Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's crazy trip just watching as us. So many good things to seep
bass not a side. Good morning. We are glad you're listening to garden
Line today and I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to help you
have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape. This is a season
to plant a tree. We've been talking about that woody ornamentals, perennials.
It's perfect time to do that. Verna tree farm can help you find the
right tree. They can plant it for you, and they can make sure
you get that tree off to success. They have huge you can get small
trees allthough. We up to seven hundred gallons. You go by there,
you hand pick your tree, say I want that one. They put a
tag on it, they bring it to your house. They plant it correctly,
which is very important. If you need to sit down, they even
you can sit down in the office with them, do a little bit of
a design consultation, like what tree would go here? You know, all
that kind of stuff. They'll help you with that. You can go online
to Verdant Treefarm dot com v er da nttreefarm dot com. There's several locations
three as a matter of fact, one in West Houston and Barker Cypress,
one in pair Land on Broadway Street, and then one on Iten where Yale
comes into it up in the Heights. Easy to do it and they carry
quality stuff. Speaking of trees, if you need any kind of a pruning
dun on your tree, you know that we recommend affordable tree service. Martin
spoon Moore has been doing this for a long long time. He knows what
he's doing, and that is very important to have someone that knows what they're
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You need someone that knows, and that's Martin. Call him. It's
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Now they have thirty years of experience and doing trees. They can do everything
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It's afftree Service dot com. Call now to get on the schedule because they
stay busy. That's what happens when you know what you're doing and you run
your business right. Twenty six sixty three, Well, I promised you we'd
have Chris Weisinger from the Southern Bulb Company on the line today, and we're
really looking forward to visiting with Chris and picking his brain because there's a there's
a lot of knowledge in there about everything bulbs. Chris, welcome to garden
Line. Thanks, kidd. I mean, if you pick my brain,
you might find other things up. They're too but yeah, it could get
scary inside our brain sometimes. Indeed, Well, thank you so much for
being on garden Line. I appreciate you taking time out today to enlighten us
about all things bulbs. Yeah. Absolutely, Well, I'm excited to be
here and you know I'm calling in from Northeast Texas and Tyler, where I'm
already out in my garden. Oh man, Every Saturday morning we have a
ritual in my house where I hide chocolate milk from my girls and we do
scavenger hunts. And then today I think I'm going to be hiding it around
the new paper white pots. I've planted up with all the violas and pansies
over the last week, including yesterday. And that's what I'm doing in the
garden right now, putting together like flower bold pots to force for Christmas.
Well, tell us a little bit about that. You know you're talking about
forcing him. I know you're talking about doing it outdoors, but are you
talking about for indoors too or what I'm doing both? So you know,
I'm a perennial flower bulb guy. I love airloom historic flower bulbs. That's
what kicks me off. On the Southern the Southern Bulb Company collecting old flower
bulls for old home sites, bulbs that have proven themselves for one hundred and
fifty years or more in Texas and the Southeast, that were growing with reckless
abandon on these old home sites. You know, So I love perennial flower
bulbs. You know, Chris, I know that doctor Bill Welch was one
of your mentors as well, and something he talks about he's talking about old
roses, but this would be true of flower bulbs, finding them in cemeteries.
If dead people can grow it, you can too. I have been
I've been past so many old homesteads where the house has just rotted and disappeared
and the yard is gone, but you can still see a line of I
don't know, you know, ox blood lilies or something that was where the
flower beds used to be, and those darn things are still going strong with
no care whatsoever. And that's what you're talking about. Yeah, absolutely,
and that's what I want to definitely talk about. But what I tell folks
is if you were to go out and look at all those old home sites
and gardens, one of the epiphanies I had as a as a young horticulture
major in my twenties driving around was that there was every week of the year
there was a flower bowl that was blooming right. And so it's really amazing
that we have this huge variety of selections of flower bulbs that will come back
every year in your garden as perennials, and so I love that. But
I married to florist, you know, and so sometimes I gotta I got
to make sure that I also have like floral quality stuff going on in my
life. Okay, so that not versus versus just wild garden stuff, and
I think you can incorporate both of those well. But I always tell folks
that this is the kind of the time of the year where I do cheat
a little bit, where whereas I do find old heirloom paper whites in gardens
coming up in these old home site gardens. I do like to go this
time of year and just pick up some of those nice fresh zivas or in
balls, and I stick them in pots. It's like a cheap party trick.
