Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
It's crazy he shrim Just watch him as so many things to sup that
crazy gas. They're not a side side. Well, good morning, good
Sunday morning. Did you enjoy that extra hour of sleep? I sure did,
that is for sure. Hey, if you look outside it's dark,
if your neighbor's lights aren't on, go bang on the door, tell him
they're missing Garden Line and they will sew. So appreciate that reminder. We're
here today to talk about the gardening questions that interest you most. What do
you what are you interested in? What do you what do you grow?
What do you you know? What are your hobbies? When it comes to
gardening. You know the world of gardening, it's a it's really an unending
world. I was talking to somebody yesterday when I was out at Siena Maltch
and by the way, thank thank you guys out there for having me come
in. I appreciated that. Got to meet some really cool folks and give
away a lot of really cool product too. But anyway, I was talking
to somebody and said they were I can't remember what the plant was, but
they were starting to get interested in that kind of plant. And I just
said, you know, gardening is an addictive hobby and there are so many
things. You know, maybe you're a vegetable gardener and suddenly you discover,
oh it was bones eye, that was that was what it was. They
were getting interested in bones eye. Maybe it's orchids, maybe it's roses.
It's go crazy on roses. And it doesn't matter what it is. There
is a group of people that are really enthusiastic about it, a lot of
good information out there on it. And I think that's the fun thing about
gardening. You know, I've kind of wandered through. I'm supposed to be
knowledgeable about all the areas, but there's areas that each year it's like some
new area that I take on. For example, bones I haven't. I'm
not a bones eye person. I've never done that. I guess one day
that's going to be the thing I pick up and actually learn. But as
you do that, you just get to choose the hobbies that interest you and
that fit you. You know, Let's say you weren't able to get up
and be out in the outside a lot and things well bones eye is a
is a nice little hobby that you could do. Uh. And when it
comes to what what is your reason for gardening? Is it health? Do
you want do you want healthy food? Do you want to grow your own
vegetables and herbs and fruits for example? Do you just want to have a
beautiful showplace? You can? You can do it all with gardening. That
is one of the things I love most. Hey, our phone number is
seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two kt r A. I was at at Cena Maltz yesterday and you know,
Sienna is it's just a I always like to go there because the quality
of products they have are are unmatched. And if you live down south of
the Houston area maybe Highway six and two eighty eight that area, they're on
FM five twenty one by the way, and their their website is Ciena multch
dot com, so it's really easy to find them. But they have quality
hardwood mulches. You know, they have the screened mult they have the black
velvet as one they were talking to me about yesterday. They started getting in
there's a there is a quality composhing by bulk. You can buy it in
the bag if you're twenty miles within about twenty miles of them, they'll even
deliver for a small fee, of course. And then all the fertilizers.
I was just looking over all the quality for it's like the stuff I talk
about here, They've got it there, tools and everything else you need.
Ciana Multch they I would say that anyone who lives anywhere in that whole region
south down that direction is so fortunate to have seen amultch in your backyard because
of the quality products and and because of the fact that you can go there
and get your own you can get the bags or you can actually just you
know, delivered, have it delivered bulk, very convenient. What do you
need? They can do it? And you know, I keep saying,
the brown stuff before the green stuff. If you are planning on planting a
garden, or if you're planning on putting some shrubs in or anything you're going
to do, you want to take care of the soil first. And that's
that's what they're all about. Uh. The last was it last week or
the week before, may have been the week before, but I was I
was out and actually still have an okra patch going out in the backyard because
I do okra breeding, crossing different types and I'm trying to develop more compact
okra that are also more attractive so that you could use them. You could
plan them along a privacy fence and have almost a shrub row through the summer
that has beautiful color in the foliage and whatnot, and beautiful color in the
pods, but it is also very productive and quality okay that you're eating.
And as I go through, it's always interesting to see the different crosses and
what comes from them. Sometimes you kind of can predict where it's going to
go. Sometimes it's like, wow, where did that come from? And
I was out looking at one of the one of the plantings and just an
overloaded bush with lots of beautiful burgundy pods on it, and I looked at
its brothers and sisters that were around it, and nothing matched it. This
was really an exceptional plant. And that's kind of fun and a lot of
people get into that. There are people that breed day lilies. They really
into day lilies, and they cross their day lilies hibiscus. That's another one
the people, you know, amateurs, not professional breeders, but amateurs play
with and so what are you interested in in gardening? We're pretty soon going
to be getting into the end or seed starting. We're still a couple of
months away, but when we begin the indoor seed starting, that's a whole
other world, the indoor propagating and whatnot. Well, our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you would like
to give us a call, we'll be happy to visit with you about that.
For those of you up there in Tomball, I'm gonna brag on D
and D Feed a little bit. D and D Feed is your hometown feed
store. They're about three miles west of Highway to forty nine on twenty nine
to twenty and I was out the other day visiting with them, and you
know, the Dover family just keeps making it better. There was a whole
new section that I hadn't even noticed, well I hadn't. It wasn't there
the previous time i'd been out where they had a lot of different kinds of
seeds and bulk seeds. So if you're a gardener and you want to just
you know, get the little scoops a very economical bulk seed. Maybe you're
going to put in some I don't know, mustard or radishes or whatever you
wanted to plant. They have that there as well. They carry all the
fertilizers that we talk about on garden Line. They have a very good selection
of all the things that manage the things that go after your plants, so
that would be insects and diseases, and I'll just throw weeds in there as
well. I was surprised at the diversity and the amount of options that they
had, so pretty much if you've got something bugging your plants, they can
take care of that. I always when I'm at D and D Feed,
I always grab a couple of the bones from the doggy deli, and my
dogs thoroughly enjoyed those. That was that was for sure. But go check
them out at D and D Feed, I think you'll be surprising. And
very high quality pet foods too, by the way, and of course it's
a feed start. They've got livestock feed and all the other things like that
that you might need. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, and I'm going to go take a break here,
give Josh a call and get on the boards, and we will visit with
you when we come back. Well, good Sunday morning. You're listening to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're talking all kinds
of things gardening. Today. We're going to go straight to the phone,
by the way, the number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. We're going to start off with Phil in Spring. Hello Phil,
hie, Skip, good morning. I want to ask you about a critter.
This burrowed up under a bush in a flower bed. Okay, and
uh, he's burrowed up about I guess about two feet made about a six
inch hole. My guess this is the armadilla. But I'm not sure.
I wonder if you had any idea how to tell. Well, that's a
good that's a good likelihood that it is. But I'm not a wildlife specialist,
that's for sure. I am true. You said how wide was a
hole? It's about six inches in diameter. It could be an armadilla.
I guess. I'm just not sure what else would do that. You know,
you could put a live trap in front of it and maybe try some
different kinds of baits. If it's an armadilla. The recipe for the bayes
take elbow macaroni, boil it and beef boy on and then drop the little
macaronis around there. It's almost like they're eating grubs, and you can try
take them right into the trap. They're bumbling little creatures, so you kind
of have to lead them into a trap. But once you have them live
trap, then you can, you know, take them out and release them
in the wild. Yeah. Would raccoon do that? I know, I
know what I should. I've never heard of a raccoon doing that. Okay,
I don't think so. Okay, Well, he certainly made himself home
at home. He was down way into the roots. Oh wow, so
interesting. I've never seen one. Yeah, telling me that, there's no
telling. Uh. I've seen him in the woods a lot and shot him
and everything, but I've never seen where they where they nest, you know.
Okay, Well, all right, thank you, good luck dealing with
it. Maybe you need a wildlife cam and you can watch it. You
can watch it and see what that was. We're going to head out now
to Bill and Cypress. Hello, Bill, whoa, how you? Good
morning? I'm well, I'm well, how are you doing? I'm well
on a Sunday morning. All right, Well, let's talk gardening. Uh.
Well, I've got a grass situation. Okay, backyard had a little
bit of Saint Augustine with a heat, we got a lot of drought,
a lot of weeds, and I've got behaved. I believe it might be
behave coast. I don't think it's coastal, but I want to get rid
of every grass weed that I can. And a friend of mine said to
use agrolong, but I wanted to check with somebody such as yourself. Are
you talking about the cinema product? The product? I don't know. Okay,
he just said agrolong, But I want to I want my Saint Augustine
to grow and everything else die. And I don't have any trees in the
back. Well, so yeah, let me let me direct you. I'm
going to direct you to my schedule online because your question really is a bunch
of questions in one. If you go to gardening with Skip dot com,
you can find the lawn, pest, Disease and weed management schedule. And
in the weed management part it has the weed prevention January through December and when
you apply and what you apply, and then it has the weed killing existing
weeds. That's the post emergent and it would also go January through the end
of the year and it lists everything. There's organic and synthetic options if they're
available, and I would just refer you to that because this is going to
be a multi stage process. You know, right now our winter weeds are
germinating, so to prevent winter broad leaf and grassy weeds, you would put
on a product like barricade for example, to prevent those. And then in
the spring you're preventing warm season weeds. And if you have weeds that escape,
then you use the post emergent product on those. So it's more complicated
than just a radio call. But go to that schedule. That's why I
put it together and you can find everything you need. Again, it's gardening,
and that is gardeningwi Skip dot com. That's it, Yes, sir,
that is. And having said that, and this is also on this
schedule, I'll read it to you. The first and most important step in
weed control is to build a dense, healthy turf over time through proper fertilizing,
mowing, and watering wherever sunlight hits the soil. Nature plants a weed.
So you just don't want to be on a treadmill where you have a
thin lawn and it's just constantly fighting weeds. For now, there's the things
we do to prevent them and kill them. But get your lawn in a
dense shape and you're going to have very very reduced weed issues. I've got
one weed that is a hearty looking grain stam. It comes up as about
six eight and it goes taller six eight inches tall, but it's got a
little yellow flower on the end of it. And when you pull it up
and you get an opportunity, it's real strong root, okay or stamp,
but when you pull it up it looks like a carrot. So what type
of weed is that? Well, I can put you on hold and you
send me a photo that's the best type. But I can tell you it's
a broad leaf weed that you would use a post emergent product on for broad
leaf and that's on my schedule. All right, I'm gonna put you on
hold. You can either hang up or you can get an email from Josh
your choice. Thank you, sir for calling. Yeah. That Southwest Fertilizer,
By the way, is where everybody can find whatever they need. Like
I said before, I go in there just to walk the aisles and say,
okay, what's new on the market, because there's always new things coming
on the market. And if it's new or if it's old, Bob's going
to have it. Southwest Fertilizer. I mean, if they don't have it,
you don't need it. That's how it works. Herbicides and sexticides,
fundersides. Maybe you're an organic gardener and you want our products. They've got
that too. Any kind of tool you could possibly need for gardening is there
at Southwest Fertilizer. They will sharpen your mower blades. It's a good time
to do that, by the way, because you're going to start mowing again
here in the spring, and that's when there's a little bit of a line
to get more blades sharpened and to get your two cycle engine things, you
know, fired up and working after the wintertime. So go to Southwest Fertilizer
dot com or just drive over there there abissinut and runwick and you will find
that no matter what it is you need to have a beautiful on to bountiful
landscape, you're going to find it there at Southwest. Absolutely. I'm going
to head now out to Katie and talk to Jim. Hello, Jim Skip
morning. Yeah. I got a question about lot lolly pines and dam is
done through the drought, you know, yeah, please, I mean the
needles are help around now on a number of trees. So I'm just wondering,
well, is there any chance of a coming back or Okay, what
my something I can do? You know? Yeah. So so just to
be clear, there's not They're not green needles left anywhere on the trees,
right, I mean a lot of them. Yeah, there's no green leafatos
last. Yeah, So that's a dead pine. It cannot come back,
it has to. It can only re sprout something where there's living needles.
And so when the needles are all dead, it's a dead pine. The
sooner you get them out the better. If they're in a place where they
can just drop them, that's less expensive, and you can just go ahead
and do that. But if they're gonna have to climb that tree and take
it down from the top down, then that that gets expensive and that pine
bark starts sloughing off pretty quick after they're dead, and so you need to
get that done if they're gonna have to take them down from the top down
as soon as possible. Okay, that's what I was afraid of. Yeah,
okay, all right, so and let's see you're out and Katie.
Yeah, you know the affordable tree. They absolutely can come out and do
that for you. Have you ever have you ever written that down or call
them before? No, that I will, all right, I'll give you
the phone number right now, just in case you go ahead and get that
done. Seven one, three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three.
Okay, okay, well, thank you, you bet all right, you
take care. I appreciate the call. Yeah. I tell you, trees,
uh, you know a lot of standard types of trees, and you
know the non pine types of trees. They you have a little more time
to get those down. You still don't want to wait too long, but
you have a little more time. But I tell you, with pines,
I wouldn't. And pines are are weird. They twist as they grow up
like a barber pole. And so I've cut pines down myself before. And
sometimes you kind of don't know where they're going to go. I mean,
if you don't know what you're doing you can create a big problem with any
tree, and the closer it is to something of value, the more you
absolutely need to not try that one yourself. For sure. You know,
Nelson still has this special thing going on with their carbo load, and that
is that they donate two dollars for every bag of carbo load sold this fall
to the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship for horticulture students at Texas A and M.
And I know nothing could make Randy prouder than to know that in his legacy
that has been created. And I know we would love that, but two
dollars forever bag of carbo load, and carbo load is great. It's designed
for fall, it's designed with that high potassium amount in it that helps your
lawn get stronger going into winter, which means it comes out stronger in the
spring. Remember, the earliest growth of your lawn in the spring is from
stored energy, not from the roots. And so you got to get that
thing strong the October fertilization, which we still can get it on in November,
but you need to hurry up and do it because the longer you wait,
the less effect that is going to be able to have. So go
ahead and get that done. And also it has a pre emergent which prevents
weeds. And again if the weeds are all sprouted and growing, it's a
little late to do that. So don't delay on these things. But uh,
two dollars on every bag to Randy Scholarship. We appreciate Nelson's being willing
to do that. I know that was very important to Dean to do.
Uh, and something they really they really should be proud of because it is
also just a quality product. All right, let's see my phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Folks out at Kingwood Garden Center and Warren Southern Gardens,
they have their native plant of the month is Texas beauty berry. If
you've not seen a beauty berry, it's a it's a plant that grows wild
in the woods, but the leaves fall off in the fall and it leaves
these clusters of kind of a I'm color challenged, but the people call them
purple, but I think more of a purple a light purple color is I
guess lavender is not quite the right word for the color. But anyway,
very beautiful, nice for arrangements against an eighty plant. It just does so
so well. Here you get it in a droughty situation and it's one of
those plants that can survive despite that. They also have the airloom soils and
age leaf composts three bags for thirty dollars. They're packaged bulbs except for ameralists.
All the packaged bulbs, you buy two, you get one free.
It is still a good time to plant bulbs. And then everything else onion
sets, garlic bulbs, amorillis, cycloman pansies for your fall color or winter
color. Everything's there at Kingwoo Garden Center and Warren's Southern Garden And on November
eighteenth, just coming up here, they're going to have an opportunity to learn
the art of creating stunning festive container planting. Say have you ever committ to
somebody's house and that a container that was just, oh my gosh, that's
perfect, it's gorgeous. How'd you do it? We'll go. It's a
free event. You can learn how to do it, simple as that it
warrens Southern Gardens on November eighteenth. Well, it's time for us to take
a little break, if you would like to give us a call and get
on the boards with Josh. The number is seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. Well, good morning on a Sunday morning. That's
going to turn out to be a really nice day. Be a good day
to get out this afternoon, get some things done, maybe go around to
a little bit of gardening shopping. We're in the big middle of fall season.
