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 many give things the super basics. Well,
good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening to garden Line because we
got a lot to talk about today. I bet you got some questions if
you'd like to call in. Our phone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Uh yeah, I got to tell you up
front the earlier this week, I was dealing with some respiratory things, and
whenever I do that, I have this lingering, a little tiny nagging cough
that when I talk it just rex avoc. So if you hear some silent
periods, it's because I've had to mute so you don't have to listen to
me cough. But Colin anyway, we're looking forward to talking to you today
and we're going to find a way to get through this foreshore. You know,
the fall season, as we've talked about in the last few weeks,
it's here. We are enjoying wonderful weather. This week has got some excellent
weather coming the last time I glanced at the news in terms of the weather
news, it looked like we might be getting a little bit of rain later
in the upcoming week, and that just reminds me of something. October is
the most important month of the year for your lawn. It really is for
a number of reasons. It's when our cool season, weeds sprout. And
if you've got a lawn where sunlight gets through due to a thin lawn or
just dead areas from this summer, you're going to see weeds sprouting in those
areas, and we need to take care of those weeds and prevent them until
we can get our lawn really dense and thick. And you know, we
have a lot of different kinds of approaches to gardening. Some people organic,
some people don't really have a preference one way or another. And so when
you're going out, whether you're organic or not, the goal is to minimize
the amount of times you have to spray a bug or treat a disease or
things like that, and so things like building a dense, healthy lawn are
really critical, really critical. And if you go online to my website,
it's Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. The Lawn
Care Schedule is there and it tells you how much or how to fertilize in
terms of what time of the year and the products that you are able to
get I think the best results from. Also there's the lawn Pest Disease and
Weed Management Schedule that talks about lot pests, diseases, and weeds in the
lawn and gives you timing and product suggestions for that as well. And I
would encourage you to do that, to go check those out because that is
really important. With the rain coming later this week and we got some milder
temperatures, now we're getting close to starting to see those big brown circles in
the yard from brown patch, and you definitely want to get ahead of it.
If you're going to do a treatment for it, then you have to
do it, or you best should do it before the circles appear. If
they appear, you can shut down additional circles showing up. But those ugly
brown circles just keep there in the lawn all through the winter time until spring
green up comes back again. So it's important to do things timely. It's
time to fertilize, absolutely, time to fertilize and if you are going to
prevent those diseases, well, then that's something you need to do. Now.
A lot of lawns don't see brown patch every year. The way we
care for our lawn can predispose it to those big bronze circles or can help
the lawn to avoid those problems. And so cultural care is just critical.
I'll talk about that a little bit more as we go through the day,
but I think you need to just keep that in mind because it is a
very very important thing, you know. I think I've told you before that
I love backyard birds, and I didn't always I wouldn't always a bird person,
but I've really discovered that when you go out in the morning and hear
the songs of birds, or just watch their antics, or the beautiful colors
of some of the birds that come, and definitely the songs of the birds,
it enhances your garden. And while Birds Unlimited has everything that you need
for birds, I want you to be very aware of this that from now
through October sixteenth, which is almost no time away, they are giving a
deal where you bring in an old feeder or a part of a feeder,
or a broken feeder and you can trade it in to get twenty percent off
a new feeder. Do you have two you want to bring in, bring
them in twenty percent off both buying two new feeders. There's seven Wallbirds stores
bel Air, clear Lake, Cypress, Memorial, up in Parland and or
down in Paarland, Katie and Kingwood. They're all there. It's easywbu dot
com, Forward Slash Houston. We'll find you your local Wallbirds store. Don't
miss out. And I'm talking about any kind of feeder, any kind of
feeder they have, it's going to be available on this deal. Uh.
You are listening to garden Line. Our number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I'm going to head out to sugar Land now
and talk to Mike. Hello Mike, good morning, Skip, thanks for
taking my call. You bat Hey, good question I've gotten And you actually
touched on this in your introduction. The question I have relates to I believe
it's take all patch I've got. It's the segment of the lawn that is
between the sidewalk and the street. It's a patch of about five feet by
fifteen feet. But initially it started out as about the size of basketball,
and then all summer long, I just watched it continue to expand and grow,
even though I put down some anti fungus, and most of the fungus
products anti fungus products I looked at said that they were preventative and they would
also work as a cure. I've never had a good experience with it ever,
curing fungus. Once it starts, it's like you have to wait until
the next spring. So that's kind of where I'm at. And that's my
question to you. Is the winter weather the spring, is that something that
just pretty much resolves the fungus issue and then probably put out a good preventative
product to keep the fungus at bay. Well, that is a that's a
broad you know, a broad question really. And by the way, we've
got about forty five seconds where I have to go to a break. But
let me give you the quick answer. First of all, if you would
like to send me some photos of that, I'm going to put you on
hold at the end of this and you can talk to Josh and find out
how to send me some good photos from different angles. And let's make sure
we're talking about what we think we are. You don't want to use a
fungr side if the problem's an insect for example, or drought damage or whatever.
But the bottom line is if it's takeof rot the prime times to treat
or in the spring or yeah, in the spring, that's very important,
and then of course in the fall you can do that as well. Those
are two times of infection. So let's look at those photos to be sure.
And then if you go to my schedule on gardening with Skip dot com,
you can see exactly the product's organic synthetic approaches. Both trying to deal
with this disease. I'm gonna have to run to the break bomb. We'll
put you on hold and I look forward to seeing your pictures. You're listening
to garden Line. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four, and we'll be right back. Well, welcome to garden Line.
We are looking forward to talking to you today, and if you'd like
to give us a call and ask a question, our phone number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. You know, if you
need any kind of supplies for your lawn, I'm tucking fertilizers. If you're
dealing with weeds or diseases or insects. ACE Hardware's got you covered. You
know. There's thirty nine of them here in the Greater Houston area, so
it's not our to find one near you. By the way, I'm going
to be at an ACE Hardware today after the show up in Magnolia, Texas.
I if you're anywhere up there, are you going to drive from somewhere
else? I would love to meet you. Please come. Let's talk about
whatever is of interest. Maybe you want to bring us sample in, put
it in a plastic bag and bring it in. Perhaps there's some photo that
you can take of your landscape. You want to bring those in and ask
some questions. That's why I'm there. We'll be given away nitroposs fertilizers Texas
three step. We're going to do that several times through the course of the
time. From eleven thirty to one thirty. They're gonna have some food going
on. There's some outdoor barbecue cooking going on out there, and they're gonna
have food available. It's just gonna be a good time. And that is
the Ace Hardware story Magnia. It's called All Star ACE Hardware in magnoill you
hope you can make it. But you know, wherever you live in this
whole area, Ace Hardware has got you covered. I was thinking earlier about,
you know, the different things going on with our plants this time of
the year, and I'm gonna talk about that a little bit in just a
moment. But fall is a time. It's really a unique time for our
plants. It's an important time. It's a time when we can really help
our plants, but it's also a time we want to watch out for certain
kinds of pests and problems that we might have. So example, fall is
the time when our lawns are getting ready for winter. And I know we
don't have much of a winter here, but still there's a period of time
where our lawns just really shut down and they don't go fully dormant. We
have our warm, seasoned turf grasses will continue to grow if temperatures and soil
temperature especially is right, but they need that rejuvenation time. The most important
fertilization of the year is the fall one. And here's why our number one,
especially this year, our lawns have been through one brutal summer and they
need to get some leaves up in the sun make carbohydrates to get ready for
winter. And the way they do that is by a proper fall fertilization with
a product that especially has that third number potassium and a little lower nitrogen.
So why do we do that in the fall, because in spring and summer
we've been talking about higher nitrogen, Well, we're bringing the nitrogen down because
we don't want to invigorate the lawn to grow because that kind of situation high
nitrogen push it along, get some water on it or rainfall. Brown patch
goes crazy in those kind of conditions, and we're not trying to get the
lawn in a succulent growth state. We're trying to help it produce carbohydrates.
And so we put the right nutrition down, it's able to prepare itself for
winter and come out in spring. Spring. The early initial spring growth is
based on your fall fertilization, meaning it's based on what the lawn went into
winter with. And so if you can strengthen your lawn now, it comes
out stronger in the spring, and it's just overall better, much much better
to do the fall fertilization. The diseases I was talking about the big large
patch circles or brown We now used to always call it brown patch, and
now I'm caught between the two. I know the new name, but I
also know you all know the old name, and so I'm going to keep
using the old name just because that way we communicate better. But those circles
are aggravated when we over water and when we overfertilize, and plus they show
up better in a nice green lawn. But seriously, moderate fertilization is important.
You need a little bit of nitrogen, but you don't want to overdo
it. That is the key to that. And it's so easy to take
care of a lawn when you follow a simple schedule and you do things on
time, and you do things with products that are let's say, made for
the purpose you're putting them down. So let's think of it this way.
Not every insecticide kills every insect, not every fung aside kills every disease.
If you go the doctor and you are ill, you know there's just not
one medicine that fixes everything you might walk in with. And that's why with
my lawn schedule, I've specified some things that are helpful. I've also specified
and this is important for those of you who are want to garden organically,
the proper nutrition and the other things we do that help that lawn grow and
become dense and strong, because our goal in lawn care is not to play
whack a mole with weed pests and diseases. You know, where one pops
up over here, we do it and the one pops up over Our goal
is to get that long, strong, healthy, and dense and minimize the
times that we have to fight those pests of the lawn. And getting in
that mindset is very important, and that's why the lawn care schedule on gardeningwith
Skip dot Com is the starting point. If you want to know how do
I deal with weeds, mow, water, and fertilize, right, that's
number one. Now we have all kinds of good products that will control weeds
before they sprout up and establish and after they're up. But the first step
is cultural always same thing with diseases. Don't predispose your lawn or and for
that matter, any of your plants to stresses and you minimize it. Didn't
mean you never get a disease, but it just means you lessen the number
that you have. If you would like to give us a call. Our
phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four.
I want to talk a little bit about fall planting. Fall is the best
time of the year for a lot of different kinds of plants. In fact,
it's a good time for pretty much every kind of plant you're going to
water plant vegetables and flowers and shrubs, trees, vines, everything like that,
but especially for woody ornamentals. Fall is an important time to do that.
And for example, this is a time when a lot of the folks
around town that are our best plant purveyors are bringing in some quality plants that
are adapted to here, and so don't miss this window. For example,
the Arbrogate they've got a shipment of old roses in, so you're think about
plane in an old garden rose. Arborgate has got a brand new shipment in.
They also have a shipment of heirloom bulbs. Now there are a lot
of bulbs, and you see them in catalogs, you know, the tulips
and the highest than the crocus and things. They just don't do well here.
We call them one shot wonders. You plan them. They look good
the first time, but they don't replenish and become a perennial bulb for you.
But the kind that they're carrying now at Arburgate from Southern Bulb Company.
Those guys, those are top rated. They are They have been proven for
decades if not more here in Texas, and it absolutely makes sure that that
investment. You're going to go buy that bulb at Arburgate, you put it
in the ground and you're gonna get year after year after year of dividends in
the form of flowers on those kinds of bulbs. You know. The Arburgate
dot COM's the website, their location if you haven't been out there one and
a half miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine to twenty out in
Tomball, And while you're out there, grab a bag of each of their
one two three completely easy system. That's an organic food, an organic soil
material, a very well blended soil, by the way, and then an
organic compost, again a blend, and both the soil and the compost also
throw in a little expanded shale, which is important. But if you are
thinking about planting bulbs, this is the season and go there and get those
quality bulbs that are proven here in Texas. That's only kind that the Southern
bulb folks carry are produced, and they're just so so good. Year after
you. I was driving past a home place the other day or the other
day. It was actually a couple of years ago, and the place had
been abandoned, I don't know, looked like decades ago, and here here
were these bulbs popping up out of the parched earth with the fall rain.
That's the kind of bulbs you want abb sobolutely when you're out fertilizing your lawn.
Don't forget. Also, if you haven't applied asmite this year. As
mite is a trace mineral product. It's not you know, the nitrogen phos
first potassium that we put on as fertilizers, but it is nutrient and it's
essential nutrients. And you can go to azimite Texas dot com. But after
you do your fertilization, get that same hopper, change the setting for the
asamite and go to town and get that down because it will also help build
that soil. And remember, it's cultural first, and as mite can provide
that same kind of thing. We are we're in the season where you know
we've been in the hurricane season where we always watching for a storm to come
through. But you know, it doesn't take a storm to have power problems
at your house. I mean, our grid isn't always reliable. A lot
of things can happen, and maybe you're on a trip and you know,
power goes down and all that food and the freezer and the refrigerator is lost.
Well, a generic generator from Quality Home Products of Texas. It's Quality
t X dot com. That's the website. It is the way to go
because they set it up. It's a generator that comes on when the power
goes off. You don't have to worry about it. If you're not here,
that's okay. But why do I mention Quality Home Products because their reputation
in the community and their customers attest to this with fourteen thousand and five star
reviews. They take care of you. They make sure you get the right
generator. Do you how big of a generator do you need? Do you
want to protect everything? Do you want to just you take care of a
certain certain items that need to make sure power is going on to They can
do that. They've won the Better Business Bureaus Pinnacle Award the most prestigious Customer
Service Award they do seven times Quality tx dot Com. When you go with
quality, you get quality. A generat generator from Quality Products of Texas,
Quality Home Products of Texas. Make sure that not only do you get the
right generator that's set up right, that you also have something that's going to
give you years of service. Again, really really important. Our phone number
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give us a call.
We can talk to you about whatever you're interested in. We're talking about
plants and plant health and plant care and whatnot this morning. It's it's really
important when we get into the fall season to get these kinds of plants I've
been talking about planted because of the root system. Do you remember this past
summer that you'd do Any plant that was planted within the last year was especially
hard hit because it just doesn't have the root system. So we want to
give our plants every possible week that we can of getting established, getting established,
getting a root system established so when tough times come, they're more or
resilient. And fall planting does that. If you're thinking about a tree,
if you're thinking about a shrub, if you're thinking about a woody vine or
a perennial any of those fall. Planting is the head start that they need.
And so I can't recommend it enough to you. If you've been thinking
about planting anything like that, now's the time to get it done. And
we got some great providers of those kinds of products all over the Greater Houston
area. And when you plant now, your plants in spring are going to
be our next summer are going to be way ahead of a plant that you
planted, let's say at the end of spring. Well, it's time for
us to take a break. If you'd like to get on the boards our
phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four sign for the
Nicky News Network. Well, good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening
to Garden Line. I hope you and all your neighbors are as well.
In fact, if you look next door and the lights aren't on, go
bang on the door and tell them they're missing garden Line. They will rise
up and call you blessed. Maybe in time. In time, you know,
I was just talking about before we went in to break the importance of
planting things like woody ornamentals. Now it's not just woodies, it's annuals and
perennials and on and on down the line ornamental grasses, but woodies especially they
need time to get established and RCW Nursery is going to make it easy for
you. They are doing a fifteen percent discount on all trees, on all
trees to spruce up your outdoor space. So if in RCW they grow their
own trees up there in Plantersville, and they have a wide variety of the
best varieties or best species for our area. So there you go, fifteen
percent discount on all of their trees. Now you are familiar with our CW.