Six weeks later they bloom that they're they're my centerpieces for my gardens,
are my tables decorations. There's centerpieces in my in my garden right now.
Wow. And it's fun to do with the kids because they can see the
connection of hey, I planted this six weeks ago. I could still remember
that I did this, and now they're all blooming. And you can have
a lot of fun with pots. You can put like these violas in there,
you can put cyclemen in there, or all these cool seasoned annuals that
are available at garden centers right now. So you know, I not not
to put a shameless plug here, but a lot of the flyballs I've collected
are over there at the arbor Gate. And what I what I love about
that is that, for example, you go to a good garden center like
the Arburgate, you can pick up the bulbs plus all the cool season annuals
they have in stock. You throw them together in a combination basket and voila.
You got this beautiful centerpiece with flower bulbs are gonna be blowing in six
weeks. There you go. That is that is cool stuff, you know,
Chris, I'm gonna take a little break here. We have to pay
the bills and I'm just going to do a quick quick read here and we'll
get back to you. But I've been telling everybody that fallows time to plant
trees and shrubs and perennials and all kinds of things like that. And when
you plant a tree, one of the products that I recommend you have on
hand, in fact, in my in my shed, it is just right
up there with the hose and shovels and every other tool I got, and
that's a tree hugger sprinkler. They go around the base of the tree.
There's a seven inch, eleven inch and fifteen inch size. If the tree
is just newly planted, you can just turn it on and water that area,
and five years down the line, the tree's got roots, it's a
much bigger tree. You turn it on a little bit more. Tree hugger
is your insurance when we go through the kinds of summer that we've had here,
because that first five years of a tree's life, it is absolutely critical
that you make sure the roots have water. And you don't need to turn
your whole landscape irrigation system on. You just put a hose with a treehggar
out there, water the area beneath and maybe just beyond the branch spread and
you can have success. And it's TreeHugger Sprinkler dot com. If you'd like
to find out more information. Thanks for hanging with me through that, Chris,
I appreciate that I would like you to talk a little bit about some
of the bulbs, maybe starting in late summer season on through where we are
now, and then anything going into the late winter time as well. Oh
Chris, are you there? So I'm here, yeah, Oh yeah,
I'm trying to do ten things at once and I just ran right up against
a break, so counted up to rookie. We got Jim from Montgomery's going
to ask you a purple irish question when we come back. Then we'll get
to my question. Thanks for hanging on. Welcome back to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're talking some exciting stuff today about
fall and planting, and of course we have to have bulb so we're going
to get to that in just a moment. If you have not fertilized your
lawn, now's the time. Go ahead and get it done. The sooner
the better. It gives your grasp more time to take up nutrients before it
gets so cold that it just kind of starts to slow down a whole lot.
Now, Nelson Plant Food has put together a product called carbo Load,
and it is designed for our soils and for fall. It's got that lower
nitrogen number that we want. Excess nitrogen in the fall just makes brown patch
a lot worse and causes some other issues as well. But carbo Load is
designed for a fall and it also has a pre emergent herbicide in it,
So when you put down the fertilizer, you're also putting down something to stop
cool season weed growth. And they're sprouting. And the kind of weather we're
having right now, cool season weeds are sprouting and you don't really notice so
much. But boy when spring comes, when we are to get a break
from the winner, they come up and they become big problems. Avoid the
big problem by taking care of it now. Now the extra bonus of using
the carbo load is a forever bag you buy this fall, Dean is going
to donate two dollars to the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship at A and M for
horticulture students. And that is an important thing. I know it would make
Randy is very proud to know that his legacy lives on in that way.
But that's available this fall by purchasing bags of carbo load. If you live
down in the League City area, your hometown feed store is League City Feed.