And I know you know here in our area when when is fall.
We're supposed to be September, but not really right, and it goes on
into November. And I think winter is two or three days, but they
vary every year what two or three days winter is here in the Crater Houston
area. But this is the time, this is the prime time for planting.
It is if you're planning a woody ornamental, a tree or shrub or
woody vine. If you get it in now, roots can grow in our
soil temperatures all through the winter and not super fast, but grow and so
by the time next summer comes, you've got a big head start on that
tree, having an established root system that can deal with heat and drought,
and so it's very valuable to get that done very important to remember to do
that. And the folks at RCW, they've got they have a wide variety
of trees, all kinds of different trees. They've grown themselves up Plannersville and
right now they've got some tree deals. By the way, the spring fling
that they're having is next Saturday, and it's from eleven thirty to one thirty,
and I'm going to be there. I don't want to forget to mention
that they're going to have barbecue sandwich lunch. They're going to have fifteen percent
off on select trees. They'll be giving away frost cloth, remember we talked
about that yesterday, Microlife, fertilizer, Nelson fertilizer, flowers, nitrophoss,
fungicides, all out there. They're going to give away tree seedlings, lace
spark elm Mexican white oak and live oak and these are nice, little well
grown seedlings and special containers that make for a great root system. They've got
other tree deals live oaks and San Philippi red maples on sale. And so
it's a good time to get out there. It's a good time to select
a tree or a shrub. And while you're out there, you're going to
find a lot of other plants at our Sew nursery. Now if you have
not been before, it's easy to find. It's the nursery that is right
there where Tambo Parkway two forty nine comes into Beltwegh eight And if you just
want to go to the website and find it that way RCW nurseries dot com.
But remember fall is for planting, and that doesn't just just mean woody
ornamentals. Do you want to put in a perennial Do you want to put
in a perennial grass? This is the prime time to plant them. How
about herbs? You know, not a warm season annual herb like basil,
but pretty much all the other herbs can be planted in the fall of the
perennial herbs a regano and time and rosemary and on and on down the line.
Prime time to do it. I can't stress that enough. And it
just you will find that a plant you put in in the fall and get
established when things are easy. It just hits the ground running when spring comes,
versus a plant that you drop in the ground right at that time.
We can plant twelve months out of the year here that that's fine. Plant
any month you want to, but you're sitting in the big middle of the
best season in the world. If you want a little help making sure those
plants survive and thrive, That's what I'm trying to say. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call, get you on
the boards, and we'll visit with you here in just a bit. I
want to remind you that our lawn and schedules are on my website at Gardening
with Skip dot com gardeningwiskip dot com. The lawn Care schedule talks about fertilizing
and it also gives an aeration and trace minerals the It also gives information on
mowing and watering, which you think I know how to mow and water,
well, you need to read this because there's a lot of information on here
that is very helpful for that. The second schedule is the long Pest,
Disease and Weed Management schedule. Insects, diseases and weeds. What happens when,
like when do we start looking for chinchabugs? When do we start looking
for when's the best time to treat grubs, and there is a best time
and what do you use? You just drop down to the bottom of the
schedule. You can go organic or synthetic, and the options are all down
there for you. It's really easy. I would encourage you to go ahead
and bookmark these. You can print them out, but just know that I
am adding and enhancing those as we go through and new things come along,
so it's always a good idea to check back for those originals. But boy,
that makes it really easy. While you're there on the website, check
out the brand new publication that I put up on dealing with frosts and freezes
in your landscape and in your gardens. It goes through the whole nine yards.
A little bit of the nerdy stuff about the different types of frost freeze
and you know how they happen and why they happen, but a lot of
information on what can you do to protect your plants, like should you sprinkle
the leaves with water so ice forms because you've seen people in citrus orchards do
that, right, maybe pictures on the news. Well there's a huge con
and also a little pro and the bottom answer is probably not In most cases,
probably not, But what about does it important to water the soil first?
How do you cover a tree? How do you what if it's going
to get really cold and just the cover isn't enough, what do you do?
It's all in their nine pages, color pictures and everything, and we're
entering that season and you're going to need it, so go ahead and get
it, print it out. I co authored it with one of our horticulture
specialists from Texas A and M, and it is. It is a very
extensive publication, one that I think every gardener should have because everybody someday is
going to be heading out to get the things you need to protect your plants.
By the way, if you haven't already purchased things like clamp on lights
or covers for plants, or some of the other things you're going to want
to use, you better go get them, because on the day that the
blue northers blowing in, everybody has already cleaned out wherever you're shopping to get
all those things, and you're kind of left up a creek. And I've
just true confessions. I've been the guy that you know it's dark already on
the night the wind is blowing, it's frigid cold. My hands are stiff,
and I'm trying to cover up a plant to say that. Don't be
that guy. Hopefully I learned my lesson about that. Hey, if you
thought about having a little tractor for your property, I say little, I
don't know. It's kind of the way it came out. I would recommend
the L twenty five two from Kboda. That's their workhorse, and they've got
a really good deal now that you can go. When they call it the
pick click Go Orange. The pick is pick out that tractor in Caboda you
want. I like that eltim two click on the package deal at tractor package
dot com. So that allows you to put a package together, like maybe
you want a box blade, maybe you want a front end loader or a
postal dig or a rotary cutter. You pick out what you want to go
with it for the package deal, and then you get the best finance plan
I've seen. That's the go Orange part. Lansdown and Caboda now have extended
that deal for up to eighty four months. And what the deal is,
no money down, no interest for eighty four months now Landsdown it's a local
Houston company. Lansdown's from here. It's been here since nineteen thirty six,
nine locations on the Texas golf Coast. You're not going to have trouble finding
a Lansdown Moody lmtractor dot com. Go buy and just sit on one.
Just check it out and get a feel for the thing. Let them tell
you a little bit about it. I think you will really enjoy that because
they're one sweet ride, absolutely one sweet ride if you're interested in and some
fall color. In winter color, it's still a good time. In fact,
now that it's really cooling off a little bit more, and I know
we're about to go into a warm week, but we're entering that season.
This is a good time to plant pansies and viola's, for example, they
like it a little bit cooler. Snap dragons or a beautiful plant. You
can get the tall types that are good for cut flowers if you want a
cut flower garden, or you can get the more compact types that are good
for betting plants. And they're just a riot of color. Every color you
can imagine in the snap dragons, the dianthus or the sweet Williams. There's
a compact type that are betting plants, real beautiful and then there's the tall
types that have long stems that can be used also for cut flowers. So
those are just a couple options. Maybe I'll talk about a few more when
we come back. But by the way, on the Dianthus, if you
can find the real tall types like Amazon and I can think of the Jolts
as the other series, those are unbelievably stunning neon colors. Well, let's
take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Well, good morning, and you are listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and it's gonna be a nice Sunday today.
I love this kind of weather. I know it's gonna warm up a
little bit as we go into the week, but hey, anybody who survived
the summer, you know you're gonna do fine. It's not gonna get nearer
that hot. And that is a good thing. One advantage actually of having
a little bit warmer weather. When I say warmer, i'm talking about you
know in that lower eighties. Lord a mid even is that the plants are
gonna grow rapidly. So let's say you put broccoli in the ground. You
got a little bit of a late start on it or something. You gotch
the broccoli in the ground, and if we went down to you know,
the forties, that broccoli is gonna grow slower. I mean, can take
cold weather, it's gonna grow slower. But right now it's gonna move fast.
And that is a good thing because eventually things are gonna cool off and
we want to get the most out of whatever we're growing that we can.
I want to brag about something you've heard me talk about. McGrath Pest Control,
a Scott's company that just absolutely when you talk about a company that has
years of experience, when you talk about a company that is a kind of
service company that you can depend on. If they say I'm going to show
up, they show up at that time. They don't make you block half
your day just in case they might come by. They cover the whole Houston
area. Well, they again have won. It's amazing. They're always whether
it's customer ratings and reviews, but right now we've got the McGrath Pest Control
Services one the Curator's pick for serving the Greater Houston area and it's just a
it's just amazing that. Well. I appreciate the fact that they're getting recognized
for the kind of quality that they provide. Now that includes whatever you need.
I mean, is it termites, or is it fire ants, or
is it mosquitoes or is it you know, roaches in the house, varmints
in the attic. I mean, they cover it all at McGrath pest Control.
It's easy to get a hold of them mechgrath pestcontrol dot com or two
eight one four six nine eighty two forty simple as that. Congratulations, Scott.
Let's see We're gonna go to ro Sharon now and talk to Dennis.
Hello, Dennis, Hello, how are you there? I'm well, thank
you. My question is about using surf factor when you're using a liquid herbicide,
and if you dilute with softened water, does that make any difference whether
you still need surffected or not. Well, the softened water helps the droplets
spread out a little bit, but the surfactant does a much better job.
Now you could use them both and that that's fine. The thing with the
herbicides is, you know, when you purchase them, talk to the people
and ask. But a lot of our products now come with a surfactan in
it. Now you can add additional if you want. But some products they
are made to do that. I mean, you know, for example,
you're gonna spray like image on your nut's edge. Well, nut's edge has
leaves that point straight up in the air and they are slick and glossy.
Who could make a product and not put a surfactant in it, you know,
for for a weed like that. So that's just an example. But
a lot of them already have it. But if you ad a little more,
it doesn't hurt anything. Would there What words would they be if they
didn't use the words a fact that What words would they be that would indicate
they have some in its already? It should it should say surfactant or if
it doesn't, just talk to the people that are selling you the product.
They should know they should be. Yeah, and if you have specific products,
I can I can check into it and look into them for you.
But I was talking to somebody the other day about that, and you know,
they were explaining to me that, uh, a lot of the products
now they just went ahead and put those in there. Oh good, you
know, Okay, Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very
much. Dennis. If you live in the Central Houston area, especially North
direction. Quality Feed and Garden Center that's your hometown feed store and Ken and
Cress. They've been running this for a long time. They've been running for
thirty two years, been around since nineteen twenty eight. I used to go
to the old location. Now they're on Luzon Street that's near the intersection of
Equipment and Alesion. It's eighteen thirteen louson Monday through Friday nine to six,
Saturday nine to four, Sunday eleven to four. I mean, it's not
hard to find a time when they're open and they carry everything that we brag
on here on Garden Line. I saw a notice recently on their Facebook that
they got in a whole new shipment of chicks and if you're interested in backyard
chickens, just call them. I mean it's about every two weeks they get
some of those in. It seems like they even have some ducks that came
in this last time. That's pretty neat. If you want some coal weather
vegetables, yep. They also have some plants there and all the products need
to take care of them. Inside Quality Feed and Garden Center, it's a
fun place. You get that old time field. They even have an antique
seed rack from nineteen twenty eight that they stock with bulk seeds. So another
good reason to go to Quality Feed and Garden as if you needed another one,
which uh, there's there's plenty. You're listening to garden Line and our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four or seven
one three two one two ktrh. If that is easier to just go about
it that way. I do want to remind you that I'm going to be
at RCW Nurseries next Saturday at rcw's next Saturday. Now, RCW is having
one heck of a shindig out there. I'll be there from eleven thirty to
one thirty, and they're gonna have food, They're gonna have a lot of
fun things going on at the event. Uh. And they they've got some
special sales, especially on trees and things that are amazing. They're giving away
some little seedlings of trees. Like if if you want a quality seedling grown
properly in a special container that has a great root system, you're gonna be
amazed at these. I know they're small. Put them in the ground,
they hit the ground running. Put them in the ground now falls for planting
and they will grow fast and you'll be amazed how fast you have a tree.
And they're all good species if they've selected for that. But again,
that's RCW Nursery's next Saturday from eleven thirty to one thirty, So block your
calendar police come out there. I want to meet the folks that listen to
Garden Line. I want to get to visit with you. And as always
when I do these appearances, if you have photos or maybe you have plant
samples, you want something identified. You want something a problem diagnosed. If
you have a landscape area and it's like, look at this, what do
I do here? What do you suggest for an area like this, we'll
sit down and talk about it. This is an eye to eye opportunity with
me and I just love doing that. It's one of my favorite things to
do is to visit with guards and so please make a note on your calendar
for next Saturday, eleven thirty to one thirty at RCW Nurseries. I say
followers for planting and what else do I say? Brown stuff before the green
stuff? What does that mean? That means get your soil ready, you
get it ready with composts. You get it ready with fertilizers if needed.
You know, you moltz on the top. That's all brown stuff. The
green stuff is a plants. That's a fun part, and we're going to
do that. We like quality plants and get them in the ground. But
first comes to brown stuff and Nature's Way Resources, they absolutely know how to
do that. They've been doing this. John Ferguson's been doing this. I
don't know how long. I need to ask him one of these days.
But Audis know this that a lot of the products that are now famous and
you see all around town, like rose soil and leaf moow composts and so
on, they were the first. In fact, there's a line of probably
oh two dozen things that they were the first at at Nature's Way Resources.
And now they have a wonderful little garden center there, a nursery and lots
of trees. They really are aiming toward a native direction. They have other
things not native, but you need to go buy and check it out.
You can buy bags, you can buy bulk, you can have them delivered.
It everything you need with a quality product that's very important. Every Friday
is Fungal Friday. That means ten dollars off bag products and twenty ten dollars
ten percent off bag products and twenty percent off their bulk products. So what
a great deal. That's a good opportunity, and especially if you're buying a
fungal product, to say their phone number nine three six three two one sixty
nine ninety nine three six sixty one sixty nine ninety as simple as that.
Well, hey, we're running out of time here for this hour. We
will be back though. You want to give Josh a call and get on
the boards, you can be first up. Our phone number is seven to
one three. Thank you, fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call.
Remember just I know I keep saying this, but I still run into
a lot of people that they listen to the show, but they just haven't
heard. I have a website, gardeningwiskip dot com. That's where I put
everything that's educational for you, that has my lawn care schedule, my lawn
pest disease and weed management schedule, a brand new publication I just put up
on dealing with frosts and freezers. Whether it's a vegetable garden or a prize
shrub or whatever you have I tell you all about how to protect those plants
and basically the science behind it so you can understand how to do it successfully.
Well, we'll be right back. Thanks for being a Gardenline listener.
Ktrhgarden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this
program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip. It's so crazy, Trim,
just watching as many. Good morning on a beautiful Sunday day. It's
a great day to get outside and get some things planted. I was mentioning
earlier that if you want to see plants grow fast, this is a good
time for that because we got a little mild week going on here, temperatures
warming up a little bit, and that just speeds things up even for our
cool season. Remember, something that can survive the cold, whether it's a
pansy or a broccoli plant, doesn't mean they want it thirty degrees out there.
They grow best in mild temperatures. That's the fastest and they grow now,
especially with the pansy that I was talking about, and violis, they
don't like it to get very warm, and they're not they're not happy with
a like you put them in out in the uper eighties and ninety degrees,
they're not going to be that happy about it. But in milder temperatures they
do well. So it's time to plant. It's time to get that done.
I was visiting out the Quality Home Products of Texas the other day because
I always like to go buy and see the kinds of products people have,
learn more about them, and find out about, you know, the company
itself a little more. I always learned something when I do that. I'm
telling you they sell the generatic generator and it's a quality generator, absolutely.
