Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter.
It's so crazy. Just watch him as well. Stay well, good
Sunday morning. We are glad you're tuned in and listening to Garden Line.
And if you got some questions, you're welcome to give us a call today
our phone number seven one three two one two k t r H seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I don't know. Some people
like dialing by letters and numbers. Seems easier for me to dial by numbers,
but you know, the letters are perhaps easier to remember. I don't
know. We'll switch around, give me both ways. Hey, the weather
we're having is outstanding, and I know it's a little warm, it's a
little unseasonably warm. But what that's doing is it's helping us have more time
to get some October things done. October is the month we fertilize with a
fall fertilization. A fall fertilization is different than spring and summer, and here's
why. In the spring and summer we are providing our turf with a fertilizer's
got plenty of nitrogen to encourage growth, to encourage it to fill in and
grow and be green, and all of that. When we get to fall,
we don't want to push it. If you have a high nitrogen fertilizer
in the fall, especially one that's releasing it immediately making it all available,
you push a lot of green growth, and large patch or brown patch is
just a lot worse. You predispose it. In fact, there's several things
that predispose a lawn to brown patch. And if you've listened to this show
very much, you know that when I talk about these issues we deal with
with me, it's not just like here's the product you used to fix everything.
It's first cultural practices, how do we avoid predisposing our plants to problems?
And then secondly, when we have a problem, Yeah, they're products
that fix it or deal with it. That's the order that I would like
to encourage you to think about. So, for example, with large patch,
lots of nitrogen, frequent watering, keeping it wet, mowing it very
very low your lawn, all of those things are gonna make brown patch or
large patch much worse. They just are. And so don't do them.
The grass doesn't need that. Infall, we shift to a lower nitrogen fertilizer,
but we still want a good content of that last number, especially that's
the potassium our plants, our grass plants need all nutrients, lots of nutrients,
different kinds that is, but potassium helps it in winter heartiness and so
coming out of summer. By the way, potassium also is in really all
of our fertilizations at a decent level because it also helps with drop tolerance as
well. So we put that on it. We give our grass as much
time as we can before cold winter weather kind of shuts it down. And
right now your grass is actively taking up nutrients, so this will be a
great time to get the fall fertilization in, get that thing beefed up,
because here's what it does. It takes up the nutrients, it makes carbohydrates,
It gets ready for winter, and it's stronger coming out of winter too.
When your grass comes out of winter, the energy that it's using is
not what it's taking up early early early in the spring. It's the energy
that was stored from the fall fertilization or good nutrients supplies in the soil and
fall and that helps it get going and then the roots start elongating, getting
out in the ground, and here comes our spring fertilizations. We just take
off from there. But very important also this warm weather. So first thing,
warm weather, even though we would love it to go ahead and cool
off a little more, it is helping us have a little more time to
get those nutrients into the grass, get the grass a little stronger. Secondly,
cool season weeds start to germinate when the temperature drops, and when we
get that in each weed species has its own germination temperature, but in general,
when we start cooling off in the fall, get a little bit of
rain, boom here they come up out of the ground weed seeds and if
sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. That's how it works.
So that's culturally why we work really hard to make sure we are mow,
watering and fertilizing properly through the season. And my lawn care schedule it's called
Skip Richter's lawn Care Schedule. It's on my website Gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot Com. That's the lawn care schedule, so it'll
tell you about the fall fertilization and the many product options you have. But
the weeds, I also have a lawn, pest, disease and weed management
schedule, and it gives you timing for like do chinchbug show up? Typically?
When when do we treat for grubs? Uh? What about you know,
gray leaf spot in the summer or take all root rot or a large
patch of brown patch in the fall. It gives you schedules for all of
that, including weed control. It gives you the organic and the synthetic option.
So I encourage you make a make a bookmark for gardening with skip dot
com. That website is going to get bigger and bigger and better and better.
We keep adding to it and we've got some major renovations. We're going
to try to get it done in mid to late winter as well. On
that so weeds, fertilizing the lawn and then dealing with the diseases of course
that we have to deal with. It's all it's all scheduled on there,
and by delaying that arrival of fall, it gives you a little bit more
time to get that done. Something like asimite, for example, you're you
that is a trace mineral supplement. So what is a trace mineral. It's
a mineral that is as essential as the macro nutrients like N and phosphorus,
potassium, the big three numbers on the bag. It's as essential as those,
but it's needed in tiny trace amounts, and asimite provides that. You
can go to azimite Texas dot com find out more about it. You just
when you fertilize. If you haven't put some azmite down this year, go
ahead and put an application of asmite down following the fertilization. Don't mix them
in the hopper because anytime you mix things of different particle size, you don't
get even distribution. So follow your fertilization up right away with an azimite application
and you'll be good to go. So anyway, we're taking care of a
lot of a lot of things as we go into fall, and this is
the big planting season of the year. It just is. And I'll keep
pushing and pushing for you guys and anyone listening and anyone who will listen to
you because you heard it on the radio. We got a plant better and
more in the fall. It's just planting trees and shrubs properly, digging in
a good hole, making sure it doesn't have circling roots. Those are all
important. And fall planting is also important. Listen, if you had a
let's say you planted a plant last spring and then we went into the summer.
From hell, we just walked through and that tree. You can keep
it alive, but boy, it's touch and go and you're working at it.
Had you planted it in the fall before, it would have all those
months to establish roots, because tree roots grow when the sell temperatures in the
fifties even and I mean that's all year here in the Houston area. Didn't
go blow that here in the Houston area. So go ahead and get those
things in the ground. Really really important to do. And anytime you plant
a tree, just goueid and grab a tree hugger sprinkler. You put those
around the tree and you can use it from planting time all the way through.
It's probably most important in those first three four or five years of the
tree's life because you can water that entire zone under the branch, spread real
easily. Go online TreeHugger sprinkler dot com. You can find a retailer near
you. But I'll tell you this, they're widely available. Well let's take
a break. We will be right back if you'd like to give us a
call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well,
good morning, good Sunday morning on what is going to be a beautiful sunday
out there. We're glad you're listening to garden Line if you got any gardening
questions and want to give us a call. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I read a quote the other day. I have a whole bunch of
gardening quotes that I save and love because they're so insightful. But allan Armitage
doctor. Armitage is a horticulturist and Georgia for a long time just a nationally
recognized expert, and especially in ornamental horticulture. He said, gardening simply does
not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are
yet to be realized. And that is true. You know, when let's
say you're buying a fruit tree and you're going to plant one this fall or
this winter. When you buy that tree, what are you thinking about in
terms of planting that you're picturing the crops of peaches or pears or figs or
whatever. You're picturing that in your mind you can almost taste them. That
is a hope, That is a dream. When you put a seed in
the ground, I mean that is an act of faith because you're taking this
little, tiny, dried up piece of detritus and you're dropping it in the
ground, and you think that a tomato is going to end up coming out
of that endeavor, and it is. But there's a whole process to it.
But even when you mess up in gardening, you know, maybe you
do things wrong, or maybe the weather messes you up, you just get
a fresh new start. And that's one of the cool things about gardening.
You know, I like people to have success. And that's one of the
reasons, for example, that you hear me talk about Vego garden beds,
because I've gardened in a lot of different ways. I've gardened in mounds of
soil, raised mountain beds, I've gardened in boxed beds with treated wood,
I've gardened with cinder blocks around beds, a lot of things. But when
I found Vego, that was a game changer. And the deal is this,
it's it's metal that has been specially processed so that it will not rust
and corrode, and then they coat it with several layers of USDA approved paint
that are beautiful colors. You get to pick your colors. Their margin marginal.
Marginal is not the word modular. Modular design allows you to do.
You have a little l shape area you want to bed in, you can
do that. Do you want to make them, you know, a big
square or a long skinny bed You do all that with Vego real easy to
do. Now, if that's not enough, if you're an organic gardener,
there's no treatment, there's no concern about center blocks or fly ash or anything
like that. You just go right to town on it. Now. It's
also a Houston company. They're right here in Houston. They are the original
metal beds here in the US, and Vego garden beds are just they're easy
and they last long, long time, long outliving things like treated wood,
for example, you can buy and all sizes. It's really a no brainer.
Drop the bed in, put a quality soil in it, and you
go to town. Just as simple as that. We're going to head out
now to Kema and we're gonna talk to Cheryl Good morning, Cheryl, Good
morning. I bought the three step bags and we've already put the herbicide down,
okay, pre emergent or herbicide, And I'm looking here at the Eagle
specialty by the side, Macro Fast is that the second one? And then
the fertilizer fall special goes in at the end. Well, you can you
can do them. You can do them all. What I would do is
go ahead and do the fertilizer now, because you're gonna want to water in
the pre emergent if you haven't already, and you're gonna water in, water
in the fertilizer, and then when you do the eagle, you're just barely
gonna wet the grass. You know, you don't have to put a half
inch of water on it. You just want to just put a little moisture
out there on the grass to kind of move that down down the grass blades
and around the runners and whatnot. That's the eagle, Okay. I never
watered the pre emergent herbicide. That's okay. I did it about two weeks
ago. Did we have any rain? I never water. We were supposed
to do any water. We can still do it. There's a lot of
weeds browting that's on its way, So go ahead and get it watered in.
You'll be okay, So go ahead, all right. So now then
I should water the grass because it has the pre emergent herbicide in it.
I would I would put the fertilizer out now and then do one watering for
the pre emergent and the fertilizer, okay, and then and then the the
specialty fungicide goes in at the end. Yeah, I would do that because
you just you don't want to just put a ton of water on right after
you put out this fungerside. The fertilizer goes in the You want it going
down into the soil, dissolving the pre emergent. You also want to wash
to the soil where it ties up right at the surface. But the eagle,
you're wanting that on the grass plant part arts primarily and down in the
thatch area where it can fight the diseases. So the eagle goes in at
the end. Yes, okay, you know, I think you're you're making
it harder than it really needs to be. A lot of people just put
them out there and nature comes and drops two inches of water on the ground
or whatever. But but I'm just telling you how I would do it.
If I was at your stage, I would go ahead and fertilize. I'd
put about a half inch of water down, and then I'd put it could
be the same day, could be the next day, next week, whatever.
You put the eagle down. But you just don't want to wait until
the big circles appear before you put it down. Oh okay, that's for
the that. Okay, yes, okay, thank you. And are we
going to get a big bunch of rain? You know, I haven't watched
the weather close enough. I just heard Nikki talking about maybe later in the
week a little bit of rain, but I don't I don't know it will
about ruin it if we get one. No, it will not lose your
brain. Okay, So go ahead and get the fertilizer in and then do
the specialty from the site. There you go, as simple as all right.
All right, thanks Cheryl. I appreciate appreciate that very much. You
know, if you live up in the Fumbole area out west of town is
the Arborgate. I know pretty much I in town knows about the arbor Gate.
It's one of the premier destination nurseries that we have in the Greater Houston
area, and folks come from all over to see it. And there's a
reason for that. It is gorgeous walking through it. The display gardens,
the inspiration, of course, the very knowledgeable staff that helps you out.
They've got a shipment of old garden roses and still have heirloom bulbs, oh
my gosh, the kind that repeat year after year. You buy them once
and you get return dividends on your money every year because that's the kind of
bulbs they carry there now. They also have the one two three system for
your soil, and that is a food, an organic food, and four
four to three that feeds anything with roots'd be a great one to put on
for your fall application of fertilizer right now, a really good blend of nutrients
for that. They have the Organic Soil Complete which includes some expanded shale in
it, as does the Organic Compost Complete step three. All three bags put
together set your plants up for success. And every time you do that,
you are making the soil better and better and better. And then it's like
gardening is easy. And not only do you have a green thumb, you've
got green fingers and everything else because you've built the soil with those quality products
from Barburgate. So i'd encourage you to go check them out again. They're
just west of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty and with the new parking lot,
you turn in before or after Arborgate and park in the back. Oh
my gosh, so convenient, so easy, and an all weather convenience as
well. Well, let's see, we're going to head out to Katie now
and talk to Hank. Hello, Hank, good morning. Sure, A
course I have on Warner him. I've got an eight foot fence going uh
east to west, and I want to plant on the north side. Uh,
and The've got some oak trees up and down it, but we will
get filtered light to actually maybe scattered sun. And I want to plant something
that will not trees. And the only things I can think of a clear
Japonica and uh, maybe any of the holly family. Yeah, those those
would be those would be two good options. Uh, I'm trying to figure
out. So you're you're pretty sure that when you plan a holly, it's
gonna come up. So even though that fence is right there, it's gonna
be getting some sunlight, right right, right, it's gonna get It's not
good, I mean, it's not gonna be any fool sun but it will
get light. Yes, okay, well uh and it's and there's places that
are getting more sunned. Yeah, okay, scattered trees. They're not solid
overcast. So you're wanting basically an evergreen shrub. Is that the goal?
Yes, sir, okay, well, that would work just fine. Another
option would be to put in a yopon holly. They do well in if
they get partial sun they do pretty good, the kind with berries, for
example, like a pride to Houston. That would be one possible option.
So the plants are going to be on the side you see right in the
bed. Yes, yes, it's about a six foot bed along the road.
Yeah. Yeah, I've got some yopuns growing in a partial shade.
They're doing okay, But that would be another option that you could do there.
You know, when it comes to shrubs that are evergreen and shade,
our selection is somewhat limited because most things just need more sunlight to really be
dense. So you just have to recognize that that it's going to be a
little less dense than maybe it would have been in the sun. Your lower
pens will eventually get lady. Yes, well they can. You can keep
them trimmed and they stay compact. But Laura they will grow in shade,
but not full shade, but bright shade. So that would be a good
choice too. But here's the thing with Laura pedlums. When you purchase them,
you have an option of sizes. Uh you know, I was,
I was looking at some nursery catalogs the other day, and I mean they
got Laura pedlums that are fairly compact, and then the standard old type.
I've seen those suckers, you know, fifteen feet high or more growing into
a small tree form. So but it's a matter of pruning, and it's
a matter of you know, if you want one to be small, pick
one that is naturally compact. And the red button tree would be a great
selection in here with that much sun when it because the tree is going to
get up above that fence. I don't know that red bud would be my
first option. If do you want, If you want, you're not going
to be very little son until they get above the fence, right, Yeah,
no, No, they've got oaks above the fence. Okay, yeah,
you could do a red bud if it's got a bright shade, a
little bit of morning sun or something like that, it'll do just fine in
there, right. And one other question, if you're trying to go organic,
is there a post emergent wheed killer for joy here? Post emergent zousia
organic? The only thing would be one we want to get rid of them?
