Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Rictor, It's
smell the Crazy Trip. Just watch him as Wood tell us so many teas
to see crazy lubs kicking. We're not a good Saturday morning. We are
glad you're listening to garden Line and we're looking forward to having a good day
talking about gardening. You'd like to give us a call. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two KTRH. If you like to dial by letters, give Josh you
call. He'll get you on the board and we'll talk about the gardening topics
you are interested in. How about that sounds like a good deal. Hey,
Well, before we even get started, I want to let you know
that today I will be out at Lake Conro at the Home and Garden and
Boat show and that is Margaritaville. Yeah, be at Margaritaville for that show.
And that's an also outdoor living all kinds of great information there. There's
a lot going on. I'm going to be doing a seminar. I'm getting
your lawn and garden ready for the fall season. And then I'll be hanging
around to answering your gardening questions. And I have got some fertilizer to give
away. Nelson's Plant Food donated some products for us, and we've got some
little two pound jars and a couple of four pound jars we're gonna be given
away to folks that come up and take part in the seminar. Stop in
visit with me at the booth. So here's your chance to get a little
sample of a quality fertilizer to take home and try out. See how you
like it. Actually, I already know how you like it. You're gonna
love it. But all you have to do is show up at Margaritaville out
on Lake Conro and we'll talk about that a little bit more later. Well,
let's see, I guess we need some like ding ding ding ding.
Just this just in background music here today, I'm here for the first time
to announce that our new lawn care schedule is out. I know I've been
talking about it for a while and hopefully you've been waiting on it. The
lawn care schedule is it covers fertilizing and it does it by organic options and
synthetic options. Talks about doing your core aeration and top dressing important a practice
to do. It, talks about the trace mineral supplements that we put on
a lawn when we might do that, and then it goes into a little
bit about mowing and believe it or not, there's quite a bit to say
about how to mode. You know, the single most important thing we do
for a dense lawn is proper mowing schedule and then watering. And believe it
or not, I know you think turn on the water, it comes on,
grass grows right. Well, there's a little more to it than that.
If you want to have success and avoid problems, then there's a long
list of your fertilizer options for each of those. Now this has got a
lot more information than the previous schedule, so when you first look at it,
it may be like, oh my gosh, that's a lot on one
schedule. But if you just take a line at a time, it's real
simple. It tells you each month of the year what to do when it
comes to fertilizing, aerating, mowing, watering, and the other schedule coming
out it's not quite out yet, is the pest, disease and weed management
schedule and it goes through every month of the year. What kind of insects
might you be seeing and what do you do about it? What kind of
diseases and what do you do about it? And how do you prevent weeds
and how do you control weeds? It are already growing, so I think
you're going to like these. Just take some time. You can get them.
You can get the schedule for free on the web. I just put
up a new website and basically it's just housing the schedule. Right now.
We're going to be adding a lot of content to the website on all aspects
of gardening. But right now, if you go to gardening with Skip dot
com Gardening with Skip dot com, then you go there and pretty much the
schedule is the website right now. You can click on it. It's a
PDF. You can download it, you can print it. You can tape
it to your refrigerator or put a magnet on refrigerator. You probably wouldn't be
popular in the family if you taped it to the refrigerator unless you're going on
living there, but anyway, you get the idea. It's available, so
take a look at it. Look through it, and I think I think
you'll be very pleased and find that there is a lot of great information.
I want to tell you. I put a lot of time into this one,
basically asking myself the question at the start, Okay, what is the
latest information that we have from research across the country, especially across the south
in our zone on proper fertilizing, proper mowing, watering, so on.
Because we wanted this to be as up to date as we can. So
anyway, check it out. Gardening with Skip dot com. Let's go ahead
and go to the phones again our phone number seven one three two one two
five eight seven four, and we are going to go to Alvin and talk
to Helen. Good morning, Helen, good morning. How can we help?
I was wondering. I had a fig leaf planned in the house.
It's about three feet tall, okay, and I have at work and get
some through patio door. But I just think that there's some type something I
could put with the water, because our water, you know, has chlorine
and it is different. Ellen, that's in it. So what I've heard
you say, garden gardening with is it kit kit? Skip my name gardener
with Okay, that's okay, gardening with skip you bet so? Okay,
Well, the chlorine is not that big of a deal. In fact,
it's I think probably chlora means actually they've they've changed the product that they are,
the chemicals that they use to protect our water from microbial issues and things
over the years. But in general, I have not found a big problem
without I have a fiddle e fig and and uh it's those can be a
little persnicketty, But I don't think you need to worry about the water.
If you have rain water, it'll be happier, you know, if you
have that. Even to still water is fine if you want to use that.
But I just use regular tap water with mine. You wouldn't add anything
to it, didn't. Oh, yes, yes, absolutely, dude.
You got two options. You can put a fertilizer in the container and then
every time you water, it's dissolving and releasing that. It's best if it's
a very slow release fertilizer when you do that, because the way you avoid
burning it. You know, you dump a bunch of salt based fertilizer in
a pot and you can really fry a plants roots and their leaves. I
also use liquid products you know, the Microlife makes a really nice seven one
four. It is biomatrix is what they call it. It's an orange bottle.
I use that. Medina has a nice fertilizer as well. They're they're
low host to grow. That works very well for houseplants. So you got
some options out there. But well, I really appreciate that. Yeah,
follow the label always, you know, make sure you know, we tend
to think if a teaspoon's good, a tablespoon's better, and when it comes
to gardening, that is not true. That's true, so true. I
appreciate your program, and thank you for your help. Thank you, Helen.
I appreciate that. We're and take a break here now, Tom and
Angelo, we see you out there. You'll be first when we come up
our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Great
ball, Well, good morning on a great Saturday morning to talk about gardening.
In fact, look out the windows dark outside. If you the neighbors
lights aren't on, go bang on the door, tell them they're missing guarden
line. They will rise up and call you something today, but eventually they
will call you blessed for turning them onto the show. Hey, we are
in that season where here comes the tropical storms. Right now. Whenever there's
roof damage, you know that the fly by nighters are going to come in
from out of town wherever the last storm was, put a business card in
your door and tell you they're going to help you get your insurance claim to
fix your roof. Don't go with those, I mean, they don't live
here. They are gone, and if something's wrong, you're up a creek.
Brinkman Roofing that's our hometown roofer. They've been doing this for fifty years,
and you don't stick around fifty years unless you're doing it right now.
You can go to Brinkman Quality dot com and learn more about them, give
them a call two eight one four eight zero seventy six sixty three. They
do standard types of shingle. They do standing metal seams. I mean they
can literally put together the metal roof on your property so that it is custom
fit to fit perfectly. And they have a solar shingle, which I think
is really cool. It's called Timberline solar shingle, so they're a it's not
a solar panel above your roof, it is your roof. So called Brinkman
find out more about that. Two eight one four eight oz seventy six sixty
three. Let's head out now to Cyprus and we're going to visit with Tom.
Good Morning, Tom, Good Morning. My problem is I was here
in your show last Saturday. Somebody was talking about you were talking about armadillas,
and the guy mentioned something about macaroni and cheese, and my radio went
dead. I'd like to get what was the clarification on that conversation. Okay,
well, we're not feeding them like pets outside, but here's what I
said. Armadillas. You know, they're bumbling little things going along tearing up
the yard because they're just looking for soft dirt with something they can dig up
and eat, like a grub or earthworm or anything like that. And so
they're a problem. Now. The best way to manage them is to get
a little live trap and set two boards. Think of it as shape like
a v going out like you're funneling them into the trap, because that's just
how they operate. Typically, they'll bounce along a privacy fence, you know,
or along the side of the house, and so you set the trap
up to just kind of get in front of them and direct them in.
And if you boil elbow macaroni and beef bullyon, I guess it makes it
like little grubs to them or something. But just drop a few of those
and that kind will help lead them into the trap. And that's how you
do it, so you can relocate them somewhere else, all right. The
second question is suckers on crepe myrtle, how do you keep them from coming
back? Cut them off as close as you can, almost to the point
of gouging them out where they're coming out, because at the base of the
sucker there's a whole bunch of buds. So I mean, if you cut
it off an inch long, you're going to have a whole bunch of new
shoots right there where you cut it off. So get as much of that
as you can out. There is a product out there called sucker Stopper sucker
stopper, and it's a hormone and you spray it on the cut after you
make it, and it tells the plant don't put out a shoot here,
and it works a little will works pretty good. But some crepes are really
prone to that. Some are not. But I can tell you this.
Once you start that process, of cutting them off and getting more suckers.
It just seems to get worse and worse. So that would be my recommendation.
All right, thank you very much, Thank you, Tom. I
appreciate that call very much. Hey, if you're doing any transplanting this fall,
and boy, I hope you are, because this is the time to
plant, like right now, your tomato plants. You can plant pepper plants
still, we're coming up on broccoli and all the cool seasoned vegetables. Has
to grow six twelve six. That is an outstanding product for watering your transplants
in I mean, it has a lot of good uses. That's my favorite
use for it, but has to grow six twelve six. Has the six
percent nitrogen twelve phosphorus. That phosphorus number being higher is important for root development
and other activities in the plant that it needs phosphorus for. And then six
percent potassium. It's got Medina soil activator to stimulate biological activity. It's got
hum humic acid, it's got seaweed extract. This is quite a concoction.
I mix it in a watering can and drench it on the plant that I
just planted. This could be a rosebush, too. I mean, it
doesn't have to be a little annual plant and then about a week later,
do it again, about a week later, do it again, and by
then your plant is well on its way to success and we need to give
them that extra boost. And that is exactly what you can do with the
hasterbro six twelve six. We are going to head out now to Kingwood and
talk to Angelo. Hello. Angelo, Hey, how you doing today,
sir? I'm well, thank you. Okay, here's a thing. I
got maybe half a dozen well established primaria plants, about two of them now
I'm guessing My question is to the watering schedule. Okay, with the extreme
heat, I would soak them with the water hose in the dirt. And
here it looks like they're some are dying. You're just the leaves are drooping.
The other ones I do the same thing and it's they don't droop at
all. So my question is do primarias need a lot of water they don't
like in a wintertime. I know they hardly need any. But now what
the drought can do? Am I watering them too much? Or is just
a thing or what? I don't know what it is because this has never
happened before, and they're about three years old and six feet tall. Yeah,
that's very interesting. So the real question is why with the same care
to some droop and some not. And that's either going to be the soil
doesn't hold water as well with one or maybe the soil doesn't drain well.
And the ones that are drooping is because the roots are sitting in soggy wet
conditions which will damage roots and therefore show wilting. It's kind of weird that
a plant and standing water wilts, but that's what can happen. So I
would you know as far as what they need. They're not a succulent,
but they have storage tissues in the trunk and branches and so they can go
without watering you in the wintertime. We hang them upside down the garage if
you want. They wait for spring, so of course they don't have leaves
on them then and all that, but I don't want to infer that they're
drought resistant. You do need to water them periodically to keep them happy.
The question on yours, though, and I'm not going to be able to
know this not being there on site, but is why with the same care
or some Okay, and some not. And I would just dig down about
three or four inches, feel the soil around the base, uh you know,
about six inches or eight inches or tea around the bay away from the
plant, and if if it's moist to the touch, then they ought to
be okay. If it's a little dry, then you probably need to water.
And if it's soggy, there's your problem. Well, the thing is,
it's all on containers, it's all the same soil type, it's all
like water all the like. Could it be the difference in age? Possibly
because the one is, like I said, six foot tall, but it
just looks like it's ready to die, like I overwatered it. So okay,
doing everything right, I would, I would say not so much.
Well, the bigger the plant, the bigger of the root system, it's
going to need to supply it. So maybe if you're watering just a little
small area instead of a larger area, that could be a factor. As
the plant gets older, the root system gets more established. As it's younger,
the root sysm isn't as well established. So consider how wet wide of
an area you're wedding on that big plant. And then again just going down
in the soil to find out is there water there or not? Or is
there too much? And okay, my last quick question. If those leaves
like they're drooping now, they just look like they've been in a flood.
If they fall off, does that mean the plant is dead or just that
leaves set is dead. It means that leaf set is dead. Now if
they don't throw away the plant, pardon, don't throw away the plant.
If the leaves off all off? No, not yet, not yet,
And I am not I'll just tell you this too, Angel. I'm not
a Plumaria expert, so we may need to get somebody from the Plumarius Society
to call in on some of this as well a horticulturist. But yeah,
they can drop leaves and they can put new leaves on if they drop leaves.
Because let's just say you had a root route that killed all the roots,
just an example, Well, then it's probably in big trouble. But
you know, plumeria is you can cut a branch off a plant and it's
just a dormant stick and you stick it in the ground and it roots.
So it had no roots to begin with at all. So there's there's probably
a way to save those plants. If okay, well, thank you very
much. I appreciate your information. I have a good day. Hey Angelo,
thank you. I appreciate your call very much. Good to always visit
with you. Hey, if you're up in the Lake Conro area, your
hometown nursery is Ana Plants and Produce. They are on the east side of
Montgomery, just Highway one oh five that goes to Conro, just on the
east side of Montgomery. Now they've been around for thirty years. This place
is three acres of everything you can imagine. So those of you in Lake
Conro De Lago April Sound, you know, even over Magnolia willis certainly Conro,
you can head over to Ana Plants and find all kinds of things you
need. They carry all the products that we talked about. So if I
talk about a fertilizer, you're going to find it there at Ana Plants.
They certainly have soils like quality soils. Some of those folks here locally that
produce the quality soils we talk about, they're going to have that. By
the way, today it'd be a good day to go buy because I'm going
to be up at the Lake Conro Home and Garden and boat show up at
Margaritaville on Lake Conro and so I mean you just be down the street.
So come up and see me there. Let's visit. I'm gonna do a
program for about an hour on all kinds of things about getting ready for your
fall season in your lawn and garden. And then I'll be there at a
table where we can you can come up and ask questions. I'm gonna be
given away some fertilizer samples from Nelson Plant Food. When we're done there,
just are before just head over to Ana Plants maybe after, because you don't
want your plants sitting in the car in this hot weather. Head over to
Ana Plants and see what they have. They're open seven days a week from
nine to five. Yeah. I look forward to you folks coming up and
let's visit. Well, we're up there. We're gonna head out now to
Pleasantville and talk to Deborah. Well, hello, Deborah, Good morning,
Skip, good morning. Okay, check out my email on brown patch question
mark which I think I got it? You think? Yeah? Brown patch?