But when I talk about Quality Home, I just want to spend my time
talking about their customer service, their highlights, call them the brag points.
Over seventy seven thousand established satisfied customers. And why are they satisfied Because when
you sit down with Quality they take time to listen to what do you need
to protect? How big is your house? All of that, and they
put you in the generator you need. They don't overseell, and you know
they don't, you know, just try to get something else out of you.
They they make sure they're giving you what you need and then they take
care of everything. Is your HOA or your electric company. There's certain things.
They hoops you got to jump through. They jump the hoops for you.
They put out a they pour the concrete pad, they bring the generator
out by the way. Those generator generators are sitting outside, and they come
on automatically, so anytime something goes wrong, if you need if you need
electricity, it automatically comes on. You have to run out there and turn
the thing on. And it's just so dependable. It is absolutely dependable.
And when you have customer service like quality, it makes everything easy. They
even come back out and service the thing two times a year. Eight times
now. They've won the Better Business Bureaus Pinnacle Award for reasons just like this.
And I could talk for thirty minutes on the awards they win and the
customer comments and things. When you hire a service company, when you have
something installed, you want people who do it right, who treat you right,
who absolutely provide service after the sale. And that's quality absolutely. I
mean, you can buy generators are a lot of places, but you cannot
get that kind of service with a quality generator and from Generat and the service
that's the package that is just unheard of and By the way, we're in
this time of the year where generator the interest in generators is a little lower,
and I bet you've been thinking about getting one. Now's the time.
It's kind of like driving in Houston traffic during rush hour versus not rush hour.
You get there faster, things happen faster. So if you would like
to get that thing set up and get all the hoops jump through, go
ahead and get that done. Now it's time to pull the trigger on that
decision. Let's head off to Spring Branch and we're going to talk to Sally.
Hello, Sally, is it too late? Is it too late to
put out this the fal for Lazar and the pre emergent. No, it's
not too late. There may have been a few weeds that have germinated,
but there's a lot of weed germination season that's still to come. And so
that's true. As far as the fall fertilizer, we've still got mild temperatures
where the grass can take it up. So don't delay. I do it
today as a matter of fact, because we got a week here where when
you put it down, watered in real good and then those roots are going
to do what they do to make sure that plant gets strong before winter.
Great, thank you, yes, thank you for the call. Appreciate that
very much. It's speaking of fall fertilizers. Nitrofoss has their Texas three step
which has a fall fertilizer quality Nitrofoss Fall Special Winter Riser Fertilizer. It's got
the right ratios. You know. It loads up in that potassium, drops
the nitrogen down a little bit. That's exactly what grass needs going into the
winter, and it'll make your grass stronger than the spring. Then they've got
the Nitrofoss barricade that is a pre emergent that prevents weeds. The Nitrofoss barricade
works on grassy weeds and broad leaf weeds. It too needs to be put
down soon and you need to water it in about a half inch of water
just to get it down in the soil surface. That's where it goes to
work. And then finally the Nitrofoss Eagle funge aside for turf well that is
a systemic meaning it soaks into the plant tissues. So when brown patch comes
along or when take all root rot tries to infect, which that would be
typically nighttime temperatures around fifty five makes take all really happy. It is there
already waiting for them. Now you're going to find Nitrofoss products at Gym's Hardware
and Montgomery Ace Hardware City and Memorial Lake Hardware out there in Clute. I
mean just all over the place where there's an Ace Hardware are a lot of
other kinds of stores. Nitrofoss is going to be there. Let's now go
to Ben in Tomball. Hello, Ben, Hey, how you doing.
I'm well, what's up? Hey? I had a question for you.
I think I would listen to your show yesterday. You play on Saturday,
right, Yes, sir, okay. I heard something about spinach and it
got a bug in me. I love spinach, and so I was thinking,
can you grow spinach like in a like a pot? Absolutely would even
be worth doing it? Oh? It is where it is worth doing it.
You know. Now in a pot, you're only going to get so
much spinach leaves, so you may won't have more than one pot. But
yes, if the pots, if the pot's even three gallons, you can
grow spinach very very well. In that I like to make the containers a
little larger just to be on the safe side. So the plants really do
thrive well. I've grown spinach in a two and a half gallon pot and
it did okay. But get a good quality saw mix. That is very
important to go in that container and plant your spinach seeds. You can soak
them overnight in warm water before you plant them. That may speed things up
a little bit, okay, but then them out there. Okay, So
you soak them overnight and then you can't and then put them out there and
then yeah, that starts the water moves in the seed and that initiates the
germination series of events that ends up with the plant sprouting and coming up.
So soaking them overnight is just a good quick way to make sure they're moist
and in warm water. That movement into the seed is a little faster than
it's going to be out there in the cold soil. But to make it
worth it eating how many pots do you think I should have? It depends
on how much spinach you like. You know, just picture of the picture
the surface surface area of your pot, and you're going to put a spinach
plant about every six inches across that pot and just figured it out, and
you know, stagger your rows so kind of like they lay bricks. You
know, they put two bricks side by side and then one in the middle
on top, plant spinach like that and every six inches and you figure out
how much you need. But yeah, it's good, good, good.
I appreciate it, all right, you take care. I appreciate your call
very much. Well, you know, the folks at the arbor gate they
have everything you need right now. By the way, they have frost protection.
I saw some frost protection blankets out there. They have the cool seasoned
plants like vegetables and herbs and beautiful color. But when you're out there,
make sure and go home with the one two three completely easy system. That's
the organic food. That's a four to four to three plus calcium, organic
fertilizer. Organic soil complete that is the basic soil you're growing in organic compost
complete, which is an enhancement to the soil that just builds it. And
when you put all that in a bed and then put your plants in it,
they take off. That's the way it is. By the way,
both soil complete and compost complete have expanded shale in them, and expanded shale
in a clay soil will really gradually over time do a number on that clay
and open it up and allow you to have more success with growing. And
it's all at the arbor Gate Arborgate dot com in Tomball. Well, we're
gonna take a break. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Good Sunday morning. I am happy you're listening to garden Line and let's
talk about what you're interested in. We are here to answer gardening questions and
our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Now,
if you live out in the Montbellevue area and you are looking for a
quality hometown feed store, that's Texas Feed Stop now, I said Mott Bellevue,
Baytown as well. I mean that's just your backyard. Uh. They're
on Highway one forty six, just a few minutes north of I ten in
Baytown. So let's go north on one forty six. Are on the right
hand side. You're not going to find better customer service. In fact,
Texas Feed Stop Brian and Hope Roads. They want you to be part of
the family and that's how they treat you when you come in there. You
know, they carry the bags out for you. Got teenagers they hire from
the community that work there. The thirtious. It's just it's just a good
feeling. You walk in and you feel like you're part of the family.
They carry everything that I'm recommending on garden line and then some I mean,
do you need to deal with pests and weeds, and do you need to
deal with diseases? Do you need fertilizer? They have all of that seasonally.
They have some plants that they bring in as well. You're not going
to do better than Texas Feed Stop Highway one forty six in mont Bellevue.
I'm going to head out now to bell Air and talk to Greg. If
I can find the button there we go. Hey Greg, good morning,
Skip, thank you for taking my call. I a couple of questions.
The first one, no garlic. I've tried garlic the last two or three
years and it's grown fine and all. You know, plant in the fall
and goes through into the spring the end of the summer. But I don't
get any bulbs. I use the you know, microlife as a fertilizer.
But I wonder if there's something else I need to do, or you suggest
that I add to it to get it to really make develop a bulb.
No, it should do that it's a it's a day length related response for
them to bulb. Maybe you need to try a different type of garlic.
There's hard neck and soft necks, and they don't perform equally well. Here.
Uh, if you when you're fertilizing with microlife, you're not going to
get this sudden dump of a lot of nutrients. So there's not an issue
like that that may be a play at all. I don't know. It
should be bulbing for you when the day length starts to get longer, okay,
and falls the time to plant them. Yeah, it's it's up about
a foot now, so okay, we'll see how it goes. Yeah,
I'm trying to think what else could be a play if it has good foliage
and it's in the oh, is it in the sun or is it in
some shade? Well, it gets well right now, it's more shade than
it is sun because of the okay, time of year. But as we
get into the warmer months, it'll definitely get a lot of sun. The
cooler in the wintertime, the warmer you know when we get in when the
sun starts changing direction. Okay, yeah, well for the spring, maybe
the lack of six to eight hours of you know, good full sunlight is
a factor in this. Okay, that's the only thing that I can think
of that may be affecting. But give them another try. I try switching
the type of garlic you're you're planting as well. Maybe you'll find better results
with that. Yeah, okay, thank you. Another question. I have
a bonanza peach tree. I've had it for several years and I can't get
it. It may only have a few blooms each year, and you know,
no peaches and uh. And I think it's related to the certain things
go get enough sun and I want and I want to transplant it to an
area that gets more a lot of sun. So these trees, they don't
lose their leaves like a normal deciduous tree would early. And is it possible
to transplant it with the leaves on or what's your suggestion? That's interesting?
They should, they should go bear here in the winter. They do,
but it's late, it's late in the season when it loses it. Okay,
boy, I tell you transplanting it with leaves, wait until we get
some cool weather. Cooler weather which is going to arrive later in the week.
I believe you might try it. Then make sure where you're putting it
has optimum drainage. Peaches, among all the plants, they are absolutely intolerant
of wet feet, and so make sure it's got a well drained spot.
If you have to make a little pictures mound or make a box on the
ground and you bring it up a few inches or so ten inches if you
can, but that's going to help it a lot. And then when you
dig it right away, replant it, set it at the same stage.
Don't let those roots dry out. And this is the least stressful time.
It may make the leaves fall off the tree when you do it, but
I would I would get it done because if you wait till as you're describing
it much later, you know, a month or two from now, maybe
when it would drop leaves for you, then that's getting too close to spring.
So I would get that done. Let's get past these eighty four degree
days or whatever we're about to have and then get that done. Okay,
okay, right, go wider when you dig rather than deeper, you know,
so in other words, don't try to dig down two feet and move
that much soil, but get as wide out as you can. I slide
a tarp underneath one side when I cut the roots, then I cut the
roots on the other side and slide the tree with its soil on the tarp.
It's easy to drag to the new location and put back in the ground
at the right depth. Gotcha. Yeah, there's things as tall as I
am. So oh wow, right, good good luck with that. Yeah,
okay, all right, Greg, thanks for the coming bye bye.
I appreciate that very much. You know, Ace Hardware, I was talking
about night Fus fertilizers and all the Ace hard roads are and they now are
up to forty stores. For those of you out in Orange and Base.
Congratulations, you're the new locations for Ace and ACE. You know they If
you need it for your lawn, they have all the things. If you
need it for your garden, they've got all the things. If you want
to create a beautiful outdoor seating area, they can do that. But we're
entering the holiday season, and did you know that they're your place for Christmas
lighting and decoration. Needs to both your outdoor lights and your indoor lights.
They have the box sets and all kinds of configurations, many colors, many
sizes of bulbs. They even have a thing called custom lights by the foot
and you have to go by there and ask them about that. It's really
cool. Do you need a wreath for the front door, maybe some garland
to put along the front porch or or I have mine. I hang it
over right where you enter, kind of walk into the front porch area.
Have some garland with lights on it up there. ACE can get you set
up on all of that stuff. They're easy to find. Acehardware dot Com.
Go to the store locator and put in put in your location, and
oh my gosh, you're going to find out that there's more than one ACE
near you, which makes it so convenient. Well, you're listening to garden
Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and I am here to answer
gardening questions. If you'd like to give us a call. Our phone number
is seven one three two to one two KTRH seven one three two one two
kt RH. Hey, don't forget that this next Saturday. I mean we're
just just a hop skipping a jump away November eleventh, from eleven thirty to
one thirty. I'm going to be at RCW Nurseries. That's the nurseries up
there where Tambo Parkway two forty nine comes into bet Wag eighth. They're going
to have barbecue sandwich lunch out there. They're gonna have sale on select trees
and all the shrubs fifteen percent off. And boy do they ever have a
quality selection. They grow their own trees. You're gonna get trees that the
species of the variety, whatever it is, they're going to do well here.
That's what RCW does now. Of course they are a full nursery.
They've got flowers and vegetables and herbs and shrubs and everything else that you need.
They're also going to do a tree giveaway lace park elms Mexican white oak
also called montereyoak and live oaks by tree seedlings, And I just saw a
picture of what they're growing in and that is exactly how you grow a tree
seedling. With a quality root system, you can take that thing home planet
right away. You start taking care of it, making sure it has moisture
as we go into the summer, and making sure that you put a little
bit of fertilizer on it as you go. That thing's going to jump out
of the ground and really take off. But come see me November eleventh,
the next Saturday, eleven thirty to one thirty at RCW Nurseries. As always,
you can bring some plant samples put them in a plastic bags on the
way. If you want to bring photos look at things, help you maybe
make some suggestions for a landscape, or identify a plant or a bug,
or diagnose a disease problem. It's eye to eye time, So I hope
you will come out and join me for that very very cool stuff. Do
you know that has to grow? Is the fertile I use for transplanting.
Now you can use haster to grow for a lot of things, but this
six twelve six has to grow. It's good for vegetable gardens. It's good
for flower beds. But anytime I put a plant in the ground, and
I've been talking all morning, perennial plants, ornamental grasses, trees, shrubs,
whatever you're planting vegetables. Little has to grow. Mixed in water.
It adds the NPK of the six twelve six. It also stimulates biological activity.
It's got humic acid in it and seaweed extracts. You can use it
as a folio spray. Will not burn. Plants has to grow six twelve
six. Don't plant a plant without it. Let's see, we're going to
go out to Santa Fe and talk to Lotti. Hello, Lotti, mister
Rict. She'd had them walk over to get away from this truck phone.
Okay, do we want to call back or yeah, I tell you just
give it. I'm gonna put you on hold, give us a call back,
or we'll come back to you a little bit. Here, let's go
to Sweeney and talk to Jason. Jason, are you there, Well,
this is an interesting technology day here on garden Line. We got gremlins running
through the wires. Well, Jason, let's see, I'm going to have
to put you on hold and we will come back to you. Just hang
on, Josh, we'll get back to you. He's dealing with another caller
right now, and we'll see if we can figure out what exactly was happening
there in the system. Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights is a destination garden
center. And those of you that are anywhere near that north central Houston area,
you know what I'm talking about. If you need a native plant,
you're not going to find a better place in Buchannan's Plants. I mean,
they have their natives even drilled down to the point of a Houston area native
like the Harrison County area native. You know, we have native plants that
are from all around the region, but you can actually get something actually here
in Houston from Buchanan's Native plants. They have a full line of all the
fertilizers and all the soils, the quality soils that you need to go with
your plants. And you know that's important to have a quality soil when you
get your plants in the ground. Brown stuff before green stuff. Right.
They are going to be providing also unbelievable selection of houseplants, a unbelievable go
in and look at their houseplants, and we're entering houseplants season, right,
We're cooped up inside a little more in the winter, and so we just
you know, it's nice having some houseplants inside. You're going to find houseplants
you've never seen before at Buchanans. And you're going to find plants for shade.