Well, I understand the only thing would be one of the top kill,
top burn products. You know, people use things like vinegar, for
example, to burn the tops of the weeds, and that probably is your
best bet for killing the zoisia. Some of the other products at work,
like the cinnamon based product or iron based products, are not going to kill
the zoisia. So the only other things there would be to put down a
really good thick layer of mulch under on top of some cardboard or something to
literally just block it out. But zoysia is able to hold its breath a
long time, so maybe physical movell would be another option there. All right,
Hey, I've got I've got to run to I got to run to
a break. Thank you, Hank, I appreciate your call. Oh boy,
seven one three two one two fifty eight seven. I feel like I'm
running down the street or something here, uh, fifty eight seventy four.
We're going to turn it over to the Nicky News Network. Gather our thoughts
and be right back. Good Sunday morning, on what is going to be
a beautiful day. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was
looking at Quality Feed the other day. They have got in a shipment of
garlic. And I don't know if you've ever tried going garlic before, but
you ought you ought to try that. It's pretty cool. It's not hard
to do. You plant it in the fall, put your clothes in the
ground and get them started. And uh, you just you know, you
take a set of garlic clothes, break them apart, so each individual clove
then becomes a plant. That's how you do it, and you just get
it going once. Once it's started, just make sure it has adequately moist
soil. I tend to give small applications of nitrogen fertilizer, very small applications
all through the cool season, and then by the time we get into starts
to warm up next spring, you're going to see your garlic ready to go.
If you never tried it before, you ought to do that. And
Quality Feed has that, and of course they have quality feed as well.
They really, you know, when it comes to chickens, it's kind of
like the one stop shop for all things chickens. I mean, you need
feed, do you need chicks? They get them in all the time.
They're constantly ordering new ones in over there. They're on Luzon Street, kind
of north central Houston downtown area, not downtown, but just north of downtown
eighteen thirteen Louzon and it's easy to find, it's easy to get to and
out of. It's that old time feed store that we love to go to.
I always love to go into Quality Feed. Lots of seeds, if
you like airloom seeds, they really are stocked up on airloom seeds as well.
But all the fertilizers. You know, I've been saying, you got
to use these products, now, get them down, get them ready to
go. Quality carries all of that and then some you're always going to find
what you're looking for. And if you hear it on Garden Line, you're
going to find it there a quality feed. You can go online to qualityfeedco
dot com, qualityfeedco dot com, or just drive over to eighteen thirteen loos
On Street. It's kind of near the intersection where equipment and Alesion come together.
Say hello of the folks there and just show them what you want.
Take a copy of the schedule in if you want a product for your lawn,
and you can just point to the one and they'll be able to direct
you to that as well. Always love going in to visit m ckn and
Chris quality feed. We really love feeds stores here on Garden Line, and
we've got feed stores all over the Greater Houston area that we feel like provide
that quality service, that experience for the custom and that they're going to carry
the things you need. That is absolutely the case. We were talking earlier
a little bit about some shrubs. We're talking with Hank about some shrubs,
and when you're considering a shrub for an area, there are a number of
factors. Number one, do you want it to be an evergreen to block
a view or to just make a wall. You know, shrubs and vines
can both be walls in the landscape. Our landscape has carpet, it has
walls, it has ceilings that would be trees and arbors. But if you
want it to be a wall, you need to always make sure you trim
it so that the top is no wider than the base. And shrubs are
always going to try to do the opposite of that. They're going to try
to make a capital V shape, narrow at the bottom, wide at the
top. We need something more in the direction of straight walls or a capital
A shape, if you want to think of it that way, where the
top is a little more narrow than the base, so sunlight reaches all parts
of the shrub. Without sunlight down in the shrub, you're going to lose
leaves, and once you lose them, you got to see through lower area
of the shrub and it's not blocking the view like you wanted it to do.
And it takes light to do that, to grow dense and to do
that very successfully. Hey, our phone number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four if you'd like to discuss something related to gardening this
morning. That is why we're here, by the way, Thanks thanks to
everybody who came out to Enchanted Gardens in Richmond yesterday had some really great conversations
with listeners, and I just appreciate you all coming up, getting a chance
to meet you and help you have success with your garden. Uh. The
McGrath Pest Control, you've heard me mention them before, but they're one of
those companies that does things the old fashioned way. That doesn't mean that their
old time. When it comes to technology, McGrath the best way, I
would describe them as modern technology and techniques with the old fashioned customer service.
What do I mean by that? If they tell you that you need something,
you need it, they don't sell you something you don't need. If
they say I'll be there on such and such day at such and such time,
they will. It's not like blockout your day and you're lucky if we
show up like it is with how many times have you had a service person
do that for you? You can go on line to makegraphpesscontrol dot com find
out more. You can give them a call two eight one, four six
nine eighty two forty listen. They've been doing this for almost fifty years now,
and no matter what the pests are, that you're dealing with, whether
it's bugs running around the kitchen, whether it's varmint's getting up in the attic,
a mosquitoes out. They do it all. They do it all at
pest Control. And by the way, they just they were just selected as
a curator's pick for the best pest control companies in Houston. And that doesn't
come easy. The reason that I'm bragging on them is the reason that they
would have been selected. They were selected for an incredible award like that.
That's the kind of service and company that you want to go with. You're
listening to guard Line and our phone number is seven to one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Someone asked me the other day, is should I scout my lawn before
we go into winter or should I mow it ro high? Or how high
do I mow the lawn? I would mo it at the regular level going
into winter. You know, our goal is to keep it healthy. When
most lawns are Saint Augustine here in the greater Houston area, not all for
sure, but most of them are. And when you most Saint Augustine low,
it just weakens the plant. It's not made for that. Bermuda's made
for that. Most lass are made. They can take that. They adjust
to it very well. Look beautiful, but Saint Augustine's not. So let's
not cut it down low. Also, think about this, The more you
block sunlight from the soil, the less problems you're going to have with weeds
trying to germinate. So start with that in the spring. If you wanted
to start with a lower mowing initially, you could do that. We'll talk
about that when we get to that time of the year. Right now,
we are going to run out to Fresno and Alex is our next caller.
Hey, Alex, we got about a minute to start the question and then
we'll just continue it after break if we need to. All right, good
morning, I just had a question I have. I believe it's a cypress
tree, similar to the ones in the we we'll walk over there in San
Antonio with the stumps coming off the ground. Oh yeah. My question was
is it a danger to the house, the foundation whatever? Since it's up.
They're about twenty feet from the well. One of them is about twenty
feet that's the closest to the house. No, they're not. Any tree
is going to put roots around your house because that's where water drips off the
roof. That's where it stays nice and moist. And the problem is any
tree roots are going to take the water out during the hot summer seat when
they're trying to survive, and our soil when it gets wet and dry and
wet and dry, that shrinking and swelling is what causes us problems on our
foundation. But it's not a cypress knee under the foundation lifting up your your
house. Foundation's I also have irrigation system and is actually starting to actually affect
one area where it broke a line. I guess I'll aware though they'll do
that. They will absolutely do that, that is for sure. Yeah.
Uh. You know there are cypress out there. They're hard to find and
the trade, but that don't produce the knees. Well. Actually, there's
some like the manazuma that's easy to find in the trade. But I wish
we could go back in time and put more of those kind in our yards
because I've got some cypress in my yard and I'm always fussing about those knees
coming up. All right, thank you very much, Yes, sir,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that we're going to go to break.
If you'd like to get on the board seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy for give Josh a call. Well, good Sunday morning.
You're listening to garden Line, and I'm glad you are our phone number.
If you'd like to give us call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I was out in the backyard this past week and we're getting
our fire table ready to go, and just you know, now that's not
so blazing hot. We're really enjoying being outside. When it comes to all
the stuff that you need for like that backyard patio and whatnot. You know,
a grill, outdoor, furniture, lighting, power equipment, games,
all kinds of stuff. Ace Hardware is the place to go. I mean,
all the things we talk about here on Guardline you can get that there
too. You want a beautiful yard, you need some fertilizer, you need
some sort of a pest control or weed management or any kind of products like
that. Ace Hardware has them. You can go to Ace hardware dot com,
find the store locator and find one of the thirty nine. Ace Hardware
is near you. It's as simple as that. Let's run out to Palasios.
Now we're going to talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, good morning.
I have a couple quick questions. I've got an old hackberry tree.
It's ugly as sin, but it's all i've got, so I need to
try to save it. Okay, it's developed a big hole directly underneath it.
Should I fill that with dirt? You could, It's not going to
affect the life of the tree, But I don't know. I don't know
what exactly did a varmit you think get in there and make that hole.
Maybe we just moved to the house and yeah, it's possible. I have
a noticed one lightly. Yeah, but I don't know how deep it is.
But well for strength toise too, I mean, would it helped at
all? Not pretty big, not really on hackberry you know, they they're
not anywhere near the best trees, and I understand why you want to keep
it. You might want to think about planting some other quality, long lived
trees that grow pretty fast around that area. And then so when you take
the hackberry out, you already got something that's got a little bit of a
head start, but that would just be an yeah, an option there.
It's right close to fairly close to the house over a swimming pool. Now
so anyway, okay, it'll fall sooner or later. Yeah, but I
need a shape. Second question, I was looking for for a shaped tree
in my front yard. There's nothing there full sign on south basic sign.
I saw a tea food tree or a rosewood. I've never seen that or
heard of it. Do you have any knowledge of that? I really don't.
That does sound like I would have. I'd be familiar with it if
it was a good top tree for this area. But yeah, I've never
seen it before, so i'd probably go with it. Does the area drain
well? Yeah, okay, it's flat and yeah it drains well. Okay.
I would consider a red oak tree. There is a Schumart oak if
you have a good soil. If it's just a heavy clay, I'd probably
go with a nut tall oak. And you t t a L I believe
it is how they spell that, Okay, And for a large one,
I'm sixty six. I don't have it, you know, so I don't.
I want to buy as large as I can, and I'll planted a
large red oak in my other house that I just moved from. Okay,
and it was okay, but it was more like a Christmas tree. I
want something that's going to spread out some more. Well, a red oak
will. So you're wanting to buy a ground that's already large, yes,
So I don't know what the best value is on a large tree. Well,
you want a quality you want a tree that that's been grown, right,
a quality tree. The folks at Verdant Tree Farm could do that.
I would give them a call. Verdant is that are all over town,
four locations around. It's easy to find them. And let me just give
you the website Verdant b E R D A N T Tree farmank. You
can drive up there. You can drive around with them and look. And
the bigger the tree gets some more costs of course, but yeah, I
want to check it out. And they'll have some other suggestions as well.
Okay, they have an excellent selection of trees, so very good. All
right, appreciate it, all right, thank you appreciate that, Mark,
I you bet, yeah, boy, that's time to plant a tree today,
actually forty years ago. Second best times today if you leave if you
live down in League City your hometown feed store in that area is League City
Feed now? And when I say Lee live in League City, Santa Fe
Dickinson, you know Webster clear like all that area, League City Feeds your
hometown feed store. The Thunderbergs have a great old time store there. Wes
and his sister Madison are there. Hey, if you show up on a
Saturday, you might get to meet Rorshak the Dalmatian. Is that a good
name for a dalmation? Rorshak stare at the dog and what do you see?
The phone number is two eight one three three two one six one two.
They're open Monday through Saturday nine to six and closed on Sunday. And
if you hear me talk about a fertilizer product, they're going to have it
at League City Feed. They say they stay stocked up with all the things
you need, have a beautiful art, lawn, landscape, garden, and
everything else included. I always like to go down there and visit with I
need to. I haven't seen Roorshak, and I need to go oack and
see Rorshack, see how he's doing. You know, we're entering that holiday
season and a lot of people think about a giving and ways that they can
make a difference in other people's lives. You're not going to find a better
way than Star of Hope. My wife and I are supporters of Star of
Hope. We've been associated with Star Hope for a long long time, from
years ago when we lived in town just north of town to now. Star
of Hope serves more than seven six thousand meals a week, So for like
two dollars and eighty cents, you can provide a meal for someone at Star
of Hope. Go to the website sohmission dot org. They make a difference.
It isn't just come in, get a meal, go back out on
the street. It isn't just here's some support and good luck. No,
they go through training. They help people know, no matter what their situation,
to get back on their feet. That is a good cause, and
that's why we support Star of Hope. It is a very good cause.
It is not a handout, It is life changing help. It takes time,
They take the time to do it, and they make a difference in
people's lives. It's as simple as that. One of the many reasons that
I think Star Hope is excellent. Did you guys know, I don't know
if you heard me yesterday. But Nelson Plant Food their forty year anniversary was
October fourteenth, just the other day. You know, Nelson's, they've been
a fixture in the fertilizer industry. I mean, they have their many lines,
the Nelson plant Food lines that I just think are absolutely outstanding, or
things like color Star or a nutri Star. Now right now we're talking turf
and that would be the turf Star line. The Nelson plant Food product that
you want to put down now is carbel Load. Carbo Load has a good
supply of potassium, it's got a good amount of nitrogen, not too much
though, and it also has a pre emergent weed control product in it.
So when you put it down in water in you've done two things. You
have fertilized the lawn, but you've also put down a pre emergent and especially
if your lawn is thin coming out of the weather that we had this summer,
well that's exactly going to fill the blank for you. Because where sunlight
hits a soil, nature plants a weed. And with carbo Load you get
a quality fertilizer and you get the weed control preventative that will carry you all
through the winter season as well. That is a great combination. It's probably
one of my favorite products that they make. I actually have several favorites.
But when Elson plant food, you know you're getting a quality product that was
designed for our soils, for our climate, for down here. And just
a congratulations to Dean and the folks at Nelson on that forty year anniversary.
Boy, that is that is something special. Well, you're listening to garden
Line. We're about to take a top of the hour break here. We
will be back if you would like to get on the boards. Give Josha
calls seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. Hey,
next Saturday, Next Saturday, at twenty eighth of October, I'm going to
be at Southwest Fertilizer, one of my favorite places in the world. Southwest
Fertilizer. You know they've got all kinds of great products there. But I'll
be there answering your gardening questions. Hey, bring some samples in, put
them in a bag, let's talk about it. If you need them identified,
if you need them diagnosed, we can do that. If you want
to bring some pictures on your phone, take a look at them, discuss
maybe some plants that would do well there, or what's going on in this
area? What do you think you's wrong with this? We can talk about
all that. I always love to visit with people that listen to the show
as we get out to these areas. And while you're there at Nelson's,
it's nels. I've been talking about Nelson's. By the way, Southwest carries
Nelson's as well as many other fertilizers. You can just pick up some flies.
Well, we'll be right back and continue the show in just a moment.
Kat r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H. Garden Line
with Scip Richter's Crazy. Just watch him as well. Good morning, good
Sunday morning, on what is going to be a beautiful day. I know
it is dark outside. Still, if you look over see your neighbor's house
and the lights are off, go bang on the door, tell him they're
missing garden Line. They will appreciate it. In fact, they might just
rise up and call you blessed. Well maybe not that's morning, but in
time they will come to appreciate you're turning them on to garden Line. Our
phone number if you'd like to give us a call this morning is seven to
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. As simple as that. The Enchanted Forest Garden Center
is. If you haven't been out there before, it's if you're in Richmond,
you're heading up towards sugar Land Way. It's off to the right.