They're the nursery where two forty nine we call it Tomball Parkway comes into
belt Way eight. Easy to find them easy. If you want more information,
just go online r CW Nurseries dot com and why year out there listen.
They are having every weekend in October they're having a fall celebration where there's
funning games for the family. They have these little photo things set up where
you can set the kids up with a fall arrangement, or maybe maybe you
want to just get there and have someone to take your picture. They got
refreshments and snacks and everything. It's they call it the Autumn Extravaganza, and
that's exactly what it is. Just another reason to head out there to the
RCW. We're going to head down to the phones and talk to David.
Good morning, David, Well, good morning, sir. You might have
just answered my question in your advertisement. I used to have a real nice
now I think it was called a Myer's lemon tree, and that thing it
put out the best, fattest, sweetest lemons and great lemonade and everything,
and I lost it to the hard freeze we had a couple of years ago.
When is the best time to plant one? Uh, you know,
you can plant those pretty much in the time of the year, but you
could plant them now. You just want to make sure this first winter.
Should we have one of those really rough times that you get that you get
to cover over that thing to protect it because it's in the process of establishing
and things. A lot of times I'll plant those also in spring when when
we come out of winter. But either way is going to be okay with
that lemon tree. And you're right, Mari, lemon is a great one.
It does so well here alrighty have a good day. Yeah, you
bet. Are you up in the Tomball area? I am. You were
talking about RCW. I know exactly where it's at, and I'm I'm on
two forty nine now I'll pass it in about a mile. All right,
Well check them out and see what they got. All right, appreciate it
the call, you bet, Thank you. Appreciate that very much. If
you live in downtown Houston area or north central, especially Quality Feed and Garden
Center, that that is your hometown feed store. And we love home on
feed stores here on garden Line. We love the service that the place is
like Quality Feed provide, and boy do they ever provide service. When you
walk in there, Ken or Chris or they're going to greet you, They're
going to take you right to the product. And they have an unbelievable supply.
I was just looking on their social medias a couple of weeks ago and
just at the all the fertilizers I talk about are right there at Quality Feed.
You know, all the different things that you might need for your lawn
and other plants to control past or diseases or weeds or whatever. They got
it right there. They got antique seed rack that is really cool. But
their seed stock of airlooms is about as good as you're going to find anywhere.
So if you're thinking about doing some fall gardening, some winter gardening,
some spring gardening, let them set you up. They also carry the great
products for building your soil, which is so critical. If you're going to
plant a flower bed, make sure you take care of your soul first before
you put the flowers in. They can take care of you like that Equality
Feed. They're on eighteen thirteen Louzon Street, so that's near the intersection of
Equipment and Alesion. They're open today from nine to four, Tomorrow from eleven
thirty to four, and Monday through Friday nine am just six pm. If
you've got chickens, boyd. They get chickens in regularly. If you ever
thought about doing backyard chickens Quality feed, just give them a call and check
it out. See when the next shipment is coming in. They'll get you
set up with not only the chicks, but also for the feed and all
of the equipment you're like a feeder, a waterer or something like that.
They've got it all. Just go check it out. You'll see what I'm
talking about. Love that place I've had a number of questions come in about
something called dove weed. It's a little weed that kind of looks like Saint
Augustine a little bit, and if your area is wet, if it's shady,
if it's especially wet, this dove weed just takes off and it's a
pain to try to get rid of. And so I'm going to answer a
whole lot of questions here that have come in with one and that is the
doveweed is best prevented with a pre emergent product to keep it from coming up.
But in a post emergent way. There is actually a cinnamon based products
from Agrillon and it is basically it is cinnamon and you sprinkle it on it
and it doesn't hurt your grass. But these weeds, in fact, more
than just doveweed. The weeds take it up and it just burns the weeds,
I mean just like you fried them with a flamethrower and it works really
well. And so it's a way to kind of get back on, you
know, ahead of things, so you're Saint Augustine has the time to be
able to come back in and try to fill in against this weed because it's
a pain in the neck, and a lot of people have been complaining about
it. And remember I keep saying cultural first. Cultural first, Well,
if you keep your lawn too wet, number one, you're wasting water,
wasting money in the process. But doveweed, Virginia button weed, they're the
dollar weed. Those three love wet soil, and you're just making them happy
by creating that kind of condition. Your lawn does not need that much water.
It needs water, it needs moisture, it needs moist soil. But
the what are you the soil is and some of it may be out of
your control from rainfall or the lay of the land where water tends to gather.
But anything you can do culturally to help that grass be strong and to
avoid making these three weeds happy is going to be time well spent. And
that way the battle you have to try to deal with these weeds is much
easier. Just remember the premiers is probably the best way to start with those.
But don't forget that cinnamon based product. I've been amazed at how well
that works in the times that I've seen it. If you'd like to be
on guarden line, ask a question seven one three two one two five A
seven four seven, one, three, two and two fifty eight seventy four.
As I mentioned earlier on I Am I'm dealing with the leftovers of being
sick earlier this week, some respiratory stuff, and I you know, I
don't know if you're this way, but when I am going through something like
that, I can get well and for five days afterwards. I'm dealing with
this little nagging cough. That's just they're tickling enough to irritate you and make
you try to cough at it to fix it, and it it's an annoying
thing, and I'm doing the best I can today to try to avoid that.
But if you hear a little quiet spot, it's because I needed to
pull away for a minute, and you guys don't want to listen to me
cough on the air. I'm sure. Well, it's time for another break,
so we're going ahead and take a break now. We'll be back with
the phones a little bit later. Number is seven one three, two one
two five eight seven four. Well, good Saturday morning. We are glad
you're listening this morning. We're talking about a lot of things regarding lawns and
gardens and the importance of the month of October. Especially for your lawns,
but for really the whole landscape there. There's just this is this is a
great month. Number one. We're glad that we're through with all that heat.
Right. You know, I've talked about the importance of fertilizing your lawn
with the proper kind of fertilizers, and Nelson Plant Food provides that. You
know, Nelson's has been around. I think it was forty years ago October
fourteenth, nineteen eighty three. That's when Nelson Plant Food opened its doors for
business. And since then they have just created one line after another, one
excellent type of fertilizer after another. You know, They've got their Turf Star
line, their Nutra Star line, their Color Star line, Nature Star line.
But since its fall and it's lawn time, I want to recommend that
you consider their carbo Load. It's a ten ten twenty. I've got it
in a must schedule if you are, if you're one of the folks it's
been to the website with skip dot com and you look at the schedule and
you're looking at fall fertilization, right there is carboload. Carbload also includes a
pre emergent herbicide. But I want you to especially note this for this fall
fertilization season. Every time you buy a bag of carbo load, d Nelson
and Nelson folks are going to donate two dollars to Randy's memorial scholarship Randy Lemon,
the host of Garden Line for the past twenty six or seven years.
To what a good cause. It goes to helping a horticulture student at Texas
A and M and I know Randy would love that. So if you're ever
going to buy a bag of that carbo load, now is the time to
do it, because this is the time to put it down, and you
need to do that soon because it has a pre emergent and you want to
get ahead of the weeds too. But also it's a great cause. Two
dollars a bag, and let's really load that up and make sure a significant
contribution goes up there for Randy's scholar memorial. Skill show great costs. We're
going to head out now to sugar Land and talk to Mike. Hello,
Mike, Good morning, Skip, good morning. I have love you show.
I have two Boogavilia's. They're in pots in the front of my home
and I need to know when when to bring those in from the winter,
whether and how to keep them, you know, during the winter time when
it's cold. So what do you what do you suggest how low can the
temperatures go? And then all I have is a garage storage area, so
I don't know how long they go without sunshine, yes, sir, okay,
Mike. The the the answer to that is a fuzzy one. And
here here's why I'm saying that the condition of the plant, whether it's in
a container of large size or small size, or you know, whatever condition
the plant is in is a big thing. Booga and beas can take a
little bit of cold and it doesn't just automatically kill the whole plant. But
I would say, if you're going to get down, you know, anywhere
close to freezing, I would just let's be safe. Those are valuable plants
and just go ahead and break it in, get it in a garage.
If you can give it some light, you know, if it's in a
pot and you can roll it out in the driveway or whatever you know,
during the day and let it have some light. As long as it has
foliage on it, then go ahead and do that through the cool season.
It just helps keep it you know strong, you can hold back a little
bit on the moisture. Don't let it stay very very dry for long,
but you can hold back a little bit on the moisture. And while it's
in the storage, and it should be in good shape for you when you
bring it back out next spring. I just wouldn't gamble, you know,
in the cold. Yeah, so I have it in large pots and it's
got potted soil. So soil is excellent for it. Matter of fact,
Yeah, it's getting too large. The branches are beginning to kind of take
over. Okay, I'm going to eventually have to prune it back, so
you should. When should I do that? Well, I hate to prune.
Printing is a stimulating process. I don't think in the middle of winter
pruning is gonna make shoots up here. But we try not to stimulate plants
to grow right before we go into really cold weather. But since you're bringing
it in, you need to prune it to make it easier to get it
inside. You can pull those those branches up and time together, you know,
just to make the plant not so wide. But any kind of pruning
you're going to do, let's wait until you get some good cold on it
and then we'll go ahead and get do the pruning and bring it inside.
Okay, all right, thank you very much. Well, good luck with
that. Those are gorgeous plants, absolutely beautiful plants. Hey, if you
would like to be on the air talking with me about any kind of gardening
question you might have, well let's do that. It's seven to one to
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I know we have a lot
of folks listening that don't quite want to call in. Don't don't be shy.
If you've listened to if you've listened to me for even a month,
you know this is a safe place to give us a call. We will
be happy to help you with your question. I've said this a long time
ago, and I've been saying it lately, but uh, I like to
put it this way. There aren't any stupid questions. There's just stupid answers.
So the pressure's on me all right now, I realize you know,
we all know, yeah, there are stupid questions, but we're not going
to treat them that way. You give us a call, we'll work through
it. And something that is important to remember is if you're wondering about it.
In a Houston size area, there are a lot of other people wondering
about the same thing. So let's go ahead and give them a call.
They will enjoy. They will enjoy getting to hear an answer to the question
as well. Down in the southwest part of Houston is a really spec place,
and that Southwest Fertilizer. They're on the corner of Bissinet and Renwick,
by the way. They have everything you can imagine needing for your lawn and
garden, from tools, to fertilizers, to pesticides, weed controlled, you
know, disease insect all of that, they've got it. Whether you're an
organic gardener or I don't know if there's such a thing as saying a synthetic
garden. However, you want a garden, they can get you fixed up
and they've got the best selection of organics of anybody in town. I really
really do. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com is the website. While you're there,
you need to have Bob or one of the folks show you their kneeling benches.
It's a folding kneeling bench that it's one of my favorite new tools of
the last three or four years. It is you can get down and up
easy because when you turn it upside down to kneel on it, it's got
those handles to get back up. And if you want to just sit and
do some work and not stoop and have those back and leg issues from going
up and down and up and down. Kneeling bench of work on that had
him show you that, by the way, that is an awesome gift for
a gardener in your list. So I'm just saying it's a little ahead of
the holidays, but yeah, not too early to go ahead and get a
wonderful gift like that from Southwest Fertilizer. I love my kneeling bench. My
sister who is older than me, a fact which I love to point out
to her every opportunity that I get, I got her one, and she's
significantly older than me, by the way, and thinking, you know,
this will help her. And then one day I went out and I worked
in the yard on Saturday. Any of you north of forty can probably relate
to this. And I woke up the next day, oh my gosh,
i'd like the pre natal position, couldn't get a bed, just so sore,
And I thought, why am I so sore? All over. And
then I realized it's because I probably got up and down a thousand times doing
my Saturday work out in the lawn and garden and whatnot. I got that
kneeling bench. Oh, oh my gosh, it will change your life.
It really really is convenient. I love those things. Hey, if you're
up in the Tombowl area and you need a feed store, I got one
for you. It's D and D Feed there on twenty nine to twenty west,
about three miles west of Highway two forty nine out there on the left.
The dovers have expanded that store and they've got all kinds of things.
Quality dog food, quality livestock food. If you're dealing with things like rats
and things this winter time, they love to come into your attic thing.
Find a way in there. They've got the products to deal with that too.
But all of the fertilizers I talk about, and all of the products
to deal with insects, diseases and weeds for your lawn, you're going to
find it at D and D Feed. Go by there and check them out.
You will really enjoy it. And with the newly expanded shore store,
boy is that ever really really cool? Well, you've been listening to garden
Line, I want to remind you that I am going to be at the
All Star Ace Hardware in Magnolia today from eleven thirty to one thirty after the
show, So I hope you'll come up and see me. Anyone up north
direction of Houston, All Star Ace Hardware and Magnolia. They're going to have
some outdoor cooking going on and food available too, by the way, that's
in and of itself is the reason to show up. We're going to be
giving away nitrofoss Texas three Step. That's three different products. I'll talk about
those in a little bit later. Have we given away several sets of those
today? So I hope you'll come out. I'd also love to meet you,
take a look at any photos on the phone of the yard you'd like
some advice with or anything related to gardening. Come on out and see me,
and again All Star Ace Hardware up there in Magnolia one of our great
Ace Hardware stores. By the way, Ace Hardware dot Com find their store
locator and you can find All Star Ace Hardware and Magnolia and every other Ace
store. Really, we'll be right back. Katie R. H. Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Ricter. It's
crazy. Yes, we can just watch him as we may supt Crazy gas
Baga. Good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening today. Our phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you want
to join in on the action, we'd love to visit with you. I've
I was talking about the importance of all planting and when it comes to gardens
like annuals and perennials, they're not going to be around for more than a
year. That's why we call it annuals. Annuals perennials are going to be
around year after year. But if you were looking at putting in some kind
of garden, maybe even never vegetable garden grown vegetables before our herbs, vego
garden is the bed you need. And here's why I say that. Number
one it is it's been its metal that has been protected with a special let's
just say anti rust, anti corrosion treatment that will make sure it lasts forever.
It'll outlast the treated wood that you might have used putting it in your
garden. They tested it at Texas A and M and made sure that it
was absolutely trustworthy. They also found that the paint they put on USDA certified
beautiful colors, and it is just it helps them last forever and ever,
along with some really special boats. They're modular. You put them together like
that. It's really easy to do. And maybe you've got a little narrow
area and you want a long, skinny bed. Maybe you want a bed
that's C shaped, or you want a bed of eleven inches high or something
higher than that. They can fix you up with all of that. Vego
Garden, by the way, the website vegogarden dot com Vego v e g
ogarden dot com. It's a Houston company. Don't be fooled there. There
are what do we call pretenders out there on the market, uh, Vego
Garden, and if there's some that even try to use a similar name,
shame on them for doing that. But if you're an organic gardener, this
absolutely is a bed you need because it is absolutely gonna last you a long
time and you're not using a treated wood or something else like that. Some
people have real concerns about that Vego Garden Vego Garden dot com. Uh,
let's head out to Rosheron and we're going to talk to Texas garden guy.