Okay, well I can tell you this. I'm almost pit. Well,
you've got something. Brown Patch is a disease. The genus is raise
octonia, and there are other riise octonias, but the one we've always called
brown patch, they now call it large patch. And it only is going
to occur when it cools off. We get into that, you know,
cool fronts of fall come through, get a little bit of rain, get
a break in the temperatures. That's when you see the big circles. If
you're seeing something now, first of all, is it nice defined circles or
is it just kind of areas all over going down? The most areas going
down. If you look at the picture that I sent you, okay,
email that I sent you, I did, I need a close up on
the first one, okay, and the whole yard on the second one,
and then the little strip grafted the sidewalk is the current one. The last
is a weed. Did I reply to your email last night? Yes?
You did? Oh, thank you so much. Well, I'm gonna have
to find I'm to find oh, I remember that email that I think that
is either a drought damage issue, just couldn't get enough water to supply the
plant, or it could be a disease called take all root rot. I'm
about twenty seconds out from having to take a break here. If you want
to hang on, we'll talk to you when we come right back and we
can kind of continue this just a little bit. Okay, hang on,
all right, thank you, Deborah. I appreciate that. All right,
Well, it is time for the Nikki News Network. I know you haven't
left the house yet because you first got to hear what's happening in Houston before
you head out down the road. Right. Well, good morning. You
are listening to Gardenline, and we're here to talk about all kinds of things
gardening. Hey, if you were looking for a fun thing to do,
and I would suggest get some friends and go out to check out a bee
tour out at the Bee Supply and Dayton. Now, I know you're thinking,
okay, don't I don't do bees. I don't if you see what
they have to show you, I mean, the fascinating world to bees.
It is really cool, especially if you have kids or grandkids or anything they
really need to learn all about the fascinating world to bees. You also get
free tastings about a half dozen different types of honey. If you are at
all interested in keeping backyard bees, and you should be because they helped pollinate
our plants, you'll have more success in your fruiting vegetables like squash and cucumbers
and things. If you have a good supply bees right there on hand,
plus you get the honey that's an extra. You can go to the b
supply dot Com online. The b supply dot Com online. They have their
beginners classes once a month out there in Dayton. You can learn all aspects
of beekeeping and you will find it very interests, a lot of a lot
of learning in a wonderful classroom that they have a lot of hands on learning
as well. It's about a six hour class that includes lunch too. So
thebe supply dot Com is where both groups those who want to keep bees or
maybe just curious about it, and those who just want to learn about bees
and kind of have a fun, cool thing that probably I bet you've never
done before. Check it out at the b supply dot Com. We're gonna
go back to Deborah now, Hey, Deborah, when we had a little
break, it gave me a chance to look at those pictures again. What
it looks like to me. It's either the lawn got too dry for a
little while, and you know, started you start to get some die back,
but it's still hanging on or the disease called take all root rot has
moved in. It is not. It's definitely not brown patch or large patch.
It's not subul worms on your lawn. Looking at the condition of the
grass up close, noticing how across the sidewalk the grass where the water runs
off the sidewalk is nice and green and pretty, but out in the lawn
it's not quite so much. So you might check your sprinkler system make sure
that it is equally wetting all areas of the lawn. That often doesn't happen
with sprinkler systems. So it could be stand out there and I'll walk around
with it. Oh you do. Oh okay, so you're the water the
required water of my yard. That's what the sprinkle only requiring one of my
yard acing Ya, I go around in a hand doomed corners. Okay,
so you're you're taking care of it. Yeah, just make sure it's getting
a good soaking. You know, when we water a little bit every other
day, we're not wetting the soil deep at all. A good sofa to
try to get an inch down when you water, you don't have to water
is often and in the long term it saves water because every time you wet
the soil, when the water goes off, everything on the grass, blades
and thatch evaporates away. And that was water you didn't get. And so
a good soaking gets enough down in the soil. So I would do that.
As far as the take all, you could send a sample into the
state lab or we could just you know, in the fall, go to
a a fungicide treatment. I hate to send people out to treat things,
and we're not when we're not sure what you have. But so those are
your options. Just do a funchal October. That's your October. I put
down the whole yard of heirloom soils, compost the age leaf compost. Yeah,
that can't get any better, not lose great. Yeah, yeah,
okay, And do you look at that last picture. That's that weed.
I think you told me it was a fall aster. Yes it is.
It's a fall master. And if you know, we're at a horrible time
to be spraying broadly weed control on our lawns. But if you get out
really early in the morning before it gets too hot, let's say, before
it gets above eighty five, so that means early, right, you can
spot spray those with a post emergent broad leaf weed control. They're going to
be blooming soon in the next month or two or three, and so at
once they start blooming, there's no spray in them. They they're not going
to respond what I do with mine. As you can see from your photo,
they have a single tap root. So wet the soil deeply so that
it's soft, and then I get out there with a five gallon bucket on
my hands and knees and I just pull a few. I do it early
in the morning, and then another day I'll get out and do a few
and do a few. And you can take a big, old wide fall
aster plant and you just you find the base of it, grab it tight,
shake it a little bit and it pops right up. Or you can
use a weeding fork. So you know, I just have one area in
my yard where my neighbor doesn't take care of their weeds, and fall aster
keeps coming into my yard, and so I keep it managed that way.
But spraying is the other way. Just be careful because those products will hurt
your Saint Augustine. When it's above eighty five, okay, I'll call it
tomorrow. About a Lazella Papa. All right, thank you, ma'am.
Appreciate that call. Very much. Good to visit with you. You know,
if you are if you are looking for a quality product for your cacti
and your succulents, you know those are real popular right now, cacti and
succulents. And with one hundred degrees and head and rained and I don't know
how many days, I guess cacti and succulents would be popular. Nature's Creation
has a cacti in succulent mix. It's got microhizal fungi both endo and ecto.
What does that mean, Well, it means it means there are fungi
that are inside the root and outside the route that reach out, protect the
route from problems and bring nutrients to the plant. Pretty cool stuff right now.
This product drains well, maintains a good soil moisture. It's just an
excellent product. It's Natchers Creation Organic Cactus and succulent Mix with Michael Eislfungi.
You're gonna find it at Moss Nursery, at RCW Wabash Feed, Sweet Organic
Solutions, Houston Garden Centers, I mean the place. It's sold all around
town. And if you have cactine succulents. It is a product that if
I were repotting some more, I would give this one very serious close look,
because I think you will find that it will give you good success.
We're gonna head out now to Santa Fe and talk to John. Hello John,
Good morning, sir. Good morning taking my call. Yes, sir,
I have two questions. I seated put some beats in some potting soil,
and I put some Brussels sprouts in and they're both starting to poke their
little heads up. Okay, when do I When do I want to get
those into the ground. Oh boy, Well, the the beats are a
little bit of a challenge because there are root so you can't leave them too
long in a container. Probably got a little bit of an early start on
those. You may end up having to do a recede a little bit later.
Beats are essentially the same plant as Swiss chard. I mean, they're
so closely related. Uh, and so those kinds of things we would plant
probably in September. Uh, you know, start to seat them out as
we get a little bit later in the month. The Brussels sprouts too,
that's a cool season crop. And it's going to take a little while to
grow transplants, probably about six weeks to get a good Brussels sprouts transplant,
and so you know, I would say probably towards the end of September,
let's see year out in Santa Fe. Yeah, you could even go a
little bit later than that, probably too. They take a while. So
when you plan them out, if you can give them any kind of a
little bit of a break from the sun, it could be a shade,
are okay, Well, when you put them in the garden too, uh,
you know, they're going to be exposed to the full brunt, and
so any kind of a little temporary, not deep shade, but just a
little break from the sun for the first few weeks. That gives it time
to cool off, maybe get a cofrun in here, and helps them make
that adjustment from living the life O'Riley in your little transplant pots to being stuck
out there in the full brunt of the sun. All right, good,
yes, sir. The second question is, Hey, John, I'm gonna
have to stop you on that. Hang on. I have to go to
a break and we'll take your second question when we come back. If you
can hang on you are listening to garden Line. Our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All thettle birds on Deep Birth
Street don't do it. The Robin Bull tweeting Robby Well, good morning.
We are talking gardening as we always do here on garden Line. Our phone
number if you'd like to be part of the talking gardening is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. That's two one two kat r H.
When was the last time you were at Buchanan's Plants? Talking about Buchanan's
Plants. It's in the Heights on Eleventh Street up in the Heights kind of
north central Houston. You can find their website at Buchanan's Plants dot com and
you need to check that out. That is a wealth of information on that
website. Also subscribe to their newsletter where you're there because you find out everything
going on, and you know, sales and new plants that just came in,
and all kinds of cool stuff. Right now, they're loaded up with
all kinds of Halloween decor indoors and outdoors. You know, they've got a
new shipment of camellias. It just came in and if you have not tried
grown a chamelion. Those are really beautiful plants. What blooms in December or
in January. You depending on the kind of camelia you have. Well they're
not a lot, but camellias do and they are absolutely beautiful. They got
communions, they got the fertilizers to go with them. You know, with
Buchanans, we think native plants because that's what they specialize in. I mean,
they actually have natives that are native just to here, to the Houston
Harris County area specifically, and then natives to the region or to the state
as well. You're going to find every product that I talk about when it
comes to fertilizing adding you know, soil mixes and composts and things. They're
going to have it there at Buchanans. It's a fun place to shop and
with those big trees, even a hot day like we're having these days,
it's a pleasant time to be out walking around checking out what's going on at
Buchanan's Native Plants. It's one of those destination garden centers that when guests come
to town, you gotta take them there because if they have one ounce of
gardening or blood in them at all. They will absolutely love Buchanan. Do
you know what, even if they don't take them and show them the amazing
gift shops that are there on site, pretty cool stuff. We're gonna go
back out to Santa Fe. We were having a discussion. I think you
had a follow up question. Yes, sir, I do. I have
several large trees in my yard and I'm worried about them. I'm concerned about
them. How do you go about watering them? And number two part of
the question is if I can capture the gray water the washing machine and the
shower water and use them for use that as water for these trees. Is
the soap and detergents in the in the gray water going to hurt these trees?
No, it kind of you know, we don't know what all's going
down the drain, so I kind of can't quite give a carte blanche.
But when it comes to graywater that's generally good for plants, it's okay because
the dilution of it is it's pretty deluded. And when it comes to the
to the water. So if you're just trying to save on water, that's
one of the things you can do certain cities have regulations on what you can
and can't do. But you know, growing up, we had gray water
from the kitchen sink. They went right out the back, you know,
and watered some plants. So it's certainly something you can do, okay.
I was just wondered about the detergents in laundry detergent and dish soap and yeah,
laboratory and so yeah, not a problem. In the old days,
there was a lot of phosphates in the soap and we'd get a build up.
But that's not the case anymore. So much so I wouldn't worry about
it. But I tell you what I would do. I don't know how
big these trees are, but you hear me talk about tree hugger sprinklers all
the time. But I like them because you can put them around the base
of the tree. They have different sizes and you can turn them on to
water a small area if it's a small tree, or a large area if
it's a large tree, and you get the water right there beneath the branch
spread and that you know, if you're trying to rescue a tree, the
area from the outer branch spread in toward the trunk. That's the most important,
especially the outer third of the branch spread. If you can get a
good soaking on that, you can keep that tree out of major stress.
We're not trying to have them little talking about what you're talking about. What
I know is the drip line. Drip line, Yes, sir, that's
it. That's it. Okay, Yeah, just out there and in from
there a little bit. But if you can focus on that area, the
tree gets enough water to hang on and not go into major stress. You
know, we can't supply every drop the tree needs, but we can hold
it off until we get another rain. And that's what you're aiming for.
Correct. All right, thank you sir, Thank you for your time.
All right, thank you. I appreciate that call very much. Yeah.
You know, when it comes to watering, if you want to make watering
your lawn easy, here's a freeway that you have access to the full extent
of the science of lawn watering. Can you imagine that the full extent at
your fingertips, delivered to you for free. That's called water my Yard.
Water my yard dot Org is the website. You can go to the Apple
app Store, you can go to Google Play. If you have an Android
and download the apps for free. You tell them where you live. They
find the nearest weather station. And there are little weather stations all around you
don't even know they're there. They're all over the place here in this Greater
Houston area, and they find the nearest one to you, and they take
all the data from sunlight, solar intensity, windspeed, humidity, everything that
makes grass use water, and they tell you at the end of the week,
your grass is used this much water. Maybe it's point seven five inches,
maybe it's an inch, maybe it's a half inch, and you know
exactly how much to apply, so you don't waste water. You don't overwater,
you don't underwater water myyard dot org, you're just not going to get
any any better than that. I was walking around the landscape yesterday looking at
some of the turf and how it's doing, and it just reminded me that,
you know, we talk about fertilizers all the time, and those are
the big three numbers, typically the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, but the
trace elements are really important too. The trace elements aren't needed in large quantities
at all. In fact, you don't want them in super high quantities.
But if you don't have them, the grass can't perform well. It's limited
by the most limiting nutrient and the soil. So if it needs, you
know, twenty nutrients to do well, well, if one of them is
in low supply, that's going to limit how the terp performs. And azamite
is the product we talk about just for that. Azamite is mined out of
the ground. It's a mineral that is ground up. The different forms of
it there's a micronized, a granular form, and so on, but you
put it out on the lawn and it provides that extra nutrient to just enrich
the soil because you want your grass roots when they go looking for all the
nutrients that are essential for growth, you want those nutrients to be available.
And that's what asamite does. I use it in vegetable gardens too, by
the way, because I want my produce to have all the nutrients that my
body needs. And you know, we need the nutrients plants need, but
we need a few others as well, and so with asamite you can have
that kind of supply. Well, you're listening to Gardenline this morning and we're
about to take a little break here in a bit. But if you happen
to be out in the Kingwood area, you are fortunate to have two wonderful
garden centers Warren's Garden Center, Warren's Southern Gardens it's called and Kingwood Garden Center.
Now they have azamite as their product spotlight this week, and so you
can go right there. They've got it on hand. They have plenty of
it. Grab your azamite to do. There's no magic, you have to
do it right on this day or anything. You just want to get it
down each year so you can provide those extra nutrients that I was talking about.
Now they are loaded up with tomatoes and pepper's beautiful little plants. It's
ready to go. Now's the time you got to get that done. Hey,
go to Kingwood Garden Center dot com if you want to find out more
about Kingwood Garden Center. Hey, by the way, at Kingwood, they're
having a Fall into Prosecco event. This is a mixology where you learn about
herb infused drinks. And this will be September twenty first at six pm.
They are gonna tell you about how to grow the herbs, how to harvest
the herbs and how to infuse spirits with the herbs. Now at both places,
they've got their composts. Selle three bags of heirloom soils age composts,
and you buy three, you get one for free. You're not gonna do
any better than that. I mean Warren's Garden Center, Kingwood Garden Center.