Now, the Thunderbergs have been doing this for three generations. Over forty
years ago. It started now Wes and his sister Madison, they run the
place. It's on Highway three, just a few blocks south of Highway ninety
six. They carry the fertilizers that I recommend on garden Line. They carry
the soil products that I recommend on garden Line. They also have pesticides,
insexicides, fungicides, herbicides, things like that, quality pet foods. Of
course, you know their feed store. They got livestock, feed, everything
for your backyard chicken needs. Just go give them a call at this number
two eight one three three two sixteen twelve two eight one three three two sixteen
twelve Monday through Saturday from nine am to six pm. So after work,
swing by there at League City Feed and get quality products that will help you
have a beautiful lawn and a bountiful landscape. We're going to head back now
to Chris. Welcome back, Chris, thank you, thank you for being
here. Hey, I'm going to try to pull Jim from Montgomery, Texas
in on a question about purple irises. Let's see if this works. Jim,
are you there? I think so? Can I can hear you?
Chris? Can you hear that? Yes? Sir? All right? Good,
all right, all right, Jim, go ahead. I was told
that what I was seeing was the Asian iris. It was purple. It
looks kind of like if you held your hand up and cupped it, and
then it's the outside and inside is purple, except for the stamens are like
yellow and inside and they came up from a rhizome rather than a bulb.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Boy, Chris, I'm glad you're
here. What is it? Well? Uh? So you know the iris
that there's there's all sorts of different type of iris. And I'm not gonna
get too deep into the weeds here, but some some iris like the cemetery
white iris that we would typically see in old old cemeteries, like with the
bulls were talking about a tuber right. Then you got these Japanese iris,
uh it iris, iris iris. I can't hear some of them there.
Yeah, they're beautiful. Uh, they're beautiful. Some of them are actually
a little more like corns and they're a little more round and bulbusque. But
I think that the thing to remember, well, they're and and boy,
this reminds me of my very first garden talk where I got really botanical.
When they're all geo fights, right, they're all geo meaning earth and phytoe
meaning life. I mean, they all grow under the earth. But really,
you know what my encouragement would be like, don't maybe get too hung
up on the fact whether it's a tuber or a bulb. If it's if
it's an irish that's working for you, that's coming back over the year,
enjoy it and pot it or put in the ground and just let it bloom.
And okay, well iris go ahead, but this one's not. I
don't have them. I just saw them. And the leaves are like flat,
and they're and they stick's kind of straight up like fingers and they're pointed.
Yeah, that's that's a great way to describe it. I'm gonna use
that in the future. Yeah, and that's why some people call them like
flags. They almost look like flags. But flat irs is exactly what how
you describe it. And so that's I think of it like large flattened grass
leaves. And all bulbs are mono coops except for sallus, but which means
they all monocoq like corn like grass. They have these grass like blade leaves.
Some of them are thiffer and flatter. So the cool thing to remember
there from a garden design perspective is that anytime you take one of those monocots
and you put it flat against a perennial, think of all of your other
perennials that are out there, like Salvia's or verbinas or just about everything else.
It always looks good. So even when those iris aren't blooming, if
you put that iris or any of these bold monocots with other flat perennials,
it's gonna look cool even when they're not blooming. Hey, let me,
let me let me jump in here, Jim, do you have a picture
of that bulb? Oh? Uh No, Actually I don't have them here.
I saw them next door, but they've moved away and they've dozed out
all that area, so there's no telling. Okay, But well, I
think we're not going to get too far pasted on trying to identify them,
because it sounds like it could be more than one type of thing. Maybe.
But if you run across any and I'll send me a picture, I'll
run about Chris and we'll see if we can get a more specific idea on
it. Okay, I just want to words. I could buy some because
I wanted to get him, because I know now's the time to plan them.
They seem to come up early in the spring. Yeah, you might.
We have the white cemetery iris at the Uburgate Skip. Yeah, still
some there. I saw them last week, White cemetery. And there's a
purple cemetery too, right, Yeah, there's all these old German bearded iris
seem to do okay, okay, And don't give them a lot of nitrogen,
like Skip said, give them a lot of potastoum phosphorus. Right now.
All right, Jim, thank you, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that very much. All right over now thanks thanks. Uh So,
let's get back to the bulbs. I was kind of I realized I
kind of threw out this huge question, like tell us about all the bulbs
going through the fall, but like when we get to the end of summer,
we have some things that are that are starting to bloom in early fall,
and would you talk about some of those like if someone goes, okay,
you convinced me I can have bulbs y're around starting in the fall,
what would be a few good options and then carry us on a little further
than that. Yeah, well, I mean for all your Houston listeners,
I mean all is when the old historic heirloom starts screaming at us, like
the red spat blooming or even the yellow versions of that. We call the
hurricane the leak. So the hurricanes come through. Next thing, you know,
you've got like all these red spottery blooms coming up on these naked stalks.
