those
surface killer things we're talking about they work. Otherwise you're gonna have to go
to the systemic which which again has those challenges. Okay, Yeah, the
dormanto oils and things of that nature. You you can't really use them above
eighty to eighty five degrees and it gets really hot, right, And that's
a proactive measure that I'll apply in the fall, in the spring, pre
winter, and then you know, post wind spring. Well, but as
far as now, is there anything, sir, that I can bring on?
I mean, are they so locked into the bark? If there's nothing
you can do that will permeate them? If they're locked in, not really
other than a systemic you're not going to accomplish much. I mean, if
you just had one or two crape myrtles, there are people get out there
with soapy water and a brush and scrub and clean it up and clean up
the black city and stuff on the main parts, the main branch, the
main trunk and stuff. But that's pretty What about a lot have a power
wash? What if I backed off the pressure on it and hit them that
way? They're be worth a try. I've never tried that, but just
be careful with the pressure. Yeah, that'd be interesting. I don't know
how many you'll dislodge, but you ought to be able to do a decent
job with it. I don't know. I'd have to look into that and
haven't tried that. By the way, on the oil you were talking about,
dormano, you want to use when it's completely dormant, no leaves on
the plant, And if you could wait until the latest part of the dormant
season to do that, right before growth begins, that would be the time
to use it. After that we have to switch to a lighter weight summer
oil. They evaporate a lot faster. They're not as good at killing insects
scales, but they are good at young scales. So that's kind of a
combination of options that you kind of need to put together there, Larry all
Right. On the systemic side, it's they're short enough, but I could
cut all the blossoms off and hit it systemically so there would be no attraction
to the pollinator. So I'm definitely looking out for them. There you go
there, what's the best systemic um the active ingredient that you would recommend.
So the first one I would use is called dino teferon. Dino is in
dinosaur d I n O, and then okay t e f u r A
n taf you'r ron ron iran, And the other one is called um in
meadow clod bread. I am I D O C L O P R I
D. But look, try to find the Dino tef ron if you can.
Uh, if you're let's see uh in West Teastern, you're not that
far away from Southwest Fertilizer. There. You're gonna have probably both of those
there at Southwest Fertilizer. Okay, great, well not just any price would
have those on the counters, but Southwest. Okay, all right, well,
thank you very much for your time, sir, I appreciate you have
a good day. All right, good luck with that. Yeah, you're
gonna be in that for a little bit of a battle, but you can
get it done. Hey, you have a listen, little piece of property
and you would love to get a little tractor to help you out. Maybe
you're carrying sex of feed for the animals, or maybe you're you know,
malt, you're hauling some garden soil in some quality rose soil or something like
that, and you know a front end bucket you kneel a tractor, and
the tractor you need is a Caboda. That's the original orange tractor. You
can go to Lansdown Moody and they have a special deal on select Caboda Tractors.
You know, there's one price and one package and a whole lot of
that original orange color. For example, they're Caboda L twenty five oh one.
Now the folks at Caboda have told me that they are extending that deal
I've been talking about. We thought I was going to end at the end
of the month into June. I believe no, it's continuing on. They're
going to keep going with it. And that's zero down, zero percent interest
for eighty four months, seven years. That is a You're not gonna find
a better time to buy a Caboda right now than from Lansdown Moody. Versatility
and performance from two brand you can count on every time. Caboda and Landstown
Moody hands down. It's Lennon's doown. Go to LM tractor dot com.
LM tractor dot com. The steal is going to carry on into the fall.
But in the meantime, don't delay, take advantage of it and take
home one of those sweet rides for yourself. There's nothing more fun than getting
out there and getting stuff done, from mowing to to box blades to front
endloaders, all the things that your local Cabota tractor will do for you.