Knowledgeable folks. Give them a checkout. All your friends are jealous, said
you. By the way, you got those centers right in your backyard too,
great garden centers. Hey, just a reminder. I'm going to be
at the Margaritaville Resort today at Lake Conro at the Lake Conro Home and Outdoor
Living and Boat Show out there, I'll be doing a seminar on getting your
lawn and garden ready for fall. And then I'll be sitting at a table
where we'll answer your gardening questions. I've got some fertilizer to give away,
some nice little two pound and four pound jars from Nelson's Plant Food for people
that show up as ask questions during the seminar. Stop by the booth and
ask questions. We'll get your nice sample the quality fertilizer. I hope you
come out there and join me. Hey, we'll be right back seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily
endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH
Garden Line with skip rictor. It's so just as so many good preas to
see. We're good morning. It is a good day for gardening, because
every day's a good night gardening. We're glad you're listening to Garden Line.
If you would like to visit with me about things related to your garden,
give us a call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two k t r H. You know, when
it comes to fertilizing and making sure your lawn has the nutrients that it needs,
you are going to find the silver bag to be a magical product for
your lawn. And what am I talking about. I'm talking about nitrofoss Super
Turf nineteen four ten. Nitrofis super first night super turf can't even talk this
morning, nineteen four ten has the right blend of nutrients. Got plenty of
that nitrogen, but it's not all available at immediately, just a little bit
and it gradually feeds over time, which is exactly how lawns eat. It's
how we eat. Right. Imagine if someone walked up and said, here's
your September food supply, eat it all on September first. Good luck.
Well, that's ridiculous. Right. When it comes to fertilizers, you need
something that's going to gradually feed your lawn over time, and that's nitro FoST
Super super Turf nineteen four ten. You're gonna find Nitrofos Superturf all the places
we talk about here on guard Line. You know, the Ace Hardware stores,
some of our great feed stores, a lot of our garden centers are
going to carry Nitrofost Superturf. It's a silver bag. That's an easy way
to remember it. Follow the label instructions for how you put it down.
It takes about five pounds per thousand square feet to do it, and you
will see results in your lawn as it just gets stronger and stronger over time
as those nutrients get released to the lawn. We're going to head out now
to Spring Branch and we're gonna talk to Morgan this morning. Hello Morgan,
Hey, there, So I've got I've got a bunch of dis clean that
I can that that. I'm not sure if I should or should not use
it in my gardens. Okay, Uh, do you know how many is
like a blast a black plastic sheeting, like a black garbage bag material.
Yeah? About how many mill thick is it? I don't even know.
I was in my I would say that it's thick. I mean it was
in my attic. I don't know how old it is. I don't Okay,
go back it in. Well, you can use it as a temporary
mulch, just to keep you know, the moisture in the soil, to
keep weeds from coming up, getting sunlight on them and coming up. Those
products are that products probably not at all treated with anything to prevent degradation in
the sun. So at the most you're going to get part of a season
out of it, maybe a year, but probably not even definitely, I
would say not even a year being untreated. So it's probably a lot of
work for not a lot of benefits it. And then you're picking it up
and now you've got a product, What how are you going to dispose of
it? I think I might look for other uses for it, But as
far as could you absolutely you could within the negative things I just mentioned being
part of reality. Okay, well let me ask your second follows follow up
question. Then I've got some of those, uh, some packing blankets.
Did you use that those flues that if people used to wrap furiture with.
Would that be a good alternative? Well, I mean, yeah, you
know, they're gonna last a while. I don't know how esthetic that would
be. You know, I've had those left over and around, and I
just find other uses for them. Seems like I always need to wrap something
up for a trip or in the back of the truck or whatever you got.
But just know, on any kind of things like that, as a
decompose, it kind of becomes a mess, and so it's not something you're
going to mix into the soil like you would if it was a paper mall
LT or something like that. So I don't know, I think I would
find some other good uses for those. Okay, Well, I appreciate the
insight. Thanks so much. Hey Morgan, thanks for the call. I
appreciate that very much. You are listening to garden Line our number seven one
three, two, one two five eight seven four. Hey, have you
been out to enchanted gardens and Richmond. Now if you live anywhere from Katie
down to Richmond, because that's where they are. They're kind of if you're
in Richmond and you head north toward Katie, that's in Chanted Gardens. It's
on FM three fifty nine. The website. Write this down because you should
check it out. You'd be amazed at what all is on their website.
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. That's the website. They've been around since nineteen
ninety five. This is one of the destination garden centers. They have absolutely
everything you can imagine. If you go out there right now, you will
be wowed by the color that you just got in some and theoriums and if
you don't know what that is, I'm not going to describe it on the
air. Go to their social media, go to their website. Are just
better yet, get out there today and check them out. Their beautiful plants.
Once you see them, I think you'll fall in love with them.
And they have glazed pottery, Oh my gosh. The gift shop is amazing
out there, and pretty much any kind of plant you would want, you're
going to find an Enchanted Gardens Richmond. They've got antique roses, hybrid roses,
herbs, vegetables, specimen trees. I mean they carry all the fertilizers
I talk about here on Garden Line, they carry the soils we talk about
here on garden Line, and they have much much more. They're open Monday
through Saturday eight am to five thirty pm, and on Sunday, yes Tomorrow,
ten am to four pm. Enchanted Gardens, Richmond. Check it out.
When you drive up, your jaw's gonna hit the ground and you're gonna
know what I'm talking about when I say this is a destination garden center.
Let's go now out to Bridge City and we're gonna talk a tree. Hello,
Trey, Yes, sir, how can we help you? I haven't.
It's a live oak tree and it's probably eighty years old. It's the
base is about probably almost three foot around and ten foot up where all the
main branches start splitting off. I've noticed some little sapling trees growing inside out
of the inside of the trunk and then where it be is and I pulled
them out and they weren't oak trees. There are nothing. They were like
the neighbor's trees. But there's earthworms inside there and it's I could dig them
out, and it was. They were probably three inches long. I mean,
they were junior nightcrawlers. I'm wondering if the tree isn't rotting from the
inside out like they do around here a lot. Wow, that's a new
one. I have no idea how those earthworms got up there. Possibly,
but again, I've never heard of an earthworm crawling up through a rotting wooden
interior of the tree and coming out on the branch where the crotch of a
branch comes together. You got me on that one. Yeah, I would
like, I said, I'd dig my hand in there, and of course
it's you know how that be if it can hold old leaves and decay over
time. Yeah, but it's dug pretty far down and it and they were
just squirms amples of work. So if you could, if you could literally
dig down in there any distance at all, that sounds like there may be
some decay. What happens is branches come in and they're at a little bit
too narrow of an angle, and then as each branch, let's say,
the trunk and the branch or two branches, as they each get bigger and
bigger and bigger, it presses that outer bark together, there's nowhere for it
to go, and you get decay of that external outer bark. But it
doesn't mean there's a decay of the interior wood. It just is an area
that stays wet and decays away. Hey, Trey, I don't know what
on that one. What today, I'm gonna have to run to a break.
I would just kind of keep an eye on it. It does doesn't
sound like a problem to me, but just kind of watch it. You
may want to have an arborist come out and look at it. But if
you want to hang on for after break, we'll talk Otherwise. I'm gonna
go ahead and head on out here our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Holy well, good morning. You are listening
to Guardline this morning, and we are here to talk about whatever is of
interest to you when it comes to success in the garden. And speaking of
success in the garden, I brag about ACE hardware all the time for several
reasons. Number one, there's thirty nine of them in the Houston area.
So you throw a rock and you hit one. No matter where you live,
it's easy to find when you get there. They have everything we talk
about. They have everything you need for your lawn and garden. They've got
the fertilizers, they've got the soils. They've got insecticides for fun, just
herbicides. They have the tools, they have hole garden hos, I mean,
everything you can imagine. And then for the outdoor living, the barbecue
pit, the outdoor settings and where you can enjoy things. It is going
to cool off, by the way, and we can go back outside and
enjoy it. Will They have everything you need for that too. You know.
Ace Hardware First of all, go to ACE hardware dot Com, find
the store locator, find the one near you. You're going to be greeted
by friendly associates. And if you want to save your lawn this summer by
giving the kinds of products and the kinds of care that it needs, that's
what you're going to find at your ACE Hardware. I mean we I can't
tell you how many people have emailed me about my lawn is dying. Or
we just released our schedule and someone said, well, you know, I'd
be fertilizing dead grass right now if I fertilized Hey, I get it.
ACE Hardware's got sprinklers. Do you want to have a beautiful lawn, go
to a hardware and find the products and find the educated associates that can help
you get the product you need. And that is how you go from hey,
I'm about to lose it, to hey, it looks really beautiful because,
believe it or not, cool weather's coming, rain is coming. Our
lawns are coming back. Just take care of them. Now. Let's get
them to hang on and we will get there. We can relax and know
that this is not forever. I know it seems like it, but it's
not. Let's go out to Cyprus and talk to Cindy this morning. Good
morning, Cindy. Hi there, Hi, Hey. What would cause a
crepe myrtle and establish crepe myrtle to begin die back? This has happened in
the last week to two. They're four in the yard and two of them
that are not close together have it like over a three day period, the
branches have begun dying back. It's getting plenty of water. It consistent water
through the summer. M No. I noticed that there is some scale on
them. Okay, typically scale doesn't kill crape myrtles. It looks ugly,
it's certainly sapping the plant of energy. It's not doing any good. And
I guess you could say it could be part of a series of things that
combine to kill a grepe myrtle, but typically scale doesn't. When you say
getting plenty of water, you're pretty sure you're given a good soaking when you
water, or just just frequent watering. They've been on a sprinkler, but
they've it's been consistent, you know, all all summer. Okay. Well,
the only other thing is we did have some damage from last December's freeze,
and I've noticed some plants where the tissues were damaged, but the plant
looked okay. But as we got into just weeks of hot, demanding weather,
it was just kind of like a collapse of the system. And suddenly
a branch that looked okay now is just just browning and dying back. And
so okay, I think what you're looking at, Cindy, is a combination
of things going on with those The other thing is they were cut back severely
like crepe murder last whenever spring, okay, and so all of these small
branches are the ones coming growing out of the ends of those cut ends.
Would that be does it add anymore to your assessment. Well, you know,
typically as much as we hate poor pruning practices on a crepe myrtle,
that they typically are not something that kills the plant. But what they can
do is those vigorous regrowth shoots all coming from one point basically on the end.
They're not well anchored and so it's easy for them to sort of be
broken or to you know, fall out if typically we see that in a
storm and a lot of rain, just the weight of that, just those
tender shoots just break loose because they don't have good anchorage there. That could
be part of it. Perhaps there was some sort of a canker that came
in after the pruning that is working its way through there. But I think
it's going to be related to the flow of moisture through the plant some some
work along the line. Something's going wrong there. What do you have a
suggestion for, you know, just let it go till fall and see what
they do next spring. Yeah, right now, there's nothing miraculous that you
could do. Certainly no spray, fungicide, insecticide, whatever. It's not
a lack of fertilizer that they're dying at all. So that's not what they're
needing right now. In terms of trying to stop the dieback, I just
I would go out and sometimes I'll use a long handle screwdriver and push it
into the soil because when it's going through soft when it's going through wet soil,
it's soft, and just push it down. And then when you hit
a dry spot, I mean it's like you hit a concrete sidewalk underneath the
soil somewhere, and just check the depth of the moisture. I just want
to be sure because the demands are so high now that it's hard to get
enough water to the roots to keep up with what the plant needs. That
doesn't mean over water, doesn't mean it creates a swamp. It just means
it dries out faster than you think. So you know, if I told
you water once a week for this many minutes, it would probably be misleading
you. It's it's a matter sure what does your soil have in it moisture
wise, and how fast is it going out and how fast you need to
replenish it. So I would just check that that would be something in your
power right now. Otherwise I think you're gonna have to wait and watch,
and it sounds like you're going to tolerate a little bit of not so great
conditions in terms of die back, because I would you try anything like super
thrive any of these organic Yeah, you you can put those on there.
I don't I don't know that that's going to help at this point, but
there's no there's no harm to give it a try. All right, all
right, thank you, you bet, Thank you, Cindy. I appreciate
that very much. You know, we brag about the importance of quality soils
and our quality soil providers around the Greater Houston area. If you live down
south, you know ro Sharon direction that way. CNA Maltch is exactly that.
Cnamulch has soil in bulk, they have soil in bags, they've got
composts, they've got soil mixes. They have mulches of every type that you
can imagine. I mean, they've got a native hardwood mulches, a double
ground. They've screened them properly, beautiful color. Uh smells good because there's
no manure in them. I mean it, it's just a quality product.
All the fertilizers I talk about, in addition to all the soils I just
mentioned are gonna be there at CNA Malts. They're on FM five twenty one
near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together, just north of ro
Sharon. So those folks out in Iowa Colony, Sienna Plantation, Meridian First
Colony, or maybe pear Land anywhere out near Brazispin State Park, this is
your local soil yard and they will deliver within a twenty mile radius. There
a little charge for delivery. Of course, it's big bulky items to be
bringing out. They are open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five and Saturday
seven thirty to two. They're closed on Sunday, so today would be a
good day to go. Sienna Mulch dot com is a website. When you
go out there, you will see what I'm talking about and check out their
rock supplies. Oh, I've never seen so many different kinds of gorgeous rock
for flagstone or maybe river rock or whatever you need, you're gonna find it
right out there at Sienna Maulch. I always love to visit, and in
fact, later this fall I will be out there and I'll tell you about
that more as we get a little bit closer to that let's go out to
Rosenberg now and we're going to talk to Tom. Hello, Tom, Good
morning morning. I tuned in right at the end of somebody that sounded like
they have a dying tree. I have a silver leaf maple, Okay,
that's about thirty three years old, and all the leaves have now turned brown.
Sum are still on the tree, or most are still on the tree.
