Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's
crazy trim. Just watch him as we may give teas the suprasy gas bag
not a sign India gas You well, good Sunday morning, and I'd like
to be the first to wish you happy Daisy Day. Yes, today is
National Daisy Day. Well, uh, that's a cause for celebration. I
hope you're planning a party at your house and gathering all your gardening friends.
Hey, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer gardening questions. That's what this is all about.
If you would like to ask a question, give us a call. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Boy, the elephant in the room this week has
been the rain. It has rained, and it has rained and has range.
It's rained a lot. I was telling yesterday, I was talking to
folks up at Anti grosing Forium up north, just north of Brunham and Independence,
and they had fourteen inches a lot of folks around. Even as you
go a little south of Houston, we're in the five six some some places
four inches of rain. That's a lot of rain. It's a lot of
rain. And whenever we have a lot of rain, well, we have
a problem with standing water. Plants don't like wet feet. Now, there
are a few plants that can take soggy soil conditions, but most plants want
good drainage, or they do best with good drainage. And so when that
happens, you got to do something to fix it. And I put a
Facebook post on garden Line Facebook if you if you haven't, if you don't
follow garden Line on Facebook, you ought to just just go hun us down
at garden Line and put a post up about five things that you can do
when you have poor drainage in an area, and one of them is to
have somebody come in and re route that water fix the problem. There's a
number of ways we can do that. You might have down spouts that are
pouring all the water into this one spot where it tends to stand, and
you can look up things at the bottom of the down spout to redirect that
water. You can move the water directly from the down spout into an underground
drainage pipe. Something like a French drain can also be used where you have
perforated pipe in a wet area and it works opposite. Some of you remember
how the old septic systems worked, where you know, the sewer the equivalent
of the sewer went out into what they call a drain field or a leech
field, and there were pipes with holes in it and it leaks out into
the soil out in that area. So you're moving the water from inside the
house out into the soil in the field or in the area around the home.
Well. A French drain works the opposite of that same setup. You've
got pipes with holes in them, but this time it's taking the water that's
standing there and it seeps down into the drain and then drains out to a
lower spot. And pierce scapes can do that for you. Pear scapes can
do pretty much anything you need to do in your landscape, but they're very
good at taking an area that's wet and finding a way to drain that water
away. You can redirect water, or you can drain the water that's gathering
there, and pier scapes can do exactly that. Some of your properties,
though you have a low area and there's no area that's lower to drain it
to, you know, to have it go into a pipe in the ground,
it's got to go off somewhere where gravity can take it to a lower
area. And if you don't have that, pier Scapes can come in.
They put in a little box with a pump that whenever water. When that
box fills with water, physically pumps it out even uphill off to another area
where it gets it off your property. And however you want to go about
it, just let them come in. Don't delay on this. I guarantee
you right now, a lot of people are going, hey, folks,
help me with the drainage. Get an appointment. Call them up at two
eight one, three, seven fifty sixty. While they're out there, you
can also ask them take a look at irrigation systems to set up a time
to come do that. You probably have some broken irrigation heads here and there,
misaligned heads, just systems that aren't designed well. Unfortunately, way too
many irrigation systems are really inefficiently designed, and Pierce Caapes can fix that.
Of course, they do a lot of other things go on the website Piercescapes
dot com. Piercescapes dot com. I want you to take a look at
some of the jobs that they've done on outdoor patios and barbecue areas and outdoor
lighting. It's an outdoor water feature. They can do it all there at
Puerscapes. Right now, the name of the game is how do you get
rid of water? All right? Well, you know, in agriculture,
if you're farmer, rancher, and certainly in gardening too, it seems like
we're either complaining about too much water or not enough water. You know,
it's like, oh, it's so dry and rained in ages. And then
now we're going really, I mean, are we going to have fourteen inches
of rainfall? What are we going to do with that? I would like
to put thirteen of them in a big bucket and draw from that in July
and August when we definitely will need it. But unfortunately we don't have that
option to be able to be able to do just that. Oh well,
look at this weekend, we've been talking about all the rain. But did
you see yesterday I was out at the in for Ben County at their Bresis
home and garden show out there, and thanks to everybody that came out.
Boy, you guys wore me out. That a lot of questions and we
had a really good time out there. But you know, you're out and
about and the gardening fever is starting to hit people because we had a good
day out there. By the way, it's a little bit of cloudy,
but it wasn't rainy today. The sun is going to shine and that is
the day to get outside and enjoy the garden. I hope this afternoon you'll
consider getting out and getting just enjoys. Maybe just a walk through initially,
walk through the landscape, look at things. What do you want to change,
Where do you need more color? This is a good thing to do
sooner rather than later. What beds have just not performed. Maybe you need
to spruce up the soil with some additional bed mix to raise that level up
for better drainage, and to add all that additional composted material in the soil.
You know, compost goes away, it eventually heads down toward humus,
so you can have a nice let's say, have a bed a foot high.
It's not going to be a foot high two years from now or three
years from now, it's just going to continue to oxidize down, so we're
always sprucing it up. Maybe you've got areas where plants struggle in soggy conditions,
and so the question to ask there is, well, why not some
different plants? Why not something that likes to grow in a bog or a
swamp. There are plants like that. That's another option. Maybe you have
thought about gardening in terms of a vegetable garden, but you've never done it
before and you just kind of put it off. Why not this year,
get you a bed like a vago bed or something, put it on the
ground, fill a full of quality mix, and literally in a few hours
you were ready to go in garden. I mean that is like quick turnkey
right there. What new are you going to grow this year? What new
plant? What new kind of gardening? Have you had a garden that you've
never had trellises in and you'd like to bring things up vertically? What are
you going to do different this year? Let's talk about that some today.
Hey, we're going to take a break right now and i'll be back,
and our phone number in the meantime if you'd like to get on the boards
is seven to one to three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome
back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Let's talk gardening.
What's of interest to you? Give us? Call it seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was just talking before break about
trying some new things, and uh, at our house, whether we have
been watching a lot of cooking shows. I don't know if you've I normally
and not a watch cooking shows guy, but uh uh, you know,
my wife and daughters and stuff are all into watching these various cooking shows,
and some of them are quite amusing. But one thing, the reason I'm
bringing this up is it was a show that I won't mention specific shows,
but where they were talking about decorating a plate and that you know, they
use a little drizzles swinging back and forth across the plate and setting a little
tiny flower pedal in a certain spot. It was quite amusing. Anyway,
they're using flower petals and doing some decorating with it, and it just reminded
me that a lot of flower petals are edible. And so when you think
about a salad, you know, do you want to just have iceberg lettuce,
slice of cucumbers, slices of cucumbers, and maybe some chunks of tomato.
Is that a salad? That's that's the salad I grew up with,
But that's not the salad I eat now. Lots of wonderful, flavorful greens
that can really flavor up that salad. And then you add things like edible
flowers that have a really real beauty to them in it. It really stands
out. You can do, you know, pansies or an edible flour.
There are squash blossoms from the vegetable gardener, an edible flour, there's a
lot of them out there. But always when you're going to use a flour
for a salad or for food, always make sure it hadn't been sprayed with
a pesticide. You don't want to eat something that just got sprayed with a
pesta side and so just kind of be a little careful with that. But
colendula is another one. Plants for all seasons had a bunch of colendulas out
showing off there on their tables and it just reminded me about colndila. Colondila
grows through the cool season. You can use it in fall, winter,
and spring here, and it's primarily it's kind of like marigolds, and that
it comes. By the way, Miragoles is another edible flower. It comes
in orange and yellow blooms, and they're very attractive, but it really is.
In fact, I believe pop marigold is one of the names for colendula,
and I think about it, but it would it'd be very attractive.
So imagine you're creating a beautiful old flower. You're having a dinner at your
house or something. You're creating a beautiful salad and adding a little bit of
edible unusual things like that. How about making sure your garden always has some
herbs and flowers and things that can be used for decoration. I enjoy doing
that myself. I think it adds flavored, adds interest, and yeah,
so speaking of plants for all seasons. It's one of those garden centers.
They're there just north of Luetta on Highway two forty nine. If you're going
let's say you're heading up toward tom Ball, it's on the right hand side.
You cross over Luetta and it's right there, and it's one of those
garden centers that you go in and you know you're going to get service,
and you know you're going to have knowledgeable folks, and you know you're going
to get plants that belong here. Now, that combination, as I like
to say, that's worth the price of admission. I mean that to not
go home with some plant that hasn't been taken care of, that it shouldn't
need to be planted here. And then people that don't know what to tell
you other than green side up. You know, there's a lot of these
box stores and whatnot that are not really mom and pop garden centers, and
sometimes the best advice you can get is well, put the green side up
when you plant it. Well, that's not going to happen. At Plants
for All Seasons, they know what they're talking about. You can take pictures
in there, say what's wrong with this plant? Or hey, I saw
this in a neighbor's yard. Do you have any of these here? And
they'll tell you. And they're going to carry a wide variety of things.
It's just as easy as that. Go to Plants for All Seasons dot com
or call them two eight one three seven six one six four six, and
while you're out there, grab some of those edible colendulars. Do a little
search learn about some of the other flowers that are there. Today's theme is
try something new. This is an exciting gardening season. I'm really pumped.
I'm telling you. I'm sitting there and it's been raining all week, and
I am on my computer. I'm looking at stuff, you know, just
checking out this new thing here, or make a list of edible flowers to
grow in the garden this year. I'm working on the plants that I have
indoors, and I'm starting from seed a little. Tomato plants are up doing
pretty good right now. I've got some of about four inches high. I
got leaves on them, and they're doing well. By the way, here's
a tip. If you're going to grow vegetables indoors in a still air environment,
you need to move them around to strengthen the stems. In nature,
wind moves plants, and the bending and stretching and twisting makes the stems,
whether it's a young tree's trunk or whether it is a new seedling, makes
them stronger. And so my tomatoes and my peppers and other things that I'm
growing indoors about twice a day. However, many times I walk by.
I'll just take my hands and with my fingers just sort of I don't know
how to describe it, tickle the tops of the plants. Just wiggle them
around. Brush your hands over the top and just bend them around a little
bit. I mean, you don't have to, you know, manhandle them,
just move them around. Some people one of my daughters uses a little
fan that oscillates, and as it goes by the plants, it moves the
stem and then goes on and comes back as an oscillating fan, and that's
what she uses to strengthen her stems. I just like to go out and
pet the plants. So think about maybe growing some transplants yourself. But that's
one way. Good life is absolutely first importance. But just moving the stems
is one way you can do that. And if you want to be,
let's say, the horticultural cliff claven remember that guy from Cheers. If you're
going to be the horticultural cliff Clavern of your neighborhood and among all your friends,
write this down. Big mo morphogenesis, that's your nerd alert for the
day. Big moo morphogenesis is a slow developmental change in a plant subjected to
continuous mechanical stress. That's a fancy way to say when the plant, when
the plant bends, it gets stronger. Like we go work our muscles out
right, you wear them out at the gym, and what happens, They
get stronger and stronger plants the same mechanism in life, big mo morphogenesis.
You can thank me later. Your friends will not appreciate me later, that's
for sure. I was out by a Spring Creek feed store which is up
in Magnolia on FM eight, stopping in and visiting with the folks there and
Kelly and the others, and they have a great stock of all the fertilizers
I talk about they have. They also have a little bulk seed area where
you can get scoops of seed, and those scoops of seed are the most
economical way to buy seed. Seed packets are great. I buy seed package
all the time. But if you're just looking for what is the most economical
way to get seed, it's to go to a place a feedstore place like
Sprint Creek Feed that has these little bulk containers and they have little tiny scoops
you buy hard money seed you want. It's very economical, and they've got
it there. They've got the products that control weeds and diseases and insects and
so on. Of course, they've got pet food and livestock food, hay
and shaving and bedding and all kinds of things like that. Sprint Creek Feed
is on FM twenty nine seventy eight, just minutes away really from Graham Parkway
Highway to forty nine, and they will deliver. So give them a call,
come out, say hi when you go by there, And boy,
they are just about to get a lot of new plants and supplies in.
Really, this is a season where our great garden centers and feed stores and
others like that are just on the verge of some big shipments. Everywhere I've
gone and talked to our sponsors, it's like, yeah, the trucks are
about to be crawling all over this place. So I'm excited about that.
I can't wait to get pick out and see that kind of thing. I
love going out and seeing new things. That's one of the things that I
think is just the best, the coolest about gardening is the learning process is
the wonder process. You know, you get in there and you learn something
new, you try something new. That's the motto for today, try something
new, and there is so much to see, and sometimes it's just stopping
and smelling the roses. Have you ever grown a passion buying there's several types
of row really well here and then studied the flower. I mean, just
sit there a minute and just look at it and look at the intricacies that
the incredible beauty and design and order and everything in creation is just amazing and
something like a passion flower. If you really are observant, you could literally
sit there for fifteen minutes just looking at it and learning and just being amazed
more and more at how intricate it is. You know, we get busy
in life and we just zip by things and we kind of half see them,
and we sort of become blind even to our own landscapes. You know,
you're going in and going out each day and have the driveway, and
you're just not noticing things that are out there. I think it's good to
whether they say stop and smell the ros isn't it? Yes? Indeed,
to stop and smell and observe the roses too. You can learn a lot
from that. So that's what we're talking about, learning or trying something new,
that's the theme of the show today. I normally don't have themes.
That's the thing that we have a theme trying something new? Yep. Have
you never grown roses out? Roses, herbs in a windowsill? Have you
never grown roses in your landscape? Have you ever tried a climbing rose over
an arborer? A something new this year? There's a bizillion things out there
that you can do. Yeah, yeah, And it doesn't matter what you
like or some people are like I don't care for herbs. I don't like
herbs. Other people live for herbs, right, whatever it is, Try
something new, yes, because not only will they grow, so will you?
There you go? How about planting things that bring in butterflies and birds?
Oh? Yeah, wouldn't that be cool? You got an outdoor,
you're sitting on your patio and looking around and just a whole new thing to
enjoy. You got it? All? Right? Well, there we go.
We're about to take a break here and turn the microphone over to Nikki
for the news. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. When we come back, Tracy, you're gonna be our
first up. But we invite you to call get on the board with Josh
and we'll talk to you after that. Yeah, there we go. There's
the horticultural Cliff Cliffing of the neighborhood. I always got to kick out of
out of Cliff. He was the expert on everything, a legend in his
own mind. As they say. Anyway, you're listening to garden Line.
