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
shoes mill, Crazy Trim. Just watch him as we may. Thanks to
suppot crazy business was not a sign credits the sun Beamon of Well. Good
morning, Good morning on what is going to be the best weekend we have
had yet. Oh my gosh, the weather is unbelievable. Everybody should be
a gardener this weekend. Sunshine, find wonderful mild temperatures, and our garden
centers are stocked up. I've been running around looking at some of the different
places in town and it's just, oh my goodness. You got to get
in there and halsome stuff because they are busting at the seams with beauty and
bounty and all kinds of cool things. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm
your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number if you would like to
give us a call. By the way, this is a call in sho
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I am looking forward today to visiting with you
about whatever is of interest to you. I've definitely got some things I'd like
to talk about today. I'll be doing that. But what kind of questions
do you have. Let's talk about that. Let's find out if we can
help you have a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful garden, and certainly
a more beautiful landscape out there. You know, if you have not tried
containers on your patio. Maybe everybody's got a container or two, I guess,
but if you've not really come up with some beautiful containers to just really
be showstoppers, you ought to consider it. Because here's the deal about containers.
Containers are portable, so you can move wherever you want. You know,
if a plant wants a little break from the hot afternoon sun, you
can put the container in a spot like that. You don't always have a
spot like that in a flower bed maybe, depending on your yard and trees
and all of that. But with a container, you can when a plant
starts not looking so good, put it out, put any one in the
container, or move the container. I have a thing called the hospital.
It's like where the containers go sit while I recuperate them, and so they're
back there getting back in, you know, back in good shape, and
while I put some other container in a nice spot to view, so there
you can trade them like that. You can. You don't have room for
a vegetable garden, why not a container, but certainly for flowers spilling over
the sides and everything. Jungle Land is a product by nitrofoss It is a
soil product, should say, media growing media potting soil. And if you
really want to ignite some beautiful solid color and really support good growth in your
container plants, jungle end can do that. It's called jungle end flour and
vegetable potting soil or planting soil. And the reason is because you can grow
pretty much anything you want in it, including flowers and Vegetables's got Canadian blompede,
it's got four sources of age, organic materials, micarizal fungi. It
just gets you set up, if you know what I mean. And indoors,
why not try jungle lands water saving potting soil. It's got these little
crystals in it that soak up water and hold on to it and gradually are
going to release it over time. Even when the soil begins to dry out,
those crystals are a source of moisture for your plants to help them extend
a little further between waterings. Now, where do you find jungle land their
outdoor flour and vegetable or their indoor jungle land water savor, potting soil.
Well, you can find it a Bearing's hard where both the one on Bisonette
and the one on West tim Or habit. You go out to the Richmond
Rosenberg area plantation. Ace Hardware carries those and then hiden and feed on Stupient
Airline also carries these jungle at as well as other nitroposs products. I have
been doing repotting. I've been doing some bumping up of plants, and I've
not started my outdoor planning, but that is next week. I'm going to
get some plants this weekend, and I have a few in mind. I
like things that trail over the side of a big container. I like things
that you know, fill in with flowers beautifully, and then certain certainly something
very upright that's kind of striking. Ornamental grasses. Some of the ornamental grasses
work really well for that because they have an upright growth habit. They call
that combo a thriller, filler and spiller, thriller meaning it sticks up in
the air, thriller or filler it fills in around the sides, and then
spiller it spills over the side. That's just one way to remember a thriller,
filler, spiller. So if you're looking at a pot going I don't
know what to put here, well, either put one nice plant that'll fill
the whole thing that's very legit, or if it's a really big pot,
consider doing the thriller, filler and spiller. And if you go to a
good garden center where they know what they're talking about, they're going to be
able to tell you here would be a good plant to put in the center,
Here would be some good plants to fill in around the sides. And
here's some good ones for trailing. I love the trailing petunias that we have
now, just beautiful, beautiful. Bubble gum is just one of many great
trailing petunias, and they just bloom themselves to death. And I tell you
another good one is Lobularia. It's basically a lissum, that white flower that
spills over the sides, but it's a type. There's one called white stream.
And there's some other good hardy ones that go into summer really really well.
They laugh at the summer heat. So why not set up a like
that, make plans to water it too. Uh. You know, containers
do need more frequent watering than plants in the ground. I'm setting up at
I did it last year, and I'm adding some to it this year.
A little drip irrigation system on a faucet timer, and it has a little
line that runs along the edge of the patio and a tube comes up from
it to each of the containers. So that set it and forget it,
I mean, and you don't have to remember to go out and water the
things. It takes care of it for you. I think that works good.
Hey, if you'd like to give us a call, the number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four. It's always good to
call early in the day because things tend to be a little quieter at that
time, so we can get you right on right now. If you'd like
to ask a question. Uh, I uh, let's see. Let's go
on out to the phones here. I'm gonna go to Katie and we're going
to talk to Ralph. Hello, Ralph, do we have Ralph? Yes?
Sir, can you hear me? Yes, sir, now I can't.
Okay, fantastic. Have a question. I just did the aeration this
week and was curious, I haven't started putting anything down. What kind of
order would you recommend? Well on my lawn care schedule which is on the
website at gardening with Skip dot com. It now is the time, especially
out there in your Katie area. Now would be a good time to go
out and go ahead and do your early green up if you want to do
one of those now. This is it's still cool, the soil is still
cool out there, and the grass is kind of a sleepyhead right now.
But when you put that down you'll get an early greening of the grass.
And then once we get into April, we begin to do our series of
summer fertilizations to carry it on through the year. But this is a fast
release early green up product, so you want you want the nutrients to be
available right away. Okay, And I do you have the barricade and the
as and might yeah? Can those all be put down not in the same
spreader, but at the same time, But yes, would you do it
the same day or over a period of time you could do it all the
same day. If you want to knock it all out A's and MT you
can do anytime. We don't worry about timing on it. You pretty much
can do it whenever you want. The barricade, timing is very important and
you need to get it out asap, water it in, you know,
make sure it gets into the soil. You know, if you the barricade,
another nitroposs product, is there, Imperial, that's the red bag.
It's a fifteen to five to ten nitrophile. I have that, yeah,
nitrophos, Yeah, the Imperial. So what I would do is I would
put the nitroposs Imperial out and then or the barricade, or vice versa.
But put them both out before you water, and then put about a half
inch of water, and that moves the barricade into the soil's surface and it
dissolves the Imperial and gets it going down in the soil as well. So
if you put them both out, then you can just do the half inch
and move them both into the soil. And that's okay. To put the
A's of mid in also, right, Yes it is. And I've got
a hard break here, Ralph. But the A's Mike could also be done
at the same time, and don't worry about watering it in at any particular
thing. Hey, thank you very much for the call. Sorry, we
got to run. We'll be right back. Our number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line. Glad
you're with us today. We've got a lot to talk about. And if
they're If there's such a thing as a traffic jam in the in the landscaping
garden, we are at the very beginning of it right now. It is
fixing to get crazy out there. Everything wants to grow, as things green
up and flowers pop up, and people start to get gardening fever, and
here we go. We are on the run for sure. Last summer was
such a dry one that our landscapes took a really serious beating. It was
hot and it was dry, and it was dry for a long time,
and it was very hot for a long time, and that causes all kinds
of issues because plants can't get the moisture they need. But another issue it
causes is we have a lot of clay soil around here, and clay soil
has a factor that is called shrink and swell. And what that means is
it gets wet, it swells, it gets dry, it shrinks, And
that's a lot of movement. You may not think of it as such,
but when you have you ever seen clay soils in like a two inch gap
in the backyard when it gets dry, I mean you could lose a small
toddler in the backyard running around. Well, that's an issue for our foundations,
for our driveways, for our sidewalks, everything. And that's why fix
my slab foundation repair is there. I mean, we are going to have
those problems in this area because if it's the soil we have and it's the
weather we have. And Ty Strickland knows what he's doing. He's been doing
this for twenty three years, and he can come out. You know,
if you look up and you got a crack in the sheet rock, cracking
the brick, that kind of movement, doors are sticking, that would be
a time to have him come out, take a look see what the situation
is. Don't be an ostrich put your head in the sand. It doesn't
get better, it just gets worse. So check things out early. Now
you can go to the website. It's fixedmyslab dot com, or you can
give Ty a call two eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine.
That's two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. Listen. He
shows up on time, he does the job right, and he gives you
a fair price. Tell him that you are a guardenline listener and you get
a free estimate with fix my slab again. Two eight one two FIY five
forty nine forty nine. Want to head up to Centerville now and talk to
Craig. Hey, Craig, how are things up in the northern hinterlands of
Centerville. They're fine. I called last week and ask you about a spreading
the oak pond that had been cut already, and I got a newion of
opinions on using remedy. You gave me yours, and that's the one we're
going with my next. My only other question I had is it has been
cleared land and it's pretty much dirt and it's a lot of sand, a
lot of sandy soil. What kind of grass would you recommend just broadcast spreading
out there? And I'm not looking for a man. If you're lawn like
Saint Augustine or something like that just something so I'm not basically mowing over dust
and dirt. You got something that grows in real sandy soil, or can
recommend something well, And this is this is almost it's not real lawn.
It's more just kind of like a little short meadow kind of look is what
you're going for? Correct, correct time? Three times a year or something.
We're not we don't have a house built on the property yet. It's
just right now. What I would reckons, Yeah, what i'd recommend you
do. There's a company called Native American Seed in Junction, Texas, Native
American Seed, and you can go online look at the website, and you
can call them and say, here's where I live, here's the kind of
soil I have, and here's what I want. And they have seed blends
for all over the state, for all the regions and everything, and they
could get you a good seed blend that you could put out there, get
it watered in with with some rainfall, because it's probably too big of an
area to irrigate and get that thing started and sooner rather than later. But
that you can buy it in bulk, and and I think that's probably going
to be your best bet. Okay, and the name of the company games
are Native American seed in junction at injunction in the whole country. All right,
Well, every time you call somebody, you get a different opinion.
But I'll give them a call. We'll stick with. Well, we give
you, we give you the right opinion, or at least we try.
Now, I've known many people over the years that work with them, and
I've seen their blends and their work and talk to them and uh, they
know what they're talking about. So I for a pasture situation. I'm going
to call it a pasture situation like that. I think that's what I would
do. Sounds like a perfect fit. Thank you so much for your time.
Have a great day, you bet, Craig, take care, Thanks
for the call. Appreciate that. 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'd like to give a call and talk about what is of
interest to you. You know, it's time for spring fertilizing, and that
is you know that's upon us and uh, but you know, when you
take care of your soil, it's more than just putting a fertilizer nutrient on
your soil. Uh, there are things that improve the soil itself, and
humates is one of those examples. Humates humus is basically when organic matter decomposes,
it becomes compost, and then when it decomposes more it becomes humus.
Think of it that way, just to simplify it. It's the final kind
of stage as it breaks down. Humus improves your soil. It is very
very good for stimulating the biological activities in the soil, for hanging on to
the nutrients that you put down, for opening up the soil. And mean
when we say opening up, we mean taking a dense, dense, heavy
clay and improving that soil structure which gets water and oxygen and everything in the
soil and microlife has a product called humates plus. It's a it's a purple
bag, purple and it's the numbers on the bag are zero zero four,
So it's got some potassium in it. But the real thing that it has
in it is loads of many, many, many different types of microbes and
that humus base that over time just improves your soil. You know, in
a natural system like nature or like an organic growing system, we build the
soil slowly over time, little by little. That's how nature makes the best
soil on earth. And that's how you can make your lawn better with Microlife
or humates plus the hum mats plus. For Microlife, you can go to
Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out where to get it. I can just tell
you this, it's pretty much available everywhere. If I talk about a feedstore
and you know the Southwest Fertilizer and all of our great garden centers around,
they're going to have Microlife hum Mates plus. Just give them a call,
check it out, and check that product out and get on that schedule of
putting that down on a regular basis each year, just maybe twice a year,
to make sure and get your soil over time built better and better and
better. Let's head out to the woodlands and we're going to talk to Mark.
Hello Mark, Hello, Skip, good morning morning. Hey hey Skip.
The other day I was listening to you talk about you're giving some people
some advice on putting sad down on a piece of land that already had the
pre emerging down. Yes, and you had mentioned and you didn't need it
to wait till probably May. And I was always thought that the pre emergent
stopped the seeds from growing and not necessarily sod from grilling. Well, the
way most pre emergents work, and we're talking about a lot of different chemistries
here, but the way most of them work is when the root of the
seed tries to go down and establish the plant, it prevents that, and
so the the it either kills the seedling out right or it free you know,
stops the root development and growth. And so when you put new sid
down and you've put a pre emergent on the surface and now you're laying the
sod on top of that, that side is going to have trouble rooting in
until that pre emergent breaks down, and it will break down over time.
And so I wouldn't do a pre emergent and then try to lay fresh new
sid on it. I would I would lay the sid and then do the
pre emergent, or if you've already put it down, actually if you put
it down a little on the heavy side, I would give it some time
before and it's not you know exactly, you know this many weeks and it's
gone, but it's a gradual thing. But yeah, can I I'm a
little impatient here, Can I dig it up? Did take an enter too
out and then put some new top soil down and then put it on.
That's a lot of work. What I would do is get a rototiller and
just as best you can break that surface up and mix the soil up a
little to spread that product where it's not just a force field sitting on top
of the soil surface, which is how we normally want it to be for
weed control. But mix it up and that would probably help out in terms
of your grasp being able to get some rooting done. Okay. And then
still you need but you don't need a pre emergent underneath your side anyway.
But if it's already there, I would do the rototill. I think that's
much less work than trying to dig it up. Okay, okay, all
right, thank you very much. Appreciate it, Yes, or Mark,
I appreciate appreciate your call very much. Uh yeah, that something we just
have to watch for, you know. Let me just say this about products
in general. Chemicals in general, each product has a purpose and it works
very well for that purpose when you follow the label instructions. If you go
under the label, then you're probably not going to get the full result you
were looking for if you go over the label. There's often consequences for that.
And I'm speaking general here. I'm talking about there's fungicides, there's insecticides,
there's herbicides, growth regulators, there's a lot of products out there.
But we have a tendency and I think I'll just pick on guys here.
I think we guys are a little worse. You know, we No problem
we've ever is insurmountable. If you don't get a big enough hammer, right,
guys, Well, if you think that a tablespoon is better than a
teaspoon when the label says teaspoon, you're making a mistake. Don't do that.
There's a reason the label is there. And we often blame products for
problems when in fact it's operator error that created the problem. But just reckonize.
I mean, think about anything you use in your life, household chemicals
or anything like that. There is a proper and an improper use, and
so keep that in mind to avoid creating even more problems than you would need
to be facing and more challenges for your plants and your gardening activities. Have
you been out the arbor Gate. They have a brand new parking lot.
I don't know if you've been out there recently, but they have a brand
new lot. It's been around a few months, but most people just aren't
aware of it. But it's Trashel Road. It goes behind the arbor Gate.
So whether you're coming from east or west, when you get before you
get to the Arborgate, Tresher Road is going to head to the south,
go around behind Arburgate and come back to twenty nine twenty, so you can
go either way, come in before it or after it. That lot is
wonderful. It's all weather. It's it's you get you walk in. They've
got wagons and stuff there for you. You're ready to go, you can
shop and head right back out to your car, as simple as that.
And let me tell you, the arbor Gate is loaded with blooms right now.
