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 Richter.
It's so crazy trip. Just watch him as well us. So many
good things to Zeppazya not a sign. Well, good Sunday morning. Glad
you're tuning in for garden Line this morning. We're going to be here from
six a m. To ten a m. Answering your gardening questions and I
don't know, just talking general tips for gardening. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and you if you'd like to call in and talk about something,
we can give you a phone number right here. Seven three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two KTRH is the way
to get in. We can we can talk all kinds of things guarding.
I'm just going to start off this morning with a few comments and thoughts things
that are going on right now. I think yesterday I talked a little bit,
and if you weren't able to tune in, I talked a little bit
about the new us DA Heartiness Map that's out and starting to up here.
You've probably seen notices of it if you were any kind of gardening social media.
I put something up the other day myself. Uh. In fact,
if you if you go to my website gardening with Skip dot com, the
latest entry up there is my thoughts about the twenty twenty three USDA Plant Hardiness
Zone Map. And it's been what ten over ten years, about eleven years
since they last put out a map, And in this new one, our
zones have, as a general guide, have shifted about a half zone warmer.
So what was once an AB is now on eight A. And that's
not across the board, it's like the whole zone change, but it moved
up enough to where most people are experiencing about a half a zone change throughout
the country. And here in Texas in our area, now well we're we're
well into a zone nine we have In fact, zone nine A is now
a lot further I think a lot further north than it was before, and
then we have nine B. So what does all this mean? And I
think that's the important thing to notice about the zone map, and that is
that the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map only is a measure of how cold it
will get on the average in winter in your location. So you know a
few years ago twenty eleven that was a very unusually cold year. Of twenty
eleven February twenty one, that was a very very cold year, and then
we've had years that were very, very mild. And so when someone looks
at a zone and they go, well, I'm in zone such and such
and it's not supposed to get colder than whatever temperature here, well, yeah,
that's on the average of thirty years. So if you think back the
past thirty years of all the ups and downs of you know, the lowest
temperature it got all year. When they do this oone map, they take
thirty years and they average all those those numbers of how cold did it get
in twenty twenty, how cold it get in twenty twenty one, and so
on, and so it's an average, and an average is almost always inaccurate,
because you know, things are very seldom right in the middle. They
swing from one end to the other. And so if you look at your
zone and think, oh, it's not going to get colder than this zone,
says, well, you're wrong, it absolutely will. In fact,
about half the time it will, about half the time it won't. And
so that's what it's all about when it comes to average, and it is
weighted toward you know, going back thirty years, it's quite a while.
If they'd done one over just ten years, it'd probably be a little warmer
than it is right now. But there are a number of reasons that the
zone is changing. One one thing that's in effect on this is they used
to use like eight thousand weather stations across the country to create this map.
They've increased that to thirteen thousand, four hundred actually more than that, thirteen
thousand, four hundred stations. So what did that mean, Well, it
means where you may have been getting your zone designation because you are X miles
from a station. Now there's more stations, so you're probably getting your zone
data from a station a little closer to where you live. And that way,
you know, there's not a weather station every mile all the way across
the state, and so they have to estimate in between those, and now
the estimation is a little more accurate. So the only thing I want to
end saying about that is when it comes to the zone, remember that because
all it's measuring is what is the lowest cold temperature in your area? That
would be on average would be expected. Well, that's what it's measuring.
So what it doesn't measure is how hot summer gets. It doesn't meture measure
whether you're in a very dry climate or a very sultry humid climate. And
it doesn't measure other things that are part of what make a plant succeed or
fail in a location. So to measure rainfall, doesn't measure celar radiation,
just a lot of things. So here's why all this matters. We in
this listening area, most of you are in somewhere between zone mostly Zone nine
A and B, but there's some of you that be an eight and B
that can hear the show. There is a zone nine A and B on
the western coast of Washington State, way up in the Pacific northwest. Can
you believe that that means that in that location, on average, it doesn't
get any colder in the winter as the lowest temperature than it does here.
But I guarantee you the winter stays cold all winter up there, and we
may have days in the upper seventies or even lower eighties in the winter.
So that's a very different zone nine, right, And so when you look
at plants, and I always think, you know, when I see a
plant and it'll have the zones it's listed in zones four through nine, well
I get skeptical on the bottom end of that. That would have to be
a very mild or a very cool climate nine probably for that. So it's
just something to add to the decision we make when we choose what kind of
plants we want to have. Are they drought resist or are they resistant to
deer damage? And so on? Lots of other factories, And I'm not
trying to downplay the zone map. It is important. It is the best
guide we can get to what we might expect on average for our bottom line
cold to be. You know, you're protecting citrus, you're protecting maybe an
avocado tree or even you know, even fig trees can be susceptible to cold
damage. It's affecting you know it. It's part of that decision. But
there's a lot more to the decision. So I just thought i'd throw a
few ideas out there. If you've ever thought about getting a generator, you
really ought to consider doing that now. And the reason is, uh,
there's a special promotion the Quality Home Products is doing and it's now through the
end of this year, December thirty first ten percent off your purchase up to
twenty five hundred dollars off. So depending on the size of the generator you
need, you're going to get ten percent off up to that twenty five hundred
dollars. Only new generator customers are eligible for this, and you can't combine
it with other professional or promotional offerings. But if you will contact Quality TX
dot com that's the website or seven one three Quality for the phone number and
talk to the folks at Quality Home, they have super quality generating generators they
can set up for you, and boy, when you go with Quality Home,
they take care of all of it from you coming in and talking about
you know, what kind of house do I have, how much do I
want to do I need to have constant electricity for the whole house for internet
and things, or am I just trying to keep the food in the freezer
from going bad? And they can set you up like that and then they
take care of every step of the way. The main thing about this is
you can buy a generator a lot of places. Sometimes you can buy the
same brand generator in other places, but it's the service. It is the
service before the sale and after, you know, after they've come and done
everything and gotten you set up and you're rolling. They're coming back a couple
of times a year and they can check on that and make sure that always
when things go wrong, you have power. Well, we're going to take
a break right now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning, glad you're listening this morning.