Let's go to Kingwood and we're gonna talk to Michelle. Good morning, Michelle,
good morning. How can I help? Yes, um, I have
a sago palm that survived the freeze. Um, but then in the middle
has been like a light brown color forever. It never never blossomed, okay,
and lately the palms have been turning brown. Um. So, but
at Shirley and I've been having to clip off the dead ones. There is
this normal. Is there anything I could do to help? It? Is
the browning coming from the lower ones on the trunk primarily and then working its
way up. Yes, uh huh. You know, I don't think there's
anything really that you're going to do about as far as the center is that
tree has some vigor or plant has some vigor and begins to grow, It's
gonna you're gonna have new leaves unfolding from that center, and eventually you will
have either a male pollen cone or a female kind of a almost like a
little basketball or volleyball nub coming in the middle of it. That is the
female version of the flower that has all the seeds on it. Depending on
whether you're you're sego as a male or female. Believe it or not.
There they're separate male and female plants on that on that palm, I would
give it a little fertilizer, a good lawn fertilizer. We've been talking about
LWN fertizers all morning. That'll do a really good job for you. You
might want to consider that. And just a little water, a little fur
lives receiving can get a little more vigor in it so you get a lot
of fresh new growth coming on it. Okay, And just be careful using
herbicides around those and any other plants. Misuse of them can cause problems for
the plant. It's not a common thing on sagoes, but just something to
be aware of. Okay, all right, thank you, thank you very
much. Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate your call very much.
Good to talk to you. If you need mulch and you are down
south of Houston, that whole area around Manville, Rochcharon, Pomona, Iowa
Colony, Siena Plantation pair Land anywhere through there Bras has been state Park Sani
mulch is your place, that is your backyard place for quality mulch. You
can go online to sanimuls dot com. They're just north of Roch Sharon on
FM five twenty one, near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together.
They've got bulk mulches, they got bag mulches. They got the quality
soil mixes in bulk and in bags. They carry the fertilizers we talk about
meat and drive in there and you get it all done at one time.
They'll deliver within twenty miles of the area. Just a little extra delivery charge
for that. And if you need any kind of a rock or stone,
you will not believe the selection. That's a reason to go. Buy by
the way on FM five twenty one. They are open Monday through Friday five
seven thirty in the morning to five pm and on Saturdays today from seven thirty
to two closed on Sunday. So get out there today, check it out
and you'll see what I'm talking about. Beautiful products. We're gonna take our
break seven one three, two one two, five eight seven four. Devil
danced, He'd have a ball. We're the nine good Grands race in the
Green Dance. He'd have a ball in mine. We got a new steps.
Did your little country swing to I don't know. We need some expert
advice on that one. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We are going to visit with you about the things you're interested in
today. But I do want to talk a little more about the flowers,
the things that you know can survive the summertime. Take that temperature. I
love angelonia. I've talked about that as a betting plant flower. It just
does well in the heat. It's amazingly well in the heat. The different
kinds of vinca, the mat what I call them Madagascar periwinkle to separate them
from the vinca that's the groundcover, but generally people refer to it as a
vinca. H Those are super heat tolerant. I mean they can just take
it through the blazing. We have so many colors now, some types of
trail, uh some you know, instead of being like more upright, they
just sort of trail over a hanging basket. Really good day stuff there.
When we're talking about those and you know, those kind of plants and a
lot more, you're gonna find it a place like RCW Nursery. In fact,
there is no place like RCW Nursery. That's the nursery that's up there
where two forty nine Tumball Parkway comes into belt Way eight r CW is They
get it got at nursery. If they don't have it, they're gonna get
it for you. I mean they The Williamson family has run this since nineteen
seventy nine. I mean they have. They have been a support or garden
line really for a very very long time through you know, Bill's Ac John
Burrow, of course, Randy Lemons years and they still are. They have
herbs, perennials, annuals and shrubs. Roses are one of the specialties.
You're not going to find a bigger selection of roses. They've got a great
selection of trees fifteen gallons up to two hundred gallons. They've grown theirselves on
the farm up there in Plantersville. It's just when you buy something from there,
unit's can do well here. They can tell you how to do it.
They have the expertise, which is what we expect from our mom and
pop garden centers. Rc Debbs open Monday through Saturday, eight to five and
Sundays from ten to five, So you got a chance to get out there.
If you're looking for some blazing hot summer color stuff that can laugh at
the weather we're having. Now, go buy our CW nurseries and tell them
what you're looking for. Look for those the Cajun hibiscus that I like so
much. They've got those things there. They just have a lot of stuff
bougainville is and everything else we would want for summer heat. They've got it
at OURCW. Well, let's uh, let's go out. We're going to
head out to Buffalo, Texas and talk to Terry. Well, hello,
Terry, how are things way up in Buffalo? It's going great? Good?