Hey, what's happening in Desson? What's long? Skip? I got one
question for you this morning? Yes you dig? Can you dig it?
Hey? I tell you what does Bigo Vego like? I gotta make sure
I say it right. Vego garden beds are amazing. I got a couple
of them out of mine house. You know. Yeah, I'm actually out
here in Simonton, Texas. I got a big old they got the fall
fling. I'm gonna be out here at fred Rad's greenhousees all day long today.
And I got a question for you about my pomegranate tree. Well,
so I've been telling everybody, you know, if you're tired of replacing your
citrus trees and losing them every year in the fall and you're not gonna be
able to bring them in, you know, switch to like apples and palms.
And in my case, I really like the pomegranate trees. The problem
is it's been so dry and hot during the spring and summer that I never
got any blooms up until about two weeks ago. And uh, I'm told
that like in the first two years or so, like the pomegran it's aren't
going to be very good and on young trees, to go ahead and pinch
them off. Do you know anything about that? You know, I've I've
not gotten into the removing them from young trees, but I can tell you
this, anytime we do that, all those carbohydrates went into that pomgranite fruit
go into branches and leaves, and that's what we need the first few years
so we can have a tree big enough to hang a whole lot of fruit
on. Absolutely, yeah, that's asolutely Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking about
bringing to my greenhouse. I don't know if it's gonna ripen, and I
know it takes a while for a pomegranate. It's rip you can eat it,
Yeah, yeah, they do. And a greenhouse would be nice too,
because that keeps kind of the rain off of them and when we go
through long, rainy, rainy periods that palm grandits aren't real crazy about that.
And so right, I've been told to get like a mildew or a
fungus on them. Yeah, it can get on the fruit, It absolutely
can. Good drainage so important on those I hate. I do know you
like those vego beds by the you like the ones on rollers too, I
think, right, Oh, that's that's that's where all my citrus are going
in this year, my citrus and my and my row and my dragon fruit
or all in those dego rolling beds. Yeah, I should I should have
mentioned that while ago. Oh they are the best. So right now,
all these so right now is the best time to buy fruit trees. A
lot of people think the spring is one of the best times to buy fruit
trees. Now is the best time to buy fruit trees. Not only because
those fruit trees, if you're going to put them in the ground, they're
gonna have all winter to kind of make those root systems and produce blooms in
the spring and produce the fruit during the summer. But also the greenhouses don't
want to storm over winter. Yeah, so they're going to have all kinds
of sales of these greenhouses. So especially at fred Rays, they got sales
on all their citrus today thirty eight ninety nine. Hey, I appreciate it.
Go it's so good to talk to you again. Anytime you have a
good one. You have a great day out there. Yeah, you know
those rolling beds, that's just I forgot to mention those, but I've got
one myself, and oh my gosh, for Citrus, that'd be a great
thing. If you have seen or seen cracks in your brick the outside of
your home or the sheet rock on the inside of your home, that could
be pointing to a foundation issue and you don't need to let that go.
You need to deal with it right away before the problem gets really a lot
worse. Who does that fix my slab foundation repair fixmyslab dot com, Simple
as that. Ty Strickland is the owner. They've been doing it twenty three
years. Here tell them regardline listener. You get a free estimate. And
the nice thing I like, well, one of the nice things I like
is that they show up when they say they're going to show up. That's
just good business. That's that old fashioned type of business. They're on time,
they have a fair price, and they fix it right. Thy Strickland's
a native Ustonian, fifth generation Texan. As a matter of fact, if
you'd like to give them a call two eight one two five five forty nine
forty nine. We're going to head back of the phones now and talk to
Doug. Hello, Doug, Hello, Skip, how are you this morning?
I'm doing all right, hanging in there. What's up? Well,
I'll tell you back years ago, we used to just put a shredded cedar
bark mulch on all our beds in the front, including around our heritage live
oak trees. We never got to the mult volcano stage, but we had
thick stuff and it kept building up because we didn't ever do any work out.
There was always a yard guy. When COVID came up. I was
listening to Randy, and Randy suggests that at some point that you could use
a double screened compost as a bed dressing, which I did, and over
time all the bark malts disintegrated the way he suggested, and now I've got
a really nice, even layer of compost. But when the mulch went down
on the trees, I discovered I had some girdling roots on the heritage live
oaks. Huh, And I wonder how important is it to get rid of
those? I mean, all right, well, here here's what we're going
to do. Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna let that be those teasers that
everybody is oh, man, but I gotta go to commercial. Hang on.
When we come back, I'll talk about just that. I appreciate this
call. Just hang on seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Give Josh a call and we will talk to you when we come back.
Well, good morning. I see a beautiful glowing eastern sky. Oh
my gosh, is this ever going to be a good day to get out
and do some gardening? You're listening to garden Line. Our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh. If you
know this is the time to do your fall fertilization, and if you are
interested in taking care of your property in an organic way, in a way
that uh you know, builds the soil, that deals with nature, in
a way that utilizes nature to have success with your lawn and your garden,
well, microlife products are going to be an excellent option for that and specifically
for that lawn this fall. There brown patch. Now, I know it
says it's like it just just for disease. Well, it does help with
brown patch, but it also helps prepare your lawn to be strong for the
spring. That's what organics are all about. It's building a strong plant to
try to do everything we can to get that patient in a condition that helps
it fight off insects and disease. And that's how nature works. Microlife brown
Patch is a five to one three. It's got that important third element that
potassium in it to help with good winter hardiness. And by the way,
potassium also helps with drought resilience. I would follow that with Microlife or micro
grow. It's the bioinoculant. It's more of a violet colored bag. The
brown patch product is an orange bag bioinoculant, a violet colored bag. You
just put a little bit out. You're inoculating about ten pounds per thousand square
feet. And that also helps put good guys out there, if you will,
if we can call microbes guys because they are and it helps when the
disease issues come along. You've got a very populated plant surface, and you've
got things that can help fight against some of the things that cause problems in
your lawn. One two step of Microlife brown Patch and Microlife bio inoculant for
your lawn. Now just go to Microlifefertilizer dot com and you'll find out where
you can buy it. Which is everywhere, and you'll also find out more
about these and other great products. I'm going to head back now to Doug
in Richmond, and Doug, I think we left it that you've got a
tree with a circling root. Is that correct? That's correct? And is
this root already embedded into the trunk or do you just see it going around
outside of the trunk area. It's outside the trunk. Okay, you need
to cut it, and if you can, I would get a good strung
water hose and blast out so you can figure out where it actually comes out
of the trunk if you can't already see that, and I would cut it
there. And I know that sounds drastic, but as the root gets bigger
and the trunk gets bigger, the two are going to come together and the
root will be a giant anaconda wrapped around that trunk and you have major tree
problems. So you've caught it at a stage where you can still do something
about it. Okay, so you recommend getting rid of it though, Oh
absolutely yes, And now's a good time because it's a little bit of a
root loss for the tree. It's not as much as you may fear it
is, but it has all winter and spring, you know, to continue
to grow good, strong roots to replace the one that they'd lost. Well,
this tree is twenty years old, okay, it's it was covered with
mulch, and when the mults disappeared, the roots appeared. Yeah, they
were there. So it is this a live oak or do you know which?
Okay, yeah, it's a heritage live oak. Okay, Well,
live oaks, they you know, twenty years is a very young tree.
And I just if it were me, I would look at those. I
would look at those that root size, and I'd look at the trunk size,
and you know, if it's far enough out where it can go a
long long time and before it embeds in. Okay. But I just think
when we think of the life history of a live oak, it would be
good to go ahead and get that removed. If it looks like it's close
enough to you know, in the next ten years or so, be a
problem. Very good, all right, dud. Yeah, And I do
have a question about citrus. Okay, let's do that real quick. I
have three young citrus trees. All three of them survived the freeze last winter,
but they all kind of went into shock. They grew some greenery,
but they basically got kind of stunted. Okay, then about six weeks ago,
all three of them, one is a rio red grapefruit, one as
a Persian lime, one is a frost Eureka lemon. Okay, all three
of them send up central shoots straight up in the air, and they're going
like crazy. The Frostyureka lemon is it's gone from about waist hie to over
my height with these three single shoots. Okay, what's the deal with that?
It could be the not doing well for a while is probably just remnants
of that initial freeze damage. I think you may also have a rootstock that's
taken off. I actually I've checked that out very closely. It's not roots.
It is not rootstock. All right, Well, I guess it just
got it its feet under it and it's taken off growing. I would probably
leave it for now, don't do any pruning on it right now, going
into the cool season, and when we come out in spring, then you
may need to do some topping of that to get it to branch out.
Normally, citrus, you don't have the top it. It branches out naturally
just fine. But I would just probably wait and watch it. If you're
pretty sure that it's not a rootstock, then that would be my explanation for
it. Very good. Well, thank you very much. All right,
Doug, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. If
you live down in the League City area, League City Feed is your hometown
feed store, the Thunderbergs. They started that store over forty years ago and
it is still going strong. And just looking at the products. Do you
need any of the fertilizers I recommend you need airroom soil products for example.
Do you need anything to control pests, weeds, diseases around your plants?
And they have a great supply of those kind of products. I just really
impressed walking in and seeing the variety and the amount of product that they do
carry. And they have that old time service, you know, carry your
bags out when you buy feed or something like that for you. They have
premium pet foods, They've got everything for those backyard chickens that you might have.
It's just a great place to go. And where is it, by
the way, Well, I'll tell you it's on Highway three blocks south of
Highway ninety six, So folks out in El Camino Real Santa Fe Bay,
Cliff Webster, San Leone. You get the idea certainly League City as well.
This is your feed store, the phone number two eight one three three
two sixteen twelve. Now they're closed on Sunday, so Monday through Saturday nine
to six, this would be a good time to get out there and get
the supplies that you need. This weekend, we're going to go back to
the phones again and we're going to talk to Alan in Sugarland. Hello,
Alan cool Skiff, Good morning, how are you. I'm well this morning.
Thank you, glad to hear it. Hey, I during the summer,
I had some trouble with knockout roses. They got really spindley, and
I'm wondering what's the recommended procedure at this point to try to get them.
I know they're entering the dormant season, but what do I need to do
with them right now to help them get prepared for growth when they think comes
on. Yeah, I would probably you know, I don't normally recommend lawn
for elizer f roses, but just to make sure that you got a good
potassium level in the soil, I would probably use one of the lawn fertilizers
that has the lower nitrogen because we aren't trying to push them right now.
Normally we do push them a little bit with nitrogen for vigor and growth and
better blooming. But we're going into winter. They've been through a tough summer,
so I would probably use one of those kinds of fertilizers that I've been
mentioning that the lower nitrogen a good potassium on them. I'm not a member
of the Houston Rose Society, and they definitely are going to have their experienced
opinions on things they've used through the years and found to be best. But
our roses took one heck of a difficult hit this summer and I just have
seen a lot of issues with roses. I think they're going to come out
fine in the spring, and when they do, that's when you want to
kick back into the good fertilization schedule and get that vigor back into the planets.
Okay, Yeah, I've been following brown Patch necrolives so good some of
that on there would probably do well. Yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah,
another question for you, if I could, I know what all Sister
Lover says that pecans are only really productive one every three years they go really
strong a year they're kind of medium in their terrible year. The pecans in
our neighborhood just are really not producing. It seems like this year. Is
that Is that true or is it just a bad year for bore? Well,
it's true, ish, but she got she has the numbers off.
It's every other year typically. But here's why. When a pecan has a
heavy crop, all the carbohydrates go into the pecan kernels. That takes a
lot of carbohydrates and the tree doesn't set buds for next year's crop as much.
And then next year there's no crop, so that tree is growing and
setting buds, and the year after that here comes another good crop. So
that alternate bearing is something pecannguors have to deal with. But the bottom line
is you need good vigor, you need good leaf cover, so diseases and
black aphids on pecan's take away leaf area. You can't make carbohydrates without leaves,
so it's going to be a combination of those kinds of things. That's
the principles and how that works. Well, it's good to hear. I
appreciate that. Listen. I also want to tell you I'm an old Moses
Hall friend of yours. Oh my god, I'm really glad to talk to
you. Ellen. Huh, hey, I don't know. Pardon a fourth
floor you, crom and I did a program one year is a dorm little
routine so you may remember, Oh my gosh, yeah, it's a small
world that Randy lived in and Moses as well. I remember that routine prom
you're talking about from Fort ben County, from Sugarland, Richmond Rosenberg. Absolutely,
oh my gosh, oh my god. Well, we can't do this
on the air, but thanks for mentioning that. It does bring back good
memories. You take care, Ellen, think that. Oh my wow,
that's that is amazing. Hey, if you need any kind of tree work
done, you need to call Affordable Tree, and you need to do it
soon because they book up pretty fast. Now, always tell them your guardenline
caller, because that helps you get to the front of their line. Their
website is Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot com. The phone
number seven one three six twenty six sixty three. Either Martin or Joe's going
to answer that phone, and if they don't, you've got the wrong company.
Something with affordable in the name. But it's not affordable tree service.
Hang up and call back the correct number and make sure you get a hold
of them. They'll come out. They will take a look at your plants.
They do consultations. They'll make sure that anything your trees need. Maybe
it is a problem that needs pruning, they can take care of that.
You want to get on his schedule, so don't delay. Seven one,
three, six, nine, nine, twenty six sixty three and a critical
time for you to make sure you're getting a hold of someone that knows what
they're doing and doing good work. I have got a let's see and we're
gonna in in Aniwak. We're going to start off this call, but I'm
not gonna be able to finish it due to a commercial. But let's see
how far we can get. Okay, I have a very large yard,
probably two to three tennis ball fields. I've got large circular growth. It
seems to be taking over most of my yard. Okay. When I feed
my yard, I have to do hose ina it is so large I walk
it. Okay. When I pull up these reads, they're their very circular
and they're sticky and they leave my hands black. But they're taking over interesting.
Okay, Well, I'm gonna have to go to break. I'm gonna
put you on hold and we'll come right back right after break to continue with
that question. Thank you our phone number seven fifty eight seventy four, and
we're going to turn it over to the Nicky News Network. Welcome back to
garden Line. I'm your host, skip director, and we're here to answer
questions. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Hey, do you have a little piece of property and you've been looking
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I know you'll be impressed as the first time I jumped up on a comboter
tractor. As I was, we're gonna head now back, let's see where
were we? We were too? Who was I talking to you just a
minute ago? Uh? And there we go? And I had to search
them notes to figure out who I was talking to you. So when you
say a circular sticky weed, first of all, you're talking about the leaves
or circular. The plant is circular four inches across. It's here, okay.
And when you say sticky, you do you mean like like glue or
do you mean like thorns glue? Glue? I tell you when I'm gonna
give you my best shot, but I would like you to email me a
photo of this weed, several up close, and let me make sure I've
got the right one. There is something called catchweed bedstraw that is very sticky.