If you look outside and your neighbor's lights aren't on, go bang on
the door, tell them they're missing garden Line and they will so be appreciative
to you. Maybe not this morning, but someday, someday you are listening
to garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. I was just visiting about with you about the heartingess own
map and what that means. It is important when we are picking plants,
to pick plants that want to be here. That's just really simple. And
you may have noticed this summer that your landscape really took a hit on some
things that just were not quite tolerant of what we went through. And very
few plants could be tolerant of what we went through. That was brutal.
But you know, if you're looking to redo some of that, this would
be a good time to give Piercecapes a call. Maybe you've got some dead
shrubs and it's like, hey, I need to redesign this area. I'd
like it to look better, look different. It was kind of getting I
don't know, drab, just didn't renotice it or didn't look good, just
flat ugly. Well, Pierce Caapes can fix that. They can come in
with the designs, they can do all the things that go with putting together
a beautiful, beautiful landscape. They're outstanding at it as a matter of fact.
You can give Adjason and his team a call. It's two eight oho
three seven zero fifty sixty, or you can go online to Piercescapes dot com.
You may just want to have them come out. If your irrigation system
is giving you trouble, maybe it's not getting good coverage and that's part of
the problem from this summer heat and drought. Maybe you need better drainage.
Maybe you'd like to add outdoor lighting to an area. Pierce Caapes can do
all of that. Just go in, take some pictures, sit down with
them and have a discussion, see what it is that they can do.
They certainly are the best at what they do. And when it comes to
creating a beautiful landscape, you want somebody that knows what they're doing that not
only in design, but in plant selection and so on. And that's Piercecapes.
You are listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you'd like to give us a
call talk about something gardening this morning. We are in the fall season when
it is very important. First of all, I just again to get that
fall fertilization down. If you have not done it yet, do it asap.
Fortunately, this far south in Texas, our winters are milder and sometimes
the first freeze doesn't come for a pretty good while compared to other parts of
the state. It gives us a little bigger of window in the fall to
get our fall fertilization down on the lawn. And why is fall fertilization important.
Well, it's important because it makes a plant stronger going into winter,
more cold heartiness, and it comes out stronger and earlier and better looking in
the spring. That's just the fact of what fall fertilization can do. Now,
the question is what are you fertilized with. Well, you want a
fertilizer. You don't need an excessive amount of nitrogen, but you'd like a
moderate amount, and then you'd also like some potassium in there. And I
want to give you a combo that Microlife has put together that I think is
just excellent, and that is number one. You're using what they call brown
Patch. That's an orange bag and it is a five one three fertilizer,
and so the brown Patch is just an excellent choice for that fall fertilizer application.
So if you haven't done it, go ahead and get that done.
The other thing I would do on the Microlife fertilizers, I've put out some
of their humates. The humantes have about four percent potassium and them, plus
you get all the benefits that come with humate products, the organic materials,
the increase in microbial activity and so on. So the combination of the orange
bag for you know, the standard fertilization infall and then adding the humates to
it, I think will give you a really really beautiful on set up for
going into winter strong and coming out strong. And it's all for Microlife.
You can find microlife and a lot of places just go online Microlife, fertilizer
dot com. They've got it there. You can find out where you can
get it. But I can just tell you this, most of the places
we talk about you're going to find microlife there. I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and this is garden Line, and we're here to help you have
a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful garden, and certainly a more beautiful
landscape as well. Our goal is to provide education, maybe with a little
bit of entertainment mixed in, and to just make gardening the fun hobby that
it needs to be. You know, talk to someone yesterday, by the
way, I was out at RCW Nurseries. Thank you guys for hosting us
with that fall Fling. Was really fun, and thank you to everybody that
came out. That was great getting to meet everybody, see some plant samples,
and just talk gardening in general. But I was talking to somebody and
they were saying that they didn't have a brown thumb or they didn't have a
green thumb, and their I think their mom did, but they don't.
And it's just it always kind of makes me sad when people feel like they
failed at gardening, like they can't do that, because you can. You
can. You just need information. I like to say, there's no brown
thumbs, there's uninformed thumbs. And that's why we're here, is to inform
your thumb. And if you live out there in the Kingwood area, you're
fortunate because you got a couple of great nurseries that will inform your thumb as
well. And that's Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Southern Garden right now. This
month, the Texas Beauty Berry is their native plan of the month. Beauty
beerry is a beautiful plant, beautiful clusters of purple light purplish colored berries that
are just beautiful in the landscape, but they're also beautiful in arrangements if you
want to do that. Also, out at these garden centers, Kingwood and
Warrens, you're going to find airloom souls aged leaf compost three bags for thirty
dollars this whole month, So this is the time to stock up on that'd
be really really good to do. They've got the Christmas cactus and the Christmas
trees and the beautiful fall color in your escapes. You know, the pansies,
petunia's viola, snapdragons, everything dianthus. That's one of my favorite ones.
They're all there at the garden center is just waiting for you to come
out. And when you go there, you're going to have employees that know
what they're talking about, so they can talk to your thumb and help turn
that thing a little more green. That's the value of going to a quality
garden center like those two. I was talking with somebody the other day about
we were talking about fruit trees, and they were expressing some frustration in having
success with their fruit trees, and you know, we were talking for a
while and I would just we're kind of going through the different things like which
ones need a pollinator and which ones don't, what about the drainage and the
soil and everything, and pretty much the bottom line on fruit trees is you
need very well drained soil in a very sunny spot and if it gets marginal
in the sun. There are a few species of fruit that do okay in
those areas. I've seen figs doing pretty good and in some shade, and
citrus in some shade. But in general, think about this, you're making
a sweet fruit to eat and that takes carbohydrates, and it takes sun to
make carbohydrates, and that's why we don't grow peaches in the shade, for
example. But we were discussing all the tips that you can find on having
success with your fruit ever your fruit endeavors that you're trying to plant, and
now's a good time to plant fruit too. By the way, if you
would like to get a container grown tree, you can put those out right
now. I was visiting with one of our local ACE Hardware store owners.