Welcome to the show. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
We're going to now go out to Liberty and I'm going to talk to
Tracy if I can find the button. There we go, Hey Tracy,
good morning Skip. I've got a quick question about booginvillias. Is it gonna
hurt to hit him with the Nelson's plant food this time of year. No,
it won't hurt at all. I bet they won't accomplish a lot immediately.
They're not going to want to grow till it warms up. But the
fertilizers my question. Yeah, the fertilizer in the soil is not going to
make the boogainvillia grow in winter. You see what I'm saying. When the
temperature is right, it'll start growing and you'll you'll have the nutrients there.
So it's up to you, and they're going to fertilized an hour later.
But I just don't overdo it. Don't overdo it. I don't normally do
it until it warms up. But you know, after our little cool snap,
they lost all their little pretty pretty color and I was trying to get
them to maybe do a little bit. But you say it's not going to
until it gets warm. Yeah, it's it's not now. The temperature controls
a lot of biological processes, including up taking nutrients and movement through the plant
and growth and all that. So yeah, either way, but it's not
gonna it's not going to speed it up a lot. Okay, all right,
you have a good day, Ski. Well, enjoy those moving.
Hey, by the way, these in containers that you have since you're up
in Liberty, I suspect they are, Yes, sir, they're in container
excuse me, and containers where I can move them in and out dearing the
cold. Good are very good. Well, glad to hear it. Enjoy
those, Tracy, and thank you for calling. Thank you you have you
as well. Well. We are we are here today talking about well,
let's see, the theme today is try something new. The theme today is
try something new. So what does that mean. That means I encourage you.
I'd say I challenge you, but that's corny. I encourage you this
year to do something you've not done before in gardening, because gardening is a
world of wonder. I'm telling you there are literally a bazillion that's an actual
number. It's even more than a trillion, by the way. They're literally
a bazillion things that you can do in gardening to try something new. Okay,
let me give you an example. Have you ever tried planting herbs and
containers? Have you ever put herbs at the end of your vegetable garden rows?
You can do that. Have you ever used trailing herbs like time and
oregano and marjoram? Have you ever used those as a groundcover around plants?
Have you ever done a row of like chives as a border around a bed?
Yeah, you can do that absolutely. Why not try six new flowers
that attract butterfly and hummingbirds this year. It's easy. There's lots of beautiful
options. Add some butterfly attracting flowers to your landscape out where you can sit
and enjoy them by the patio or something like that. How about putting in
drip irrigation and a faucet timer to make watering easier. You know, remember
last summer, Yeah, we do, well, how about this summer having
a timer? Then you can tell it. I want you to come on
three days a week. I want you to come on every day. I
want you to come on twice a day. I want you to water for
this long. You got a little faucet timers you can buy that, do
that and it just takes care of it. I have to have that for
my containers because I just forget to water them or I'm gone for a day
and they don't get watered and it's one hundred degrees and you know what I'm
talking about. Why not try that this year? How about three new vegetables
you've never grown before or even tasted before. I talked yesterday about a green
and that. You know, there's a thousand options. I just use as
an example something called chi jemsi. It's a brassica. It's a coal crop
like broccoli and cabbage, cauliflower, mustard. It's in that group and it's
a new thing, new in the last few years, and it's very nice.
It's very different. Have you ever grown bakchoi before. It's fast,
it's easy, it's fun. How about grape tomatoes? Have you ever grown
a grape tomato? Maybe you don't even have a garden. Get you something
that holds about ten gallons of soil and try a grape tomato this year.
They are really tasty, they're very productive, and they even set better in
the heat than slicer types of tomatoes. How about a different kind of pepper.
I tried last year some really large jalapenos found I had to grow them
from seed because these are you know, there's only ten billion varieties out there,
and any garden center it's not going to have all of them. But
try something new, something different that you haven't done before. How about a
house plant? What is your favorite house plant? Have you ever grown a
zz plant? Z z plant? It is one of the most tolerant houseplants
of our mismanagement that there is out there. It likes a lot of light,
but it'll put up with lower light. It doesn't want to be soggy.
But you can have it a little wet or you can have it a
little dry, and it's okay with both of those. And it's very different,
very unusual. Looking, and there's a lot of houseplants like that,
try something new. What are you going to try new this year? If
you like, give us a call. I'd like to hear about it.
What are you going to try that's new this year? Maybe you need some
suggestions, give me a call on that. We'll talk about that as well.
But every gardening season is a world of wonder and there's no reason to
just do meat and potatoes year after year after year. You can always try
something new. In fact, I think it's a good policy and I do
this in my vegetable garden is always have the main stays that are proven,
but also have some things that you've never tried before that are experiments, because
what you're going to find is that new tomato that you try may become your
favorite after this years of trying it out. Celebrity is my standby. It's
the one that has lots of disease resistance. It's got nematode resistance, which
almost no tomato hardly does. And Celebrity is one I always grow, but
always in try and three or four other new ones. And I think that's
a great way to grow because you learn things, you find out new things
you discover new things when you go to our mom and pop garden centers,
they're going to tell you. And when you say, hey, look,
I want to try something kind of new and different, what do you got?
What would you suggest? It's a flower, it's an herb, it's
a vegetable, it's you know, maybe a new kind of rose that you've
never grown before. I encourage you this year, why not try something new?
You know, if you're going to start your own seed for example,
that would be something new. You've never grown your own seedlings. Well,
just grab you some of the forty pound potting soil that Landscaper's Pride has.
That's a good one for all kinds of things. It's very budget friendly,
fully customizable, meaning that you can mix it however you want. It's got
age, pine bark and sand and blended organics and so on. You can
mix it in into your soil to improve your soil. You can use it
as a standalone potting soil if you want. You can use it as a
seed starting mix. It works really well for that. So what are you
going to start indoors from seed this year that you haven't tried before? New?
So grab a holes and that Landscaper's Pride, that forty pound potting soil.
They've also got a rose mix. By the way, they've also got
a black velvet mulch. It's not dyed, it's just a beautiful color.
So how about that front bed that's really the show bed. Why not try
it the black velvet as a mulch in that It just for a real visual
impact. It's a high quality material. You know. Landscaper's Pride has been
around for twenty years, since two thousand and two, actually over twenty years,
and they had twenty seven different products and bags. They also have bulk
available. All you need to do is go to this website Landscaperspride dot com
and you can find out where all the stores are carry their products. They're
widely available, easy, easy to find with Landscaper's Pride. So try something
new. We're going to take a break and that's not new. Just to
have to do that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. I'll be right back. Welcome back to garden Line.
We are going to have a beautiful Sunday. I'm telling you it's on
the way right now. It's side it's dark still dark. I haven't made
the light yet. By the way, if you look over and see your
neighbor's house and the lights are off, it's all dark, and they're go
bang on the door. Tell them they're missing garden line. They will rise
up and call you blessed. Maybe not today, they'll call you something else
today, I bet, but in time they will thank you for turning them
on the garden line. We we love to answer your gardening questions. We'd
love to talk to you about ways to have success. Because here's the deal.
Gardening is the best hobby that there is. In my opinion, I
am biased, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Gardening is the best hobby.
It gives you physical health, it gives you mental health. It just
gives you a sense of well being. There's so many ways to do it.
Maybe you don't want to go outside and plow up the back party and
you know, work and sweat and dig and whatnot. Okay, that's fine.
Do you have a houseplant? Do you want to start some seeds indoors?
Do you love herbs and you just want some containers of her There's a
thousand ways to go about gardening. Have you ever have you ever planted a
fruit tree. Now there's something new. Are there any fruit trees you'd like
to grow? Maybe a citrus? Maybe something gets you a container with a
lot of soil, something the equivalent of a half whiskey barrel. And I
don't use a whiskey barrel because the wood rots out, but something that holds
quite a bit of soil, and put a little citrus tree in it and
enjoy that. And oh, my gosh, when citrus blooms, the flowers
are heavenly. Oh, such a nice fragrance. Absolutely a nice fragrance.
When I try that this year. If you've got a sunny spot on a
patio, all you need is a little doll where you put a strap around
the pot and you can move that plant anywhere you want to put it.
We're their son, and you don't have to bend over and break you back
doing it. Why not try that this year? I think that'd be fun.
Well, well that's our theme today. By the way, try something
new. We're going to give you some other ideas. If you have ideas
of some things new that you would like to try, or that you have
tried recently that really have become now part of how you garden. I'd like
to hear about it. We're going to start off by going to the Woodlands
and talking to Paul. Hello, Paul, Hi, how you doing ski?
Want to try something new? Yeah? The Nelson Turf Store. We
made it. Yes, where can you find it? Oh, it's widely
available. There are a number of different places that have it, you know,
off the top of my head in the Woodlands. I'm not sure.
You might try an ACE hardware store check down. You don't have it.
They don't have it, Okay, up there, Yeah, a lot of
our aces will I would I would go to the Nelson's, go to their
website and just see where you know where you can find it there. You
may just need to give them a call directly to get to the to the
bottom line. I'm going to look and see if I have a listing of
available places, and if I do, I'll say it on the air for
you here in a little bit. Yeah, tell me a little bit to
hunt that down. Maybe during a break or something like that. Okay,
thank you're looking at the Turf Star right the weed Nader. All right,
Yeah, you need to get that done. If you're going to do that,
you need to do it, you know, in the next definitely in
the next four weeks. I would probably get it done in the next three
weeks or so if I could, because you want to catch those weeds before
they get too big. That's important. Good enough, all right, sir,
thank you, thank you. I appreciate the call. Yep, I
need to hunt that down. In fact, if somebody from Nelson's happens to
be listed, let me know exactly where to get that word out because people
won't know where to get those things. I was giving away some of their
new product out there. They've got a new product that you mix into putting
mix. So let's say you're going to repot a plant. You know,
you're going to go in and take what you know, a plant moving into
a larger pot, and you need to provide some nutrition in that soil.
Well, that is exactly what their Nutristar Genesis Transplant Mix does. It's a
six to one three fertilizer granular and this is brand new, absolutely brand new.
I saw it for the first time last week. I've already got some
I'm already messing with it, trying it out. I always like to play
with these products, get experience with them, so I understand how they work
really even better. It has beneficial bacteria. It's got endo microiza ectomycuriza.
Those are two fungi that live with the root and make the root do better,
take up nutrients better. It's got humates and it's got other nutrients to
encourage enzymatic production, and it just enhances overall the biological activity of the soil.
And that is the nutri star genesis. It's in a little jar like
other Nelson products are. They have the bags and they have the jars Nutrishar
genesis transplant mix. And again, when you're going to bump up, let's
see, buy some four inch pots and you're gonna put them in gallon pots,
or let's say you're going to plant that citrus in that half whiskey barrel
sized container I just was talking about. You just mix the nutristar genesis into
the mix as you're doing the transplanting, and it's there. It's going to
release over time and be available to enhance that root system. Because there's a
lot that we do for roots. It goes beyond just the nutrients too.
By the way, that microbial activity is really important and anything we do to
help with that is going to help a plant to survive even better. I
was pretty excited about that. Peive they got it done in Fort Benn did
some give They were pretty excited about it too. We were trying to figure
out how to give it away, you know, like, okay, who
drove the furthest Someone said, you know, well, who's the oldest here?
And I said, I learned long ago not to go into that territory.
So we came up with other ways, other ways of doing the giveaway.
But we had a good time the Fort Bend. By the way,
Fort Ben County, if you go to Fort Man County's website, the Extension
office website, they you can find information on the Regional Vegetable Conference they have
going on down there, and that's Fortbend dot Agrolife dot org. It's on
Thursday, February eighth. It's an all day deal. You just need to
go check it out. Lots of good information that's coming on that Buchanans.
I mentioned talking about Buchanans yesterday, and Buchanans is just it's the kind of
place where there's always something new and cool going on. It just Buchanans,
there's always a new plant, there's always some new like a native plant.
That's what they specialize in. There's some new houseplants. They have one of
the best house plants selections I've ever seen. They're on the eleven Street in
the Heights. Most of you probably been there, but if you haven't,
you need to go in This afternoon be a good time to do that.
East eleventh Street in the Heights. You just go to Buchanansplants dot Com.
So I was talking earlier about you got a soggy area that doesn't drain,
well, go to Buchanans and ask them if they have a button bush or
Louisian iris or anything. Say I've got a wet area and I'd like to
know what native plants do you sell that thrive in spots sometimes that don't drain
that well, why not turn lemons into lemonade with the native plants for Buchanans.
That's just one example of the many reasons you would want to go to
Buchanans Plants. I always love it to go by there and a visit.
Well let's see here, I believe we just ran out of another hour.
That kind of went fast. Our theme today is try something new. I'd
like to hear from you. What have you tried new recently that has just
been a new addition now for your gardening? Is like I tried that,
I love it? And what do you want to try this year? What
have you never done before? There's a lot of new things out there to
do in the garden. Do you want to try a new kind of product?
Do you want to try a new kind of a bed? Do you
want of those eggo beds that they have? Do you want to try one
of the Perhaps a new irrigation method like grip irrigation make it easier for yourself.
I bet there's a plant that you've never grown before. I can come
up with some suggestions if you don't, if you need some lots of great
plants that we can try. New gardening is always hopeful, it's always new,
and next year's garden is always going to be the best ever. We'll
be right back. Katrh Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or service is advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line
with Skimp Rickard shraya trim just watch him as well. Give it peace.
The seabot Bazy again not a sor Welcome to garden Line. Welcome to garden
Line on what is going to be a gorgeous, gorgeous sunday. I can
see the glow in the sky. Here we go. Day is on the
way. It is time to make your plans for this afternoon. What are
you gonna get out and do? You're gonna go by and pick up some
supplies from one of our local garden centers or other product suppliers to be ready
to go. Remember, we're going to be fertilizing the lawns coming up here,
and no need to wait until that day to try to go find fertilizer.
If you're out and about, grab some, pick it up, bring
it home, be ready to go. So whatever day occurs, plans change,
or whatever, you got some time, you can just go right out
there and fertilize your lawns. Simple as that. Well, I uh,
the theme today is try something new? What are you going to try new?