I heard the recommendation water my yard, and I'll go there, but
I missed what to do. I've been watering about an hour on each side
of the tree a day in the morning. Is there something else I can
do to try to save it? Well? You know, you need to
wet the largest volume of soil you can, reaching out as far as the
branch spread of the tree if possible. That's why I like the tree hugger
sprinklers. You put them around the tree, you hook them to the hose,
you turn them on. You can water a very large area all at
one time. You can turn them on high and water a large area low
and water smaller area. But you want a volume of soil to be wet,
because if you just have a hose run in one spot, there are
not enough roots there to take up the volume of water fast enough to supply
the tree. And I hate to tell you this, but silver leaf maple
is one of those trees we generally don't recommend. They grow fast, then
they die young, and it's not unusual to have these kind of problems with
silver leaf maple. Okay, it's a memorial tree, is why we have
that one. I understand. I understand. Then you want to do everything
can take care of it. Yeah? Will deep will deep root watering help
at this point out the Yes it can if the damage is not too severe
already and there's something left to save, Yes it can. But I would
whether whether you have someone come out and do deep root watering, stick and
something in the ground, or whether you just turn on a you know,
tree hugger sprinkler water until you've caught at least an bunch of water, and
that may require water in a while, turning it off, letting it soak,
watering a wall, turning it off, letting it soak to get a
good deep soaking. You don't need to do that every day, once a
week or ten days. There's plenty on getting that tree through, all right,
all right, Well, I appreciate it and I'm sorry I tuned in
a little late, but I appreciate all your work you're doing there, no
problem, Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that call very much. You
know, the folks out at Nature's Way resources up toward Conro, they know
how to make composts, I mean Nature's Way, They've got they're the originators
when it comes to rose soil, when it comes to leaf mold compost that
we talk about being such a high quality product. They've got it ten percent
off their bag product and twenty percent off their bulk products on fungal Friday sales.
Ever Friday, lots of plenty, lots of good stuff out there there
on Highway forty five where fourteen eighty eight comes in, just where you get
to Conro Rosster Railroad tracks on the right to Nature's Way. Check out their
nursery while you're out there. It is amazing. Also, well, we're
gonna take a break right quick. Our phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. It's not us you want it's not us you
want to We want to see you. Well, good morning. You are
listening to garden Line and we are here to talk gardening. That makes sense,
doesn't it? Seven one three two, one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Just reminding you that
I will be out at the Lake Conro Home and Garden and Boat Show today
at Margaritaville on Lake Conro. I'm gonna be given a presentation here. I
think I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty and I'm given a presentation.
Then I'll be at a table where you can come up and ask questions,
we'll visit. I'm gonna have some Nelson Plat food on hand two pounds
jars, four pound jars to give away. So if you want to get
ahold of a quality product to take home and try out, well that's just
another reason to come out to the Lake Cronrow Home and Garden in Boat Show
at Margaritaville. Where's Margaritaville. Well, it's not in Florida. It seemed
like that'd be a place that'd be in Florida and the Bahamas or something.
No, it's on Lake Conrow. If you're on one oh five, let's
say you're coming from Conro heading toward Montgomery. You go past April Sound a
little past that, you'll see a Walmart tuper center on the right hand side
and Walden Road, and you just follow Walden Road back and it'll take you
back to Margharita. That's a pretty cool place, by the way. A
lot's going to be going on out there, by the way. Now this
is I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but I just won't tell you
about it. Two weeks from today, that's September ninth. Next week is
Labor Day weekend. The next week, September ninth, I'm going to be
a Plantation Ace Hardware out in the Richmond are I'll be talking a lot about
that next week and the following Saturday. But Plantation Ace Hardware, I'll be
out there for a couple of hours again, eleven thirty to one thirty.
Put that down on your calendar. I hope you'll come out and see me
there. You know how I brag on Ace all the time. I mean,
And if you are trying to get your lawn spruced up and fixed up,
they're gonna have everything you need out there, and we'll be there to
answer your questions as well. But today Lake Conro at the Home and Garden
Show out at Margueriteaville. Let's head to the phones and we're going to go
to Northwest Houston now and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed, Good morning,
sir. Morning. I'm gonna start with a question. Did you say
five eight four or did you say five seven four D for the last four
digits of the number A while ago? Five eight seven four? Boy?
If I said the other, I misspoke five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four are are? You can just use the
letters ktr A each for those last sports. Okay, yeah, I think
I die five seven four Oh, but anyway, never left I need yes,
sir, That's what matters I have. I went organic about three years
ago, been very, very pleased compared to all the years I was with
the other stuff. Okay, Now, the one thing I can't seem to
get comfortable that I know enough about is bad preparation and bad maintenance. Okay,
we have boxwoods bordering our driveway and the bed around the front of the
house on one side of the front door. The bad must be in good
shape because everything we've ever planted there After we had some trouble with Indian Hawthorn's
dying out after by twenty five years has just taken off and just caught up
and to pass the height of the box woods in break of time. I
guess the other bed they're healthy, they're green looking and everything, but they
just don't grow anywhere near that same pace. So I'm thinking I didn't have
the same kind of soil preparation when I went through getting the hot thorns out
of the air, Okay, and consequently I don't know what to do now
to try to have them catch up, although they look like they're healthy.
Yeah, I just want to know if there's something I should be putting in
that soil to maybe help them catch up with the other side. Okay.
Now, how long have the plants been in on the side that's not doing
as well? Just about two years now? Okay. Well, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't say unless it was just an extremely poor situation, I wouldn't
say it's worth you know, digging them up, fixing the bed. No,
I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that, Okay. I just
wanted to know if it was something I could add, like an amendment,
yes of some sort. Yeah, I eat some kind of soil, not
just I would fertilize the type stuff. Yeah, I would use. Is
it a heavy clay soil on the bed or not? No, man,
I when I took those hot thorns out, I dug down probably fourteen sixteen
inches to get as much clay out of there as I could. But then
I came back and I don't know that I put the good mix that I
should have in the start with. Got you all right? So here's what
you need to do. You need to get about two inches a compost and
spread it over the bed. That's a lot, but spread it over the
bed, and then I would if you wanted to kind of get it down
in the soil, I would take like a spading fork and just push it,
wiggle it straight down and wiggle it a little bit, and then pull
it straight up out. Don't you're not turning over the soil and ripping up
roots or anything. You're just create wallowing out some nice holes and the compost
will fall down in those holes. In fact, i'd probably do the holes
and then add the compost to the top, rake it over and it'll go
down in there. And if you do that about once or twice a year.
Each time you do it. You're moving a little little cylinder of composts
down into the soil like a little fingers going straight down, and you can
improve that soil over time that way. Plus the compost left on the top
makes a good mulch. Whenever it rains or you water, it's going to
wash nutrients that are decomposing out of that compost into your soil. I think
that's what I would do, and I think that'll take care of it.
Now. Compost to me has scared me because some of what I've seen have
so much wood stuff in it. No, I'm thinking, I'm putting down
what kind of composts? Is the leafmol compost better? But that are not
the good, not the way leafmol compost is a Cadillac, it would be
fine, but any good if you buy a compost from like Heirloom Soils or
Nature's Way. Heirloom has theirs and bags all over the place, is probably
easy to find in your area. But either of those they know how to
make quality. And if they say it's a compost, it's screened in a
bag, it's going to be first class and you're not gonna have wood chunks
that people are saving a few bucks by buying cheap composts. And life's too
short to use cheap compost. Yeah. I've been using the leak mode since
I went organic, and boy, I tell you what it is, a
duel. I'll go up to con and get it. Yeah. Well now,
yeah, I go up to Nature's Way John John and Eve and Ferguson.
They've got a high quality leak mode. Go for that. That's only
place I go buy. I did from cycles are Now one other question about
beds. I have backwoods box woods bordering around the driveways edge and on that
in that bed, we've got about a eighteen inch wide strip that we like
to plant flowering stuff in. And I have obviously missed the I think the
getting that's all where I need to get it. I want to pull out
what we've got there now because we had pretty good luck with some stuff that
we had for the past several months. But hey, Ed, I'm sorry,
Ed, I'm sorry to have to cut in. I'm gonna have to
go to a break. Uh, just get your thoughts there and when we
come back, I'll try to continue to help with this one. You were
listening, If you were listening to garden Line, our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four, will be right back. I
had everybody's head about the bed bed badman. When I went to bed badmand
bed is away, I went a bad badband. When a bed is away,
I went a bad badman. And that's for your listening pleasure. This
morning you were listening to garden Line. I am your host, skip Rictor
and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Hey, if you are looking for another one of those amazing destination garden centers
and you live anywhere up near the Tomball area down you know, down two
forty nine. Plants for All Seasons? Is that kind of place? You
know? When you go into Plants for All Seasons? You know you know
two things. You know that you're going to be greeted by somebody that knows
what they're talking about, so your questions are answered correctly. You receive the
plant or the product that fits the situation you have. Number two, you
know that you're going to have an amazing selection of some really cool things.
For example, they I'd never seen this before, but they got in some
double rangoon creepers not too long ago now rangoon creepers are really cool, vigorous
vine with beautiful kind of goes from white and pink and reddish blooms all in
clusters are gorgeous. They have a double type flower. It's really different,
really cool. That's an example of what I'm talking about. They've been around
since nineteen seventy three. You can go to Plants for All Seasons dot com,
or you can give them a call two eight, one, three,
seven six sixteen forty six. Now they are on Highway to forty nine,
just north of Louetta Road. Plants for All Seasons. Go by there and
you'll see why I brag on the place. It is amazing the plants,
the service, the knowledge at Plants for All Seasons. We're gonna head back
out here, say ed if I'm gonna have to wrap this up pretty quick,
so if we can. If you got a quick question, let's go
ahead and do that. Yes, if I want to add about two or
three inches to that bay and around those box woods, what kind of sauce
should I put on before I plant back in it? I would use a
rose soil. And where you were told you were talking about getting that fungal
compost or the leafmo compost rose soil for the same place. It's high quality.
That's what I would do. Hey, I appreciate your call very much,
Yes, sir, good good luck with that. Good luck with that.
You know, we got a tropical storms brewing and the Gulf and this
is the season for that kind of thing. And that's why it's important to
know about affordable tree care. Well, it's one of the reasons why affordable
tree care. They do quality work. They know what to do. Whether
you need a deep watering, they can do deep root watering. And you've
heard a deep root feeding, but there's also deep root watering. Our trees
are using a ton of water just to stay alive right now, forget growing,
just to stay alive. They can provide that service. Martin spoon Moore
and his wife Joe, they answer their own phone and that number that they
answer seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six
nine twenty six sixty three. Gardenline customers are their priority. Just tell them
you know you gardenline listeners, So you go to the front of the line.
They will take care of you there. I don't care what kind of
work you need. Maybe maybe you've got some limbs that need some pruning before
a storm hits and really makes a mess of things or does damage to your
home. Affordable Treecare they can do that and anything else that you need done
with your trees. Let's head up to Northwest Houston. Now we're going to
talk to Paula. Hello, Paula, good morning. Whenever I go to
Nature's Way to buy the leap Mo compost, they always ask me if I
want fine or course, and I don't know the difference. I always get
fine just because it sounds more logical. But can you explain the difference between
them. If I were doing like aerating of the lawn and you want the
composts to fall down in the aeration holes, right, and because that that
helps get organic matter done in the soil, that would be a fine,
finer texture would be better for that. The products are the same product,
it's just a different particle size. Well, this is going to be for
grow boxes. I would just use the course. I mean, you could
use the fine, it doesn't really matter. It's just the fine has been
screened a little to small particle sizes, So you know that makes sense,
okay, And I wouldn't just put leaf mold in a growbox. I would
use it as part of a mix. So oh do yeah, yeah,
yeah, all right, I'll learn that through a master orders. Well there
you go, Paula. All right, okay, thank you, call.
I appreciate that very much. You know, our lawns, our landscapes,
they are taking a hit in this incredible heat. Plants are stressed. I
mean you look at a plant that's watered out there in the landscape and it's
it's got a yellow eat tint to it. It's like it's just it's just
like the life's being sucked out of it by all this heat and the stresses.
Well, microlife products are designed to feed the soil, which feeds the
plants. They are also if you if you get the Ocean Harvest that's the
blue label. It's the fish based fertilizer. You can spray it on foliage
as a liquid feed. Just follow the label and how dilute it in sprays,
not going to burn your plants. The humates plus, that's a purple
bag that provides not just the h humus content, the organic our content.
It's basically it's concentrated compost in a bag. It also provides the microbial boost
that our soils need in order for plants to survive and do well. Six
to four. That's their green bag. That is a quality fertilizer. It
contains many types of nutrients, many types of microbes. This is all important
because right now we need our minerals and the soil replenished. We need plants
to have the microbial content they need that enhances what the roots are trying to
do in the soil. And even the sugars that are involved in these products
will help with stimulating that microbial content. I guess you know. One way
to think about the liquid is just like kind of a gatorade for plants.
You know, that boost the I don't know if plant electrolytes is a good
term or not, but that's one way to think about it. I think
right now, keeping your plants adequately watered, but also making sure they have
the nutrients, the microbes, the compounds and things that are part of good
health during really really stressful times. I just want to remind you again today
I'm gonna be out at Lake Conro at the Home and Garden show out at
Margaritaville. Where's Margaritaville? Where if you're on one oh five, you're coming
from con Road toward Montgomery past April Sound. There's a big Walmart supercenter a
little further down on the right, and turn right down the street there.
Let me just turn right down on Walden excuse me, on Walden Road and
you will get to Margaritaville. I'm gonna be talking for about an hour all
kinds of things you need to know about getting your lawn, your garden and
everything ready for fall. So that'll be a fun time. I'll be giving
away some Nelson plant food and two pound jars, four pound jars. Awesome
plant food. Great little sample there. In fact, it's more than a
sample. You can apply it even have some for like indoor plants and other
things. Got a wide variety of things. As you come and ask questions,
you'll get some of that, and then i'll be at a table and
your gardening questions as well. Now I want to talk about a new sponsor
we have, and that is an Antique Rosemporium. And this is one that
I actually pursued them. I have wanted to brag on Antique Rosemporium on this
show for a long time. They have been a destination for rose enthusiasts since
nineteen eighty three. In fact, when I was finishing my master's degree,
I was already going out there to Antique Rose Emporium working with a previous owner
out there. Now there got a new owner, and I mean it is
just not missing a beat, full fledge going forward. Of course, roses
or what they're all about, but they are about so much more perennials,
native herbs, all kinds of plants. They have a wonderful gift shop too,
by the way, and they have educational workshops throughout the season. So
I mean, just keep going out there to learn more. Follow Antique ROSEMPOORIM
on your social media, get on their email list, and so you know
when things are coming up. For example, the Fall Festival of Roses.
Antique Rose Emporium's Fall Festival of Roses is something you do not want to miss.
It is coming up before we get to further along here on November third
through fifth. Now I know that's the ways out, but get it on
your calendar. There's going to be outstanding speakers one right after another, and
the place will look amazing at that time because that is the kind of place
it has Antique Rose Emporium dot com or give them a call nine seven nine
eight three six fifty five forty eight nine seven nine eight three six five five
four eight. You've got to go out. It is like you've entered a
whole new world when you drive on the property. The beauty, the plantings,
the building, it is just really really cool. In fact, my
new website, Gardening with Skip dot com. That banner across the top,
that's me on the porch at one of the buildings out at the Antique Rose
Emporium. Any excuse to go out there is a good excuse to have a
fun day out in the country. Well, you've been listening to garden Line.