Do you know Ace Hardware independently owned? We have forty in the ACE Hardware
group here in the Greater Houston area. Now, welcome Orange and Bay City
with your ACE Hardware stores. We're glad to have you as part of the
team. When I think of ACE, I think of backyards. But I'm
a horticulturist. I mean I think of the landscape and the fertilizers for your
lawn and the products for your lawn and your garden and your landscape bed.
Do you know ACE is a place for Curse's lighting and decoration too, Now,
whether it's indoor decoration or outdoor decoration. They got you covered. Do
you need a wreath? Do you need some some garland, maybe you call
it Christmas swag to go on. They've got that. They've got the lights
in a multitude of configurations, and they even have something called lights custom lights
by the foot and you just have to go in and have them tell you
and explain how that works. Pretty cool stuff. But anyway, no matter
what colors you want, no matter you know the patterns of shapes, they've
got everything. Ace is the place. You just know this when you go
into Ace. Whenever you go in, they're going to have what you need
in a wide, wide, wide variety of things. I mean, you
may go in there for a light bulb and you come out with one of
the best fertilizers for your lawn, or with some of that Christmas wag.
You get the idea. It's a wide variety. It's kind of a one
stop shop. But allow yourself a little time because once you get in and
start looking around, it'll be like, oh my gosh, I didn't know
they had that, And next thing you know, an hour's gone. Trust
me, I've been been there, done that. You're listening to Garden Line
our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give
Josh a call and we'll get you on the boards so that we can talk
about whatever you're interested in. You guys have probably heard me talk about McGrath
Pest Control many times because I have, and it's because Mike McGrath has created
a company that it just excels in every way. You know, this company's
been around, started by by Mike McGrath. I actually know Mike McGrath.
It was started by Scott McGrath's dad, Scott's current owner, and uh,
Scott is a whot. I don't know if you've ever met Scott, but
he has a lot of fun. But boy, when it comes to insects
and pass like rhodents, he knows his stuff. And that's shown by did
you realize McGrath Pest Control was chosen as a curator's pick for the best pest
control companies in Houston. That's quite an honor. That is quite an honor.
It's because of the way they do business. They schedule a time,
they show up at that time. They give you the old fashioned customer service,
but they bring modern technology and modern techniques in to deal with the pests.
They serve the whole Houstonnario. Hey give them a call two eight one
four six nine eighty two forty or Mecgrathpestcontrol dot com. Just remember this.
You got the holidays coming up. You don't want Grandma over there when a
roach runs across the floor, So call Mike for crying out loud. Don't
do that to your poor grandmother. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two K T R
H H. Josh will get you on the board. We're gonna take a
little break here in just a moment. I just want to remind you that
if you are still thinking about doing the Texas three step from Nitrofoss, go
ahead and do it, and in fact do it today if you can,
or at asap. That way, you get your Nitrofoss Fall special fertilizer on
the ground, you get your barricade on the ground. That's the pre emergent
weed control. And I would do the fertilizer, and then right away go
ahead and do the barricade, and then with one half inch irogation water them
both into the ground. That's how you get amend where they do what they're
supposed to do. The last one is Nitrofoss Eagle. That's a terf fungder
side. It's systemic, uh and it is able to protect your lawn against
things like brown patch or take all root rots, some of the things we
have. Now you can find Nitrofoss three step at Cyprus Ace, Fisher's Hardware
and Laporte or even Plantation Ace Hardware out there in the Richmond area. Well,
we're going to take a break here for Nicky and the news and we'll
be right back. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good Sunday morning, Mike McGrath.
I think they're singing your song there. It was time to get somebody
over to the house and take care of that mess. And Mike sure can
do that. You're listening to garden Line, and I'm glad you are.
We're looking forward to talking to you if you would like to give us a
call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two and two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, if you're out in the
Richmond area and you haven't been to Enchanted Gardens, you need to go.
I mean, really, you really do need to go that place. It's
a good name Enchanted. It is absolutely beautiful and right now when you go,
you are going to see color galore. Like all the time you go.
I mean anytime. It didn't matter what month of the year. It
could be the most horrible, hot blazing month. They got stuff ready to
go to make your garden more beautiful, more bountiful. That's just how they
do it there. Combine that with very knowledgeable staff, people that have been
in the area, that have gardened in the area, that understand horticulture,
and you just know you're going to have success. It's as simple as that.
Lenderman family has been part of that community since nineteen ninety five when the
Enchanted Gardens originally opened. If you want more information, just go to their
website. It's awesome. It's a very good one. Lots of good information
on there. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
Monday through Saturday, you can go there between eight and five pm. Today,
they're open from ten am to four pm. It'll be a good afternoon
to get out and check out in Chende Gardens. We're going to head to
the phones now and uh, I'm to see you go to Katie and talk
to Hank. Hello, Hank, good morning, sir. I've got some
mosaias that are just not quite the brilliant color they need to be. They're
a little faded, little yellowless. I think it's time to give them some
trace elements or something. I just didn't know what you recommended. You know,
it's kind of hard without actually seeing them. Certainly, the summer took
its toll on a lot of plants. But as the soil gets hot,
as the plants get hot, as their rainfall is not dependable, we're having
to try to keep them watered and all of that. It's a struggling time,
and oftentimes we just see sort of a loss of color in general in
the foliage. And so if you feel like they have adequate soul moisture,
like it is consistently moist not too dry, not too wet, that would
be the first thing I would want to make sure it continues to happen for
them. As far as as nutrients, you could put some trace on it,
but without a specific nutrient deficiency symptom, it's kind of hard for me
to know whether that is going to change what you're seeing right now or not.