It's off to the right down there. You can find them on FM twenty
seven to fifty nine to be specific. But they have an unbelievable selection right
now of all things fall. You know, do you want shrubs and trees?
I keep telling you now it's time to plant one. They have a
great selection. They have natives and they have adapted non natives as well.
You know. One of my favorite and I was looking at these out there
the other day. They had some Chinese fringe trees, and fringe tree is
just beautiful. There. There is a native version and then there's a Chinese
fringe tree. Both of them beautiful trees for this area. And they got
a good supply of those. Do you need anything for the fall harvest holiday
celebrations from October through November? They've got everything like that, and it's about
time to get those cool season flowers going. And if you need a selection
of pansies and violas and all kinds of things that do well snap dragons in
the cool season, ulyssa in the cool season. All of that is there
if you want to plant perennial herbs, their herbs selection with that new facility
in facility, it's a kind of a barn like structure that they built for
that area of the herbs and the vegetables. Oh my gosh, chalk full
of herbs, lots of them. And again, now's the time to get
those things in the ground. It gives you the head start that you need.
Enchanted Forest Nursery, you will be enchanted when you visit. You can.
You can give them a call at two eight one nine three seven ninety
four forty nine to find out more. And they always have something going on
on the weekend out there scheduled through this whole fall season. Well, you're
listening to garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
It is as simple as that, I like I like quotes, I
like gardening quotes, and I saw one the other day that said, my
rule, my rule of thumb for malts is to double my initial estimate of
bags needed and add three. That way, I'll only be two bags short.
That's true. And if you're looking for if you're looking for bags of
malts, airloom soils, as you covered, I mean, they have a
wide variety of products, all kinds of things, multz, compost, potting,
soils, you name it. Right now. They got a special going
though, And this is your chance. If you thought about putting in a
garden bed or renovating a garden bed, here's a deal that you don't want
to miss. The veggie and herb soil that there. That's the veggian herb
mix, excellent for edibles, herbs, all kinds of things like that.
It's unspecial. One hundred nineteen dollars bulk per yard or one hundred and forty
eight for a supersack. A supersack is a cubic yard in a sack that
they bring and set on your driveway, neat, clean and easy. Now,
the rose soil, which we use and recommend all the time for all
kinds of garden beds. Not just roses, but excellent for a lot of
things. Seventy dollars bulk and ninety nine dollars for a supersack. That is
all with heirloom soils. And you know their products or quality, that's just
what they make. Heirloomsoils off Texas dot com. That's the website. But
don't miss out on this opportunity. It is the time to get those garden
beds built. Whether it's for fall planting or for spring planting. Go ahead
and get it done and take advantage of this great deal that they're offering.
You're listening to Guardenline. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. I did want to mention I've talked about herbs a
little bit this morning. When you are thinking about using herbs, expand your
thought process a little bit. I use like oregano as a groundcover at the
end of my garden beds and the vegetable garden. I would use chives,
blooming chives even in ornamental beds. By the way, that attracts a lot
of beneficial insects and pollinators as well. Rosemary is a very tough plant if
you give it good drainage, it will do very well here. Even during
a drought, it does really well. And then we have blooming herbs like
Mexican marigold and pineapple sage. Those bloom late in season, and oh my
gosh, they're absolutely beautiful. So don't think you have to have a special
geometrically balanced herb garden design. Use herbs everywhere, and I think it's just
great. And when you want to go out and collect some herbs for cooking,
you know you can do that, But why not take advantage of the
beauty of the plants as well. Hey, we're going to go now out
to Spring Branch and visit with Betty. Hello, Betty, Hello, how
can we help today? Well, yesterday I listened to you and you was
talking about a flower plant that had yellow daisy type flowers on it. It
was a weed. I didn't get the name of it. I think I
got in two places in my yard. It's really hard to get rid of
yellow daisy flowers. I think I was probably talking that there's a slender aster
that has little daisy flowers that are white to kind of a light lavender color
of lavender color. Oh, they're not yellow. No, The slender aster
is not yellow. I don't know that, you know, Betty. One
option would be to let's look at a picture of it and and see if
we can identify it. But if it's it's blooming now, it's a warm
season weed. And if it's blooming now, it's probably too late to spray
it with a post emergent product. They just don't work. Well, oh
yeah, I realize that I was going to spray with that BONUSO yes yesterday
from uh well, okay, Well, I'm just saying that when when these
weeds at the end of the season are blooming and setting seed, the sprays
we put on them aren't as effective. It's better to catch them next year
when they're up and starting and you see the present, that's the time to
use hundreds of thousands of them by next year. I mean, I got
it. Unbelievable how many seeds you take put out. I understand, Betty.
I'm just telling you already have hundreds of thousands because they're blooming and setting
seeds and the spray's not going to kill the seed. So you don't want
to hear this. But if you can find somebody to get out there and
hand pull those things as much as you can get them out, Go ahead
and do that, and then next spring you can put a product down that
events the germination of those weeds. And that's all on my schedule. It's
all. It tells you when and what to use for that. Well about
barricade too, that's that's a product you can use use for that. Hey,
I got to go to a break. But that's the bottom line.
Do you know what was then of it? Though the name of what the
plan she was talking about, I was talking about slender astor Betty, I
got to run. Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Our
phone number if you'd like to give us a call, seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four will be right back. Welcome back to garden
Line. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four
if you'd like to give us a call. If you live up in the
Tombol area, your hometown feed stores D and D Feed. They're west to
Tomball on twenty nine twenty, about three miles west of two forty nine.
You know they they expanded this summer and that the new place is just even
more stocked full of all kinds of quality products, including quality pet foods,
certainly livestock food, you know, products for caring for horses and whatnot.
They also have plants and they have seeds, but they have every fertilizer I
recommend out there, and they have all the different products for controlling insects,
controlling diseases, controlling weeds, for example. You're going to find all of
that out there at D and D Feed and Supply out in Tombol. Give
them, give them a lookover. I think you will be impressed as I
have. While you're out there, grab some treats for your dogs. I
got a little doggy deli there that my dogs always get. You know,
they insist if they know I'm going to D and D feed. I got
to bring them some of those doggy treats home. They love that. We're
going to head now over to Southwest Houston and we're going to talk to Judy.
Hello Judy, Hi, Good morning, Scip, Good morning. We
have a corner of our lawn where amina grass is overtaking our set augustine grass.
Yes, if they're a product we can use to eradicate the Bermuda grass,
but not harm the said Augustine Yeah, there's not something that is you
know, you can go buy that will that will do that. It's just
it's just a problem we deal with when those two run together. It's hard
to get the bermuda out of the Saint Augustine. We can do things that
weaken the bermuda a little bit or or you know, but but it's not
going to do what you want it to do. It's not going to eradicate
it like you want it to. Well, what can we do to weaken
it? Uh? There, Well, there there are some products some pre
emergence that I don't like to recommend, contain something like atrazine that that weaken
bermuda grass and aren't as hard on Saint Augustine, but they will wash down
on the soil and they will get in the roots of trees and shrubs that
pick them up. They can do damage there. Uh. And it's just
it's just products I would rather not include in the recommendation. Okay, and
and there. If I thought it would eradicate to bermuda, I would say,
okay, go ahead, just be real careful. But I just don't
The only thing, and I've done this in my yard where I have a
little spots of bermuna. I will just kill both crosses and just kill everything
out and then either replant Saint Augustine in that spot, that little area,
or just let it crawl in from the sides. If it's just a real,
really small area that you're that you're killing. Okay, okay, thank
you very much. I wish I had better news for you. Thank you,
Gudy. I appreciate that very much. You are listening to Gardenline.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Hey, if you have not done your fertilization yet, you need to consider
Nitrofossis Texas. Three step. Now what is three step? Well, first,
it's their fall special perfect blend of nutrients for our soils, for our
climate, and now's the time to get it down. Number two step.
They're barricade that prevents weeds seeds from coming up. So wherever you have thin
areas of the lawn and the sun hits the ground, you're going to get
weeds in there. Barricade when the weed tries to sprout and establish, it
shuts it down right at that point. And then the third step is nitrofoss
Eagle turf fungicide. That is a systemic. It soaks in. Now,
you want to get the weed control of the barricade down now because after the
weed drawll up and growing, well, you've kind of missed missed your opportunity.
So let's prevent them by not waiting on that. And if it comes
down to the turf fungicide for example, again, once you got big brown
circles everywhere in the yard, well you've missed that opportunity to do that,
And so that's something we would do sooner rather than later as well. Texas
three step one two three simple as that, And you can find this out
at Warne's Southern Gardens out there in Kingwood. Ace Hardware, Single Ranch Growers,
Outlet and Willis all carry nitrofoss three step, as do many other areas.
Let's go now to Eldon in Magnolia. Hello, Elden, Hello,
how can we help? I've got a magnot I know it's in the Magnoldia
family. We called it a tulip tree because it looks like tulip buds on
it. I know what you're talking about. When can we tram that tree
back? I need to trum it back pretty drastically, it's about twenty five
feet tall now, yes, and it's overtaking the roof of the house that
section. Okay, So you want to wait until after it blooms. It
blooms really early in the spring, one of the first things to bloom,
and you want to wait till after that and print it then, because if
you print it now, you're taking off all this spring's flower buds, and
you want next springs flowerbuds. You want to enjoy that. So don't print
it this winter. Wait until after it blooms, and do the print you
need to do at that time. Uh, James or Eldon, I need
to get you to turn that radio off so we can talk. All right.
I believe we took care of it there. We're going to head now
out to sugar Land and talk to James. Hello, James, Hey,
good morning, Skip, good morning. We pretty much lost the chinchbug battle
over the summer, but now something else is going on. Okay. My
grass is the it's Saint Augustine. The blades are turning yellow and then it's
dying. All okay. I put out the eagle turf about three weeks ago,
trying to get ahead of brown patch. Yes, something doesn't seem to
have worked. I don't know if it's take all patch, but it's I'm
kind of at a loss to where to go now. My guess is that
it would be takeall patch what I would recommend for you. And when it's
when it comes to these diseases, diagnostics is very important. You've got a
really good kind of extension horticulturist, mister Boone holiday out there in Fort ben
County, and you could bring a sample into the office for them to look
at. Some photos are a sample, but call them first and let them
take a look at a sample before you go spend the money on other products.
We want to make sure we got the right you know, the right
diagnosis first. But you're probably right about take all root rot that yellowing.
Other things can yellow Saint Augustine, but take all root rot. That is
one of the signs as the roots begin to die, and it is.
It is a pain in the neck and quite a quite a process of dealing
with it. And there's places, I mean it's just died off the straw,
yes, I mean there's just nothing left. And there'll be a spot,
just a couple of sprigs here and there that are alive right now,
I've read that if it's take all root rot, you can use like banner
or something like that. Is there a more efficient way to put that out
than a pump sprayer? Well, you could do. You could do a
hose end Uh, just have to do the figuring so you get the right
rate out there. Banner's propaconazole and and that is one of the products that
is labeled for control of take all rut. Right. But I can tell
you this, You're gonna have to do it in the fall. Now,
you're gonna have to do it in the springtime, probably in about March.
I would do another application because it also infects a lot in the spring,
and then we see the problems in the summer as the roots are dying and
the plants going downhill. Once the grass dies, is it's still going to
be there? Then if you look Saint Augustine right right, if the run,
if the runners are green, the it could it could come back.
If the runners are brown, it's gone. There's Saint Augustine has no underground
way of rejuvenating. No, no, no, I mean the fungus itself.
Will it still be there? It is? It is ubiquitous it's it's
in yards of people that don't see any problems in their yard. When the
grass gets weakened, that disease moves in and it kills it. But it
would it. You know, it could be weakened by certain herbicides used in
the summer, that's stress grass. It could be weakened by compacted soil or
shade or drought or you know, there's a lot of things that can weaken
it. Take all as an opportunist, and it moves in because the grass
is weak. Okay, Now, if I take samples to the county agent,
is it the grass they want to see? The soil they want to
see, it'll be the grass. Take some pictures. But when you get
a sample, get some roots maybe four inch by six inch plug, slip
it in a ziplock and zip it up just in case there's something else that
might be running around in there. Okay, okay, all right, I
appreciate it, you bet you, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
You know, Siena Molts, it's just to call a place a pretty
soil yard. This kind of sounds funny, but it is. It's so
neat and clean, and the products they have are just outstanding. I mean,
the best of the mulches, the best of the soil blends and composts
and things like that. They have it in bulk. Of course, they'll
deliver it about twenty mile rates for a small fee. They also have all
the fertilizers that I talk about. Oh and I didn't even mention the mulches
and the rock and oh my gosh, it's lots of good stuff there at
Ciena Moltch. So if you need to pick up some fertilizer way out there,
they carry them all the very best of the best. Now. Cenamultch
dot com is their website, or you can just drive over there. It's
FM five twenty one near where Highway six and twenty eight two eighty eight come
together. FM five twenty one just north of Row Sharon. They're closed on
Sunday, but they're open Monday through Friday from seven thirty to five and Saturday
from seven thirty to two. Go check them out. You will be as
impressed as I was. I'm sure we are going to go now to Northwest
Houston and talk to Debbie. Hello, Debbie hie you well, thank you.
How can we help? I have a question. I took them on
a faller, and I wonder, I know we're supposed to put down barricade.
Can you put down a way better complete? It's so the barricade or
would you recommend a bear training. I don't have that label in front of
me. I would use the barricade. Uh, we'd beat or complete if
it's is it's a bag of granular is that right? Yes, yeah,
that's going to probably have a pre emergent in it. But I just don't
have a label in front of me on that one. I would use the
the barricade myself. And just remember whenever you use a pre emergent, you
want to water it in afterwards, with about a half inch of water to
move it in the soil. Sure, yeah, okay, thank you,
thank you very much. I appreciate it. You take care, bobye,
thank you. Microlife has produced a fertilizer that is a whole collection of fertilizers.
They're just outstanding. Micro Life fertilizers cover all kinds of plants that you
want to grow. They've got dry granulars, they've got the liquids, all
of them chock full of nutrients and microorganisms. Most importantly, of all their
humous products and other things that just builds your soil. I want to talk
about their Ultimate. It's the Blue Bag. It is a eight four to
six combination and it's good for anything that you're going to grow. I mean
you plant a rosebush and fertilize it with that. It's good for a lot
of things. They also have the Ocean Harvest that's a liquid that's a fish
based product. Now, when you have a fish based product, you have
a lot of you have the nutrient in there, but you also have a
lot of other substances that help stimulate plant growth, and that is also important.