The color is unbelievable. It is just outstanding. The camellias, azaleas,
all the different kinds of flowers that you need. And of course Arburgate
has shrubs, they've got trees, they've got vegetables and herbs and on and
on and on, and lots of cool garden bling too. By the way,
but just try check them out and check out that new parking lot.
You will be very impressed. I know the Arborgate is out on twenty nine
to twenty just west of tom Ball. Well, we're going to take a
break here. It's time for Nicky in the news and I'll hand the baton
over or maybe the golden microphace. Is it golden, Nikky, it's a
golden microphone over to you and we'll be right back if you'd like to give
us a call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to garden Line. We got a lot to talk about today.
Listen, if you if you do not have gardening fever, you need to
check your pulse because it spring is here. I mean it is. What
do they say, Spring is busting out all over. We are looking forward
to getting a lot of flowers in the ground this week. I've got a
number of projects in the backyard that I want to start doing a little bit
of drainage stuff. We got some I need to do some preparation putting in
a new lawn area from some losses last year due to two different things.
Take all root right and chinchbugs. I left for a couple of weeks,
and when I came back, it's like they were hiding around the corner,
and when I drove down the road, they ran to the yard and took
off and did their damage. What a mess? What a mess? Do
you live down in the League City area? I want to tell you about
your hometown feed store. That is League City Feed, And we love feed
stores here on Guardline. League City Feed is one of those, been around
forty years and yes, it's that great old time. I just love going
into one of the old time feed stores. You know. The Thunderbergs have
been running that store for a long time now. Of course their dad or
grandfather actually built it. Wes and Madison now take care of the place and
it just keeps getting better. They've got all the products I talk about in
terms of fertilizers and soils and whatnot. Do you need to control insects,
disease or weeds. They can set you up there. Quality pet food,
they've got it. So do you live anywhere in that region? And I'm
talking about down there on Highway three, just a few blocks south of ninety
six in League City. But if you're in Santa Fe or Dickinson or Bay
Cliff or Webster, El Comuna, Rial, Lamark, Clair Lake City.
You get the idea, all those communities down there, this is your hometown
feed store. Give them a call two eight one three three two, sixteen
twelve. They're Monday through Saturday nine to six, closed on Sunday. Two
eight one three three two, sixteen twelve. I want to head out to
Conro now and we're going to talk to John. Hello, John, good
morning, Skip. How are you doing. I'm well, thank you well,
thank you for taking my call, and I just got a quick question
for you. I've been in my house to new home, I say a
new home my body when it was new. I've been in about twelve years.
And the builder, of course, planted a couple of nice live oaks
out front, and one of them doing real good, nice and healthy.
The other one, which is not too far from it, it's losing a
lot of its leaves, and you know those stay green typically all year,
but it's getting real thin on the leaves. It looks like it's not doing
too well. And I don't know. The bark has a little different look
to it as well, But I don't know if there's something I can put
in the ground for fertilization purposes or whatever to get it kind of back to
some better health because I'm worried about losing it. Okay, now are you
talking about a How long has that tree do you think been in the ground.
Roughly I've brought at twelve years. Well, okay, yeah, it
definitely should have established by now. I would dig down around the base of
the trunk and look to see if there is a root that had encircled the
trunk and gotten bigger as the trunk got bigger, and now the root is
strangling the trunk, it's wrapped around it. It will be embedded into the
trunk. I don't mean just a circle you see out away from the trunk.
I mean literally embedded into the trunk. Look for that. That's the
first thing. If you find it, as best you can with a hammer
and chisel, try to get it out of there. It may not be
practical to get that done, but if you find it, that could be
one of the cause of a tree over time not getting better but getting worse.
And the other thing. If you don't find that, then I think
we just need to look at giving it a boost with some fertilizer. Get
your good a good mix. You know, microlife has a six four six.
It's an organic fertilizer, and you're not going to burn the tree with
it. And I would I would sprinkle it around, work it into the
surface. If you can make the mulched area around it as big as possible.
If you ask the tree, it would want mulch all the way out
to the edge of the branches. Now that may not esthetically be okay in
your yard, but more than just a foot or two of mult we want
to make it think it's living in a forest, and so put the microlife
out underneath the branch. Bread. So take your thumb and go up to
the trunk. And for every inch of trunk diameter I think, did you
say it was an eight inch trunk or I'd say, I'd say it's probably
eight to ten inches maybe yeah, we're there, Yeah, So I would
give it probably let's see pints for six I'd give it about two quartz of
microlife spread around underneath the branches, right, okay, and work it into
the soil, into the mult or whatever. Expand that multary if you can
water it in well, and then do that again twice more this summer,
about two or a month from now, and then about two months later,
and then make sure it gets a good soaking. And I think that's doing
all you can do to try to get it back on its feet. Well,
I appreciate that. I didn't know what to use, and so I
thought who else to call of it? Skill. I'm glad you did.
Thank you for the call, John, and good luck with that tree.
Thank you, sir. All Right, you take care. Yeah, you're
talking about trees and planting and stuff. Just reminded me. A tree stabilizer
product is just available now in more and more places. And if you're not
familiar with tree stabilizer, think of it as a bar that attaches to the
tree and attaches to a post. It's made so it'll attach to those little
tea posts, those iron t posts you drive in. And unlike wires guy
wires that are going from the tree down to the bottom, it doesn't cut
into the trunk. It's got a soft rubber strap that allows movement in the
tree, and that's important. Movement strengthens a trunk, Movement strengthens any plant.
It's like our muscles. The more you stress them and stretch them at
the gym, the more strong they get. And that is the same thing
with tree trunks. And that's why I like tree stabilizers so much. That
in the fact that you're not tripping over wires and you can just use one
post or you can do two at ninety degree angles. Two stabilizers grabbing onto
the tree, so north southeast west, whichever way the wind blows, it
holds on to it very well. You can find them at RCW. You
can find them at Buchanans and arbor Gate and Plants for all seasons. Down
south at jorgesid and Gardens they have them. Southwest Fertilizer Southwest Fertilizer has them
now as well, and I even saw them out at Verdant Tree Farm.
So not hard to find those things. Very valuable product and you can use
it over and over and over again. It's fast and simple to set up.
Forget those guy wires. Just gets you a three sixty tree stabilizer and
it will do the job for you, and it'll do it right. That's
that is very important. Hey, 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 visiting with David up at RCW Nurseres yesterday, just planning
a trip up to go see the tree farm they have up in a Plannersville
area. RCW has every kind of plant you can imagine. Right now,
that place is busting with roses and shrubs and trees. You know, they
grow all the best kind that belong here. They can come out and plant
them for you too. By the way, But if you've been thinking about
putting out a rose, or if you just need any kind of plants,
rcw's got it. And that's that nursery. You may not be familiar with
it, it's it's RCW is where Tombo Parkway comes into belt Wag eight.
Just do this. Just go to the website and you can find out everything
you need to know. R c W Nursery dot com. Well, we're
hitting the brake here. We're gonna have this stop and we'll be right back.
Our phone number is seven to one three two one two K T R
H. Welcome back to Garden Line. Glad to have you with us today.
Boy, do we have a lot to talk about and if you have
something you want to ask about, you'll need this number seven one three two
one two k t RH seven one three two one two k t RH.
That makes it easy to get a hold of us. If you're out and
about stocking up getting the things you need, you need to include a stop
at Southwest Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer is on the corner of Byssinet and Runwick in
Southwest Houston. And what do you need? Do you need fertilizer? They
have everything that is on my list, my lawn care schedule, and then
some Do you need stuff to control pest diseases or prevent weeds, They've got
it. You know, we were talking about barricade earlier, the nitrofoss product,
they've got it, they absolutely do, and then many other products by
night fast. As a matter of fact, Southwest Fertilizer just keeps you stocked
up. Whether you like synthetic products or whether you're an organic gardener. They
have a complete line and if they don't have it, you don't need it
because they have everything that you could possibly need at Southwest Fertilizer. You can
go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. By
the way, I was just mentioning earlier talking about the three sixty tree stabilizer.
Yep, they've got those now too. They've got that kneeling bench that
I think is so nice, a folding kneeling bench. You can use it
as a seat, you can flip it upside down and kneel on it,
and it got the legs become handles to help you get back up again.
Listen. If they don't have it, you don't need it, and they
really really do. If you got a problem, bring a sample, bring
a picture. They can direct you to a product that works, and they
won't steer you wrong because they know what they're talking about. Southwest Fertilizer,
if you'd like to have McCall seven to one three to give me seven one
three six six six seventeen forty four seven one three six sixty six seventeen forty
four. You're listening to garden Line, and we let's call this the spring
edition of garden Line. Oh my, listen, I say this all the
time. I'm a broken record and I'm going to continue to be a broken
record. And that is that if you want to have success with your plants,
the first thing you do is build the soil and I like to put
it this way, brown stuff before green stuff. That's how it works.
What is brown stuff, Well, it's the compost that you put in the
soil. It's the soil bed mixes. It's the container plant mixes that are
quality that you put in containers. It's the fertilizers that add the nutrients.
In the case of a lawn, it could be something you know, like
an azumite application to get the mic micronutrient, the trace minerals down in the
soil. You know, most product. All of those things are part of
the brown stuff that sets the stage, that builds the foundation. How many
analogies do I need in one sentence for a success with plants? I don't
care if it's a vegetable plant, an herb, a flower, a tree
or shrub, a lawn. Bronze stuff is very very important. And I
then comes the wonderful fun green stuff with the blooms and the tomatoes and all
the cool above ground things that we enjoy. But you want to start with
the brown stuff. The folks that enchanted gardens really know how to provide that
complete package. Do you need fertilizers they carry them. Do you need quality
soil products we talk about here. They carry them. Go to Enchanted Gardens
Richmond dot com. They're the one on the Katie Fullsher side of Richmond.
So if you're in Richmond, you head up in the direction of Katie or
Katie Fullsher Well that is in Chenny Gardens. They're on FM three fifty nine
and they have everything that you can imagine. They are stocked up on everything
from shrubs and teas and roses and vegetables and herbs and flowers and all the
bling you need to go with the garden. It's just a fun place.
It's a destination. Why not make a day of it when I get out
this weekend and visit in Chenny Gardens in Richmond. They're open today from eight
to five and tomorrow from ten am to four pm. I love to go
out there every time I go. It's like cool stuff, new stuff to
see and to play with. Hey seven two two KTRH is the phone number
if you want to give us a call. I want to talk just a
little bit about general lawn care. This is a time when we're diving big
into it, and that's why I put the lawn care schedule online at my
website again, that's Gardening with Skip dot Com. And what you'll see when
you look there is like, oh, it's time to start the spring greenup.
If you're gonna do early green up, now's the time to do it.
Now. That's an optional fertilizer, but it will make your lawn greener
early on, it looks better. And when we really kick into fertilization is
through the warmer months like April, May, June, July. That's the
time when we get those fertilizers down for an extended feed. It's always a
good time to put down a tracemental supplement like the azemiit I mentioned while ago.
If you're doing an organic fertilizer, everything synthetic and organic are on both
of my lists. One list is Lawn Care Schedule. One list is Lawn
Pest Disease and Weed Management Schedule. They're both free. They're both at Gardening
with Skip dot Com and when you see them, just print them out.
Print your copy out. You can have it there as a reference, or
you take it with you when you go shopping and point at something say hey,
I need one of these, You got it, and pick up the
supplies that you need it's always a good time to get sold testing done.
Don't soil test right after you fertilize, for you fertilized, because once you've
fertilized, you've kind of messed with the results of what the soil test is
going to say. So do that before you fertilize. But it's always a
good time to do that as well. If you're trying to take care of
your trees, and I hope you are, because the most valuable plant in
your landscapes. Affordable tree service, that's what they're all about. Martin spoon
Moore has thirty years of experience. He knows how to take care of a
tree, from minor pruning to major pruning, to advising you on selecting and
planting, caring for trees, taking care of the roots you're going to do,
any trenching or any put in a new sidewalk or driveway or something,
or a house lab. Maybe about a piece of property you're gonna put a
house lab on it. You need to get him out there to look because
I'm telling you this, when damage is done to a tree, it is
almost impossible to completely fix it. Bad pruning is for life on a tree,
and once you've cut roots. Once you've damaged the tree that way with
construction, it's hard to get out of it. But Marden knows what he's
talking about. Give him a call at seven one three, six nine nine,
twenty six sixty three, seven one three six ninety nine two six six
three. Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoon, Moore if you like websites, afftree
Service dot com aff tree Service dot com. He stays busy because he does
things right. So tell him you're a garden line listener and get at the
front of the line. Make sure you get on his schedule. He'll get
around to it. He'll come over and he'll take care of things. He'll
make sure your trees are taken care of right, because listen, it is
the most important plant in terms of value to your home. In a landscape
and in hot Texas Summer's big, beautiful, healthy, strong, storm resistant
trees are essential. That is for sure. Anybody's lived through one Texas summer
knows how much a good shade tree can make life a little bit better.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. By the way, today
after the show, I'm going to jump in the car and make a b
line for Ana Plants and Produce in Montgomery. Ana Plants and Produce is there
on Highway one oh five, just on the east side of Montgomery. So
all of you listening from Montgomery, from the whole Lake Conroe area or Conroe,
even the Woodlands if you on't drive up and how about this, maybe
somebody is over in Navasota, Texas or one of those little communities out that
way. This is about as close as I'm going to get as far as
an appearance to where you are. I hope you'll come out and see me.
Bring a sample, Bring you know, a bag with a diseased or
insect plant infested plant, or a maybe just something you want identified. Uh,
bring me some pictures, show me things in the landscape that you have
questions about. We'll just sit there to I I'm going to be given away
eight bags eight bags of Nelson's turn star weedinator, and you need to get
that down soon. Now would be the time to get that done. We're
gonna be giving away a bag about every fifteen minutes, we'll give away another
bag of it. I'm going to have a few Texas Gardener magazines to give
away while you're up there. It's just going to be a really, really
fun time. If you are looking for an organic fertilizer for your lawn,
nitrofas Sweet Green is awesome. It is a eleven percent nitrogen product that gradually
releases over time. It's some molasses based product that just stimulates the microbial activity.
Microbes love sugars and it kicks them into high gear. And a Sweet
Greens one of the highest analysis for any organic product that you're gonna find.
You know, people ask me sometimes where do I get Where do I get
nitrofoss? Well, go out to Chended Forests done in Richmond, maybe growers
outlet up in Willis or RCW Nursery out there on Tombail Parkway and Beltway eight.
Lots of places you can get nitrofross product. We're gonna take a little
break and we will be back to answer your phone questions. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two ive eight seven four. I hope you'll
give us a call and we can talk about that kind of thing. There's
a lot of stuff going on around town, you know, way down south
at Moss Nursery. Uh Andy chid Ester who is with Medina Ag Products.
She's going to be out there today from nine am to four pm. Now
you can't leave, you can take the radio with you, but I hope
you'll hope you'll keep listening to garden Line nine am to four pm. Andy
is a wealth of information that she'll be out at Moss Nursery and Seebrook to
day. Those of you way down south and east, well you don't want
to miss that. Katrh Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products
or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat RH Garden Line with Scipe
Richter. It's so crazy exist as the world go, so many give things
to suppos A sad welcome back to Guardline. Glad to have you listening today.