The problem The problem with fertilizing with night like nitrogen right now is that
we're entering into a cool season and you don't want to stimulate a lot of
new growth. But a moderate application of an acidic what a fertilizer, what
about the microlife I say, acid loving plant food, that would be a
good one. It's a gradual release. It's microbially released, and so as
the weather cools down, the release slows a little bit, and that that
just helps spread it out even better. So you're not going to do any
damage at all with that. It's got a good nitrogen content and a balance
of the other nutrients with that nitrogen. And so I would do that.
I would give that a try and watered in. Just be patient. You
may not see a lot of changes visually until we get into some warmer weather
and they begin to grow again. Can you put something like that on,
say once a year, on almost all plants? You can? You can.
I mean it's for acid loving plants. But you know, putting it
on the ground doesn't mean your pH is going to plummet by two pH points.
It's just it helps maintain an acidic environment, especially for plants that will
not tolerate getting up above acidic conditions. You take care. Thank you,
Hank, appreciate that call very much. That yeap, that is the case.
We well, goodness, we'll go back to the phones here. Let's
see now we're going to head to Baycliffe and talk to Sue. Hello,
Sue, good morning. Hell are you? I'm well? Thank you?
How can I help today? I have a thornless BlackBerry that you know,
like a half barrel plastic container, and I don't know what to do with
it. I don't know anything about blackberries, but it did produce some really
pretty nice fruit this year. Okay, So here, here's about all these
leggy runners. You know, they're like more than five fruit long, right,
Okay, So here's what you generally do with black I'm going to kind
of give you the whole process and then within that is what you do right
now when blackberries, when a shoot grows one season, then it goes through
winter, and the next season it bears, and after bearing, it starts
to decline and die. That's the normal BlackBerry cycle. So typically what I
would say do is once the fruit harvest is done, those old canes coming
out of the ground can be cut off. They will not bear again.
But the new canes that are coming up can be tipped at a certain height
so they branch more, and then instead of just long whips of growth,
you get something that's more of a multi branch bush, and ever branch,
ever branch you add, adds more fruiting surface for you to have more fruit
the next season. Now, if yours is one of those that is kind
of a day neutral type of BlackBerry that can bear on the first year's canes,
then that would be a primate cane bearing and in that case you would
actually get two seasons. You'd get the season they're growing a little bit of
fruit, and then you would get the next season if you kept them around
for that long. But after that cane has gone through the winter time and
fruited, then you just take it out. So do I like to spring
to take it out? Yeah? At this point, Well, if you
know that one had fruit and blue on it, it's not gonna fruit and
bloom again, unless do you know the do you know the variety of a
BlackBerry? I don't. I wish I did. If you could find that
out and let us know if it says primo caine bearing, that's one that
that cane can bear twice the year. It grows in the next year too,
and then it's gone. If it doesn't say primo caine bearing type,
then once it's fruited, just cut it out. That's all you're going to
get from it, Okay, Because I do see a bunch of like woodies
sticks, you know, yeah, don't have any leaves on them. Yeah,
well that's how. That's how the old wild blue blackberries just became briar
patches and just a mess you couldn't walk through. But that that's it.
You just take out the old stuff and let the new stuff come up.
I'd say, when it gets about head high or so, go ahead and
tip it about head high, tip it off because it's in a container.
Therefore it's the plants raised up about head high. Tip it off and it'll
form side branches and that'll give you more fruit next year. Okay, all
right, all right, see, thank you, I appreciate appreciate your call.
Well, it looks like it's time for us to take a little break.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
When we come back from break, Charles and Marine, you'll be the
first two up, good Sunday morning. We're getting a glow in the sky,
so the day is on its way. I'm happy you're listening to garden
Line because I like to talk to you about what's going on with gardening.
If your lawn has has taken a brutal hit this summer, you probably need
to think about giving the folks at Green Pear call. And here's why.
Number One, they you know them as a company that can not only do
deep time core aeration, but also compost top dressing of top quality compost on
your lawn. That's just an important step, especially when you're dealing with a
compacted clay soil and helping that grass to thrive there. But they're also a
company. It can come out and it can spread some soil for leveling out
the lawn. And if you're looking at potentially doing some replanting of grass and
everything, well, you know, the first thing we need to do is
to get that get any low spots leveled. If you're dealing with some roots
that your lawn mowers banging over the top of, we you know they can
take care of that. They can bring some soil in and kind of spread
it out a little bit and provide you with a nice level surface for that
replanting. But also with the compost top dressing, you're talking about putting a
product out that is not only good for the soil, but also sits on
the soil surface and to some degree does reduce the amount of sunlight that actually
reaches the soil. And when sun hits the soil, nature plants, a
weed and thin lawns are gonna have sun hitting the soil. So just a
good compost top dressing in and of itself is something that would be worthwhile doing
at any time of the year, but especially right now as we go into
this cool season. All you need to do is go to greenpro dot net,
greenpro dot net, give them a call, talk to them and find
out the services they offer and how that might match what you want to get
done at your place. We're going to head out now to Huntsville and talk
to Charles. Hello, Charles, good morning. It was a little cool
here this morning. When I let the dogs out at six it was thirty
degrees. Are you kidding? Wow? No, We're in a drought area
and it's going to schedule to rain sometime later this week. And I was
wondering about fertilizing my apple and my pear tree. Which fertilizer should I use
on them? And timing? Do you have a particular type of fertilizer you
generally use? You know, do you do organic gardening or not? Or
what is there anything that you normally use for your lawn? For example,
I'm out here in the moondogs in Tennessee and they sort up your adult treat.
They don't carry all the things that you advertised. I have to get
them. I have to get them from Amazon through the mail. I thought
you were in Huntsville, Texas. Well, I didn't. I had to
talk louder if I know is having to yell all the way to Tennessee.
I'm forty north. I'm forty miles north of Huntsville, Alabama. Oh,
Alabama. Okay, so here, here's here's what we need. We need
to get out with a product that has a balance. You want to have
some of all the three numbers on the bag for most of the time.