You're going to use to start with the like Hoorus radiata of like corse
aria, the red and yellow spinal lease. Okay, boom, Hey,
those are also great indicators to you in the fall. It's like, hey,
they're blooming. Now it's time to do everything else I should be thinking
about with the fall, all right, And that's when you can start thinking
about your more traditional fall planted spring blooming flower bulbs. Okay, And I
know what folks are thinking, like, well, I want a trumpet shaped
daffodil, or I want a tulip there. Okay, Well yeah, yeah,
I know. And now is the time. In fact, we're running
a cell this morning on our historic daffodils right on Southern bulbs dot com.
Yes, and we're running half off. And I think they're cool. But
Houston, you can plant those down there, those large trumpets daffodils and those
big Dutch dark in the gardens, but they're going to be annuals for you,
not pernials. So perennials are going to come back for you every year
and get better and better. Annuals are going to bloom one time and be
one and done. And there's a place for both of those in your garden,
right, But it just depends on what you're what you're looking for,
what kind of garden you're looking for. Well, I have seen some beautiful,
little, small flowered narcissus, you know, the the uh I can't
even say the name of it now that anyway, they're blooming wild out here
in terms of abandoned homesteads. Yeah, paper white is what I was trying
to say. I'm sorry. Yeah, And there are old airline paper whites.
They'll start blooming in December and January in Houston home sites. So those
are also narcissus. So all daffodils are narcissus. Paper whites are narcissus.
So you can grow narcissus, just those large trumpet shaped daffodils. Treat them
like the annuals. That doesn't mean there's not this awesome selection of flower bulbs
that are narcissus that we can't grow like paper whites in the garden, or
grand primos, which are multi flowered heads with little yellow sinners. They make
a massive color impact in your garden. Think about Narcissus italicus. A lot
of these things were were sold out on on sothern bold dot com, but
I know some of the stores around there have them. We'll have them again
in the spring. Other things to plant that bloom well in Houston are in
Galveston are like this, the snowflakes Luko jamest of them. I'll never forget
going around Galveston. I spoke down there Moody Gardens and after a hurricane,
and these these homes were devoid of everything except snowflakes which are coming up in
mid March and blooming all across their home sites. And that does well all
the way up to Dallas too. Wow. So now the time to find
those plant them. And so so if you ask me what I'm doing right
now, I've already got I'm planting a lot of my fall bulbs that bloom
the spring. So I'm playing my snowflakes, I'm playing my grand primos.
But I'm also planting my flower pots to force for Christmas my paper whites,
and then I'm just going to sit back and let everything happen. And then
around January and February, I'm going to start enjoying all these narcissis and and
moving them around the garden quickly where I want them. And that's a whole
nother that's a whole other phone call. So yeah, that's right. There's
a lot of cool ones out there. And so give give some folks some
tips on you were talking about outdoor forcing, and we mentioned indoor forcing,
some tips on success with that, especially when it comes to timing. Yeah,
so for forcing flower bowls again, this is the cheap party trick that
will make every person listening to the show look like better homes and garden amazing
designer. So then living centerpiece and that's just buy some paper whites. They're
at every store, even box stores right now. All you gotta do is
put them in the ground and they're going to bloom in six weeks. Okay.
I was spoke at the Anti Grozenborium last weekend and down out in Burnham,
and my first question the whole audience was what's the number one reason flower
bulbs don't bloom? And everybody said, soil water, plant too deep.
I said, no, people don't plant them. I'll give flower bowls to
my family, good flower bulbs, and they'll call a year later saying they're
still in the garage. Kind of plant them. Paper whites, just go
buy them and put them in the ground. I don't care if they're too
deep or too shallow. They're going to bloom in six weeks for you.
There you go. You can then just do it. There you go.