What do you want to talk about? Let's talk about it. Anything
related to plants, plant problems, fertilizing. I don't know what's of interest
to you. Give us a call it seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
want to mention today I was talking a little bit earlier about lawns and lawn
timing and everything. If you are going to prevent weeds, if you're going
to prevent weeds with the pre emergent application, now's the time that you need
to get that done. Because here's here's how that works. These products go
down, you water them into the cell surface, and then when the weed
tries to germinate, When it tries to germinate, this prevents it from germinating
successfully. It can't get a root down, it can't get established. And
the folks at Nelson have a fertilizer called turf Star Weedinator, and here's how
it works. It's got a product in it that will prevent weed seeds from
germinating. Now. It also has a very slow release combination of forms of
nitrogen. So you're going to get a release of a little bit of nutrient
early on, and then over time it's just going to continue and continue on
through late spring releasing those slowly available forms of nitrogen to your growing grass.
And that kind of makes sense because your grass has grown up waking up slowly,
and as it wakes up and more and more it's continued to release.
So that's turf Star Weedinator. I'm gonna be giving away eight bags of that
at A and A Plants and produce today after the show, I'll be there
between twelve and two. You come every fifteen minutes, will you given away
bag? And if you happen not to win one, well they'll have plenty
on hand as well. Just turf Star weedinat. Remember that that's a very
very effective product. But like any pre emergent, and like any fertilizer,
after you apply it, you want to water it in. In this case,
I put about a half inch of water, get it moved down into
the soil surface, and that way the product in it that prevents the weeds
can actually do the work that it's supposed to do. I was earlier in
the week getting ready to plant up a raised garden bed. I've got a
rolling vego bed that I've just been needing to get around to getting planted.
In fact, today and tomorrow I'm going to be picking up some plants at
a couple of our great local garden centers to go in that thing and really
turn it into a showpiece. I love raised beds. Raised beds on the
ground make it to work. You can get down in them and get your
work done. And they're nice because you don't have to plow up the back
forty for a garden or a flower bed. You just put the bed on
the ground and fill it up with a super high quality growing mix. And
we'll say you so to speak, you hit the ground running. And there's
a lot a lot to be said for getting going with a really quality mix
and getting started in that bed. And then a raised bed, it's the
same thing, you put a quality mix in it. I'm going to be
using kind of a veggie and herb mix. That's one of the many products
that the folks at Heirloom Soils heirloom soils that they carry, and it's excellent
for any kind of vegetables or herbs. But I got to tell you something,
it's good for all kinds. I'd plant flowers in the thing. I
mean, they've got a wide range of mixes. They've got stuff for fruit
and acid loving plants like azalias and camellias. They've got the potting soils like
the works Potting soil oil, which is an outstanding soil for putting in your
outdoor containers. By the way, you can find that at places like aspas
Ace in the Woodlands. Kingwood Garden Center's got it over Nelson Watergarden over in
Katie, they've got it. Mid County feed way up in needer or way
out in Neederland, they've got that as well. Warren's Southern Gardens. Easy
to find the cocktail mix. But whether you're looking for that or for their
veggie and herb mix, like I was talking about putting in my rolling bed,
just check it out at Airlooms Soilsoftexas dot com. They're available all over
the place. Go to air Loomsoils Off Texas dot com. You can find
maybe you need a lot of soil mix, maybe not just a few bags,
but you're you're really creating some big beds, or you need to cover
a large area. Well Heirlooms Soils Off Texas dot com find out more.
You can go pick it up at the porter location. You can you can
have it delivered. It's just how do you need it. They can provide
it that way. And when you start with the good stuff, you know
the mantra on garden line, brown stuff before green stuff. Well, Airloom
Soils can get you started with an awesome foundation for those plants. We're going
to go out to Manivel now and we're gonna talk to Adolf. Hey eight
off, Yes, good morning, and I'm going to ask you about is
it okay to plant potatoes seventy year in the race beds? Yes, it's
an excellent time to plant potatoes. People started it a while back. But
if you haven't gotten them planted, and you want to go ahead and get
it done, now, you're going to cut those you know how to plant
potatoes to cut the seed pieces right right? Okay, Yeah, I'm gonna
buy them from stamps in the alban Okay, well, then go ahead and
do that. I'd get them today, get them cut today, so that
in two or three days you can go ahead and get them in the ground.
Okay. And one war a what about BlackBerry uhcis? Yes, now's
a good time to plant those. And a lot a lot of our garden
centers are loading up on you know, really quality uh plants, the fruit
plants that is, like the blackberries, and so I would I would definitely
or definitely get that done as well. I want to prepare a couple of
spots in the backyard, but it's kind of low. When it rains,
it floods there. So I wanted to raise you know, put some more
dirty would I use is it rows? So you could use? Yeah,
you could. I would use a rosemex for a big bed like that.
I think that I think you're going to do. I think you're going to
do the best. You're going to do the best with that. Okay,
So you know, just down the road from you Jehes Hidden Gardens. They've
got a good selection of fruit including I believe they got some good blackberries too.
The last time I was out there. Uh, they are down in
Alvin, Texas. So that's just down the street from you. Just passed
Alvin. Actually, if you're heading for met you said, Sienna, No
Jorges, I'm talking about buying the BlackBerry plants. Jorges Hiden Gardens. Yes,
Sienna will get you fixed up on the mixes. They got those blends.
You never heard him, ye or something. He is on Elizabeth Street
in Alvin, Texas. Elizabeth Street. So you're you're just going to head
down Highway six, go past Alvin and a little further out. I believe,
just do a it's j. O. R. G. E.
Jorges Hidden Gardens and he's going to have everything that you might need out there.
Okay, got you very much. All right, you take care.
Yeah, the blackberries are a great, great plant. They they do very
very well here. And and uh, you know when I was at at
Hoges recently, good night, they had they had fruit trees. Oh my
gosh, go lower, just all kinds of peaches, and he carries a
kind that do well and lower chill. You know that down that far south.
It's one thing if you're up in the Conroe or Huntsville area and just
to which peaches do best. But when you get down south of Houston,
you need lower chill for sure. Peaches and or has plenty of those,
plenty of them on hand. It was a sea of them, as well
as a lot of other plants that they carry out there. I'm going to
take a little break right now and we will be back. The number if
you'd like to give us a call and get on the board for Josh seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, little sock
hot music there, get you dancing on a Saturday morning, by the way,
look outside, that's called a good day, a good good day for
gardening. The temperatures are just it's going to be mild today and wonderful.
I hope you will get out and start transforming that place. Hey, it's
springtime, let's have some fun out in the garden, right, that's important.
I was just visiting with Adoff from out in Menville and he was mentioning
Siena malt You know, Ciena Mulches is real close, real close to them.
They don't have to go very far at all. It's north of Roe
Sharon Highway six and two eighty eight that area. It's on FM five twenty
one. And Ciena Mulch has got the blends of everything that you would need
to have success with your with your gardens. We're talking about quality compost,
we're talking about mixes, we're talking about mulches to go on the surface.
They have all the fertilizers that I talk about on guarden Line. They carry
those. So where you're there, it is like brown Stuff City at Siena
Maltz. Everything you need to build the foundation. I call it the brown
stuff. And then when you put a plant in, it hits the ground
running because you've you've set the stage for success. And I would tell you
if you live down south of the Houston area, they deliver within twenty miles
of their area too. By the way, you can go to the website
Ciena Molts dot com. But to set the stage for success with Ciena Maltz
is always a good idea, a good start, a very very good idea.
They're open today, by the way, from seven thirty to two pm,
so don't delay. Let's go ahead and give them a call, or
go out there and grab it yourself. They got bags, and they've got
bulk and they have While you're there, check out their selection of stone and
rock. It is really really impressive. You need a patio, trust me,
you need one of those patios. We're going to go to friends with
now and talk to Ed. Hello. Ed, Hey, good morning.
How are you doing one? I'm well, thank you. I talked to
you right before the freeze. And we have three three date palms and they're
probably about three foot diameter. And the freeze got to the fronds, but
it didn't do as bad as it did in the past years, because you
can still see some green towards the middle of the tree. Okay, And
when would it be safe to go in and start trimming the front the fronds?
You can trim them now if you want, so when a palm tree
loses fronds. That's the only way that tree can make carbohydrates to support growth
and good health. So if there's a little bit of green left on a
frond, I would leave that green. Trim away the outsides, if you
will, but just leave them. Think of it as a nurse limb or
a nurse frond that's just helping it. And as that palm gets new fresh
growth on it, new fronds, you can take the old ones off.
But any green that you could leave for now, I think would be important
to help it sustain itself until it can get some Okay, So anything green,
and there's probably orbing's sun and absorbing energy, and you absolutely absolutely it's
doing photosynthesis and making the fuel that supports that plant's growth and health. Okay,
And I was thinking about fertilizing tomorrow. It's okay, it's good and
fertilized. Yeah, it is. The palm's probably not going to do a
lot of growing because it's still a little on the cool side, but you
can put some product like that out. And did you already have some product?
Do you already have some stuff on hand? I'm talking about the grass.
I'm sorry, Oh, the grass oh yeah, yeah, sure,
absolutely, Yeah, do you have that on hand or not? No?
Not not at this time. I was going to go buy some today.
Okay, Well you're you know where you are in friends with You've got a
lot of great options, a lot of there's some good good ace hardware stores
near you too, by the way down there that carry all the ones.
Have you? Have you gone online to check out my schedule gardening with skip
Stock? I haven't, and I'll have time to do that today. Yeah,
I would. I would encourage you to do that. Go ahead,
plant it out because there's a lot of good product on them. Sort putting
down malts we should be put Hell, yes, you're kind of cutting out
on me. Go ahead, Ed, I think I may have lost you
there? Are you there? All right? Well, I think he was
talking about putting out malts. Now's a good time to put out malt.
It's always a good time to put out malts. Uh. You just the
moult serves our gardens in a lot of ways. It makes sure that the
sunlight doesn't hit the soil, so it cuts down on weed problems. It
protects the soil surface from eroding and crusting, and does many other really really
good things. Speaking about doing really good things, jungle Land from nitrofoss does
really good things for your plants. If you want to ignite beautiful color in
those outdoor containers, jungle nds flour and vegetable potting soil, we'll do just
that. Jungle Lens flow and vegetable potting soilt for outdoors. It's got a
blend of peat with four different sources of aged organic materials mygarizal fungi. It
just makes sure you have long lasting, vibrant color. That's basically what it's
for. Holds water well but also drains well. Then indoors, Jungle Lens
water saving potting soil is a great solution for all your indoor plants. When
you put a product like when you put not a product like, but when
you put jungle land indoor potting soil, it's called the water savor potting soil,
you're going to have good water retention. But again when it gets dry,
those crystals that are in there hold onto the water to release it to
plants. So if you do miss a little bit of a watering schedule,
well it makes it more forgiving. It works out really well for that.
Now, where do you get that, well, you can get it to
alspas ace up in the woodlands. You can get it at Plants for All
Seasons on Highway two forty nine, or maybe out in Brennam Plants and Things,
one of many many places carries jungle land products as well as all of
the products from nitroposs. We're going to go now out to Southwest Houston and
talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Hi, I have an anna apple
in my backyard I planted a few years ago, and now I got an
Einzheimer Einsheimer. Yeah, And how far a part should I plant them?
It depends on the rootstock that they're on, but I would say probably about
eight feet apart would probably be Okay. You can put them further than that,
but I wouldn't get much closer than eight because they will they'll grow together
at eight feet. Okay, okay, have I bought the Have you bought
the Einsheimer yet? Yeah? Uh huh okay, I got it from Oh
I can't remember is up in? Uh? Yeah? Yeah? Good?
Well, good, good, good luck with those. If you want more
information on apples, you can go to the Aggie Horticulture website and there's a
fruit section, and there's a whole publication just about apples, how to prune
them, how to fertilize them, the varieties and all that. I would
encourage you to check that out and that'll help you have success. Okay,
it's free, but yeah, okay, all right, Sandy, thank you
very much, appreciate that call. I was visiting with Patrick a while back
out at Verdant Tree Farm. You know, Verdont has three locations there.
I was out at the West Houston location off Parker Cyprus. They're down in
Parlant on Broadway Street for those of you down south, for those of you
in Houston, especially up toward north of downtown. Well, they've got the
location there where Yale and I ten come together. So it's not hard to
get to a Verdant Tree Farm. You can go to their website Verdant Treefarm
dot com. Now they have all sizes of plants, I mean up to
like seven hundred gallon trees, huge shrubs, huge trees, beautiful, beautiful.
They got the right palm for any budget. And we're just talking about
palms, Verdant nose palms. And if you say, look, I want
a palm, but I don't want one that's going to freeze. They can
give you one that unless we just well we had that February twenty one freeze
where it went down so cold. Their Texas sables made it through now,
so that's a record type free That's the kind of plants that they can provide
you with all the way down to other things that are just very very interesting
and different. You know, have you ever done a Pindo palm, for
example, that's a very unique kind of palm as well. They'll help you
with in office design consultations. Just go to Verdant treefarm dot com. Talk
to them, Talk to them about a tree. What do you need,
because now's the time to get it planted. Listen, summer's coming, and
every day that you give it between now and summer, there's another day to
get a root system spreading out to make that tree more resilient in the summertime.
So get Burden a call pretty quick here, don't delay that. For
those of you that are up on two forty nine in the Lueta area,
well you already know about plants for all seasons. They've plants for all season
has been around a long time. The Flowerty family, I believe opened that
up back in nineteen seventy three. They just had their fiftieth year anniversary.
By the way, congratulations again, folks, for that is a It is
a wonderful place. And you know what I like When you walk into Plants
for All Seasons, you know that if they sell a plant, it's a
plant that belongs here and will grow well here, and I'll do well here.
And when you talk to somebody, it could be you know, Sherry,
one of the family members, it could be someone else that they have
working there, and you ask them a question, you're going to get an
accurate answer, and you're going to help. They'll help you with a diagnosis,
they'll help you with an identification, they'll hope you have success. Now,
you can buy plants a lot lot of places, but when you go
to Plants for All Seasons and you come back and you've got a question and
I'm having a problem with it or what do I do here, They'll take
the time to help you have success. That's why they've been around for fifty
years, and that's why they're going to be around for another fifty. Plants
for All Seasons dot Com is the website two eight, one, three,
seven, six sixteen. Excuse me, yeah, sixteen forty six. My
numbers crossed in my head there two eight one three seven six one six four
six. How about that. If you got a brown thumb, they'll make
it green. If you got a green thumb, will you probably already grow
to plants for all season. That's one of the reasons why why it's green.
Oh my, you're listening to garden Line and our phone number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Listen. I potted up
some plants. I just put this on our Guardline Facebook page the other day.
I potted up some peppers and in the new potting soil. To move
the plants up to a larger pot I used Nelson's Nutral Star Genesis transplant mix
Nutristar Genesis Transplant Mix. It's a six to one three. I did it
about two weeks ago. You need to go to the garden Line facebook page
and look at my pepper plants. That is not color enhanced. They are
deep green. They already have little pepper blooms on them and they haven't even
gone out in the yard yet. That's the kind of work that Nutristar Genesis
will do. I was so impressed with it. It's got beneficial bacteria,
it's got the endo micurizo and the ectomcoryzol fungi that helped that plant take up
nutrients. It contains humates of course, it has a six y one three
fertilizer as well. It just enhances the biology of the soil. And if
you're gonna bump something up, you're gonna pot something up into a container whatever
you need some nutri Star Genesis transplant mix, the six to one three from
Nelson. Well, here comes Niki. We're gonna turn the baton over and
we'll be right back. Well, come back to arden line. Look outside,
I'm telling you this is You're not gonna get a better day than this.