You can use it to water things in, you can spray it as
a folier feet. It's not going to burn. But that blue plus blue,
I guess, is what I would call it. That is the Microlife
Ultimate and the Microlife Ocean Harvest. Check them out and go to Microlifefertilizer dot
com. You can find out all the places that they're available here in town,
and you can find out more about these specific products. Well, Nikki,
yeah, so it has humus. Is that like hummus? Can you
have it on crackers? No? Okay, I wouldn't do that. I
wouldn't do that, but I mean, they're safe fertilizers of microlive, but
I wouldn't experiment. Probably keep you regular, Nikki. I'm gonna turn it
over to you before I really talk myself into a hole. Here. Well,
good Sunday morning. Sun is peeking out over the horizon. We're starting
to get that wonderful day going here. It's a good time to be out
and about. Lots of things to do this afternoon, if you can get
out and do some shopping, or just get out in the yard and do
some putting things in the ground and taking care of what you got. You
know, earlier I was talking about think it was a mark about Verdant Tree
Farm and them being available all over town to Verdon has four locations, by
the way, there's the West Houston and location on Barker Cypress down on Broadway
in Paarland, just a few blocks away from Killing Steakhouse. They also have
a location third location up there in the Heights area where Yale Street comes into
it. Ten did I say four? While ago amidstly three? Anyway,
you can find them wherever you are a Verden pretty close by, and they
carry such a wide variety of trees, quality trees grown well and they will
come and install for you too, and I would have them do that certainly
whence you start to get large root balls on these plants. It's just not
possible to do it yourself on there. But you need somebody that knows what
they're doing, and that's them. Take a picture of your yard, go
in and say, look what trees would you recommend for here? And you
can go out there and tag the tree. You get to pick it out,
pick the one you want, They come to your house, they plant
it, and you're good to go. And you want a big tree.
I think they have containers up the seven hundred gallon container tree. That's a
good sized tree. Anyway. All there verdant treefarm dot com. We are
going to head out to Katie now and visit with David morning. David,
Hey, Skip, how are you? I'm well? Thank you good?
I have I've got natur to frost barricade for Saint August theme, yes,
and I just want to make sure I have Saint August thing Paul metto in
my backyard. Okay, you're supposed to be more more shade tolerant or whatever,
yes is that is the barricade. Okay for that it is, but
I'm glad you asked that question because there we we just have a problem in
gardening and horticulture with the concept of if a teaspoons good, a tablespoons better,
you know, I'm gonna I'm going to have that bug deader than dead,
you know, by by beefing it up. Yeah, exactly, that
is. That is absolutely not true. And in fact, you can get
in a lot of trouble that way. And using a pre emergent as an
example, a lot of these products the way they work on the weeds when
you overdose them, like double dose, the triple dose. And believe me,
I have seen yards where they triple dose not paying any attention to the
label. And yeah, you can cust some damage on that. And but
you shouldn't used at the proper rate and the right way. That's good And
and so I don't care if it's a fungicide and insecticide or herbicide. Label
is there for a reason. And one way I always tell people this,
You know someone's selling your product and they put on the label, you know,
use a teaspoon per gallon and blah blah blah. Well, if if
they could sell you more product by saying a tablespoon, wouldn't they be kind
of tempted to do that. There's a reason it says a teaspoon and not
a tablespoon. It's because that's the effective rate, and that's the rate they
won't do damage and so on. So I believe the label. And follow
up, Sorry to be preaching at you on a Sunday morning about this,
but I'm really talking to everybody listening to this show because I just just have
dealt with that as a kunt of extension agent for decades. And oh yeah,
yeah, well yeah you're not You're not preaching to the wrong guy.
I'm probably in that group. So uh, you know, like like I'm
going to really get rid of that button weed this time and and hopefully not
my whole yards. I will be very careful to go low. Well,
just just go by the label. The labels are for a right, that's
the rate that works, that's the rate that's you know, not going to
cause all the damage, and and just just follow that. But yeah,
your question just rejuvenated that that idea and me and uh, yeah, that's
interesting. Well good, I really really appreciate you and I just love the
way you're doing this show. I appreciate that very much. That's kind of
you. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate
that day. You bet, thanks you. Bye bye oh boy. Soapboxes.
Yeah, I got a few others, but I'll try not to pull
them out today. Uh, Nature's Way Resources is the I guess the originator
is the best way. I would say of some of the best quality soil
products that we have in the Greater Houston area, Rose soil and leaf more
composts. Those are two examples of stuff that John Ferguson created up at Nature's
Way, and now John and Ian just are continuing that tradition. They have
high quality products. By the way, if you want a good deal on
fungal based products, ten percent off bags and twenty percent off bulk every Friday
they call it Fungal Friday, and they can supply you with one of those
kind of high quality products. You can go there and pick it up.
You can pay somebody to come out and deliver it. They'll bring it out
and deliver it as well. By the way, the phone numbers nine three,
six, three, two, one, sixty nine to ninety if you
drive out there, check out their plants. Their little growing nursery out there
is really impressive. I was out there not too long ago, and again
it had just gotten bigger and better, and lots of really good, high
quality native plants too out at Nature's Way re Sources. Well, you're listening
to Garden Lined and our phone number is seven to one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Give us a call. We can talk about all kinds of things that are
of interest to you. What is the topic that interests you. I consider
and talk gardening all day, but I'd rather visit with you about the things
that you like to talk about the problems that you have in the lawn and
the garden. We've gotten a lot of questions in really all through the week
this past week about people that are wanting to prune trees and wanting to know,
you know, how do I prune a tree and what's the best way
to do it. Well, if you're going to do a major printing job,
you need to harsh I to do that. I would not attempt that
on your own, for sure. A little trimming here and there as you're
training a young tree. That's important. But giving a talk a while back,
I used the phrase that I like to use, and that is that
if you're pruning a tree and you grab a saw, that's an admission of
guilt. Let me explain that one. When you train a tree, from
the time you plant that young tree, all through its life, you should
not have to use a saw hardly ever, hardly ever, when you have
two branches and one of them should be taken off, but you put it
off and put it off, and now you're four years down the line and
you got to get out of saw. That's what I mean about the admission
of guilt. I should have trained this earlier. And maybe you moved into
a house and the previous owner didn't take care of the trees. I understand,
but just think about it that way. The earlier you make a decision
on which limbs stay which limbs need to go, the better off you're going
to be. And that's just a fact. There's a lot of good information
online about how to prune fruit trees, for example, from planting all the
way through the process, maybe training a young tree that you put out in
the landscape, but when it gets a little bigger. You need to harre
somebody to do that. They can do it right and knows what they're doing.
And when I see somebody to do that, I'm not talking about you
know, the two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. They took a card
in your door and drive off and they don't know what they're doing. They're
not trained, they're not experienced. So take really good care of those.
That is important, and that's why I like to recommend Affordable Tree. You
know, affordable Tree is you know when you turn the job over to them
that they're going to do it right, and that is so very important.
Martin Spoon Moore and his wife Joe, they're the ones that still answer the
phone. Owners answering the phone. That's right, they do it. If
they don't answer, by the way, hang up and call back. You've
called the wrong Affordable Tree service. The website's Afftree Service dot com. But
you know, now's the time to go ahead and call them. Maybe you're
not going to get pruning, you don't need printing until later, but go
ahead and get on the schedule. Because he does a good job. He's
a popular guy. He books up and don't delay on that, go ahead
and get on the schedule. Don't delay. By the way, tell them
you heard it on garden Line. They will make sure you go to the
front of the list. The garden Line customers. They love their garden Line
customers. They're at Affordable Tree Service. Well, let's see, it's time
for another break. I've droned on here a little bit. We will come
back and we will get to the phones. Jr. And Marine. You'll
be the first when we come right back. If you'd also like to call
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning.
I hope you're feeling good. You're listening to garden Line. Our phone
number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. You know,
if you've been looking at your landscape and you're thinking, I've lost so
much of the lawn, I've lost shrubs or trees or things. What do
I do? What do I do? Or I'm just tired of looking at
it? Or maybe you need a renovation, just something new, something better.
Pierscapes, that's who you call, Pierscapes, Jason Garretty and his team
there. They've been doing this since nineteen eighty eight and they will custom design
a landscape for you. Maybe you just want them to renovate and do a
new bed. Maybe you want loss some shrubs and hey guys, I need
something more drought resistant to put in here. They can do that. Does
your sprinkler system need work? They can do that. Outdoor lighting they can
do that, rock borders, hard escapes, walkways, drainage in certain areas.
A lot of us have that problem. They can fix that piercescapes dot
com or give them a call two eight one three seven o five zero six
zero. Let them turn your place into a show place and call them soon.
Let's get going on. This falls the time to get the planting done
too, as well as winter. We're going to head out now to Bunker
Hill and talk to JR. Hello JR. Hey, good moreen. Thanks
for taking my call and I really do enjoy your show. Thank you,
Tom. I have two well established vines of pipeline and Passionvine several years and
they've bloomed in the past, but they haven't bloomed this year, and I
don't know why. Hm. You know someone else called about that the other
day. The pack the pipeline specifically getting good sun, having adequate soil moisture.
Plant looks good? Is that true? Ye? A plant? The
plant looks really good and it's growing prolifically. You know, I have to
trim it back regularly, both of them. And I really haven't fertilized them
this year because they looked so good. But I don't know what I'm doing
wrong. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it sounds like you're
not doing anything wrong, but sometimes plants can just kind of get weird like
that. All the reasons that I would have suggested, you're not doing those,
So just I guess I'd agree that sometimes you should give a seaweed fertilizer
tomb or something like that. Well, that's fine. Yeah, And seaweed
is it's a low concentration of nutrients, but it is a product that has
a lot of compound in it that are helpful for plants as well as some
nutrients. So you could you could do that. You could do a seaweed
or a fish and mulsion. Those are both good products. Okay, and
then just hang in there. We just hang in there and wait. I
don't know if this is how it is in gardening. Sometimes you know,
things just don't make sense. One year a vegetable crop does great and the
next year the same thing doesn't. You can't figure out what's the difference,
you know. Anyway, all right, thank you? Sorry, Sorry we
didn't have a crystal ball on that one, because I think that's what I've
I had to pull out, you bet uh. You know ACE Hardware stores.
We talk about ACE a lot. But when you're trying to renovate your
outdoor area, maybe your lawn, you're trying to get it going again.
You need the fertilizers and the products. Maybe you want to make a beautiful
outdoor sitting area. How about a string of those lights And we used to
call them beer garden lights, but you know what I'm talking about, those
strings of lights to kind of glow at night and make a beautiful outdoor area.
ACE has everything everything you need for your lawn, everything for the landscape,
everything for the vegetable garden, the flower garden, the herb garden.
And they're easy to find. Go to acehardware dot com, find the store
locator and find the store near you. Thirty nine of them in the Houston
area. It's easy to find an ACE Hardware and when you get to one,
it's easy to get everything that you might need. Let's got to Lakeside
of States now and we're going to talk to Marene. Hello Marine, Hey,
I do have the ag like extension list of all plants. But being
kind of a purist and liking to do things only once, I'm calling to
see whether I should just skip seeds and go right to buying transplants. So
my tomatoes, I don't have any problem with that, they're up. They're
fine. I'm interested in spinach, lettuce, any kind of bean, string
beans, or their being broccoli. Okay, some things that go kind of
fast. I would I would just plant from seed, like let us.
It's real easy. But you can buy transplants and do them that. Here's
the deal between seeds and transplants, the pros and cons. With seeds you
can find varieties that are not available as transplants. And with seeds, yeah
you can. You can do that, and they're they're of course less expensive
to plant by seed than transplants. You get the head start. So like
broccoli, for example, we could have been planning broccoli for a while now.
And if you don't want to plant a seed and wait, it's going
to get kind of cool. And I think you do better off starting by
transplants because of the time of the season we're in right now. With the
broccoli. It's not a yes or no. Uh, it's just each has
its pros and cons. Okay, yeah, I just figured I was trying,
like I said, to do it right. Don't make a big fight
over it. By the transplant and easy. I'd like to actually watch the
sea each growth kind of exciting too, well, I do. I do
a mix of both. I do a mix of both. I even start
my seeds indoors in the wintertime the spring garden under lights. But yeah,
they all work. Everything's good. Seeds are a little harder with some plants.
Seeds are a little harder to get them to establish and grow because a
gully washer rain, you know, washes them out and other issues like that.
Okay, all right, thank you so much. I'll continue listening.
I always pick up something good. Thank you, Marien. I appreciate that.
Thank you. That is good to hear. Hey, I want to
remind you guys that my calendar schedules are on the website, and if you
haven't gone to the website yet, please do and bookmarket because it is going
to continue to evolve right now. By the way, the website addresses gardening
with Skip dot Com Gardening with Skip dot Com, and you can find the
long cair schedule on there that tells you, you know, when it comes
to proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing. All the products fertilizer, whether
you're organic or synthetic, they're all listed on there, and the time to
apply them and other advice is on there. Then there's the lawn, pest,
disease and weed management schedule. Now that one does just what I said
it the insects, the diseases, and the weeds. How do you prevent
the weeds with pre emergent and with cultural practices that's on there too, and
then how do you kill existing weeds? And then a wide variety of all
those products that are down there at the bottom. So check out those two
schedules at Gardening with Skip dot Com Gardening with Skip dot Com, and I
think you will find that it's helpful. Some people will print it out,
take it with them when they go shopping. Some people will just go and
grab the schedule when they need to check on it and you know, find
out what should I be doing right now? It's all on there and the
prime times for doing everything, and timing is important. It is very important.
And so whether you're putting down a herbicide, whether you're treating with a
fungicide and secticide or just fertilizing, even getting a timing right is an important
thing to do. I was visiting with a gardener the other day that was
asking some questions about a wind a plant a winter squash, and he was
thinking, well, it said winter squash, So I guess I plant those
in the winter. No, we don't. They're called winter squash because they
store well, things like an acron squash, a butternut squash, a kabocha
squash, oh gosh, spaghetti squash. Those are all winter squashes. They
have a firm, hard rind like a pumpkin does. In fact, I
would say a pumpkin is another winter squash. But those are planted in the
springtime, in summer, late spring and summer because they take a long time.
You can plan. Just need to read the sea packet and give them
plenty of time to be able to fully produce the mature fruit. With summer
squashes, we eat those when they're immature. You know, you can stick
your thumbnail through. You don't want a yellow squash to be all tough and
big seeds in it. You don't want a zucchini like that. Those are
examples of summer squashes, and we just eat those when they're immature. So
anyway, that's the difference between the two. But no, don't be confused
by the word winter in winter squash, it just means it stores. Think
of it. I guess probably you store it over winter, and a lot
of them will keep what two months, three months, some maybe even four
months if they're if they're in good shape when they go into your storage.