I'd like to know what you are going to try and do, and
I'll give you some suggestions for things that you may want to try that you
haven't tried before. Have you ever planted a flowering vine? I'm talking about
it could be a perennial vine. It could be something like you know,
Wisteria is a common flowering vine people plant. There's several different types of whysteria.
Some of them are a bit of a challenge, so I'm just using
that as an example. But a flowering rose, a vining rose, for
example, something like a Lady Banks. That's a very vigorous ning rose,
very beautiful. It's either white or yellow. Yellow form is more common.
The white form is more fragrant. So both of those they're almost thornless.
In fact, they are, I would say they are thornless, very easy
to grow. Make a really good plant to put over a large arbor,
you know, don't put this over a little thing. This thing wants to
take over the world. It's a very big, vigorous plant, so give
it some room to grow. That would be a good one. How about
a perennial flowering vine. The coral vine has the clusters of pink blooms that
are really popular with pollinators. It blooms really heavily in the late summer fall
season, and it is also one that wants to run, so you need
to give it a confined area. In other words, if you put it
on a fence that'll run down the fence, that'll climb up a pole and
it'll head across the power line. It just it has something to grab onto.
It's going to keep going, so that's a catch on it. It's
a perennial dies back to the ground each year. But oh my gosh,
it's a great vine. It's an absolutely great vine, really pretty. Then
there's annual vines like hycinth bean that likes the warm weather. You wait a
little bit to plant it, it grows really well. We can just go
on and on lots and lots and lots of vine options. Do you have
a western wall where the brick heats up when the hot late day sun shines
on it, why not put a little trellis on that. It could be
something as simple as a cattle panel that you put up on iron posts,
the little fence posts that you drop hammer into the ground, and you put
that vine on it, and it makes a wall of foliage that shades the
brick and it will make a difference in your utility bills because all night that
hot brick wall is going to be radiating heat on summer nights into your house.
Why not try that this year? Have you ever had an arbor before,
A little pergola something like that. You can build one. You can
hire somebody like Fier Scapes to come into a professional job building you want,
but create some sort of a covering over a patio area and then put a
vine on it. Something beautiful. I've got a oh gosh, I can't
even say the name of the rosebush Martin, Peggy Martin Rose that is on
my pergola. I put it in there. Peggy Martin's a tough lady.
And here's why I put it in Like two years ago. My golden retrievers
have chewed it, chewed it to the ground like a foot high twice.
I don't know what possesses them. They let it grow a wild and then
they become demon dogs and chew it to the ground. So I put a
little wire cylinder around it, and now they can't chew it to the ground,
and it is up it. Last year it grew up, it went
ope on the trellis. It's got little vine. You know, shoots hanging
down everywhere in this spring. Just wait, it's going to be beautiful as
those clusters of blooms are hanging off the top of that arbor where we sit
underneath in the summertime and the springtime is when it does most of it's blooming.
So try something new like that. What have you not tried before?
Again, if you've never grown citrus, at least have a container with some
type of citrus in it that you can enjoy the ballooms of and of course
the fruit and time as well. Whether it's a Meyer lemon, whether it's
one of the limes that are so easy to grow and somewhat smaller stature,
easier to grow in a container. I had a satsuma orange and a container
that Satsuma is a really nice mandarin type orange. You know when you go
in the store and you buy the box of those things but called qts,
you know, the little real easy baggy scan, real easy to peel.
Well, satsuma is like that. They actually get larger than that, but
it's easy to do and it's just a fun addition. Easy. What's new
for you this year? Try something new? That's what I would suggest.
Now. What is the rule on garden line for the number one tip for
success with plants. Take care of the soil and your plants will thrive.
That's it. Brown stuff before green stuff. Well, if you have bought
into that, you're going to see the results of it, because when the
soil is right, plants thrive and Nature's Way resources they were a leader historically
have been a leader when it comes to building good soils. They invented roast
soil, They invented leaf mold compost for example. They have got a great
supply. In fact, they have a thing called Fungal Friday's where on Fridays
you can get ten percent off the bagged fungal compost and twenty percent off the
bulk fungal compost. They've got a two acre nursery and garden center there with
fruit trees, native perennials and all kinds of things. It is really a
great place to visit. Their products are sold by the bag in various locations
as well, or you can order them by bulk. But you know this,
when you go in Nature's Way, you're going to get a product that's
made right. They take the time to do it right. That you can
find what I would say would be a cheap mulch out there and it is
not even worth what you pay for it because they rush it through the process.
They leave it there long enough to turn brown, so it looks like
compost or whatever, and it's just not good. It's not going to work
like a product that's they've taken time with, like Nature's Way does. And
so I would encourage you if you're gonna take care. If you want a
half plant, if you want a vegetable garden, flower, garden herbs,
if you want to create a beautiful shrub bed, start with getting the soil
right. Call them at Nature's Way, Talk to John, talk to Ian
nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine three six three two one
sixty nine ninety A quality product for long, long, long term quality results.
That's the way to go. The brown stuff comes before the green stuff,
and Nature's Way knows how to make the brown stuff. You're listening to
the guard Line and we're going to take a low break here. Our phone
number is seven three two one two five eight seven four. I'll be right
back. Welcome back to garden Line. Today's theme is try something new.
What are you going to try new that you've never done before? If you're
looking for for example, if you're looking for a place to find something new,
well, how about enchanted gardens in Richmond. Have you ever been out
there. It's on FM three fifty nine. It's on the Katie Foolscher side
of Richmond. I just head north from Richmond. Enchanted Gardens Richmond is the
Website's really easy to find. Enchanted Gardens Richmond. They're open by the way.
They're open today from ten am to four Monday through Saturday, eight am
to five pm. And they have something new. I guarantee you in any
category of plant, you know, roses when you took it, vegetables and
herbs and flowers and shrubs, they're gonna have something new you've never tried before.
The Lendermans have been part of that community since nineteen ninety five when they
first opened Enchanted Gardens, and it's one of those mom and pop into dependence
where you get quality plants, quality advice, and really really good guidance when
it comes to picking a plant or when it comes to solving a problem like
a pest or disease or whatever. They've got all of that, and they
have a lot of really new and cool things. For example, have you
ever tried a fairy garden? You know? A little ferry gardens are little
containers that have like a miniature scene in them. Well, they've got those
and then tell you how to put one together, find the plants and the
pots and everything. That would be something new that you could drive with.
This year, they've got all the fertilizers I talk about on garden Line and
the soil products that you need to have success with your garden at Enchented Gardens
that's out there in Richmond. That would be something new if you've never been
there, there's another new you gotta go. You got to see it.
It's pretty cool. Let's head out to south West Houston. We're going to
talk to Jeff. Hello Jeff, good morning, Skip. I love your
theme. This is that you're doing great. I tried a couple of new
things last year and there were game changers for me. Speaking of the brown
stuff, I'll do a plug for airloom soils, all right. I tried
there the works it's called in all my container plants. Huh, And I'll
never go back. I invested in that in that last year and I'm already
buying more this year. Well, that's a quality product, there's no question
about it. It is very it's the best for container plants. I mean
my peppers. I grew in containers last year, and I never had so
many peppers. For those of you aren't familiar with that, he's talking about
the work grows, yeah, potting soil. Yeah, And and I do
a lot of growth. I grow stuff in grow bags and containers. And
it's easier for me. I can move it around when it needs more sun
or less sun. It just helps me out a lot better that way.
Yeah. Well good. Uh. And that's the fabric grow bags yeah,
actually Walmart bags. Yeah, well those don't hold up very long, but
they'll work for a season or something. They'll last for a season, and
they're fifty cents in there. They're very Just cut the handles off of them
and fill them up with the works and and grow all kinds of even grow
tomatoes in them. All right. So one other new thing I did last
year. If you're trying to find a variety of beans, stream beans that
I had never had much. I was never happy with the green beans that
I was growing, and I tried a new variety I saw online called Contender.
Oh yeah, I got I got in the bulk seeds that Southwest fertilizer.
Yeah. And if if you don't want to be picking green beans every
day. Don't plant Contender beans. I mean they I had more beans than
I've ever had in my three little ten foot rows, and I had for
four months. Well, you know, Jeffy, you referred to it as
a new bean. Actually, Contender's been around a long time. Earlier I
was talking about, Oh it was new for me. Yeah, celebrity Yeah,
good, well there, that's all that counts, is what's new to
us. But Contender, I was talking earlier about celebrity tomato being an old
main statement around a long time. Contender is the same way. If I'm
going to try any kind of green bean, I always compare it to Contender
because that is the that is the standard. It is an excellent, excellent
bean. Well, good, thanks for sharing that. You spoke about one
other thing, if I may go ahead. You spoke about grape tomatoes.
I was. I bought some grape tomatoes at a dollar store in there were
the most tasty tomatoes ever had. So I saved some of the seeds and
planted them last year, and it's my new favorite tomatoes. All right.
Yeah, I like grapes a lot. I don't know why I like them
more than cherry I mean they're both good tomatoes, you know, but I
like grapes a lot. Hey, Jeff, thank you for that call.
I appreciate that you take care. Yeah, Southwest Fertilizer, he mentioned it,
and boy, you know they have that. In fact, I posted
something to Facebook about the bins. It's Southwest Fertilizer. For seed. You
know, you can buy seed in packets, and I do. Seed packets
are wonderful lots of very unusual things. But if you're looking for just an
economical way to buy seeds and you go to a place that has bins where
there's bulk seed and you just take a little scoop scoop them out, put
them in an envelope, that is the most economical waiting buy seeds period.
And you're not going to find the newest, latest, brand, new this
year varieties in bins. You're going to find the old standbys, which are
a good way to go, and Southwest Fertilizer has those. I've taken a
picture over there. It was visiting Bob the other day, and that's just
fun, that's just cool. It's a good way to do it. And
as with anything, you know, it's Southwest If they don't have it,
you don't need it, because they have it. They have everything fertilizers and
pests and disease control. They're about to get a lot of shipments in of
all kinds of new products. We're talking about some of the new things on
the market coming out this year. And so if you need things to control
best disease and weeds and whatnot, Bob's gonna have it. He's gonna have
the organic stuff, he's gonna have the synthetic stuff. He's got all of
it. There. Again, if they don't have it, you don't need
it. Southwest Fertilizer, by the way, for those of you who haven't
been, you need to go. It's we're driving across town just to see
the thing. But Southwest Fertilizer dot com. That's the website there on the
corner of Bissinet and Renwick and Renwick and Southwest Houston. Let's head now up
to Montgomery and we're gonna talk to Richard. Hello, Richard, good morning.
I hope you're doing well. Thank you. I've got a three three
roses and four doco roses in pots and if a new house, I want
to put those in the ground this year. Could you tell me how I
do it? What location you played? Question? Man? And good sunlight.
Those are the two most important things, sunlight being even more important sunlight.
Roses need sun to really be beautiful. The more they lack, the
more shade you move them toward, the less blooms you're going to have.
And then drainage, building up a raised bed. If the area doesn't rain
well, and boy, today'd be a good day. Go outside and look,
I mean if you've got standing water, that there's your queue because it's
been raining like crazy. And so a good rose mix, you can get
a quality quality rose mix. You're up there, you know, in the
Montgomery area, you're not that far away from nature's way resources and they have
they were the ones that created roase soil. They can deliver it out to
you or you can go buy and pick up bags of it. But a
good quality, a good quality rose mix to grow them in and sunlight,
that's the key. How big are the containers and how long have they been
in them? The true roses have been in them probably three years and they're
ten gallon containers. Okay, then knockle roses there one year? Okay,
Well just move them right from the container, and Richard, I'd do it
now. Right now. In garden centers, they're bringing in bare root roses.
They just they hardly have, you know, just big old stubbed off
roots on them. That's how bare root roses are. And they'll hit the
ground and they'll get roots down and they'll do well. So if you're going
to pull these out of containers, you got some circling roots, you want
to cut them and everything, get them ready. You can do that and
it won't hurt them. And then you put them in the ground. Maybe
do a little top pruning on them. If you've got some small branches,
twiggy broken branches, you know whatever, do that and then get them in
the ground. Do the any pruning you're gonna do. Water them in really
well, and you should be off to a good start. Do you trim
the roots in the pots of all when you take the pot sauce? I
do. I don't like circling roots going around and circles in a pot,
and so I'll cut those and remove them. And again it's not going to
hurt him, because like I said, there are roots. There are bare
root roses coming in that have much less roots than you're going to have even
if you prune your roots and so your trees or rose bushes, the tree
form in the bush form are both going to be fine. Okay. Would
you put any potty soil into the hole before you put no, I wouldn't.
I would try to improve the soil in a large area. So let's
say you don't have a bed mix that you're growing them in. Put some
down and spade or rototail or mix it into the bed area and then dig
the hole, put the rose in and use the soil you dug out of
the hole to go back in. Don't just dig a hole, because then
it's an underground bathtub and you put potting soil in it and it just begins.
When it rains too much, it's going to start decomposing without oxygen,
and that is a nasty mess. Okay, very good, all right,
sir, Thank you, Thank you, sir. Yes, I appreciate your
call. Let's see we're going to go to Cypress now and talk to John.
Hello, John, good morning, sir. How are you. I'm
doing well? Thank you? Hey, I heard you guys touch on planting
potatoes. Yes, And I ran across these guys on the internet that are
planting potatoes and hay. Yes, in rate beds. Yes. And I've
been using a mushroom soil for my compost okay, and I thought about putting
that down and then planting the sprouts and then covering them with Hey, is
that correct? Yes, you can do that. So when when you put
a potato seed piece, we call it a seed piece, what it is
is a chunk of potato that you've cut. It's got an I or two
on it, and it's it's allowed to kind of the cut surfaces need time
to dry before you put them out there. Uh. And then when you
plant it, the roots go down and the stems come up, and the
potatoes come off of the stems. They're not like sweet potatoes that are roots.
And so you the more you pile up around that stem, whether it's
soil, whether it's hay, whether it's compost, you can do a lot
of things. The potatoes will grow in that, and then at harvest time
you will have a nice, clean potato that's not malformed because it's growing in
like a rocky soil or something. It's gonna be very very nice potato.
But you can use old spent hay just make sure that that hay is not
from a pasture where they use brush control in because that will see potatoes.