I can get a better weekend than this. And the garden centers are
ready, they're chocked up. Somebody's got to get those plants out of the
way so and get the new ones in. So that would be you and
me. I'm going to be heading out myself that if. By the way,
I'm going to going to go up to A and A Plants after the
show today. Ana Plants and Produce, which is on the east side of
Montgomery, Texas, on Highway one oh five. I'll be giving away eight
bags of turch Star Weedenator and answering your gardening questions. Answer your gardening question,
bring me samples, bring me pictures. I guess like the M.
E. Lazareth poem, Bring me You're tired, You're huddled, your masses
yearning to breathe free. I'll see if I can identify them at least and
prescribe something to keep them going and keep them alive. Let's go up to
North Houston. We're going to talk to Mark. Hello. Mark, all
right, question about I'm trying to clarify between the using the Wheedonator, which
as the website appears to indicate if the pre emergent post emergent plus an early
greenup in one product, versus using barricade and Imperial and or weed Beater Ultra.
I've got a terrible weed problem from the last year. I put out
a pre emergent back and I think it was November barricade and I'm ready to
start for the spring, and wanted to know about those two different methods of
acting this problem. Well, they you know, each of the companies has
has an approach that can do the things you're talking about trying to do so
basically the weedinator. The weedinator is a post emergent product, so it's going
to kill the weeds that are existing as opposed to pre emergent. If I
said it the other way around, I misspoke it. But it's a post
emergent product. And the folks that nitrophos they have a post emergent. They
have the Imperial that's just the fertilizer, and then they also have a version
of Imperial that has a post emergent it's called trimec in it that will work
as well for that. So you know, you have your preference as to
which way you want to go there. Excellent products all the way around the
barricade. Now that would be a pre emergent product, and you're putting it
down to prevent the weed seeds from getting a foot and up there in North
Houston. I wouldn't delay much longer. I'd go ahead and get that down
because as the soil warms a bit, once it hits about fifty five degrees,
we're going to start to see weed seed germination, and you want your
barricade to be ahead of that. Okay, okay, So I would you
know, if you're concerned about weeds, the summer weeds that are coming,
then I would get the Imperial and the barricade together. Those are two different
products, put them both down in separate applications, and then water with a
half inch of water. Okay, I think and that that was my original
plan. And then I was reading the Bearing Hardware's description of weed NAT and
it indicates pre and post plus the early greenup. I thought that sounded too
good to be true. We're gonna go ahead and do the barricade plus imperial.
That's tried and true. I'm want to stick with that for this time
and see how it goes. Yeah, and it, I mean, and
it. You know, it's widely available. The Imperial is the red bag
you've you've used it before, I'm sure. Uh. And then the barricade
is the pre emergent. Those are easy to find, you sir. Oh,
okay, yeah, you bet, you bet. Yeah, I'll tell
you. With those nitrofuss products, they're not hard to find. You know,
you're up in North Houston area, so you already know where you can
get those all days hardware. Oh yes, sir, all right, right
around the corner, All right, good all right, well, this is
a weekend to get it done. Don't delay. Make sure to add that
half inch of water too. Thank you, Mark, appreciate appreciate your call
very much. Let's see, we're gonna go to La Porte and talk to
Randy. Hello, Randy, Hello, I got a new sawd put down
yesterday, and I wanted to see if you had a fertilization and or watering
schedule that you could recommend. Yes, I absolutely do so if you go
to gardening with Skip dot com, that's me gardening with Skip dot com.
The fertilizer schedule is on there now for new SOD. I would let it
have a couple of weeks. Actually, we're kind of in the cool end
of the season. I'd probably give it three or four weeks before I fertilize.
You want the roots to get down and get established in the soil and
stuff. Let's focus on that, and then an application of fertilizer put down
will be just fine. It's not gonna be too late for anything. It
needs to be kept moist because you know it came in with that what a
half inch of black clay on the bottom, and that's the whole root system,
right there that came off the pallette, and so those roots have got
to get in the ground. So the watering is touching go early on.
Fortunately, it's it's cool now, the demands are low. It's not like
you're sodding in July. But I would water it probably once a day with
a really light application. We're not talking about an inch of water. We're
just talking about about third of an inch or something, just to kind of
keep it moist as it gets its its roots down into the ground. Maybe
initially a little bit better soaking and then and then just kind of keep it
going for about a week and then maybe every other day and then you know,
you see what I'm saying, you're kind of weaning it off the water
hose. Okay, awesome, very much. Good luck. Mow it in
two three weeks. Yeah, probably, I would say two weeks, but
again we're on the early side, so that rooting is gonna it's gonna be
going a little slower than it would when the weather warms up a little bit.
But you want it if you reach down and grab a sod piece and
kind of just gently kind of tug on it, wiggle it a little bit.
If it's stuck to the ground, then you can mow and fertilize and
other things. If it just kind of is not, then it needs to
get those roots down a little bit before you start running mowers over it.
Appreciate it. I'll tell you this though, Randy, just now that I'm
thinking about it this way, You're not going to need to mow it before.
If you get grass, you know, if the grass gets up about
two and a half inches high, well then it's going to have some roots
in the ground. All right, Thank you, sir, Thank you.
Appreciating you better. I appreciate your call very much. Hey, have you
been out to the Cadi area to visit Neilson Water Garden and Nursery. I
went out recently and I'm telling you it is unbelievable. It is a show
place. It's the kind of place you go and you take your family and
friends to. Uh. They originated the container water garden, disappearing fountain,
the container disappearing fountain. That, by the way, they have everything for
water gardens. Do you need coyfish, do you need lily padge, do
you need every kind of aquatic plant? They'll get you set up on all
that. But right now, I want to talk to you about these disappearing
fountains. Imagine a beautiful tall vase that is just gorgeous. That water is
flowing out of the tops and it goes down to the ground to a better
gravel and disappears where it's recirculated back through the fountain. That's what it is.
Birds, well, thank you. Beneficial insects need a little source of
water as well. But what you need is the beauty and the sound of
water just changes. The vint is so calming to have. And there's nobody
that know. I mean, they're the original. They're world renown for water
gardening and their expertise through the decades. Really now Nelson Water Garden and nurseres
in Katie. It's just north of Iten on Katie Fort Ben Road. Whatever
you need there handful their pots or containers are from around the world and they
have containers there's that nobody else carries out at Nelson Water Garden and by the
way and Nursery. Lots of beautiful plants out there as well. Go out
and get inspired and then talk to them about helping you turn your backyard,
patio area or anywhere around the house into a beautiful garden of Eden. They
know they know how to do that. We're going to take a little break
our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'll
be right back. Welcome back to garden Line. We are glad you are
listening. And boy, do we ever have a lot to talk about today.
This is definitely a day to get some discussions done about all the things
you need to be doing in the garden. By the way, Uh,
honey bees are out and about. They're busy. Have you noticed them on
your flowers? You know, honey bees pollinate our gardens, and having a
beehive in a backyard is a really number one. It's fun, it's kind
of cool you get your own honey, but also it helps you gardens polony.
That's important. And the folks at the bee Supply can get you set
up for that. I mean they absolutely they got orders of bees coming in
and all the way up until I think mid May that you can do the
pre orders now. By the way, the pickup dates are going to go
from about April eleventh through May twenty fourth. What you need to do,
though, is you need to do a beginning beekeeper class now there is a
class that is coming up on March and ninth. In fact, they're having
one today, but there's one on March ninth, and then on March twenty
third, or the next two classes they'll continue on into May. You get
to learn about bees. You get to go out and handle the bees,
work the bees with them. They suit you up and everything ready to go.
And this is a significant class begins at nine thirty in the morning,
it ends in three thirty in the afternoon. They provide you a lunch and
it's just fun and it'll help you learn about Hey, is bee keeping for
me? And how do I do it? You're not going to find better
experts than the folks at the Bee Supply. I'm telling you they are a
wealth of information. Hey, if you're not interested in keeping bees and you
just want to learn about honey and stuff, have you thought about doing one
of their interactive honey tours. Get your friends, your garden club, your
master gardener group, your organization, church group, whatever, head out there
and give them a call first, make sure you're all signed up, ready
to go, and you can go and learn all about honey tastes and sample
lots of different kinds. Of honey. See they're super cool observational beehive,
really really cool. Just go to the bsupply dot com dbsupply dot com and
they'll get you all set up with that. Let's head out now to Pleasant
Villa and talk to Deborah. Hello Deborah, all right, no morning,
skipt question about my what is Flora tiam? Say Augustine? The blue bottle
says you can put it kills your weeds that you're on, but not that
Saint Augustine. How do I know if I had it? Well, nothing
Russian roulette with the with the chemicals. Flora tam is unique looking and that
it is a I say, a rangeer plant. It's coarser textured. Uh
it the uh it's it's not as kind of compact and dense maybe or as
dark green as some of the other Saint Augustine's can be. Uh. It
is awesome for drought tolerance. It is also resistant to chinch bugs, but
some of the herbicide products are especially hard on Flora tam. It was released
years ago by text A and M and the University of Florida, and that's
why it says Flora tam. Uh. But uh, it would just be
I don't know how to describe it other than the way I described it.
Uh, did you plant your lawn or did someone else? My mother planted
it many years ago, but I've had to resawd because I used that product
once a long time ago. Okay, And I don't know what the what
the what they're selling in Houston. You know, if you're buying just from
the big box stores or Houston Guardians, it is what kind of Saint Augustinea
is selling. They don't even know well. And that's why that's why I
don't send people to those places. But I doubt I doubt it those places
are selling you Flora tam That would be my best guess, and it is
a guess, but that is a special Saint Augustine that definitely has its place
in the industry. But yeah, yeah, if someone had a big,
old giant yard and they couldn't get it all watered well, and you know,
but they wanted to have a good tough grass or they deal with chinch
bugs all the time, Flora tawn would be a it would be you know,
a very good option for that. So it's not a common grass in
the Houston area, then it is not as common as Raleigh and many of
the others, Raleigh, Palmetto. There's a lot of varieties of Saint Augustine
that do very very well here. U. So I'm guessing about this new
pro Vista. Provista is a grasp by Scott's. Scott's and Texas A and
M developed pro Vista and Provisa is really unique. It has a less of
a vertical growth habit, so you're not mowing it as often, and it
is it's a good solid grass. I am actually going to try planting a
little bit of it this year. I've not grown it. I've not grown
it. I've seen it at the A and M turf field days, but
I've not tried it before. All right, Well, last question, I'd
like permission to send it an email. I've got a question about my gass
and so we'll just send me to Josh and we'll send it and you could
do it on the radio. You don't have to talk to me about it.
All right. Well, I'm put you on hold. Josh will pick
up and he will get you the email that you can send it to.
Thank you very much, Deborah, and good luck, good luck with your
turf. For those of you out in Kingwood area. You're fortunate you got
Kingwood Garden Center and worn in Southern Gardens right there, and I'll tell you
what. Drive up and look. It is a riot, riot of color
out there by the way. They have those spring blooming trees that you just
need to have. Do you need something that's a little smaller, but you
want blooms in the spring, how about a red bud? They have a
huge selection. Chinese friends, Chinese fringe tree is one of my absolute favorite
trees. It doesn't get as large as a lot of trees do. When
it blooms in the spring, it is billowing with white, shaggy blooms that
have a beautiful fragrance. Chinese fringe grows an immediate growth rate, so it
doesn't again, it doesn't get too big. It fits a lot of our
modern lots, but oh my gosh, in the spring it's awesome. And
then how about saucer magnolia. You know the magnolias had come out before there's
a single leaf on it. They're deciduous, they're bear in the winter,
and then in spring they're one of the first plants to go. It's spring.
Let's party, and they send out these beautiful pink blooms that and pink
doesn't fully describe them well, but they send out these pink blooms early on
that just say spring is here, folks, and they are so gorgeous.
Yeah, Warrens has plenty of those on hand, and now it's the time
to get them so because every spring then you'll just reap the benefits of the
rewards I'll say, the dividends of that investment you made in the Red Bud,
the Chinese Fringe, or that saucer Magnolia as well. By the way
their leap Your Sale continues, it's a combination of different product it's going to
go on until March third, so you definitely need to check that out when
you're out at Warren's Southern Gardens. It's a combination of products that really is
just all products that they have in the Leapier sale or products you absolutely need
anyway, So why not take advantage of picking them up now and getting them
going again. It's only open, it's only going on till March third,
so don't delay anymore before you go ahead and do that. I mentioned earlier,
I was talking about nitrofuss sweet Green and someone had asked me about it,
Well, what is it? And as you say, it's an organic
plant food, Yes it is. It's based on a molosses type base and
the way it's microbially very very active fertilizer, so microbes. You know,
you've heard people say, well, put molasses on the soil and enhance the
microbes, because it does, especially some of the beneficial bacteria they love,
the simple sugars and that, and the sweet Green product itself is one of
the highest concentrations of an organic plant food and nitrogen. Then you're going to
have. It's got a really good content. It's smellst wonderful, and you
put it out and let it do what it's going to do to your lawn
and you will see the results of It's got a very unique level of organic
compounds that aid both of all in helping your soil and revitalizing your grass plants
as well. It reacts with the water and it, like all nitrofus products,
is available in a bazillion places around town. One of the easiest things
to find, Uh, if you were to go, for example, to
Katie Ace Hardware out there, you're going to find nitrofoss Sweet Green. If
you go to Ace Hardware City on Memorial Drive, you're going to find Nitrofas
Sweet Green, or maybe down Stanton Shopping Center in Alvin Nitrofoss Sweet Green.
If you've not tried it out before, you need to try it out.
It's one of the excellent products from Nitrofus and the results are awesome. I've
got it. I've used it before. I find it to be everything they
promise that it will be. You're listening to Guardenline and my gosh, we're
about to put an hour in the books. If you would like to give
us a call, give Josh a call and get on the boards when we
come back. You can be the first stop. We've got a clear board
here, so we'll come to you first. Seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
I don't know if you've been out to war in Southern Gardens, but you
really need you need to go out there. If you haven't, it is
it's been a while since it was. I need to get back out there
again because it has been a while. But been that leapier the leapier sale.
I don't think I told you what was in it, but it's got
the rose soil on a very special deal. You buy two or you buy
three. They make it an incredible deal. Asmite. I've talked about azmite
before and the importance of getting as mite out. Well, you can get
it worn Southern Gardens on their Leapier sale. They have a special price for
one or two bags of the asumite. And if you're not familiar with as
mite, it is a trace mineral element. Now, we have a lot
of minerals that are essential trace minerals. We need small amounts of them and
amite is good for that. I put it in my garden too because it
enhances the mineral content, which means the produce I'm eating is even better packed
with the nutrients. And then another part of that Leapier sale is Nelson plant
Food four pound jars and Microlife. The seven pound jars are also part of
the leap your sal See what I mean. You need all those things,
the rose soil from Airlin, the asamite, the micro Life seven pound contended
containers, the Nelson four pound containers. All there part of the super sale
going on at Warren's. I just want to remind you that I'm going to
be at A and A Plants and Produce today. I hope all of you
listening anywhere up in the Lake Conroe area, Montgomery, Conroe out even Navisota,
all the communities out that direction. I'm heading your way, and I
hope you'll come see me at A and A Plants. Bring me a sample
in a ziplock bag to identify or to diagnose. Bring me pictures on your
phone. Let's talk about, Hey, look at this corner back here,
not a little bit shady. What can I put back there? That'll look
at. A and A is set up with all kinds of products. They
carry the fertilizers and talk about here on guarden Line. They carry a wide
variety of everything you need, including some really cool bling for the landscape.