Well, we're going to take a little break here, Chris hang on if
you would, and I want to come back and talk bulbs again. I
just want to remind everybody that when it comes to pest control, you are
not going to find a better, more dependable company here in the greater Houston
area than McGrath pest Control. And this isn't just me. I mean they
won the Curator's pick for the best pest control companies in Houston. Scott McGrath
does what he says he's gonna do. What does that mean? He schedules
a time and he shows up at that time. Isn't that worth? Oh
my gosh, if I could just have that for every service person that comes
to my house, serves the entire Houston area modern technology and techniques with old
fashioned customer service. That's Mcgrafpestcontrol dot Com two eight one four six' nine
eighty two forty. Oh my gosh, Asleep at the Wheel one of my
favorite bands there is. Well, we're going to head back out to talk
to Chris Weissinger, and Chris is the owner of Southern Bulb Company and I
actuld have mentioned this a long time ago, but the website, please write
this down Southern bulbs dot com. And when you're there, you need to
get signed up for the emails that they send out. I get those all
the time, and each one, and Chris, you can probably elaborate on
this better than me, but each one there's like a featured bulb and you
just learned a ton about it. I mean I save all those up just
so I kind of have a resource. And speaking of resources, you also
authored with our mentor, doctor Bill Welch, a book called The Bulb Hunter.
You want to tell us a little bit about either of those. Yeah,
sure, yeah, we were just with doctor Welch last weekend up in
Independence. Oh wow. And yeah, it was a lot of fun because
I brought my three girls, and even now he's still inspiring new generations of
gardeners. It's pretty it's pretty incredible. He's forgotten more than I know.
I'll tell you that. Yeah. And he coined a good phrase that I've
always appreciated about crime thems which are summer booming. Clara Bold for Houston.
He said, no has ever died. I remember that. It's about true.
Uh huh. I know. I tried to pull a volleyball sized and
crying them up at a garden in Houston, and I just about was the
point of calling a back hoe. Chris Well, A lot of folks do.
I've got a pile of broken shovels, but to so the bull hunter.
It's great because doctor Welsh writes a primer in the back about using these
flower bulbs in the garden, and then the front it reads more like an
adventure story of graduating from Texas A and M as a horticulture major, moving
up to northeast Texas to a little red cabin in the woods where I didn't
know a soul so I could be near sweet potato country, harvesting these flower
bulbs from old home sites, collecting stories, eventually getting married and committing somebody
to move into that little red unibomber esque cabin in the woods with me.
You know, Sorry that was tongue in cheek. It really was. Yeah,
But you know, so that the bulbs come alive, I mean,
you want these stories to come alive. And that's what I think. When
you're planting these air loom perennial flower bulbs in your garden, you're doing more
than just planting a pretty flower, which you are. You're planting a story.
You're planting your story and a story that can be shared with your kids
and grandkids that come after you. So you're planting a generational story in your
garden when you use these forever bulbs. Right, Well, that's good,
And thank you too for providing that email thing that goes out. I really
do. I literally there's a lot of emails I get and go okay,
yeah, I don't have time today. Now that one I actually read it
is always good. You do a great job on that. Wow, Well,
thank you the one you received this morning. I finished up last night
by the fire, okay, hot off the press. Yeah yeah. Try
to let folks know different types of daffodils that are out there. I only
spend about three weekends really hammering the different types of daffodils, because it's like
all the different types of Irish. I think it's important. I think it's
fun. But really, going back to what we said before the break,
really I just want to inspire people to go out there and plant flireabable.
I mean, you're gonna you learn by killing things in your gardener. You
know, you learn, Yeah, and if you get tired of killing things,
you can get better. But yeah, yeah. J C. Ralston
famous horticulturists, I think over in North Carolina direction somewhere over the the east.
He made the statement that to be a good horticulturist, you gotta maybe
it was Ralston, anyway, you got to kill a lot of plants.
And I think that is really true. Don't be afraid to kill a plant.
But I won't tell you there's some of these bulbs you can't kill.
And one of my favorite ones is rain lilies. There are so many,
and you guys carry you know, the typical white and some nice pinks and
even a yellow, the satrina, which I've just started with this year.