We are putting another hour in the books. Appreciate you listening. We
always enjoy getting to visit with our listeners on garden Line. I hope you
tell your friends and family about it. By the way, just a reminder
again, my new website, Gardening with Skip dot com is up and running.
Basically, what the website is right now is it's the lawn care Schedule.
We're going to be putting a lot more stuff on there as time goes
on, but the new lawn care schedule is up on the website. When
you look at it first thing, you're going to say, that's a lot
of information, because it is. But if you just look at it a
minute, it's very simple. It's color coded, so if you're using synthetic
fertilizers or organic fertilizers. January through December tells you everything you need to do,
tells you about trace minals, tells you about air raiding, how to
properly mow, how to properly water, and every quality fertilizer that you would
want to know about. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with
Scared Rictor. It's smell the crazy trip. Just watch him as so many
to come with my chicken, but not a sign. All right, go
to the window, look outside. It is a gorgeous day, a gorgeous
day for gardening. Now's a good time to get out there. I hope
you take the radio with you, though, if you would listen to it
on your ear pods or whatever. We are here to talk about gardening,
and we got lot to talk about today, a whole lot to talk about
today. Hey, if you are looking for a garden center that has a
little bit of everything and just quality plants, quality products, and convenient to
get to. Really, that's RCW Nurseries. You can go to RCW Nursery
dot com. Now that's the nursery that's as you come down Tomball Parkway towards
Houston, right at the Beltway, there too, forty nine at the Beltway.
That's where they're located. Now RW I'll look at them as they get
it got at nursery. If they don't have it, then they'll get it.
That's kind of how that works. They'll do their best to find it.
If it's out there, they'll bring it in for you. They carry
those fertilizers that we talk about that we brag on all the time. You
know, they've got everything you need to go with your plants to have success.
If you were into roses. By the way, you can plant roses
twelve months of the year, but fall is this coming season is the prime
time of the year to plant roses, and plant them tomorrow if you want.
Just gotta take care of them. If you do, they have the
biggest selection I've ever seen, like four pages, single space, small font
of roses. I've never seen so many varieties of roses available at one garden
center. Is that they have trees fifteen gallons up to two hundred gallons,
ornamental trees, shade trees, fruit trees. It just it's a pleasure to
go out there and enjoy seeing all the different things that are always around at
our CW nurseries. You know that right now they're loaded up on what we
would say fall bling, Halloween bling. You know that metal yard art and
all the kind of cool and crazy stuff that you put out in the yard.
Boy, do they ever a good supply of that as well. I
always like going out, I mean the bougainville is and the tropical hibiscus and
other kinds of things, annual plants, bedding plants, just to everything.
Just go see see what I'm talking about our CW Nurseries. I'm I'll be
out there this fall later on. I'll tell you about that more as we
get close to it, but definitely worth a stop to check it out.
Those of you who've been going you know what I'm talking about. Well,
let's see, we're gonna go out to Northwest Houston now and we're gonna talk
to Tom. Hello, Tom, Hey, good morning, thanks for taking
my call. Yes, sir, I've got a long issue that I hope
and maybe you can give me some pointers on. I've got spurge in my
grass. It actually started a couple of years ago. I think my neighbor
got mad at me. He had it in his and as they got it
cleared up by digging it up. I'm I always joking to say you do
it in my yard, but it has kind of taken off. Trying to
figure out how to control this and kill it off without killing the grass itself,
all right. Thoughts on that, Well, I just want to make
sure we're talking about spurge. When you break the plants, a little white,
milky sap comes out. Hadn't noticed that. The only reason I'm calling
it spurge is because my neighbor had it and he said it's the same thing
he had. Okay, maybe he was saying the scourge. It's the scourge
of his landscape. No, I don't know. I don't I'd like to
know the weed for sure to be able to tell you spurge. Typically you
find it on compacted soils or really any kind of soil, but where sunlight
hits the soil just bare areas. You don't typically see it becoming a problem
in lawns unless the lawn is pretty thin. So maybe we need to take
a closer look before I send you out to waste time and money on the
wrong product. I do know my lawn is I do you know my lawn
is stin and it's in bare It's in bare areas, okay, and you
know so that I do know that, and I don't love that health here
to think, Well, where would you suggest I clipped some of this to
take it to actually figure out exactly what it is? Well, I mean
you can you know, you can see you're out there in the West Houston
area. Uh, like you north or south of I ten south of you
may take it down to Southwest Feed and Fertilizer. Uh. Those folks at
Southwest Feed, Bob and his team, they really know what they're talking about.
And just just pull some of it out and put it in a ziplock
bag and take it down to Southwest Fertilizer. They are on the corner of
Bissonette and Renwick and South Houston. The good thing about that is after you
get it identified, they're gonna tell you exactly which of their products goes with
the weed that you've brought them. Okay, okay, so you can go
to Southwest Fertilizer dot com to get it identified and again corner Bisnett and Renwick.
I've never seen a place with so many different products and tools and everything
else you might need. But I would let's start with making sure we have
the right ID, because there's going to be a pre emergent and a post
emergent option depending on the time of year and depending on the weed. And
like I said, I don't want to just guess and assume right now,
I said, I appreciate you all. Yeah, sure, thank you for
that call very much. I appreciate that. Yeah. Southwest Fertilizer, gosh,
they've been around since nineteen fifty five. I mean that is like the
institution when it comes to everything you need. If you're organ at gardener,
if you don't care, you just whatever it works, gardener. They've got
everything you can imagine in the largest selection in the whole city. That's absolutely
true. Eighty foot wall full of tools. And yeah, when you're in
there, go take your more blade. Let them get it sharpened, because
that helps make a more beautiful lawn as well. And also, hey we're
gonna you know, it's always a good time to fertilize something. And Southwest
Fertilizer Bob has a soul probe and he'll check it out to you for free.
Yet to leave a deposit so the soul probe doesn't walk off, if
you know what I mean. But bring it back and get your deposit back.
And it allows you to take an accurate soil sample so you will know
exactly which fertilizer blend is going to be the right one for the plant you're
trying to grow. I think it's a great deal while you're out there to
ask them, ask to see their kneeling benches. That is probably my latest
greatest. Can't live without a tool Bob. Last time I check, they
had a good supply of those still on hand. Let's see gonna let's head
out to Deer Park, Charley. I've got about a minute. Let's see
if we can get it done. If not, we'll hang over the break.
Okay. I have a orange normally a sendro that I purchased an HGP
and I don't know anything about it. It's still a pot's about footing the
half tall. It's beautiful booms, but I don't know how to careport or
if it freezes or whatdu and tell me again the name of the plant,
orange mormally crescendra. Okay, that plant. It does well here. It
needs a soil with good organic u matter in it, like compost. It's
basically what I'm talking about. You want to keep it adequately moist. It's
not extremely drought tolerant, but it does really well here. And you will
see those things. You'll see them growing all around the area. Uh,
it's it's Do they freeze during the winter? Do you have to protect they
can? They can freeze in the winter? Yep, they are not.
They are not completely cold hearty. It just depends on the weather. We
have there a zone nine plant, not a week all right, we are
in June nine. We're are in zone nine. But you know when we
have a cold winter, it can do some damage. You have to cover
them up, all right, rich? Can do I keep it in the
sun partial shade or what do they like? Water or dried soil? I
put them in partial shade morning sun would be fine. I wouldn't want to
have them in hot, hot afternoon sun. For best results, and just
fertilize them moderately and they'll do fine. Hey, I've got a run to
another break, but I hope that helps. And that is a beautiful plant.
Congratulations on getting that one. You're listening to garden Line our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. How many of you
remember Abba? I mean, really remember Abba? You know? I mean
you could be ten years old and saw a movie with Abba music in it,
but really remember Abba. That was some different stuff when it hit the
ground, pretty cool stuff. Hey, you're listening to garden Line. I'm
your host, Skipwrecter seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
That's our phone number. If you'd like to give us a call, We'll
be happy to visit with you about whatever is of interest to you. I
bet you when you look outside, let me put it this way, when
you drive up to your house, do you close one eye because you just
can't stand to look at the escape anymore. It's struggling. Or maybe it's
just that sea of green that our landscapes become in the summer. Pierscapes can
fix that. We're talking about professional, experienced well trained employees, outstand ending
designers. You walk in with some pictures, You sit down, you say,
look, this is what I got. I need some help here.
What can we do? Maybe get some new beds installed, Maybe move some
things around, do some renovations. Maybe your irrigation system needs repair. Would
you like a new hardscape in the backyard, maybe a patio for enjoying with
your friends when it cools off, and yes it is going to cool off.
You need to call them now because it's time to get this thing started.
So I can get designed, It could get planned, and it can
get installed so you have a beautiful outdoor fall gathering area with your friends.
In fact, I say fall. You know you can gather in the winter
here. It's a mild here. What is winter three days a year something
like that in the Houston area. Anyway, you get the idea, Pierscapes,
peerscapes dot com or call them two eight one three seven zero five zero
six zero. They will turn your ordinary into extrordinary. That is beer escapes.
That's what it's all about. Let's see, We're going to head out
to Deer Park and talk to Shirley. Hello Shirley, Yes, I'm still
here. Okay, I need to know. I'm getting ready a planet.
It was about it in a hanging basket. I need to know if how
how big it gets to the shrubs, to the plant we're talking about the
cressandra again. Yes, uh huh, you you know a hanging basket is
fine. It needs to be a pretty big one because that plant will grow
to some size and so I might put it in a container. Uh.
It in our climate, in our conditions, we typically think of it more
of as an annual or perennial as opposed to a shrub. But it can
get it can get larger in time. The nice thing about a container is
when we do have a frosty night where it's going to froster freeze, you
can move it into the garage with a little dolly or hand truck, just
to move it in the garage and protect it that way. Is it a
ceasfold rumor it looks something like to reminds me something like alon heads, like
a a zenia or a miragold rum. To it's a beautiful blue, but
it is just something like firebler. Uh did you say, is it a
what kind of bloomer? It's it just remind you of a fire bler.
It's kind of beautiful. Belief to it. It does. Yeah, it's
I think it's probably and I'm not certain of this, but I think it's
probably more kinda like shrimp plants with just the flower form. But I need
to check that. That is me just looking at it and saying that looks
like it be kind to shrint plants. I may be. Yeah, it
won't be a treated or a shrub. It's going to be a plant.
No. Yeah, it's anywhere from one foot to three feet tall, about
a foot or two in excellent growing conditions. But yeah, you can do
it in a container. Just don't let it dry out. It is not
a drought tolerant plant, so take care of it. Okay. I do
appreciate it, and you have a wonderful day. Thank you for helping well.
Thank you, Charlotte. I appreciate I appreciate that call very much.
You know, we're talking about putting it in a container. When you put
something in a container, you need a quality soil mix for it to do
well. I mean, you need quality soil mix when you plant it in
the ground. But if the folks at Heirloom Soils, they have so many
blends that I mean there's a blend for everything. There's a fruit berry and
citrus blend, there's an herb and veggie blend, a cactus and succulent blend.
And then they have something called the works potting soil. That's what I'd
put that Cassanda in Cassandrian. The works Potting soil is an all purpless purpose
blend. It's ideal for flowers. You can grow herbs in it, you
can grow veggies in it. But it's designed for being in a container,
draining well but holding moisture. That's what you're looking for. And you're going
to find heirloom soil products pretty much all over the place. I mean,
they're widely available here in the Greater Houston area. I love the fact that
they deliver supersacks to your driveway. If you're going to do some outdoor landscape
work, you know, want to create some beds, a qbicyard superstack dropped
right off on your driveway, or you can have it delivered and dumped,
or you can go get it yourself. I mean, however you want to
go about it. Heirloom soils is the place that you need to go and
I encourage you to give him a call. Check them out drop by.
But wherever you shop, ask them do you have heirloom soils? And I
bet they do and a bag. And that is the kind of quality stuff.
Don't skimp when it comes to getting quality soil because that determines your success
or not. And you don't buy vegetables and herbs and flowers for them to
survive. You buy them for them to be very high and the wow factor,
very beautiful, very productive, very impressive. Let's head out to Richmond
and we're going to talk to Terry. Now, Hello Terry, Yes,
sir, actually skip. What my problem is. I've got these oak trees
out in my front yard, pretty pretty large, you know, probably thirty
feet tall. In they've got this web all around the trunk, running up
the truck and on the limbs. And yeah, so I didn't know what
I should do. Need to do, well, no problem at all.
Just get you some outdoor lighting to shine from the ground up on the web
and you'll be ready for Halloween when the kids come through. Yeah. That
stuff is called bark lice. Bark lice, and they are no problem to
the planet at all. Think of them as little vacuum cleaners running along the
plant, chewing up the detritus and I don't know, algae or lichens or
whatever's on the trunk. And they spend that web to protect the themselves.
And it looks weird, but it's it's not hurting anything, and you can
blast it off with water if you don't want to look at it. But
they're not they're not a problem. That's that's an easy one, you can
rest assured. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just getting ready for Halloween.
Ask the lights to hang around because that's some pretty you know, people pay
for that angel hair like stuff to droop around and make it look like spiderwebs.
All right, thank you very much, you bet, thank you.
I appreciate that call very much. Hey, if you are up in the
area where let's say FM twenty nine seventy eight Magnolia direction right, Spring Creek
Feed, Spring Creek Feed, that's your hometown feed store. Spring Creek Feed
has everything you need for your horses, for your cattle, for your dogs,
your cats. I mean, if if if you've got a critter that
eats stuff, Spring Creek Feed has the stuff they need. Maybe you're into
backyard chickens, you know that a lot of people are into that right now.
That's pretty cool. Spring Creek Feed has friendly, courteous staff. Again,
they're just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway two forty nine in Magnolia.
On FM twenty nine seventy eight. I'm amused when I go in there
at all the different feed products the other day and this cracks me up.
But there is a freeze dried menow treats for cats. Now to me,
that sounds like it ought to be a control substance in the feline world,
because I would think that it's catcracked to have freeze dried mennows available as a
snack. Well, they have everything else your plants need, but they also
have the fun stuff for your little furrier feathered friends. Spring Creek Feed that's
a one stop shop for whatever you need when it comes to feeding the two
legs and the fore legs running around the property. You're listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Ricter. Our phone number is nigh Let's seven
three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. You've got a little piece of property out there in the
country, and you've been thinking about getting a tractor, don't delay any longer.
I've got the one you need, and that is the Lansdown Moody Caboda
twenty five o one, the l twenty five oh one. They've extended the
deal on it, and the deal is I don't know how they do this,
but it's you don't pay anything down, you don't pay any interest for
seven years. That's called eighty four months. If you're doing the math this
particular tractor hydrostatic transmission. It is just a really sweet ride and you can
check it out and you can get your front end loader, you're shredder on
the back or whatever you need. Lansdowne Moody and Cauboda what a great combination.