You'll see what I'm talking about when you get out there and then plants.
The place is just a wash of color. Come see me today. We'll
be there from twelve pm to two pm today after the show. Katie 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 Escape Richtor
So Crazy Trim. Just watch him as gods many bird things to say.
Welcome back to garden lines. Man. Am I glad you're listening today,
and I'm also glad that spring is here this weekend. I hope you are
spending some time out getting some beautiful plants a member of the brown stuff first,
that would be the composts, the soul mixes, and the fertilizers.
Set that foundation up because it's time to plant. It is time to get
things going out there now. I'm not saying nobody is going to have another
frost anytime. I cannot predict that. I can tell you I want that,
and I can tell you I think we're Our chances are getting lower and
lower and lower each day that comes. That's what we call the average frost
day right whatever areas. But listen, it is. The weather is beautiful,
and it's time to start getting stuff out there and getting it going.
And we are passing the last average frost date for a lot of the listening
area. We have folks listening all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico,
although up to Huntsville and then some east and west as well, so
it's kind of hard to make sweeping statements for everybody listening, But you know
where you live, you know how things are there, and you also know
that when you look outside. Today's a day to get outside and start getting
things done. This week, I'm going to be preparing my soil for replacing
the yard. I've got some low areas that need to fill in. Randy
used to talk about the kill phil until, no kill till and phil.
Right. I think that's it, that meaning you you know, you get
rid of whatever weeds and grass are there. That would include especially the noxious
weeds that don't go away once your grass is in. It's easier to get
rid of them beforehand, and then loosen up the soil, till it up,
loosen up, getting ready to lay that sod. Fill in any low
areas too, any divots or whatnot. In my case, I've got some
cypress trees that think they need to stick their knees up through my clay soil
that can stay a little on the wet side sometimes, and so I got
to pop those cypress knee tops off to get things leveled out really good so
I can lay that sod. Coming up here pretty soon, not too far
away from that, we're going to head out to League city right now,
and we're going to talk to Stephanie. Hello, Stephanie, Hi, what
a question. I had put some pre emergent out lists last weekend. I
have a lot of weeds, okay, and I was wondering if you would
recommend me to put the post emergent out next or as a m I or
what would you suggest? Well, those aren't ores, those are ants,
and as far as post emergent, yes, asap. Your broadleaf weeds are
already starting to put out blooms and set seeds, and they're tougher to kill
the further along they go. So if you're going to use a post emergent
to shut down things like chickweed and henbit and cleavers and all the other broadleaf
weeds that are the ones you see now in your landscape, you got to
do it really soon. And then the pre emergent you put out that's going
to take care of the summer weeds that are starting to germinate as little tiny
seeds now. So I can do the post emergent and ASAM and do them
both together. Yes you can don't put them in the same hopper, but
but do them together, so that that would be that would be a good
a good example of that. The azamite is a smaller particle, so you
need to set the you know, your spread are different, and you could
do one and then the other and then uh, if you're if you're doing
like for a post emergent, did you have a product you were going to
use for that or do you need a suggestion or what worry? Well,
I use the nitropos for the pre emergent. Huh. Okay, So I
get if you like the nitrofoss products, which you should. Uh, then
they have something that contains trimac. It's a fertilizer that contains trimex, so
you'd be getting your early green up plus that post emergent weed control. So
you want to water your lawn and put the product out right away while the
when I say watered, I mean just barely wet the surface so it sticks
to the weed seeds. That that or we'd leaves rather, I'm sorry,
we'd leaves and then leave it about a day and then go ahead and water
it in. Okay, And what's the name of that one. It's a
it's like the Imperial It's it's a fifteen five to ten, but it also
has the weed control product in it contained called trimec. You're down in League
City. You got a great ace feed. Ace Hardware is down in your
area, and they're going to carry the nitropos and just tell them you need
you need the nitropus fifteen five to ten with Trimec in it. That's actually
on my way. Did the grounds keepers undering they might have it. I
don't know them, so I don't know whether they carry it or not.
They might, Okay, but that would be the post emergent now not the
pre Okay, okay, okay, thank you very much. All right,
you take care, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah,
the the U nitrofos, the Imperial is their red bag. It's a
fifteen to five to ten. We use it for an early green up.
And in the case of you know, if you're trying to kill a weed
and you're already going to use the Imperial, then just go ahead and get
the one with the trimach in it and that'll that'll knock it out to you.
It's a broad leaf we control product. It works very well. You
just have to follow the label. Always follow the label, don't put it
out, and then just do a gully washer irrigation because you're washing the product
off. You want to you wanted to encounter those moist or wet if you
will weed leaves so it sticks and does a little bit better job. We're
going to go now to a test casita and talk to Cheryl. Hello Cheryl,
Hi, Yes, good morning. I have a question about what price
of native shrugs could I put on my It's facing west next to the front
of the house. All my aralias died during the summer. They were very
old, so I need some suggestions to go look at today to wrange.
Okay, Well, there's a lot of different shrubs. You could choose from
a couple of them that are real popular, or the dwarf yo ponds that
is a native shrub. It's a very compact plant, doesn't get that that
tall. And then there's the southern wax myrtle. Southern wax myrdle there's a
more compact form of it, and they'll have that at warrants. Uh and
uh, you just share it to keep it the size you want. It's
a native shrub uh. And it does very very well. And as you
anytime you shear a shrub, you create more density, and so just kind
of keep it, keep it compact, and keep it the size you want
with some periodic shearing back. Okay, And would any hollies or sunshine ugusts
also work there too, you could, you could use those. They both
would work, but neither of them is native. Well, actually there are
there American hollies native. But the kinds of holly you would put are going
to make a little bit bigger plant, you know, like a Burford holly
for example, is not a real small shrub. But but it would it
would do fine, It would do. And just talk to the folks at
Warren's when you're out there. They're gonna be able to show you each of
the plants they carry and tell you the pros and cons that, you know,
what they like, what they don't like, the plant likes or doesn't
like that is and uh, and they can get you steered in the right
direction. Hey, thanks, thank you. Is this is this a western
wall of your house a brick wall, Yes, it's western. Yeah.
So getting a shrub that gets up maybe you know, six feet or so
would be good because then that western sun doesn't bake the side of the house
and heat up the interior causing your summer electric I have low windows, okay,
anything that three t you know are going to find the windows, Okay,
I'd put it. I'd put you o palm underneath the windows, and
then I would put taller shrubs in between the windows. That's how I would
do it. Okay, right, Okay, thanks you bet, Cheryl.
I'm gonna go ahead and take a break here, folks, our phone number
seven one three two one two k t RH. I'll be right back.
Welcome back to guarden Line. Hey, we're glad you're listening today. I
hope that you will give us a call if you have a question. So
how do you do that? Well, here's a number seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Listen, when you head out to a garden center, you're going
to see a lot of color and you're gonna want to bring it home to
put in flower bed, to put in containers on the patio. And if
you're going to do that, you need to know about jungle land. Nitroposs
offers jungle land in both an outdoor and and indoor version. The outdoor is
called jungle land flower and vegetable planning soil, and the indoor is called jungle
land water saving potting soalt because it's got these little crystals in it. If
you get to water your house plants and they get a little on the dry
side, those water saving crystals absorb extra moisture, hold on to it and
make it available for the plants later. Both of them are going to help
you have beautiful, vibrant growth, beautiful color on those outdoor containers that you
have, and you know it, just when you take care of the root
system, the plant thrives in jungleland does just that. Now where do you
get nitrofoss products? Well, everywhere? I mean they are available, widely
available in all kinds of different locations. All the ACE hardware stores are going
to be great places to get your nitrofoss products. For example, I know,
you go out to a place like I don't know, Plantation ACE hardware
out in the Richmond Rosenberg area, you're going to find nitro frost products.
You go up to plants for all seasons up on two forty nine, you're
going to find nitrofoss products. You see what I'm talking about. Just why
be widely available, I want to head out now. I'm going to talk
to David out in Cleveland. Hello, David, good morning. I have
a quick question. I put my pepper seeds in my incubator to kind of
make a hot box, and it worked perfect that they sprouted in about five
days. But I have no light in there. And my question is if
I just put those seedlings out in room temperature so I can get my light
on them, will they be okay? Or do I still need to keep
them much warmer than just room temperature. Now, room temperature is perfect,
go ahead and get them. The minute a seedlings starts to break the surface,
you need to get it into good sunlight because it will stretch fast if
you don't right right, Yes, sir, I understanding that this morning was
the first time I haven't seen anything break the surface, so that when I
was falling, well, it worked out good that it's today rather than a
weekday. Yeah, but you know what I would do. I would I
would move them straight outside into a bright, not direct sun because you don't
want to make that change. So suddenly today's going to be a nice mile
day, and just let let those seedlings get some light and then bring them
in this evening. Put them back out tomorrow. Another great day light is
the most important thing at this stage with those seedlings, because that'll keep them
compact and healthy. All right, I appreciate it very much, sir.
All right, yeah, even when we put them by a window indoors,
we just don't get the light levels that they want. Hey, David,
thank you, thank you for the call. I appreciate appreciate that very much.
Have you been to Buchanan's plants lately, because they are busting at the
seams with all kinds of cool stuff. For example, for example, spring
blooming native trees like a red bud, like a Mexican plum. Have you
ever seen a Mexican plum? Beautiful little trees, very beautiful little tree,
white blooms in the spring. And then Texas Mount Laurel. Oh, my
gosh, the fragrance is intoxicating. It looks like giant clusters of grapes.
The blooms do in the spring. It's a very slow growing tree or a
plant. I think of them almost as a shrub slash tree. They can
get big in time, but in the spring they have a great bubblegum fragrance.
It's amazing, absolutely amazing. They got roughly dogwood and Buchanans too,
and they have Mexican buckeye. You need an understory shrub that it gets quite
tall, that multi stem shrub. Mexican buckeye is an excellent choice for that
with the spring blooms. Again, another Texas native plant that you can find
there. They are loaded up on things like the bedding plants like geraniums in
calibracoa. If you've not seen a Calibrica, picture something like a small petunia.
But just go buy there. Go buy Buchanans and ask ask them about
the caliber costs. I want to see one of those. The colors are
outstanding. They trail over the sides of the pot. Beautiful. They're on
Eleventh Street in the Heights. For those of you who don't know, Buchanansplants
dot com. Easy, easy, easy to get to and you're going to
find a lot of cool stuff at Buchanans plant I always do. I always
love going there. Let's head out to friends with Now we're going to talk
to Joe. Hey, Joe. Yes, last summer I lost about ninety
five percent of my San Augustine grass and of course mostly it's weeds. Now,
I've been cutting in real shorts just because I can't stand the book of
it. What do you think I should do going forward? I think you're
going to need to reside. I was in the same situation in my front
yard of all places, due to drought, due to chinchbugs, and due
to disease. I just it was a perfect storm last summer. I've never
had a problem with those, and boy, it took it out. I'm
residing. I'm going to get rid of a little bit of grass. It's
there. It's not worth trying to mess with and get your good quality grass,
put it down, side, it in and you'll be back in business.
That's kind of when it's ninety five percent loss, that's about all you
can do, Joe. Now, what should I do to prepare for the
news size? Okay, you want to get rid of all the old plants.
That would include old sod, that would include weeds. If you've had
a like a bermuda grass invading your Saint Augustine problem, has that been a
problem before or not? Oh? Yeah? Okay, Well then I'm going
to ask you to wait a little bit. Let's let it warm up enough
and get that bermuda grass growing, and when it comes up, you're going
to want to spray it and kill it and then give it another week or
so. You may get some more coming up and spray it again because you
want to eradicate the bermuda before you put Saint Augustine down, or it will
just come back and you you would just always be fighting it unless you put
in a bermuda on. But uh, that that is not going to grow
now. The bermuda is not going to grow now. So if you plant
your sod now, you're just going to have to deal with the bermuda in
the Saint Augustine is part of life. Uh, if you can wait,
what I use? Would I use a round up type product? Yeah?
You would. There are grass only killers. Uh They're not as effective as
round up in killing bermuda, but they are pretty effective. So if you
if you don't want to use a Glypho SAT product, then a grass killer
And if you go to you know, like your ACE hardware store nearby there
dine friends with it, and you were to say, hey, I need
a I need a grass only killer, they can provide you with one of
those products too. That would be another option. Okay, is there a
waiting period after I do that spray? No, even with the even with
glyphosate products, you spray them, it needs about a week to kind of
move down. And because it kills thoroughly by going down into the plant,
it needs about a week. And then by then, if you just kind
of scratch up the soil, you can lay the grass on it and it'll
be just fine. It will not be a problem. All right, Well,
thank you so much. All right, good luck with that. Sorry
you're in that situation. But I feel your pain, that is for sure.
You know, I always learn a lot every year in the garden,
and every year is different. I have never had chinchbugs take out long before.
I've never had the degree of take holl root rot that I had last
year either, So that's that's kind of interesting to know. You know.
I was talking to him mentioning ACE Hardware stores. Wherever you live around this
listening area, you've got an ACE Hardware store near you. If you there's
forty of them in the Greater Houston area. Go to ACE Hardware dot com.
Acehardware dot com. Every fertilizer you hear come out of my mouth is
at ACE Hardware store. Anything you need for controlling pests, weeds, and
diseases, they got it at ACE Hardware store. Stuff like asamite, for
example, They've got it at ACE Hardware stores. The soil products, the
bags of soil and molten things, you can find them at your ACE Hardware
store. And every kind of tool and supply you need to have a beautiful,
beautiful landscape and a bountiful garden, You're going to find it at ACE
Hardware. Just go to Acehardware dot Com, find the store locator, find
the store near you, and the rest, as they say, is not
history, but a future of beautiful, beautiful landscapes. We're going to go
out to Dan in Beaumont, Texas. Now. Hello, Dan, Hey,
good morning. How are you doing. I'm well, sir, what's
up in Beaumont? Hey? I just planted some hascinator seeds and I'm trying
to get them to germinate. And what I'm trying to do is eventually get
those seeds to produce more seeds, so that way next year the seeds won't
be so hard to locate. But what do I How do I get seeds
out of that? Do I just leave the tomatoes? On the mine and
then just let them rot off. Or yeah, what tell me again,
it sounds like you said hascinator. What were you saying? Yes, it
is the hascinator tomato plant. Okay, So with tomatoes, you do want
to let the plant for the fruit fully mature, bring it inside, and
you can do a couple of things. This is a little gross, but
some people get that all that jelly and seeds out of the cavities. Kind
of wash it, clean it up as best you can. Put it in
a glass of water, put a little cover over it, and just let
it essentially almost ferment. It'll rot, it'll decay away some of the debris
around the seeds. You'll see the seeds falling down from the surface where they're
floating down into the material. And then you can just strain it out real
good. Let the seeds dry and they're ready to store. I would store
them in the refrigerator after they have thoroughly dried for a couple of weeks,
you know, just sitting on I don't know, it could be wax paper
or just cardboard or whatever. Just let them fully dry and then store them
in the refrigerator so the viability is best. Okay, those seeds are very
difficult to locate, and so I was trying to at least have another supply.