It's almost a velcrow like weed. It sticks to your hands. I'm
a little surprised you've got a significant amount of that at this time of the
year. So I would really like to look at a picture to be sure.
It's going to be a broad leaf weed for sure, and that would
be no. It's very very very very tiny, little bigger than the head
of I mean the top of a pin. The leaves are tiny, very
tiny. All right, I'm okay, I probably should be able to picture
what you're describing. I'm going to put you on hold. Please send me
some photos close up, maybe the whole yard, but then close up in
real sharp focus, and I will get back to you with the right answer.
Otherwise I'm not sure I'm gonna to send you the right direction. Thank
you. I appreciate that call very much. And you know it is time
to do our fertilization in the lawns and nitrofoss those folks have put together the
Texas three step What are the three steps? Fertilizer, we'd prevention and fungicide
for disease control. Now, the Nitrofoss Fall Special is an excellent fertilizer.
It's going to help prepare your plant for winter and for coming out in spring.
Its designed for our soils and our climate here on the Gulf Coast.
Secondly, nitrofoss barricade weed control controls both broad leaf and grassy weeds. When
they try to come up, they can't because barricade has formed a barricade on
the surface of your soil. That is an important factor to remember. Anytime
you're putting out a pre immersion, you want to water it in about a
half inch of water. You want to make sure that it is going to
move into the soil surface. Third the fungicide, now that's a nitrofoss Eagle.
We got brown pat season coming, we got take all rot that's going
to be reinfecting again in the fall or and also in the spring. And
the nitrofoss Eagle helps to suppress that, to shut it down, to prevent
it from being able to create a problem. But these are all timely things.
Fall fertilizer needs to be put on this month. The ugly weeds that
you're dealing with that are trying to prevent the cool season weeds, you need
to get ahead of them sprouting with that barricade, So go ahead and get
that done now because they'll be sprouting soon. And then finally the fung aside.
If you wait until you got big brown circles, well, the fungicide
works and preventing additional ones. But what about the ugly You got to look
at all winter. Do it ahead of time, so don't delay that.
You can find where can you find this stuff? You can find it in
Chenney Gardens out in Richmond. You can find it at Lake Hardware in Angleton.
You can find it at Plants for All Seasons up on two forty nine.
By the way, if you haven't, if you haven't been to Plants
for All Seasons, you need to go check out the color that they have
now. It is, Oh my gosh, it is outstanding. I don't
care if you look at hanging baskets or moms or flowers for the flower bed.
You know we can have beautiful, beautiful flowers, beautiful beds all through
the winter season just by putting the right kind of plants in. There's no
reason for winter to be a drab. Plants for All Seasons can help make
your lawn and your landscape beautiful. Now their website just Plants for All Seasons
dot com. Diking it easier than that phone number two eight one, three
seven six sixteen forty six. They're out there on Highway two forty nine,
Tomball Parkway, just north of where Loretta Luetta Road comes in. And when
you're in there anytime, you know you're going to talk to staff that know
what they're doing. One of the many reasons I love to go Plant for
All Seasons. I'm going to head back now to Kitty. This is this
is a wed Day. We're going to go talk to Kitty in Jersey Village.
How are you doing, Kitty, Hey, good morning. Well I
am not a gardener. I'm just a girl who likes flowers, and I'm
spending way more time in the garden that I want to. Oh, no,
we need more time. That's therapy is going to help. Well,
my dear husband, I love flowers, and I think instead of buying me
flowers, you just put in a flower garden to had it done professionally.
But I have so many weeds no matter how I mean, it's it's too
arduous to be out here. I don't know what to do. Should I
just scrap it and start from scratch? It depends on the weeds you have.
Now, most weeds are going to be coming from seed as an annual
weed, and those you a mulch. You put a mulch down two or
three inches of mulch on the surface of the soil and they can't get light
and they can't germinate and establish, And you took your weed problems down.
Ninety nine percent of the annual weeds like that. Other weeds like nutgrass and
bermuda grass us they're perennials and a little multch they'll they'll just push up through
it. And those if you're going to revamp your your color beds, when
you go to revamp, you've got to put something on those weeds to kill
them before you go in and revamp everything. But remember when you plant the
flowers, part of the planting of the flowers is putting down two or three
inches of mulch. Do you happen to know if you have bermuda grass or
nutsedge or something like that, there is some of that, and that doesn't
bother me. It's on the edge. I can mow that and have that
edged. What's really getting me is the stuff that's underneath the roses, the
stuff that's underneath the gardenias, and I'm having to pull it out, get
underneath the stuff that's under the fox ferns that it hurts my arms. Yeah,
oh okay, uh, well, you know now that they're there,
it's it's a little difficulty dealing with them. Most of those weeds are going
to be broad leaf weeds and the products to control them after they're up.
They also will kill your roses and other things like that that are broadly plants.
I would you know, other than hiring somebody to come out and get
that done for you, and then put the mulch down and then keep that
maulch, maintain that mulch over the soil surface. That's your best bet to
avoid work. You can put a pre emergent down in flower beds, but
they I don't think you're going to be happy with the long term results of
that, and so I would I would suggest that, however, you have
to deal with the weeds that you got out there. You know, if
they're annual weeds. Just I don't know how far aparture plants are. But
if you could, if you could weed eat or whatever and get the weeds
at least knocked down and then throw a multa over the top of them them,
that might help as well. Hey, you know I have to go
in by hand and pull them out. Well, I'm up against a hard
break and I'm gonna have to move on. But I hope that helps.
And good luck up there in Jersey Village. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And I'll be right back,
Bob your first stop. All right, y'all can keep dancing, but I'm
gonna go on with the show. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Hey, if you are out in the Mont
Bellevue area, and I'm including Baytown when I say this, your hometown feed
store is Texas Feed Stop. It's as simple as that. They're just a
few minutes north of Ien on Highway one forty six in Mont Bellevue. You're
not gonna find better customer service than Texas Feed Stop. Of course they carry
the bags out for you, but we're talking about being greeted, We're talking
about being treated like family. That's what Brian and Hope Roads do that that
is exactly it's the culture of the whole place. It really is. I
mean, hiring local kids to help work in the feed store and things,
and it's just a it's a pleasure to go in and you will feel family
when you go in there. You're also going to find all the fertilizers I
talk about here on guarden Line. You're going to find things like heirloom soil
for example, the mosquito dunks. A lot of the products we talk about
here on guarden Line, in fact, not all Texas feed Stop. They
are the place, they're the source out there, and we love feed stores
out there. Texas feed Stop is one of those. Do you want to
get some of the products to control paests, or to control diseases, or
to prevent weeds and things, they have an outstanding selection of those. Again,
Bellevue Baytown, that whole area. Texas Feed Stop is your place.
Just a few minutes north of Ian on Highway one forty six. We're going
to head now up to Walkert County and talk to Bob. Bob, thanks
for your patient waiting. Hey is this this is Robert Ron, This is
garden Line. Okay. I have two related questions about grass weeds. First
of all, I have a growing infestation of button weed in Saint Augustine grass.
Is it too late to treat weeds like that? And what do you
do for that other than just pull it? Yeah, it's gonna be difficult
getting an effective treatment down this late. But pulling it, you know,
doesn't make it go away. But I would if to the degree you can,
I would pull as much of it as I can to get all those
little weed seed buttons out of there, because that just is increasing your problem
for next year if you leave them behind. So I would start with that.
Then next year when it comes out, you're gonna need to hit it
with a couple of applications of a product. Celsius works pretty good for that.
Let's see Bonde's weed beater. Ultra works pretty good on button weed.
I would probably, you know, either one or the other. Probably Celsia
is my first choice on Virginia button weed, but no one herbicide is just
gonna kill it and you're all done, and you know one kind of thing,
so you have to stay with it. Remember it loves wet areas,
so where it's in your control and your irrigation system, don't make that button
weed happy by keeping it too wet. That would be one thing also culturally
that we can do for it. But it is a problem. But if
you stay with it, you can get ahead of it. How about I
also have I have a patch of grass that keeps getting infested and it's almost
been taken over by nuts edge. I've treated spot treats it before with I
forget what the product was, but you buy it and mix it in water
and crate on it. Actually you have to do it a couple of times,
but it does a reasonable job. But I have such a a severe
infestation in this area, I may just kill everything. You treat it well.
The question is can you treat it this late again? Yeah? Yes,
no, no, you absolutely can. And it's storing up carbohydrates for
a winter. So why don't you send a little bit of nutsedge killer down
those leaves the end of that storage organs and stuff. You'll you'll give a
good a good knockback on it. I don't know whether you used image or
manage or sedge ender. There's another one that it's not coming to my brain
right now. But go to a quality place that sells the right kinds of
products and make sure you're getting a product for nuts edge. It's labeled for
the lawn, by the way, and do that good. Like if you
hit it with round up right now, that would not do it. It
would You may kill the top right now on it. But go for a
product that needs earth, that needs that's made for the nuts edge, and
then you're going to just have to stay with it and never let it up.
Pra aier. When it gets three to five leaves and starts capturing sunlight,
you're heading backwards. It's building nuts that are going to re sprout,
and you're increasing your problems. So the bottom line is essentially never let it
up for air. Got it? Thank you sir? All right, Bob,
thank you. I appreciate that call very much. You know, Nelson
Plant Food started forty years ago October fourteenth, nineteen eighty three. Is that
amazing. They've been making quality products that whole time, and they keep increasing
the lines. I mean, they've got color Star, nutristar Turfstar, Nature
Star excellent, excellent products. You know it's time for your fall fertilization and
carbo load. Their product carbo Load is an excellent one for that. If
you go to my lawn care schedule at Gardening with Skip dot com, you'll
find it right there on the schedule. It also has a pre emergent herbicide
in it, so use it soon rather than later to prevent those weeds that
are going to be sprouting soon. Every bag, listen to this, every
bag of carbo Load. Nelson's is donating two dollars to Randy Lemon's Memorial Scholarship,
which is for horticulture students up at A and M. And I know
that would make Randy so very very proud. Two dollars a bag. So
now's the time to grab the carbo Load. Now's the time to get it
down and you will find that it works very well because it's designed for this
season, for our soils, for our region. Let's go out to Cyprus
and talk to Sandy. Hey, Sandy, Hi, good morning Skip.
I had a question about my blueberries and my bell peppers and my hell opinions.
Should I be pruning those right now? I would not prune the peppers.
Now, what you're going to try to get out of the peppers is
everything they can produce until frost shuts them down. And so no need to
prune those. I've got some long, lanky peppers, and I just put
a steak in to keep that limb from breaking off, just because this is
the last shot and it's really falls the best shot of pepper production I think
of the whole year. But as far as the blueberries, wait until the
end of winter and you and how old are your plants. By the way
I planted them. They're in containers number one and they were just planted this
spring. Okay, Yeah, blueberry bush is so bid. It's in a
big plot, but it's huge. Okay, Well, if you want to
bring the heights down at the end of winter, you can do that,
bring the come down to a lower heights. Cut those lanky ones off.
But remember that the buds are there for your fruit crop next year. So
it's also okay after you take the fruit crop out and your harvest to then
do the pruning. After that, you'll learn to tell the look of a
bud that's going to have fruit. It's it's typically on wood that's about is
the diameter is maybe a little bigger than an ice picks diameter, and it's
reddish wood and the budge are and plump, and when you see those,
that's going to be fruit. So don't prune that off, just shit the
rest of it. You can cut back a little bit as you need to
take out all the little tiny twiggy growth that's not going to be productive.
You can do that now. But as far as the other pruning, let's
wait till the underwinter, okay. And I did the Texas three step,
yes, except my ace didn't have the the one that you said, the
weed thing that The third one was the barricade, probably because people rushing in
there to get it. It's a popular thing this time here. So I
got the weed beater and I put that down, okay, which they said,
they said, that's what they carry, So I put that down.
Can I still use celsius or no? What weeds are you going after right
now? Are you trying to put dollar? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
okay, yes you could use You could use those on the dollar weed or
the dichondri it's gonna be one of those two. Probably you could do that
now if you want to do them. That would be fine. Even if
I just put the other step down last weekend. Well, assuming you got
a good application down, it should start. You should be seeing pretty quick
here the signs of having been sprayed. If you don't see that, then
you could come back with the other. But we don't recommend two post emergent
products like that, one right after another, that close together. I just
want to be clear about one last thing. I hear the music saying it's
about time to go. The barricade is a pre emergent, and you need
something that prevents weeds from coming up. Now, you got some great ace
hardware stores in the Cypress area there. I would go back and check and
find some barricade to put down to prevent the weeds. The the things you're
talking about, like dichondra or dollar weed, those kind of things. Now,
that is the post emergent that you put in for those. So those
are two different things. Those are warmer season weeds. We're trying to prevent
the cool season weeds. Okay, so bear K, yeah, that's it.
Okay, thank you, all right, thank you appreciate that call.
Rament Hey, we're having a good time on garden line. I hope you
stick around. We will be right back seven one three, two, one
two, fifty eight seventy four. Katie r. H. Garden Line does
not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to Katie r H. Garden Line with Skip Richard. It's crazy here gus
you trim. You can just watch him as many super bazy gas cusicking not
sad wealth good Saturday morning on what is going to be an outstanding day to
be outside doing some gardening, doing some gardening shopping. Remember, October is
the big month, perhaps one of the biggest months of the year. I
know, in spring we get spring fever, gardening fever, and a lot
of people, you know, coming out of winter ready to go plant and
do things. And boy, there's a lot to do in spring. But
don't forget fall. Fall is equally important, if not in some cases,
with some situations more important, like with our lawns making sure they recovered from
the summer and going into the wintertime strong. Making sure anything that's perennial or
woody ornamentals, tree shrubs, woody vines gets in the ground to get those
roots growing. Because gosh, I hope next summer is not like this one.
But if it even is a normal summer, that's the first summer is
a stressful thing for our woody plants. Give them a head start, and
it's just it's really a no brainer. It's easy to do. And when
you plant a plant right like that and you get it established, get it
going, you are well on your way to having the beauty, the shade,
whatever you planted it for. You're well on your way to achieving that.
You know, the sea a multch down in south of Houston. It's
near brasis Been State Park, specifically north of Road Sharon on Highway, close
to where Highway six and twenty two eighty eight come together, but it's on
Highway five twenty one. They provide unbelievably high quality products for making your soil
the best it can be. So we're talking about mulches, we're talking about
composts, other soil amendment type products. Now you can buy them in bulk,
you can buy them in bags. They will deliver within twenty miles for
a reasonable little delivery fee while you're in there. They got all of the
fertilizers we talk about on garden Line. And they also are going to make
sure that you have specifically the ones you need to have success. So it's
kind of a one stop shop. Remember, soil comes before plants, and
so when you're doing that, they can supply both the nutrients that you need
to add to your soil and those organic, decomposed products that make your soil
wonderful. You can go to Siena multch dot com. You can find them,
find more information about them right there. But if you live out in
let's say Lake Pomona or Lake Olympia or Pomona, I'm putting two together there
Quil Valley for as No, that whole area, that whole region. This
is your multi supplier. They deliver within twenty miles by the way of their
location sienamultch dot com. Let's head out to a Tescacita. Now we're going
to talk to Cheryl. Hello, Cheryl hi Kiss. I have a question
about fertilizer. I recently purchased a microlife round patch, but I also got
barricade and that's not organic. And I have a in my front yard.