Well, it looks like we're about to put another hour in the books.
I want to remind you that next Saturday, I will be at Southwest Fertilizer
in Southwest Houston, corner of bissin Ut and Renwick. Bob is having me
come in to help you with your gardening questions. If you want to bring
sam to look at, to identify, to diagnose, you want to bring
pictures, bring them in. Let's let's take a look at them. Whatever
the problem with the plant you bring in, there's going to be more than
one item on the shelf there At Southwest fertilizer that deals with that specific issue
that you might have. But I always like to visit. I loved it
the last time I was in there, getting to visit with some of the
gardeners. By the way, when you go over there, you need to
pick up your kneeling bench. Now, a folding kneeling bench. You can
put it down where you kneel on it, and it has handles to help
you get up. You're north of forty you know what I'm talking about.
Flip it over and it's a nice gardening seat. Bob's got a bunch of
them on hand there. Hey, we'll be right back. Seven one three
two point two fifty eight seventy four. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse
any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden
Line with Scamp Richt. It's just watch as the world. Well, good
morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. We're glad you're listening to garden Line.
We're here to answer your gardening questions, to help you have success, to
hope you have a more beautiful garden and a bountiful landscape. Our phone number
is seven to one three two one two, five eight seven four seven one
three two one two k t R H. We are entering the holiday seasons
here, just Thanksgiving not too far away, and then of course the Christmas
season. Holiday seasons always a good time forgiving. People really just open their
hearts up at that time of the year. And I want to recommend to
you an option for you to consider forgiving, and that is the Star of
Hope. Star of Hope Changes Lives in the Houston area. They have not
only do they go out to help people that are on the streets, they
bring people in, They provide education, they provide housing, They even provide
instruction on like how do you interview for a job? I mean you think
about people are homeless for a lot of different reasons, a lot of different
reasons, often not their own fault, but whatever the reason, they need
a pathway back. They don't need just a handout or food for a day
or a week. They need a way to get back on their feet.
And that takes a lot. You know, we take it for granted.
I got a car, I can go drive around and get a job with
I got and so on. Star of Hope Changes Lives. That's the bottom
line. Sohmission dot org. That is the website. Go check it out
and consider adding Star of Hope to your giving list, as my wife and
I do Star of Hope Mission right here in Houston. What a difference it
is making. Let's head out to pair Land and we're going to talk to
K. Good morning, K, Good morning to Skip. Thank you for
taking my call. I have a question about fertilizer. I had kind of
a couple of a few brown patch spots last year that were kind of bad,
and I had my yard man yesterday came and put Miracle Grow brown patch
on. Uh. I have a small yard and uh he had about a
half half a bag left. Can I or should I or may I use
that again in another maybe a month or two? Would that be of benefit?
Or called miracle go brown miracle grow brown patch? You recommended it?
That's what? Oh? Okay, Oh no, you're thinking of microlife brown
patch microlife micro life. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well we're on the
said page now, Yeah, okay, Yeah, that's is a good organic
fertilizer. It's got five percent nitrogen, it's got a very low one percent
phosphorus, and then a good amount of potassium. So I like it for
the fall seas, and it's a good mix for that. Now if depending
on how much you put out, I wouldn't do it again in the winter.
I would do it now while the grass still is most active in taking
up nutrients. And then the next time as the grass comes out of winter
into spring and begins to grow and get some roots in the ground, we
are fertilizing at that time again, and you could use that one again,
or you could switch over to the green bag at that time. But you
can use that that microlike brown patch. Go ahead and just use it now
if you need to use it. You can use it on a lot of
different kinds of plants. Okay, I didn't know how long it would last.
It'll last in the bag. It'll be fine. Okay, Thank you
so much, and enjoy your show. All right, Thank you, good
bye, have a good one. Thank you very much. I appreciate that
you know Enchanted Gardens out in Richmond. I was out there this weekend.
I want to thank the crew out there for having me come out. It
was nice. I was there with Andy from Medina Products and we were giving
away some products and visiting with a lot of people out there. And in
Chanted Gardens is just it's just an enchanting place just watching people walk around.
It's a it's a broad spread of all kinds of plants and all kinds of
them. Mean, they got a great supply of pumpkins, by the way,
if you still need some pumpkins. They carry the vego garden beds too.
I saw those out there. I was that was nice and talk about
those all the time. But whether it's edibles like vegetables and herbs, whether
it's flowers like annuals and perennials, shrubs, tall shrubs, short short shrubs,
blooming shrubs, trees, everything is out there in Chanted Gardens. The
website is Enchanted Gardens Richmond. They're on FM three fifty nine, So if
you're in Richmond, you head up toward Katie Way. That's it. In
Channed Gardens on FM three fifty nine. You're going to find every kind of
plant you need. You're going to find educated folks that know what they're talking
about to help you, and you're going to find every fertilizer product that I
talk about here as well well as soil products that I talk about here.
On garden Line Monday through Saturday, eight to five Sunday, ten am to
four pm. Hey, that's a good idea for an afternoon outing today out
two enchanted gardens. We are taking your calls here on garden Line. If
you'd like to give us a call, the phone number seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Just go ahead and give us a call. I want to remind
you that my website has the lawn schedules for both fertilizing your lawn and managing
pest problems like diseases and weeds and insects that might be in your lawn.
And it's at the website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot com.
Nelson Fertilizer celebrated their forty year anniversary just the other day, October fourteenth.
And you know, from the the very small beginnings, they have grown
into a product just unbelievable selection and lines. The whole line of color Star
is outstanding. The whole line of nutri Star quality products. Those are in
jars. Then you can just feed your plants. It's real simple. It's
a nice blend. The turf Star line contains a number of different products,
but just remember right now, it's the carbo load that's the one to put
on in the fall. From Nelson's. The carbo load has an extra punch
of potassium in it, which is important for winter hardiness and drop recovery as
well. And it also has a pre emergent herbicide. So if you're going
to do the carbo load, which I think is an excellent option for your
yard, I would do it now as soon as possible, get it watered
in, to get that pre emergent and the fertilizer down to the soil surface
where it can help the roots and where it can prevent the weed seeds from
coming up over the cool sea. And if your line is at all thin,
cool season weeds which are germinating October November and really on through the cool
season and our mild climate, you need to get ahead of them, and
now is the time to do it. And carboload is a great way to
do two things at once for your lawn. We're going to go now to
Northwest Houston if I can find the button here and talk to Parla. Hello,
Paula, Hello, good morning. I have a comment and a question,
a comment about that gentleman that called in with the two vines that weren't
blooming. Yes, tell me not. I'll be listening to not feel bad
because I have grown fire spike for years. Can always tell when the humming
burgers are getting made to come, because the fire spike always blooms just about
that time. This year, I have not had one bloom on any of
my fire spikes. Really, I mean, for you religiously, year after
year after year. The well, I'm sure. I don't know if it's
I don't know if it's the drought. Yeah, I don't think because they
were really suffering through the drought. I could see the league allow a lot
of plans that way. I got to run to break. But thanks for
pointing that out. I got a question about that, and I'll be right
back. We're going to take a break. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Well, good Sunday morning on a beautiful day.
You're listening to garden Line and our phone number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. You know the roy family, owners of Grimes
County Feed. They have been serving and giving back to their community. It's
a way of life for them. I mean we're talking about in the family,
this Polish family's past of agriculture, the fire service, in the Houston
Fire Department, law enforcement, the Houston Police Department. UH and they support
like Iola School District, the FFA, the four h the Anderson Volunteer Fire
Department, Grimes County True Blue Foundation. I mean, they are part of
the county and have been for a long time. And that's the same mindset,
that's the same attitude that they take into their business. Grimes County Feed
and Farm. When I talk about a fertilizer, if you're up in that
general area around Carlos Navasota, Brian College Station, anywhere in there, Grimes
County Feed is going to have that fertilizer available, and then they have everything
else you would expect from a feed store, including a fish stocking during the
growing season when things warm up a little bit. Just check them out.
Grimes County Feed two eight one eight one four twenty four ninety four. Let's
go back to Hello, Paula, I think you had some more information or
yes, okay, you suggest several weeks ago you suggested to someone planting diantus.
I've never planted them before, but they shunded really good. So I
went and bought a flat of them and planted them and out of side to
try to read up on them a little bit since I've never planned them before.
And it said that you should keep them deadheaded or also go to seed.
Well, yes, that true, that's true of almost any flower.
Well, yeah, that's why plants bloom. But yeah, you know you
if you don't, I mean, they still grow and they'll still bloom some,
but as you take the old ugly flowers off, it just helps rejuvenate
them a little bit better. So it's a beautiful. They will keep they
will keep blooming, just like a regular plant. Yes, the new modern
variety is keep blooming for you. Okay, okay, okay, that's what
I needed to know that, all right, Okay, thank you for the
call. I appreciate that very much. Now, we talk a lot about
lawn fertilizing and mowing and watering and things. One thing that I probably should
talk about more is aeration and compost stop dressing of the soil. And the
folks at green Pro they are the pros at that they've been doing that for
a long time. They know what they're doing. Their prices started five five
ninety nine plus tax depending on the size and location of your property. If
they got to drive a good distance, well that's part of the consideration there.
You can go to greenpro dot net. But they have some really high
quality equipment and they come in and when they do a deep core aeration,
it pops the plugs out of the ground, drops them on the top,
and then follow that with a compost top dressing of Leipmo compost. You are
talking about exactly what a law needs to rejuvenate it, to get oxygen in
the soil, to get organic meta done in the soil, to stimulate those
roots, and it's just a good deal. I would highly recommend you consider
giving green Pro a caller. Just go to their website greenpro dot net,
where you can find out a lot more information on that. We're going to
go now out to Oaksbury and talk to Lee. Hello Lee, Hello Skip,
I'm well, thank you. I'd like to find out something about a
republic of text orange tree. Okay, when would be a good time to
buy one and plant it? Well, you could do it pretty much any
time. Whenever we're dealing with plants that are semi hardy. You know they're
pretty hardy, but we can have winters that do a lot of damage and
stuff when it's extra cold. I often will purchase them and hold on to
them and put them in in the spring. That that way I can move
them in the garage if they need to. It's just that first year you
want to if you give them a few more months, you know, than
just dropping them in the ground. Now, it's just a way to kind
of head your bed a little bit. But a lot of people in the
fall this fall have been planting citrus trees and there's no other reason other than
just get ready to give it a little extra protection if we do have a
real coal spell. So it wouldn't hurt to just hold off and buy them
later. You could do that also, but I tell you, you know,
the selection is what's important. You know, when you're looking for a
particular variety like you mentioned, you could it won't hurt to hold off and
buy them later. You can certainly do that. You just want to make
sure they don't sell out wherever you're purchasing your plants. Okay, well,
thank you very much, Scott. I appreciate your information, all right,
Lee, thanks for the call. Appreciate that very very much. RCW Nursery,
that's the nursery up there where Tumbull Parkway comes into Beltweg eight. They
are having quite the shin dig here every weekend in October. This weekend,
there's one more weekend left in October. They have a special discount fifteen percent
off all trees, and boy do they ever have a great selection of trees.
They grow on themselves, quality trees, the species that you should be
planting here because they're adapted area. That's what you get at RCW Nurseries.
But by the way, this shindig deal I was talking about funding games for
kids of all ages. They got refreshments and snacks for the family areas where
you can go and you know, take a photo, you know, with
a little setup decoration, kind of cool, lots of fun stuff while you're
out there. Check out everything else that they do, I mean, annuals
perennials. They've got it all. They've got it all. Roses, a
unbelievable selection of roses all at RCW Nurseries. Let's go out to spring.
Now we're going to talk to Bernie. Hello, Bernie, good morning.
I've been I've been pulling Virginia button weed out of the Saint Augustine grass,
and of course there's not a lot of grass left. But I was wondering
what I've been getting a lot of the runners out, but what do I
put on next to kill the roots that I don't get? Well, there's
nothing you can put on now to kill the existing plants that are there.
Uh, just you're pulling is the right thing. You're getting a lot of
seed out hopefully and minimizing the problem next year. Just watch that you don't
keep the soil too wet. Virginia button weed thrives in wet conditions especially.
Uh. There are post emergent products that you can use after it comes up.
And there's also some pre emergent product that you would put down and help
prevent seeds of all the weeds that would come up in the warm season in
your lawn. Those would be applied in February for the for the warm season.
We're applying now for the cool season. Any particular one that you recommend,
we recommend barricade. Yeah, it's a good product and it is you
know, it's it's going to be effective against broad leaf and grassy weeds,
which is good. Not every pre emergent is effective against both broadly broad leaf
and grass. I put that down last week with the fertilizer. Good.
Well, then you're off. You're off to the race. Okay, that's
what I want to hear. Sounds good. Thanks for your well, have
fun fun pulling the Virginia button weed. I feel your pain. Yeah,
I know, all right, thank you again. Uh huh, that's funny.
Hey. The nitrophus three step Nitrophus three step that we've been talking about
it this fall and keep talking about it. It is a great combination for
the three things that affect our lawns in the fall. Number one, nutrients.
We got to get the soil with a good supply of potassium and some
nitrogen to get that grass plant as healthy and strong as we can get it
going into winter, because that's what drives spring growth initially, and so when
you're fertilizing now, you are doing that to have a great lawn starting early
next year. That's what that does. That's the nitrophos fall special. They
have the barricade which we were just talking about with a bernie that is a
broad leaf and grassy weed prevent you put it down, you watered in and
when the weed seeds try to come through, it shuts things down. It's
essentially a barricade. Good name Nitrophus Eagle is a turf fundicide. It's a
systemic. It soaks into the turf so when patch comes on a little bit
later in the season. Actually, we could be seeing those circles any day
now if we had the right kind of temperature drop and little rainy weather.
That's what the eagles for. It's to prevent that. It also works pretty
good on take a root rot, which is also another one we're dealing with
now. You can find Nitrofoss, Texas three step and other products at Katie
Hardware, RCW, Nursia. I was just talking about them a second ago,
and up at the arbor Gate up in Tomball they all carry the nitrofoss
products like Texas three step. You're listening to Garden Line. We are here
to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number is seven to one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. It's as simple as that. You know, there's no reason not
to have color in the winter. They everybody you know on spring all the
flowers. People are excited. Then summer comes and a few more few less
options, but still options for summer. Then we have the fall season.
And there's two things I'd like you to think about as you're going into fall
wanting to make a more beautiful, beautiful landscape. One are fall bloomers.
Now you plan them. Now, you're not going to get to enjoy,
you know, the big beautiful plant this fall, but you will next fall
and never fall after that. If it's a perennial and we have some beautiful
fall blooming. Salvia leucantha blooms late summer and fall. There is salvia pineapple
sage blooms in the late summer and the fall season. Probably my favorite fall
plant is the aster, the fall aster, autumn aster. It is beautiful.