Those are challenging when you live in an older neighborhood and got big trees,
got a lot of shade, not a problem. Go buy Buchanans,
say hey, I need stuff for the shade. They'll take your right to
it, good quality service. Buchanansplants dot Com. East eleventh Street in the
Heights. We are now going to go. I'm gonna go try here,
Jason, Are you there? Jason? All right, Josh, I'm having
trouble with that one. Let's go to Steve in downtown Houston. Hello,
Steve, Hello, Hello, Yeah, I'm here. Okay, I got
it. Okay, I got the Texas live oaks. They were planted in
in like in May June. Yes, and uh, well the drops you
know that drive dried out. I didn't water it enough, you know,
And okay, there one of them. Uh well, the one that I'm
calling about is uh the top of everything on top is dried out. Okay,
then the bottom You've got new shoots coming out coming out at the bottom,
one on the one on the main route, and uh the coming out
alongside of it. Yeah, and you know, I'm wondering if I should
cut it off or just wait till let's see if it's not dry that there's
still is today it's still uh, there's still live you know, so wonderflus
you're dog cut Steve? How big is the trunk about knee high? You
know? How many. How far far across? Is it like the size
of a broomstick or a coke can or you know diameter? The diameter,
yes, sir, yeah, I guess it's about uh I guess about two
two and a half inches. Okay, uh So that's not going to be
a huge one to cut the trunk off. You ultimately you're you're going to
probably cut the trunk off and take one of the best shoots that you've got
and make it the trunk. But when you do that, take the other
shoots and just cut the end three inches or so off of them, just
tip them, and that way you keep those leaves to help feed the plant,
because you know it's lost a lot of leaves in that in that drought,
and you need leaves to make carbohydrates, to make roots, to make
growth and everything. So just tip them and leave them there. Though when
they're about the size of your thumb, then you cut them off where they
were attached, but leave them for now. Pick the one you want,
and then carefully cut that trunk off at just a slight slope, not a
lot, not a forty five degree angle, but just a slight slope away
from just above where the branch that's going to be the new trunk is attached.
Okay, so but I guess about just about how high? Did you
say how high? Well, don't think for a shoot for the top.
I mean they gotta leave a little bit of a on the top of it,
right, So I'm thinking the top is all dead and we have to
drop down lower on the planet to find a living shoot. Is that right?
No, I don't think I not dead. I don't think they're dead,
you know, because there's still if there were data, they've been They've
been easy, you know. Yeah, I'd like to I want to help
you on this, but I'm not picturing it, and I don't want to
mislead you with my answer. I am gonna put you on hold, and
if you can hang on just a little bit, Josh is going to pick
up. He is he is working with our electronic gremlins right now, but
he will pick it up and give you an email. And would you send
me a photo couple of photos of that. Once I see what you're describing,
because I'm not picturing it right now, I will be glad to give
you an answer. Okay, So just just just hang on. Hey,
it's time for us to go to break and so our number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, we're gonna have an exorcism of the
wires and gremlins of our of our network here and hopefully come back to you
in full swing. Take care, Welcome back to garden Line. We are
happy to answer gardening questions today. We've got some folks on the board we're
gonna get back with here. I'm gonna let's see head out. Uh.
I believe we lost Lottie out there. Is that correct? I think that
was what they what they said. So well, we're going to work on
some of the callers here. Hey, what let me go talk about I
want to talk about green Pro. Green Pro. These are the folks that
do the compost top dressing with the aeration. And some people are thinking,
well, why do you air rate, why do you punch holes in the
ground and stuff. Well, the reason is this our heavy clay soils that
are just predominant here on the Greater Houston Golf close, Houston black clay.
They get very dense and very tight and they don't take in water rapidly at
all. In fact, Houston black clay without any organic matter and roots and
all that in. It takes water in at about one eighth of an inch
an hour. Can you imagine that, well, that it's hard to get
a good soaking with that. Now, Fortunately we have our grass plants and
the roots that go down and other things that open it up a little bit
that start doing what organic matter does done in the soil. But when you
bring in an air rator that does a job right and does a job bright,
means it goes down in the soil and it pulls the plug out and
drops it on the surface, just mashing a hole in the soil, squeezing
the sides of the hole apart to make that hole. That then you just
have now a compacted edge to the hole where air can't get into the soil
as well as it would have. And so you do that, and then
you do a compost top dressing with a finely screened compost. Not chunky wood
stuff that's going to go flying everywhere when you mow, but a finely screen
compost. Green pro can do that. They have the equipment that does it
right, and they choose a quality compost top dressing a screen compost to do
that. And when you do this, your root system of your grass is
going to be able to thrive even better. The organic matter is going to
get in the soil in those holes, compaction can be alleviated. If you've
got a really bad situation, you may have to do it several times.
You do one in the fall, doing a spring, or do one in
the summer. You know, you get the idea. But for most situations,
just a good once a year if you're dealing with a little bit of
soil compaction or just the grass isn't doing what you think it should do.
Now, at Greenpro, their prices start at five ninety nine plus sales tax,
but it depends a lot on how far they have to go to you
and the size. You know, do you have a one thousand square feet
or ten thousand square feet ord? Obviously that would change change that a little
bit. But they know what they're doing and this is a quality step that
sets you up. Your fertilizer moves down in the soil. Well, it's
just all around a good thing for your soil, and the folks at green
Pro they know how to do it. You can go to greenpro dot net,
greenpro dot net and get a hold of them, talk to them about
coming out and doing that for your lawn. See this morning, I wanted
to talk a little bit about some shade loving groundcovers people that live well.
Houston is a livestock is a live oak forest. You ever noticed that?
I mean, it really is. There are live oaks everywhere and it's just
a live oak forest. Reason for that. Live oaks are a very well
adapted tree to this area. But when you have a beautiful live oak and
it gets wider and wider and wider, older neighborhoods would be the prime example.
Not enough sunlight hits the soil to grow grass, and grass needs quite
a bit of sunlight to do well. Saint Augustine takes the most shade of
any grass but for the South, any grass for the South. But what
do you do well, you switch to a groundcover, a shade loving groundcover.
And you know, we have things like loriope and monkey grass or mondo
turf, whatever you want to call it. Those can be used to make
essentially a groundcover over the lawn. In fact, the dwarf types of mondo
grass, it's almost like a little lawn, a low cut lawn, but
it takes a lot of plants to do that. So you divide them and
you put them different places, and you just keep adding to them, and
you can create small areas around trees and shrubs and out in the lands cape.
Where you do that, you can throw in something like ASTech grass.
ASTech grass is related to mondo grass and loriopy, but it is more white
than green, but it has green stripes through a white leaf. And when
you put in a dark area astet grass, it lights it up. Maybe
you've got a pathway going around to a I don't know, a gate or
a door or something, and it's all shaded and it's just dark, and
you drive by and you look at it and dark green in the shade.
It just it's just dark. But if you line that pathway or go around
a bed with loriope, it lights it up. It's like you turned on
a little light in that area and it draws your eye to that and it's
good. A juga is another good groundcover for areas. You just need to
keep it a little on the moist side. It does very well, makes
a really nice groundcover. And I'm talking about shade now, we could switch
over and talk about groundcovers for sunny areas. And droughty areas and whatnot.
But we'll just talk about shade. There's a lot of other things that do
well. There's a number of ferns that do very well. They're going to
need some moisture, but just beautiful, absolutely beautiful ferns that you can add
in those areas. And we you know, we have the ivys that generally
stay away a little bit from the English ivy type plants. I mean,
you can use them. They grow well, but just get ready. They
have high aspirations to take over the world, and so they're going to be
going up your tree trunks and eventually up in the top of the canopy if
you let them. So with ivy you just got to do a lot of
you know, maintaining and saying nope, nope, nope, can't go there
to it, to keep it in bounds. Those are just a few of
the groundcovers that do well in a dark, shady area. We have many
other options that you can choose from. But you know, when life gives
you lemonade, lemons make lemonade, they say, right, Well, when
time gives your landscape shade, we can we can make a beautiful groundcover area
out of that no reason we don't be able to go on Verdant Tree Farm.
You know three locations here in Houston. I've talked about them before.
There's a location down south in pair Land, they're on Broadway Street. There's
a location in West Houston Barker Cypress, and then the one in the Heights
where you all comes into I ten And they're always having some new things there
at Verdant Tree Farm. It's very interesting to stop in and take a look
see what they got. The trees they have are trees that grow well here
and they can sell you a huge tree if you want, I mean even
up to seven hundred gallons. I believe as a side of that is that's
instant tree right there. They'll beat any advertised price. And they have palms
too, the right palm for whatever your budget is. They specialize and they're
really a leader implanting palms. But when it comes to cold hardy trees,
drought resistant trees, they can fix you up. They give a one year
warranty included with them installing it, and you do want them to install it.
It's very important to plant a tree properly. So Vernon Tree Farm is
also a place where you can just walk in, take a picture and say,
you know what, look at this area, what what kind of tree?
I want a blooming tree. I want a tree you know that only
gets so high or whatever here in this spot, and that will advise you
on it. You walk out in the lot, walk through your trees,
like picking out a Christmas tree, and you say that's mine. They put
a tag on it, they bring it to your house and they plant it.
That is simple. Verdant Tree Farm Verdant Treefarm dot com. Well,
we're going to take a break. Our number is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Be right back. Well, good morning on
a beautiful Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like
to give us a call. Uh you know the the uh Nelson plant Food
Dean Nelson, the Nelson plant Food folks I call them. They have done
a really special thing for their carbo load product this far, and that is
every bag that sells they send two dollars to the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship.
And I know a lot of you've listened to the show for a long time.
In fact, I was talking to some of the other day that listened
just after the Dewey Compton era of the show. And those of you who
knew Randy, I mean this what twenty six years or seventy seven years of
being on the air. He would have been so proud to know there's a
scholarship in his name. And this is a way that you can really do
two good things. It's or three. Let's make it three. You can
honor his memory. Number one, you can provide a horticulture student with a
way to make it through college and have success in their career. And then
thirdly, you get a quality product. Carbo Load has the blend that is
designed for fall applications a little we want that potassium the third number, a
little lower on the nitrogen than we've been talking about all spring and summer.
It goes in the ground and it helps the plant get stronger when the roots
take it up. You need to do it soon for that reason. Do
you want time for that grass plant to capture sunlight to make carbol carbohydrates That's
why they call it carbo load, and you know, to provide that growth
that gets it ready for winter. The other thing it has in it is
a weed control prevention product, a pre emergent product, so another reason to
get it on soon. Don't delay, go ahead and do that, and
again, in the process of doing so, you send two dollars for each
bag to Randy's memorial scholarship up at Texas A and M. We are now
going to go to the phones and we're going to see how this works.
I'm going to go to Chris in Memorial. Hello, Chris, Hey,
how are you good morning? I'm so happy that someone's on the other end.
How can we help the dout man. I've got about a five year
old elm in my backyard and I've got tiny little brown spots on my leaves.
Yeah, and I'm not sure what to do, okay, finding to
sit it out or what might be the cause of it elms. Elms will
do that. These leaves are they're old, they're tired, They've been through
essentially hades of a summer with no rain and incredible temperatures, and they're getting
ready to fall. And when that happens, leaves do that, you start
to see disease spots and just the wear and tear of summer on them.
And I wouldn't worry about it all. There's no need to treat it for
anything. Okay, great, yeah, well, thank you very much.
Yeah. I had someone some of the I'm just saying this because I've got
a lot of people listening with different kinds of trees. But someone was showing
me some live oak leaves the other day and they had a little tar spots
on them, and that's a disease they get. But they're just casting the
leaves off. Magnolia's get these algyl leaf spots when they drop their foliage in
the spring, and everybody panics that something's happening. Now, just nature appreciate
that call, though, Chris. Thank you all right, thank you very
much. You bet you take care. Let's see, let's now go to
Scott in spring. Hello, Scott, Hey, I have a lot,
well have some more gust rooms and they were stressed out by the trout and
they're have sectional die back. Is there any help for them? And I
can't see it in my Japanese use and my magnolience. So just like you
were saying the spots that you're seeing, Yeah, okay, well those are
let's take those one at a time. The lagustrum, does it have spots
on the leaves or it's just dying and browning certain branches and certain branches,
and there are some spots. The spots are a disease, and picking those
leaves off helps. And there's also some funderside spray you can put on them,
but that's a very difficult disease to manage if you don't want to be
out spring after it rains through the year, So that's a little bit of
a challenge for lagustrum. The dead areas, just follow them down, take
your fingernail or a knife if it's a thicker bar, and scratch back and
look for is it a creamy malila folder color or white or light green or
is it pecan brown, paper sack brown, and go all the way down
to you have green, and then cut it off there and it will reach
sprout. Now, when you get a taller plant and you cut some branches
back, there's no light reaching down there where you cut those branches off,
so the sprouts that want to come out are not going to have good sunlight
and I can't see your plants, but if this is severe enough, I'd
consider bringing all of them way down and way you know, bring them halfway
down or depends on how you want the plant, how tall you want the
plant be ultimately, uh, and then just let the whole thing reach sprout.
But I'd wait to do that pruning until we get to spring, because
we don't want succulent new shoots coming out and then here comes that where it
drops into the low twenties or something, so I wouldn't I wouldn't prune living
tissues now. But if you prune the whole thing back a little, you
get a lot of new sprouts and then everything is bad lunch and you can
keep the light to the bottom areas as well as the top. Okay,
okay, all right. And then the magnolia, there's got a lot of
brown leaves. I'm not sure that the heat is killed destroyed them or yeah,
they go ahead, they saw green on them. Okay, but there
is a lot of brown so with that so I'm done. Okay, Well,
on the magnolia, I stand back and look at it and picture if
you pruned off all the brown limbs, what would it look like? And
that may be a disfigured tree. That's not acceptable. Uh. You could
wait a little bit and maybe some of those limbs where the leaves brown but
there's a little green in the leaves, maybe they're still alive. Or you
can do the scrape test that I was just talking about. Uh, and
if you've got green tissues, well it's probably going to come back in the
spring. But in general, with Magnolia's we say, if it's brown,
cut it down, because that that is often the case. I'm glad,
all right, all right, all right, sorry to be the bearer of
bad news. Yeah, it's been a bad, bad news summer, that's
for sure. Right boy, if you could see my lawn, you'd quit
listening to garden line. I left for two weeks and the sprinkler system didn't
come on. I don't know what happened. Uh. And then chinchbugs and
take our root I both infected it. I think that's because they knew how
to radio show, so they walked across town to come to my yard.
But I'm dealing with a lot of things at home as well. Hey,
let's go to David in Nadville. Hello David, Hello, good morning,
how are you doing today. I'm well today, How are you doing?
I'm doing excellent, outstanding, drinking coffee and looking at my left green Saint
Augustine line with the exception of a few brown spots. Okay, Can I
give you a little backstory on the yard? Sure? I planned a complete
truckload eighteen pallets Easter weekend, and then I left home. I was gone
for six months. I had a yard guy coming in and taking care of
it and letting me know when it was starting to look brown, and I'd
up the sprinkleer, hear the sprinkler system, give it a little more water.
So long story short, Based on the recommend recommendation of the side farmer,
I gave the grass a shot of triple thirteen. I'm going to say
June, June, June, maybe July, and I continued watering all summer
long. I got home late September to a beautiful, well established yard.
The grass was looking really good. Well, I got excited. I wanted
to say, all right, well, I want it to look better.