You can go to LM tractor dot com LM tractor dot com and find
out more about this. I would encourage you to find there all over the
place here in the greater Houston area. Find the nearest lands down to you,
go by and tell them I want to ride that thing. I want
to check it out, I want to sit on it. And you'll see
what I'm talking about. You can picture yourself out there on that piece of
property getting work done and don't tell anybody, but and having a heck of
a lot of fun in the meantime. You know, you gotta you gotta
kind of explain that this is an important piece of equipment you have to have.
This is not just for fun, even though just twein you and me
it's a blast. At the same time, we're gonna let's see, I'll
tell you what I'm gonna Curtis, I see out there. We're gonna come
to you when we come back from break and we will be going to break
here. And just a little bit for those of you who'd like to get
on the line. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four is
the number you need. We're about to head to the Nikki News. Neber
Nikki just walked in the room. Yes, I don't know. Do you
have any gardening news today or sort of kind of kind We're in a special
time of year, we are. You need to go to Wildbird's unlimited.
Oh, I'm gonna be talking about them in a little bit. I'm gonna
be bragging on them in just a little bit. It's hummingbird season, you
know, time to get those feeders out. You took my feet and you
took my lead. Oh I did, well, if you were something.
What about the size of how big is a hummingbird? They're tiny. You
had to fly all the way across the Gulf of Mexico with wings beating at
sixty beats a second. Do you think you might need a little bit of
a food supply before you head out? Isn't that amazing? It is amazing.
They drink sugar water. I couldn't I couldn't make it to South America
if I walked by lamb and I don't see how they do it. But
it's a miracle that they can even do that sort of thing. It's that
time of year they are. They're cool. I love I love hummingbirds,
and you would too. I mean, I got I got a couple little
feeders out. In fact, I got one of those a little high what
they call them high perch mounted feeders that they have that are really cool at
wellbirds. So I'll tell more about that later. Okay, Well, good
Saturday morning. You are listening to garden Line and Elton John at the same
time. Here we are here to answer your gardening questions. Seven one three,
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Let's head out now to Full Sure and we're gonna talk
to Curtis. Hello, Curtis, Patty Skip, how are you doing.
I'm well? Thanks, Hey, great, Thanks so much for taking the
call and for replying to my email last night. So I sent you some
photos over on our front lawn here in Western Eggs. And we've got a
pretty healthy Saint Augustine lawn that we've you know, done the schedule on for
years. But we've got a lot of blow over from some of the adjacent
neighbors, the long guys, blowing things over into the yard. And so
we've got this two particular weeds that we've been kind of wrestling with, and
aside from continuing to sit out in the lawn and pull the weeds, just
wondering if you had some advice on some next steps for attacking these things.
Okay, I see, I've got a couple of curtises. Here. Is
this a dark green weed that's in your lawn? Yeah, there's one dark
green, and then there's one that's it's dark green but with some little white
blossoms on it. The one with dark green and white blossoms is called Virginia
buttonweed, and it's a problem. It is a problem. Yeah. The
stuff that kills it hurts your Saint Augustine. And in fact, I say
stuff that kills it. It takes about two or three applications of a good
broad leaf post emergent weed killer to knock Virginia buttonweed out. I would probably
go with something called celsius, like fahrenheit and celsius. Celsius is a little
bit more forgiving when it comes to hot weather. I've still would use it
early, early in the day, and you know, when the temperature is
a low eighty five. It can be used when the temperature is ninety,
but you know, let's just get it on and avoid that. You're probably
going to have to retreat about two or three weeks later, and maybe even
a third time. It is a it's a tough weed. You can't pull
it because it just breaks off, and so you got to do the treatment.
Yours seems to be kind of, you know, all integrated with the
grass, which is kind of how that darn thing grows. But yeah,
that's it. The other thing about Virginia buttonwheed is don't water so much.
It loves it when you over water and stays too wet and so a dead
and kill it to you know, water deepen and frequent, but it just
keeps it from proliferating if you keep it soggy. Virginia button weed gets the
upper hand even more the other weed, the other one. I am it
looks like some sort of a day flower like plant, but I can't tell
for sure. It's a very unusual little weed. It's not basket grass.
It's not doveweed. First thing, I thought it was going to be fall
aster, but it's not that either. But that is a grassy weed growing
in a grassy lawn. And that's that's not a good combination because the products
at work on one also kill the other one. So the way that is
concentrated in your lawn. One option you're not gonna like this one, but
is to just spray and kill those weedspots and then let the long crawlback in
or replug the lawn in those areas. That would be one way to get
ahead of it. You'll notice that it's growing in your law in areas where
the lawn is thin. So the more you mow, water and fertilize properly.
The more density you get and when those weed seeds try to sprout,
for this, this dark bluish green weed that you sent me, it's it's
going to have trouble sprouting and coming up through that. Gotcha. Gotcha?
Okay, that makes good sense, all right. Yeah, appreciate it.
Appreciate all you're doing for us. Thank you. I appreciate that call very
much as well. Curtis. Yeah, the new lawn care schedule is out.
I've got it on my website Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with
Skip dot Com. It's the Lawncare Schedule. It's got a lot of detail
on it, a lot of detail based on research throughout the South on timing
of fertilizing, nutrients, of mixes of fertilizing. It's got the synthetic fertilizers,
organic options, aeration, compost, top dress, seeing trace, mental
supplements, information on mowing and watering. And of course it's all color coded,
so if you're looking through a certain color, you go to the bottom
and that color has all the products that are very high quality and very effective
for that particular application. So Gardening with Skip dot Com check it out.
Print you up a copy of course it's free and we hope you enjoy that.
Let's see, I'm going to head to Katie, Texas next and we're
gonna talk to Renee. Hello, Renee, good morning. I have since
chinch bugs. Okay. I was looking for the granual biphen thrin and could
not find any. Okay, so what they gave me instead was the nitrofoss
bug out that works. That's an excellent product. So it is an excellent
product, Okay. I was just wondering. I mean, I think my
infect station is pretty bad. Okay, so I wasn't sure if that was
going to be an effective product or not. Yes, it is. Have
you seen the chinch bugs or you're just seeing dyeing grass mostly dying grass.
I believe I have seen them. Okay, Well, I'm going to assume
that you're correct about it's a chinch bug problem. And yes, by Fanthorne,
follow the label, put it out watered in. Follow the label and
that works really well. If you want to make double sure that you got
chinch bugs, get you a watering can and for each gallon of water,
put a tablespoon of like dish detergent, you know, the liquid dishgent like
dawn for example. Actually it's better to use a lemon scented one. I
don't know why that is, but a lemon scented dish detergent. Just a
tablespoon per gallon water over an area between healthy and dead where the grass is
declining but not dead, and then get on on your hands and knees,
and it irritates the heck out of them and they'll come crawling up out of
there. After a few minutes. You'll see a whole lot of chinch bugs
if that's what's doing it. Okay, And then I guess my other question
is when can I reapply or will I need to reapply the nitroflies. You
probably don't need to reapply. Apply it to the entire area that's showing a
problem, and go about five feet out into the yard beyond that, just
to be sure, okay. And I have like a Scots fertilizer. It's
an edge edge guard, and I put it at about four okay, because
it was hard to read the label. It said anywhere between three and four
and a half. Yeah, Well, Renee, I'm gonna I'm gonna have
to go and I don't know the settings. You just have to you know,
you just have to do as close as you can. I would say
go lighter rather than heavier. And because you can always go back and read
do if you and do another lap if you need to. Okay, okay,
all right, all right, thank you, thank you. I appreciate
that call. Hey, we're going to take a break. Seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be right back the highway.
Goodbye, Well, good morning, on a beautiful day for gardening. You
are listening to garden Line, and we are excited to be talking about all
kinds of things gardening today because, believe it or not, I know it's
hot outside these I know it's hard to look at the plants sometimes when they're
struggling along with the heat. There's a lot we can do to take care
of them, and there's a lot we need to be doing to get ready
for fault. I'll talk about that more, perhaps a little bit later.
Right now, I want to talk about birds. If you have a garden
in a landscape and you are not active in feeding and attracting and enjoying birds,
you're missing a huge part of the fun of guard birds. The songs
of birds are I just I love them visually. I love their antics,
you know, watching them come to the feeders and the little bird watering systems
and things. But the songs of birds in the morning are just, oh
my gosh, it is just like I don't know, a calming, beautiful,
enjoyable experience. Where do you find out about birds? Where you find
out at wild Birds Unlimited. They know more about birds than anybody, and
they have more products for birds than anybody. Quality feeds like the nesting blend,
which they still need right now. It's still going on nesting season and
the molting season for example. That's another thing we're in right now. This
super blend, the nesting super blend is perfect all the way through the summer
for feeding wild birds has a blend for every kind of birds you're looking for.
I mean, if you want nuthatches, nuthatches or chickadees or whatever the
bird is, they have a special blend to attract that. And their blends
are full of seed. The birds want to eat. A cheap bird seed
has tons of those little red beebes and they are worthless. The birds kick
it out. They don't want to eat it. Well, maybe doves eat
it off the ground. Or something, but don't don't waste your money on
that. By a quality blend, you'll use less of it and you'll get
more out of it. And that is exactly what Wildbirds has. Now,
this is hummingbird season, is NICKI, and now we're talking about a minute
ago. They've got great hummingbird feeders. I like the little high roost feeder
that they have, and getting those out now it needs to be done because
hummingbirds are already in the area and they're getting ready to fly across the Gulf
of Mexico to their overwintering locations and that comes later on. Get those feeders
out now so you can enjoy them. There's wild Birds Unlimited all over Houston,
Katie Kingwood, Cypress pair Land, bel Air, West Houston and clear
Lake. All you need to do is go online to w b U dot
com, Slash Houston, WBU dot com Forward slash Houston, find the wild
birds near you and listen. That is a great gift. If you have
friends and family, maybe they're not gardeners, go to Wildbirds and I promise
you will find a lot of things that make outstanding gifts for the friends on
your list. I mean, who doesn't enjoy looking out the window at hummingbirds.
Right, who doesn't enjoy the song of birds? Well, wildbirds will
get your set up for that. Let's head out now to Brenham and we're
going to talk to John. Hello, John, Hey, good morning,
Skip. I have a plumb cut tree. It's about ten years old.
It's been pretty well cared for and well watered. It's been healthy. It's
about ten foot tall, about seven inches in diameter, and it's seeping sat
down near the base. Okay, And I just wondered that's something I need
to be concerned about. I have not seen it do that before. Yeah,
it well probably so. Is it all the southwest side of the tree
or is it all around the tree? It is on the south side of
the tree, Okay. It could be damaged from the December freeze that we
had, or from the freeze a while back that got really, really cold
in February twenty one. That the bark warms up at the late warmest part
of the day in the winter and on that side where the sun is shining,
and as a result that night it drops down and freezes, and that
part those tissues are not fully hardy like the rest of the tree. Nothing
you can do about that that will heal over and be fine. If you
see little sap areas, take your knife and scrape them back. If there's
a tunnel a hole, then that's a borer and you're gonna need to treat
with an insecticide that soaks into the bark, so then when the borer tries
to complete its life cycle, you control them. But that would be the
only two things I would say to look for right now. Do you ever
recommend on that infective side, You need something that's a little bit persistent.
I would probably use biphent throne, something with biphentron. But wherever you shop
for your gardening supplies, go in there and ask them what do you have
that's labeled for fruit trees? Because not all ingredients are labeled for all different
kinds of plants, of course, and I don't want to send you out
doing an application that's not legally on the label. Okay, okay, but
check don't don't waste time. Don't waste your time withinsexicides if you don't see
sawdust or a hole where the sap is coming out. Okay. Other than
that, it's just keep the tree healthy and it'll close off that infection and
close it back over again, and you should be fine. Should I remove
the sap that's there to look for the whole bit? If I see it
again, should I remove it? Well, just scrape it back so you
can see is it Is it just coming out of tissue or is it coming
from a hole where the borer has been digging. That's the only reason.
Okay, good luck with it, and good luck with that plumb caught?
Are those are not that common? So good for you and having one.
You know, we talk about lawn fertilizations, we talk about organic fertilizers and
things, and Nitrofists has a product called sweet Green. It's an eleven percent
nitrogen product. Sweet Green is a high quality product made out of molasses where
they bring in microbe. They introduce microbes into the molasses and it creates this
perfect organic fertilizer that just stimulates microbial growth. Eleven percent about as high as
you're going to get on an organic fertilizer product. Sweet Green smells good.
I mean you put it in a car, drive around and you enjoy having
it in the car, compared to as some fertilizers can stink up a bit
especially when they're poultryman or based. But sweet Green is easy to find all
over town. Nitrofuss products are everywhere. You're going to find that. It
produces good quick results and gets you ready. Actually, if you do it
now, it gets you ready for that fall season that's coming up in a
few months where we put on our fall applications of fertilizer nitrofoss sweet Green.
Well, let's see, we're about out of time here, but I did
wanna let's see, we got one more hour in the books, but this
hour's about gone. If you live up in the Grimes County area, you
know we're talking about that place I call God's Country. You know that's way
outside Carlos, Texas. Is a little town out there. That is the
Grimes County Feed location. Now, Grimes County Feed is on Highway thirty in
Carlos, Texas. If you were in the neighborhood of Kingwood, or if
you're in Mirrorwood, or if you're in Iola Bead Eyes, Shiro, Ron's
Prairie, Anderson Richards, y'all are sitting here going is what are those towns?
We'll go drive through. Its beautiful country out there. But Grimes County
Feed has all the products we talk about. You know, they got those
fertilizers do so well in providing good quality results with your plants. They also
have the tree hugger sprinklers. Now, the tree hugger sprinkler I was out
there not long ago. If you're if you're in those neighborhoods I was talking
about, you've got a typically a sandy loam soil that doesn't hold water as
well as maybe a clay mite. And this has been a long, blazing
hot summer. A TreeHugger could make the difference between a tree dying or living
because it waters that entire area beneath the branch spread of a tree. Unless
it's just a giant tree, then you may have to move it a little
bit. But a good deep soaking every week ten days at least ever two
weeks when it's not raining, can make the difference. And here's the thing
about this and why I'm so happy Grime Scanny Feed carries the tree are sprinklers
is because when you weaken a tree, you introduce diseases, and up in
that area it's a post oak forest up around Grimes County Feed, those plants
will end up with apoxland canker if they get weakened, and so take care
of them by watering properly like that. While you're out there, by the
way, they have a sale ten percent off tree Huggers and stock ten percent
off all of the fertilizers you know, the Nelson Medina and nitrofoss Microlife.