Yeah, I can create on my own. Yeah, I think,
you know, I think that's a gooda. That's the way to do it.
You know, it's not that difficult to do tomato seeds. They're pretty
pretty simple. How do you spell that hascinator h oss oh from hass okay
tools host tools. Yeah, I know those guys. Okay, Hey,
I got to run for a commercial, but break here in the news.
But thanks for your question, and good luck. We're doing that. Yeah,
we're just talking a while ago with Joe Adam friends with losing his lawn
and a lot of you've lost a lot of plants, and maybe you just
want to give Pierscapes a call. You know, they can come in.
They can they can revent renovate your landscape. They can fix your irrigation systems,
they can fix the drainage problems you have. Piercecapes does it all.
I mean, they really do do it all. Go to pierscapes dot com
check out the beautiful work that they do. Give them a call. Two
eight one, three, seven oh five oh six oh two eight one three
seven o five zero six zero. They also will do some spring clean up
the landscape, getting things ready to go in a new bed, doing a
new design, just whatever it's going to take to have a beautiful, beauty
place. Let them get you set up and ready to go. That's what
they specialize in. We're going to take a break for the news. Here's
Nicky our phone number seven one three two one two. Katrh Well, say,
LEVI, it's time for a wonderful gardening weekend. And if you look
out the window there it is. I could not be more excited. I'm
telling you this is it's about killing me to be in a radio studio right
now to do a show when I want to be out there rolling in the
dirt and having some fun with plants. Hey, this is the weather and
this is the time. It is spring, and you need to be in
full swing right now, because well, I'm just telling you it's time to
do it. Last week I was potting up some plants. In fact,
I've been potting up plants for the last four weeks really, but a couple
of weeks ago I was moving some peppers from the little containers they started in
into a much larger container, and I used some of Neilson plant food.
They've got a nutri Star Genesis. It's a transplant mix. It's a six
one three fertilizer. It contains microbes and humates and it just really enhances the
soil. It's got the ectra microhizal and endo microizal fungi to help the plants
take up nutrients. You mix it in with the potting soil or growing mix
you're about to transplant into, whether it's an outdoor pot or an indoor container.
In my case, just bumping up some peppers. Did it two weeks
ago. Go to the garden Line facebook page. Guardenline facebook page and look
at the peppers that I bumped up. They already got bloom buds on them
and they are so dark green. That is not an enhanced photo. That
is the benefit of nutri starjenf Genesis transplant mix. The six one three.
Follow the label. Mix it in the soil, put your put the soil
in the pot, add your transplant into their fill in around it with the
blended compost t em mix with this Nutristar genesis in it. Water it in
and this stem bac and watch it is outstanding and the results are outes and
you can see that an only little trial I did for it there testing it
out, and wow, really really good. In fact, by the time
I get home today, I bet there's peppers ray to pick. Maybe not,
but it seems it seems like it's moving that fast. Hey, our
phone number. Would you like to give us callege? You got a question
seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call and have him
get you on the board so we can discuss the things that are of most
interest to you, those of you that are out south and east of town.
You know, I always brag about our lensk excuse me, garden centers
here in the Greater Houston area. I'm telling you, this town has the
best garden center I've seen anywhere I've been in the country. Certainly anywhere around
Texas north, south, east, west, Central, We've got garden centers
any direction you want to go that are showstopper places worth taking your family and
friends to. And Moss Nursery is exactly that kind of place. They're down
there in Seabrook on Toadville Toddville Road in Seabrook and their cacti and succulent greenhouse.
In fact, the whole house plant greenhouse is unbelievable. My wife got
some string of tears and I don't know what else she got out there,
and she was just going crazy in the greenhouse with the cact iron succulents.
A while back, they've got you know, the two inch three inch,
four inch, five or six inch, ten inch, eight inch, all
those pots, all the at fifteen gallons, beautiful pots with houseplants. You
can find every kind of houseplant you're imagining. I've never seen a selection as
good as what they have at Moss Nursery out in Toddville on Toddville Road in
Seabrook. Now you can get them a call. Two eight one four seven
four twenty four forty eight two eight one four seven four twenty four forty eight.
The whole back third of the greenhouse is stocked full of cactirons. I
mean they're on tables, they're on shelves, on the ground, they're even
hanging from the rafters in there. It takes time just to go through that
greenhouse. There's so much. And let me tell you this now I'm in
talking about the greenhouse and all that. You need to look at their vegetable
selection too. It is unbelievable, beautiful selection of peppers and things. And
they've got the coolest, coolest peppers. I'm trying. They have fool you
jalapeno. It has no heat. I've grown it before. It's great,
it's wonderful. You can add the heat as you want it and it just
get that beautiful flavor. They have the mucco nacho jalapeno. Is that a
good name for a klopeno. It is a huge, thick, thick walled
pepper. Oh my gosh, my mouth. I'm gonna have to go get
chips and cheese after this muccho nacho. When you go by there, say
I want to see those klopennos, they'll show them to you. Oh my
gosh. All of that moss nursery in Seabret. We're going to go now
to Spring Branch and talk to Herta. Hello, Herta, good morning.
Skip. My question is about a night blooming jasmine. Now it's my own
fault, but it's in one of the nursery black pots. I guess what
seven eight inches in diameter? The smaller one. But anyway it has the
roots have gone down through the holes in the pot. I want to move
it, but I plan to cut the pot off of it. Also.
It made it through the freeze. You know, I could scratch the little
stems and it had green, But now the top part is dead. Should
I snap those top parts off? If they're brown and dead, they're not
going to come back to life. So yes, go ahead and take it
out if you want to get a little bit more time. Make sure there's
not life in them. But if they're brown, think they're gone. Yeah,
all right, now I think how tender are they? Can they take
more cold? Not? I wouldn't give them. I wouldn't expose them to
cold. They don't. They don't like that, and they yeah, that's
what I was afraid of. Well, I think I may put it into
one of the gallon pots, you know, the bigger black pots. Well,
if you know, you want to match your pot to your plant size,
and so if you've got a little plant that's just having to come back
out again and stuff, and maybe a little early to move it. Once
you get a plant and it's you know, certainly when it's about maybe three
times the size of the pot, then it needs to be moved to the
next size up. Okay, and what would be the better thing to feed
it with? Uh? Really, you can't go wrong on that one.
You're gonna gradually feed it. You're not gonna put a lot out over time,
so you can you can use one of the granular products that uh,
there are a number of really good products. Uh. Nitrophos has a beautiful
kind of a uh geared toward color plants. They have to have more than
one, by the way, and little canisters. You get those little canisters
and any of the ones that they have really will work on that particular plant.
I do have the mineral stuff. I believe that's the Is that correct?
Yeah, But you're not going to need that in a container all right?
Okay, Yeah, you're not gonna you're not gonna need that. That'd
be more for your garden and for your yard. All right. All right,
Well, thank you very much, Skip, all right, thank you
appreciate the call. You take care. Uh. You know, I uh,
I've told you about Medina before. Medina has so many wonderful products.
They've got. They've got the Medina Soil Activator, they got the horticulture molasses.
The hum a tumic acid I like the has to grow six twelve sex.
I use that when I transplant into the ground a plant I'll watered in
with the solution of has to grow six twelve six. It's got humic acid
in it, it's got seaweed extracts, it's got medina soil activator, and
six twelve six nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, all from medina has to grow
six twelve six. Whenever you put a transplant in the ground, tomato or
rose bush watered in with medina has to grow six to twelve six. We're
going to take a little break here and we will be back our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we come back,
Anthony, you'll be our first stop. Welcome back to garden Line on
a outstanding day for gardening. Please get outside today, do your health some
good. Do you know gardening is good for every aspect of your health.
It gives you exercise, you get up, you walk around. I'm not
talking about necessarily hard labor. You know, we're not digging rocks out of
the ground and excavating kinds of work. We're talking about just getting around to
make it up, get down, doing some planting, walking, breathing fresh
clean air, just enjoy and be with and they do. There's a psychological
connection that's been proven over and over and over again with research that when you're
in nature and you're interacting with nature and interacting with plants, it affects things
from dementia to ADHD to depression, anxiety, all kinds of issues. Are
you benefit from the effects of gardening when you're dealing with those kinds of things,
And it just goes on and on. I could spend the rest of
the show just talking about, case by case by case, every benefit of
gardening, and I hope you'll take advantage of that. If you've never garden
before, for crying out loud, go get a houseplant, bring it home
and start messing with it. Learn to propagate it, learn to grow it,
and learn to enjoy it. Make your home have a more earthy,
warm, inviting setting than something kind of sterile on the stail side, if
you will a lot of modern design and stuff ivings a little on the steril
side, Bringing plants in makes a big, big, big, big difference,
that's for sure. If you have some trees and shrubs and other things
in your landscape, you need to take good care of them. When you
talk about a woody ornamental, you're talking about something that is going to be
valuable for years, especially a tree. There's no more valuable part of your
landscape than a single plant than a tree. The tree adds hundreds, if
not thousands of dollars to the valua your home. It makes a home sellable
too, as opposed to how long is it going to sit on the market.
A tree is valuable for that. You need to take care of your
trees. You need to plant good ones, you need to take care of
them. And I can without question recommend Martin spoon Moore at Affordable Tree Service
for taking care of your tree. I've seen the work done by the guy
who drives down the street with a credit business card, a pickup and a
chainsaw. Two jerks on a chainsaw tree service, that's what we call them.
And they put a card in your door, and when they leave,
your tree's ruined and it will not recover from a bad butcher prune job.
They don't know what they're doing. Martin does. He's been doing this for
thirty years. Here in the Greater Houston area. Tell him you're from you
heard him on Guarden Line, and you'll get to the front of the line.
Martin stay's busy because he does good work. And that's that's what happens.
That's why a company lasts for that long, and that's why a company
is popular and stays busy because they trust Martin to take care of their trees.
And you should too. Seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty
three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three Martin Spoon more and
Affordable Tree Service, or if you like the website, approach Afftree Service dot
com. Talk to him, get on get on the list, make sure
you get him out there to take a look at your trees, and don't
do anything around those trees, including trenching, without having him come and advise
you first. We're going to go now out to Spring and we're going to
talk to Anthony this morning. Good morning, Anthony, Hey, good morning.
How can we help? How are you sir? I'm gread. Yeah,
I had a similar had a similar problem that you and the thriller Color
had with Mice in Augusty in the backyard. Just died again, and this
already has a problem. It's really shady. So we bought the low We
just saw it last year with the low lower lights in Augustine. And my
question is is there a different grass we can grow in the backyard than Augustine?
But it just every year. We we saw this lot three times already,
so it's just it's just just too much trouble. Okay, uh are
you having to reside because too much shade or not enough water or pest and
diseases? What's what's causing the What do you think is the main cause?
We've started part of it a number of times because there's too much shape in
the in the Saint Augustine didn't grow and the last year we did almost most
of it. The higher part of it does better with the there's more light
that gets there near the pool. But last year, with the draft and
like you had, everything just died. So so okay, I was wondering,
you know, do we resort to Saint Augustine again and bring it all
back or some of the grass? Yeah? I tell you that. That's
why I asked that though if it's too much shade, Saint Augustine is as
good as it gets for shade. There are some really good zoysis that come
really close to Saint Augustine. But if you can't grow Saint Augustine be cause
of shade, you're probably not going to do well with soisy either. Uh.
If you know, if it's foot traffic issues, is going to be
more resilient to that. Uh, it's it's a great grass. I like
it. I'm putting some in in my backyard this summer. Uh to put
put some soisy in for for the wear tolerance that it has. But I
would, yeah, I don't know. I think i'd want to analyze this
a little bit further. You know, what are all the causes to this
problem and make sure we get a grass and then we change any kind of
cultural activities you're doing to improve the chances of grass success. Mowing, watering,
and fertilizing being the three big ones. But Saint Augustine is the most
shade tolerant that you're going to have. A Palmetto would be a good variety
for that area. As far as shade tolerance and whatnot, I would there
are actually several good varieties out there. I don't know. It kind of
depends on what you like the looks of too. Saint Augustine's got a big
broad leaf. It's a very open type plant. Grass plant Zoisia makes a
very dense plant, and the lower and more often you mow it, the
denser it is and more beautiful it is. Yeah. No, I pretty
sure appreciate it. We saw it right before that weather got bad and that
killed it as soon as we rested it. So I guess we're going to
reside this year to get it back up. What's the right we do that?
Again? Like you mentioned earlier about taking the other grass outing, you
know, the grass that's kind of maybe grown in. Do we do we
turn it up and add sand to make it, you know a little better
underneath? How do we do? You have a clay soil? Is that
what you're dealing with? Yeah, but it's not it's not about which maybe
had an inch of top soil in the backyard. It's not too bad there.
Yeah, well I would uh, I would get rid of whatever is
green that's growing there now, that includes grass and weeds, because you want
to set your sod pieces on soil, not on organic matter mulch and dead
organic matter or grass or whatever. So get rid of everything, Get rid
of all of it, and then uh do any kind of filling in of
low areas that you might have. If you've got a low spot or if
you you know, got a tree root that's sticking up it and you can't
lay sod over it, then bring in little soil to kind of level that
area out a little bit. Get all that ready, and then if any
soil is kind of compacted and whatnot, a little tilling here and there would
be helpful. Usually with trees around which you have. Obviously if you have
shade, year's gonna be very hard impossible to try to rototill with those tree
roots, but at least fill it up, fill it in the low areas
and smooth it out, and then lay the sod down. Get good sod
to soil contact. I lay the sod. Typically I will water the bear
area right before I'm in the day or two before I'm going to put the
sod down, and then I'll put the sod down and water and step on
it. Or you can rent a long roller to press good contact between the
sod and the soil and then water it once or twice a day if it's
hot weather, twice a day. If it's cool weather, once a day
for about a week, very light application. Don't turn it into a swamp.
We're just talking about a third of an inch of water, just enough
to keep that sod alive until they can get roots in the soil. And
then after a couple of weeks if the weather warms up, especially maybe three
weeks. If you plant it now because it's still cool, you can start
to mow, you can start to fertilize and do other things like that.
But those steps will help you get off to a good start. If you
feel like you may have too much shade, you can do some trimming on
trees to brighten the shade, but that is a temporary fix and you're going
to have to do it periodically because the tree just gets denser and denser over
time, and it may be that those deeply shaded areas need to be transformed
into a shade, living groundcover, or something other than lawn. All right,
all right, hey, thanks sir, I really appreciate it. All
right, thank you, I appreciate that very much. Yeah, we redoing
sod, making sure you know you get it in properly is very important to
have success, and we want you to have success. I mean, our
landscapes ought to be places we want to be out and enjoy. A lot
of people plant sod everywhere. If they own the property, they plant it
everywhere. And you don't have to do that and put it where you're going
to most enjoy it and where it's going to thrive best. If you're struggling
and struggling to keep a lawn going in a spot because let's say it's too
shady, well that's no fun and you're not going to get a good lawn
in deep, deep, deep shade anyway. So put in a shade.
Love and groundcover. But lawns are the carpets of the landscape, and a
lot of times lawns get dissed because they use water, and we use different
kinds of products and things on them keeping them going. But there is a
significant benefit to having a plant covering over the soil like a lawn can give.
It makes a difference when it comes to reflective heat too. Hey,
we're going to take a break here for the news. We'll be right back.