Unless your soil is just phosphorus deficient and I don't know your soil in that
area, you would use something kind of similar to a lawn fertilizer and normally,
I would apply that in the spring when growth begins. Your fruit trees
are not taking up a lot of nutrients right now, and you're in your
climate, they're they're going losing their leaves, going dormant, and it's just
not a big time to do lawn or tree fertilization. So I would wait
until spring to do it. Now, if you happen to know because of
a soil test you're really low in this or that nutrient, well then that
would what I just said would change a little bit according to your testy up
here. Yeah, yeah, well that's okay. I don't know, you
know, it depends on the exact level for things like you're describing, like
the apples, but they're they're fairly tolerant of a range. So you might
talk to your county extension office up there too. In Tennessee, the UNIVERSITYANITY
has a good extension service, and just see what they're They may have like
a lime recommendation in general that they make for folks in your area. But
I wouldn't jump to making pH attempt attempt pH changes unless you know you have
a problem. I appreciate the information. Yeah, yeah, hey, Charles,
let me ad one thing, are these trees pretty young? I miss
that if you said the age. Now, they've been here on the property,
they were here when we when we bought it, and they're probably ten
fifteen years old. All right, So I'm gonna give you a good rule
of thumb. If you'll take your thumb, go out to the trunk of
the tree at the at the where the trunk, you know, down low
on the tree, and how how many thumbwits across is it? In other
words, how many inches is it across the trunk? And forever inch?
Give it one to two cups of a lawn type fertilizer in the spring in
your area. So that would mean if you had something, let's say the
trunk was just the size of a soft drink can coke can, that's about
three inches across, so you'd give it three to six cups of fertilizer spread
evenly all around underneath the branches. Okay, lawn type. Okay, all
right, well good luck with that. Thanks for thank you, bye boye,
you take care all the way from Tennessee. That's kind of cool.
Let's see, you know, hey, those of you in Tomball D and
D feed has opened up a new area of him and out there in a
while you need to check. It's another room. It's got bulk seeds,
which is very inexpensive way to buy seeds as opposed to a packet. You
just get your little scoop and put it in an envelope and you pay by
the bull. They have a wide variety of that. They have a lot
of other things everything you need for your lawn and garden. They've got all
the fertilizers and pest control, disease control products and things like that. So
it's just a it's an easy one stop shop. And they always have plants
coming in. I saw some cool season plants the other day that they had
when I stopped by. D and D Feed is a place to go.
It's it's handy, it's easy to get to for all of you out there,
and if you need anything from your livestock to your pets around the house,
they've got the feed for everything, including things for your lawn at D
and D Feed out there in Tumbol. They're about three miles west of two
forty nine out twenty nine to twenty to the west of Tombul. We're going
to head now to Marine in Lakeside Estates. Hello marine. Hey, I'm
glad you're here today to answer my questions. Team's a question a day for
you on Saturday and Sunday. Okay, let me get going. The basic
one is cycloment usually have good luck, but this year I'm going to put
it into the ground, so I'm going to be using medina has to grow
to get it going, and hopefully as it moves along, I'll come back
and get it more for food. But a friend asked me, can I
plant it in a partial shade? Well, that's the only thing I know
how to plant in for the cyclomen Yeah, is there anything else I need
to know? Can it get morning shade and then not the afternoon? Yes,
it can in this cool season, you know, if it's been cyclemen.
In general, I think of as something in a very bright, bright
shade or a morning sign after this part day sun, let's say, And
they'll do fine. You just don't want to put them suddenly in this really
really bright sunlight. You can get some foliage burn on that when you do.
And I would say if they were gradually adapted, they probably could take
the full brunt of the sun. But in general, we think of them
in an area that at least is somewhat protected. Good enough, all right,
The real important question to me is to understand how to help my oak
trees. Now, what they need help in is just naturally growing. So
a basic understanding for you is they're over fifty years old. They're very large.
The one I'm most concerned about is just twelve foot away from the house.
That means that I have foundation problems. I re mediated that about every
two to three years I call in someone to trim the trees. Okay,
someone had said to me that maybe I should marine I'm at I'm sorry,
I need to interrupt you. I'm running up to the end of the time.
I will wait for you. Just hang on. When we come back
from the hour of I will wait for a long time. Okay, Well,
I hope it's not a long time. John and Katie, you will
be right after Maureene when we come back. Our phone number is seven one,
three, two and two fifty eight seventy four. Wow, this hour
went fast. I don't know what. As they say, time flies when
you're having fun, well, having funds. The timesline, by the way,
kermitth Frogs has times fun when you're having flies. That's neither here nor
there. Hey, don't forget. If you haven't gone to my website,
Gardening with Skip dot com, you need to check it out. My last
thoughts and comments on the hardiness zone not changer there. The lawn care schedule
for fertilizing is there. The lawng care schedule for disease, insect and red
management is there. I was talking to someone out at RCW yesterday about the
nine page free publication that's on the website, and it's how to take care
of your plants to protect them with frosts and freezes. And it's got a
lot of good information, full color pictures, beautiful diagrams. It is just
a really cool thing. And here we are on the doorstep of winter.
Hey, we'll be right back. Look forward to talking to you when we
come back. KTRH Garden Light does not necessarily endorse any of the products or
services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy r H Garden Line with Skip
Rictor. It's m crazy watch it trim, just watching as so many Good
morning on a beautiful Sunday. I mean, gosh, look outside, it
is going to be a great one. I love it. This kind of
weather just makes you happy to be outside, and certainly if you're a gardener,
it's a good time to be outside and doing things. We're going to
head back to the lake side of States and Marine. Let's wind things up
on your tree question. We didn't quite have enough time for break right.