I have a large section of Virginia button weed. It just it just appeared
on nowhere. It's about three feet by two feets. It probably is a
low lying area, and I'm wondering whether I should just keep that round patch,
the Microlife round patch and get Nitrofly Fall Special with everything, and so
I have to get rid of the Virginia button weed also. Yeah. So
so both those are good fertilizer products. You know what you just to say,
if you're going to go organic direction, the Microlife is going to be
that product. And if you want to stay within the you know, gosh,
I can't even talk this more nitro fosh group of products, then the
Fall Special would be the one for that. You kind of got a lot
of things going on. The button weed is a difficul you said button weed,
right, Virginia button on. But yeah, that's a difficult one to
manage at this point in the season. You're not gonna want to hear this,
but I would pull up as much as you can get get it out
of there as best you can to try to get those those buttons, those
pods and things from adding those seeds back in for you to deal with next
year. Next year when it comes out, that's when early on, when
you see it, you need to begin to treat it. And it's going
to take more than one treatment spread out over a few weeks to really knock
that back down. In the meantime, anything you can do to keep that
soil just moish, not soggy wet helps because the Virginia button weed loves it
when we overwater. Right, okay, all right, thanks so much,
all right, good luck with that. I appreciate that very much. Hey,
you live up in central north central part of Houston. Have you ever
been to Buchanans. I suspect you have, well, Buchanan's Plants, by
the way, the websites easy buchanans plants dot com. They've got everything you
need right now there. You know. Their herbs selection is unbelievable. Perennial
herbs need to be planted now, and almost all the herbs are perennials.
We have things like basil that are not, and you don't plant basil now.
But all those perennial herbs. Has a great time to get them started.
They'll be way ahead of something you wait until next spring, later,
especially later spring to plant. They have restocked their native plants. They specialize
in native plants, including plants native to Harris County right here, as well
as other Texas Natives. Maybe you thought about putting a chimnea out there,
Well they have it and they even have some pinion pine wood to go along
with it to burn in the chiminea. I mean, you see what I'm
talking about, from house plants to groundcovers, to shade plants, especially with
the native plants. Buchanans Native Plants. Has you covered Buchanans Plants dot Com.
It's as simple as that. Buchanans Plants dot Com. They are on
Eleventh Street up in the Heights, and I just highly recommend you check them
out because when you walk in there, you're going to find everything that you
need, including all the fertilizers that I talk about here on garden Line and
the soil products that we talk about as well. Okay, let's see,
David, we are really close to a break, and so I'm going to
hold and take you first after the break. A couple of things I did
want to discuss though, before we go into that. Right. First of
all, don't forget to day to day after the show, eleven thirty to
one thirty, I'll be at All Star Ace Hardware up in Magnolia, and
I hope you're going to see me up there. Anyone, especially those of
you listening up you know in the north region of the listening area. Come
out to ACE Hardware, the All Star Ace and Magnolia if you want to
find it. You know the best way to do and you need this bookmarked
on your computer anyway, Acehardware dot Com and then look for their store locator
and you can see a map of the Houston area in every ACE where.
It's really simple. I'm going to be giving away Nitrofossis Texas three step several
times during the time that I'm there. If you've got plants to diagnose or
identify, bring them out. If you want us to talk about, you
know, what's going on in the landscape that you could maybe improve on and
beautify, we can talk about that too. We're going to go to a
commercial. Josh is going to be ready for your call at seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Good morning on a beautiful Saturday,
and thanks for listening to garden Line. We're here to answer your gardening questions.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We are going to go out to Clear Lake now and visit with Stephen.
Hello Stephen, good morning, sir. This is a beautiful day to
be outside. Oh man, oh man. I'm just wondering if we are
able to grow Compari tomatoes in Houston. You can I Compari as one of
those little slid abts, right, Yeah, it's about of a golf ball
a little bigger. Yeah. I don't know the days to harvest. I'd
have to pull up a company that sells them and look at the seed packet.
We like to have tomatoes that are let's say, seventy five or less
days to harvest, just because it goes from the last freeze to too hot
to set fruit fast around here and in the fall we have the same kind
of thing, and so we like tomatoes that move a little faster. But
if you started them as a transplant, even if it is a longer day
to harvest, you could probably cheat on that a little bit. I've just
not grown Compari, you know, vaguely familiar with with what it is,
so that would be my only concern is days to hard. I just ate
a few of them again after having eaten them for a while, and you
know, they're almost bite sized, So yeah, they're great for salas or
just a little pop in your mouth snack. That's true. That is true.
Absolutely. I saved some of the seeds from a couple of them,
so I thought it, I've got to give that a shot. Well,
now, again, I need to research compari specifically. A lot of modern
tomatoes are hybrids. And if it is a hybrid, it may not be,
but if it is, then it's going to have a combination of parentage
such that when it mixes to form that Compari tomato, the seeds in campari
are going to give you all different kinds of let's say, examples from the
genetic background. In other words, they won't be identical to compari, but
just something to think about. Okay, well I will think about that.
Well, thank you very much, sir I. I appreciate thank you for
the call. I appreciate that. Yeah, very good. Hey, follows
for planting, right, I keep talking about that. You got a plant
in the fall. When you plant, gets you a bottle of hash to
grow six twelve six, Hash to grow six twelve six. It's got,
of course the nutrients in it that's on the label there. It also has
medino soil activator to simulate some biological activity. It's got humic acid that helps
with soil structure. It's got seaweed extracts. It's a great product. When
I plant, I would put the plant down and water it in with a
has to grow. Put it in a watering can, mix it up like
it's supposed to be and just water it in really well. That's how I
do it, and then but I do it twice more at five to seven
day intervals. So just think of it as a week planting, a week
later, another drenching. A has to grow, a week later, another
drenching. That will get those plants in the ground and support the root growth
and support good establishment. You can use it as a folier with a watering
can I just go over the plant, the whole thing, but you can
spray it on. It's not gonna burn. Doesn't have that salt and chemical
build up and things that some products could if especially when you mix those things
too strong. But has to grow six twelve seconds. It's easy, easy,
easy, And with weall planting on hand really all year, you need
to have some has to grow that you can reach far on the shelf.
We're going to now go to David in the Woodlands. Hello David. Hello,
Hey, I had green Pro Area eight and top dress my yard in
the early spring and it made it through the summer fantastic. And so I
saw your uh Fer fertilization schedule. So I'm using brown Patch for my Warner
fertilizer. But I also what about funge Side and Barri Katee if I put
that down to that kind of counteract the organic stuff that I'm doing, or
you know, because I'd like to kind of move more towards organic than the
previous schedule. Well, you can use a mix of organic and synthetic products.
The thing you're trying to do with your organics is build up the biological
activity in the soil. And so if you're going to go organic, then
go organic and use those products follow you know, the instructions we give here
on garden Line, or you can get it directly from the company you're you're
purchasing from, maybe Microlife. That's a that's a probably the most common when
you have here in town. And would I would do that, I would
wouldn't do the mix, although again you can do a mixture of organic and
synthetic in general, and gardening and get by with that. So I don't
know if that's a clear enough answer for you, but it's not a black
and white on all situations. Okay, great, all right, all right,
okay, thank you, well, thank you, David. I appreciate
that call very much. Hey, where do you live up in the Montgomery
area. If you do, I highly recommend that you check out an a
plant and produge probably already have. And if you're thinking where is it,
well, you must close your eyes driving in and out of town from the
east because it's right there on the east side of town, right on one
oh five, so that whole Lake Conroe area, all the neighborhoods up there.
This is a hometown garden center for you. It's been around for thirty
years and they just keep growing. I think there are over three acres now
of plants, seven days a week, nine to five. I mean,
you know, they're they're open all the time there. They carry all the
products I talk about, the fertilizers and the soil type products that we talk
about here, and then they have everything else you need for your lawn.
You know, if you need a fungicider, insecticider, or something to deal
with weeds. They've got that. It's all there. You're going to be
really impressed with the collection of outdoor I'll call it bling, but we're talking
about outdoor furniture Chimenea's Mexican tera talavera, terra cotta, as well, by
the way, gazebos and arches and on right now, mums, all kinds
of decor for the fall. Oh my gosh, you got to go by
there and check it out. It is. It is really really cool.
They are set up to take care of you in every way. And if
you hear me talk about it, you're on garden line taking care of that
lawn. They're going to have it there at Ana Plants and Produce on the
east side of Montgomery Highway one oh five. Let's head out to Spring.
Now we're going to talk to Judy. Hello, Judy, Hi, Okay.
About three years ago, I had four citrus trees and the freeze got
them. One actually just died, but three of them have growth coming from
below the original graft. And my thought is, maybe I can redeem them
if I could locate someone who could put a graft on there for me,
or is it possible for me to do it myself. And where would I
get the I guess, the bud To make them the bud would You'd have
to find a neighbor that had a shoot of let's say you wanted a mar
lemon or a certain kind of satsuma. You'd have to find someone with that
tree. They're just not a good like go to this website and buy budwood
for citrus. I wouldn't recommend trying to do that. You can learn how
to do it. Just to be real fast with that answer. If you
go to the Aggie Horticulture website, there's information on propagating plans and it tells
you how to do cuttings and how to I mean well rooting from cuttings.
It tells you how to bud, how to graft, and with citrus you
can either do a tea bud or you can do what they call a cleft
graft where you cut it off and well, just go to the website and
learn more about it. It can be done. It's not that hard,
but you do have to follow the instructions to have success. Okay, do
you have a person that do you know of a service that does that?
I do not. I would call let's see you are here in spring.
I'd call the Harris County Extension Office and see if they know of anyone I
know down in the Fort Ben direction. There's there's a lot of citrus growing
down there, so you might try Fort Ben County Extension Office as well.
But either of those a master gardner program. Someone may know of someone,
and there's some people I'm pretty sure down for Benway that do that kind of
thing, but I can't tell you who that is right now, okay.
And the time to do that it depends on the kind of graph that you're
doing, but typically you want to do it when the citrus is going to
be growing so that it can form the callus and that it can heal over
and be ready to go. But with different types of grafting or budding,
we're going to include it all together. The timing is a little bit different.
But that Aggie Horticulture website where I'm talking about propagating it can help you
with that kind of thing as well. But I would find the person that
knows what they're doing and let them tell you because they may have a certain
way they prefer to do it, all right, And would you please give
me your website where I could get the lawn skilled. Yes, it's gardening
with Skip dot com, simple as that, gardening with Skip dot com.
The lawn schedules on there, the pest disease and we'd management schedules on there.
There's some good information on drought, some videos and info fact sheets that
I'll put together, and we got a whole lot more stuff coming. It's
not quite up yet. Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate thank
you. I appreciate your call very much. Judy. If you live up
in Grimes County, Grimes County feeds your hometown feed store, and you're thinking
which directions Grimes County, just think up in Nevisodaway. Grimes County feed is
on Highway one point thirty in Carlos, Texas, just a couple of miles
west of FM two forty four. Now, the roy family has been operating
Grimes County feed the way the way let me put this week. They operate
the place the way they live. We're talking about retired firefighters from the Houston
Fire Department, retired law enforcement from the Houston Police Department. We're talking about
a Polish family's agricultural past. People who know how to be part of the
community and to support the community. Public service is what their family was founded
on a long, long time ago, and that's how they run the place.
It will always be important to them. Reinvestment in the well being of
their communities is very, very important. You can give them a call at
two eight one eight one four twenty four ninety four. Two eight one eight
one four eighty four ninety four. And by the way, when you go
by there, all these fertilizers I'm talking about, and many of the other
products as well, are available at Grimes County Feet Let's see, we are
going to go out now to southwest Houston and talk to Sandy. Hello,
Sandy, I'm high. I just want to know I have a lot of
nut grass, and you know it comes up in my vegetable garden. Can
I can I spray that, you know, to kill it? Or will
that be bad for my vegetables? I you know, have some tomato plants,
some broccoli. Yeah. Well, the way I deal with it in
my vegetable garden is every time I get a chance, when I'm going from
a warm season crop to a cool season or whatever, I always get a
spade and fork in there. And pull up any nuts I can get,
just physically take them out. That's fast and easy. There are sproducts you
can spray on it that go down in and they will kill the nut,
but typically one shot doesn't do it, and some of those products will also
kill your vegetables if you accidentally spray them on the leaves. So I like
the ham digging and a vegetable garden. If you can get it where it's
not near a vegetable, then the spray options might be something, but remember
you got to stay with it, never let it up. Prayer. When
nut sedge gets three to five leaves, it's making carbohydrates and making more underground
babies. So if you had one nut coming out of winter sandy, and
you waited until May instead of doing it right in spring, for example,
you'd have ten gems and nuts SAIDs that you had coming out of winter.
That's how prole. I have a lot and I've hand pulled them a lot.
Yeah, I was just wondering about spray. Yeah, you can do
that. There are sprays that will do it, but more than one application
is going to be necessary. Hey, I appreciate that. Called good luck
with the war. I feel like I need to give you a patent speech
because you are heading to war with this little wheat. Hey, you're listening
to garden Line seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Here's
nicky, Hey, good Saturday morning. Welcome to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer your gardening questions.
So give us call seven one three two one two five eight seven four and
we will be happy to visit with you about whatever you want to know.
And I can tell you this, the answer to a lot of questions that
come in starts with the soil. You get the soil right, and plants
thrive. That's what nature does. Nature builds soil over time. It's you
know, the leaves on the forest floor that rot and more leaves year after
year, and it just gets richer and richer and richer. Well, you
can, you can, you know, cheat on that a little bit by
actually purchasing the compost already done. And you're not going to find a better
place than Nature's where resources. Nature's ways up. It's up there on Interstate
forty five. If you're going to Conroe, on the right hand side,
right where fourteen eighty eight comes in the Magnolia fourteen eighty eight. Cross over
the railroad tracks to the right, and you're at Nature's Way if you like
to give Nature's Way a call. By the way, it's nine three six
three two one sixty nine ninety ninety three six three sixty nine ninety Every Friday
is Fungal Friday. Ten percent off bagged fungal products and twenty percent off bulk,
and they got plenty of it on hand. Uh. They of course
they're the originator of the rose soil and leaf mole compost. Lots lots of
good good products there. Uh. They've got a nursery that just keeps getting
bigger and bigger, and it just has fruit trees and perennials and house just
all kinds of stuff that you're going to find in Nature's Way and one of
the best selections of native plants that you're going to find around two. Uh.
You know Ian and really Ian, just what he's doing inside that nursery
is just amazing. You know. John Ferguson has been making these kind of
products for a long long time that enhance your plants. And you're not going
to go wrong with anything that comes out of Nature's Way resources. Well,
we're going to head now up to Porter and we're going to talk to Bob.