It is tough as nails, and it just spreads out. You shared
a little bit to kind of manage the gross shape like you want it to
be. But boy, when fall comes, it is absolutely gorgeous. And
it's a perennial. And we have other fall blooming plants that we can put
out there in the landscape. Just think about installing those now for years of
beauty in the fall. Second, thing, or the cool season annuals.
There's a lot of great cool season annuals. I was just talking a minute
ago with Paula about Dianthus. Dianthus comes in some little compact bedding plant types.
It comes in types that get really tall, beautiful neon flowers on the
Amazon series and some of the others like that, the violas and pansies or
two of the heartiest cool season flowers that we have. I guess right up
there with those would be things like ornamental cabbage and kale, which we don't
grow for the blooms, although when they bolt in spring they're beautiful, but
all listen, and things like snapdragon for example. Stock is another cool season
plant. Take advantage of those. Oh and Dusty Miller. That's a foliage
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Welcome back to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're
here to answer your gardening questions. UH phone number if you'd like to give
us a call seven to one three two one two k t R H or
SEVENE three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you prefer to go that
direction. If you live out in Kingwood, do you hear me talk about
Kingwood Garden Center and Warren Southern Gardens all the time. You are fortunate these
two places right there, just down the street really from you. They always
have quality plants, They always have some things going on. I know the
pink Mewley grass that was a Navy Plant of the Month they had going on.
They have going on out there. Pink Muley is beautiful. I love
it when the sunlight comes through those awns, that's where it really shines pink.
It's just gorgeous. Warrens has a stock of everything you need to make
sure that your plants do well, your lawns do well, like the fertilizers
and the composts and the multous high quality, high quality products. Do you
need cool season color, They've got it. Just looking at a flat of
the snapdragons that they have out there. Snapdragons are such a cool flower.
You know. They come in small, squatty sizes and they come in real
tall cut flower types as well. And they got that real cool little flower
where the jaw snaps down like a dragon jaw. Show that to a little
kiddo and they'll think that's pretty cool stuff as well. They have a in
fact, they have a sale on the snap dragon's going on till the twenty
fourth, so we're just a couple of days away from that, so don't
delay if you need color for your landscape. Warren's Southern Gardens or Kingwood Gardens
cent are both in Kingwood. They'll get you fixed up. Let's go now
to Chris up in Highlands. Hello, Chris, hi doing? I was
calling. You're just speaking about the having color. So I have about three
acres and I was looking for like a showpiece kind of tree to plan out
there. And I was wondering, and I may be butchering the name,
but a jack aranda tree. It's like a purple yes, how would that
like? How would that do in our climate? It is very showy that
it is a fast growing and not a recommended tree. It grows really fast
and kind of falls apart. It's not not a real good one for us.
I think it may have some occasional co weather problems. I'd need to
check on that depending on the area. But yeah, I wouldn't. Could
you recommend one that would be like a show popper in a world of green?
I guess something blooming, something bloomy? Yes, just a yes or
yes, sir, I would choose between. There are some very tall,
beautiful craite myrtles, something get thirty feet tall that would be a consideration.
And I put those on the list because what three months of bloom through the
summer season, that's a lot for any tree I like. Chinese fringe tree.
Chinese fringe tree is a spring bloomer. It as shaggy blooms, but
it's only a medium sized tree, so think more in the twenty twenty five
foot range. Eventually, it takes a little while to get there. So
that's a beautiful one that I like as well. I don't know if either
of those fit the bill. Do they Are they either one of those good
shade trees the friend. No, they don't. Well, they shade well
underneath their canopy, but the crape myrtles don't spread as much as a lot
of our big shade trees do. And also with the fringe it spreads.
But again it's you know, it's probably going to go out about twelve feet
in both directions of twenty four feet across or so okay, okay, all
right, thank you, because I was looking for something to line my driveway.
So oh okay, that'll work twelve feet wide enough, Thank you so
much. Yeah, you may want to mix it up a little bit,
try some other things in that way, you know, you get you get
some variation in there, maybe other seasons of bloom or things like that.
Oh like alternating trees. Yeah, you know, if you did the fringe
with the crapes, you have spring and summer covered. Okay, okay,
I like that idea a lot. All right, thank you, thank you
so much. Right, you have good day, you too. Let's go
now out to Brazewood. Talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey,
Skip, how you doing. I'm well, you know, I've got so
I want to plant some Texas sage in my front yard. I've got a
southern exposure and you know, as a has a backdrop in a hedge,
you know, I've got a shorter yes bush in front. And what's the
best way to mend the soil? You know, I've got this gumbo yes
here, of course. And what do you think? We're just a good
a good blend. You know, you could use something like a rose soil
blend. That would be a good one. Uh. Just something that is
going to provide the drainage that you want. And that is very important.
And you need a bed that's not as tall as you can stand to make
it because those things will settle in time. And Texas sage does not want
soggy roots. It does not like that at all. So well, look,
can I ask you then, so so like for the bottom of the
hole, should you put is it okay to put in like a loamy sandy
type of thing, or should you just put clay in? You? You
should. What you should do on any shrub. But also Texas sage is
have the whole bed amended like you want it, and then dig the whole
of them out of dig the amended soil out to plant it. Put the
amended soil back in over it. Don't put something special in the hole.
Okay, yeah, it will not help them in in many cases it hurts,
really yeah. Okay. Drainage and sun those are the two keys to
Texas sage. Yeah, it gets all the sun. It gets all.
But you say, elevate the bed as much as you can then, yeah,
just because it's gonna settle. That's why I say, you know,
it didn't The plant doesn't know if it's eight inches high or twenty four inches
high. I'm just saying that those beds a lot of organic matter. They
settle quite a bit. I might mix some expanded shale in it as well,
because that also helps with drainage, and it has more of a structure
to it, so it doesn't just oxidize down like organic matter. Will Okay,
I got you, all right, all right, all right, thank
you very much. I appreciate appreciate that very much. Uh. You know,
its fall is planning time, and anytime you plant, I recommend you
use has to grow six twelve six. Six twelve six has seaweed extracts,
it's got humic acid in it, It's got all the things that stimulate the
biological activity of the soil and help the roots, help the roots. It's
got the nutrients in there for that. So whatever shrub tree, perennial,
ornamental grass you're planting, has to grow six twelve six, if you're planting
flowers, if you're planting vegetables, just mix it up in water and water
it in with that, do it again five to seven days later, again,
five to seven days later. In other words, planned at planting,
and twice more about a week apart. To help that plant get off to
a really, really good start. Medina has to grow six. One of
the many excellent Medina products out there on the market. We're going to go
to a break now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. When we come back, Chris, John and Ted
you the first up. Well, come to garden Line. We are glad
you're listening today and talking all kinds of things plants with you. We're gonna
head straight out to let's see, we're going to Chris. Another Chris in
the Highlands. Hey, that's coincidence. How you doing? I'm gonna skip
yeah, another Chris and Highlands. A hard day call. I got a
couple of quick questions. About ten days ago, I laid some sad in
my yard and I was wondering, should I pick up with the fall fertilization
schedule or would it be better if I got some hash to grow and spray
that on there? And two, how can I get rid of some bermuda
where it's trying to take over? Okay, I would the hash to grow
is a good product, but I would use it. It's got a pretty
good nitrogen content, and I would save that to use in spring or summer.
And right now I would put a granular fall fertilizer down on the lawn.
I know it's been in ten days, it's getting some routes going,
but go ahead and get that down. We talk about a lot of good
ones here, and if you go to my lawn schedule on gardening with Skip
dot com. There's a list of all the different products that I would recommend
fourfall, both organic ins of them. Yeah, I would do watered in
that new side. You know, we we're kind of up against the here
comes winner, and but we still want to get the nutrients down and help
it as much as we can. Okay, And how about the bermuda bermuda
in Saint Augustine, Yes, sir, yeah, Well, other than calling
a realtor and moving, I tell you that is an We don't have a
we don't have a product available in the home gardening market that will kill bermuda
grass and not damage Saint Augustine grass. So if it's an area where you
can kill everything and then replant Saint Augustine, that's an option. But other
than that, you're living with the two of them together. Yeah, okay,
sorry to not have a solution on that one, but we just we
just redon't right now in the home and garden market. Yes, sir,
Okay, thank you very much, Thanks sir, appreciate your call very much.
We are now gonna go let's see, we're gonna go to John up
in Tomball. Hello John, Good morning, Skip. How you doing.
I'm well, How are you well? Quick question. I've done what mister
Skips told me to do. I fertilized, I did the barricade last week.
I've got bermuda in the backyard and about a third of it is starting
to really get little brown brown areas. Yes, I know I need the
air rap, but that's probably in the spring. Can I put out some
stuff for brown pats right now? Shit, I'll hold off. Uh.
It's better to do those preventatively, which would mean now we're gonna get the
weather soon where it's gonna occur, and once it rots the lead, you
can't make it green again until next spring. So we put a product on
to prevent it. If you've had a history of that problem. I'm not
saying everybody that with every lawn should, you know, apply a brown patch
control. Some lawns just don't have problems with it. You don't see it
much. Typically lawns that have been managed well over time, it's not as
big of a deal. But we can't control the weather, and the weather
is another reason why it tends to be worse some years than others. It's
just weird and some in this one area, it's like it's a different bermuda
than the other part of the yard. It's yes, I probably just need
to tear it up because it's always struggled in one area. Okay, yeah,
that may be. That may be the best bet. You know,
bermuda, if you give it water, fertilizer, and sun, it's usually
pretty happy. Exactly. Yeah, Okay, thanks Jip. All right,
sir, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Hey, if
you live up in the Montgomery area, your hometown nursery is Ana Plants and
Produce. They're right there on the east side of Montgomery on the way to
Conroe Highway one to five. They're a full service garden center. You know,
a family owned, been there thirty years and they serve that whole area.
And I know all the people out it, like Conroe, go all
those neighborhoods out there. April, Sound of Woodlands, bent Water so on.
That is so close. I mean you almost throw a rock and hit
Ana Plants and Produce. But if you hear me talking about fertilizers and you're
thinking, hey, I need some fall fertilizer for the lawn, you're going
to get it there. The ones I would recommend are going to be there,
as well as all the other products you might need for your lawns.
They're open seven days a week, so they're open today nine to five,
three acres to wander through beautiful, beautiful things. Lots of great fall decorations
going on right now, and they're always having some kind of activity, especially
for kids. I do a lot of stuff for kids out there in that
area at A and A Plants and Produce. Go check them out this afternoon.
That'd be a good afternoon. Outing. Let's head now to San Leone.
We're going to talk to Ted. Hey, Ted, Hey, good
morning, good morning. I'm just man. I got a flock of white
wings. They you know, they ran up into the tallow tree yesterday,
just just eating the heck out of the seeds. But anyway, I was
talking to a friend about the Texas three step and she went out and bought
a Bear three and one. It's got a it's got an MPK of thirty
five zero four. Yeah, Plus it's a weed and feed. Plus it's
got a pre emergent and we need to neutralize it nitrogen. I wouldn't use
it. I wouldn't use it. I don't know if they'll take it back.
But that so no, that's already in the yard. Oh okay,
well, I guess we'll find out. Uh No, you can't neutralize the
nitrogen. You know, the first number is high. It also depends on
how much how much she put out. If she put it out at a
high rate, yeah, you a problem if you barely put any out at
all. Still with I don't see how you apply. That would be like
three pounds of that fertilizer per thousand square feet it's concentrated, I guess.
I mean, I haven't seen the yard. I don't know if it doesn't
sound like she burned it or she watered it in. But now how do
I make up for the the p and the kay? You know you could,
you could do a couple of things. I just wouldn't put any I
don't think i'd put any more fertilizer on period. It just the humates plus
has a little bit of potassium in it from microlife. You might want to
try that. It's always good to have hu mates in the ground, improving
the soul quality. And there's a little potassium in that product too, And
you're not getting the nitrogen push, So that might be the way I would
go. I think I think that's probably going to be a good one for
you. Okay, all right, let's see what happens. I mean,
it's until it gets told. Guess yeah, just tell them don't buy that
anymore. Yeah, because you know, think about this, that that product
thirty percent. That would mean you would put three pints of the fertilizer over
a thousand square feet. It was a granular thirty five zero four of thirty
five. Okay, well all right, what is it? What is it?
Change it going forward? Okay, fingers crossed them, But thank you,
Thank you, Ted. I appreciate the call very much. Oh yeah,
wow, that is a that is a concentrated deal. It's a lot
of fertilizer going down. Well, you know, we're wanted to take care
of our lawns. I've talked about why we want to do that, and
it's it's an important time to do that when you when you're looking at your
fruit trees. I haven't talked a lot about fruit trees, and I just
want to mention a few things. Be where we go to a break here
coming up, But when you're planning fruit trees, sunlight is very important.
Some fruit cetrus, blueberries, maybe figs a little bit can take a little
bit of shade and still do okay. But most fruit wants lots of sun.
They want at least six hours of sun, if not more. And
that would be peaches and plums and pears and apples and all those different kinds
of things. If you've never considered planning a persmon tree, now, first
of all, you need to decide if you like per semon. Some people
love them and some people don't care for them that much. But a percimme
tree allows you to have fruit in the fall, which is a cool thing,
as does Ceterus, by the way, and so they're very tough,
hardy trees as long as they have good drainage in the soil. And you
have this little ornamental orange fruit hanging on a leafless plant in the fall.
By the way, per Semon has good fall color too for the leaves.
It's one of the plants with excellent fall color. So you might want to
think about doing that. Full sun important. Second, I mentioned it ari,
but drainage is very very important. Soggy wet root systems are not good
and I you know, fruit in general, unless it's there's a wild East
Texas fruit called mayhaw looks like little tiny apples that can live in a swamp.
But that's not the kind of fruit you're going to pick and chomp on.
People typically make jelly out of it. But in general, fruit needs
good drainage, so you want to make sure it has that. The next
thing about fruit is pick varieties that do well. Here, you know fruit
trees when they go dormant in the winter, the deciduous fruit trees, the
buds have a little clock inside. Okay, now I'm using an example here,
not an actual clock, but they have a clock inside the bud,
and as it goes through temperatures between about thirty five and forty five somewhere in
there, each hour counts as an hour of chilling. And so you may
have fruit trees that need one thousand hours of chilling or fruit trees that only
need three hundred hours of chilling. Well, if you plant one that needs
more chilling than you get, it doesn't come out in the spring. It
just sputters out with a few leaves and it never does well. If you
plant one that needs way less, it's gonna bloom. The first warm day
in February and you're going to get another frost. Just some things to think
about, sunlight, drainage, and pick varieties that are for this area of
whatever kind of fruit that you're going to want to plant. We love grown
fruit. I'd encourage you to explore more strawberries. You know, used to
be a big Pasadena strawberry festival around here. They're a great plant to grow.