Tell us a little bit about the rain lilies. Well, okay, Well,
first of all, my favorite brant is Robustus. It balloons like spring
all the way through the fall. Just put them online. We put them
online this week. We've got some great forage pots for shipping out the people
good you know that that know they're available. That one, Chris God,
When when I first looked at it, the are so big, It's like,
that's not right. It is huge, large pink trumpet shaped blooms like
that are three inches off the ground. It looks like it's a fairyland kind
of a deal. Yes. I like ze Frantis Candida, the one that
has little almost mondo grass sized little foliage. They'll thin foliage and it does
so well. I've seen it even in real wet areas and around here in
Houston sometimes we have areas that tend to stay soggy and it does well in
those well that white raindomly that you're talking about. They say it actually blooms
in the fall. It combines really well with like the OXPLD the leaves from
schoolhouse relieves. I tried growing at my field like in raised beds, just
failed, failed, failed, failed, until I went up to Longwood Gardens,
you know outside of Philadelphia, and they had that Longwood has that famous
arboretum, and right around the glass the glass greenhouses is a bog garden and
they were growing the white ringo leaves in the water submerged. Yes, y,
yeah, yeah, that's where I learned, Oh, I'm growing the
wrong. So we had some at a place here in Houston, the same
thing as a drainage ditch almost. And hey, we're going to go to
uh Marty in Fairfield and Marty has an amarillo above question, Marty, are
you there? Yes, I'm here, all right, go ahead. I
have a bunch of amarillas that are about twenty three years old in the same
spot, and I'm thinking I would like to divide them. Uh can I
do that now? And how do I RePOP them or reput them in the
ground? Sure, great question. I just separate Yeah, right, right
right. Remember that old Bob Newhart skit where he's a counselor and he just
says, stop it, you know, stop it. One of my favorite
that's his only advice, to stop it. That's all the same. That's
all I could do. Marty. My advice not to make a lot of
your your your serious horticulture situation here, but is just go do it.
Go do it right now, Do it right now. And I always say
the best time to do it is when you got time and when you can
see these things. But you know what the at a benefit right now,
Marty, is that it's actually the perfect time to go do that for it's
you do it sort of the off season when they're blooming and in field you're
gonna get some of those cold fronts. So all I suggest is, if
you're going to disturb this twenty three year old clump of amarillis, go ahead
and bulshit in case we just get one of those massive cold snaps to three
degrees again. Emeralds bulbs are semi tropical, right, so they will freeze.
And those old hard amerals, which is at least the red with red
ones with white stripes on them. Yes, yeah, that's the old solid
red, solid red. Okay, so maybe like an old red lion.
Yeah, those are gonna be a little more cold sensitive this. So you
definitely want to bulch shows after you do it. But now it's a great
time to do it, and they'll bloom for you around April next year.
That's cool, you know, I just jumping in here, doctor welch Our
mentor. He talks about in a pod having amarillis, the Johnson ameralists,
the hardy ameralists or others that he turns over on their side in the summer
to let them dry out, to go through that. Will you talk a
little bit about that, that type of the dormancy period and helping it blow.
Yeah. Yeah. This goes back to like, let's just think about
all our bulbs a little bit differently. We've got annuals and perennials, and
that's one big category, right, and a lot of the garden stuff are
perennials. Then you think about bulbs in another way. Think about all those
old world bulbs from Spain and France, our daffodil or the steps of Iran.
Those are like daffodils tulips that operate like on a wet I mean a
cold warm cycle you plant in the fall of bloom in the spring. Well
Amarillis and rain lilies and prinum are these New World bulbs like from the Equator
areas, and they operate on a hot I mean a wet dry cycle,
the wet season dry season. So if you let amaryllis dry out in the
summertime, sometimes it mimics that dry season, and then they're more apt to
bloom for you when you plant them again in the spring or in the fall
to bloom that next season. But Skip in Houston and even Fairfield apparently leave
your emeralds in the ground and it'll just bloom April every year. The trick
you're talking about is like the paper white that's trying to get it to force
again. Okay, for Christmas blooms, right, and so they're a little
harder to force bloom in a pot. But that's the way you would trick
them, the force bloom for Christmas. Let them try on the summertime.
Plant them now, and hope and pray that they'll they'll send up a nice,
beautiful bloom in your center your pot. Very very good, good advice.