Hello, Bob, Hey ski enjoy show. Thanks. Hey, Yeah.
I got me about six Primark Freedom and six Triple crown Berry planters are
and these little sail uh from for each pods. My question is, do
I need to probably a root stimulator or I've got microlife uh the six four
to two and I bought some Living Girls compostion. I'm on till in in
the soul. Would I still need roots stimulatories lake or mo. I would
use the hash to grow when I plant anything in the ground. It's just
a good start for your plants to get those here. You get us all
confined, confined in greet system is trying to get out there in the soil,
and you want that to happen soon and you want the plant to be
strong going in. So I would do that for anything. Now, which
of the micro life products did you say had six two for yes, I
got sixty more granular and I also I also have the liquid to the gallon
that you make I make story tables move the gallon. Is this is a
label blue or is it orange? Or what color is the lamy on that
it's the label blue or hard momb on the Microlife liquid. Okay, I
believe it's okay, well that would be believe that's a fish based product and
it's an excellent product. You can fold your feed with it. You can
also drench the roots with that as well. I would I would use make
sure and use it on the foldier. Even if it drips down on the
roots. You get the double benefit of it. But those are great products,
and you ought to be off to a good start. I'm start off
with but did you say, go ahead, give me some mask or group.
I would get the hash to grow six twelve six to drench into the
ground. But I'm telling you that you have little more quickly. Sure one,
I bought some multiplyn onions at Montgommer County last last week. Okay,
you should I put a little bit of that that has to grow on those
twods, you could. I you know those are gonna slowly be getting roots
down in the ground and getting going. Just remember on any kind of an
onion, having a good amount of nitrogen to kind of help them along as
they grow is helpful, not at all. In one big giant dose but
gradually over time, I would do that. Okay, well I've been using
micro lef on those two. Well there you go. Six four. Well,
you know they have a lot of great product, but I use six
to four on a lot of things. And we think of it as a
lawn fertilizer, but I use it on free use it vegetables and you know,
other things as well. Okay, Skip, I appreciate you so thank
you so much, Stark preciate your phone call. I appreciate that very very
much. You know, if you're tired of looking at the landscape that summer
just about killed or maybe in some cases did kill, and you want to
change things, I would call Pierscapes Peerscapes. They've got designers on hand that
can create beautiful beds. Maybe you just need a little bit of a redesign.
Maybe you want to outdoor backyard sitting area. They can do that.
Is your irrigation system on the blank or do you need one? They can
do that. They absolutely their experience, they're professional, they're well trained,
they know what they're doing. The certifications, the licenses just go to piercescapes
dot com two eight one, three, seven oh fifty sixty and they will
get you going again. By the way. You know, maybe when you're
talking to them, you want to go, hey, I need to redesign
here. I lost some plants. What do you have that's more drought resilient.
What would you suggest? Well, they've got an eye for that sort
of thing, and they can really help out with it as well. Let's
see, we're going to go to Laporte and talk to April. Hello,
April, Hello, how are you? And well, thank you. I
have an aphids problem with a couple of high businus plants that I have in
pots. Okay, one one in particular has been extremely problematic and I have
tried everything, washing them off, kneem oil, seven, dust, seven,
spray, everything you can think of, and they'll go away for about
a week. And oh and the ants too. We had a little ant
farm going on there. They apparently farm aphid too, new that's how that
fits. Get up on your plants, and that's how they carry them up
there. They also will do that. Think of antswer dairy farmers. Aphids
are cows. So what does a dairy farmer do? He takes his cows
from one pasture to another. He makes sure the wolves don't get a hold
of the cows. You get the idea. Yes, I didn't know that
till recently. Yeah, but I keep I mean I think I have.
So I started treating the ants around the pots and in the pots, and
that seems to have help, but they still keep coming back. So I'm
looking for any kind of thing. Yeah. There. Normally I don't go
out and kill an ants because there's only a few ants that really are a
concern. But when it comes to this, the answer keeping the some of
the beneficials away from your a fens. They're they're protecting them and stuff,
so that may be valid. I would just use insecticidal soap mixed at the
label rate. Make sure you give the aphis a bath. If there's some
hiding in a leaf or in a leaf, you know, node, or
around a bud where you're you got to give them a bath with soap.
Any that you don't give a bath will not be killed by soap. I
would do that probably about ever two weeks. Just check it over, put
it in a little spray bottle. I mean, it's real simple, it's
super low talks, and it's just it's a good way to go. You're
talking about one one plant, right, well, one plant, but then
the aphids kind of jump over to the other plant, but they always come
back to this one plant. So I had to put some mulch on top
of the soil during the drought, try and keep those moisture in there.
Could they be hiding down in there? The aphids aren't hiding. No,
no they're not. But I would just I would stay with that technique.
Just realize it's nature, so things do come back and uh in such acid
soapy kind catch them, yeah, catch them early, catch them early with
it. Hey, I got to run to a break. Thank you very
much for the call, and good luck with that aphid control. Sounds like
you're on the right foot. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four is the number if you'd like to give us a call. Here we
go, we'll be right back. Good morning, and welcome back to garden
Line. We are looking forward to visiting with you more about the different calls
and questions you might have. Hey, seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Write that number down, keep it handy. Who knows
you may something you hear on guard line may pique your interest and you think
of something you really need to ask and talk about. And that's why we're
here. You know, I was out an Enchanted Forest a back and for
the weekend a couple Saturday or two ago. I kind of lose track of
time. But boy, is that ever a beautiful nurcery out there. I
mean it is gorgeous. It's on FM twenty seven fifty nine outside of Richmond.
If you're in Richmond, you're heading sugar Land Way. It's off to
the right to the south of fifty nine. And they are stocked up with
all kinds of great products. You know, I saw I was looking at
a bunch of Chinese fringe trees. Oh those are beautiful, and they're let's
say small to medium sized trees in general, and so far a lot sizes
that are a little more limited. Right now, that's a great tree.
And oh, the spring blooms are unbelievable on it. They got sunshine,
lagustrums and lananas and all the stuff you need to be planting in the fall.
Hey, by the way, today, Lewis Tomorrow of Heirloom Soils is
going to be at Enchanted Forest at ten am. Now, Luis is absolutely
he knows his soils and one of the reasons why Heirloom soils is such a
quality product and a success. In fact, later in the afternoon, Dan
Slider with nitrophos is going to be there from two to five to discuss everything
about Nitrophix. You can pick up your one two three step system right there.
When you're listening to Dan, he can tell you everything you need to
know about it. But take an opportunity this afternoon and head out there to
Enchanted Forest again. They're on FM twenty seven fifty five outside of Richmond,
Enchanted Forest. When you get out there, you'd see why they call it
enchanted. It is a beautiful place with everything that you might need right now
for your plants, absolutely everything you know talking about Luis and heirlooms. Heirloom
by the way, I got a note from them. Are they are offering
an unbelievably big fall special and what it is is there veggie and herb soil,
which is an outstanding mix. And by the way, not just for
veggies and herbs. If you want to put it in a flower bet it'll
do okay for that too. I mean, it's a great product. It's
you know, sometimes we see the names on things we think they have to
be for that. Well, they're good for that, but no, you
can use them in other ways. And they're rose sooil again, same thing.
If you're not planting roses or planting shrubs, use rose soil. I
mean it's good for that. Both of those are on special now, the
veggie and herb you can either have them bulk deliver, but the bulk price
of it is one hundred and nineteen dollars per cubic yard. That is a
very good deal, probably eighty percent less than what you're going to pay for
a lot of products like that are on town and the supersack one hundred and
forty eight dollars for a supersack neat clean delivered set on your driveway right there.
Of course, you can go out to the site in Porter. You
can pick it up yourself out at the heirloom site. If you want more
information on heirloom by the way, Heirloomsoils off Texas dot com. That's what
you need to look at. Now. The rose sooil again, unbelievable deal.
Seventy dollars bulk per cubic yard, ninety nine dollars for the supersack.
Listen, you don't get an opery for this price, for this quality of
Really, in my opinion, two of my favorite products that Airloom Cells makes,
the Veggie Nerb and the Rose Saul both this fall special. Do not
delay, don't don't mess around with this. Now's the time to get your
soil ready, especially if you're planting. Maybe you're going to put in a
bed for spring, Well, why not get it ready now. Who knows
it may be soggy wet raining and won't stop in the spring. Get that
done now, get it ready, get it done. And all of that
is from Airloom Soils again, Veggie Nerd Fall Special one hundred nineteen book or
one hundred and forty eight for the supersac roast soil, seventy dollars bulk ninety
nine dollars for the supersac of the roast soil. And you know those are
like other Airloom products, they're available by bag as well. Around town.
A lot of our good retailers carry those things. But boy, for a
bulk special, you're not going to do better then what Airloom Sails is offering.
Right now, when you listening to Garden Line, our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I talked about that Nitrofoss three step earlier and
I just want to tell you about it again in case you missed it.
The Texas three step is a fertilizer, it's a weed product control product,
and it is a turf funder side. And I said weed control, I
should say it's a weed prevention product. You know, there's things we put
down to stop weed seats from establishing. Boy, that's easy. I mean,
you get that done and you don't even deal with the weeds. Then
there's weed control afterwards, where you spray on existing weeds, and those we
are always kind of wondering is it okay to use on my turf grass at
this time of year and so on. It's just easier to prevent them.
Well, the product nitrophosphall special that is the winner riser, That is the
one that has the right blend of nutrients, especially that potassium then includes some
important phosphate two for red growth. Uh, but the potassium for winter hardiness
and for even drought resilience. And when you do it now you make your
turf stronger. So when spring comes, it's going to come out better and
greener in the spring. Just to say it again, these are turf grass
plants. They don't use what the roots are taking up right away to get
growing. They use what they've got stored. And then as they begin growth,
roots begin to get in the ground and more and more as time goes
into spring. There you've got a good root system that's taking up our spring
fertilizers and nutrients. But it's important to have that fall fertilizer. The barricade
prevents broadly weeds, grassy weeds. You put it down half inch of water
watered into the ground, get into the surface. It is a barricade a
weeds. He tries to come through and it can't. It knocks it out.
Very easy to do, but you want to do it before the seeds
germinate, which is happening later in October and in November as well. In
fact, it can happen on through the winter when mild temperatures occur. But
get that barricade down now and they'll carry all the way to spring. And
then the third step is a nitroposs eagle that is a fungicide that is a
protectant it's a systemic So here comes large patch brown patch. Don't wait till
the circles appear. Let's prevent them from even appearing. If that's been an
ongoing problem in your lawn every year you got these brown patch circles. You
can get ahead of it and prevent it. And in the meantime, we're
going back next year to all the cultural things we talk about to get that
lawn as strong and healthy and dense as you can, to choke out weeds,
and to help it fend against other issues that it deals with. Nitrophoster
three step. That is a simple, easy way to go about it.
You can find it in Cyprus, Ace Hardware, Fisher's Hardware out and the
port Or Plantation eight Ace Hardware down in Richmond. They all carry the nitrofoss
products, as do many other areas in the many other stores in the Greater
Houston area. Our phone number, let's see, we're getting a little short
on time here for a call, but if you'd like to give us one,
we'll hold you and you'll be the first up when we come back.
By the way after the hour. I just want to remind you that Ace
Hardware carries everything that you're going to need not just for your home, but
I'm speaking specifically for your gardens, your lawns, your landscapes. That fertilizer,
I'm talking about, the weed prevention, the disease prevention. All the
brands that you hear on garden Line, you're going to find them there at
ACE Hardware. That's what they do. They carry those at Acehardware dot COM's
the website, find the store locator. Thirty nine stores in the Houston area.
You're going to find one near you. And when you go in,
you're going to have knowledgeable people that can point you to the products you need
for the issue you're dealing with, especially now that fall fertilization of the lawn
very very important. Don't delay sign up, by the way, for their
ACE Rewards program. You get money back. I belong to it myself.
Get money back every time or as you purchase, you gained the points to
get that back. If you're going to go in there and buy the quality
products they carry, why not be part of the ACE Rewards program as well.
Well, it looks like we're about to put another hour in the books.
Wow, that was that seemed fast to me. I don't know they
maybe time flies when you're having fun. That's what they say, you know,
Kermit the frogcess times fun when you're having flies. But sorry, I'm
a dad. Dad jokes. I used to can knock them out by the
way, Hey have you You know when the kids are under six years old,
I say, under seven years old, you are hilarious. You rule
the room. By the time you hit the teens, you see rolling eyes
and people leaving the room. That is just how it goes with being a
dad. I don't forget Today after the show, I'm going to be at
eight All Star Ace Hardware out in Magnolia. Now. All Star Ace Hardware
is one of the great Ace stores we have here. I hope you'll come
up and see us. If you have samples, put them in a plastic
bag. Let's look at them. Do we need to identify, do we
need to diagnose? Do you just want advice on garden areas? Come on
out, bring me some photos of the area. We'll take a look at
them. They're gonna have food going out there, some outdoor cooking going on.
And I'm going to be given away the nitrofis three step several times during
the time that I'm out there, and so it's your chance to win that
one two three step program that they've put together out there. I hope you'll
join us out for ACE hardware. Also, don't forget if you go to
my website Gardening with Skip gardeningwiskip dot com, simple as that, you can
find my lawn care schedule that tells you about mowing, about watering, and
about fertilizing, about air raiding, about providing even the trace mineral that are
important for your lawn. Out there. It lists both the synthetic and the
orthentic options, so however you want to go about your gardening, you're going
to find what you need. There also talks about soul testing, by the
way, which is important if you are dealing with problems in the lawn like
pests, disease and weeds. Well, my lawn pest, disease and weed
management schedule is on the same way website Gardening with Skip dot com. Go
there, print it out, by the way, check back periodically because I'm
always enhancing these, making them a little better, a little better as we
learn new things, And I just really encourage you to get these printed out,
take them with you when you're gonna go buy something. That way,
you don't get in there and wonder what was that thing on the schedule.
You can just pull it right out and you've got it right there. The
Pest, Disease and Weed schedule deals with the cultural things that help prevent these
issues. And if we need to spray the things that we can use,
we'll be right back. Kt 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 Ricter. It's so crazy just watch him as well.
Many spots they're not a sid well. Good morning. We are entering our
last segment of the morning today on a beautiful Saturday, a beautiful saturday to
get out and about, and a beautiful saturday to get out in the yard
and do a little bit of gardening. While you're out there, Hey,
have you got any pest problems you've been dealing with? You know that cockroach
running across the yard? The yard, well that too, but the living
room or maybe you find some other pest indoors or outdoors. Scott McGrath has
got you covered. McGrath Pest Control. You can go to the website metgrath
Pestcontrol dot Com two eight one four six nine eighty two forty. Now they've
been doing this for over forty almost fifty years. Actually started back in nineteen
seventy four, started by Scott's dad. Still family run. It's the old
fashioned stuff, like they don't say, well block your whole Saturday, we
may or may not show up like service companies do. Nope, they give
you an actual time and they show up then. That's why. One of
the reasons why they're highly rated. The owners involved in the day to day
operations. So throughout the whole Houston area, McGrath Pest Control is available to
help you. Now it doesn't matter the pests. I mean, maybe you
got rodents in the attic, maybe you've got you know, the issues in
the pantry, or any kind of paths that you're dealing with. They can
cover it all modern technology and techniques with old fashion customer service. That's the
way you do it at Mcgrathpestcontrol dot Com two eight one four six' nine
eighty two forty It's as simple as that. I always enjoy visiting with Scott.