Okay, tree is fifty years old, too close to the house, but
it is a gigantic, beautiful tree. So over the years, better reach
two years. I have the canopy trimmed and try to back any big limbs
off the roof. It's gone through Love hurricane, so it's doing well from
that point of view, but it's still growing. And with it being so
close to the house twelve foot the root is really tremendous. So I someone
had mentioned to me, just a neighbor, that the good thing that's the
whey they expressed it is that I've been cutting down the canopy or trimming the
canopy so that the roots are usually when you draw a line straight down pretty
much just cover the area from the tree trunk out to maybe the width.
Is that a correct statement, No, that's not. Roots go two and
a half times or more of the height of the width of the tree.
In all directions, but can you get to the actual question part? So
okay, so what do I do? What do I do? So?
I usually trim, So now should I try that? He's a metal that
you put in the ground to stop the tree roots. It looks like they're
already. Yeah. Well, if I were you, what i'd do is
I would I would call Affordable Tree Service Martin spin Moore and have them come
look at it. Because here's why, I can suggest some things to you,
but I'm not there looking at the tree and seeing the exact sitt.
It may be that you don't need to do anything. And on the other
hand, it may be that some sort of a root barrier would be appropriate.
I'm thinking you probably don't need a root barrier. But again, I
can't make that call without release. I understand that. And do you have
their number available at my pen? I do, Yeah, I do.
I will pull it for you. Here, give me just a second on
that. Sure. Uh yeah. The the in general, it's the trees.
Roots are always going to be around the foundation, and when they are
around the foundation, then they pump water out and that's how they cause problems.
Okay, So when whenever you see uh, you know, people talking
about trees and foundation issues and stuff. It's the shrinking and swelling of the
soil from the getting wet and getting dry on the soil that causes the causes
that problem. Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't know it does.
Yeah, so you're it's not It's not just like a route going up
and lifting the foundation up so much. But anyway, I'm gonna I got
his number right there, we go, finally found it. Okay, I'm
ready the number seven one three, six nine nine, twenty six sixty three.
And you can also go to six six three. Make sure telling me
listen to garden line so you get up in the line there because he stays
busy. I hope that works. But when they're busy, they're busy,
and they're busy for good for a reason, because they do a good job.
Oh yeah. Aff Tree Service dot com is the website, Marien.
Thank you for that. I'm gonna run. Thank you. You take care.
If you hadn't done azebiite on your lawn yet, you might want to
think about doing that this year. Asmite provides the trace alements. Many of
those trace elements that they're essential for plant growth. They're just needed in small
amounts. That's why just a regular forty four pound bag of as might cover
six to twelve thousand square feet goes a long way. I put it in
my vegetable garden as well, just because why not beef up all the nutrients
in the soil because your body needs them as well. So if I'm going
to be eating produce, I want to make sure I'm eating produce that's that's
been grown in a way that makes it extra extra nutritious. You can go
to azimite Texas dot com to find out more about it, and it's widely
available. I just see it just about everywhere I go. We're going to
now head to John and Katie. Go Hello, John, how are you
this morning. I'm doing great, scipt good morning, thanks for taking my
call. Yes, I have what I call a six sycamore. I've got
a sycamore tree in my front yard. I think it's a sycamore sweet gum
if you're the same thing, so about fIF feet tall, about a forty
foot canopy on it. It's always done really well, but with the drought
this summer, I started losing a lot of bark on the top, and
I noticed the bark, and the tree is full of holes, like okay,
horizontal holes about an eighth of an inch around, And now all the
leaves are starting to really get spotted and turn and I'm afraid I'm gonna lose
it. I don't know if I can say it or not. Okay,
So the holes you're seeing are are around, they're not oval like a racetrack,
right, Okay, Well that's probably a borer based on what you're describing.
Uh if the holes just go deep in and disappear, if they're not
just like the depth of a pencil, eraser or anything. So that's about
all they are. And they're a straight lines a bird almost. That is
a sapsucker bird doing that, that's not a borer. That's a sapsucker.
Nothing to worry about. Uh. As far as the tree, you know,
all of things a stress trees, including drought conditions, excessive heat,
unexpected cold, heart snaps and things they weaken a tree. And after what
we went through last year, I would expect some stress right now. What's
in your power is don't let it go without soil moisture, which you shouldn't
have to fertilize the sycamore in the Greater Houston area in the wintertime. I
mean it's dormant and everything. But if that when we get into next year,
that is going to be in your control to do. That's important.
And then moderate amounts of fertilization. You're not going to overcome drought stress with
fertilizer only, but you do need a little bit just to support healthy growth.
Okay, And so I would use when if you have a lawn around
the tree, then your lawn fertilization should take care of the tree too.
On a tree that's as large and old as what you're describing, if it
were a little young one we were trying to get moving, that would be
different. But an established tree, those roots are every were so everywhere you
have grass, their tree roots are going to take out nutrients as well.
All right, Okay, how long do those trees last? I mean,
this one's about twenty four years old. Now, yeah, they'll last longer
than that. I don't you know, know, there's like this date of
how long they last. But you should get decades and decades and decades out
of a out of a sycamore aside for many issues happening to it, all
right, okay, because it lasts quite a few branches over the summer.
Well, they tend to do the drought. Yeah, they tend to do
that. There can be some branch dropping here and there, but that's just
part of the package with them. But they're very, very beautiful with a
nice white bark, especially in the winter time. Yeah, it's a very
very much part of the shade of our house too. All right, John,
Hey, well, I got a run and take a break, but
thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. We will be
back justin and Montgomery. You will be the first up when we come back.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Well, good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. You're listening to garden
Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are here to answer your
gardening questions. For those of you up in the Montgomery area, your hometown
garden center is A and A Plants and Produce. It's as simple as that,
and you probably already knew that, because my gosh, it's been there
over thirty years now, and it's right there on the side of Highway one
oh five and you're heading toward Conroad, direction from Montgomery. It's just like
three acres, I believe, and plants and plants and plants and landscape blank
all over the place. When I talk about fertilizers, they're going to have
them. You know, we've been talking about nitrophosphall Special and Nelson's carbo Loade
and the micro life front. They carry all that. They carry all those
things plus everything else you need for your lawn and your landscape. Now we're
entering the holiday season and there's some cool stuff going on up there too.