At the end of the season, I'll probably end up with a bed full
of nice green coastal Okay, well, well, if it's dry hay,
it should not survive. But we'll see. But anyway, Yeah, that's
a great way to do potatoes. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a try
and see what happens. And also you had mentioned to think about using a
long fertilizer on them. Yes, I do you mean there's fertilizer correct,
hier nitrogen, because because the goal is to grow shoots and leaves so that
you can make a lot of carbohydrates, which is what a potato is.
Hey, I've got twenty seconds before my break here, but John, thank
you for that call. Uh, and just just follow the guidelines. If
you go to Aggie Horticulture website Aggie Horticulture, there's a vegetable section and a
whole publication on how to grow potatoes. I'd encourage you. It's free,
you just go look at it or print it out. I'd encourage you to
go buy and do that. And again, thank you for the call.
Well, it's time for Nicky and the News. If you'd like to get
on the board with Josh, it's seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Welcome back to guard Line. We are glad you're listening in
today. We're tired of all kinds of things. Whatever's of interest to you
is actually what we talk about. You can give us a call. It
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And of course I
always bring some things I would like to talk about. Today. What I
want to talk about is trying things new. What's new? Maybe you've been
gardening for years. May we kind of get in a rut. You know,
you mow the lawn, you trim the shrubs, you plant the same
vegetables or flowers or whatever, and that's all fine, that's fun, But
what about something new? You're missing out. I'm telling you, I don't
care if you're growing one hundred different things, there's ten thousand things that you're
not growing that you could try. They just are. That's how it is
for gardening. Have you ever done a cut flower garden? That's a new
thing for a lot of people. It doesn't have to be a huge area
I could just be a small bed. I've got a little bed in my
garden that's on one side where we're going to be putting some brand new cuts.
I'm trying some new cut flowers this year in my garden. If you
want like the simplest, easiest in and out cut flower you can grow,
I would say it's probably zendias. Zennias grow fast, they're easy. You
can start them from transplant or you can just scatter seeds out there. They
do have their problems. They get a little pottery mildew, a little leaf
spot in things, but you know, they just live with it. You
don't really have to spraym or anything. And zennias are fast, they're easy,
they're easy to do. There's lots of other good cut flowers that you
can grow. I would encourage you to give that a try. Why not
try that this year? That would be a great, a great new thing
to try in your garden. But what are you going to try new?
Or what have you tried new in recent years that has become like your go
to now? You know, just a little bit ago, we're talking about
Jeff in Southwest Houston about a new green bean he knew to him the contender
being such a standard, and boy, I agree, that's an awesome,
awesome green bean and some other new things that he's tried. Fell in love
with the potting soil. He just tried some growing in some bags that he
sort of repurposed himself that wealth soiled to grow things in. You can try
all kinds of things. It's up to you. Listen. A garden is
your playground. A garden is your sandbox. A garden is your plant palette.
What do you want? What do you want to look at? You
can do that. We have rules in gardening. You know, there's a
color wheel where you're supposed to choose colors on opposite sides of the wheel,
or you can do what they call tertiary, which is like a triangle across
the wheel. Choose those three colors to put together. There's a lot of
rules, there's a lot of things. That's all fine. Those are good
guidelines, and yes they do help make things esthetically more pleasing. But it's
your garden. I've usted your whole backyard to be a zeny apache you could
do that. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's your yard. You can
do that. What do you want. What do you want to grow?
Look at that patio, you got chairs on it. Maybe you got a
little fire table. I don't know, chimney out there? Why not some
plants. Last year we added some new hanging black baskets around the edges of
a little overhang that we have a little kind of an arbor area out in
a sitting area. And boy, that was cool just hanging baskets. Or
it's a vast way to come in with some really nice color. So are
containers. By the way, what do you want to try that you haven't
tried before? I encourage you to do that. So I think that's fun.
It makes gardening fun. And listen, a lot of people are worried
about trying to garden because they're afraid they're going to fail. I don't know
how to do that. Well, it's probably not going to work. Everything
I plant dies. Don't think that way. Gardening is for experimenting. It's
for trying. Yes, get good advice, choose good plants. Go to
a mom and pop nursery that knows what they're talking about, so they can
sell you things that will grow here, and they can tell you how to
do it and when you if you have any problems, you can go in
and they'll help you with it. Give us a call on garden line.
Let's help you. Let's help you have success. Don't worry about failing.
Doctor J. C. Ralston. I believe he is the one that said
to be a good horticulture, she got to kill a lot of and that's
true. Don't be afraid of failing. When you fail, you learn from
it and you try again. And the analogy I use that dates me is
the etcha sketch. I like that analogy. When some of you who grew
up with etches sketches knew this a little thing. You have two knobs.
One goes up and down, one goes sideways, and you draw stuff.
And invariable, invariably, when you're trying to go left, you accidentally go
right and you mess up your sketch. What did you do? You hold
it upside down and you shake it and everything goes away and you get drawing
again. That's how it is. The gardening. Did stink bugs take over
your tomatoes last year and just really disappoint you? Okay, grow tomatoes again
this year. We're going to put some mesh netting over them. There's a
thing called garden mesh, and think of it as a window screen. But
that's very small squares and very soft like it's almost like a bed sheet soft
and you just it's super lightweight. Air goes through, light goes through.
You put it over your plan to let them go all the way to the
ground. Tomatoes do not need bees to pollinate them. They just moving in
the wind will pollinate them. And then lift it up when you want to
harvest, and you just create a screen ports keeps out stink bugs. That's
one example. One idea you learned from it. You got something new.
Talk to your friends, talk to your your neighbors at garden learn stuff.
Go to boy our nurseries and garden centers. They are having programs all the
time, educational programs and it's just learn, learn, learn, have fun,
meet people and try something new. That's what it's all about. I
wanted to just mention something about especially it's been a Sunday morning start off.
Hope has been around for a very very long time here in Houston, changing
lives. And for those of you who are compassionate, and I would say
that all of you have compassion and you want you want to help people that
are in need of help, but you want to help in a way that
makes a difference, not that's just something that helps for a day and then
it didn't do much else other than that. Star of Hope is that kind
of place people can come in. They have a place to live, they
have food, they have training. If they have substance abuse addictions, they
can get help with that. To break loose from that, they can get
job training, they can get back on their feet. And I could just
go on and on about all the ways that Star of Hope takes someone from
where they are and gives them the opportunity to change their lives. And there
are a hundred stories of real change that happened that change that person's lives,
I would say, almost more importantly, change the lives of their children and
a future for those kids who are in the situation for no fault of their
own. That's for sure. Star of Hope is so easy to do and
to help shmission dot org. Sohmission dot org. Go there and find out
the many ways that you can help, including monetarily and get you know,
it only takes what is it like two dollars and eighty cents for a meal.
It's Star of Hope mission very efficient. When you give them a dollar,
it's used well and it actually makes a difference in people's lives. That's
why I so strongly recommend that. By the way, if you'd like to
give us a call, our phone number is seven to one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Listen. If you're out in Kingwood, you've got Warren's and Kingwood Garden
Center right out there on your doorstep, and they are stocked up with all
the things you need to help your plants recover that just got hammered in the
freeze we had. As they begin to grow, you're going to want to
do things like drench an ocean harvest, drench over for microlife on those plant
roots, or maybe add a six two four, which is the green bag
of microlife on around the plants. Well, they out of Kingwood and Warren's
Garden Center, they've got that set up all ready to go. They're stocked
up and they're ready for you to get your plan that's going again. They've
got seeds for the spring garden. I was just talking about that, all
of them at Warren's Garden Center and Kingwood Garden Center out in the Kingwood area.
If you haven't been by there recently, you need to check it out
because there's always something cool and new going on there. We're going to take
a break right now. Our phone number again seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call. He'll get you on the
board and you'll be first when we come back. Welcome back to Garden Line.
We're glad you're here today, and we're talking about whatever you're interested in.
That's kind of how it works here. Of course, I've got my
topics I like to toss out there. But what's your question? Seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. We're going to talk to John.
John. Are you in Colorado or Colorado County? No, I'm I'm
at my Myerland home and I had a three removed and the stump ground down
and to the ground as far as I could go, and it's formed this
lovely maple syrup lake. Boy, that's not good. That's not no,
it's not so. What are some remedies or ideas? How big is the
area? How far across is it? It's six foot by ten foot.
Yeah, I think I would. I would bring soil in and bring it
up to the level of the soil where there isn't a lake around it.
Uh. Just just need to put anything, put anything in to neutralize the
tannins. No, don't worry about that. They'll decompose, uh and it'll
it won't last long that. That unfortunately, is just the case. And
also when you get organic matter decaying in in anaerobic conditions, sometimes you'll get
that kind of color too. But I would, I would bring the soil
level up. I think that's your real solution. I would mound it up
a little bit because it's going to settle more. How long ago did you
grind the stump? Uh? Two? We okay? Yeah? Yeah,
So when you when you put this in, don't just make it level.
Mound it a little bit there because it will settle down kind of like you
know, if you ever dug a trench and filled it with soil and then
later it was sunken in you know, as you're still settled, and that's
what's going to happen, is that how long before I put a citrus in
in the very same spot do it? I would, you know, there's
no rush in getting a citrus out there. Once it warms up, you
can plant a citrus. So I would give it if you could. Let's
just say today you got all the soil in there and leveled it out.
I would say probably about a month from now then you would you would probably
have some of the settling going on, especially as if you kind of tamping
it down, a little bit of settling in so it's going to continue to
settle over time. So I still would have that mound, and with the
citrus, even more reason to have the mound, because if it's sunk down
and it still was a low spot, that citrus would be really unhappy in
what you're describing right there. Yeah, I had orange that I set too
low, and the orange is just I talked to Randy about this years ago.
The oranges just had this funny smell to the juice. Oh okay,
Well, create a mound. I might even go you know, since that
area is prone to standing water, you could even have a mound that goes
up, you know, ten inches high above the soil around it, or
twelve. And there was the tree mound was up about sixteen inches. Okay,
yeah, so I mean we tear us down so the machine could get
as low as possible. But it was a really big live Okay, well,
I'm sorry you lost that tree. That sounded like a good one,
but I would Yeah, And you could also put in the soil to level
it out, considering you're going higher than level for now, and then you
could put a ring in around the ground and plant your put soil in it
and plant your ceterrus in that. That could bring it up another foot.
And that way, when you're mowing around it and weed eating, you know
you're staying away from that ceterus. Thank you much, sir, Thank you
John. Good luck with that. Appreciate that call very much for sure.
Yeah, and you know, when you're looking for a quality mix like that,
I know John's down, You're done. South. I should have mentioned
this Genrele you're on the phone. But Ciena Maltch is down there north of
Rose Sharon. They're on FM five twenty one near where Highway six and two
eighty eight come together, South Houston, and they have all kinds of things
that yes, they do have soil blends, they've got compost blends, they've
got multch blends, and they do delivery within about twenty miles of their location
down there. It's ninety six fifteen FM five twenty one. Or do this.
Just go to the website Sienna Mulch and when you're there, you're going
to find the fertilizers that I recommend on garden line. You're going to find
products to control weeds and diseases and insects and other things. Cienamltch just keeps
everything in stock so for all of you down through that whole region near Brasispin
State Park. You know, Meridian, Pomona, Manville, Iowa, Colony,
Quil Valley, Riverstone, all those areas down there, Paarland, Cienamulch,
cinamultch dot com. That's where you're going to find it. And they
carry again a wide variety of things moltz, soil, compost, sand,
gravel stone, it's all there at CNMLS. I love to go visit there
that It's just always fun. They I'm always impressed with the rocks too.
This year I think I'm going to add a rock patio area outside my patio.
And this is not like concrete. This is just stone that is set
down in a decomposed granite kind of base and get the stones out there,
just to have a hard scale area where we can do some additional things outside.
Let's head out now to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Bruce.
Hello, Bruce, how are you there? Thanks for taking the call here.
Hey, I've got i'd call them pot bellied Mexican ceramic type pots about
putting half high and foot and half wide. They belly out in the middle.
Yes, And I don't know what's been in those for years, Probably
a lot of potty soil, don't know anything about it. I thought I
need to clear that out and start fresh, and I'd like to get some
dreams started in there. Yeah, and looking for what I ought to put
in those, the hole was quite a bit of soil. Whatever you put
it would have drains at the bottom. So do you think they hold about
five five gallons soiled? What do you mean by quite a bit? Well,
they're foot and a half high and the foot and a half across,
belly out in the middle, we would hold close to gallons. Yeah.
Well, uh, the folks at Airloom have something called the works. It's
a potting soil that you could put in there with a pot that size.
Sorry, what was the name of that place you just mentioned. Oh,
Heirloom is the company that produces that out in Porter. But the bags of
potting soil are sold all over up there in Cyprus. You're going to find
them. You got a couple of great two or three great Ace Hardware stores.
Langham Creek's far from there, the one up on Jones Road. There's
an M and D up a little further north than that. There are lots
of good Ace hardware is just go to Ace Hardware dot com you can find
them. But they carry those soils. Isloom the name of the body soil.
It's the name of the company. The specific soil that I was first
saying was called the works and it's a potting soil by Heirloom. They also
make something called a veggie and irbex that you know. I know it says
veggie and herb, but you could even mix it in a little bit too,
especially when you're getting a large volume of soil like that, because you
kind of you're going from a little container of potting soil to a large tiner.
You know that's going to have a little bit more chunkier mission. You
put just all potting soil that one type in here? Do you put any
I just know, just use that potting soil. You want every square inch
of that pot to have stuff the roots to live in. That's important.
Now, uh, pig geraniums look good to me. Do you have to
buy plants or do you start those from seeds? How do you get would
I would just go, I would just go buy the plants. You're up
close, you could. You're not far away from Arborgate and plants for all
seasons, and they will have a wonderful selection of geraniums that do really really
well for you. Just just go and very good tip for me. I
appreciate the information. All right, thank you very much. I appreciate your
call very much. By the way, when you're doing any of these kind
of plantings, you want to get you some Medina plus and Medina seaweed because
you're going to drench it in around the plants when you plant them, and
then as the as they begin to grow, you're going to spray the seaweed
on the foliage. Medina products a lot of them out there, But that's
what we've been telling people about the way for freeze recovery and given those plants
a boost. That's certainly putting in new geraniums that John was talking about.