He's really a wealth of knowledge. I mean, the guy he knows
his pests and he knows how to deal with them. If you happen to
be out in the Enchanted Gardens area, which what does that mean? Well,
that means Richmond, just north of Richmond toward Katie. You know,
you go up what is it three fifty nine FM three fifty nine and Jenny
Gardens is they are set up, They're loaded with product, they are ready
to go. And anytime you go there, that's the way it is.
I mean the place always looks like they're just having their grand opening or something.
It's amazing, really nice invented nursery. People drive from far and wide
to go there. They're open Mondays through Saturdays from eight to five and on
Sundays from ten am to four pm. It's always a good time. And
when you go, take people with you, maybe you got family visiting or
something like that. Do it because they will really be impressed. I've taken
people there several times myself, and their jaws open every time they walk in
because it's all there. I mean, this is false. So yep,
they got moms. Yes, they have all the fall color, the cool
season color that you're going to be planting, the vegetables and herbs, that
you're going to be planting, and all the products we talk about, the
fertilizers, the soil blends that are so important to get ready for those beautiful
plants that you're going to put in. If you do you need a woody
ornamental, a rose, a tree, something along those lines, they have
plenty of that. It's loaded up out there. Go to Enchanted Gardens Richmond
dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Again, head north toward Katie
from Richmond FM three point fifty nine and you will know it when you arrive.
I love visiting garden centers. I do that all the time. And
I will tell you something I know. I'm a host of a radio show.
I've been a county agroa life extension agent and horticulture for thirty four years,
answering gardening questions. So you'd think I'd heard it all by now.
Nope. There's always a new plant. There's always a new something to learn
and to deal with. And every time I go to a garden center like
our wonderful mom and Pops here in the Houston area, I see a plant
I don't know anything about. It's new, it's different, it's a new
variety. It's just hard to keep up with everything, but I love to
go out and do that. We're going to head up. Speaking of going
out, we're going to go out to Conroe right now on the radio and
we're going to talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, if you't goring A
couple of questions on the lawn right now, I've been doing it all season
at the highest level of my lawmarwer the Augustine. What kind of height should
I go to? So I cut it that bound to like three inches two
and a half inches. What's the lowest side should go before it goes dormant?
Well, there's nothing wrong with leaving it as it is. You can
you can cut down a little bit more if you want, but don't cut
down too much because, uh, you know, the the leaves themselves,
they help a little bit when it comes to slowing cooling, and you know,
as the wind blows over the lawn and stuff. Should we have a
really really bad cold spell, I'd say, what do you want to look
at? But I wouldn't go too low. Saint Augustine is not made for
golf course greens, to say the least, and so people when they mow
it low you're going to have more problems with something like brown patch, for
example, if you go too low on that. By the way, overwatering
and overfertilizing with nitrogen both contribute to that as well. But I wouldn't go
too low on that, all right. I have an opposite problem in the
front yard where it's just beautiful and following a protocol, but it's really sick.
Do I ever defatch it if it's getting thick? First of all,
you probably are over pushing it with nitrogen, so I would whatever you've been
doing, i'd back off that a little bit. We still need the fertilizers
at the right times. You're probably returning the clippings, which is adding those
nutrients right back in and it's recycling them, and that's good. Yes,
you do need to have someone come out and do a defat well, we
don't defach Saint Augustine, and you need a cororation and the core aeration pulls
a little plugs out and drops them on the ground. And when you get
that soil up there, it helps speed up the decomposition of the runners.
Grass blades decompose fast runners roots, grass nodes on the stolons, they're slow
to decompose, and that's why we want to be extra sure that we're putting
that compost top dressing, doing the deep core aeration to it. Those two
in combination will help speed that decomposition of thatch because that creates several different problems
you want to avoid. Okay, and now the right time. If I'm
going to add a little bit of dirt to some depressions in the area,
do I do that now or do I do that in spring? You know
I would do it. I would do it let the grass get growing good,
and then I'd throw that in there because you want it to get growing
and fill in fast. You could do it now, but you're gonna have
all those little dirt spots and I don't know, maybe a few weeds come
up in them. There's nothing wrong with it now. I would probably wait
until spring when it's actively growing and do it at that time. But it's
not a huge difference. So what's most convenient for you? And what do
you want to look at? Yeah, a good point. And one last
question. How many applications I've got brown patch and stuff in my backyard and
maybe takeoff patch. I don't know which one it is, but anyway,
how much how many times do I got to apply fungus side to know that
I've killed it? I know I'm not going to turn it green till spring,
But how many times do I need to go? Well, I think
I've done it three times over six weeks. Yeah, well that's with fung
your side. Yeah, oh that's plenty one. Good application should be fine
in the spring. If you do have the take off root rot, you're
going to need to probably do it again. Hey, if you want to
continue the discussion, I need to run to a break. I'm gonna put
you on hold them all good. Thank you for the call. I appreciate
that very much. You know, we were talking about deep or deep core
aeration. Greenpro does that. Greenpro dot net is the website. But if
you've got that issues, especially if your lawn just needs some rejuveniate. Maybe
it's a heavy clay, maybe it's compacted deep core aeration followed by a compost
stop dressing, we'll do it all. Green pros the company that's the one
you need to call. Two eight one three five one forty seven thirty three
two eight one three five one forty seven thirty three, or just go to
greenpro dot net. And it will help your lawn recover from a lot of
the diseases and issues that they have. They know what they're doing. They
bring out some expensive equipment. I know, you can go try to do
a do it yourself job, but you don't have access to the equipment that
they do, and they know how to do it right greenpro greenpro Texas dot
com. We're going to take a break seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Well, good morning on a beautiful Saturday, beautiful saturday
for gardening, garden shopping, taking care of the lawns, brucing things up,
getting those beds ready. H and you know, especially taking care of
that lawn. October is the biggest lawn month of the year. We have
other months. We do a lot of important things. They're important, yes,
but Octrover is big. It's when our cool season weeds are germinating.
It's when we're preparing to go into fall. We've got to have a strong
plant to do that. It's also when we are dealing with the disease things
like large patch and take all root rot that are going to be out there
and we have to deal with Well, you know, the folks at Microlife,
they have a ton of great product. I mean a lot of great
options that do well. It's kind of hard for me to decide, well,
which one do I talk about. I like the blue and blue combination.
We're just going to talk about that for a little bit here. You
know what I mean by blue and blue, Well, blue is the Microlife
Ultimate. The Microlife Ultimate is a fertilizer that is packed with nutrients and it's
good for everything. I mean, I don't care if you're fertilizing your lawn
or trees or shrubs, or vegetables or flowers. It's a good product for
that. The blue liquid is the Ocean Harvest. The Ocean Harvest is a
fish based product that has all the nutrients that come along with a quality product
like that. And with Microlife, you're always also getting microbial content in the
fertilizers that you put out there. And that is important because microbes rule the
world and it's microbes that take care of trees and shrubs and grass plants and
other things. They protect against diseases, they help enhance the root system.
That's one of the biggest things that they do is build that root system and
when you go organic month after month, year after year, you just more
and more and more turn your lawn into that native type of habitat that nature
provides, where it's full of organic matter, it's full of microbial activity,
and things just get better and better over time. So consider that blue and
Blue, the Microlife Ultimate the Microlife Ocean Harvest Liquid, both have many uses
and both work really really well, and they will help build what you right
now in your minds I see as your goal for your lawn, your landscape.
They will help build that as you go along. You go to Microlife
for Fertilizer dot com find out more about those products, or find out where
you can give Microlife, which is basically everywhere. It's a great product.
Uh, let's see. I'm gonna go now to Northwest Houston. We're gonna
talk to Marene. Hello Marine, Hi, good morning. I appreciate all
your information. And this is the first time I've called congratulations welcome. Yeah,
you're doing a beautiful job. I mean, it keeps me focused.
Anyways, here's my question. I have a front yard and uh saying aldustine
is growing in the middle, but in some areas it's totally like straw and
what And like I go out there and I try to pull at some of
the and there's I think there's there's like moth I see in my backyard.
And do I have just the drying out from the result of the weather?
Uh? Or do I have uh, you know, brown patch or something?
I see some green growing in. But that's where I'm at because I
thought this. There's just a lot of mosquitoes here, and I think there's
something maybe that I need to put on to control the insects. Wow.
That well, you got a lot of questions in one there. Insects in
general is a big, big category which includes a lot of beneficials as well.
Let's pass. Uh, let's start with the lawn. You said,
straw. Is that a dead lawn? Are you talking about the Saint Augustine's
dead? Not all over? In certain spots it is. But then you
see green growing in, and you know what I wanted to do, To
be honest with you, I've been in Texas a lot of years, but
when I first moved here a long time ago, I used to see people
burning these little spots. Is that no, no doubt? So many layers
of no on that one. So what I would do is make sure you
get on a good lawn schedule. And I've got that one at Gardeningwithskip dot
Com. Look at that. It'll tell you the products, it'll tell you
when, and I would just stay with that. I would make sure that
you follow its instructions on watering and fertilizing and everything like that and deal with
Okay, well, go ahead, Okay, my husband is not here presently.
I mean he's on but anyways, like he won't be here for like
another month. What I'm saying is he puts on like a fall fertilizer.
Should I put that on? Or should I focus on these this brown and
try and dig it out so there can be air there. Well, they're
not mutually exclusive. Yes, your lawn, the parts of it that are
alive need the fall fertilizer. And again that's on the schedule. So yes,
okay, So what kind of fertilizer would you suggest? Sir? Well,
go to Gardening with Skip dot Com and it tells you if you want
to go organic, it gives you your options if you if you don't go
synthetic, it gives you your options. They're all good fertilizers. I don't
put them on the schedule. If they're not good fertilizers and so that would
be that would be up to you. Okay, Now in that area,
if I see where there would be insects, where they have grown in the
moth, what does that mean? You see insects that have gone to moths,
It may mean nothing. Most moths that you see are not a problem.
Yeah, here's the thing I'm gonna I'm going to have to go to
some other callers, but I'm going to put you on hold. And if
you see some if you have some questions, if you can capture a moth
or something, take a picture, you can email it to me, but
always connect that with a phone call. I'm not able to keep up with
the volume of emails that come in if I try to answer each one with
my little slow typing fingers. But if you send an email and then call
back on a Saturday or Sunday and let's talk about it, we we can
do that. Okay, Okay, thank you, you've got I'm gonna put
your on hole there. Yeah, that's important. You know. Fall planting
of trees, as I've said over and over again today, is really important.
And Verdant Tree Farm has got a wide selection of trees. Verdant Tree
Farm has locations. It's got the West location out on Barker, Cyprus.
There's one in pair Land on Broadway Street, and there's one in the Heights
area kind of where Iten and Yo come together right there. They have a
fall tree Planning special twenty percent off all trees on the farm that they have
located on the farm there at all three locations, but it ends tomorrow,
October fifteenth, So today would be a good day to get out there,
look at your trees, talk to them, take them pictures. They're really
good at consulting and helping you find the right tree and answering your questions and
pick it out, tag it and then they'll you purchase it. You save
the money on the sale, and then they'll bring it out and plant it
right for you. Verdant Tree Farm is their website. They have a wide
variety of selections, so don't delay. The best time to Planet Tree is
forty years ago. Next best time is today, And here we are at
today. We're going to go now to West Houston and doctor Karen. Hello
Karen, hi there, thanks for taking a call. I have an area
of my yard I've been struggling with for many years. It's a front in
the front yard by there's a circular drive, and so it's the area that's
inside of that that fronts on the street, and it's about sixty feet wide,
maybe twenty five feet at the widest point. But there's also two huge
old live oaks there that have been competing with trying to have grat because it
had grass there originally, yes, and I really really struggled that, all
kinds of fertilizer, watering, everything I could do, and the San Augustine
just didn't want to happen very well. So I finally about this time last
year, I gave up on that and get rid of the grass and put
in some Asian jasmine. Ok But my problem now is the Asian jasmine,
even after all this time. Well, okay, part of it's me.
I have kind of neglected it. I haven't fertilized it. I know I
should, but I just was hoping it would be so thriving and no problem.
But it's it's not. And so now now we've got good weather,
I really have no excuse I want to do something. Some of it has
died, maybe a third of it has died, and the rest of it
is just like the same little size that it was because I planted it like
at eighteen inch centers or something or whatever, and so it looks pretty bad.
Yeah, I understand. I plant more osan jasmine and put in some
fertilizer or that's a good one. It's a good one. You said sixty
feet. What's the other dimension? Sixty ft by about twenty five twenty Okay,
that's a big area. There's a lot of great shade loving groundcovers and
under a live oak tree because it keeps its leaves essentially all year in terms
of shady all year. It's just hard for things to get going and you
make something very shade loving, and so I think Asian jasmine is an option.
It does need a little more sun. There are some other things you
can put in there. They tend to be clumping, so planting an area
that big would be cost prohibitive. So I think you're doing the right thing.
You might want to call someone like Affordable Tree, have them have Martin
come out just take a look at it and see what he can do to
the tree. Maybe they can brighten things up again for next spring and give
that jasmine a little more light intensity. Doesn't need direct sun, but a
little more light intensity to be able to get growing. And that. Yeah,
so about about two months ago I actually did have the trees print.
Okay, but so at this point, yeah, I'm trying to do I
and I agree it does more sun always helps, but then it seems like
it only encouraged we Well, yeah, jasmine isn't doing much. Maybe so
was there a fertilizer that would be good or absolutely? What kind of fertilizer
do you use in your lawn? Well, so I've been real I've been
real bad the last Okay, some good things in the past. Let me
recommend that there you go use that. I've only used it like on plants
and the on the yard. It's good for everything. It's good for everything.
If you've got microlife, then just use that on the area and see
if you can give a little extra nutritional you know, boost to it as
you go under there. I would do that probably three or four times during
next year. You can do it now, but again through next year to
keep going, keep providing that. Make sure it doesn't lack for water,
because that's another issue that groundcovers can have when they're trying to get started,
and hopefully with a little more light from that printing you did, it'll help
out. Okay, hey, I'm gonna have to run. I'm gonna have
to run. But I hope that's helpful for you, and we look forward
to talking to you again. If you have other questions. You take care.
You know, I was talking about planting trees and stuff. I think
you should always have a tree hugger sprinkler hanging there in the garage, just
considered as a tool, just like you have a water hose, just like
you have other tools treo or sprinkler. Whenever you plant a tree, you
can take care of that tree from the day you plant it all the way
to I don't know it gets twenty feets or thirty feet across. Trehog or
sprinkler will get you through that next summer too. It's always good to have
one hand and it just because it says tree hugger, think of it as
woody ornamental hugger. Is it a shrub, It'll do great for them?