Good? Do you do you live up there? Or you just calling
them? Okay, no, I live up Um, I'm calling my avocado
dropped every single avocado, I probably fifty of them. The plant looks beautiful,
but the all the fruit dropped off of it. Okay, how how
long has this been planted? Oh? Four maybe five years? Four or
five years? Okay, Yeah, it's it's in a great big pot.
I can't leave it out, okay because it gets too cold, but absolutely
yeah it does. You know, put it during the winter. I put
it on a on a dolly and roll it in and out right, you
know, so it can get fun. That's a good plan. That's a
very good plan. You know. Any kind of a little stress can cause
the aborting of the fruit as it's you know, as they bloom and are
trying to set fruit. Uh. That's one thing that that could be a
cause for that. And being in a container, it's easy for you know,
if you forget the water for a day or two for it to kind
of go into a little bit of a drought strouss. Uh. That's one
possibility. Um, you don't need two varieties for cross pollination, so we'll
eliminate that. I uh, poof. I don't know what else that may
be going on with that avocado, but that that would be my first estimate,
is probably being involved. I think you had you had another question.
I believe. Yeah, my lavender is really struggling. Okay, if the
heat did you tell it? Did you tell it that it's in Texas because
it hates that. It hates to hear that, So, you know,
we strugg I wish we could grow lavender here if we had a Mediterranean more
of a Mediterranean kind of climate, you know, where it just on a
really well drained area. They've tried it pretty good success in the whole country,
but even there, the diseases just hammer our lavender terry. It doesn't
like the humidity, it doesn't like to be a little too wet. For
sure, in a heartbeat, it'll die in soggy conditions. We just seem
to have problems, and we've tried a lot of different ones. I was
visiting visiting with uh Beverly up at Arburgate a while back about and you know,
I said, Beverly, you guys have been trying new lavender as you
got any that are showing good promise, And it's like, yeah, not
great. We just don't have that lavender that you put it out there and
say it's it does well here, you know. I mean you can pamper
them along the container where you really can control the drainage really well do okay
the Spanish lavender, you know, Okay, but it's just a challenge,
and so there's a lot of issues from cultural to disease that that affect it
and just make it hard. Okay, sorry, Ben, I'm not I'm
going to quit. Yeah, how quick struggle one. It's that you know,
I hate silk plants, but I don't know where. I was the
other day walking along as outside a restaurant and they had plastic lavender uh in
a in a bud. It was a defensive but I had to laugh because
I thought, well, that is a lavender that'll do well here. That
is true. Hey, do you ever go to Bobo's Nursery when you're up
there in Buffalo? If I do? I do? I go to Bobo's
all the time? Well tell him skip. Richard said, Hi, that's
a You're fortunate to have a little island up there in the in the area
of Buffalo. You don't have to drive all the way to Houston. But
we do hope you'll run down here and chop some because we got some awesome
I was. I was there this past week and went to plans for all
seasons. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. So
that that's wonderful. Did you have a did you bring a trailer or did
you have to fit it all in your car? I have a truck,
so yeah, seasons plas row season says to a truck won't hold on what
you need from Blanks Rawson. That's true. All right, Well go ahead,
thanks for coming down shopping, Thanks for the call, and say hi
to Bobos for me. We'll do. Thank you. Take care, Bob
Boyah. You know, this is the summer season is when our law pick
up a lot of the insect issues that we deal with. You don't have
many insects that problems our lawns. Grubs and a chinch bugs will get in
there, of course, they get the fire ants in there, and then
there's the side web worm that some years just really hit us hard. Well,
right now chinch bugs are hitting us hard. And Nitrofoss has a product
called bug out Max. It will control up to one hundred and thirty different
species of insects. Now. Bug Out Max is a really excellent consumer choice
here in Texas for your insect problems in your lawn works really well. If
you got fire ants, they have a nitro phost fire at killer. It
works quick, but it also kills the colony to prevent new mounts from popping
up. Now everywhere nitro fosts is sold, you know, pretty much,
the feed stores, the garden centers we talk about, the ash hardware stores
we talk about the Southwest feed and fertilizer. They all have nitrofous a.