It's a good time to go by talk to Chris and the team out there
at Grimes County Feed and you will see what I'm talking about when I say
they'll treat you like family, and they absolutely will. There's another hour in
the books. We got one more left today and then I'm going to be
heading out to Margaritaville. Now I'm not going with Jimmy Buffett. This is
the Lake Conro Home and Garden Show at the Margaritaville Resort out on Lake Conro.
And if you're out there on one oh five heading from Conro toward Montgomery,
passed by April Sound, we see a little Walmart supercenter on the right,
turned down the Walden Drive and you will get right to the place that
we're talking about. I'm gonna be talking for about an hour out there on
things to do walden Road, I said, should have said not Walden Drive.
I'm gonna be talking about it, things to do for your garden and
lawn this fall, things that you need to be doing now. Then I'm
going to be at a table and answering your gardening questions. That's a chance
to visit one on one. Bring me some samples of your plants. Let's
get them identified or diagnose. And I'm giving away nitrohust fertilizer, So make
sure and show up and get some of that. KTRH Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to
KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor. So just what a good morning, good
Saturday morning on a beautiful day outside. You know it's we're gonna get rid
of these hundred degree days here eventually, and hopefully it's not too far away.
But now's the time to be taking care of your plants. Because I
said this earlier when I was talking about the post oaks up there around Carlos
area and a Grimes County feed store, and that's post oak forest up there.
Oak trees when they get stressed a disease, that's already in the tree
called apoxlan canker gets the upper hand causes the bark to fall off. You
get these olive drab spots on the tree trunk, on the wood underneath the
bark, and then it turns gray and there's black h and it just kills
trees and there's no fighting it. There's no fun decide to spray on the
tree to fix it. What you do is you spray water on the ground
to avoid it. That's it. You stress the plant, the plant gets
sick. Plants are like us and that regard. Don't eat right, don't
sleep right, high stress all the time, your gonna get sick. And
so it really is simple. You know, taking care of plants isn't just
spraying for disease, is spraying for insects, spring, you know, all
that kind of stuff. It's keeping them as healthy as we can. And
then when we need a spraying, spray, But you find that you don't
need to spray as much when you keep the plant healthy. And there's a
lot of ways to keep a plant healthy, you know, just taking care
of it and getting good quality nutrition to the soil. The nitrofosts superturf that
nineteen four ten. The silver bag I talk about, that's an example of
that. And I know it's made for turf, but don't tell anybody,
but I use it for other things as well. I mean, it is
a quality, slow release product, and when you put it down on your
lawn, you're going to get that gradual feed over a period of time.
And that's just the way plants need to be fed. I mean, it
really is. You don't need all your nitrogen at one time, you need
it gradually day by day over time. This does just that. It's got
the chemistry that knows to release those nutrients gradually. Nineteen four ten. Nitrofos
Super Turf silver bag. It's as simple as that. And you can find
nitrofoscet these hardware stores. You can find it a lot of our feed stores,
a lot of our home and home garden centers. Nitrofoss is easy to
find, and the silver bag is easy to spot and it's easy to use.
I don't know how you get any easier than that. You are listening
to Garden Line and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four if you've
been thinking about getting a tree established out there in the lawn, or maybe
lost a tree and you're looking at replacing it, the place to go is
Verdant Tree Farm Verdant Treefarm dot com v er da nt Verdant Treefarm dot com.
They got two locations, actually have three now. There is the farm
in West Houston that's on Barker Cypress. Down in Paarland on Broadway Street they
have another farm. And if you're on I ten about where Yale Street comes
in at the Heights, there's another Verdant Verdant Tree Farm there. Now.
They carry a wide variety of quality trees. I saw the other day they
even at pecan trees, nice varieties of pecans in at Verdant Tree Farm.
They really are the specialist when it comes to palms. I mean, if
you want someone that has a wide variety of palms and knows how to plant
them, that's Verdant Tree Farm. And that extends to all their trees.
They have not just a palm nursery. I mean they have all kinds of
things, even up to seven hundred gallons. You go there, you tell
them I want that tree, they put a tag on it. They bring
it to your house and they plant it right. And you don't want to
spend money on a tree that's not planted right. You also don't want to
lift something too heavy and spend money on a cairopractor bill because you try to
do it yourself. Have the folks advertent tree Farm Planet for you. They
will do it right. They offer a one year warranty. It's included with
the installation price. And I don't know if you are looking for shade.
You know I bet out today with a hundred degrees in the sun blazing.
You wish you'd planted a tree fifty years ago, right, that's what they
say. The best time is fifty years ago. Well, the next best
time is today. Let's get that done and enjoy not only shade in the
future, but the value of your home goes up dramatically when you choose a
quality tree and planted in your landscape so that it has decades and decades and
decades of benefits for you. Let's go out to Missouri City and we're going
to talk to Paul. Now. Hello, Paul, good morning, skip
listen. I have an issue with wild bermuda grass, and earlier in the
year like in February. In March, the lawn was taken off, the
real, good, strong, with a good heavy mat of Saint Augustine.
But I had a strip about two foot wide and maybe five feet long of
wild bermuda, and as the early summer progressed, the Saint Augustine was taking
it over. So I was really pleased up until this heavy heat. Now
my Saint Augustine is barely growing and the wild bermuda has taken over. Now
that strip is about four foot wide and ten feet long. Yeah, Paul,
there's a there's not a miracle cure for this situation. They're just not
you know, there are things that make Saint Augustine have the upper hand,
there's things that make bermuda have the upper hand. But the bottom line is
they're going to coexist. And I'll tell you what I do in my yard,
and you won't like this at all. But I got tired of it
in an area where I had it, and I just went in and killed
everything that was there and then reap plant the Saint Augustine and those areas I
would I would kill everything that's there, water it good, and wait a
while, because you're going to get some resprouting of some bermuda you missed,
and then do it again, and after that you're able to go in and
plant Saint Augustine. Otherwise it's going to be a coexisting and that just is
the way it is. Is you get into more shade, Saint Augustine is
upper hand. As you get into more drought, stress and heat, bermudograss
has the upper hand. Uh and uh, you know, so I don't
know a better solution than that, but that I know that's probably not acceptable,
but that's what I finally resorted to. Okay, which product would you
recommend to to kill that griss? Yeah? There are a number of products
out there. I mean, you know there's the products that kill everything.
You don't want one that that, you know, keep stuff killed for a
year. Don't avoid those like the plague, but products. A lot of
people have used glyphosa products to kill everything that would do it. There's also
two different kinds of grass killers that would do it. One begins with flua
z as the ingredient fl like flu as. The other begins with setch like
the boy's name Seth. So if you tell them I want to grass only
killer, where you go shopping for yourself. Go into your local. You've
got some really good ace hardware stores real close to you there. Go into
one of those, and you know, just tell them that you need a
grass only killer as much as you can spot treat it. But that's going
to drag the process out. I mean, you can do the whole thing,
be done with it. It looks horrible, You get it replanted,
and eventually you're back in business. Or in some areas, I'll just spot
treat the little spriggs bermuda that I see taking care to just get it on
the bermuda, and then you have all these little dead spots. But it's
easy for the same augustine to grow back in around them. Okay, okay,
one last question. I'm gonna have to I might have to put you
on hope of that. I gotta take a break. I'll come back to
you when we get back. Hang on just a second seven one three,
two, one two fifty eight seventy four, we'll be right back. Well,
good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning. Thanks for being a garden Line
listener. We look forward to visiting with you. We are here to answer
gardening questions. That's what we do. Hey. You know, with the
kind of drought we're having, our clay soils in the Greater Houston area are
shrinking a lot, and then it gets wet and they swell a lot,
and that movement causes havoc on foundations, on driveways, on sidewalks, tie
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two ft nine forty nine. We are now going to go back to Missouri
City. Hey, Paul, can we can we wrap this one up?
I'd be happy to help you. I've got some other calls online. Yes,
so would list the question on the grass only her side. After the
grass appears to be dead? How long do I wait before I read plant?
Uh? Usually it's going to take about a week for those things to
fully work, and then I would just you know, water it down,
probably wait another week or two. It's really hot right now to try to
get grass going and everything. Anyway, wait another week or two, and
then if anything sprouts for spraying again, wait about a week, and then
then lay the grass down so that that would you just want all the bermuter
to show its head at the surface before you put Saint Augustine down, and
then you're just right back in the mess, right, Yes, I understand,
Thank you, Thank you, I appreciate I appreciate that call a lot.
Hey. Uh, you know they say when life gives you lemons,
make lemonade. How about when life gives you blazing hot sun, make electricity.
I'm not talking about solar panels on your roof. I'm talking about a
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They have every kind of roof you can imagine, from shingles to tile to
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about. Go online Brinkman Quality that has two ends in the middle bri n
KMA n N Quality dot com or two eight one four eight zero seventy six
sixty three. We're going to head out now to a task acita and talk
to Greg. Hello, Greg, Skip, how are you well? Thanks
excellent. I am kind of going in the opposite direction from where other folks
are going. I had been mowing my lawn every two weeks, trying to
keep the blades as long as possible because of the water and the other issues
that are out there. I am also fighting against my neighbor who was sculling
his yard and watering with a with a circular sprinkler as opposed to using his
sprinkler system to water his entire yard. So I've I've taken bug out and
I've I've preemptively hit my yard, but especially along the border that I share
with with my neighbor. I wanted to ask you about the mowing every two
weeks, if that's helpful or for it's just overthinking, And then is there
anything else I need to be doing to guard against chin and chinch bugs and
other other credit. Well, if you put the if you put the bug
out out, that is going to kill anything that's there, and it'll stick
around for a little while to kill anything that shows up. So you're probably
okay with that. Just kind of watch it a little bit. And if
you see next to a sidewalk, driveway or curb some area that looks like
it needs water, you water and it still look like it needs water,
that maybe chinch bugs and a chance to retreat those areas if that happens and
comes around. As far as a two week schedule, we like to mow
often enough that we cut off one third of the leaf blade with each mowing.
So if you set your mow or high, it has to grow more
before it's time to mow, so it lengthens the schedule a little bit.
If you were to go down, and I hope you wouldn't, No one
would, but to a one inch high for Saint Augustine, well, it
would only have to grow, you know, like a third of an inch
or so and or a half an inch, and you'd be you'd be mowing
again. So you're mowing very often, So a taller height lengthens it.
I don't know on two weeks, you know, if you're watering a lot
and fertilizing and everything, two weeks is probably too long, even at a
tall height. But in general, if it if the grass is slowed down
a little bit and you're just keeping it alive and decently healthy, that should
be okay, okay, cool, alright. Any any thoughts on how I
can get my neighbor to kind of change his ways on what he's doing with
his yard? Uh, that might tell him be a psychiatrist. Con question.
We come on at six am, it's dark, so go bang on
the door and tell him he's missing gardening line and he'll be so happy that
you have turned him onto that and now his lawn is beautiful, that he
will be your your favorite neighbor. So Skip, I will take that into
consideration. Thank you. Yeah, and I'm not I'm not responsible for broken
bones, shot wounds or exactly. Okay, Hey, take care of Greg.
Thanks for calling. Alrighty yeah, gosh. Yeah. When it comes
to, you know, taking care of a lawn and making sure that it's
healthy, that makes it all the more important to put on a quality fertilizer.
And Microlife sixty four is just that. I mean, it's gonna release
gradually over time. It's going to replenish the minerals in that stressed grass.
It's going to provide the microbial content that's necessary for that stressed grass, including
the sugars that help feed the microbes in the soil. And when you do
the combo Microlife sixty four that's a green bag and the purple bag, which
is Humates plus, which is concentrated compost in a bag, you help get
those plants through it. Now, whether you're doing your lawn or whether you're
taking care of all the plants on the property, you know, when it
comes to shrubs, and when it comes to perennials and flowers and vegetables,
I would consider seriously using the Ocean Harvest that's the liquid in the blue label.
It's a fish emotion based product and it will not burn your plants,
and you can do a folier feed with it, you can drench them.
You're just trying to provide a boost to help this plant. I mean,
it needs to have the benefits that come with these products in order to recover
from and even to sustain through the kinds of stresses that they're going through.
Right now, you can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out where to
get them, or just learn more about the products I just talked about.
We're gonna head out to Humble now and talk to Angela. Hello, Angela,
Hi, good morning, Good morning. Yes, I am going to
regarding a couple of trees that have been showing sign of a disease. However,
I don't know which one is this, and I seen a couple of
pictures for you. One of them is at Secamore and it has like brown
spots in the middle and at the end. And the other tree is the
grape myrtle which is behaving the same way. So I am not aware of
what that could be. Okay, well, grete pictures, thank you,
pictures worth a thousand words. The crape myrtle is showing signs of drought stress.
It could be due to a number of things. It could be due
to a lack of water in the soil, which is the most likely cause.
It could be due to high salt content in the water, high sodium
hybicarbonates. You can get that kind of symptom from that as well, combined
with heat and dry conditions. But that just shows plants that are struggling.
It's the last part of the leaf to get the water. That's where it's
turning brown, the tips and the margins. So just think of it as
a long tube from the end of a route to the end of a leaf,
and the last part is not quite getting enough, and so that's what's
turning brown on your crape myrtles. Now, the branch that you sent.
If a crape myrtle has lichen on it, lichen is a little growth that
is superficial to the plant. It's not a parasite. It's not like mistletoe
that's taking energy from the tree. It just you can just ignore that.
It's a sign that the crape myrtle is not very vigorous, and so probably
could use once we get through this drought stress, it could use a little
fertilizer, a little water to you know, during the drought stress too,
by the way, to keep it vigorous. But that's all. Now.
Your sycamores, on the other hand, they are also showing drought symptoms.
But the thing that's causing that pattern is a bacteria that gets in the leaf,
in the plumbing of the leaf, and it plugs it up. So
if you imagine going back on a vein and just clipping the vein right there,
everything that that vein supplies will turn brown. And that's what the bacteria
doing. They're not clipping it, but they're plugging it. And so essentially
it's like hardening of the arteries or whatever. You know. The blood flow
can't get through there because the bacteria are clogging it up, and this plaque
that forms inside there, like with the artery situation, Uh, there's no
curing the bacteria. You just have to water enough to try to keep it
hydrated, and the sycamore will be just fine. Okay, so it does
seem it's not a punge side. It looks like it's a a punge side
around them, correct, right, Yeah, No, there's no surface sprays
needed for your crape myrtles or for your sycamore's. Okay, And what type
of fertilizer for the crepe myrtles you would you suggest? I would get a
quality product, and there there are a number of quality products out there.