By the way, I just want to mention this. On Sunday, December
third, from twelve noon to four pm, they're going to have their annual
free Christmas Festival. They're at A and A Plants in Montgomery. They're kind
to Eggnog the Juggler. That's a good name for a juggler, Elf the
face painter, and let's see, we got balloon artists and kids music with
the DJ, crafts and snacks and a visit with Santa and Missus Clause.
Of course, free photos are going to be taken there by Shannon Maddock,
the owner of Airhead Photography. So it's it's just a great thing. Grab
the kids, making make a note Sunday, December third, from twelve noon
to four thirty pm out of A and A plants and produce. We are
going to now go to Montgomery. Here we go, fink if I can
actually drive a mouse here for just for some there. It is all right,
justin how we doing? I finally got myself all the way to your
call. I appreciate it. Skip, I'm good. How are you?
I'm good? What's up? Good? I have We have a money tree.
My wife does most of the maintaining on it. It's we've had it
since April. It's in the I guess a four inch wide pot. Keep
it indoors. It gets pretty good light and here so but the issue is
the leaves are kind of starting to turn brown. Now we're getting new growth
and it looks looks pretty good. There's no sponginess on any of the you
know, any of the trunks there are. It's made of about four different
little trunks kind of like you know, wound together, right, and they're
all about an inch wide. And she waters it like once every few weeks.
I mean, once the soil gets dry, you know, that's when
she waters it. Maybe a little bit before then. So but yeah,
it's just the leaves are starting to get kind of turned brown, like in
kind of big spots, if that makes sense. So, so like you
have a green leaf and it's not like the tips or margins of the leaf
for turning brown. It's like areas of the leaf turn brown. Is that
what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, that's that's Yeah, that's a good
way to describe it. Interesting, Well that I was. I was leaning
toward a soil moisture issue, because both to utter or too dry for a
period of time can cause problems. The too dry the plant cake at moisture
and the roots brown. But the two wet you end up at the root
rot. That then leads to a similar kind of end result with those kind
of spots. That sounds more like a bacterial disease or maybe a fungal disease,
or possibly has a plant been moved from one location to another previous to
this, Well not really, like we kept it in the same spot for
a while and then we noticed the leaser turn round, so we just moved
it to a place where we thought it would get more sun. Okay,
kind of well, yeah, there is a kind of spot that comes from
kind of a sunburn, and often it will happen in the thinner areas of
the leave. Not always, but it can be if it's marginal problem.
So I wouldn't move it again necessarily, it's going to adjust to its new
spot. But that may be going on there. That's just kind of a
speculation other than seeing a photo where I might get some more clues. That
is what I would suggest is going on right now. Okay, I'm happy
to send some to you if you like. Yeah, if you'd like to
do that, I'm going to put you on hold and Josh, we'll make
sure and give you the email to send those. Just make sure the photos
are in good sharp focus. Okay, thanks, thanks you, yes,
thank you. Justin appreciate that call very much. Dean Nelson. Nelson Plant
Food. They are donating two dollars on every bag of carbo load sold this
fall. That's potential for a significant contribution. That money is going to Randy
Lemon's memorial Scholarship, So a very good cause for a very good product as
well. Carbo Load is designed for our soils and for the fall application.
It's a different when we move into fall, we don't use the same fertilizer
that we used in spring and summer. We have a better approach, and
that's to drop the nitrogen a little bit. Get that potassium the third number
up there, and carboload does that. Plus carboload has a product in it
that prevents weed seeds from germinating. That's a pre emergent herbicide. So those
are two reasons you need to do it now. First of all, the
weather gets cooler and cooler each week as we go into winter, and when
that happens, the grass growth slows to a crawl. So you can do
the most good by getting it done sooner rather than later. Also, the
weed seed germination is going to continue to go on, and the sooner you
get the pre emergent down the better. So when you put carboload down,
put about a half inch of water on your lawn and that will help move
it down into the soil where it can do the two things it does,
feed the roots and protect against weeds. We're going to now go out to
Glenn and Katie. Hello, Glenn, Hi, how you doing Skip,
I'm good? What's up today? Well? I had two questions. One
is it seems like we have a proliteration of of acorns this year? Is
there a reason for that? And the second question is when is a good
time to trim an oak tree? Okay, so the acorn thing, are
you gonna hang up? Okay, that's good than you you bet? So
the acorn deal. Different types of oaks produce acrons on a different schedule.
For example. That doesn't mean there's one hundred different schedule. I'm just saying
some will produce like acrons only every other year or something, and some produce
more often. And also it's affected by weather conditions. And we just see
these years where it's a we call it a heavy masked year. It means
there's just a lot of acorn production. And this has won, especially for
the live oaks. Even that I was in Santonio last week and oh my
gosh, the house I drove up into, there were so many acrons on
the driveway you couldn't see the driveway. It was just crazy. That's just
a year where it Now. As far as the best time to trim trees,
if you were just to go and go, okay, I just want
to know the best time to make this happen, it would be mid to
late winter. Now there's nothing wrong with trimming. At other times you can
get some trimming done, but if you need to do a lot of work,
quite a better trimming especially, I would try to get that done in
mid to late winter. The springtime is when wounds heal the fastest of all
twelve months. The springtime is the fastest period of wound healing, and so
pruning right prior to that just makes sense. Plus there, depending on what
area I know, we have people listening for well this morning Tennessee all over
the state, and there are some yeah butts. For example, if you're
an oak wilt area like Central Texas is, then that would be that would
make midwinter pruning even more important because the likelihood of beatle activities to spread the
disease is less. But anyway, for here, I would aim for mid
to late winter. If you're just looking for a time this time of the
year. It seems like every conversation just about I'm having with gardeners is about
what can I plant? How do I plant? You know, what would
you recommend? People are replacing landscapes, they are you know, renovating flower
beds. They're creating that flower and vegetable beds and herb beds. And that's
exciting because this is a time to do it. But what's the rule.