So I gave it a shot of twenty one percent late September and watered profusely,
and in anticipation of the fungus issues, I put a shot of a
granular fungicide down at the same time. Well, three weeks later, I've
got this lush green. It seemed like it was growing two inches a day
lawn and from one day to the next, even after the application of the
fungicide. I walk out one morning and I see spots. I'll walk over
to the spots, reach down and grab a fist full and the grass just
comes out by the root. So did a mad dash scramble to the hardware
store, got some liquid fundicide, treated the grass with the liquid funder side
and it stopped the funderside. But my to get long story short, Okay,
I obviously overfertilize, overwatered. Should I still do the winteriser fertilizer after
giving it that heavy dose of nitrogen in September? September, No, No,
you don't. At this point, you probably don't need to the triple
thirteen. If you ended up with a lot of nitrogen. You also applied
a lot of phosphors and potassium at that time, and I think you'll be
okay on it. And in general, don't use the Triple thirteen. Turf
grass, Saint Augustine grass just does not benefit from phosphorus applications unless the phosphorus
is already super low. I'm going to have to put you on hold to
come back after the hour. We're going to the news here and I want
to continue with the discussion about the spot. Say you said a couple of
things in there that I'd like to drill down on a little bit, David,
If you can hang around, we'll talk to you first when we come
back after the break. All right, you're listening to garden Line and our
number seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. Don't forget
Next Saturday, I'm gonna be at RCW Nurseries for their Fall Fling. They're
gonna have a barbecue sandwich lunch. You're gonna have a sale on select trees
and all the shrubs fifteen percent off. They're gonna give away all kinds of
things, so the fertilizers we brag about on guarden Line and frost cloth.
Hey, that's a handy thing to have going into the winter. And they're
also giving away tree seedlings of lace park elm, Mexican white oak, and
live oak. And I'll be there to answer your question, Katrh garden Line
does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.
Welcome to kt RH Garden Line with Skip Richt. It's so crazy just watching
as so many things spots well. Good Sunday morning. You are listening to
Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And now I think
we know where all the gremlins went after Eloween. Has been an interesting morning.
I brag about Vego gardens all the time. The Vego garden beds are
really the best bed that you can you can plant, and I know what
I'm talking about. I've made beds out of wood. I've made beds with
outsides treated wood. I've made beds out of cinder blocks and all kinds of
things, and Vego has got it figured out. Here's why it's a metal
bed. It's been coated in a way that prevents it from resting and also
from corrosion. Paint it with a quality paint and really muted, very organic
looking colors, you know, nat nature looking colors, and then you bolt
them together. They're modular. It really simple to do, and you can
make whatever shape you want. Maybe you got a patio and you just need
a big L shape that so long on this side and so long on that
side. You can design it that way with Vego beds. It's as simple
as out there a Houston company. You're gonna find other metal beds out there,
the impostors trying to supplant Vego, but Vego is the one. It
is absolutely is again our Houston owned company right here, and quality products.
When you go to vegogarden dot com, you're going to find out all the
different things they offer. They have rolling beds Yep, that's right. Bed
that's up in the air that rolls around, all kinds of beds, just
go look at it. Go check out vegogarden dot com and you're gonna find
Vego beds at some of our local garden centers as well. Vego Garden,
I love the one that I have. We're going to head back out now
to Nadville and talk to David. Hey, David, let's start off with
a little rapid fire Q and a here. Okay, you said you grabbed
it and pulled up the grass. Did you pull the leaves came off the
runners or did the runners and everything come up off the ground. Yeah,
the runners came out and the roots were black. Okay, About how big
are these spots that you're seeing? I would say the largest spot would be
about the size of let's say a king size pillow okay, okay, and
five gallon bucket? Yeah, sure, Okay. So as you go from
green grass to the spot, is it very sudden or is there a gradual
decline and yellowing of the grass. It's very sudden. In fact, when
I noticed the unhealthy grass, I flagged the edge with some orange flags,
and then I applied the liquid herbicide and that stopped it. It never expanded
beyond the orange flags. You meant to say liquid fung aside? Yeah?
Did? I said? Yeah? I just want to make sure, because
otherwise I could get real quick to your problem, no doubt. Round up
on your grass, you crazy? You grade circles or whatever color or whatever
size you want. Uh So, uh, okay, that description does not
fit chinch bugs. It's a gradual bleeding out as they move out into the
grass. It doesn't. It's not sideweb worms. Uh, it doesn't really
fit. Take a root rod either, and you know with large patch interrupt
you for a second. Sure this may I did when I applied the twenty
one percent in late September. I also went across the grass with like I
said, granular fungdicide, and I hit the lawn with triadicide, the insecticide.
Well, but that shouldn't cost spots. I mean, if it's if
anything you put on the lawn is going to affect it, it'll affect everything
you put it on. So I'm right right out, real sure on that,
wondering if maybe the fungicide, uh, you know, paid off because
the spots hit about three weeks after the application of fung just hiding on the
bag. It says it's good for thirty days, but maybe it's not.
Well, but the two fungi that attacks Saint Augustine the primary ones we deal
with. There are some others but that cause large ear areas or take all
root rot, and I eliminated that one and brown Patch in the fall.
But brown Patch, the runners stay alive. It just rots the leaves off
the runners. That's why I asked my first question. So you pretty much
are eliminating everything, and I'm not sure why that would have appeared based on
what you're describing. I would just say continue with good long care. Get
my long cair scheduled at gardening with Skip dot com and just follow that in
terms of fertilizing and watering and you know, mowing and all that. I
think you've done what you can do for this fall. And I'm flummoxed at
your description just doesn't fit some of the problems that should have caused it.
Yeah, yeah, gotcha, all right, David. Interesting, Well,
thank you so much for your time, all right dot com Yes, uh
yeah, And and definitely just keep taking care of the lawn. It's going
to grow back over those areas. I'm pretty confident we are now gonna go
to Lotty and Santa Fe. Hello, Lotti, Hi, good morning,
Good morning. I have problems with my fire bushes. I have three in
pots and one in the ground. The ones in pots are yellow. Okay,
ye, all right, Uh well, it could be lack of water.
That's one thing that that you can get some is you get root death
that you can see some things on the top. And fire bush is a
pretty tough plant, but it does not like to go dry in a container.
I tried it once in a container and it's just like I can't water
that that regularly because of my life schedule. But it's a beautiful plant,
a beautiful one. It could be a root rot from overwatering and uh,
oversaturated soil. The roots can't get oxygen. They could cause that. I'm
not sure what else on it. I doubt it's a nutrient deficiency, but
it also could be that. But at this point in the season for fire
bush, you don't need to fertilize it because it's fixing to go into the
cool season and depending on the winter we have, it may kill it back
pretty far. It may not. Okay, all right, the one in
the ground is doing great, but that every one of them in the pots
just or not make They're not pretty. We'll put it that way. Okay,
Well, I'm going to attribute that to a confined root system and one
of the things I just mentioned as a result of that, And the one
in the ground doesn't it doesn't have a confined root system and it doesn't dry
out as fast or yeah, okay, all right. So should it take
them out of the pots? Well you can't. I mean, you can
grow it in a pot. It may need a bigger pot. But if
it were mine, I would take them out of the pots because, like
I said, I when I was growing them in pots. They can grow
in pots, but I'm just not able to water pots regularly, and so
I just went and put mine in the ground. Can we can we transplant
it right now? Oh yeah, Primetime? OK yeah, just find it
now the top. The top's gonna really brown back when you do, but
you could if it's still alive. But when you pull it out, look
at the roots. And if you see brown water sok, gray brown looking
roots, those are dead. And I wouldn't try transplanting it. Okay,
I think these are all good. They're just yellow. Hey, thank you.
We love your show. Thank you. Appreciate that, appreciate the call.
If you live up in the top of the if you live up in
the Montgomery area, An A Plants is your hometown garden center. And A
and A Plants has been around for thirty years up there, and you've watched
them grow, those of you driving up down one oh five. They're on
the east side of Montgomery, and so all of you out there at the
Lake Conroe, my Gosh, Waterstone to a Lago, Grand Harbor, Bentwater,
all of those neighborhoods, this is your hometown garden center. They everything
we need. I mean all the fertilizers I talk about. They have products
to control pests and manage weeds and things like that as well. They do
delivery in the region and do a little bit of landscaping up there in that
area as well. Seven days a week, nine to five, so it's
always easy to find a time when you can stop in at A and A
plants. And for those of you who likes a decorade for Halloween and Thanksgiving
and the holidays, boy are they ever loaded up with really cool stuff including
Hey, but maybe you need a chiminea for those frosty evenings where you're sitting
out and enjoying that as you sit on the patio, Well, they can
get you set up. We're going to take a break. Our phone number
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Good morning. You're
listening to Garden Line and we are here to answer gardening questions. That's what
we do now. I've been talking about the importance of not delaying any longer
when it comes to doing your fertilization. If you need a weed control product,
a pre emerging you don't lay because our grass is going to be slowing
down here. We got a nice week. This week, it'd be a
great time to put down a product like, for example, the nitrofoss Fall
Special Nitrophosphall Specials designed for your lawn. Put it down, do it today,
Put it down, get it watered in, and all this week those
roots are taking it up, and the plant is going to get stronger and
stronger going into winter and therefore come out stronger in the spring. It's also
the time for nitrofuss barricade, and nitrous barricade prevents broad leaving and grassy weeds.
You got to put it down and watered in with about about a quarter
of an inch of water, and I mean a half inch of water.
And oh, by the way, people ask me all the time, can
I have to do this one day and that the next day. No,
don't put them in the same hopper on your on your fertilizer. Fertilize and
then come right back and then put out the barricade and then put a half
inch of water down and you take care of both the fertilizer and the barricade
and you get them moving down. Third part, and by the way,
this is Nitrofossis tech is three step system third part is eagle turf funge,
a side systemic soaks into the tissues and when you get it in the tissues
and here comes brown patch or here comes take all root run. It helps
fight against those diseases. Now you can find this at all kinds of places,
Warren Southern Gardens, Ace Hardware, and Sinco Ranch Growers Outlet, and
Willis. You can find it in League City Feed. And those of you
in League City, you're fortunate to have your hometown feed store, which is
League City Feed. It's out there on Highway three, so you just go
a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So that whole region, you
know, Webster and Baycliff, El Kamina, Reale, Dickinson, Sandley,
all that area League City is your hometown feed store. They are open Monday
through Saturday, nine to six, closed on Sunday. But that nine to
six is good because on the way home from work you can stop in and
pick up the fertilizers I'm talking about and all of the things that control pests
and weeds and diseases and stuff like that on your lawn. Hey, here's
a phone number if you'd like to call them. Two eight one three three
two Steam twelve League City Feed. I am now going to go out to
Kingwood and talk to Pamela. Hello, Pamela, Hi, thanks for taking
my call. I've met you several times at Warren's in the Bird Place.
Okay, Yeah, I'm the one that raises money for the agg kids.
Yeah, and garden Club. You know, we give money to scholarships for
A and M. Anyway, I have a question about composting. I want
to do some leaf mold and I want to do I have an area with
like twenty seven trees in front of my house, and so what can I
do to make the composting faster? Could I use some of that purple bag
stuff? Well, that means that wouldn't hurt at all. What to have
fast composts? There's two things you can do. You can put down.
First of all, you to mix your brown and your green stuff. The
green stuff has nitrogen more so, the brown stuff has carbon more so,
and you got to get that ratio about right. So putting grass cuppings in
with the dead leaves and things that would be a good thing. Or you
can get a fertilizer. You were talking about microlife, the purple get the
microlife sixty four. That would be a really good one to use, and
to sprinkle a little bit and that'll give you the nitrogen. Also that'll make
the compost go faster. And then having a big pile so it can stay
a little warm in the center as it's composting and turning periodically, all of
that speeds up composting. All right, okay, because it's very shady because
of all the trees in the summertime. Yeah. And by the way,
you told me to go see your power point with the kids. Yes,
composting, Yeah, I did. Are those your kids when they were younger?
Oh? Yes, they are living all over the country right now.
They grew up dad, gummt they're darling. Well, thank you anyway,
all right. The trench thing that you have the kids doing, yes,
I mean that's phenomenal. I mean, what kid wouldn't love to go out
there and dig with their parents? There you go. What she's talking about
is digging a trench, putting your food scraps and things in it, and
then just covering it up and in the roots they'll get down there, they'll
find it and it's just a it's called compost holding or trench composting however you
want to do it. Hey, Pam, I got to run, but
thank you so much for the call. I appreciate that you take care.
Bye bye. You know the the micro life products, they have a wide
range of Pamela's just talking about those. Uh, the fall fertilization for me
would be the five to one three. That's the brown Patch product, and
it's just got a good ratio. It's going to gradually release over time.
It's going to help your plan do better. I like to use bioinoculant.
That is their their purple bag. I'll do that at all kinds of times.
And I should have mentioned when Pam mentioned that bioinoculant would be a great
thing to add to a compost pile, because that's exactly what it is.
You're inoculating with even more microbes to help it speed up and do well.
But those two go together well on any kind of you know, your lawn.
In fact, I would use those in any bed that I'm redoing.
I mean any bed that i'm you know, pulling out some flowers and putting
some new ones in, or vegetables or whatever. That's just a good combo
of products for Microlife. Let's head out to Katie now and we're going to
talk to Rick. Hello, Rick, Hey, how you doing? Skip
got a quick quest employee over the hot, hot summer. While I managed
to save my front yard, I did not move my backyard, and I
would assume that most of the grass back there is now okay, I did.
Now, what my question is, what would you think would be the
easiest and probably most cost effective way to redo my lawn? And we're talking
about an area of about oh four thousands worth feat probably thirty thirty five by
one hundred, Okay, and this is Saint Augustine. It was, yeah,
but that's what you want. So the only way to do Saint Augustine
is by sod, and so you can the sodding wall to wall is fast
and easy, just like you're laying bricks on the ground. Uh. And
that is going to cost more money because you're going to buy more sod.
But what that saves you is dealing with all the weed issues because I put
sod down before where I cut the blocks into strips and I planted those about
a foot apart, and that makes that block of sod go further. So
it's economically cheaper at the beginning, but in that bread that dead, I
mean the bear soil place in between, weeds are going to come up and
that is another issue, and then you're going to be buying something to kill
the weeds and so on. So it's kind of a trade off there as
to which way you go. Maybe another economical approach is, hey, let's
take a certain amount of it and do that this in the spring, and
then come back later and go a lo further out into the area and do
that. That's my suggestions for you. What about another type of grass that
comes up a little bit more quickly are to seed well? Really, Zeezia
is another one. I would just sowed it the best varieties the ones we
want, or sowed bermuda grass. There are some seeds, but it has
to be lots of sun for it to do well. And then when you
have bermuda, you got bermuda, and so flower beds and other things can
get invaded from that. So that's the trade off. But yeah, bermuda
seed would be a very inexpensive way to put the lawn out. And if
you go to Aggie Turf Aggie Turf dot tamou dot edu click down on the
Park Texas turf grasses. Click on bermuda and it'll list all the varieties that
are best buy seed that you can plant. Okay, and I was thinking
about doing kind of a mix of that in a cent would that would that
work? Well, that's kind of a mess. I mean everybody's calling me
asking how to get bermuda out of Saint Augustine, so to purposefully put them
together. I think you're the first rick. You win the award on that
one. Hey, I got to run, but thank you so much.