I would highly recommend that Medina Plus and Medina seaweed a good combination. I'll
tell about more Medina products if we go through the spring that they have a
really good, good selection. Well, you're listening to garden Line. We're
about to take a break for the news at the top of the hour.
Our theme today is try something new. What have you tried new that you
just found outstanding and now it's become a staple part of Haya garden. Is
it a plant, is it a technique of gardening? Is it a particular
variety or a particular type of soil, or you name it. We want
to hear about it, and we'll be right back at seven one three,
two, one two, five eight seven four katrh Garden. It does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to
Katy r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's just watch him as so many good
things to supposing. Welcome back to guard Line. We're glad you have tuned
in today. We're going to give you some inspiration that that is one of
my goals on garden line is to encourage you to try things in gardening and
to enjoy your garden. Gardening is not rocket science. It is It is
not something that only the talented and elite can do. It is not something
that only people with green thumbs can do. Gardening is simple. It is
life science and their principles. Sunshines on leaves and makes carbohydrates and fuels everything
that happens in a plant. Roots take up water and nutrients, but need
oxygen in order to thrive. Soil is the most important thing you do to
have success in gardening, making the best soil. You can see what I'm
talking about. It's really not that difficult. And we can help you do
that. And I want you to be encouraged. I don't want you to
feel like, you know, I can't grow things. Other people go you
can grow things. I promise you you can't. Let's help you do that.
We're going to start off by going out to Conroe and talking to Jim.
Hello, Jim, Hello, Skip, could you hear me? Yes,
sir? Okay, Hey, yeah, I had that shutgun leaf disease
on my peach this year and it just kind of decimated it. Okay,
wondering if it's worth saving or if I can go do something now to spray
it with either a copper fund a side or something. Yes, what that's
called is that's called shothole, and it is a fungus that for those who
are not familiar with it, it causes spots on your peach leaves and as
the leaf moves around in the wind, those spots have dried and they fall
out and it looks like you shot a leave with a shotgun, as you
know, Jim, And that is a fungus. And copper sprays are one
way we control it, but we put them on before the peach starts to
grow, so you're applying them to the dormant tree. If you will contact
your Montgomery County Extension office, talk to the master gardeners or Michael Potter,
the horticulture agent there, they can get you pointed to a publication on the
Homeowner's Guide to peach spraying. It kind of tells you what to use and
when. And one of those is dealing with that fungus by putting on a
dormant copper spray and so that as the buds are coming out. The particular
problem that's a ocurring. It takes care of them and it minimizes them.
Some varieties are really bad about that disease. The old Sam Houston peach is
really prone to that problem, But in general it's it's mainly something that's a
nuisance and not a big deal. Now, if your tree is just hammered
by it and struggling, I would think about maybe doing a little extra fertilizing
and getting a little more vigor in the tree so that it kind of outgrows
the problem. You know, you're going to lose some spots here and there,
but overall you're building a lot of good, healthy foliage and it sort
of overcomes the problem. You there, did I lose Jim? Okay,
yes, I got some backwash here. I had white flies all over my
hearty at biscus this year, and it just kind of beat them up really
bad. I was wondering ifre's anything I do to prevent it this year.
There's not a great prevention. Here's the deal on white flies. When we
go after them with insecticides, we kill things that keep white flies in check,
and then it becomes us and our spray wand versus the white flies,
and we're having a spray and spray and spray to try to stay ahead of
them. I would instead try to do this the white flies that they create
eggs underneath the leaf with little pupa that form underneath the leaf, and they
look like a little tiny fish scales if you will. They're a little round,
but they're like stuck to the top of the leaf. Round and flat,
as if you had a fish scale that was dried on the leaf.
But the size of like a little lowercase typed zero. I'm very small.
I'm sorry, I say no. Can you hear me? Can you hear
me? Yes? I can hear you. Okay. So what I would
do is I would get horticultural oil and insecticidal soap those kind of spray and
spray them upward from under the plant to coat the bottom of the leaf and
try to use that as your management technique and realize that the natural enemies will
come in and bring the white flies under control. But you got to not
use the I don't want to say toxic, but the poison type insecticide.
You know, the oil and soap smother and they dissolve waxy coatings and things
they don't poison, And so they're going to be the safest thing to use
to try to get them under control. But it's going to be a process
and they won't always be as bad as they are now, Okay, well,
appreciate it all right, Thank you, Jim. I appreciate that.
I appreciate your call very much. Let's go out to Greg now and northwest
Eastern Hey, Greg? Hello? Greg? Yes, sir? Can you
hear me? Yes, sir? Okay, sorry, I set the phone
down. Well, ago, I caught a little bit of a lecture you
gave. I think it was when you weren't getting so many calls on how
you like to use some variety of hose to weed a garden, and uh,
it just sounded like a sharp idea that you know, the concept I've
been following for a while has been, you know, using a trowel and
digging up the weeds. So I got the roots and uh uh, you
know, with a knee pad and just working my way around. But it's
so time consuming that seems like by the time I get to one end,
the others have already started spouting weeds again. So yeah, uh, what
you mentioned sounded a whole lot more efficient. But I just want to understand
strategy a little better, right, So if you could refer me to where
you where you did that before, and I could look it up, or
I'll just I'll just there are people that didn't hear it, and I'll just
say it again so people can can hear that. I grew up with the
old standard type of garden hoe. It's someone if you say picture of garden
ho it's what everybody pictures. And those, yeah, a flat edge at
a ninety degree angle to the handle, And so those are great for moving
soil, like if you're healing up your potatoes, are good for chopping out
big weeds that are already an established big weed, getting it out of the
ground. But they're not the kind of hoe that I use now. I
mean, I have some, and I'll use them for those purposes. But
the key to making weeding easier with a hoe is to get a hoe that
has a more Let's see, it's designed to slice just under the soil surface
horizontally. So imagine this flat, sharp blade that you're skimming like a half
inch under the soil surface horizontally, and you're severing the roots, but you're
not turning new soil over to bring new seeds to the surface and just start
the process again. And the one I like best is called a diamond,
and it's like a real long, narrow diamond. It's about four or five
inch maybe five inches or so wide across and about maybe an inch and a
half two inches maybe two inches deep, and all four sides are sharp.
It's got those corner points. And when you're using it, instead of chopping
like you picture the regular hoe where you're bent over chopping, this one,
you're standing up and it's almost like you're almost like you're either sweeping or mopping
kind of thing with it. It's like you're sliding it under the surface and
you don't stoop to use it, and you can get all around. It's
very precision, and again it doesn't disturb the swid a lot. But you
got to do that before the weeds are big, because once you've got a
really thick, strong, woody stemmed weed, you're not gonna be able to
chop it. Greg, I'm going to need to take a break here.
Let me finish that, sent that answer when we come back. Just hang
on sure, all right. Our phone number is seven three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Hello, and welcome to garden Line. We're glad
you're listening. I'm your host, Skip Richter. And right now we are
on the phone with Greg talking about some of the more advanced type of garden
hoe. So what we were talking about is the diamond hoe, Greg,
and I like it because I'm standing up straight instead of holding the like a
hoe shovel, where I don't know how to describe this, where your thumbs
are pointing down toward the handle, toward the hoe, your thumbs are pointing
upward toward the end of the handle, and it's like you would hold a
broom to sweep, and you're just kind of you're going through there and doing
some some brushing through like that. It works really well when when they're small.
The most important thing though, for weed control is to have a mulch
on the soil. So the minute you get through chopping out the weeds,
I like to refer to it as almost brushing them out the way you're using
the hoe, then you throw a mulch over the surface. Because if the
sunlight hits the soil, weeds we'll come back up. We're going to have
new seeds coming in, and that dis plagues you to more work. Do
you use a pre emergent before the molt or on top of the molt.
I wouldn't use a pre emergent if I'm using a mulch. Is this a
vegetable garden or what are we talking about? If it's flower garden, flower
garden. There are some pre emergents that you can use. Here's the problem.
You can't disturb the soil after you use a pre emergent because it creates
like a barrier, a force field if you will over the top of the
soil that stops weeds from coming through. But when you want to go in
later and plant weeds or flower seeds like zendias or something, it'll stop them
from growing too. So I generally don't use a pre emergent in flower beds.
If you were going to get it all planted and everything and then put
a pre emergent down, that would be fine. But I just think it's
better to mulch because there's other reasons to mulch. You prevent soil from crusting,
from washing away, from splashing on your plants, and if you just
put enough to block the sunlight and don't let the soil surface receive sunlight.
All the weed sieeds you've got them under control. Now. Perennial weed like
nut grass or bermuda grass, Yeah, that'll come through mulch, but weed
seeds won't. Hi, I'm with you. What dimensions on that diamond holl
Oh? I don't know, you know, I think it's about five inches
across and maybe a couple of inches high. We're Europe in northwest Houston.
Well, either the Langham Creek or Jones Road where the hardwarees I might go
to, or yeah, you know, they they may well have it.
I have not looked for that particular hoe there. I didn't think about that,
but I would talk to them and see see what they have it.
Do you have a different place you directly on? Well, I'm trying to
think of where I saw. I saw some at Southwest Fertilizer, which is
you know, down Bissonett and Runwick Way south of you. I don't know
where else they carry them, but diamond. Do this first, go online,
do a search for diamond hoe and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Then you know what you're looking for. You just want to keep it
sharp. But if you've if you've got an area of soil that you're trying
to keep weed free. It's just easy because I don't know, if you've
used a regular hoe very long, your back starts to hurt from that stooping.
Yes, and I would much rather stand up right and do it.
And it works good. And there's there's also versions of it on a little
handle, so if you're on your hands and knees and you just you know,
kind of just brushing through there, cleaning it all out, it works
really well for that. All right, Okay, I'll give it a try.
Thanks, sir. I appreciate that call very much. Our phone number
is seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Give us a call. We'll talk
about the things that interest You've ran by our c of you nurse the other
day just to you know, stop in, say hi, check on things
going there, and they're stocked up on all the things you need to deal
with the cold that we just had. Do you need you know, do
you need some of that ocean harvest, You need some hummates to put down?
Do you need to buy some frostcloth for the next freezer? Frost that
shows up. It's always good to have it on hand because listen, when
when freezes and frosts are forecast, that is not the time to be out
trying to find supplies while everybody else is out trying to find supplies. Boy,
do they ever have roses at RCW. By the way, for those
of you who don't know RCW, that's the nursery where Tombol Parkway, which
is Highway two forty nine comes into belt Way eight. It's right there,
real easy to get to, very very easy to get to. RCW Nursries
dot com. They're rose List. I think it's probably four or six pages
long, single space. I mean, it is a ton of roses.
And boy I was out and looking and they had to just containers and containers
of roses, all potted up and ready to go. If you are interested
in a good quality rose bush, or really any any of the woody ornamentals
you know, crape, myrtles and trees and whatnot. RCW Nursery grows their
own trees here locally and out in the oh gosh, Plantersville area, and
so they have a good selection and they plant things that you should plant here,
not things that don't belong here, so you can trust what they have
that it's going to do well here at RCW Nurseries. Go to RCW Nurseries
dot com. You can find out more. See what I'm talking about.
I always like to do that. You know I've been talking. I mentioned
that RCW had the Ocean Harvest. You know, Microlife has a lot of
different products that are helpful in our plants coming out of a freeze. The
Ocean Harvest is one. That's one that's a fish based material. We drench
it into the soil right now and get it down the root system. Put
down their green bag, which is what we think of as the lawn fertilizer,
but it's good for anything you're going to grow. Really, it's a
green bag. It's a six two four and that gives a longer term feeding,
you know. So it's the liquids are going to be available immediately.
They're not going to continue for weeks and weeks on, whereas the Microlife green
bag will and then you just come back a couple of weeks later do the
ocean harvest again to do it. But Microlife has a wide variety of products
are widely available. You can go to Microlifefertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com.
You can find out where you can get them and see all the different
ones. I was down at the Fort Bend the Brass Home and Garden Show
in Fort Benk County, and someone was asking me about fertilizing a blueberry and
zaleas and things, and Microlife has an acidic fertilizer too, for acid loving
plants. So I think this person actually had a camellia that they were wanted
to fertilize. But whatever you're needing, they're going to have a product for.
It makes it real easy, really easy to take care of. By
the way, all those plants you have out there that have been suffering from
the cold, people are continuing to ask me do I cut it back?
Do I cut it back? And there's two answers to it. My first
answer is what I do, and that is leave it alone. When new
growth starts, the plant will tell you how far back to prune it because
you'll see buds coming out. The second answer for the impatient folks out there
is take your thumbnail or a knife and scrape the edge of the bark back
and look for creamy white or green underneath, that's healthy. If it's paper
sack brown or a grayish brown, that's dead. And just go back a
little further and scrape again, and go back and just cut out deadwood.
Don't prune into living wood yet. Pruning is stimulating process. And if this
is an average year, we should have another frost freeze coming, and so
we want to be ready for that. So that's why I'm not recommending that
you prune it at this time. If you got little annuals and perennials,
it sort of melted into just a mush. If you can stand to accept
the ugly for a while, just leave it. That's a protective cover over
the crown of the plant. When we have our next freeze. If you
can't look at that, take it off, clean it out, but be
ready with some composts to put over as a mulch over the crown of that
plant to protect it again. For the same reason, you can just scratch
it back when the new growth begins, move it out of the way.
A little bit accomplist is always a good thing to have. Let's go now,
we're going to go to Liverpool and talk to Chuck. Chuck, are
you and where are you, Yes, sir, are you doing this morning?
I'm good? Where are you located? I am down here by CHOKULD
buy you Okay? How can we help? Yes, I'm trying to trigger
out a good avocado tree that we can possibly grow and maybe keep outside around
here. But last year i'd purchased two of them. One of them was
called the Grande and the other one was called a Poncho, and they supposedly
had good tolerance, and when we had that hard freeze, i'd put them
inside the garage. But there's some air got into I guess some air got
into it. And when we took that bit down and the teens that killed
them both better the hammer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Avocado is not
dependably hardy here, but we do have avocados that are hardier than most,
and that's what you were talking about, and those are good varieties. There
are a number of other good varieties that are so locally in the area that
have more heartiness than normal. But two things that they can't handle. One
is we're having mild weather and they're not getting slowed down and ready for cold,
and then we have a hard spell that hammers them. The second thing
is just getting flat too cold, and it just was way too cold.