Katie r. H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r h garden line
with skip rictor. It's essays a trip. You just watch him as so
many takes the soup hout basic quassa's not a side glass gas the sun beam.
We errupt this bumper music with a special announcement. Spring is here,
Look outside, Spring is here. Do you want a vegetable garden? You
want a herb garden? You want flowers? Do you want a beautiful lawn?
You don't plant some shrubs and tree? How about a spring bloomer.
Do you have a spring blooming tree in your landscape? We need one.
We need to have a beautiful landscape as many months of the year as possible.
So let's talk about it. Give us a call. Seven one three,
two one two five eight seven four. Talking about your lawns. You
know how summer weeds can be a problem, right, we're talking about grass
bergs. We're talking about crab grass and all the other kinds of things broad
leaf and grassy that can get in your lawn. Well, last summer was
hard on our lawns. That heat and drought. It was brutal. We
got some thin spots and wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed.
Well, Nitropuss has got you covered with their product barricade. Barricade's a
good name for it because it forms a barricade over the soil surface. When
a weed tries to germinate, it can get a root down and get established,
and it shuts it down. You never even see the weed. You
didn't know what happened, but barricade was working at the soil surface to do
that. Barricade is a pre emergent and one ten pound bag of Nitrofoss barricade
will cover up to five thousand square feet a lawn you want to spread out
relievingly at the proper rate, always at the proper rate, watered in about
a half inch of water just to move it too the salt surface, and
boom you are in business. Barricade is available everywhere you find Nitrofos products,
which is pretty much everywhere. Enchanted gardens out there in Richmond area, they've
got barricade. Shades of Texas up in the woodlands has got barricade. You
can find it down at Kingwood Ace Hardware for example. A lot of Ace
hard stores carry barricade. Easy to find another product by Nitrofos that will help
you to have that beautiful lawn that you're looking for in the springtime. Boy,
summer was hard on lawns, all right. Like I said earlier,
I had to replant. I'm having to replant a couple of big sections of
lawn. Let's head out to Brenham, Texas. First, we're going to
talk to Leonard. Hello, Leonard, good morning morning. My wife is
cut some potatoes with a large night and then I throw them into the fields
into my must piles and that and low and behold is growing potatoes. I
guess I don't know if they'll make potatoes or not. They will pull them
out of there if they're If they're growing, you're talking about a green stem
coming out right, Yeah, playing it some just in case I didn't know
if I was wasting my time. And now you're not wasting your time planning
them. Let them get going, and uh then you want to as they
get up about you know, six eight inches hiphe you want to pull soil
or compost around them or mulch and just keep piling it up as the potato
grows up out through the top, because that's where all the potatoes are going
to form, is between where the roots are on this they're going to form
off the stem above where the roots start. So yep, great, you
got free potatoes. I guess with the best green bean to grow on a
fence. I like big ones, if possible. The broad leaf. Oh
god, well big my beans are not growing large enough for me. I
just seem like maybe they're deficient and fertilizer. I don't know, you know
about the pods or not, or the plants or not. The pods the
pods, look for one called the castlein mc c as l a n.
There are other good pole beans that are big, flat potted pole beans.
The rattlesnake is one that has round pods with a little bit of a kind
of a stripe, light stripe on them. There's a lot of good ones
out there. But when you're looking for a pole bean, Leonard, look
for one that's going to reach harvest in let's say seventy two days or less.
That's that's your goal. Because it gets hot here in our beans quit
setting, So aim for seventy two days or less. But Aslin will definitely
do that. I've got beans. A lot of mine are down in the
sixties and even fifties, so upper mid fifties. Actually, okay, is
airloom tomatoes worth the searching for? It? Seems like you can always find
the I guess the Highbridge, okay, and it seems like I have pretty
good results. I like the heirloom because they're disease for you well or so
not always heirlooms are fine and they make a good tomato. The problem with
heirlooms is, first of all, their heirlooms from somewhere else. When a
lot of these tomatoes, like brandywine, they're not It's not a Texas heirloom.
It's an heirloom somewhere else that we now plan in. I haven't had
the best results for those. But the other thing with heirlooms is most of
them take too long to reach harvest, and we need a tomato to get
it done before seventy two days, if possible seventy five. It's stretching it.
And most of the heirlooms have too many days to harvest. But Cherokee
purple is a good one. I've got some brand new wine. I'm putting
a brand new one in this year. But I'm I started at super early
and my plant's going to have blooms on it for I even planet just to
try to get ahead of that. Hey, Leonard, I got to run,
but thank you and good luck with that. All I ask is that
you bring me some of your potatoes or we'll settle for a half gallon of
bluebell cent here and Brennam. Thank you, sir. Can you plug Saint
August thing? Yes, you sure can. Thank you. Thanks sir.
Uh if you are, if you've never been speaking of Brenham, if you've
never been out to Antique Rose Imporium, they're just north of Brenham. Uh,
the website. You'll want to write this down because everything you want to
know is on the website Antique Roseemporium dot com, Antique Rosanmporium dot com.
They are roses, but they are so much more. They've got daluas and
gerber daisies and booga and vie is and ferns and other shade loving plants and
salvia is and all kinds of things that you need out there. There's always
something going on at Anti rosing for him. I mean, really, you
need to go to the website and see everything that's going on and follow them
on social media. I'm going to be out there March tenth, ninth and
tenth weekend is the Spring celebration. I'm going to be heading out on Saturday
after the show, do a little bit of a time out. I'll be
giving a little talk out there. I'll tell you more about that as we
get closer. Just remember Anti Crosimporium dot com or just give them a call
at ninety seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight. And remember it
is always a good time to go out there, and spring is unbelievable.
Pile up a bunch of friends, garden club group, whatever, go out
there, crawl through the blue bonnets on the way as you had out that
direction in April, but go out now and just see everything in spring that
is busting loose at the antiqu rosing for him. We're going to take a
little break and I'll be right back seven three two one two KTRH. If
you'd like to give us a call, welcome back to garden Line. Glad
to have you with us today. Hey, you know, gardening is more
than just blooms. It's more than just produce. It's more than just a
beautiful landscape. It has something for all the senses and that includes sound,
and that includes movement, and that includes fragrances. Well, think about birds.
I love watching the bird early in the morning. I watch them go
to the feed or I'm sitting there having a cup of coffee, and birds
just adds something to the landscape, not just their antics. And we have
a bird bath I got recently. I'm trying to get set up out in
the backyard. While Birds Unlimited can get you set up on anything. With
birds, they have the top quality feed. I'm talking about feed where when
you buy a pound of feed, you get a pound in a bird's stomach.
If you know what I'm saying. Those little red bebies birds kick them
out. Those cheap bird feeds are not cheap because you don't get a pound
of feed from a pound you purchase. A lot of it gets wasted.
Not with wildbirds. They've got quality feed. Hey, it's time to get
your bluebird houses out. It's time for sure to get your purple Martin houses
out. The scouts are out, they're looking for a place. If they
see a house on your property, they're very likely to stop in check it
out, and especially if it's a wildbird house. I was looking at some
at a whalbird store a couple of weeks ago, and it's like I want
to move into the thing. It's like the taj Mahal. Just go by
and say, let me see your purple Martin houses and show me how that
works and everything. They're so easy to clean and take care of, and
purple Martins well birds in general. Really they help control insects and pests that
we have around the garden. Just another reason to have them. But I
like to have them for the sound, the songs, the beauty and Wildbird's
Unlimited is the place wb U dot com WBU dot com, and that is
how you find the walldbirds. And they're six of them around the Houston area,
six of them near you. Let's got to Conroe. We're going to
talk to Carol. Hey, Carol from Conroe. Hello, Hello, And
last week you were talking about a tomato little I think it was a small
tomato that you've had done a study and you thought it would be a good
one for us to grow here. Do you remember which one that was a
small tomato that I talked about last week that you had done it a study
of different kinds? Oh oh, oh, well, that one's a hard
one to find that was tumbling tom and where was it? Somebody? Who
was it that had hanging basket. I'm gonna have to hunt that down.
I can't remember who it was had hanging baskets a tumbling tom and we don't
usually see that tomato variety, but it's a good one. But hey,
any cherry tomato is going to be good sun gold. You would not plant
it in a hanging basket to put it in the ground. It's a wonderful
tomato does really really well if you like. Grape tomatoes is a very common
variety, but it is very productive. It's an all America selection, so
you got a lot of good options out there. Okay, thanks, Hey
Carol, I'm going to be at A and A Plants and Produce after the
show today. If you or any of your friends are interested, come on
out and see me. We're out in Montgomery at Ana Plants and Produce,
not too far away from you, guys, right, I'll be there all
right, Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Yeah.
A and A is stocked full of all kinds of flowers and vegetables and herbs
and shrubs and trees and roses and all the landscape bling we're talking about.
While you're there, you can pick up fertilizers for your garden and soil blends
for your garden because Ana carries the stuff I talk about on garden line.
So if you hear me say something, it's like, what is it?
Where I where did he say to get that? Goat a anda. They've
got it. They've got him there and I'll be there today, so bring
me some pictures. Let's uh, let's take a look at things in your
garden you need identified or you need some help with, and talk about that.
There. A and A is on the east side of Montgomery, on
the east side of Montgomery, So by the way, you can also hire
their A and A landscape crew to do early cleanup at your homes out there
around Lake Conroe. And they almost have a copy of my lawn care schedule
there at the counter. I'm going to bring a few of those with me
as well when I go out there today. Let's go to Spring Branch.
We're going to talk to Amy. Hello, Amy, Okay, Hi,
I was calling them. I've got a spot to put a crape myrtle because
where two pine trees were there for fifty years. Okay, And then we
had sidewalks put in, and I was wondering that we had a subs ground
about four years ago when they came out and the elliots that were planting around
them have been dying office the big freeze. Okay, So is there any
special soil prep that we need to do, because I'm always done? Is
like little flowers on the top of it. Are you Are you wanting saw
prep for the crape myrtle or for the azalea? No, that's a great
myrtle. The old You want to get you some rose soil, and you
want to get a good blend of that, and you want to make sure
and spread it out through the area. Make as wide of a bed as
you can, because those crape myrtles have roots that go far and wide.
Mix it a little bit with the soil you got, and just keep piling
the rose soil up because it's going to settle down. So I'd start off
with it a foot high because it will definitely settle way down from there over
time. But that ought to get you and nature's way resources up there.
They're located up forty five, just where you get to Conro, where fourteen
eighty eight comes in they're the originators of rose soil, and they do deliveries,
so you can buy it by the bag, but you can also have
them do a delivery and just drop it off right there at your place and
they can get you set up on that. They also they actually created a
lot of things like the leaf mole compost and the roast soil being two examples
of it. If you want to if you wanted to give them a call,
it's nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety or just go to
their website. It's Nature's Way Resources dot com. Talk to John Erian and
just tell them what you're looking for. H okay, And I was the
type I was hoping for, you know when I got online. They have
all different sizes and the way they grew up yes years ago boxwoods that were
the little miniature one, so it wasn't quite what I wanted. So we
were hoping to get twenty to thirty feet. So do you have like a
specific type? Yes. Off off the top of my head, I'm not
going to do a good job of naming varieties. So here's what I want
you to do. Go to your web search engine like Google and type in
skip Richter and type and then crape myrtle. And one of the top things
that appears is a listing that I did with doctor jer Parsons from Extension in
San Antonio, and it's a list of varieties from three feet high to thirty
feet high and it has pictures of them. It shows you know, if
you want white, red, pink, lavender, all the colors are there.
It has disease resistance, which you want to find one that is and
if some of them have beautiful cinnamon colored exfoliating bark. Now that's an older
list. There'll be some newer ones on the market that need to be added
to it, but at least that'll give you a place to start. Well
wonderful. And my husband I wanted to know about the root ball. When
we do get it, does that have to be broken up or do we
slice it? Yeah? I would When you get it out of the container,
you want to turn it over on each side and any roots that are
circling, go ahead and cut them. You know, if they're smaller than
a pencil, you can just take a box cutter knife and make a vertical
slice in three or four places around the ball and cut them that way.
They will within two weeks they will have already started sprouting fresh new white roots
to go out into the soil. It makes it establish so much faster.
If it's bigger, just use little handprinters to cut them. Okay, well,
wonderful, thank you. And then also there are some of jelias that
are a good twenty five years old that did not get cut the last two
seasons. Yeah, I've heard cut them back at anytime you want. Yeah,
cut you can cut them back now, but that will be removing your
spring bloom because all those buds are set and ready to go. You can
wait until after the spring broom bloom and start to do some cutting back on
them at that time as well. Okay, thank you very much. Ski.
All right, Amy, thank you for the call. I appreciate that.
Appreciate that. You know, we love feed stores here on Guarden Line
and in Tomball. D and D Feed that is your hometown feed store up
in the Tomball area. They're west of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty.
D and D Feed has everything you're going to need. Of course, they
have all the quality feeds, they've got the pest control, disease control products.
They carry a wide variety of quality products. You know, y'all,
the nitroposs fertilizers are there. They've got them. They've got the Sweet Green
and the super turf, you know kinds of stuff. They've got the Imperial
and whatnot. They have barricade too, by the way. They've got rose
soil that I was just talking about in bags, and fruit berry and citrus
mix from heirloom soils. They carry those things. They're going to be getting
fruit trees. In fact, I believe they've already got some fruit and citrus
trees. They've always got chicks coming in. I don't know, I don't
have my list in front of me, but about every few weeks here they've
got a whole new shipment of chicks coming in. So just give them a
call two eight, one, three, five, one seventy one forty four,
and you're gonna find everything you're looking for to take care of your lawn
and your garden and your landscape. Pest control, disease control, fertilizers,
you name it there, D and D feed and Humble makes it really easy,
easy easy. Let's go to mic in Base City. Hello, Mike,
Hello Aler Skip, how are you doing? I'm good sir, how
can I help? I guess you. I guess you said enough. This
morning I read a little thing about no till gardening, okay, and it
kind of sounded okay, And I just was wondering if you're familiar with that,
and you know, what, if, what your thoughts are on it,
whether it's a good way to go or not. I'm anxious to get
after and start tilling. But yes, I was reading that. It sounded
pretty reasonable. I am familiar with it, and for the most part,
I do that that there's more than one that weigh to skin a cat,
as they say, and so it's not like everybody has to garden in one
way. But the old days of rototilling, it canned starts to destroy the
sil structure, the little internal size and particles and things, especially when the
soil is a little too moist, too wet. Rototilling can do that.
Uh. And I just no till is just it's how nature does it.
You know, there's no standing forks in nature, and so hear you talk
about the forest and floor. You know, with hamil on the radio,
you can do that. You can do that. There's a book called Let's
see Weed Free Gardening I believe by Lee Reisch it's R. I C.
H. That's really good on a top down gardening method, and that's what
we're talking about, decaying organic matter on the surface. There's a little tool.
If your garden's very bit small, you can use a spading fork to
occasionally push it straight in the ground, lean back, and I say,
crack the soil open. You're not bending over and lifting soil and turning it
over. You're just cracking it open, and compost falls down in there and
it loosens it up and it aerates, especially a clay. As your garden
gets bigger, there's a tool called a broad fork, and it's like a
spading fork on steroids. You it's it's a bar with giant times and two
big handles, and you stand in the middle and your weight wiggles it down
in the soil and you just lean back and it cracks the soil open.