We're gonna have to go to another heartbreak. Thanks Martin arty uh our
phone number seven seventy four. We have Chris Weissinger from Southern Bubble on the
line, and we'll be right back. Sandy. You'll be first up.
Welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we
are here talk in bulbs today with a bulb expert, Chris Weissinger. Chris
Weisinger's of the Southern Bulb Company. If you've not heard of it or checked
it out, go to Southern Bulbs dot com. Southern Bulbs dot com you
can find out a lot more information. And by the way, let me
see Chris, are you still on here? Yeah? There we go.
Okay, I had an email come in from someone Chris Teresa Watkins, former
extension agent. Let's see in Florida. I believe she said that the iris
that guy was talking about maybe neo America griscillas or neo America cyrillia apostles Irish
giant apostles iris. I don't know that that's all Greek to me, yeah,
or Latin or Latin. Very good. Thanks. At least one of
us stayed in the holiday in last night. Yeah, you know, and
that and I appreciate that for sure, because you know, I think scientific
names are are important because as as it was said, to name something is
to know to know something, and that's really important. That's why we really
focus on on naming flowers to enjoy them. So no matter what the name
is in this situation, think I'm glad we have a little more detail on
it, and I hope he plants that and enjoys it. He thought in
a neighbor's garden down there in Houston, though, and it's had like the
wide flags. Yeah, I'm tempted to think it could be the iris Albacan's
the cemetery wide Irish, but you know there's been some other bearded iris down
there or they've done well. So regardless, we ought to see a picture
of it. But I really appreciate somebody taking the time to email you.
Oh, I do too, and I'm telling you people catch us like this.
I believe it was from Florida. I had one the other day from
Indiana. Listens to the show, and so I guess I shouldn't pay attention
to my lawn fertilization schedule. We're gonna go now to Sandy in Cyprus with
a bulb planting question. Hello Sandy, Hi, good morning, Skip and
Chris. I have a question, and Skip, You're not going to like
this, but let me just get it out for the warning. I went
to Costco last time I bought a bullplant. I know you don't like that.
Yeah, I'm getting out my soil knife and I'm about to impale myself
on it right now. Go ahead. This was before I started really listening
to Randy Lemon, so it's been a while. But they blimmed once and
they never came up. So I was kind of mad, and I didn't
do it for a couple of years. But now that y'all are talking about
bulbs, I want to try and plant a bulb. Bulbs and a container.
And what size container is the smallest container that I can plant bulbs in?
Good question, that's a great question. Ironically, hold a really shallow
container in my hands right now. It's shallow because I'm just forcing these paper
whites. They really don't need a lot of a lot of energy to bloom.
All the energy in a flower bowl is typically already there. But then
then, but these are paper whites, right, they're the size of racket
balls or or small smaller tennis balls. Uh. And and the thing about
a flower bowl, it has all of its needed energy inside the bulbright of
bloom. So when you're forcing a bowl to bloom, these little shallow pots,
you'll see them decorative pots like they're super shallow with just rocks. So
that's for forcing paper whites. Well, then you're thinking about, okay,
what about other pots? Well, I'm going to plant paper whites with violas
like little Johnny jump ups. I'm over here looking at some of these these
selections that are all the garden centers right now, like the Storbet fire or
whatever whatever else is out there. I think we've got Storbet jump up orange.
I'm gonna have a deeper pot, right because I need I need the
violas to have some more soil, need that paper white in the middle to
do well. Then you start thinking about normal pots, right, and what
does a normal pot need in floral design? You need the three elements.
Maybe you've heard this. Maybe you haven't a filler, a thriller, and
a spiller, right, something that spills off the side, something that fills
the whole the pot, like you know, just pot level, and then
the thriller in the middle. And bulbs are great thrillers to go in the
middle of pots. But if you're going to have that much room, you
need a soil to have these other perenni I mean other diecots that can spill
off the side. They can groundcover and fill the middle, and you need
room for your bulb and to go. So we're talking I don't know one
gallon pots typically something that side Okay, that's good and uh good. Does
the bulb like when I buy it, because I've never purchased it at a
nursery, how does it generally come? Does it come with a pot in
it? Or are they just lose bulbs? Great? Great, great question.