Nitrofoss Southwest feed down there has it as well. Not gonna have trouble finding
these two products. But if you deal with insects in the lawn, and
if you live in Houston you do with insects in the lawn, consider that
nitrofis bugout max. Pretty good option for that works very well. We're gonna
head out to Crosby now. Oh, I'll tell you what. I just
took your call, Bob. Right at the moment I looked at the clock
and saw I gotta go to break. Well, hang on for me and
we'll come back to you. Sorry about that false alarm our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, you're listening
to the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are
in the last segment of the show. If you'd like to give us a
call seven one three two one two five eight seven four, now's your chance.
In the meantime, Bob, we're gonna come out to you now and
Crosby and this isn't a false alarm. How can we help today? Yeah,
I was curious about the possibility of growing sego bombs from seed. Yes,
you can do it. Yeah, it sounds very hard. I mean
I never have a big seed, and it's hard. You have to score
the seed or you know, I need to check on that. I know.
You plant them pretty much right up near the surface. It's not that
not that difficult to do. But you want to get them a you know,
a real organic content mix, lots of organic matter and seed germination is
not a real big deal with sego palm by How long does it take to
German night? Oh my gosh, I have not. I spent a long
time since I played. I think they're slow. I think it. I
think it can take like two or three months to get them germal. I
just have to keep them moting. What what I would do is put it
in a container, moisten the soil well and put kind of a clear cover
over it to kind of hold the moisture in so it just didn't dry out
some fast. Uh, and then uh just give them time. Uh.
They they can germinate faster. And if you go online, there's people that
give you tips and tricks for for doing all the all the stuff like that.
But a sago is not a not a difficult thing to get to grow
if you just you know, follow this. Thank you, you bet all
right, beby grade day, Yes, sir, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much. Well, you're listening to Garden Line and
our phone number seven one three two one two kat r H ktr H.
If you if you're looking for, you know, some quality materials for enhancing
your home, and I'm talking about you know, everything from the things you
need to beautify your home to some things that are related to you know,
decoration or your home certainly things like lighting and all the things we need to
repair our homes. Well, you're going to find that, of course,
right at a hardware store, right but not any You're going to find it
at Ace when you go into Ace Hardware. You know, I grew up
with Ace Hardware's In a little town I grew up in, there was an
Ace Hardware store. And I'm telling you the Ace hard When I walked back
into Ace hard had been years since I've been away. When I walked back
into Ace Hardware here in the Houston area, I could not believe it.
It's almost like they need to take the word hardware out Yes, it is
hardware and out these I mean it awesome hardware selections, quality, but everything
else I mean it is that it's like going into the ACE Hardware mall almost
if you went. When it comes to gardening, all our fertilizers that we
talk about, the soil products we talk about, they're there. If you
need pesticides, andsesecticides, fungicides, herbicides, any of those kind of things.
Outstanding selection at ACE Hardware. You need containers for your plants, even
plant lights, you can find it in an ACE hard It's just everything you
can imagine. And then when we move outside for outdoor living and all the
things that go with that, you're not going to beat an ice. Here's
what you need to do. You just need to go to one and see
what I'm talking about. Visit more than one. You can go online to
ACE Hardware dot Com. There's thirty nine in the Houston area, so there's
more than one near you check them out to take a little time and wander
through, and you will be surprised. And I promise one hundred times you're
gonna say, oh, I didn't know they had that here at ACE Hardware.
Because that's the kind of store it is. The service, the old
time hardware service that I remember from Ace and I grew up with is still
around because these locally owned thirty nine here in Houston. They're locally owned,
they're locally operated operated. So you got someone in the store there that isn't
just part of a big chain. They care about the local community and supplying
what you need. And that's the kind of service you get. That's why
I always talk about Ace and bragg on Ace, because I mean, I
could just brag all day. It is an outstanding, outstanding place to get
whatever you need. Let's head out to the Woodlands. We're gonna go talk
to Frank in the Woodlands. What's up to Frank? Now, good morning,
thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir, We've lived here Dame
House for fifteen years and I am addicted to Bitsy mark Palms, its Ober
dis Ober front alrighty and every winner that seems that I wrapped it from but
it seems it struggles to get well again. And I'm gonna put on design
in the center and it's now just coming back. But is there anything you
can suggest that I do to keep it from getting stopped by the cold snaps.