It's way too cold. I mean, it's one thing if it's twenty five
degrees, you know, it's another thing if it's twenty or below. I
mean that none of them are going to be able to take that without severe
damage. But they should re sprout and you should be back in a tree.
You can select one of the sprouts to be the new trunk coming up
out of the base. Okay, So if it kills down and then it's
three sprouts back out of the base below the dirt, well, then you'd
have to regraft again, wouldn't you if it's a grafted one, And a
lot of them are yes, if it comes below. But here's what we
do. And I know this doesn't help you after the fact, but going
forward, when you have an avocado like that, or any plant that has
a graft that may be col susceptible, you want to mound up a big
old cone of soil around the base for the freezing nights, for the freezing
knights, and then pull it back. And what that does is it keeps
the stem just above the graft from completely being killed and it dies back to
the top of the mound, but then you still have a bud. That's
the desired variety, see what I'm saying. Yeah, don't leave those mounds.
Landscapers do that around town. They put mounds up because people think they're
aesthetic. That is a bad practice. But just for a week or so
during freezing weather, you can have a mound and then just pull it back
away from the trunk. Right, Okay, So any as far as a
particular one that you would recommend yourself, or just either one of the ones
that I had before, you know, the ones you had before, or
find there's some others. I'm trying to let me do this. If you
will go to Aggie Horticulture website Aggie Horticulture, there's when you get there,
there's a fruit and nuts section, and then there's a list of a bazillion
different fruit plants, and there's a whole publication just on avocado that gives you
a bunch of additional varieties. Let's do it that way. It's free and
print it. You can look at it. It's real easy to do.
But yeah, they're fun to grow. We just have to realize that.
Of course you're fore, you're far enough south that where you get away with
what a lot of other folks around here can't get away with. All right,
right, all right, well, thank you. I appreciate the call.
I'm gonna run to break here and turn it over to NICKI if you'd
like to give us a call five five seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. It helps when I give you the right number. We're
having a good time on the garden line, and we are glad you're listening,
and we're going to go straight to the calls. Right now. We're
going to head out to Cyprus and talk to Tigue. Hello, Tig,
Hello there, Skip. I have a lot of semi tropical perennials, and
I love them because they bloom most of the year. But in these hard
freezes, now four in a row, they die to the ground. You
know, you have to cut them to the ground. They come back.
But I think I want to mix in some things that will not die to
the ground. I just don't know what they are. You got any suggestions.
Oh, now, tell me a little bit more about what you're looking
for in a plant other than doesn't die the ground, something that flowers for
a long period of time. Okay, So most of the ones that I
have will flower. Some of them will flower literally all year and unless it
gets really cold. Okay, so you must have like esperanza yellow bells,
or the yep analia, yeah, Amelia, huh, Douranta there's another one.
Yep. They're wonderful. They're wonderful. Except yeah, so you're gonna
have to go to a shrub. And there are a number of different kinds
of shrubs. Uh, it just depends on you know, what you're looking
for. Probably evergreen would be a good one if you want to have something
that you can see all through the year. There are shrubs that they go
dormant and then they begin to bloom again and the like the spring. For
example, things like sparea will bloom in the spring with it's called bridal wreath
that has clusters of little tiny white flowers all up and down it. But
that's a spring bloomer, a spring only bloomer. Oleanders are going to carry
you through unless we have really bad cold where they can get killed back.
But it'll bloom in the summertime. Itex is a pretty large plant though,
but that's a summer bloomer. Also, that's not a little shrub. It
kind of depends on what you like, though. You know, in terms
of lots of blooms, I don't mind if they go dormant. I just
would rather not have to cut them to the ground. As much as I
do, I won't give up on what I've got. I just want to
mix something else in that doesn't require that. Yeah. Yeah, and this
is sun or shade. I didn't catch that if you said it mostly sun
mostly, some part part sun, part shade. Yeah. Oh boy,
I'm I'm drawing a blank right now. Coming up with other ideas off the
top of my head. Blooms Okay, well yeah, if there were more
of them, I probably would know them too. Yeah, well, they're
there. It's just there's only ten thousand plants in my brain right now.
The search function is not working my Google search on the brain. I've got
one of those hard drives too. Listen to have another question again. Earlier
today you were talking about putting a trellis on a west wall, which I
have, and I had some I had some shade there. It was becoming
problematic in terms of the closeness to the foundation, so I took those down.
And I want to I really want something that goes up for two stories,
and I'm I also want a vine that flowers because I like that but
won't freeze back. And I wanted to get your suggestions on that. Well,
well you're you're a mister challenging questions today for sure. So when you
want vines that go up like that, a lot of people will use.
Like the fig vine. You see that even on roadside overpass kind of walls
around Houston. That is pretty cul tender, though we've lost fig vine off
the side several times. Ivy is another one. The problem with ivy's are
that they are very kind of almost invasive. They'll grab onto your wood parts
and that's not good for the wood, the painted wood and stuff. But
that is an option that does that sort of thing. There are other vines
that I like, but they're not they don't always fill in as well,
like coral vine. I'm sorry, not coral vine. Oh my gosh,
I just went blank on it. It's one of them that I'm thinking about.
Is the native text and honeysuckles. Yeah, some scarlet honeysuckle. Yeah,
they're just not that vigorous. If you had something to grow on,
you could, but even get I don't think you're gonna get two stories out
of those. Crossvine is the one I was trying to think of. Yeah,
tangerine beauty, crossbine is the one I was trying to think of.
It's good. It tends to kind of run in a line rather than spread
out like an ivy would cover a wall. But crossbine is deciduous and then
it blooms beautifully in the spring. But it is a runner, and so
you, I don't know how up to a story high you're gonna you know,
control those vines and manage them and stuff. That's an option. There
are climbing roses that will do pretty good, but again you're going to have
to attach them to the trellis and there is some after pruning seasonally that you're
going to need to be doing to those. By the way, for a
flowering shrub rose roses beautiful. They have lots of shrub roses that are breed
disease resistant and they will bloom and bloom and bloom for you. That would
be another good option for you to consider. Good thought. Yeah, talk
to your where you are. You're in Cyprus, so you can go over
to RCW Nursery. They've got an excellent selection right where two forty nine comes
in to about way eight. They're not too fun. Do you like to
shop there? In? A rose selection is great? They have an unbelievable
I mean, and you've got a number of great nurseries up there with good
roses. But that that would be an option for you on the vine,
you know, without just taking up a lot of airtime for me trying to
think. Nothing is coming to mind else off the top of my head.
But I'll think about it. Maybe something comes to mind, I'll mention it.
All right, Okay, thanks a lot, all right, thank you
appreciate. I appreciate your call very much. Today's theme has been try something
new. What are some things that are new? Well, here's an idea.
Have you ever had purple Martin houses before? You know, purple Martins
are actually out there eating pests and they're a benefit to our gardens, and
plus they're really cool. They're beautiful. And you get a purple Martin house
up on a pole and they once they find it, they set up shop
and they'll be back. You'll have an year after year, and you can
go to a place like wild Birds. That's probably the best place I can
think I have to get a purple Martin house. It's the best place I
can think of to get a bird feeder or bird house of any kind and
bird seed of any kind. By the way, bluebirds if you especially if
you have a property where maybe there's like a little bit of a field or
an open area on the edge of the woods, that is bluebird heaven.
And if you put a little bluebird house up there, they're gonna find it.
And when they do, you have one of the most beautiful birds we
have here in this area right there. And wildbirds can get you fixed up
on that as well as the feeds like the super Blend I've been recommending very
important during the cool season to provide those birds, you know, some extra
protein and fats to sustain them through this season when it's kind of bleak out
there. Wilbirds will get you fixed up. There's a I think six wildbirds
all over town WBU dot com forward slash Houston, but WBU dot com forward
slash Houston to find of wildbirds near you. We're going to take a little
break here. When we come back, Jeanette and Seabrook, you'll be the
first up our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to garden Line. Glad you're listening today. The theme of
the day try something new. What are you going to try that's new,
something different, something you haven't tried before. You know, if you're up
in the Montgomery area, a place you can go to try something new is
Ana Plants and Produce. They have a wide variety of all kinds of plants,
and they have lots of bling for the landscape too. I mean,
maybe right now, you know a little cooler weather chiminea out there on the
patio. That'd be kind of cool. They have all kinds of things like
that, whether it's an iron trellis that you might want for the garden or
other things. Of course, they've got folks that know what they're talking about.
That's always helpful. That's why we like our Mama Pop Nursery share on
garden Line. They're open seven days a week from nine to five, so
today they're open up there in that area. Find something new that you haven't
done before. What do you need to decorate that patio? What kind of
plants you want? Do you want to do someone a hanging basket? Try
something new at A and A Plants and Produce up there in the Montgomery area.
They're on the east side of Montgomery, like you're heading toward Conroe,
just on the edge of town there. If you've been by that area,
if you live out among many like neighborhoods up around Lake Conroe, you already
know about A and A Plants and Produce. We're going to go now down
to Seabrook and talk to Jeanette. Hey, Jeanette, Hi, Hi.
We have just a recurring problem every year with our yard we have the leaves
are really really bad even though we treat them, and we want to know.
My husband has bought nitrofoss barricade and is ready to treat this weekend,
but we're wondering these treating according to a schedule, but we're wondering, if
we have a particularly bad problem, can we treat more often for a little
while. You don't want to do that, You don't want to do that.
I want to do that night. Flash barricade is a very good product
for preventing weed seeds from germinating. And when you put it down, you
follow the label uh, and that will do as good as it's going to
do. You can. If you doubled it up, you would not get
better weed control. You would you would be the potential for damaging other plants.
And you don't want to do that. That's true of an insecticide.
That's true fungicide, that's true of herbicides. The label's there for a reason,
and so go with the label. And that will do one hundred percent
of what you need it to do. Uh. And so with barricade,
you're gonna put it down. You're going to water it down just a little
bit, like a third of an inch half an inch of water just to
move it into the soil surface. That's all you got to do. Just
just get those granules to release the chemical down in the sole surface. When
the weed seeds try to germinate, it's already there and it'll shut them down.
Okay, And it's if we already have weeds out there, then is
there, you know, and we'll pull as much as we can. But
if they're already going to be producing seed, is the barricade going to prevent
those seeds from germinating? No? No, it's a pre emergent. So
is this in your lawn right? Yes? Okay, so there's a product.
I was talking about a product earlier that Nelson's puts out that is designed
for managing existing weeds, and it would be something you would put on.
Now those weeds you're seeing right now, those weeds are going to be blooming
and setting seed here in the next couple of months, and we have got
to stop that from happening, because once that happens, then you got a
problem and you're trying to kill It's too late. You've already killed the weeds,
have already made their seed. It's called turf star we Donator and it
star we Donator Donator, huh. And it's a fertilizer. And so you
put it down and you want your weeds to be wet, So turn on
the sprinkler just enough to get the surface of the weeds wet, and then
you put the weed nator down. It sticks to the weeds, and the
chemical moves in and kills existing weeds. Okay, you need with it.
No, not on this. No, it's granules that you put out,
and it again if the weeds have to be wet, because you want it
to stick to the weeds surfaces, and it moves down, it kills the
weeds and then the fertilizers there to feed over a period of time. It
has more than one kind of nutrient form of nitrogen, so it can over
a period of time it's continuing to feed. So that would be a good
option, and you know that that is what you would do for now.
The only other thing you might do for now would be to, you know,
just get a spray that you spray just to kill broadly feeds in your
lawn. That would be an option if you don't want to fertilize right now.
If you wanted to just spray, you could, you could go that
route. But the weed nator will do what I just messed. Okay,
So if we put down the barricade, would we also then use the turf
star at the same time, you could, because they're working in different ways.
Okay, but let's see, let me think about this. So what
I would do if you were going to do that, I'd put down the
barricade and then I'd water with about a third of an inch of irrigation to
move the barricade down in the soil surface. Then immediately put the terfinator out
the weed nader and make sure that it's sticking to those wet leaves. Therefore,
because you just watered and then just walk away, you've done it,
okay, and you've accomplished both that way okay. And the weed Nator.
Where can we find it? It's pretty widely available. So you are in
down in Seabrook area trying to think who might downe that. I would,
you know, if you can find an ACE Hardware pretty close, they're probably
going to have it. A lot of the ACE Hardware will carry things like
that, and I would call them and ask them if you go to Acehardware
dot com and do their store locator, that ought to do pretty good.
I don't know if Moss Nursery down there in Seabrook, Carrey's, Nelson's weed
Nator or not. They might, but I just don't know. I was
down there the other day and I just didn't check. But you know,
if you head in, you know, toward town just a little bit,
you've got M and D and Claire Lake on Bay Area Boulevard. That's an
ACE Hardware that's probably going to have it. The next close one to you
is going to be kill Gores down in League City on main Streeam. I
would try those two and see if they have it. There's plenty of other
aces around, but those are the two closest to you. Okay, great,
all right, thank you very much. Thank you appreciate that call very
much. You are listening to guard Line. Bye bye. You're listening to
guard Line, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. What do you
wanna talk about? Today's theme is try something new? What new have you
tried this year? What have you tried that you have not done before?
I would recommend that you consider that. How about sprucing up that patio and
making it a better place to enjoy just you know, we have a lot
of months of the year here that are just good to be outside, especially
if you got a little bit of a cover over it, maybe a vine
over the top, or a covering over the top of an area where you
have shade, and you get out there and enjoy it. You know,
a little barbecue pit going by the way. Summer is coming, barbecue season
is coming. So something to think about. Well, you've listened to another
hour of garden Line, another hour in the books. We are about to
take a break here for the top of the hour in the news, I
want to remind you of a couple of things. I should have mentioned this
just on the phone with Jeanette out there and seek. My lawn care schedules
are online if you go to Gardening with Skip, that's me gardeningwith Skip dot
com and that's my website, and the lawn care schedules are on there.
The first one lawn care schedule, fertilizing, organic and synthetic options, air
raiding, mowing, and watering. It tells you all about all of that.
Second one, the pest disease and weed management schedule. When do chinchbugs
occur here, wind soid webworms typically attack? When do you treat for grubs?
What diseases? What weeds? And when? What are organic options?