I know know some plant food makes a crape myrtle plant food specifically, uh
and and it it's just designed for trees and shrubs. But you've got crape
myrtle on the label. That one works just just fine. That would be
a good one to use. I'm going to be out at Margaritaville today up
up in the Lake Conro area. It's a little far for a drive for
you to go from the Humble area, but I'll be out there given away
some Nelson plant food this afternoon. Okay, So yeah, I wouldn't definitely
go to see you. And so where's it gonna be? Could you the
place again? Yes, go to the Lake Conro Home and Garden show.
And Margaritaville is the name of the resort. So from your direction you go
to Conro, you had west on one oh five when you pass April Sound
and you see where the lake comes up to the road. A little past
that is Walden Road and it it leads up to Margaritaville. You can just
google it on a map and find it. Okay, perfect, Well,
thank you for lasting. I appreciate Eleven thirty to one thirty is the time.
I'll be there. Get there at eleven thirty if you want to hear
my talk. All right, absolutely, I'll be there. Thank you so
much for everything. All right, thank you, Angela. I appreciate that
call. And with that, I'll turn the golden microphone over to the Nicky
News Network. Oh, I love her at Let's keep tongued Nikki is he
gives us the news. It's good morning, beautiful Saturday, beautiful Saturday.
It's a good day to come out and see me at the Lake Conro Home
and Garden and boat show. It the Martary de Villement Resort. It's out
there just what east of Montgomery, on the west side of Lake Conro.
I don't know. You can google it and find it. We're gonna be
out there. I'll be talking for let's seen from about eleven thirty to about
twelve thirty given a presentation on all the stuff you need to know about getting
your lawn, your garden, whatever ready to go for fall. And then
I'll be at a table where I will be answering your gardening questions. So
you've got some plant samples, you want to put them in a bag,
maybe it's a weed to identify, or what's wrong with this leaf. Will
be doing all of that, happy to do that. And we're also going
to be giving away free samples of Nelson plant food. I don't mean just
little samples. I mean need a little two pound jars and four pound jars,
various kinds of mixes. I think I got some vegetable stuff. I
got some tomato specifically, even have one for house plants, some for shrubs,
and just lots of good stuff out there. So I hope you'll come
out and see us. We'd love to meet you and love to put one
of those products in your hands. You know, Ace Hardware is the one
stop shop for all kinds of things. I mean we brag on everything that
Ace Hardware has now. I mean, if you have a minute an Ace,
you just gotta go and see. It's everything in the world. But
when it comes to lawn and garden, that is the place that just has
what you need that It's as simple as that. So the fertilizers that you
need for your lawn, the pest control product, disease control products, weed
control products for your lawn, everything for you. The lawn ranger to take
care of your lawn each and every weekend and make it look its best.
You're going to find it there at ACE. If I'm bragging about a fertilizer
product, They're gonna have it at Ace Hardware. It's as simple as that.
Thirty nine stores through the Houston area. Go to Ace Hardware dot com
and find the store locator and there you will be able to find the stores
plural near you. Yes, there will be more than one store near you.
When it comes to ACE Hardware, I always like going in because I
never know what they what's the latest, what do they have, what's new?
You know. It also is good to get to visit with some of
the folks work there because they do have knowledgeable, friendly staff and they can
help direct you to the products that you may need. I've mentioned a couple
of times today I'll mention it again and that is the new garden schedule or
lawn schedule is out. I have finally finished my lawn care schedule. If
you go to my website, basically, what's on the website right now is
the garden or the why I keep saying garden, the lawn schedule is what's
on the website. I'm going to be building that website and with lots of
information, lots of helpful publications and all kinds of stuff. So keep checking
back week after week. It's it's on its way now. But the lawn
care schedule tells you what to do each month of the year January through December,
and it's it's divided up, it's color coded to make it really simple.
When you first look at it, you're gonna go, Okay, that
is a lot of information. Well, don't you don't read the whole page
at once. Like the first first row across is fertilizing synthetic. It's in
yellow, and so if you're using a synthetic fertilizer, it tells you when
to apply what and then you go down to the bottom in yellow and it's
all the synthetic fertilizers for various times of the year. And then there's a
trace mineral supplement bar with at the bottom same color the trace minerals that you
can purchase here in the Uscen area. Then organic fertilizing, all the organic
fertilizers when you apply them, and what at the bottom, same color green
is the organic options here in the Houston area. Talks about lawn aeration,
when to do it, how to do it. It. Talks about mowing.
Believe it or not, mowing is more than just far up the mower
and run over the lawn. It There's a lot to it, from how
much you prune off when you mow, keeping the mower, shar Poto collect
leaves, all kinds of stuff, and then watering, and again, watering
is a science. You need to be able to water properly in order to
have a successful lawn. You wet it all the time, you're going to
have more disease problems. You wet it too frequently. It's not going to
wet the soil deep enough. Just a little squirt every other day is not
watering the lawn. That's creating humidity and creating disease. And we talk about
that on there. Now that's the first one the lawn care schedule. Coming
up soon is the pest disease and weed management schedule, So that has,
as the title implies, what are the insects and when do they occur?
What are the diseases and when do they occur? What are the weeds?
And when do you do pre emergent? When do you do post emergent?
And all of those products again and a color coded format are going to be
there. That one's not up on the web yet, but it will be
soon. Right now, go to Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with
Skip dot com and you'll see the schedule. You can look at it online,
you can print it out. It's a PDF document. Make several copies,
give them to your family, give them to your friends, or email
them to your family and friends. Tell them about gardening with Skip dot com.
We are going to build one heck of a website, and you heard
about it on day one when we first got the lawn schedule up there.
You know the tree Hugger sprinkler. I've talked about them a lot today because
it is a quality sprinkler. And tomorrow, I mean tomorrow could be a
record heat day, and whether it is or not. It's a two darn
hot heat day. Tree Hugger allows you to keep your plants alive. It
allows you two to keep them out of stress, because stress leads to problems
down the line. There's three sizes of tree Hugger. You can buy them
all over the place. These these ace hardware stores, the feed stores,
the home and garden, the home mom and pop garden centers are going to
have the tree Hugger sprinklers and they're easy to find. I encourage you to
use them. Trust me. It is the cheapest insurance you can purchase to
save a very high value plan. Let's go out to Porter. We're gonna
talk to Dave. Hey, Dave, I got about a minute and a
half. If we can get it done, then let's do it. Are
you there, Dave? This Steve Steve Okay, excuse me, get your
name wrong. How can we help? Steve? Hey, I've got some
live oaks. They're about fourteen years old to twelve intes diameters, and I've
been watching the surface roots these past years, yes, and reading up on
the surface roots. I've got three of them that have reached one edge of
my driveway and one edge of my sidewalk and they're about twelve feet out from
the tree base itself. And I don't want to kill the live oaks,
but how many of those can I cut back? And how do you feed
them back? Well, I'm going to give you a vegu answer, and
then I'm gonna tell you to get where to get a specific answer. The
VEG answer is if you take one route at a time over you know,
each year, cut one route here, cut one route there. The tree
will recover from that. But I wouldn't do it now when the demands are
through the roof on those trees trying to pump water. Now that that's the
VEGU answer. The specific answer is call a professional tree fellow to come out,
like Affordable Tree Care Martin spoon Moore and have him look at it,
because what he may see is, no, it's just one route, but
that one route is a huge part of what that tree needs, part of
anchoring the tree so it didn't fall over, part of taking up water nutrients.
Martin can also look at putting in a barrier under the ground, a
vertical wall so the roots can't go into the driveway to crack it and make
it come up, so that that would be the best. His number seven
one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Steve or I've got
to take a break, but I will come back to you if you want
to hang around to continue this discussion. Thank you very much. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be
right back. Well. Good Saturday morning. We are in our final hour
of the show today. After the show at eleven thirty, I'll be at
the Lake Conro Home and Garden and Boat Show at in Margariteaville Resort out on
Lake Conro. That's on the west side of Lake Conro. If you're heading
on one oh five out, Let's say you're heading from Conro direction, pass
by April sound little for down you see Walden Road, Turn right there.
There's a big Walmart supercenter there where you turn, and it'll take you out
to margaret Ritaville. I'll be given a talk for about an hour talking about
things to do for your lawn, garden and landscape this fault. Then I'll
sit down at a table and we'll visit. Bring me some samples, bring
me some pictures. Make sure the pictures are in good sharp focus. We'll
be happy to identify, diagnose, recommend whatever it is that you need.
I'll be giving out some canisters of Nelson plant food while I'm there. We
got some two pound canisters and four pound canisters, so it's a nice little
supply of fertilizer there on, all kinds of different things different. You know.
Nelson's makes Color Star and Nutral Star and all kinds of different wonderful plant
foods at work very very well in your lawn and garden. And here's your
chance to get a good supply, really of a sample to go home and
try out. I think you'll love it as much as I do. I'm
gonna go out now to Katie and we're gonna talk to Stephanie. Hello,
Stephanie, Good morning Skip. I have a quick question, because I know
you're short on time. I have white fly infestation and I have been alternating
in Sexicidal Scope soap Spinisad and Pyrenthan, and I've been screened twice a day,
early in the morning and late in the evening, and I just cannot
knock them down. Is is there anything else I can't need to be doing,
you know, Katie or Katie Stephanie front Katie, your experience is common
and white flies. We have products that will kill white flies, but these
products also kill the natural enemies that help keep white flies in check, and
it is not unusual to spray for white flies and end up with a worse
problem than you started with, or at least the same thing that you started
with. I would probably avoid the parrethans specifically. The spino said spinosad should
not be that effective. I'd have to look at the label. But I
think of spinosaid as more for things that have chewing mouthparts that eat leaves,
like caterpillars and beetles and whatnot. That's not the only thing spinosad controls,
but that's that's what it's best at. And so I don't know if it
works on white flies at all. It may, but but anyway, the
soap I don't think so. Yeah, well, the soap is soaps and
horticultural oils are effective on the larva and the pupa, and you'll find those
underneath the leaf. The pupa look like a little like a fish scale,
but so small. It's like a little lowercase tight zero on the bottom of
the leaf, sticking to the leaf, and the soap coats. The soap
and the oil both kind of physically kill them. They're not a poison,
so they're not they don't last in terms of continuing to kill as a poison,
so they don't hurt the natural enemies as bad. And I think I
think I would resort to that. Now here's the caveat. Both soap and
oil will burn the heck out of a plant when it's one hundred of grease
and the blazing sun. So you want to get that done really really early
in the morning. Spray upward from underneath the leaves of the plant, because
that's where the pests are hiding, the white flies are hiding, and because
they have to physically coat them with soap or oil to kill them. And
then I think tolerate a little bit of the white flies around as the natural
enemies have a chance to kind of catch back up. That would be my
approach, based on the experience you've had already. Okay, I'll switch to
I guess nime and in sucticidal soap, then yeah, you could, you
could certainly do that. I know that my natural thought would be, well,
let's just put a systemic in the plant to kill them, but from
what I've read from some of the research done in California, those are not
that affected either. Okay, okay, all right, well I appreciate it.
Thank you so much. All right, Stephanie, thank you very much.
You take care. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Speaking of having
a wonderful day, I always have a wonderful day when I go up to
the Arburgate Nursery and tombaal. You know, Arburgade has created one of those
destination nurseries, and boy, are aware are blessed in Houston to have some
awesome just destination nurseries. It's a kind of place you go and you bring
friends that aren't even gardeners and they're just walking around for the wiref wow factor.
By the way, in the meantime, they're being converted to gardeners.
They just don't know it. But Arburgatee has got a grade selection of plans.
Of course, super helpful staff that know what they're talking about, that
greet you, they walk with you, they help you find what you need,
they answer your questions. That is what's essential and equality nursery, and
that's what you're going to get at Arburgate. You can go on line to
Arburgate dot com. While are you there, pick up there three step completely
easy system. That's three bags organic food complete that's a four four three plus
calcium all organic fertilizer. A organic soil complete that is a quality soil blend
that has expanded shale in it, which is important. And then the organic
compost complete, which is a two different types of composts blended together, chock
full of microorganisms that also has expanded shale in it. You know, compost
is always good for soils, but expanded shale sticks around a long long time.
So think of it as little porous, very very lightweight rock products.
Think of it as kitty litter that has been expanded under thousands of degrees of
temperature into a little pitted, lightweight material that doesn't break down and helps keep
that clay open. Very important if you've got a poorly drained typical black clay
soil like we have here around the Greater Houston area in many of the areas
all at Arburgate. Arburgate, by the way, for those of you who
don't know, you must have been hiding under a rock. Do not know
where Arburgate is. But if you go out Highway two forty nine. Excuse
me from Highway two forty nine on twenty one, twenty twenty nine, twenty
west of Tomball. That we'll get you to the Arbourgate Highway twenty nine,
twenty a mile and a half west of two forty nine. Getting towards the
end of the show, I'm having trouble talking here today. Let's go real
quick here. Let's see we're going to talk to Wade, and Wade I
got about thirty seconds. Can we do it? Get it done in that?
Oh yeah, a bit morning. You mentioned a plant in the last
hour. I think I've had double ballooms on and everything, and I didn't
get the name of that plant. I just wanted that was rangoon creeper,
and I was talking about plants for all seasons on Highway two forty nine.
Royal Louetta comes into two forty nine. All right, right, thank you
sir, Yes, sir, you bet hey. I'm going to be out
at Margaritaville giving away some Nelson plant food. You know. Nelson makes the
Slow and Easy twenty two two ten for summer. They make the Bruce's Brew,
which is a faster release could be used anytime a year round on your
lawn or really on anything. To be honest, it's a good product.
In eighteen four nine, and then they've got their Color Star, their Nutral
Star, and their Nature Star. That's the organic line Nature Star. Lots
of quality fertilizers from Nelson Plant Food. I'll be giving away some of the
Color Star products as well as some of the Nature Star out there. Little
canisters went on at Lake Conra. I hope you'll come see me. That
is at the Margaritaville Resort on the west side of Lake Conro. I'll be
there at eleven thirty, so I'm about to jump in a car and head
that way. Maybe grab a burger on the way. I'll be talking for
about an hour on things to do in your lawn and garden this fall,
how to have a beautiful guard, to recover from this infernal gahenna that we
are living through right now. There's a new word. Go look that one
up. Infernal gayhanna that we're living through right now here in the Greater Houston,
are in fact all over Texas. And then I'll be at a table.
So if you've got some plant samples you want to identified put them in
a bag. Keep captive in the insects that might be involved. Bring me
some pictures, good quality, close up pictures. We'll identify that. Hey,
I can't wait to see you out there at the Lake Counro Home and
Garden and boat show, and just a little bit here