Yeah, oh boy, we say it's you know, it's it is
only hearty down to about freezing. I mean, you can get to thirty
degrees and sometimes in a protected site maybe twenty five, but you certainly don't
want to take advance, take a chance on that. So really what you're
left with is protecting that top bud at the very least. So if that
Bismarck palm, like most palms, there's one living bud on the plant that
is at the top of the trunk, and if it dies that it cannot
reach brout the tree is the palm tree is gone. So at least protecting
that top bulb. There's there's you know, heating cables you can put around
and I'm just talking about the not hot hot, but just a mild heating
cable like you'd put around your pipes to protect them. You could put that
in there with a cover, you know, over it to try to protect
it. But other than that, you know, trying to cover the whole
thing with all those big, old, giant silver fronds out there, that's
quite a cover job. But if it's short enough and you can do that,
that's fine. But you're still going to need heat underneath the cover.
Yeah, when you talk about the seed, the next frond that's coming out
of the dinner that protect that protect the bud at the top, at the
very top of the palm tree is the only living new growth bud on a
Bismarck palm, and so us a leaf will come out and it'll expand and
you reach out and eventually it ends up, you know, sagging down,
and that's about the time they turn around. You're taking them off. But
constantly new leaves are coming out, but they're only coming out right at that
top center, which is where the living bud is that can create new growth,
and so that that's the key to protecting. Of course it's important to
correct the trunk too, but that's especially important. Okay, what about the
mule palm, the same thing. Yeah, any kind of palm mules another
example, I say, any kind mules a good example of another palm that
just has one bud. We have a few palms that they will um,
they can sprout from the bottom. They kind of form a thicket needle palm
can kind of do that. But most of our palms is just that one
bud up at the top of the trunk. Now, mules are really they're
they're pretty darn coal tolerant. They're going to take it down to about fifteen
degrees if they're well established and they've kind of cooled off slowly and are ready
to go for it. But a mule, generally, you shouldn't have to
worry about those here in Houston. Yeah, and I thank you for that
also, And I have both of those along with a pindow. I'm a
transplant from Florida, Okay, and we have a Mediterranean of Asiena, so
to say. And I really like the palmlo. Yeah, but what kind
of a I mean, I'm outside now, what am I actually? What
kind of a bud? Can I see? You're not? You can't see
the bud. It's down in that top center. So you can just see
when the bud sends out a new leaf. You got this little thing poking
up out like a sword coming out of there, and then it expands and
goes out. That's that's the We're coming from the bud, but you can't
see it. Hey, have you ever been to Verdant Tree Farm before?
You know, we talk we talk about them a lot here. There's one
out in the probably the closest one for you would be the one or the
easiest to get to. It would be the one out Barker Cypress, which
is on the west side where Highway six comes down toward ten. They specialize
in palms, and oh my gosh, their selection is unbelievable and they know
palms. So if you're you know, how hardy is this, or you
know any advice on growing it, they're going to be able to set you
up. They really really thank you so much. I'm gonna go do that.
And it's down on Cypress. Uh, well it's it's on Barker Cypress
in West Houston. Let me see here we're going to we're running out of
show here, but if you hang on just really quick, I'm I'll see
if I can find you the address for Verdan. If not, you're gonna
just have to to go look it up. I'll look them up. I'll
go to Verdan. Thank you so much. Yeah, you bet, you
bet. It's Verdant Tree Farm dot com Verdant Tree Farm. Okay, yes,
hey, thanks for the call. Good to talk to you. Well,
we've had a good time talking to everybody this this Saturday. I guess
this was kind of out of state. Saturday, several calls from out of
state. We'll be back again tomorrow morning, six am. Every Saturday and
Sunday six am to ten am. Tell your friends and neighbors that are interested
in gardening about garden Line. Hopefully they'll tune in the meantime, we'll see you tomorrow