What are synthetic It's all on that sheet, simple as that. Kt RH
Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this
program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's just watch him
as work. Things not a side. Welcome back to garden Line. Welcome
back to garden Line. On a beautiful Sunday morning, take a look outside.
Oh my goodness, this is the day. Listen if you've got one
drop of gardening blood in it ought to be your heart ought to be beating
today because this is a This is a great day to get outside and do
things in the garden. Uh. This is also a good day for me
to talk about star Hope mission. You know, I've I've talked about Star
Hope many times. My wife and I have supported Starve Hope from way back
when because we believe in the mission of it. Star Hope brings hope.
They bring a chance for a new life, a spiritual training. They bring
for people that are just in a down and out situation, maybe for no
cause of their own, it doesn't matter why, people that need a new
hope. A mom living in a car with their kids, where do you
go from here? You know, handing them five bucks even going to change
their life, but bringing them in, providing housing, providing care for the
kids while mom learns a new job, skill providing helps with substance abuse,
providing whatever they need to get back on their feet. That's what Star Hope
does. They walk them through a process so that when you give a dollar
to Star Hope, it's a dollar that changes lives. It doesn't just feed
for a day, It changes a life. And that's what they're all about.
Go to sohmission dot org learn more about it, and I think you'll
agree with me that it is. It is money well spent. It is
putting your compassion to work in a very very meaningful way. I've been there.
I've seen the changes that occur, the stories of life, change that
change people, that change the future of their children, and that changes our
community to for the better. That's Star Star Hoop Mission. I want to
go out now to Tom and Cyprus. Hey, Tom, how are you
today? Morn and Skip? I just wanted to thank you for a new
idea that you gave me early last year about keeping the spring tomatoes through the
summer and growing on bigger in the fall, and so I did that.
I had never tried that before, and it struggled during the summer because it
was just a brutal summer and I originally had five tomatoes plants, and they
just started dying one at a time. I realized finally that the ones that
were dying first were the ones further to the south, which didn't get any
shade from a tree late in the afternoon, so I put a tarp up.
I just made a little shade so that that last surviving one would get
shade about maybe two or three hours earlier in the afternoon, and that seemed
enable it to pull through that hot, hot Augusta. Right, So that's
just an idea somebody else might be able to use, you know, if
one when summer like that and it's so hot, just give it a few
hours of shade late in the afternoon. And that that in this case made
the difference, and that that tomato plant turned into a monster. It was
like probably a six foot by six foot footprint, and I bet you I
got probably sixty seventy tomatoes out of it. Do you remember what kind of
it was? Off hand? That one I don't remember because i'd bought the
seedling from I think from D and D feed store, and uh, you
know, I planted in the spring then by fall. I don't remember what
kind it was. But anyway, so that was that was an interesting thing.
Maybe some other people could take that little hint. And then another one.
I had called you about my squashes in November, and I was worried
because they had too many buds. I don't know if you recall that,
but it was like acorn squashes, and there was a squash about every six
inches along the vine. I said, well, with that many, there's
no way they're going to grow full size, and you said, well,
don't worry about it. So yeah, sure enough. A lot of those
sort of self aborted when they're about as big as a walnut. They just
you know, turned yellow and then the stem just severed and they fell off.
Yeah. So I ended up with a few, so that all worked
out. Okay. Yeah, but that sometimes it just the pollination just doesn't
happen. It doesn't work. But that's good. So did you raise some
good acorns squash? Yeah? I had a pretty good I didn't plant the
seeds until like September twenty eighth, I think, which was kind of late,
but that was because of the heat. So some of them didn't get
as big as I wish they would. And that's what I was worried about
when I had so many little ones started all right, you know, there
wasn't going to be time. Yeah. Every year's new, every years different,
and every year's fun. That's good. I appreciate that information. Tom,
Thanks for kind of reporting back on that. Is that is true.
We got to be patient as gardeners because I tay you think you get things
figured out. You think I know how to grow it tomato, for example,
and then all of a sudden, this year nature throws you occur.
That can happen. That's all right, Hey, One thing I wanted to
mention to you talking about nutrients and things. I'm going to be really talking
a lot about fertilizing here and a little bit, but right now I want
to mention something and there's a little confusion about this, and that's azamite.
Azamite has nutrients, but don't think of it as a fertilizer, if that
would be helpful, because when I talk about fertilizing your lawn, we're talking
about putting out the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the thing that they
need the most of That helps, especially the nitrogen push new growth. But
they also need a lot of micros, a lot of trace minerals. Plants
in general need that that are essential. The plant could not grow without them,
and azemite provides that. And you can do that anytime of the year.
It doesn't have to be you know, at certain times when you would
do your other fertilizing. You can do it at anytime. You can do
it right now. Azmi I would also encourage you to think about using it
in your vegetable garden. You know, it doesn't take much. I mean,
it's really really simple. Ten pounds will cover a thousand square feet of
vegetable garden. That is simple, and you don't have to just over and
over and over and over and over do it just at least once a year.
Just get that down, put it down, work it under the soil,
and that way the produce you grow will be even more nutritious in terms
of having a lot of different minerals and things in it. Sometimes our soils
can get depleted and it just helps to always keep things beefed up. And
azemite is a good way. So you can go by doing that. We're
going to head out now to Kingwood and talk to Charles. Charles, I
got about a minute. We may get it done for a break here,
but let's see what we can do, okay, guy. Keeping with the
theme, I'm so tired of losing all my citrus to the freezes. I
wonder if you can give me some names on blueberries. The trees had a
neighbor in Pennsylvania who grew blueberry, so I take it the cold won't affect
them down here. I just wanted to know the brand name or whatever they're
called, the species or whatever. Okay, well, the common blueberry we
grow down here is called rabbit eye, the rabbit blueberry. And there's many
varieties of rabbit eye blueberries out there. Some common names or Woodard and Climax
and Premiere and tiff blue and things like that are all common rabbit eye names.
Not all of those varieties I just named, or for this far south
up down here, if we got down into the high teens and low twenties,
those will not be affected, correct, right. But any plant that
is living the life of riley in warm weather conditions and then suddenly has a
hard hard phrase is going to have big problems, even if it's a hardy
plant. So we can't control that weather change. But in general, we
don't worry about cold damage on our blueberries down here. How do they control
that up north? When you know it's cold six months out of the year,
they're they're blooming like crazy. He had trees out just you know,
well, yeah, yeah, it's the it's the the way the weather cools
off. Because we warm up so much in winter here, we can pull
plants kind of out of a dormancy and then a cold front hits and really
damages them. So thank you very much for the information. I'm going to
keep an eye off, I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna toss out a real
quick final thought and that is there's also Southern high Bush. So when you're
out there shopping Kingwood Garden Center, Warren Southern Gardens, ask them about Southern
high Bush. That's a different kind of blueberry, a bigger blotberry, a
smaller plant, a little more personicity on water quality. But it's a very
good one to choose too. And Charles, thank you, thank you very
much for that and for hanging on. We're going to take a break seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right back.
Welcome back to garden Line. We are talking about all kinds of things gardening
today, including the theme of the day. Try something new. What are
you going to try new? What have you never done before? Get out
of the rut man, I mean, we're talking about lots of opportunities to
grow all kinds of new things. What do you want to grow? What
do you want to try? Is there a new tool that you want to
get. There are some really cool tools out there. By the way,
if you've never done a soil knife, they call it a hoary hoary knife.
It's a very special large knife that goes in the soil that cuts roots,
it helps dig I use it for transplanting, you know, dig a
little hole for a transplant. It's just got a lot of uses, really
cool. I love those things. That's just an example one of the tools
that you might want to try out in the gardens. There's always a new
thing to try when it comes to gardening. That's the fun stuff. Always
something new. What do you want to try new? Hey, give us
a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Speaking of
trying some things new, have you been out to Ingended Forest? I was
just yesterday down at the Brasses Home and Garden Show and Intended Forest was there.
In fact, they are there. They're still there today visiting with Clay
about things going on out at the Enchanted Forest. And there's always stuff going
on. They got talks going on every weekend where you can learn stuff.
Did you know that they also do a gardening consultations as you come out,
like do you have questions about getting a bug identified, or what's the best
fertilizer, or I want to do a project, can you advise me on
that? Just visit their store. They've got knowledgeable staff that can help you
have a thriving garden. Maybe bring out some schematics. So here's my yard,
and here's some pictures of this stuff, and what would be a good
flower for here? Let them direct you to that. That's why we love
our mom and pop garden centers here on guard Line because that's the kind of
service you get, that's kind of knowledge you get. That's the kind of
insurance so that your gardening dollars equal success in the end. That's what we're
here for. That's why we're here on garden Line. As a matter of
fact, Hey, they got seeds out there. If you want to plant
some tomatoes and eggplant and peppers for transplants and all other kinds of airloom seeds.
They've got the equipment you needed, some trays, some starting mix for
your seeds. Do you want to plant seed potatoes in your garden this year?
And by the way, they're not seeds or potatoes. We cut them
into chunks with an ie or two on each chunk to start potatoes. Do
you want to grow some potatoes. They've got the red, they've got the
white, they've got the yellow. Out there, they've got the supplies.
You know, earlier I was talking about using the micro life ocean harvest as
a drench over plants to help them get started. They've got all of that
kind of thing. Your plants that were frozen back need a little boost.
When the weather begins to warm, they're going to begin to grow and they're
going to have to do a lot of regrowing of what they lost. And
the folks that enchended for us can get you all set up. You know,
they're easy to find. I love going out there. They enchanted in
the name is a good a good name for them because they really are an
enchanted place. But they're on FM twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're
in Richmond, Texas and you're going to head up, let's say Sugarlane direction,
they're oft the right FM twenty seven fifty nine in Chamton Forests. You
need to go visit them. And I tell you when when weather warms up
a bit more and the coast is clear to getting all those warm seasoned vegetables
and flowers out. They are going to have a stock that is like no
other ready to go for you to take home to your garden and chant it
forest. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. This is our
last hour of the weekend. We're here from six am to ten am on
Saturdays and on Sundays to answer your gardening questions. Well, we're in the
last almost the last half hour. Just a little bit here, we'll turn
the corner and be there, and so this is your chance to call in.
We usually see a lot of calls as we get toward the end of
the show because people think, oh, I forgot I was going to ask
this. Well, now's the time to remember. It gets a little bit
busier usually later on as we go uh okay, garden line quiz, same
oquiz every time. What is the most important thing to do to have success
with plants? And the answered? Ding? Ding, ding, Build the
soil, brown stuff before green stuff. That's the way it works. Once
you create a beautiful root zone where we've got nutrients and we've got good water
holding capacity, but excellent drainage of excess water where we've got the biological activity
that is what makes roots thrive. Where all that's happening, you drop a
plan in and it's going to hit the ground running on the way to success.
And that's why Airloom Soil makes the special blends that they make to help
you have success. For example, Airloom Soils, Rose Soil, Airloom Soils,
Vegetable and Herb Mix. I've got a bed raised, a planting bed
on rollers that I'm going to be filling with that vegetable and nerb mix.
I'm about to once I get off the radio and have some time to go
home and actually do gardening myself, I'm going to go do some of that
and get that radio leaf mold compost. There's another one they produce. They
got plenty of that on hand. They sell about the bag. A lot
of these products you can get purchased by bulk if you want to have them
delivered. There's different options there. You just have to contact them. Go
to Airloomsoilsoftexas dot com, Heirloomsoilsftexas dot com. There you're going to find a
calculator so you know exactly like in my case, to fill that bed,
how much soil do I need? Use a calculator. It'll tell you exactly
what you need. And where do I buy heirloom soils? Go to the
website. I want to make a bulk order. Go to the website.
Find out there's plenty of good stuff out there. They just are all set
up for helping you have success by giving you that foundation brown stuff that comes
before the green stuff. If you want pretty green stuff, you need to
get quality brown stuff. There's another one. Maybe I'll trademark that if you
want pretty green stuff, you got to have quality brown stuff. That's another
good way to think about it. It is something that I do harp on,
and it's because you know, it's easy for people to get excited about.
Like if I told you there's this new tomato and it's wonderful and you
got to have it, you know everybody's running. I got to have that
tomato. If I told you that there's this hibiscus and the flowers are bigger
than a dinner plate and it blooms and blooms, everybody wants that. But
both the tomato and the hibiscus have got to have quality soil. In order
to do what they can do. Otherwise they're not they're not going to do
well. And so that's why we've got to have good brown stuff, quality
brown stuff in order to have the beautiful, productive, bountiful and in the
case of a vegetable garden, tasty green stuff that we want to have.
Hey, I want to remind you that we are in the big middle of
pruning season. Now's the time to get your dormant pruning done. Those deciduous
trees that are dormant, even like oak trees that are not deciduous, if
they need some pruning, now is the time to get it done. And
the place I would tell you to go is Affordable Tree Service Martin spoon More
Affordable Tree Service. We're talking about a place with thirty years of experience.
They've been a garden line supporter for a long time UH and gardenline listeners know
that they have good results. When they talk to Martin, he comes out,
he's knowledgeable. You need to call him and get on the schedule.
Though he stays busy. That's what happens when you treat your customers right and
you do a good job and you know what you're doing. You're going to
be busy. That's a good thing. Tell him you're a gardenline listener,
so you go to the front of the line when you tell him that it's
seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six
nine nine two six six three. Or go to afftree Service dot com.
Afftree Service dot com. Anything you're going to do around a tree, don't
do it until you talk to Martin. Do you need to do trenching?
You can do a lot of damage that way if you don't take certain steps
to protect your trees. Do you need pruning done? Don't let the guy
that drove up with a pickup of chains on a business card touch your trees.
Someone needs to know what they're doing, or the damage is forever on
a tree. They never recover from a really bad pruning job and a driver
on all day looking at the hat racks where someone thought they were getting a
good deal, well they weren't. Affordable Tree Service aff tree Service dot com.
I'm going to go out now to West Houston and talk to Lynn.
Hello, Lynn, Hi, how are you? I'm good? How are
you? I'm good? And I'm really really good because I managed to my
husband and I managed to save our one year old potted lemon tree that survived
last year's freeze, all right, and I did it a new way.