So this goes back to if you're buying flower bulbs for the garden,
they're typically not suited for pots, right. These are bulbs that are going
to be in your garden over and over and they don't always bloom well that
first year. It's it's the exact opposit of the Costco bulbs, the Costco
bulbs, which are are not bad bulbs if you treat them for what they're
supposed to be sometimes, which is that one bloom and done hopefully, but
that there's those are annuals. Then there's this whole opposite section of bulbs that
go into garden. So when you're trying to put bulbs in a pot,
I think you should just if you want to make sure it's going to be
like blooming, I think you need to do something simple like paper whites,
which you just you buy the bulbs buy themselves, typically home depot, Costco's
lows. They've got these combination kits where they have you know, little little
boxes and they have they come as pots. Just start off with one of
those little combo kits. I think they're ten dollars and you can sort of
experience that. If you want to start mixing in like pots that you're going
to have in your patio like all summer long, well we need to get
bigger pots with more soil, different types of bulbs, so that that more
soil can help regulate the temperatures or regulate the moisture levels. It gets complicated,
Sandy in Cyprus, just because I think if you're going to do it
in pots, stick with the paper whites this first year. If you want
to go in the garden, stick with garden bulbs. If you go to
Costco, go ahead, Sandy. But does Ace have them? And I'm
not sure what paper whites are, but yeah, carry that. I don't
know about that, I know, Sandy. Some of our Mama Pop garden
centers around town. You know you're close to plants all seasons. You're close
to Arburgate over there, a want too far drive into the canons and a
lot of those there, some of them are starting to put their bulbs on
on a special But we're still in the middle of bulb season, so I
may be a little early on that. But you can pick up bulbs like
Chris is talking about that, just a lot of different places. And and
it's so if I go, Chris to your website, Southern Bolts dot com
and order them, by the time they get here, will it be too
late to plan them. No. No, we'll ship out usually the same
day obviously not today or tomorrow. But we have gift kits where we have
these old porcelain pots with paper whites, so we bought those. Hey,
everything's ready to go. Just plan it and it's a fund do activity.
We'll get it'll get to you by before next weekend, all right, Sandy.
And I got to warn you if you go to that website, it's
it's addictive. You're you're gonna it's gonna start up money. You're yes,
you know people are gonna be calling in the credit card and report them stolen
when they know you're online at that website again because you start with bulbs.
But oh my gosh, it just it's not in the going on it right
now? All right? Thank you, Andy. You can call you,
call us. We took up the phone a small little warehouse. Call Monday
mornings and you get a hold of Audra and she'll she'll help answer to those
questions too. There you go. Oh okay, okay, so Sandy,
thank you, Sandy, thank you for that. Thank you for the call
boy, Chris. This hour has gone fast. I mean, it's unbelievable.
We've just begun to scratch the surface. But there are so many cool
things. You know, she was talking about what size pot. Have you
ever heard the term the cobbers kids go barefoot? Yes? Basically what that
means is the horticulture doesn't take care of his own plants. I have got
some black nursery pots that used to be full of soil, and they've been
sitting underneath a crpe myrtle against a fence, ignored for a decade, I
think, and there's about an inch and a half two inches of soil left
in them. And I still have rain lilies coming up. I still have
some of the Johnson's and marillas. I guess they got roots down in the
ground through the holes or something. But they're tough plants. So bolts are
like old friends skip when you least expect them, they pop back into your
life. There you go, Sharon de Ray, Oh, Sharon, that's
a that's a good hey. You know, thank you. We're going to
get some music here in just a minute as we're playing out. But I'm
talking to Chris Weisinger from the Southern Bulb Company Southern Bulbs dot com. If
you're interested in his book, it's called The Bulb Hunter. He wrote that
with doctor William welch Uh. There's just a lot of great information on there
and again his products as he mentioned, or available in some of our garden
centers here as well. So I hope you'll get inspired by bulbs. Remember
when you plant these kind of bulbs that they go out and hunt down and
find out and put put into the trade, you're investing in blooming dividends for
years and years to come. It just it just makes sense. Chris,
thank you so much, my friend. I appreciate you taking time out.
Thanks Jim, all right, you take care. We're going to be back
in a bit for your calls. Seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Give Josh a call, who gets you on the boards and
we'll talk to you when we come back