I just got some the other day. Taking them home to plant them
is part of a little trial I'm doing with a Brazoria County Extension. We're
looking at some different varieties and seeing how they do. That's a great fruit.
You can grow those and a big container too. Anyway, I hope
you'll consider some fruit. Give it a try. By the way, next
Saturday, don't forget Southwest Fertilizer. I'm going to be a Southwest Fertilizer next
Saturday, eleven thirty to one thirty. Bring me samples thanks to identify or
diagnose. We'll get all that done and we'll also do a little visiting in
the meantime. Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line
with Skip Richter's so Crazy, Yes trip just watch him as well. Well,
good morning on a beautiful Sunday. We're glad you're listening to Garden Line.
If 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
fifty eight seventy four. Nitrophossis three step is a fertilizer, a weed preventative,
and a disease preventative. That's the three steps of the Texas three Step
by Nitrofas. The fertilizer is Nitrophos's Fall Special. It's got a good blend
of nutrients and a really good ratio for fall application. It's what your grass
needs. That ratio is what your grass needs right now to go into winter
strong so it can come out strong. The second step is the barricade.
Pre Emergent prevents weeds, both grassy and broad leaf weeds, and it will
if you apply it now and get it down before the weeds germinate, because
they're going to be germinating in October, November, even into December. It
prevents that they don't get established and you never have to deal with them as
big weed problems in the spring. The third step is nitrophos egle turf fungicide.
Now, ego fungicide is a systemic It moves into the tissues of the
plant. And when that happens when a brown brown patch spores, you know
from brown patch, or even take all root rod issues when they try to
attack, you've already got this in the plant system and it does a preventative.
Don't wait until the big circles apply. Get it done now, and
that way, when they would start to show up, you have that prevention
down one, two three, fall special barricade ego turf fungicide by nitrofoss.
You can find nitrofoss products all over the place, such as Cyprus ace hardware,
Fissures hardware, and Laporte or plantation ace hardware down in Richmond. Today,
the topics have ranged a lot. We've talked a little bit about flowers,
a little bit about you know, vegetables and herbs, and certainly lawns.
Lawn drea is the elephant in the room of conversations that we have.
I would also suggest that when you're doing your fall planting, you consider what
kind of vines you're putting down. You know, we have some beautiful,
beautiful vines out there. The cross vine, coral, the coral viney that
is a perennial, goes back to the ground, comes back out of the
ground. Just beautiful kinds of vines, woody vines, several types of whysteria
for example, that do really well. Vines are a way that we can
provide shade where there isn't a tree, a little arbor, put it up
and it looks really good. And Buchanan's Nursery in the Heights, they of
course they have one of every kind of plant. They specialize in natives.
So if you're looking for natives, crossbine, by the way, is a
native plant. They can get you set up with that. If you're looking
for herbs, if you're looking for house plants, if you're looking for anything
that you would want to grow at your house, well, Buchanans just going
to have it. They're at eleventh Street in the Heights. You can go
to Buchanansplants dot com for their website, sign up for their newsletter. I
always tell people to do that because they are always giving out a lot of
really good information and tips. They're going to carry the fertilizer I talk about
too, by the way, there, as well as some really high quality
soil blends that you would want to enhance your beds before you plant. Remember,
buy the brown stuff and take care of that before you start planting the
green stuff. Make sure those plants have a good place to grow. Buchanans
can get you set up on all the above. We're going to head out
to Cypress now and talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Good morning,
Skip. Yesterday I asked you about my ochras, but today I found a
lot of acids on my bell peppers. Okay, you told me don't worry
about the ochras are going to be gone. Are the bell peppers going to
be gone too? Well, they're going to be gone too. You know.
If you have an excess, just blast them off with some water.
If you want to apply a little soap spray, you can. But these
peppers are going to hang around until we get our first good frost. Okay,
but I have a lot of flowers on my bell peppers, so does
that mean I'm gonna get bell peppers? The flowers won't make it too like,
I'm sure red stage of the fruit but you will have some small green
fruit that are probably still going to be harvestable, especially if we continue having
some milder temperatures like we're having right now, even fact, warmer temperatures like
we're having right now, Sandy, Are you killing aphid right now? Yes?
I can hear it amusing water. Well, then if you're trying to
blast them off, yeah, Oh, you need a little hose with it
with more pressure than that. I mean you you need a little what Okay,
that's a spray, A power sprayer. It says, okay if it
knocks them off. If it knocks it off, you're good. I just
kick out of that, all right. Hey, thanks for calling, and
enjoy those at day By. That's great, That is great. So what
was I talking about before we went to the last call? There? Flowers?
I can't even remember the topic. I want to go back to the
flowers I mentioned earlier, a few of the cool seasoned flower. Oh it
is vines. I'm sorry, it's the vines. Let me talk about the
vines just a little bit more. A good arbor, a good pergola,
some kind of structure that you can grow the vines on is so helpful,
even against a western wall. There are a lot of annual vines that you
can plant from seed, and those would be planted in the spring. But
if you have a structure for him to grow on, they'll shade that western
wall. And it makes a huge difference. If you ever went around the
side of the house, put your hand against the wall, let's say seven
or eight o'clock at night, you know sun's going down, but it is
still hot, and it's radiating that heat into your house, and you get
to spend some more electric money to fix that with your air conditioner system.
So vines are good in many, many different ways. Just annuals, perennial
vines, woody vine that form over a structure. I don't think we use
enough vines in our landscapes. I was in Europe one time, actually country
of Bulgaria, driving through and I noticed that every place where they park a
car next to the house, there would be a vine, a little arbor
going over the top of the car, so it shaded the car. But
they were getting grapes out of the deal. So they went to great links
to grow food and beauty, but especially food in every little spot that they
could find. Even saw a building one time where it had like four stories
and it was apartments with little balconies and they had a grape vine from the
ground going straight up and at each balcony there'd be a branch that came off
and provided grapes for that balcony. The vine would go up and provide It
was really unusual sight to see. But yeah, let's take advantage of vines
and as far as getting back to the cool seasoned flowers. Anytime that we
can provide color in the landscape, it is a good thing. And you
can do a variety of different approaches. You can if you're going to view
it up close, you can use a variety of colors, a mix of
colors, and it's very interesting to see the different combinations all together. I
was out Enchanted Gardens yesterday and I noticed they had some mums with several different
kinds in a pot, so you had several colors there to view up close.
I'm going to talk a little bit about color more when we come back.
Our phone number is seven one three, two one two five eight seven
four. Good morning, Good Sunday morning, Welcome back to garden Line.
We are looking forward to talking to you about the topics of interest to you
in your lawn and garden. Hey, you can give us a call at
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four. While Birds Unlimited is the premiere place to
get anything that you need for birds around your house. We're talking about feeders,
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a type of seed. The birds just don't eat those little red bebies.
They just kick them on the ground. They don't like that stuff. And
when you go to Wildbirds and buy feed, you get quality feed. Now
I just want to remind you is we're going into the fall months. The
days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, so the birds have
a little less daytime hours to fuel up and they require or required to roos
longer time. But of course going through the longer nights, well, wildbirds
Unlimited Super Winter super Blend. Winter super Blend is one of those quality blends
that's designed for this season. It's got fat and protein that help get the
birds through this winter season. Don't forget a few of the roofous hummingbirds are
going to hang around here and make winter their home. So if you're lucky,
you might have one visit. So keep the hummingbird feeders out, just
one, just through the holidays and just wait and see. You might get
that nice surprise. Don't forget. Also, birds need water, water,
water, water, and it dries up really quick around here, and that
is absolutely essential. Now we got Wallbirds Unlimited stores all over town. There's
seven of them, bel Air, Katie Kingwood, Clear Leg, Paarland,
Memorial, Cypress. Just go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston and you
can find the Wildbird's Unlimited store near you. And you will be inspired when
you go in too. Lots of cool stuff and knowledgeable people to help you.
Of course, you want people that know what they're talking about. You
can grow those folks, and I've done this. I've talked some of the
different Walldbirds Unlimited staff and managers there and you just ask them all these questions
and it's like they know everything. That's really helpful because they can steer you
towards the stuff that you really need. Okay, what was I talking about
right, Oh, we're talking about color colors going into the landscape. So
when you view something up close and you have a mix of colors, that's
interesting. But as you back away from it, that mix of colors just
kind of muddies. They just sort of all go together like little pixels on
a TV screen, the old time TV screens, that is. And so
when you back up in view from a little more distance, you have to
use larger swaths of single color, maybe a large swath of white flowers and
behind it a large swath of red flowers, for example. And you can
get into all the things about color wheels and combinations and whatnot. You know,
there's so many rules in gardening. I think the only rule is to
have fun, have fun in the process. But yes, there are colors
that complement each other. They look better together. I always like in the
cool season, Dusty Miller used with some light blue pansies or violas. I
prefer viola over pansy even but the silvery foliage of Dusty Miller with the blue
of the viol I just think that is a really excellent combination. Throw in
a little bit of white flowers in there too, and you really have an
attractive combo. So there's no reason not to have good color here in our
landscapes. In this whole area we have such mild winners. Really really takes
it easy here, so you can enjoy not only having color all season,
but planting all season long as well. If you're living out in the Mott
Bellevue area, the Mott Bellevue area that includes Baytown by the way, I'm
including Baytown in that Texas Feed Stop that's your hometown feed store. Now,
it's really easy to get to them. They're on Highway one forty six,
just a few minutes north of Iten, So you're on Iten, go north
on one forty six a few minutes, it'll be on the right hand side.
At Texas Feed Stop. You are going to get outstanding customer service.
You're going to be people that greet you, that help you, people that
carry your product to the car for you. They'll carry that out for you
there. And what do they carry out They carry out every single fertilizer that
I just recommended. For example, the quality fertilizers for the Houston area are
all at Texas Feed Stop. And they also have things for dealing with past
whether those pester mosquitoes, or whether it's other insects, whether it's diseases and
weeds. They have a very good selection of that as well. They bring
in some plants from time to time out front and just another reason to stop
in there and check on them. But remember at Texas Feed Stop Brian Hope
Roads and all their staff, they treat you like family, and that's the
way we want. That's the kind of relationships with the folks that sell us
our products that we would love to have Texas Feed Stop for all of that
area Baytown and Mont Bellevue just a few minutes north of Itan on Highway one
forty six. It's as simple as that. Someone was asking me the other
day about lighting for indoor plant starting. So we're about to enter the cool
season and we're, you know, we get close to let's say we've got
past the New Year's and the holiday season. It's time to be getting some
tomatoes started at that time, and we want to start them indoors. Maybe
we got a certain variety that we can only find available in the seed packet,
and you want to start it, and you want to have success.
Lighting is the most important thing. And why am I talking about this now,
Well a couple of reasons. Number one, I just want you to
be aware of the fact that the most important thing to grow a healthy transplant
is to have good lighting. Number two, the holidays are coming up.
Makes a good Christmas gift. You might drop a hint here or there,
whatever kind of holiday celebration you're having, makes a great holiday gift for the
gardener on your list. And if you're the gardener on the list, tell
everybody about it. You want a good quality plant light. You do not
want just human light. And here's the problem. When we go trying to
put lights up, people think the brightness of the light is what it's all
about. Well, brightness is important, but it's really about quality now.
And when you go by lights at a place where you would buy light bulbs,
you know for your house, they're listed in lumens. But there is
something called par plant available. Part available just ran out of the last name,
but par measures the things in light that plants need. So the easy
way to think about it is lumens are for humans, par is for plants.
That's one way to think about it. And if you go to a
place that knows what they're talking about and they sell you a quality plant light,
you can have great success with that. And you get that light down
on the plant, provide them with plenty of it, and that quality light
really makes a huge difference. If you've ever tried growing seedlings and had a
little spindly things, those are absolutely worthless. You put them out, they
break over, they fall, you know, fall over and break and everything.
It's not good. You want a good stocky transplant and light is the
key to success with that. So maybe a gift would be a good lighting
system. Maybe a gift would be a good system for starting your plants and
getting them going the little domed planters where you start your seedlings and going,
why don't we ask for one of those for a gift. That would be
wonderful as well. When it comes to generators, Generac's a good brand,
but most important in buying a generator is to buy from someone who services after
the sale, who does things right, who helps you find the right one.
Yes, there are options when it comes to generators. Quality Home Products
of Texas. That's what they do. They will show you a quality generator,
and they have ones that will back up the entire house if the power
goes out, and they have ones that are smaller that just do certain essential
functions that you want. They'll put you in the right generator. And they
are so highly rated. I mean, seventy seven thousand established satisfied customers.
They have fourteen thousand five star reviews on the website. They've won the Better
Business Bureau Awards, the winner of the Distinction for Customer Service for example,
or the most prestigious BBB Award, the Customer Service Awards seven times. They've
won that. The family owned, highly knowledgeable financing options also available. Just
go to Quality TX dot com, Quality TX dot com, or you can
call them. It's seven to one to three quality Hey, quality Products,
quality service for quality life. Yep, they're the ones. So if you're
thinking about a generator, make sure you start with Quality Home Products of Texas.
We want you to have good, good success with that, because I
tell you one time I drove out of town and the power went off and
I cannot describe with words the smell of food that's been closed up in a
power or less refrigerator or freezer over time. Wow, that gets right.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you haven't gotten my
schedule offline yet, you need to go to gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot com. The lawn care schedules on there. There's also
the pest disease and we'd management schedule that's on there. These are available if
you have you have options. If you want to go synthetic or organic,
you have options on there, these schedules to do that. There's other good
information that we've put up there. I'm about to really beef it up with
a lot more stuff once we get past this holiday season, and so just
bookmark that so you have it handy and you can refer to it as you
need to. I talked earlier about out Microlife products, and sometimes people will
call and ask me about a particular Microlife product, and it's nice to be
able to just say, yes, that's a quality product, because that's what
they produce their at Microlife. Right now, I would suggest you get the
Microlife brown Patch five to one three. That's an orange bag Microlife brown patch
five to one three that is going to provide not only the nutrients to go
into winter with, which I keep telling you how important that is, but
it's also going to provide a lot of microbes to add to your soil and
some of the types of products that help build soil. In an organic product,
you get a lot more than just the three numbers on the bag.
Now, also the bioanoculant micro grows bioinoculant for microlife. That particular product is
used to add even more microbes that help populate the plant, services that help
populate the soil, that just make the plants healthier and healthier. So we
got an orange bag, we got a purple bag, light colored back.