I appreciate it, appreciates the call. That is a first. You know,
when you're when you're fertilizing, it's a good idea to put out some
as mite. You don't have to do it a bunch of times a year.
But asmite is a trace mineral and so you just need a little bit
of it and addition need to be a little in the soil. But it's
an it's essential nutrients. So when when it's trace but essential, what that
means is if you don't have it, the plants can't grow. But you
don't need a lot of it, and amite goes a long way. You
can go to azimite, Texas dot Com and find out more about it.
Again, apply it separately from your fertilizer because particle size is different, so
your setting is going to be different than your spreader. But it is a
great way to add trace elements to your turf. Let's head out now to
Sharpstown and talk to Rebecca. Hello, Rebecca, Hey, how are you
today? I'm good? What's up in Sharpstown? Okay? I recently lost
my trees in my yard and I'm going to put a new one the in
for shade. The arborist recommended a lie boat because they grow fast and they're
good shade breathese. I held, the other hand, am not crazy about
having nuts or acorns. Okay, is there anything else I can do of
a tree that'll grow fast and give me good shade that I can plant?
Well, all the oaks are going to have acorns. They have different cycles.
Not all oaks, you know, somewherre every two years and Whatnotuh,
the I don't. I wouldn't call a live oak a fast growing tree.
It's a it's a medium, fast growing tree, but maybe one that you
would want to try. And I'm gonna have to go to break here.
But the Chinese elm is a pretty fast growing tree. It casts a light
shade so you can grow other things underneath it, and it has beautiful exfoliating
bark. Go online and google Chinese elm and then drake like the duck and
you'll see a picture of what I'm talking about. All right, Rebecca,
thank you so much. I appreciate that and hate to have to run so
fast, but we're going to take a break here and let Nikki take it
over and hopefully the gremlins are out of Nikki's system. Let's hope. HEO.
Good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions. And the way we
do that is for you to call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two KTRH. If you want to just
make it a little simpler, you can do it that way. Someone was
asking me about what is the best type of lumber to use for making a
raised bed, and you know, I am totally sold now on vego beds
and not doing it with lumber, a lumber warps, a lumber ken rot.
In fact, all lumber is gonna rot eventually, even treated. But
you know, if you if you choose to go with lumber, I would
go. Here's three options. I'll just put it this way. You could
do a treated wood, but if you do a ground contact treated wood,
it's a different It's it's treated, but it's treated knowing that it's going to
be in contact with the soil and so it definitely needs to be more rot
resistant so it lasts longer. Okay, So the ground contact would be an
option there if you do if you want to go with lumber. Another choice
is and this gets expensive, but a naturally rot resistant wood. You know,
things like wood or cedar or whatnot. Those can be helpful, but
they're going to rot to especially you know, the cedar will and the redwood
will. So those would be your options. Just go online and learn a
bit a little bit about how to put the beds together, because there's a
little bit of a trick to making sure that you minimize the wharping and how
far can you run and with a bed before you need some support for the
sides of that bed. But that's what I would do. But again,
I just can't leave this alone. I would do a vego bed. It
lasts way at last year treated would, and it's just simple, it's easy,
and it's pretty. It's downright pretty. That's another reason why I like
to do those. We get all kinds of questions on guard line and as
a County agro Life Extension horticulturists for thirty four years, I get a lot
of questions from gardeners and I pretty much have heard everything in the world there
is to hear. But every time somebody surprises me and ask a question like,
well, I haven't heard that one before, Like should I plant?
Can I plant Bermuda grass in Saint Augustine in the same place? That was
a first for me. Those of you enjoy birds in the backyard, and
I am one of them. You need to remember that as we move in
these fall months, the daytime link is getting shorter and shorter, longer night,
shorter days, and birds have a little less time to feed and we're
going into a cool season where they need to have the reserves in their bodies
to do well going through that season. That's why wildbirds put together their winter
super blend. It's got a little extra fat and protein in it, which
is really good for birds going into this season. Now, when you're at
Wildbirds, I mean they have feeders galore of that, bird houses, everything
you can imagine for birds. Just go into a place their seed supplies is
probably in and of itself. If that's the only thing they had, it'd
be worth going there for that. And here's why when you buy cheap bird
seed, and you can buy cheap bird seed, a huge amount of that
is those little red bebies that birds won't eat and they kick it off on
the ground. And so your cheap bird seed just got kind of expensive because
you didn't get as much bird seed as you thought you were getting. Wild
Birds designs blends for each type of bird or each group of types of birds,
and for different seasons of the year. And they even have a holeless
blend where there's no waste. I mean, there's nothing to be like a
sunflower seed to be shelled and dropped on the ground. They'll give you a
holeless sunflower a blend with sunflower in it. It's just worth it. And
I've been using it on my own feeders. And by the way, I
have the squirrel proof feeder, and boy is that ever a cool one.
Check it out when you go buy one of them. Hey, wild birds,
there's a bunch of them all over the Houston area. Just go to
wild Birds Unlimited excuse me, WBU dot com forward slash Houston and when you
do that, you're going to find seven wild Birds Unlimited. So wherever you
live, there's one close by by the way I bird feeders, bird supplies,
all that kind of stuff. That's a great gift for the holidays.
So if you're just kind of looking for somebody on your list, maybe they're
not a gardener, but they just like being outside. They got a pretty
patio, think about that. While birds to get you all set up on
that as well. Well, you're listening to garden Line. Our phone number
is seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you would
like to give us a call up in Grimes County, Grimes County feed is
celebrating their five year anniversary. Congratulations Chris and the roy family. That is
it's so fortunate that people living out in that area because that's a pretty rural
area. A lot of small towns, very small towns out through that area,
and you're so fortunate to have a hometown feed store. That's so close
to you. Grimes County Feed is two miles west of two forty four.
It's on State Highway thirty. It says Carlos, Texas. It's a little
out of Carlos, Texas. But Grimescanty Feed carries every fertilizer that I'm bragging
on and talking about here on garden Line. In fact, you know,
earlier I was talking about the Microlife fertilizer and the things you can put out,
and they carry that. They carry each of the brands that we talk
about here on Guardenline. They have vegetable seeds, some garden tools, and
anything that's going to go after your plants, diseases and weeds and insects.
They've got the control measures for that. And of course they're a feed store.
They always have a quality stock of feed for pets as well, and
if you need pond supplies, they can take care of that. And they
even do fish stocking and so you just have to go in and ask them
about that and get on the list. If you've got a little farm pond
in that area. Wow, that's really convenient to have them come out and
work with them as they bring in some stocker fish that you can get for
your pond. We're going to now go out to Katie, Texas and talk
to Doug. Hello, Doug Chip, good morning. My question is I've
got a night blooming jasmine that took a pretty good hit from the last freeze
we had, but it came back. And my question is it's in a
large pot, maybe by like an eighteen inch pot, and practically the whole
surface of the pot is covered with growth up shoots. It's not getting taller,
it's just filling out like a little field of grass or something coming up
there exactly right, and it's healthy and everything. But my question is I
want to thin out some of the growth so that I can get more vertical
growth and not these shoots keep coming up. Well, it's going to get
vertical. It's just going to need a little time. And we're not going
into a season where night blooming jasmine wants to do a lot of growing.
And that's part of the deal. I would leave it because every little shoot
has leaves on it that are catching sunlight, making carbohydrates, or keeping the
roots strong, and that way, when you come out of you're going to
be able to have a stronger plant. And at that time, if you
want to do some selective pruning, you could go ahead and do that.
I think i'd hold off when you do the selective pruning. What's the criteria
for selecting what to cut out? Just I would go with the most vigorous
upright shoots. It could be spacing. If you got two that are just
bumping against each other, I'll probably take one of them out and space them
out just a little bit. But it's not a big deal. You're not
gonna you can't go wrong on it, so don't don't sweat it. But
just esthetically, how many shoots do you want? You know, you've grown
the plant before, and that's what I would say, All right, oh
okay, yeah, because before the freeze it was probably you know, pushing
five or six feet tall and now, okay, well that's that's a great
plan. Doug Hey, I got to run to break but thank you very
much for that. Call our phone number again seven one three two one two
fifty eight to seventy four Mike. When we come back, we'll go up
to New Caney and talk to you. Well, welcome back to garden Line.
We're here to answer gardening questions and if you'd like to give us A
call seven one three two one two kt r H makes it easy to dial.
We're going to head now out to New Caney and talk to Mike.
Hello, Mike, how you doing the smart script? I'm doing well.
How do you get rid of elephantears? Well, they have big storage or
out dynamite and stuff. Yeah, dynamite, back home, move color,
realtor those are all options. Now. They have big storage argons underground and
so you know, even a you can put praise on them that will that
will kill them. Things that killed big broad leaf weeds can work on those.
So that's an option, but you're probably gonna have to retreat. Digging
is you know, a better way to get in there and make sure you
get it out. But that's a lot of work. Elephant ears, as
you know, can you probably made an attempt at one or two and oh
yeah, I probably don't want to fight that battle that way. But those
are the two two options you've got there. As you spray them with a
broad leaf post emergent we control product or something that kills everything, you know,
just one of those kind of things, and they'd be ready to do
it again. Be ready to do it again. Don't let them up prayer
and you can get rid of them. Okay. You know what you ought
to do is put a sign at the road free elephant ears. You know,
you go Tom Sawyer on this. You know, let them for you
because a lot of people would like them. And they're a beautiful plant.
I mean, gosh, y my pond. Yeah. Oh they're in a
pond. Hey, I'm the edge of a pond. Oh okay, digging
just got more interesting, didn't it. Oh my god. Well you don't
want to use dynamite that'll make all the fish float. Yeah, that's true.
Okay, we're having some fun out there. But Mike, I guess
that's it. There is a there is a product called Rodeo, and it's
like round up, but it's made for use in water around water. And
that might be a one you want to look at, go to go to
a feed store, and and it may be a little pricey. I haven't
ever purchased it myself, but I just know that it's essentially a glaf to
say type product, but it's it's made for use around ponds. Week talking
about Yeah, that would be an option. Yeah. Some of the other
stuff I was picturing growing in a landscape. A lot of those lawn things
are not going to be labeled for use around water like that, so you
wouldn't know. Okay, all right, I appreciate it. Skip all right,
you take care. Good to talk to you. You know, in
Chane Gardens, the Lenderman family, they've been in business a lot, in
the nursery business a long time, and they know how to do a nursery
and it shows up. Go to in Chennick Gardens and check out. You'll
see what I'm talking about. Joey has been part of that community for a
long time. He's been in the business for a long time, and they
have created a little wonderland out there. Do you need roses? Do you
need herbs and vegetables? Do you need trees and shrubs and flowers and perennials
and all things anything you're going to grow as a gardener. They're going to
have that kind of plant out there at Enchanted Gardens Richmond. And one of
the best reasons to go there. First of all, they carry all the
products we talk about, soils and fertilizers and things. They got it all
right there. One of the best reasons to go out there is their team.
They have a helpful, enthusiastic team that knows what they're talking about,
and that is worth everything. When you're buying plants, you want someone who
number one carries the plants that'll do well here and won't sell you something that
won't grow here, that knows what they're talking about for crying out loud,
and also that can guide you after the sale how to take care of it.
You know, what do you do? How do you plant it?
Hey, this plant's not doing good. Here's a picture I brought in.
They'll do that. They'll take time to do that. In Enchanted Gardens,
they're on FM three point fifty nine, the Katie Fullscher Side of Richmond,
or just go to the website Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot Chandigardens Richmond dot com.
Today'd be a good day to get out there too. Oh let's see,
we're gonna go cypress now and talk to Brandon. Hello Brandon, Hey,
Skiff, Hey, I need some help with some hollies. I got like
a row of hollies across the entire front of my house, and a couple
of years ago, one of them started having like all the leaves like on
it on individual limbs would start just turning brown until it finally lost the whole
bush. Yeah, And so I dug that one up and then this is
probably maybe two three years ago. And then now like an adjacent one is
doing the same thing, and I just had to get that one out,
and the others next to it kind of look a little sick. They get
like before the leaves turn totally brown, they get like some black spots on
the top of them, and then they just go go down. Well,
Brandon, it could be several things, and it could be a combination too
of things. How long ago did you plant them the I think they were
the old ones that are still alive. I think they were probably original with
the house, you know, twenty three years ago. Oh really, okay,
well established, Well, the drought we went through really took a toll
on Holly's. You don't find Holly's in West Texas. They want to live
in the piny woods where it rains, and so that's one thing. And
making sure the water gets to the whole root system that some plant is not
blocking the spray if you have a spray irrigation, so you have sections of
the root system that are too dry that could cause a branch up there to
die is like that they don't want to be soggy wet, But I kind
of doubt that's the problem from the year we just went through. That's another
thing that can cause issues. There are some root rots that can attack them
and sort of the progression of a root rot like that on a holly,
you should see a branch die and then more branches die on that side,
and it's almost like it's working away through the plant from left to right,
if you will. That would be kind of a root right issue, and
that may be a bigger challenge. That would require sending a plan into the
plant clinic State plant clinic and getting the actual disease identified so you can target
it with the fungicide drench that would fix that disease. That is unlikely,
but that's a possibility, and I'm just throwing out all the things I could
see. This would be. Where would I look that up? Who who
to contact for that plant clinic? Go to plant plank Clinic, plant Clinic
dot t a m U dot edu. All the websites are TAMU dot edu,
plant Clinic dot TAMU dot edu. There is a form that you fill
out. It's a diagnostic form. Now you need to send them a sick
plant. If you send them a dead plant. They don't do autopsies.
They just do diagnoses. So when a plant is declining to the point where
okay, I'm gonna lose it anyway, go ahead and pull it up while
it still has some life in it and follow the instructions. If I were
you, I would probably drive it up there. It's not that far.
Probably an hour where are you say, Oh yeah, an hour and fifteen
minutes away from you, and it just be simpler. You make sure you
get it there in good shape. Take it early in the week that's best,
so it didn't sit there over the weekend. All right, Brendon,
I appreciate it. I appreciate your call very much. We'll see we are
going to let's see, I'm gonna go to Janey and Missouri City. How
are you doing, Jenne? I am great. I have a question about
fertilizer for my lawn. My lawn survived with being watered during the summer and
I had fertilized in the spring, and last year I bought I went to
Southwest Fertilizer and bought a lawn special premium winter riser. Okay, and I
have that bag still. I'm not sure why I didn't put that on,
other than I might have gotten the nitrofass stuff. It's two percent iron point
four percent. I know that product. It's a good one. Use that.
I'm sorry, I'm running out of time here. I want to help
you if I can. What's the bottom line on it? Can I use
that? And then what other products would I put with it? Nothing?
With it? I know, yes, the three step No, that's that
product is fine for fertilizer. If you want to do a broad if you
want to control weeds, then the barricade, which is a pre emergent.
All right, okay, thank you very much. I appreciate that call.
Hey, you know me, I keep right. I keep talking about falls
for planning woody ornamentals. Don't plan a woody ornamental unless you buy a tree
hugger sprinkler because next summer is coming and you're going to have to water where
the roots are, and that is what tree hugger does. They're easy to
do. Treehuggersprinkler dot com. It's as simple as that. I've got one
hanging in my garage. You should too, because who knows what's next to
rosebush or something you're going to always have use for a tree hugger sprinkler.