He went up to home depot and got me some C nine clear incandescent Christmas
tree and we wound those lights through the tree. It's about three feet tall
and three feet wide, and we covered it with a barbecue cover real good,
and put those lights on and left them on for four days. And
lordy, that tree, it just looks so happy now. I am so
thrilled. That's good. And I had never tried that before, and you
know, it was on one of my Facebook groups and I thought, darn
it, I don't want to lose that tree. So anybody who wants to
try that, I'd say go for it. It does work, you know.
C nine is one of the incandescent lights. A lot of our Christmas
lights, for those of you listening to this call, a lot of our
Christmas lights are LEDs and they don't put out hardy any heat at all.
CE night is like a light bulb, like the little hunter WoT bulb,
sixty WoT bub you put in your house in the lamp well SEA nine's or
that kind of Christmas light and they do produce heat. And like Lynn was
saying, you string them all through the tree and you got all these little
tiny heat sources all through that canopy. It works. And Lynn, you're
proofing and proofn Free is covered with blossoms right now, it is. And
you know what one extra thing, you may get a lemon one, you
may get a lemon. Well life, well, when life gives you cold
weather gets C nine bulbs and you'll get lemons that. I don't think that's
how that goes, right, but anyway, Yeah, and plus the best
part of all is now your neighbors have one other thing to talk about.
You know, Mildred Lynn has got Christmas lights. It's after Christmas. She's
hanging them outdoors. What's she's lost it? That's right. I love your
show. Thanks, thank you so much. Thanks for Colin. I appreciate
that. Hey, it's time for a break. It's time for Nicky in
the news. Our phone number if you'd like to give Josh a call seven
one three two one two five eight seven four, or I should tell you
this seven one three two one two kat r H Bunny You'll be first up
when we come back. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're answering gardening questions today at the phone number seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. We're going to about to Spring, Texas and talk to
Bonnie. Now, Hello Bonnie. Hi Skip. I have a question about
sweet peas. I've been trying to go them like three years now, I
guess, and each year I started a little bit earlier. And I think
I first started like in May, and then I screwed it up the time
to start the seeds. Anyway, I'm thinking, is it time now to
start seeds for sweet peas. I haven't been able to get a blossom yet.
Oh yeah, you got it. You got to start early, early,
early, much earlier than May. You can plant them now. You
can do that, but I want to tell you next year, next year,
in the fall, go ahead and plant some and be ready to protect
them when we have a hard freeze. But I have found that planting sweet
peas in the fall gives you a better plant coming out into spring that actually
will even be better in terms of bloom production. But other than that,
yes, now is a good time to get those sweet peas in the ground.
I would soak them overnight in some warm water and give them even a
faster head start, and then get them out there ready to go. Does
it help to put them in the little like hex kit slots plants the seeds
and keep them inside for a while, or would it be better to put
it outside right away? I have always direct seed of mine outside, but
this year I started. I have two flats full of little sweet peas.
They're up. They're probably about three inches high right now, and I'm about
to put those out in the garden. But again, yes, if we
do have a nineteen degree day, we got a problem to cover them up.
But they're pretty cold hearty and they'll go through the winter just fine for
most of our conditions here. All right, sounds good, and I'll certainly
try again. All right, Bunny, enjoy those They are a wonderful flower
to grow. I love them. Thanks absolutely, all right, By bye.
We're going to now go to Montgomery and we're going to talk to Jen.
Hello, Jen, Hi jiff I. Last week a guy called in
and he was going to put down some kind of turf something or another,
and you said to wait until the rain was through some kind of a turf
builder or something like that. Okay, what was the name of it.
I don't know which one he was he was talking about. I would not
have been recommending something called turf builder. That's a different company thing that we
can go into details on any of They have a number of products, but
I don't have those on my list to recommend it at all. Okay,
but no, but it was something. It was something you recommended, so
maybe it wasn't terf. Well, here's the thing. If you put a
fertilizer out and it's going to release fairly quickly, then it's going to wash
away in all the spring rains before the grass is growing enough to actually take
it up, and so we don't want to do that. The other thing
is if you put there are products that if we're going to get a lot
of rain, they'll just literally wash off the lawn, you know, if
you're going to like we just had gully washers of rain inches and inches and
so you spend money on something, you put it out and then when you
have water sheeting across the lawn in this like flow, it can carry it
off site. And we don't want to do that. The thing we could
be doing now is with the pre emergent products getting them down. But with
those you just want a little bit of water, because all you want to
do is dissolve the particle and have it move into the surface of the soil,
just the top half inch of soil. That's where it does its work.
And so again you get this gully washer rain and you may not have
that turnout like you want it. Plus some of those, especially when people
overapply them, you get them washed down in the root system of trees.
You can have some problems from that as well. So I don't recommend putting
those down before a heavy rain. Okay, So the bottom line is right
now, I should not be putting any kind of fertilizer down in my yard
to get rid of weeds and all that stuff. The only exception to that
would be if you have a fertilizer that is going to relate, that has
the chemistries and where it will release gradually over time different kinds of nitrogen,
some release faster than others. Then you could put it down now and again
aside from fourteen inches of rain, you put it down now and it would
be releasing not all right now, but as the weather warms up, you're
going to get more and more of it releasing to the lawn. That would
be okay, but it's early to be doing our primary fertilizing for lawns.
If you don't, if you don't have the chemistries that can release over time,
well then I guess that must have heard it wrong, because I know
he was going to put it down, and then you said, don't wait
till next week, Yeah, which should do this week. So maybe it
wasn't. Maybe I'm just here not hearing it right, but I yeah,
the deficit in the details, Yeah, the deficit details Ghent. We have
a lot of different products that I talk about here. There's organic, there's
synthetic, there's fast release or slow release, and it just kind of depends
on the details. But primarily what I would have been talking about, and
I don't remember the exact call you're referring to, but is probably the fact
that we're about to get gully washer reins and we don't need to be doing
anything right ahead of that, all right, So I don't need to panic
and stop and pick anything up right now. No, although you've probably heard
me say more than once this weekend that if you're out shopping and you see
stuff you're going to want to do, go ahead and get it, because
then it's there and who knows where the opportunity arises. You've already got it,
you're ready to go. It's only going to be a month or two
or three however long until you do what you're going to do. And so
we're good, gotcha, Okay, well then I will. I will do
that, Thank you so much, all right, Jen, thank you a
lot. And by the way, Jen, if you haven't been online to
my website to get my schedules, you should do that because they're free up
there. It's gardening with Skip dot Com and all the kinds of questions you're
asking are going to be on that schedule. Oh, gardening with skip dot
com. That's the website. Okay, okay, I'll do that, thank
you, And that's where I add all kinds of new stuff that I'm creating.
I'm about to put something up that's about how to test your soil.
So anyway, okay, Well, I listened to you on my way to
church every Sunday, all right, and some of it it was kind of
a so I miss and so I don't so I need to think, all
right, garthing schedule. All right, thank you you bet and remember too,
and I'm saying this because you just said it, but anytime that you
want to listen to a past show, you can go listen on a podcast,
the iHeart Podcast for Garden's Success, So you can listen to that at
eleven o'clock tonight or on Wednesday morning at four if you want, if you
want to listen, it's always available there so you can always do that.
Great, all right, thank you, all right, thank you very much.
We're going to take a break the number of seven one three, two
one two fifty eight seventy four. When we come back, Paul and Crosby,
you will be the very first up. Welcome back to Garden Line.
We are glad you're listening, and we're about to wind things up here in
the next fifteen minutes. This weekend sure has been good day. Lots of
good things to talk about today. We're going to start off by going back
out now to Crosby to talk to Paul. Hello, Paul, Hi,
how are you doing well? Sir? That I live in Crosby on the
lake and uh, I don't know if you'd heard the lake went up pretty
high. Yeah. Anyways, I have five trees that were underwater, truit
trees that were underwater. Is there, I mean, are they gone?
Do I need to anything I can do to them to help them? No.
One was a peach, one was an apple, one was a citrus.
Okay, uh no, you don't, you don't. There's not much
you can do. You want to get the water out of the soil is
what it needs. So anything that helps drainage would help. But they can
put us well as the lake goes down. I mean, I think today
they will be out of the water. Some of them were out of the
water last night, but today they should all be out of the water.
Yeah yeah, that ought to be okay. But even if you don't see
water on the surface, there's water down below. Okay. Oh yeah yeah,
And so that's the thing with the roots can't get oxygen, then then
you have the problem, you know, with the water. So I would
that would be all that that. I would say, you know, a
week of water, they're probably not going to die from that ongoing soggy conditions.
You got problems now, It'll probably be just another day or two that
it should be. They should be okay. Well, yeah, as long
as four days isn't isn't too bad. That's that's about. Well, that
that's I think you. I think you're gonna be okay, so property and
have make my own compost. There you go. There you go very tricks
to that or making your yeah, uh to making your own compost. No,
it's just a matter of when you have brown stuff and when you have
green stuff and you put it together, that means there's nitrogen and there's carbon,
and that race got a good ratio mix. There they will compost faster
and you will get the job done. It works really well, so I
would, I would just you can go online if you want a real simple
version. If you go online and search for composting for kids and put my
name Skip Richter in there, I have a little online It was a slide
set at one time, but now you can go through the pictures and steps
of the basics of composting. I did it for kids, but it's the
information's good for anyone. Sunday Sunday, All right, sir, thank you
a pleasure. Yes, Sarah, you take care of good luck with those
drownding trees out there. Let's go to Jersey Village. Now we're going to
talk to Walter. Hey, Walter Hice skip, How you doing well?
Thank you well. I have a question about composting truly, as they have
a section in the back that has an oak tree and I just let the
leaves straw and is there Do they have too much tannin in the leaves to
compost them and then use them as a soil amendment. No, not at
all. Here's the thing. A lot of oak trees, an extreme example
would be live oaks. They've got a real kind of a waxy coating over
the leaf and that slows decomposition, but they still will decompose. Everything that
was once alive that hits the ground is going to rot back into the soil,
animals and plants included. Now, if you want to speed the composting,
you can break those leaves up. You can run over them with the
lawnmower, you can run them through a shredder. Anything that breaks the leaves
up creates more surface for the microbes to break them down, and so that
speeds it up. But just keeping it moist is the best thing. You
know. The forest floor has no special mixes and stuff for composting. It
just drops leaves, and it drops more leaves on top of them, and
the leaves underneath that stay wet start to decompose, and it's a real slow
gradual decomposition. But it ends up the same thing as if you put it
in a bin, mix it up, add nitrogen stuff and speed it up.
It all ends up the same, right. But I've read that there
are some trees that have stuff in their leaves and things that kind of suppresses
competing trees. Okay, yes, yes, yes, that's a concept.
It's called a lie lopathy, and what it basically means is one play creates
a herbicide to stop other plants, and that happens in a number of things.
Black walnut, the roots give off something called jew gloone, jewloone and
jew gloone. Not every plant is bothered by it. Grasses aren't, but
tomatoes and beans and grapevines are all troubled by jew gloone. So, but
that's produced by those I wouldn't worry about any of that when it comes to
a compost. When you go through the process of a compost and breaking down,
you're going to be okay, okay, I was just wondering about the
oaks because acorns and stuff I have a lot of Yeah, they do.
That's a good point, and they do. But just remember that in nature,
their entire forests covered with oak leaves and acorns, and plant life goes
on just fine. So it's it's okay, no sweat. Yeah, Hey,
thanks for the call. Good questions, Walter, I really appreciate that.
Very good. Wow, we're running out of our day here. This
has been too much fun. Let's just go back and do it again.
Listen, if you need supplies on anything to make a beautiful garden and a
bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape, Ace Hardware's got you covered. I mean,
we've been talking today about pre emergent and post emergent fertilizers. They've got
them at ACE. When you hear me mention a fertilizer for your lawn or
for your garden, they've got it at ACE. A's amie, they've got
it at ACE. They've got it all there, tools and supplies, everything
you need. Did you have some coal damage and maybe some plumbing you need
repaired? They got that. Got a sprinkler had been run over and broken,
and you got to get it fixed. You'll know it when you turn
the system on. By the way, Ace Hardware's got you set up for
anything you need to repair your sprinklers. They just absolutely have everything you need
and they're everywhere forty Ace Hardware stores in the Greater Houston area. Go to
Ace Hardware dot com. Acehardware dot com. They have a store locator if
you want to do the whole website. It's Acehardware dot Com slash store dash
locator. But you can find it and you can find the ones in near
your I'm sitting you're looking a map right now. They are all over Houston,
easy to find Ace Hardware and when you walk in, you're gonna have
knowledgeable folks there and you're gonna have the supplies you need to do everything in
the garden, and that includes decorating outside too. By the way, I
need a nice sweet barbecue it. I don't know if my wife is listening,
but there's this thing called the big Green egg at Ace Hardware's. They
have them there. They have all kinds of quality, wonderful supplies for barbecue
and an outdoor living and strings of lights to make that outdoor seating area so
beautiful. It just when you think about needing anything indoor, outdoor, in
the home. Ace Hardware's going to have you covered. That is what makes
it so much fun to go by and visit ACE Hardware's all over the Greater
Houston area. Well, believe it or not, they're win another show.
I mean, we just I don't know. Time flies when you're having fun,
they say. Okay, I guess they say, And so we're here
having fun today. By the way, happy again as we started the show,
Happy Daisy Day. January twenty eighth is National Daisy Day. By the
way, Tomorrow for those of you who like carnations, is National Carnation Day.
And my favorite January holiday is National Seed Swap Day on January the thirtieth.
What would that be? That would be Tuesday? Am I doing my
math right there? National Seed Swap Day. It's always fun, you know
when you collect your own seeds and share them with friends and stuff, and
I don't know, it's just a kind of another fun way. It's another
part of a social activity that is one of the many social things that makes
gardening so much fun. For those of you who are interested in vegetables,
do not forget the Fort Ben Regional Vegetable Conference Thursday, February eighth at the
Fort ben County Fairgrounds on Highway thirty six North Forty. Bucks gets you a
full day of training plus law. I don't know how they do that,
but anyway, if you want to find out more, go to the website
for the Extension Office. It's Fortbend dot agra life A g R I L
I f E dot org. There you can register. You can find out
about all the classes, like there's gonna be something a mushroom garden building,
better Soils Irrigation be and honey production. I mean, oh my gosh,
lots of good cool stuff at that event.