And people with law big beds and things use those. I've got one of
those myself. But no till is a good a good way to go,
and it just avoids some of the issues that tilling can create. And I
don't have time to go into each of them, but yeah, you're saying
a lot of the things that I was reading, which it sounds really interesting
to me. Yeah. The one thing that I didn't like is said,
don't walk on the garden. Well, hey, mine's like you know,
sixteen by sixteen. And then I got some other gardens too. Well,
the idea you have to walk in there. Yeah, and you need a
broad fork by the way and this, but you don't you walk on the
walkways, but you don't walk on the planting bed area. So there where
you're planting, you don't compact. You walk on the walkways. I always
throw leaves and stuff in the walkways. That way you have an hot weather
pathway, and then just just use that broad fork. I wish I could
think of a name of the brand. Oh my god, Yeah, I'll
think of it in a minute. I'll say it on there. They're not
a sponsor of the show, but they may the best broadfark I've ever seen,
and I own one of them. Well tell me the tell me again
that book. Uh, no weed, we'd free guard, We'd free gardening.
It's Lee L E E R E I C. H. Is the
name. He used to be at Cornell University. He's a hot professional horticulturist.
And it's very good. Uh and and it basically is a no till
type of gardening. I wrote an article of Texas Gardener magazine. You might
find that online. I don't know if they put that on the website as
a wild Take the magazine, yeah, I take the magazine, all right.
Well it's it's a back issue, back issue on No. Two gardening.
All right, all right, I gotta I gotta run, Thank you.
And if I think of the name of that place, I'll tell you
on the air. Wow, nigga, it's time for news. I gotta
take a break. Here our phone number seven one three two one two k
t r H. Here's NIGGI welcome back to garden Line. Speaking of sunshine,
I look outside, it is a perfect day. It's real still.
I don't see the trees blown around much. What a day to be outside,
What a day to be gardening. And when I get through here,
I'm gonna head up to A and A Plants and Produce in Montgomery. I'll
be doing an appearance up there, giving away some turf star Weedenator from night
Fuss and Nightrofuz from Nelson Plant Food. There I go my brain can only
hold in three thoughts at one time. I'm not a multitasker. Yeah,
Nelson's turf Star Weedenator is the kind of product that not only controls the weeds
are existing now, but it controls the provides a fertilizer in a slow release
way for going forward. And I'll be giving away back every fifteen minutes while
I'm up there, be up there for a couple hours. I hope you'll
come out of a giving away some Texas Gardener magazines as well. So I
don't know, I just can't beat that as far as I'm concerned. Sounds
like a good deal to me. If you have been listening to garden Line
for very long, you've heard me talk about the importance of aerating your lawn
and of top dressing your lawn, and the folks at Greenpro do just that.
Now. Green Pro is a service that will come to where you live.
They are up in the Magnolia area and they stay within about forty five
miles of the Magnolia area. And so when you're looking at anything north down
to about central maybe Houston on a crossover toward the Katie direction, and then
north from there, that's their area, but they'll come out. They'll bring
their equipment out, which is very excellent equipment for doing deep time core aeration.
That means reaching into the soil and pulling a plug out of the soil
and dropping it on the surface. That's how you properly aerate a lawn.
They follow that with the compost top dressing. The compost top dressing is a
very finely screened quality compost that also helps build your lawn over time. Some
of that will wash down in the little holes they create, as with oxygenal
move down to enhance your grassroots system getting it through that old heavy clay soil
many of us have, and it's just a great way to go. You
can go to their website greenpro dot net, or you can call them two
eight one three five one forty seven thirty three two eight one three five to
one forty seven thirty three green Pro. Have them come out and take care
of your place. Lawns so benefit from occasional correoration and the compost top dressing,
really good combination. Let's head out now to the Woodlands and we're going
to talk to Ken. Hello, Ken, good morning, Skip. I
really appreciate all your patients with all of us as we ask our questions,
there's only only stupid answers, not stupid questions. So the pressures are made
ken. How come I've got to one I think is pretty easy. The
other one's more a therapy question for one of my plants. I'm in the
middle of just spreading my annual three or four inches of hardwood mulch. And
does it make sense? I know traditionally with the azalea is you wait to
fertilize after the bloom and you prune after the bloom. Any problem? Would
just go ahead and throw the fertilizer out before the mult and then put the
mulch down. You can, you can do that, there's not a problem
with that. Just follow the instruction. What kind of fertilizer do you use
for you azaleas? The nitrofoss Azalia chamella mix. Oh, that's there,
that's the eight twelve ten. That is an excellent, excellent choice, and
yeah put it down. Used it for years. Yeah, well then there.
It has great results. It's especially those acid loving plants, guardenias.
It's it's good for those two. By the way, Yeah, put it
out at the recommended rate on the label. And then throw your mulch on
top and water it down. It's not like that nutrient's going to be gone
tomorrow. You know, it's going to be around for a while and it'll
release okay, And I mean my question was, really, you know,
if you throw it on top of the mulch, which is what I've typically
done, does the mulch you know, you know it just lays on top
of the hardwood mulch. Does that prevent it from really getting as effective?
Yeah, it's a soluble product, so when you put the water on it,
it's going to dissolve the particles and release the nutrients. And if nitrogen
has to flow through all that woody material, a lot of it is going
to be taken in that process to help break down the wood mulch. Nitrogen
and carbon, that's what I was thinking. Nitrogen carbon, that's a combination
that ends up with compost. And so what if you throw it on the
mulch. I would just take a rake and rake the mulch a little bit
and let those particles fall down in between the mulch and then water going really
well, and that would be fine. You don't have to you don't want
to remove mult ever really just add fresh new mulch on top of it.
Yeah, well that's what I was thinking now is this is a perfect time,
since I don't have it all spread yet, to go ahead and throw
the furtiledger. Next question. Last year, I've got four Laura pedulum that
are mature ten plus years old. One of them died just wilted. It
was getting the same water as the mandina and boxwood and everything else around it.
Then later another one started wilting further down the bed and I went I
looked at it. I couldn't see any bugs or problems, and eventually,
after all the leaves started to wilt and turn brown. I called the master
gardeners and they gave me a reference for Laura pedalum bacterial gall and sure enough
I went out there, crawled around, looked at the thing, and yeah,
that's what I must have had a little bacterial gall on the Laura pedalum.
Now I don't know it with liquid cop Hey, I'm I'm sorry to
cut in. Can I'm about to hit a hard break here? But yes,
following with the thing on that, I wouldn't give up though, on
the idea that it could be a root rot and the way to tell that
is when a plant you've seen one die and now the next one's going downhill,
you can dig them up and send them to the state plant clinic where
they can do a diagnosis and at least then you know what you're dealing with,
because those root rots will attack other species as well. But the alternative
would just speed to a drench with a fungicide to prevent the root rot.
Okay, that's the first thing I did, was captain. Okay, Well,
Captain wouldn't be the best one really for that kind of root rot.
Oh yeah, okay, okay, but yeah, I can't tell you based
on yeah, just because I just went all right, I'll hold jova,
I'll hold jover. I understand you, just hang on. If you have
never purchased a Landscaper's Pride product for improving your soil, you need to give
them a try. Uh. They have the Landscaper's Mix. It's a great
mix for excellent drainage, ideal new plantings in existing bed. It's got a
combo of fresh pine bark, rice salts, pearlite, and even a slow
release fertilizer. They have a rose mix. It's good for any kind of
woody ornamental plant. It's just good for that. It's got a combination of
pine and spagnum and slow release fertilizer. Pot Dirt is an Omni certified organic
soil. It's packed with nutrients. It's got worm casting sand and vermaky light
and more so, if you got annual beds or seasonal color changes where you
really want to pop of color growth pot dirt from Landscaper's Pride. They have
a lot of products. Go to Landscaperspride dot com and learn about all of
the different products they have and where you can purchase them. We're going to
take a break. Our number is seven one three two one two KTRH.
I'll be right back. I don't know that SNG makes me happy. It's
just got that kind of happy bounce to it. Welcome back to garden Line.
We are glad you're listening, and we're happy to visit with you about
the kinds of questions that you might have, and we want to direct you
to the places and the products that help you have success as well, because
that is just really important. And living in this wonderful place rich with nurseries
and garden centers. We're talking about independent garden centers, not big box stores
or national chains or things like that. Someone called earlier and said, you
know, so they went someplace they named a couple and it's like they didn't
know what they were talking about. Well, okay, but our mom and
pops, do you go to a like Enchanted Forest, for example, which
is done in Richmond. Enchanted Forest is absolutely one of the destination places we
like to talk about here on garden Line Today. In fact, right at
the end of the show today today, Am Mike Sarant's going to be out
there talking about organic gardening at down at the Enchanted Forest and Richmond. Now,
if you're down in the Richmond area and you're going where's Enchanted Forest,
Well, it is at FM twenty seven to fifty nine. So if you're
in Richmond and you're heading towards sugar Land, it's off to the right FM
twenty seven fifty nine Enchanted Forest. And here's the website Enchanted Forest Richmond,
TX dot com and Chantedforest Richmond, TX dot com. What do they have
there? Everything? Their selection of vegetables and herbs and the new structures they
built is outstanding. You're going to see color wall to wall when you go
to Enchanted Forest, Richmond. You're going to find every kind of place,
yeah, that you would need at the time you need to plan them.
And you're going to find people that know what they're talking about. Clay,
you know, just visiting with him a while back, just very very knowledgeable,
very very not Danny, very very knowledgeable. They're going to direct you
to the things you need. By the way, check out their house plants
and the really cool little pots if you like little indoor plants with unique pots.
They've got a really nice selection. I always love kind of poking around
through there and seeing what is the latest. But hey, Enchanted Forrest,
Richmond, TX dot com. Go check them out. Today'd be a good
day to get out and visit. We're going to go back now to the
Woodlands and finish up here with Ken. Ken. I think you had a
little bit of a follow up. You want to ask, Yes, the
Laura petalum that had the bacterial gall I treated it with liquid cop yes and
I was you know it is it's sitting there right now. Got one that's
beautiful in bloom. The one I'm looking at has you know, the leaves
are wilted and brown. Okay, I was going to just cut it out.
It turns out it still has green stems. Now there's no leaves coming
out yet, but the stems still have the you know, I scratch back
and it's all green. What would you suggest to try to, you know,
therapeutically bring that thing back because it's a big bush. Well, I
got circulation, I guess, yeah, you know, still green, right,
Well, get all the dead stuff out of there. That that is
important. If it was indeed bac TiAl gall, which could have been it
could have been on there. You should see some cankers and things like that
on the stem. That is one of the things that you will notice when
you see those. And if you're seeing those, I would if you truly
have that, it's not going to just go away. I mean, you
can put the copper on it. But copper is a surface funge you side.
It doesn't The bac tril gall is getting down into the tissues of the
plant. And it's like remember the old days of macure comb or they call
it monkey blood. You'd put over a cut in your hand. Yeah,
that just that just killed what was on the surface. It wasn't like an
antibiotic that went in and killed the infection in your arm, and so copper
is just a surface treatment. Now it would prevent infections and things of it,
but you may end up needing to pull that plant and get them just
get it out of there. But I would watch it because we're kind of
guessing as to what the cause is and I don't want to assume that that's
for sure, right, So just be a little a little careful there with
it, but get ready, get ready to pull it out because the copper,
if it were bacterial gall the copper would not be a cure. Okay.
Do you have a recommended active ingredient for a root rot drench? Uh?
There is something called ban rot b A n R O T. That's
that is a fungicide that's drenched onto the soil that covers more than one kind
of a root rot. And it's not going to be easy to find.
You might you know, I know you're up in the woodlands, and probably
the best places to hunt it down are going to be way down in Houston,
like Southwest Fertilizer. I don't know up in that area who might carry
it. That is that is not a typical on the garden shelf product.
Okay, well, I'll look it up and see if I can find it.
Yeah, yeah, if it's a root rot. But again, I
always hesitate to pull out a product unless I'm sure that it's going to go
after the problem that I have. You know what I mean. Yes,
a lot of product gets wasted when it's a good product, but it's put
on something it doesn't it's not for you know what I mean? Right?
Yeah? Okay, Well, I appreciate all your health, all right,
Ken, good luck up there in the woodlands. Enjoy that. Good to
talk to you. Ace Hardware stores are all over the place, all right,
this do me, do me this favor. I want you to see
this. Go to ACE hardware dot com and find their store locator. Acehardware
dot Com find their store locator now if you if you want to just go
straight to it. It's a longer, you are l I usually don't give
you the whole nine yards, but we're going to do that right now.
Ace Hardware dot Com slash store dash locator. I want you to go there,
head enter and the map pops up and it knows to tell it to
let find where you are, because I mean you could be in Austin,
Texas. Doing this. When you do, you're going to see dots all
over Houston. And those are all the ACE Hardware forty stores in the Greater
Houston ACE Hardware Group that are all out there, And I mean, wow,
they they've got everything you need. Do I If you hear me say
a fertilizer's name, a soil blend, you know, a compost or a
soil bed mixed blend, They're gonna have it there. Do you need to
control diseases or weeds or insects, They're going to have those products. At
ACE Hardware, A knowledgeable staff can come by. They can help you find
the product that you need. Some of the ACE Hardware stores we'll even have
some plants on hand. They will have things like tools and garden hoses and
all kinds of things you need to have a beautiful landscape, a beautiful garden
for outdoor living. They have all the things you need outside to have a
beautiful place as well. So I would encourage you to stop buy an ACE
Harder. You'll be surprised at all the things ACE carries. While are you
there, make sure and check out the barbecue section. I'm sorry it's addictive,
but when you go in there. You're going to have to have one
the big green eggs and the triggers and the webers and all that kind of
stuff. And then you know, if you enjoy indoor decorations, things to
beautify the home, they have a whole section like that. Trust me,
this is not don't think about your Grandpa's hardware store. They have what Grandpa's
hardware store had, but so much much more. At Aceardware dot Com.
I always loved going in just to see, like, what in the heck
do they have that I didn't even know they had. Now you're going to
find a lot of it at ACE Hardware. Love to go into those places.
We have been answering gardening questions all day today and a lot of different
things people are interested in. I'm always amused. You know. We used
to say when I was Keunnty Extension horticulturist for Texas and m Agrolife Extension,
we used to say, the three things that made the phone ring are the
three T's trees, turf tomatoes. Nobody called me about their co Robbie.
They called me about their tomatoes. And we've held up with that today.
I mean, we've had several calls on tomatoes. Today, everybody cares about
their lawn and for good reason, and we want to help you have a
beautiful lawn. Remember, I've got those schedules online and they're free and in
January through December on the lawn cair sctof fertilizing, mowing, watering, weed
control, pest control. It's all on there. If you're organic, if
you're synthetic, both on that schedule. If you need well I said long
care schedule. That's mow water, fertilized. The other one has the disease
and the weeds and the insects. Two different schedules, lots of products.
Print them out, take them with you when you go shopping so you can
make sure you get the product that you're looking for. Those are products that
I've tested. Those are products that I've tried myself. I don't just talk
about a product that I'm not familiar with, but that there's a process and
being a sponsor on Guard wording and for me to talk about something like I
was bragging about the Nelson's fertilizer that you put in with the putting soil.
I've tried it, I've used it, I know it works and I'm not
going to tell you something that isn't proven by myself or by research that it's
going to work. Then a good day. Be back tomorrow, six am,