They work great. Well you've been listening to garden Line. I just want
to remind you that I am heading out next Saturday to r CW Nurseries where
they're going to be given away lay spark elm Mexican white Oak, Monterey O's
another name Live O Seedlings. They're gonna have barbecue sandwich lunch or fifty percent
off on all shrubs and some of the trees, and giveaways of frost cloth
and fertilizers and all kinds of things. Put it on your calendar and come
see me. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line
with Skip Richter's so Trim just watch him as well. Good morning and welcome
back to garden Line. You know, as we went into that last break,
I was talking about treehar sprinklers and the reason I like them so much
is because you water the root zone of the tree. So you got a
new tree, you put it around it and you water that small confined rig
zone that just went into the ground in a cylinder, and it gets bigger,
and it gets bigger in five years from now, that tree is going
to have a nice little branch spread and you can turn your tree hugger up
just water a larger area. They have three sizes, seven inch, eleven
and fifteen inch, so I have I own all three because sometimes I will
be using them at the same time on different even different kind of plants.
Even but a tree hugger waters that area. So you don't turn your whole
landscape watering system on and try to run it so long that you soak deeply.
For trees. Now, just you water right there. It saves water
to do it, but the main thing it does is it saves your trees.
And I would say if there are, if there are two things that
if I had to take all treecare and tree success and my trees alive,
and it's pretty if I were to take them down to two things. One
would be watering in the summer when it gets dry and it's an extended hot
drought. Trees don't need baby like a little shallow rooted ends do. But
when it goes a long time and it's dry, you know, a mature
tree can pup one hundred gallons of water a day. That's a lot of
water, and it's coming from the soil. And after what two weeks and
o rain, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. You see what
I'm saying, watering Number one. Second thing is don't let anyone touch your
tree that doesn't know what they're doing. I see more trees that are mispruned
that I just see all kinds of things done to trees that shouldn't be done.
This ridiculous volcano mulching that you see all over town. That's another one.
Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoon Moore. They're the ones we trust because they've
been doing this for a very long time. They know what they're doing over
thirty years now taking care of Houston trees. They serve the whole area.
You need to call them and get on the schedule. Though, even if
you want pruning done, you know, back up in January or something seven
to one to three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Get at
the front of the line by telling them you heard it on guardline. But
aff Tree serves dot com. That's another way you can reach them. Martin
or Joe's wife are the ones that answer the phone. And when you have
somebody who knows what they're doing take care of the tree. You had a
caller earlier, they're just it was just bragging about how well they took care
of their trees. When you have someone like that taking care of your trees
in even advising you, that is the second key element to success. I
mean, there are other things we can do for our trees, but those
two summer watering when needed during a drought, and having someone who knows what
they're doing touch your trees and nobody else gets to be around them because a
bad printing job is forever. And if you're going to be putting in a
sidewalk or a driveway or anything around the tree, call Martin, have him
come out and consult and tell you what you need to do this or that.
Here's how we protect the tree in the process. That alone is worth
a lot. Hey, our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Will be glad to visit with you about the topics that you are very interested
in this morning. And there are a lot of things we could talk about
in my own landscape. We just had some beds. We got them all
cleaned out and everything, and it's time to put in some new color in
there. And I was just trying to decide what are the flowering plants that
I want to do. And I have my favorite. You know, I
love violas, and I love viola's more than pansies. Actually they do really
well. And there are a lot of other good color plants that you can
put in. And if you've never been out to Enchanted Forest, you should
go because whether you need fall color like I'm talking about, or do you
need shrubs or do you need trees, you know, they have a wide
variety of plants, perennials, everything, you name it. They've got it
out there and you can go to their website. It is Oh, by
the way, it's a great new website. They've done a good job.
Congratulations folks. Enchanted Forest Richmond TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond,
TX dot com. Go check that out. I was looking at social media
and they're getting a way two tickets to see Doug Tallamy at the Houston Botanical
Garden. You have to go on their Facebook page and you have to type
something in there and they'll draw on Monday. I believe for those tomorrow,
so don't delay in doing that. Doug Tallomy is unbelievable. I read his
book Bringing Nature Home, and it changed my whole perspective on a lot of
things. If you were into birds, you have got to hear Doug Tellomy
because he talks about the things we do in our landscapes that help enhance the
birds. But you can get two free our chance the two free tickets out,
go to the Enchanted Forest Facebook page, and while you're there, just
check out all the plants that they have, wide variety of really cool stuff.
Let's head out now to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Bill.
Hello. Bill, Hey, good morning, Good morning. I had a
quick question for you. So here recently, I've lost a couple of palm
trees mature, probably twenty years old, so they're thirty foot tall to woodpeckers.
And so I've had another one cut out a couple of weeks ago,
and I've got the woodpecker back on one of the other good trees. Anything
I do about that other than shoot them? What kind of tree? Did
you say? Palm trees? They're the Mexican fan plants. Oh boy,
I don't know. Maybe some caller has a good solution to that, but
I you know, the only things that come to mind. Yeah, you're
talking about shooting them. Well that that's not going to go well in the
city. No, the and they serve a purpose in nature too, So
you know, going up there and wrapping some kind of hardware cloth around it
to keep them out of it. Boy, that would be a job,
a ridiculous attempt. I can't think of what would do it. I think
it may just be it is what it is, But maybe somebody else has
another idea. The Yeah, I'm stumped on that one. Congratulations, Yeah,
stump the chump, you did it. Thanks, Bill, appreciate that,
all right, you bet. I appreciate that call a lot. I
was talking about Microlife earlier and I didn't mention their blue and blue combination.
That's one that I really like to talk about. The first blue is the
Microlife Ultimate. Now that's an eight four six fertilizer and you can use it
on anything. But right now, I would you know, I'd use their
other their brown patch on the lawn, but you can use this on anything.
It'd be a good lawn fertilizer in the summer, but if you're planting
trees and shrubs and things, Microlife's not going to burn plants. You're not
going to burn your plants with Microlife, So if you're doing the backfill,
you can put a little of it in there or sprinkle it around on the
surface before you cover the area with mulch. That is a very good fertilizer
and it'll be around and ready to go when that tree starts its growth.
Now, the Microlife Ocean Harvest is the other the blue that is a jug
and it is a fish based fertilizer that you can mix up. You can
use it as a foldier feed. Remember microlife doesn't burn plants, or you
could use it as a drench. You could drench your plants. I would
do it outside. It's got a little bit of a fishiness to it,
so I wouldn't put it in on the houseplants. They've got another good one,
the orange label that is good for the houseplants, a seven to one,
three or four product. But the fish fertilizer is just a good one
and a lot of people use it as a folier to help strengthen plants as
well, so that's all available for microlife, and you can find microlife all
kinds of places. You can just go to Microlifefertilizer dot com find out where
you can get microlife. In fact, let's see, oh my gosh,
another break time seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four will be
right back. Well, good morning and welcome back to garden Line. On
a beautiful Sunday. Absolutely chamber of commerce. Weather going on out there.
If you have been thinking about redoing your landscape, you need to call pier
Scapes. They know what they're talking about, they know what they're doing,
and they can do it right. The website is real simple, and I
want you to go to the website. It's pierscapes dot com. When you
go to the website, take a look at the kinds of projects that they've
done. They also have a Facebook page with all the projects on it and
you just get an idea. I mean, they will turn your landscape your
maybe an outdoor sitting area, Maybe you need a waterfall, you like to
do a waterfall, rego all out in this they do that. Maybe this
summer your irrigation system was not having good coverage and if you were having a
hard time keeping the grass green because you're overwater in some areas while you're underwatering
others. Maybe it's broken, you got broken heads. They can do all
that irrigation stuff. Do you need a hardscape out and back, you know,
walkways things like that. They can do that. Pierscapes can do it
all. And just go in and talk to them. Bring pictures of your
yard, say what you'd like to do. Let them give some suggest Maybe
you got a bed with some dead plants that couldn't take the drought. You
need some good drought tolerant plants that would look good there. Or maybe the
bed just needs a reworking. Uh. They have that artistic flare pierscapes dot
com. Two eight one, three, seven oh fifty sixty. Simple is
that Let's go to Cyprus now and we're going to talk to Valerie. Hello,
Valerie, Oh hi, how are you today? I'm well, thank
you? Good hey. I have an acre of woods and I've got lots
of pine trees and they're all dying. I have fifteen that are dead and
because they have pine bart beetle in them. Now, good boy. I
had somebody come out the other day the only person I could get. He
said he's an arborist, and he said he can inject the trees near the
base and it goes up and it will kill the pine bart beetles and the
ones that are still alive. The other ones I have to cut down,
supposedly, I don't. I mean, we had pine bark beetles like thirty
years ago. My husband sprayed all the trees because I understand the beatles go
on the ground, they don't fly through the air. So we saved lots
of trees that time. But I can't I'm not able to do that myself.
Now. All right, Well, there was a lot in there that
was a little fishy sounding. Yeah, and I'm not an arborus, but
I'm gonna tell you what I think. The pine bark beetle they love to
attack trees that are weakened. And a drought streuss would be an example,
a lightning struck would be an example. The tree gives off a smell,
they smell it, they come in and they can fly. They're not great
flyers, and that's one of the reasons why the first sign of them cut
off the tree at the bottom drop it to the ground. So it's a
log on the floor for his floor, and they're not going to fly up
to the tree. And I've not heard, you know, as far as
I'm crawling up, I don't know. That sounds a little fishy to me
too. But pine bark beetles, by the time they hit a tree,
there's usually not much you can do about it, and putting a systemic down
in the tree to control them, unless things have changed since the last time
I studied that, I don't think that would be the way to go.
Typically, trees were sprayed about eighty percent of the height of the tree,
sprayed with something that gets in there between the bark chunks where they drill in.
That's where they like to drill in. And when they drill in,
it kills them. And you're treating the trees around the tree that had it,
for example. But that is a tough thing to do. I mean,
you're squirting pesticide up in the air. Some of the original ones they
usually read bad for your eyes. So I would say dropping them to the
ground would be the best thing. You could also talk to the folks of
the Texas Forest Service. They're here in Houston and they're going to be more
up to speed on that than I am. I don't have a phone number
for them, but it's a Texas Forest Service here in town, and they
certainly they're urban foresters in there that really know what they're talking about. So
that would be my final recommendation to you. I've called so many people and
most of them can't come out for a month anyway. I don't even know
who they are, but they still can't come for a month, and the
trees will all be dead because every one of these trees is close to eighty
two hundred feet tall, so it's horribly expensive. I'm trying to figure out
how you're going to do that, so if they could inject them and if
that works, I just had never heard of that. So yeah, not
inclined to believe that one. But again I'm admitting that I'm not the expert
on that, okay, but from what I learned about them, you know
a while back, that was that was not something that was done. That
wasn't how they went about it. So okay, okay, all right,
all right, Well you take it by the way the Forest Service office,
if they haven't moved, it was on North Loop. Oh gosh. TC
Jester and I said, yeah, somewhere in there up kind of north central
to actually northwest a little bit, but north of where two ninety comes in.
That's just a rough idea where their office is. All right, well,
Texas Forest Service, Yeah, the Texas Forest Service, and they have
an urban forestry program. I'm trying to find online. I'm actually looking here
for you about it. See where somewhere they list all their regional offices and
I'm having trouble finding it just off the you know, off the cuff here.
But you ought to double to hunt that down and find that. Or
you can call A and M and say, hey, who's the what's the
regional urban forester in the Houston area and they can send you directly to them
Texas the Forest Service Department or Texas Forest Service up at A and M as
well. Okay, okay, great, thank you all right, Valerie.
I hope that helps a little bit. Uh. Yeah. I was talking
about the Ace Hardware stores before, and Ace Hardware it's the it's the kind
of store that if you haven't been in in a while, you will be
sparring what's in there. I mean when it comes to lawn and gardens,
that's what this show is it's a gardening show. They have everything you need
herbicides and exercise, fungicides, the fertilizers, the wide variety of everything.
They are really well stocked up and tools and hoses and everything else for your
yard. But they have knowledgeable staff too. And right now we're in the
holiday season and it's time to put up lights. Right if you have outdoor
lights or indoor lights you want to put up, that's the place. ACE
is the place for Christmas lighting. They also have all the accessories to make
the installation go really fast. You need a wreath or garland for your front
door. And by the way, on the lights, they have so many
types of lights. There's various sizes, there's multiple colors and configurations, you
know, little icicle lights. And you know what I'm talking about. ACE
is the place. ACE is easy to find forty stores now, congratulations Orange
and Bay City. You got new locations out there ACE Hardware. Look for
the store locator and you'll find all of the ones and there'll be more than
one in your area. That is convenient. You can't get any more convenient
than that. You know why you're at ACE two. I was talking about
the nitropost three step today and yesterday as a matter of fact, and ace
carries that a lot of aces. You know, nit fross products are going
to be there, and that three step again, it's the fall fertilizer that's
designed for fall. It's a different fertilizer blend than you would use in spring
and summer. It's designed for fall to make your lawns stronger going into winter,
and boy do our lawns ever need that. Secondly, it's got the
barricade, which is a weed control product by preventing weeds. Put down barricade,
Put down the fertilizer, separate application, same day, water them in
with one half inch of water and it moves a barricade into the soil surface
and it dissolves some of the fertilizer to go down to the plant roots.
And when it's in the surface, it's going to go to work for you
and take care of you all the way through winter. It's a very very
long lasting product. And the Egle turfunge aicide is something that soaks into your
grass. You spray the grass with it and or apply it is a graneur
to the grass. The product itself will help the grass prevent disease. Infection
and preventative is key in fall diseases. Take our root rod a brown patch,
you it's much better to prevent than to wait until you see them and
try to treat it at that time. And that's exactly what Eagle does.
Now, where do you find it? Well, Warren Southern Gardens has it
Ace Hardware and Sinkle Ranch all the aces of it Growers Outlet and Willis Arbigate
and Tomball RCW Nursery and Katie Hardware. It's easy to find. The nitrofoss
texas three step and don't delay especially well, actually all three steps. The
fertilizer, don't delay anymore. You want to give it as much time as
you can. The weed control they're germinating. Better get it out there if
you're going to prevent the and the fung aside. Well, we've had some
cool weather and it's the little wetness out there. The brown patch is going
to start appearing, and so once once it's there, it's a little late
to do a lot of good with it. Hey, our phone number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two five eight seven four uh the folks at Texas Gardner Magazine are hosting the
Texas Tomato Lovers Conference. Now this is in January, but you need a
head start. And here's why. There's limited space available and people I spoke
at this, I'll speak of it this year. I spoke it at the
last time they did it and they filled the place up. Now it's going
to be held out at the Anti Rosing Porium. If you want to sign
up for its Saturday January thirteenth. Saturday January thirteenth, and it will be
at the Anti grows Iporium. Dial two five four eight four eight ninety three
ninety three for eight four eight ninety three ninety three are just emails Sally at
Texas Gardener dot com. They're going to have a talk on growing tomatoes with
the young family, the kiddos talk on mastering container grown tomatoes, the best
varieties and eight steps to grafting success. Do you know you graft the tomato?
Uh. They're going to be talk on diseases of tomatoes. And the
talk I'm going to give is on the ten Commandments of success with tomatoes.