Is rosebush? Yes, treogg or sprinkler treehuggersprinkler dot com, simple as out,
available almost everywhere. I mean, I see those things all the time
when I'm going out and about and around. We're about to have to turn
things loose and let the nicky news network take it from here. I uh,
you know, Nikki, you we were talking the other day about houseplants,
and you're talking about how your houseplants are doing. I always like to
check in on them because they you know, they they appreciate that. I
think. Well, but if you have not planted the Chinese evergreen, the
aglionema, did you plant some of those? Do you remember if you did?
I don't. Oh, it's a great one. It has color in
it has colors like coral and red and things in it, and so it
really brightens up. It takes light. What about shade can it take?
It can take lower light than most plants. Now, there are a few
houseplants that can go lower than an agulanema, but not many. And it's
a good one. It's just a really good, beautiful plant. Uh.
And I like the red because you know you're gonna bity points that is to
put in the house and make it all Christmas. Well, put a red
agglanema in there too, and you got Christmas all year. I don't know,
that just came mine. But oh wow, well, I'm finding that
the ones that required more light are not doing well where I've placed them,
So I'm learning that relation. We need to get your list to the others.
Okay, Hey, I don't want to cut into your time, but
if you want to get on garden line, call seven one three, two
fifty eight seventy four. All right, boy, Josh stumped me with that
one. That was the first time I've ever heard that song. That's a
good thing to uh spread out our mix. I know I'm probably disappointing you
admitting my ignorance there, Josh, but it is what it is. Uh,
you know it. The folks out at Kingwood Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's
Garden Center, both of those, Wow, I still can't get over both
of those are in the same town. Uh. They have got a featured
Native of the Month this month, and that's pink mewlely grass golf Muley.
I don't know if you've seen that, but it is beautiful when it has
the little seaedheads and the light comes through them, it just lines it just
beautiful pink billows above the plant. Awesome plant. They have got a whole
row of native plants coming up to feature as we go through this season.
And boy, that's a good one. You're not going to go wrong with
that one. By the way, they have a special out there both places.
You can buy a forty four pound bag of asamite and get three dollars
off per bag, no limit of their heirloom soils, Aged leaf compost.
The age leaf compost super high quality product, good for top dressing, good
for pretty much anything you want to use composts for what a deal? You
buy the as a mite and you get three dollars off, no limit on
those other products. They've got all kinds of trees and shrubs and things.
They got their spring bulbs out there, onions and garlic are all available.
I mean, my goodness, it is just going and going and going.
And by the way, when when we talk about events and things, there
are annual fall festivals going on out at Warren's Garden Center. Go to their
website to learn more about that. But when you are out there, you're
going to find products, You're going to find knowledgeable staff, You're going to
find everything that you're looking for when you head out to those places. Because
both Kingwood and Warren's Garden Center. They have outstanding supply, never to disappoint.
By the way, tomorrow is a Native Plant Week fifteenth through the twenty
first, and they're going to be featuring those native plants. So keep your
eyes open when you're out and about and always a good time to step in
at Warren's or Kingwood Garden Center. Let's head to pair Land now and talk
to Archie. Hello Archie, morning, beautiful morning. Out of here,
oh man. One question, I'm heading to Ace and I'm I'm gonna get
some of the false special that not the false yes it's putting out. But
on the barricade. Would I be better off going with the weed beat or
complete no, rather than the barricade? If I already have weeds, Well,
the barricade is not going to kill an existing weed that's up there in
your lawn. But if there's an existing weed in your lawn, we're heading
fall and it's going to be dying anyway, unless it's a perennial weed.
And got some clover and I've got some other stuff you know product, Yeah,
that clover looking things, probably one of the medics or something like that.
And yes, using a like a weed beater ultra spray on that weed
would be helpful. Now, if you're trying to prevent clover from coming up
in the cool season, then the bona I mean sorry, then the night
frost barricade would be what you want to use. So we're kind of talking
about apples and oranges there, right. Okay, see you said just go
with barricade for preventing future weed. Yes, and once once our warm season
weeds which the medic and some other things that could be looking sort of like
clover are like our silas. Once they're growing, uh, and they become
reproductive, is very hard to kill them with a post emergent product. It
just can I go with that weed beater for the fall and just spray it
the weed beater to kill existing weeds? Right? Yes, it's in the
grass, Yes you can. It's just if they're blooming and setting sea it's
it's hard to kill them. It would be better like next year if you're
in that same problem way or yeah, next spring or way earlier in the
fall to get that done before they start doing that. But good question,
okay, good question. That was it? All right? Thank you?
I appreciate that that call very much. Let's see, we're going to go
to Peggy in Port Arthur. Hello, Peggy, Hello, I have a
question. Is there a fruit tree that I can plant in my front yard
that gets north in exposure. I have a choice of planting it either full
sun or where it gets sun half a day. You want full sun for
fruit because it takes okay, yeah, it takes sun to make carbohydrates and
carbohydrates or what we have fruit for, right, Yeah, absolutely, And
you know it depends on what you like to eat as far as what you
would plant. Well, I don't want sag. I know that, Okay,
Okay, Well, I mean could be a centrist, it could be
a peach. Those are two good ones we got. I had. I
had one Scott's Southern exposure freeze the last couple of years. So this is
going to get full north wind and cold. Yeah, I'm wondering what I
could do there. Well, you get a peach tree established, and it
should take it would take a rare year for peach to get cold damage like
that, and yeah, that just doesn't happen much. So we don't worry
about their heartiness. They're fine. Peaches would be fa pea cher don't last
long though, do they they only last four or five years? Lasts longer?
Oh no, no, peaches, they should go fifteen years for you
could go could go longer under conditions. But yeah, they should last.
They're not going to start producing well until about three years, so yeah,
oh really absolutely. I haven't had that experience before. That's why I was
wondering, Well, we need to figure that out. How it could be
drainage If the site is soggy when it rained a lot, that almost well,
almost all fruit's gonna have a problem with that. Okay, all right,
yeah, I do have a drainage problem. We get a lot of
rain here. Okay, on, don't you consider putting in a raised bed
area, you know where you think of a picture's mound like a baseball where
you bring in and create a mound it's at least a foot high at the
top and then goes down, or a bordered bed if you want that that
works well. I've seen round beds for fruit trees where they had a big
white, ten foot wide bed and they planted a tree in the middle.
It did real well, right right, Okay, I've been told once that
you need to make them high enough to the height of ant belt ant mounds.
Does that tell well? I like that, I said a foot because
that foot is going to settle a lot, and so I guess it end
up maybe liking that mon Well, they dideen inches here, so well,
Hey, the tree will not complain about having more soil over over soggy than
less, so it'll it'll do. Pear tree would be another good example.
You might want to try that one. But do they have a pear tree?
Do you know a name of one that doesn't get one or twelve feet?
Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot of great, great pear
trees out there, acres homes a good par tree. There's a whole bunch
of good ones. Hey. If you go to the Aggie Horticulture website,
they have a publication on pears and it lists varieties and it tells you all
about how to plan them, how to prune them. And that's true with
peaches too. There in fact, any fruit is on that website. I
would recommend you do that and do a little learning about it. With pears,
you're going to need to varieties for pollination in most cases, with peaches
you don't. And so those kind of questions they'll they'll answer all those.
But hey, I'm up against a heartbreak, Peggy. Thank you for you
bet. Good luck, good luck with that. When we i'm back from
break, Melissa, you will be the first one up. Seven to one
three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to Garden Line.
We are going into our last segment of the day, and we got some
phone calls up here. We're gonna get on those. Let's see where are
we going to begin. Who's first up on the line. We've got Melissa
in South Houston. Hello, Melissa, Hi, skip actually at Southside Place.
Oh okay, that's okay. I have two questions. One's about nut
grass and the others about Dahlia's on the nut grass. We use sledgehammer.
You know, we know how to try to get rid of it. But
my question is I have some flagstones, and I know before when I've lifted
up my flagstones you could see the white What are they the roots or the
runners for the nuts edge? Yes, so you know you can't dig them
out. You can try, but you know if you leave just a little
bit it'll it won't do any good. But if I spray that the roots,
would that kill it? No, you have to spray green stuff.
Yeah, spray the green stuff, and some of those products like image actually
or active in the soil as well, gets done in the soil will also
have some effect. But in general I would look for the green stuff.
But here's the deal with nut said it comes out of the ground using stored
energy from the nut that's underground, right, and it opens up and once
it gets three to five leaves, it's making those carbohydrates and it's replenishing the
reserves. So when you spray it, every time it gets up a little
bit, you spray it. Just have it on hand. I mean,
you could do it every Saturday, you know, for a while and just
keep knocking it back. You will win the battle. But the problem is
people, you know, take it all out or try to dig out as
much as they can, and then they forget about it for two or three
months and it's worse than it was when they started. Well, can you
keep the solution and if we make up the solution for the switch them,
can you keep it in the can or do you have to discard it every
time? Yeah? Generally, when you mix up a spray with water,
you need to go ahead and use it, it's not going to last.
There's different reasons. One of them is the pH of the water. If
you buy a ready to use now, the way they've mixed it there as
such that it is going to be pretty stable and you could keep using that
hand ready to use spray. So it just depends on which way you purchase
the product, right, Okay, okay, Now for the dahlias. I've
just fallen in love with dahlias. I ordered some, you know, from
a magazine catalog and first time planning on this. When did I plan them?
I guess this spring? Okay, and I guess My question is I
think I've read different things where uh, for the winner, you take them
out of the ground or you leave them. That's what I don't know what
to do. I'm going to give you a quick answer to that because I
want to get dead bites on the boards today. For amount of time you
can leave them daluas. We're a little far south for making them happy all
year, but you can do that. Are you You can dig and you
get these little sweet potato like roots down there and then you you plant those
back in. Either way we'll work. I've seen them grown up in Nenesota
area. Someone was growing them as cut flowers in a greenhouse. But there's
certain varieties that do better down here. I can't name off the top of
my head, but that's kind of the deal. In a nutshell on the
Daluas. And again, Melissa, I'm sorry to have to run in you,
but no, thank you very much for that call. By the way,
let's go to the heights and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike.
Hey, Jim got an area that I had to take a tree out of
the age and now it's completely study. I'm thinking about planning asiatic jazz this
area, and my question is what is the proper play to plant asiatic jazz?
Yeah, fertilizer to the hole or yeah, tell me what's doing?
All right? In a nutshell, you want to break up the soil as
best you can. If you can mix some compost maybe an inch or to
a compost in the soil throughout the whole area, not just the planting hole,
to get ready. And then when you plant, just plant it with
no fertilizer in the hole. Make sure the soil firms in watered in really
well, give it. You know, you could go ahead and put a
fertilizer down. But I would give it a few weeks and let it get
some roots going coming out of those little planting you know, four inch pots
or however you bought it, and uh, and then the fertilizer would be
helpful. And I would use any of the lawn fertilizers. I recommend on
jasmine. Yeah, I have my browed eyes one of the pas like that.
Okay, that would be perfect. It would do well, just with
the microlife. I would probably do it about four times next year. If
you're planting this fall, do it. You could do it after, you
know, this fall, just to have some nutrients as a roots for getting
going through winner. But four times next year, just gradually giving it a
nutrient as you go through the season. Okay, right right, thank you
very much. I appreciate that. All right, let's see here we are
going to now go to Sean and Katie. Hey Sean, Hey, Sean,
how are you? I'm good? What's up? Okay? I got
a san augustine that has that has become strong basically ninety percent of it and
the rest of them it has dark weed, which is weed all over patches
of weed. And I yesterday went down to the single ranch ace hardware,
and I had bought the Texas three step. Along with that, I had
bought as a might and bug out. Okay, Now my question is with
that take care of this yard, because I was planning to put the barricade,
first the fertilizer and then the fung guy fung aside, and then as
a might and bug out. Okay, are these steps or would take care
of it? Hold on to the bug out. We don't have a big
insect problem right now. Hold on to it and next next year, whether
you're dealing with fall webworms or chinchbugs or us fall webworms, side webworms or
chinch bugs or grubs, you know it can be helpful for those. Okay,
so hold on to that one. Are you going to be residing,
because it sounds like you lost most of the lawn, right yeah, I
lost most of the lawn. I don't know what the best, okay step
would be. Well, you can go ahead with those things you're talking about,
you know, if you're residing, you know, putting down things right
now, I don't know you could do it. You could do it,
but you're about to just redo the place anyway. So I'm a little bit
at in a limbo there on those, But just go ahead and use those
products if you're going to leave it at least for now, because you need
to wait to reside at this point, I'd probably wait until spring to do
it, and you could do the earlier in the month. Follow the instructions
and that should work fine for you. Okay, Do I space it out
every day, like, not put them all at once. No, you
can use all of those one right after the other. The only thing you
don't do is put them all in the same fertilizer hopper at the same time.
Okay, all right, thank you. You've got good luck with that
out there, and Katie, hope you recover. I know what that's like.
I lost a section alon myself this summer. It's no fun to have
to deal with that. You know. You talk about the nitrophiles. That
three step is. It's really a good combination. It does what it's supposed
to do, and what is it supposed to do. Well, fall fertilizer
is supposed to get your lawn ready for winter, so it comes out stronger
in spring, so it's more cold hearty, so it's more drought resistant.
That's what it does. What does the barricade do. It prevents the germination
and establishment of so all those winter weeds hanbit, chickweed, clover, annual
bluegrass, what beggars, cleavers, ved straw, all that stuff. Those
are close season weeds and they're going to be coming up later in October or
November, or they can sprout through the winter season and it'll carry all the
way into spring. As a pre emergent preventative of those weeds. Now,
the third step is an eagle fung aside that soaks in. It soaks in,
it's taken into the plant tissues. It's like a systemic It doesn't move
all over the place, but it's taken in and moves around that area.
And when a disease tries to attack the grass, you've already got the fungicide
in there that's helping out. It also works on the surface as well,
and so here comes large patch or brown patch this fall. If you've had
a problem with the year after year, you're probably going to have a problem
with it again, and the three step process takes care of it. You
can buy it at Gym's Hardware in Montgomery, Ace Hardware and City Memorial or
Lake Hardware. Out include speaking of Ace Hardware, I'm going to be at
Ace Hardware in Ooh about an hour and a half eleven thirty to one thirty.
I'll be at All Star Ace Hardware and Magnolia. I hope all of
you from that area will come out. Bring your neighbor that doesn't take care
of his lawn. He can ask me questions too. We're going to answer
your questions. We're going to identify plants, We're going to diagnose problems.
We're going to make suggestions for beautifying your landscape. This summer has been a
brutal one, and I bet there's a few plants you need to replace,
or maybe something you just want to add to the landscape. Let's talk about
it. I'm going to be given away Nitrofuss three step several times during my
two hours there at at the table at Ace Hardware in Magnolia eleven thirty to
one thirty. I hope to get to see you. I always love meeting
folks that listen to the show. Hey, we'll be back tomorrow morning six
to ten am.