I'd recommend you try both of those for micro life, and I think you
will be glad you did. Remember, when you're using these organic fertilizers,
you want to just use them consistently over time to build the soil and build
the overall health of the plant. As you build the soil with these products
over a period of time, and I think you will see the results from
that sort of thing. Well, Nikki, it's it's time for you to
take over here again. Uh, some of the news has been kind of
interesting today. It's kind of like, what are you talking about? Have
you ever done news ahead of time? Like predicted? Could you predict the
astros to when tonight? Yes, because if you could inform you of that,
I won't worry about it when I'm watching the game, I'll just I'll
just watch and enjoy it. I think that I think the mojo is with
them. I bet you've never had that request. All right, it's all
yours seven one three two one two five eight seven four. If you'd like
to give us a call, well, good morning, and welcome back to
garden Line. We are here to answer gardening questions or I don't know,
I guess we'd even allow a little bit of bragging on that tomato you guru
last year. You know, gardeners are always wanting to grow the best,
earliest and most wonderful tomatoes. A queen, Queen of the vegetable gardens.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. When when you're looking at
starting a new garden, you've never you've never gardened in a spot before.
Soil is everything. We want to make sure we build the soil, we
have good quality soil before we put in the plants. That is important for
those of you who listen, who are listening, who just are curious about
gardening. You'd like to garden someday, you want to try it out.
I would encourage you to start small. You know, we get these ideas
of grand and when you create a big garden right off the bat that is
a garden that every square foot of that you're gonna be dealing with weeds and
planting and you know, a lot of different things, and it gets out
of hand. It's more more than you can handle. I like to grow
into whatever garden size someone is able to handle or interested in putting their time
in. But soil is important, and I would suggest you start with a
soil test. I don't know, I don't talk about that enough here on
garden Line, but a soil test gives you an idea what you have right
now. Uh So, if you go online, there's a website it's soil
Testing, soil Testing dot t A m U dot ed U. Uh.
If you just go to the my lawn Care schedule at gardeningwithskip dot com,
you'll you'll see this, but soil testing dot t A MU, dot EEDU,
and you want the urbansoil test. I don't care if you're if you're
listening to a garden show, you want the urbansoil test. It doesn't mean
yet to live in Houston to use an urban You could live out in Timbuk
to in middle of nowhere. If you're growing roses and lawns and vegetables and
fruit and shape, that is horticulture. That's an urban soil test. And
you follow the instructions on how to take a sample. That is important.
You want a sample that is the equal amounts of soil from the top to
six inches deep. That's what you're aiming for. And you want to take
it in several places and mix it together and send them a pint of soil.
And when you do that, they'll be able to analyze it and give
you an accurate assessment of what you need or don't need. And when I
say they'll give you an accurate assessment, they'll give you an accurate assessment of
what's in the sample you sent them. But if you just go out there
and maybe scoop some soil in the yard and it happened to be a place
where Fido stopped, your family dog stopped last week or less fall. That's
going to be a little different nutrient content right there, and that won't be
representative of your So that's why we take a composite several different places, zigzagging
through the lawn. By the way, Bob and Seth was fertilizer. They
have a little salt test probe that you can check out. You have to
leave the deposit so you bring it back, but that'll help you take that
vertical core of soil. That's very important. When you get the results back
in, you'll see what situation your soil is, what's the pH of it,
what is the nutrient content of all the main nutrients that you need.
And the reason silt testing is important is this. Let me use a I
don't know if this analogy will work for you, but it does for me.
If you were if I were let's say, going to bake a cake
and I'm mixing all the ingredients up in the bowl and I stop, and
you walk in the room and I say, hey, do I need to
add more salt? I need to add more sugar or maybe baking powder whatever,
And you go, I don't know, I don't know what's in the
bowl already, so how could you advise me on that? Well, that's
kind of how it is. We recommend ratios of fertilize, and those are
good standards that cover most situations. But what if your yard was super low
and magnesium that's not one I normally talk about, but that's a very important
nutrient. Well, a soil test would tell you that, and you could
then fertilize accordingly to get the levels of that back up. Because your soil
is a bank account. It's a bank account of nutrients, and it's a
bank account of water. And when you have the bank account full, then
those plant roots going out there into the soil find every nutrient they need,
the big ones that they need lots of, and the little ones that are
equally essential that they just need a trace amount of. And that is our
goal in a successful garden. And as you build the soil, it becomes
your bank account of nutrients. Over time, some nutrients tend to go away.
Nitrogen, for example, we're always having to add it because it volatilizes
into the air, it washes away with water and rain. It gets part
of the cycle in the soil with microbes and plants and animals and everything else,
and so we had that a lot. But I would encourage you start
with a sol test this year. Cool season is a good time to add
one. I wouldn't soil test right after I fertilized, so maybe you would
want to do that, or early in the year, after the first of
the year. Get a so simple done prior to the spring gardening, or
maybe you know, later on in December or something like that. Send one
over there. But it's just a good idea. It's a good way to
start, and it helps you get off to a really really good start.
I mentioned Southwest Fertilizer a minute ago. Bob at Southwest Fertilizer has one of
those institutions here in Houston, the place that's been around a long time,
that everybody knows, everybody goes to, and that is what Southwest Fertilizer is.
It's been around since nineteen fifty five. I mean they were sponsoring garden
Line when Dewey Compton was in this seat. That's a long time ago.
Southwest Fertilizer makes it their goal to carry everything that you need. So,
do you need a fertilizer the ones I talk about in more are there at
Southwest Fertilizer. Do you need something for weeds or diseases or insects, or
you're an organic gardener and you want organic products for those things. Southwest Fertilizer
has all that. They have all that, lots of tools, lots of
great things. I always am talking about the folding or kneeling bench that they
have. It's a folding kneeling bench because it boy, I use it all
the time when I'm working in the yard and getting up and down and up
and down. It is really really cool. They have me in stock there.
And don't forget that soil probe that I mentioned earlier. I'm sure it
gets checked out a lot, so you may want to call ahead of time
make sure they got it in, but that is really important. They'll sharpen
your mower blades. And when we're ending our mowing season here, we want
to put all of our equipment to bed for fall and want to run all
the guests out of it. You want to bring the blades in, get
those things sharpened, and make sure it's ready to go whin spring mowing season.
Yeah, you could wait and do it in spring like everybody else and
their dog and get in line, But why not do some of those things
ahead of time. They do have that little small engine repair area where they
can take care of a lot of good quality products that you have purchased that
just need a little tweaking, a little small engine repair, maybe that weed
eater or something else like that, And they have the old fashioned service.
Southwest Fertilizer dot COM's website. By the way, I'm going to be there
next Saturday, Next Saturday on October twenty eighth, from eleven thirty to one
thirty. So at all these appearances, I invite everybody listens to the show,
come on out. Let's a visit. Let's check out on things.
We will be analyzing whatever you bring in, giving you advice, giving you
identifications, just to help out. Well, let's take a break right now.
See our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Give us a call, Josh. We'll get you on the board and
we'll talk to you when we come back. Well, good morning, beautiful
Sunday morning. We got today. Entering our last segment of the morning by
the way garden Line. If you're a new listener, garden Line is on
every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am, so it's eight hours
you can listen to over the weekend ask your gardening questions. It's also available
on podcasts, so if you miss the show and you want to go back
and listen to a podcast, you can do that if if you have the
iHeartRadio podcast app or really all your podcast app providers can provide you with garden
Line and you can listen to past shows that way if you would like to
do that. Sometimes I say things, people don't write them down and they
go, oh, what was that thing you said? Well, go back
and find out that way. That is another option that we have. Thanks
for being a listener, by the way, we invite you to tell your
friends about guarden Line. Still got a lot of people that don't know about
it. Sometimes when I'm out in the garden center, I'll visit with somebody,
just start talking to them about plants and things, and every now and
then I'll run into someone that didn't know there was a gardening show. Well,
oh my gosh, yes, absolutely check us out. This is the
season where we start thinking about holiday plants, and perhaps the most well known
and actually most purchased plant in the country is point Setta's points otta, the
big beautiful leave red typically but white and splotchy. There's so many types of
those. Now you want to take care of these really well. And I'm
going to give you some holiday plants and a few suggestions for those. Another
good holiday plant that people are very really enjoy or rosemary that are trimmed up
like they're just a little miniature Christmas trees or something. Those are beautiful,
They do very well inside. The holiday cactus. Both the Thanksgiving cactus and
the Christmas cactus bloom in the fall slash early winter season. And these things
that bloom in this season, like point settas and like holiday cactus, bloom
because the nights are getting longer and they're days or shorter. But it's the
long period of darkness that does that. Someone asked me the other day they
had a really nice point Setta that they kept alive from last year and they're
wondering, how do I make it bloom? Well, the way the way
you make it bloom is to make sure it is covered up from light from
five pm at the end of the day to eight am in the morning.
So just think of it this way. You go to work, you take
the cover off, you come home from work, you put the cover on,
and you do that for a couple of weeks. You can do that
in late September or in October, whenever, you'll do it, and it
triggers that bloom response, and then the blooms will come a little bit later.
When you're taking care of Christmas cactus and point setus, you want to
keep the soul moist evenly, but you don't want it to dry out at
all, and you don't want it to be soggy wet. So set them
in the sink, let them drain well, give them a good watering,
and then take them out and put them back in their place. The temperature
is also important with the Christmas cactus and Thanksgiving cactus. They like to be
on the cool side at night. Not as cool as we are outdoors,
but they like to be a little on the cool side, and heat drafts
and things like that can often cause blooms to shrivel up and fall off.
But those are great plants, and those are plants you can keep here after
year. I've got some that are several years old that I purchased a good
while back that are still doing well. There are other plants that are solder
in the holiday seasons. Just remember, plants want light, and in our
house there's not much light. So something you're planning on keeping like that rosemary,
you want to get it out into good sunlight so that they got plenty
of light to rejuvenate itself and then bring it back in. That ought to
be kind of an overall overview of some of the things and taking care of
these holiday plants. I'll talk about those more as we get a little further
along in the season. I just see a lot of people that purchase plants
and it's like, well, I don't know what I did, but all
the blooms felled off, So yep, that's it. You got to take
care of them. Another thing about that Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus too, by
the way, is putting them out side when we're having night times in the
maybe the upper fifties and leave them out for quite a few nights and maybe
a couple of weeks like that, And that is also part of helping initiate
that bloom bud formation. Those cooler temperatures might have been outside now for about
three weeks, and it was a little early to get them out, but
I went and did that, and then we're going to start seeing bloom bud
formation pretty soon here on those plants. When when we're dealing with weeds and
lawns, one of the things that a number of people have spoken about or
even complained about, those weeds that just don't seem to want to go away
no matter what you do. And we have weeds like that that you know,
first step is get your lawn as dense and healthy as you can,
block every bit of light that you can out. Make it a good thick,
dense lawn, and that chokes out all your annual weeds. Seeds they're
not gonna be able to come back up, or a perennial weed that comes
back from seed as well, that it'll prevent that. But when you have
plants that can coexist in Saint Augustine, that's when we have to resort to
a couple of things. One is cultural and the other is a spray type
thing. And this would include weeds like dollar weed, Virginia button weed.
Those are two prime examples, very difficult to control and they can just live
right there with the Saint Augustine fall aster is another one like that that can
live right in a tightly mode lawn. It does very well. And those
first of all cultural what is the plant? What does the plant need?
Well? In the case of Virginia button weed, it wants moist soil.
It loves moist soil. In the case of dollar weed, same thing.
Moist soil makes those weeds happy and makes them proliferate. So if you didn't
want a water properly before water in your lawn, a lot of people over
water, well, now you got another and to not over water. Just
give the loan a good soaking, let it dry out between waterings, and
it helped. It doesn't kill the weeds all, It just suppresses their growth.
They're not going to grow as fast and then we have to resort to
some post emergent products to kill them. Where the thing of a fall aster,
I do a lot of hand pulling myself, because you can have a
big old weed comes out of a single point in the middle, it's got
a taproot, and with moist soil you can wiggle it out of there,
use a weeding fork and get it out and especially this season of the year
where it's got all the blooms and the seeds on it. You just need
to pull it out. Don't leave it, or you'll leave all those behind.
So that would be a technique for that. But you have to do
if you're going to spray a pre emergent, you have to do it in
a season when it's going to be effective. And the younger the weed is
the better. Once that weed becomes what we would call reproductive, it's putting
out flowers and making seeds, those products aren't nearly as effective against it.
But the funny thing is that's when everybody notices the weed. That's why people
are calling now about fall aster, because fall Aster is making a heck of
a show out there. Fixed to put all those little blooms on some of
it's even started blooming here. But then in the cool season, weeds,
when spring comes, they just begin to bloom. They just bloom like crazy.
They're like our blue bonnets. They sprout in the fall, they go
through the winter, and then they take off growing and bloom in the spring,
flowers and seeds, and that's when people want to spray them. Well,
it's not a good time to spray them. Then they're getting they've hit
the reproductive stage and they propriarity have seeds on them, So using pre emergency
to prevent them, or using a post emergent early in the life when they're
still young, we can do a much better job of controlling and managing those
kinds of weeds. So those are just some tips on dealing with some of
the difficult weeds. Just remember it all begins with proper lawn care, and
proper lawn care can be summarized with water fertilize. You can throw in some
aerration in there when needed for things. That's good too, but mow water
fertilize. That's a secret to having a beautiful and a healthy lawn. And
by the way, if you lost your lawn this summer, if you lost
large sections and you're having to replant, do a little investigation about the different
varieties that are out there. Because we keep improving on turf grass. There's
constantly trials going on across the South on turf grass varieties, coming up with
better and better varieties. I was talking the other day about cobalt and in
variety that is very drought resistant. It's a saint Augustine that almost rivals of
Bermuda grass when it comes to drought resistance. Well, if you got to
replace a lawn, that's a good idea, right, you can consider that
one. There's a lot of good varieties out there, But do a little
investigating and shopping around, because you know, you don't want to replant lawn
every This is a this is a long term investment that you're making in your
landscape. And I hope that help a little bit. When we get back
into the growing season and things start to move along, warming up and the
grass is growing and taking off, a great time to make those renovations in
your lawn and so just kind of put that on the back burner and think
about it. Do some learning in the meantime. So when you go shopping,
you know what you're looking for. Well, you've been listening to gardens'
success. We're here every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am.
I just want to remind you that this coming Saturday, October twenty eighth,
from eleven thirty to one thirty, I'll be a Softwest Fertilizer on the corner
of this sinet and runway in Southwest Houston. Look forward to meeting you,
to visiting with you. It's always great just to visit, but if you
got anything you want to ask about, here's your chance for some one on
one eye to eye time with me where we can diagnose, we can identify.
Bring some samples in in bags, Bring some photos in. Photos are
great, just check them first, make sure they're in good sharp focus because
I can't figure out what fuzzy is supposed to be in the photo. But
anyway, thanks for listening. We look forward to visiting with you again next week