So you don't want to miss the Texas Tomato Lovers Conference. Just remember it's
a limited space. So if you're interested, act soon. Tomatoes are the
we in extension service. We always say, uh, the three things that
make the phone ring or treat the three t's trees, turf, and tomatoes.
And if you listen to garden Line, very long, trees and turf,
by and large, that's what everybody's calling about. That's what they care
about. Uh. And there's a lot of other cool things to talk about,
and we get other calls, but those are the biggies. Those are
the elephants in the room. And once we get into the garden season,
nobody ever calls me about their Cole Robbie. Tomatoes are the queen of the
garden and people care a lot about that. Well, we're going to go
to talk to James in North Houston, and James, I think you have
some woodpecker information. I do. I heard the call about the gentleman with
the palm trees. Yeah, I've seen on some Amazon and some other websites
they have a little gizmo that has a motion sensor on it and when they
see animals or birds, it flashes and it sends a noise to their ears
that they can hear and it shoes them away. I've had some of my
customers have used those products to get rid of squirrels and annoying boat instead are
trying to shoot them. Well, that's interesting. I don't know if that
would work. I'm just thinking if you got neighbors, they may not appreciate
a lot of sound going on out there. Well, they're not sound that
humans can hear their sounds that the animals. Oh, I got you here,
okay, kind of like a dog type. Then, oh, that's
interesting. My wife doesn't like it because she thinks they, you know,
mess with pollinators and stuff. All right, Hey, well James, thanks,
thanks for following up and calling in with that. I appreciate that you
are listening to garden Line and we're about to break for the news and turn
it over to Nikki. Uh. She's got her gremlins out of the system
and she's so excited and raring to go. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two kat r h to give us a call, Josh,
we'll get you on the boards. All right, we've got something a congo
line going there. H you're listening to garden Line and I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions. We got one
of those rare moments where we got to open board. If you would like
to call in and you've been you know, tired to have to wait or
I don't know, I want to now's the time. Now's your best chance
to get in to the garden line if you'd like to give us a call.
So I'll just leave it at that, the phone number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. And I like having a little bit
of a break here where I can just talk about some things that I am
particularly interested in. Uh, the vegetable garden in the cool season is actually
I think my favorite season at all. First of all, that you feel
comfortable going on working most days out there, but there is so much nutritious
options when it comes to vegetables. The whole group of cruciferous vegetables, those
are also called coal crops. They're the kind that have the bluish green leaf.
Okay, here's what they are. Cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts,
col Robbie collars, kale forgetting some cauliflower. There we go. Those are
crucifer that very very healthy for it easy to grow, super easy to grow
and they do so very well. Here the leafy grains, the lettuces,
and by the way, if you plant lettuce, choose a leaf type lettuce,
maybe a bid bib type, but not a heading type of lettuce,
and they just do a lot better. I like to plant them and mix
them up. Different colors of lettuce, you know, the red and the
green and striped and everything else are speckled. Uh. And then when you
harvest them, you just harvest them with scissors like you're mowing the lawn,
and you get enough for your salad. And then that grows back because you're
not taking the plan out and you can do that with it. Arugula is
another cool seasoned plant. And then the root crops, you know, the
radishes and the carrots. The prime time for planting carrots and all of this
stuff you can grow in containers too, you know, if you don't have
a garden, you can grow it in a container. But it's it's fresh,
it's healthy. You're just not gonna do any better than that. And
just remember when it gets cold, and it's gonna get very very cold,
then you need to cover them up. And if you go on line to
gardening with skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot com. The top thing I
just put it up last week is the frost and Freeze Protection and it's for
gardens and landscapes and everything else, and it walks you through the whole process
of what you need to do to make sure that you protect your plants.
And it doesn't matter how cold it gets. If it's gonna be a minor
cold, well just a little cover does it. It's gonna get really cold,
you're gonna have to put heat underneath it, like lights, and I'll
tell you how to do that in that publication. So I hope you'll take
advantage of that, because there's no reason to not have beautiful gardens all the
way through the winter season here in the Greater Houston area. I mean we,
boy, do we ever have a long growing season that transitions from one
to another and we just have a few times when we get a really hard
cold spell and that's when we have to step out. And by the way,
after you look at that publication, figure out what supplies you're gonna need,
go out and get them purchased, because when the freeze is forecast,
stores get cleaned out of the things that you're going to want to put over
your plants. I'm gonna stop on that for just a minute. We're going
to go to the phones and I'm going to talk to Larry in Indiana.
Is that right, Larry? That is right. I wanted to call and
tell you that I love your show. I listen every weekend. And I
know I'm not in the in the Houston region, and our temperature and everything
here is completely different. But just really I called to to I think,
if nothing else, to to ensure that your listeners that the products that you
refer to on the radio. You guys are blessed to have the places that
you have, the horticulture places of stores, the soil amendments. We don't
have that in the areas I'm in. I'll tell you the reason I really
called, I know you get a kick out of it, is what we
have here is triple twelve. That's what we have. You can walk into
the nicest, nicest place if that sells plants and things like that, and
uh, triple bags of triple twilves toward Florida, Florida ceiling. Oh my
gosh. Well, you know, I hear call up your state extension turf
specialists and ask them what the ratio of soul nutrients should be, and all
the way through the growing season, they're going to tell you three one two,
not one one one like triple twelve. But I know, I know,
it's a it's a it's crazy. I hear some of the things you
talk about, and I'm just I'm literally green with envy some of the some
of the props that you guys have, Well, you guys can grow some
nice soft turfs. It's our Saint Augustine's very coarse textured. And you guys
can grow the the uh uh rescue and the rye grass, I mean bluegrass
that that does as well. Yeah, yeah, we can. The only
question that I really had for you today that I think may be applicable even
though we're in a different region, is uh, I've got some just some
basic uh fur shrubs, not like the gray owls or any I don't know
what they are, honestly, They're just kind of a generic green shrub.
Do they have Do they have big leaves or little tiny skinny leaves. They
are fairly thin leaves. They get the big kind of the big frond,
the big the big limbs autumn, the droom fairly large as shrubs. But
occasionally I'll get like one of the one of the main branches coming out of
the base will just be completely dead and all of the I call them needles.
They're really not needles, but feel like they're just brown and tap it
they just completely fall off. It's just dead on the door. Now.
And does the shrub progress with the problem or does it just that branch dies
and then it goes on. Fine, I'll cut that branch off. And
I've i've uh, some some people me they thought it was spider miight,
Okay, some people, so this is that I've treated them an all sorts
of things for them, and and it just seems to be progressing. Okay,
it's not spider miights that it sounds like you're talking about a U Y
e W A type of you. There are many types of views, but
I that's a wild guess. From halfway across the country, I would I
would, I would talk to your county extension office. You guys have Purdue
Purdue there right, Yeah, so you've got a county extension system. Every
land grant every state has a lane Grant college. Here it's Texas and m
there we Purdue and Uh, if you go call them, they're going to
have a county extension office. Probably they're gonna have specialists who you probably could
send a picture to and they can identify. I don't think that's spider mites.
That that is not how spidermights work. That's something else. And by
the way, we're talking about lawns. Uh, you are flipped upside down
on lawns. Your grasses are cool season grasses. Our grasses are warm season
grasses. So when I talk about a fall fertilizer a winteriser, that's kind
of different. Your grasses survived through summer and then they really do their growth
as it cools off a little bit. Uh. So you need to talk
to your local county extension of I bet if you went to the Purdue Extension
website, I bet there's a free publication on lawn care there. Probably is.
I didn't honestly didn't even think about that. And I know there's an
extension agency extension office in the town next to us here that I drive pass
all the time, and I've never even thought about that. But yeah,
it's a lot. I'm sorry, go ahead, I'm sorry, No,
go ahead. I just called to tell you that I love your program.
Even though you guys talk about things that don't apply here, I still love
listening to all the all the people out there and how you're helping them and
the wild bird stuff and all right, well, hey man, I've learned.
I've learned a ton, so I appreciate it. Thank you. Those
are good kind words. I appreciate your call, and thank you very much.
We're going to go to a break. It's time for that. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Will
be right back. Well, welcome back to garden Line for our last segment
of the day. We have been going all morning. This morning we got
through the gremlins and they were back rolling along again. Yesterday I was out
at Ciena Maltz and I was talking to Luis from Heirloom Soils about some of
their products. We were helping a fellow that needed to put in a raised
bed and whatnot. And I'm telling you they have such a wide range of
products. Just you know, do you need potting salt for indoor plants?
Do you need something to make a bed? Do you need potting salt for
outdoor plants? And do you need malts, do you need shlle just all
kinds of stuff. But right now, the thing you need to be thinking
about is if you are planning on adding to a bed, building it up
or putting in a new bed. They've got a bulk deal going on that
you don't want to miss. And the Veggie and Herb Fall Special is for
one hundred nineteen dollars for bulk delivery of a yard or one hundred and forty
eight for a supersac, which is also a QB card. Now the Rose
Soil is seventy dollars bulk and ninety nine for a supersac. Both of those
are super quality mixes and they take the time to do it right. That's
the bottom line. So if you're thinking, you know, next spring I
want to plant a garden, go ahead and get the soil now and get
it out there, put it on the ground so you're ready to go in
spring. Don't wait until then because first of all, the prices are going
to change again and you know you're not going to find a better deal than
these two deals right now. From Airloom Soils, you can go to Airloomsoilsoftexes
dot com. If you're going to order soil and you don't know how much.
Use their calculator on that website. It is outstanding and it'll tell you
exactly what you need. We're going to head out now to Brenham, Texas
and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed, Hello scarp I have colorado grass
which is attacked my vegetable gard like a fag kid on a chocolate cake.
All right, I don't know what colorado grass is. What is colorado grass?
It's sort of like it's a taller grass with a real fine seed.
Okay, well it's about three foot tall, okay, and I mean it
is fi Okay, well without seeing it, but I can tell you this
if it's a grass, and you said it's in your vegetables in the vegetable
garden. Every time you pier, after you plant all your stuff, yeah,
two weeks later it starts popping up. It just turns the whole rose
green. So you're talking about little seedlings are popping up, right, Oh
yeah, Okay, you gotta malt. You just got to keep a thick
mulch on there. And when you have to plant seeds, you live a
little space, but in the malt to plant the seeds. But if sunlight
hits the soil, grass seeds and all other seeds are going to pop up,
and you got to keep you know, you're keeping that, you're keeping
that bed moist, which is what you need for your plants. So it
just makes the seedlings happier. One thing you could do is before you plant,
you could put a well, just let the seeds sprout up and then
do a very light, very shallow weeding with a fine type of a hoe
to cut the roots just a half inch under the ground on those seedlings,
but don't turn the soil over kill it. Well, here's the problem with
tilling. You bring new weed seeds to the surface, and just regular hoeing
you bring new weed seeds. So you clean it all out and then here
comes a bunch more and I'm trying to avoid that. You could just spray
when you say kill it, you could kill it with a spray too,
and then you plant your seedlings. But are your seeds or your transplants.
That'd be another option, But the bottom line is Moltz. That's the easy
way. That's what nature does to keep grass out of the forest. You
know, they just drop tree leaves on it, and they do it that
way, So any kind of maltz. I'm lucky. I can get it
by the truckload for about fifty dollars. You are lucky. You are lucky.
But anyway, just keep a mulch on it. That's the best you
can do. And when the weed seeds are young, you know, deal
with them. I iced to use newspaper on them. Newspaper will mulch on
top, but now newspaper is harder to come by, not as me.
People, that's not that big of a garden. That's thirty eight plus sixty
Okay, well it's still a good size. Well, good luck with the
grass up there, and thanks for the humor. I appreciate that. We're
going to go now to Conroe and talk to Phillis. Hello, fill us,
Hello, Hey, how can we help today? So I have a
property in Conroe that has lots of pine trees, okay, and the pine
needles are constantly coming down. It's not something that you can, you know,
rake it up and you're done. It's like all the time. Okay,
So it's killed all the grass, and so I'm trying to figure out
what I can do. Doesn't necessarily have to be grass, but what I
can do for some kind of a lawn under a pine tree that is tough.
Keeping them raked up is your first step that helps. But underneath pines,
as a shade gets a little denser. Of course, there's a lot
of pine roots that are taking water out of the soil too, make it
a little more tough for the grass. It can be difficult. At some
point you just have to switch to something other than grass for that area.
But anything you can do to keep the grass from getting shaded more like you're
raking up of the pine trees, that's important. If you haven't fertilized,
it helps to fertilize enough the grass is healthy. You're not going to make
grass grow in the shade by adding extra fertilizer, but you can keep it
healthy so it has the best chance of growing in the shade. Okay,
And if I don't do grass, what would you recommend as something under the
pine trees? Yeah, you know, I was going to say a shade
loving groundcover, But then the needles get dropped on that too, and you
got to get them out of there. But that's just part that's part of
the deal with pines. I mean, that's one of the negatives of those
trees. But you could do some shrubs that are shade loving in that area,
or maybe I don't know, if it's shady enough. Even some ferns,
so give a little moisture to keep them going. They're gonna take a
little bit of moisture to get them going. But those would be a couple
of options there under the pines. Or just leave a big mulched area,
you know, and plants some color plants in the summer impatients that would do
well. Or you put in the kalladiums in the summertime that do well,
and then the cool season. Wishbone flower does pretty good in shade and pine
shade is year round because it's an evergreen, that would be one you might
try. I don't know. Those are just a few ideas well. Thank
you all right, Phyllis, thank you for the call. I appreciate that
very much. Yeah, well, we're just going to close it down here.
I'm going to continue what I was talking about before, So I'm out
vegetable gardens and some of the plants that you could put in your fall garden,
and then what you do about coal protection. Go to my website Gardening
with skip dot com where there's the free publication nine pages color on coal protection.
But I want to talk a little bit about other things, the other
aspects of the gardening. I see people buy a package of lettuce seed and
plant the whole thing. How many lettuce, how many solids did you eat
this week or last week or the week before. That's how much lettuce you
should plant. In other words, just a small amount, and then two
weeks later a small amount, then two weeks later a small amount. And
you see things called mescalin mixes that are different kinds of greens that are grown
together. That doesn't work well here. But what will work well is to
take each of those greens and grow the separately. That works well. So
a little lettuce, a little arugula, a little bit of a sorel which
has a lemony flavor to it. That's really nice. You know, all
of those different greens that we grow in a mix. Just grow them separately
and then harvest them proportionately like you want your salad to be. That's a
simple, easy task, and it works pretty well well. You've been listening
to garden Line. Just one more reminder. Next Saturday, I'm going to
be out at r c W Nurseries. RCW Nursery is going to be in
a barbecue sandwich going on out there. They got select trees and all their
shrubs fifteen percent off. They're gonna have giveaways of frost cloth and several good
fertilizers we talk about here, like Microlife and Nelson microfoss. They're gonna have
flowers to give away. They're gonna give away free seedlings of lace park elm,
Monterey oak also called Mexican white oak, and live oaks. And these
are quality seedings. These aren't a little, you know, a little four
inch high. I mean, this is a tall seedling with a robust root
system in the special tubes they grow them in. And they just have all
kinds of trees. And this is tree planning season, so plan on while
you're out there picking out some trees and shrubs to put in your landscape.
But mainly just come out and let's have some fun. Bring me samples to
identify, to diagnose, take pictures on your phone, bring them by,
let's take a look at them. In the meantime, visit our website gardeningwiskip
dot com.