The rule is bronze stuff before green stuff, brown stuff before green stuff.
Meaning the bronze stuff is the soil of the compost, the multch all that
kind of thing. The green stuff is the plants we plant. By the
way, we always jokingly say planting tip green side up. Always put the
green part of the plant out of the ground. Anyway, you get the
idea. But when we're taking care of making or when we're trying to create
that kind of beautiful landscape, beautiful garden, productive garden, get the soil
right first, and then put the plants in. Now, you may go
to a garden center and you buy plants and you buy back soil. That's
good. But when you go home, fix the soil and then put those
plants in and they'll thrive and they'll make it. They'll make you look good,
if you know what I mean. Now, Airloom Soils has got an
incredible deal, a big fall special on bulk soils of the veggie and herb
and the rose soil both You can purchase them bulk. Of course, those
are available as sacks as well. But the bulk deal for those of you
planning on any landscape renovation, any bed creation, bed renovation. Maybe you
bought a vego garden bed, you want to fill it up with a good
mix, Well, this is it. Heirloom soil is a veggie and herb
mix is on fall special for one hundred and nineteen dollars yard bulk, or
if you want them to deliver it in a cubic yard supersac, it's one
hundred and forty eight for that. The rose soil is seventy dollars bulk and
ninety nine for a supersack. You're not going to find a better deal than
that. That is excellent price. And how do you find out more?
Just go to Heirlooms Soilsoftexas dot com and there you can learn a lot more
about it. And that is super high quality soil that they sell. No
hesitation in recommending it to anybody that is trying to have success with their garden.
Our phone number if you would like to give us a call is seven
to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two and
two fifty eight seventy four. If you live up in the Grimes County area
or even Bras's County Brian College Station area. You got a hometown feed store
there just near Carlos Real close to Carlos and that's Grimes County Feed And I've
talked about him before, but all of you that are out throughout that whole
region, this is your hometown feed store. They're on State Highway thirty just
outside Carlos Texts, about two miles west of FM two forty four. And
by the way, congratulations to Chris and the ol Roy family. This is
their fifth year anniversary that they've hit and that that says something. They are
part of the community when it comes to supporting local schools, FFA four h
the local Volunteer Fire Department, even the Grimes County True Blue Foundation. That's
the kind of folks they are. Service is a way of life. I
mean, if you look at the family, we've got folks from the Houston
Fire Department, career law enforcement, Houston Police Department, career public service is
what their family was founded on a long long time ago. And so reinvesting
in Grimes County future is what they do. But what do they carry,
Well, they carry everything you'd expect to feed stort to carry. When it
comes to fertilizers, I'm bragging on fertilizers. Just drive over there, you're
going to find them. They carry you know, the tree hugger sprinkler I'm
talking about all the time and so on down the line. Say hi to
Chris and the family when you're in there. But Grimes County feed is a
place you definitely need to go visit. If you're anywhere up near that region.
You're listening to Garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four
two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking with Bob over at
Southwest Fertilizer a little while back, and we were just going through a lot
of the changes and the new chemicals and pesticides and whatnot that are out there.
It's always changing, there's always something new, and if you want to
go someplace that has it, always has it. That's Bob at Southwest Fertilizer.
They're in the corner of Bissina and Renwick down in Southwest Houston, and
I'm telling you they have the broadest selection of insecticide, pesticide herbicides and fertilizers,
and they even have a great selection of tools. Anybody in the whole
county when you go by there, tell Bob you need to see the kneeling
bench. And I'm telling you, if you have anyone in your life the
gardens that's somewhere north of the age forty or even south of forty, they
need a kneeling bench and you need to check out the ones Bob has there.
They're excellent. I have have the exact same model at my house.
It's a folding knealing bench. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer to find out
more information and when you go in take your plant samples, they'll help identify
it and send you in the right direction with a product that's going to work.
Well. It's time to take a break. Our phone number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to turn it over
to Nikki for the news. Good morning on a beautiful Sunday, and welcome
back to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to
talk gardening, hopefully to give you some good advice. And I'll tell you
one piece of good advice if you live down south of Houston, you always
start with the soil, right, bronz stuff before green stuff. Well,
Cienamultch can get you set up there down there on FM five twenty one just
north of Roa Sharon FM five twenty one. You can go to the website
Cienamolts dot com find out more about it. But all the folks throughout that
whole region we're talking about Sienna Plantation, Riverstone, Manvil, Meridian, Pomona
Lake, Olympia, Pearland. You get the idea that whole area is served
by a wonderful multi supplier and full soil and compost and rock supplier, and
that's Cienamalts. They carry all the fertilizers that I talk about on guarden line.
Just when you're in there to take care of the brown stuff, buy
the compost, get some soil mixed, grab the fertilizer. You are ready
to go. You've set the foundation for a successful garden because they have quality
products in bulk and also by the back. If you'd like to do that
now, if you need it and delivered, they can do that within about
twenty miles of their location down there. Just talk to them about that how
that's done. But cienamals, yeah, you can't go wrong with that.
And I'm telling you something. By preparing the soil with the kind of quality
products they carry, it just makes you. It makes you look like you
have the greenest thumb on the planet. Because remember, it's just knowing how
to prepare the site that makes seventy five percent of the success to having a
good success with your plant. We are going to go now to the phones
to bel Air and talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, Helloa to morning
morning. I am planting some evergreens and I want to know should I fertilize
them now? And if so, with what or do I wait? Okay,
Joe, I need you to turn that radio in the background down so
we can talk clear here. Evergreens can be fertilized at various times of the
year. If you were looking at a plant that obviously needed some nutrient and
boost, now you could go ahead and do that. Otherwise I'd probably wait
and as we get into the early spring, go ahead and do the application.
Then you can do it again, you know, one or two or
three times going through the year. But sometimes right now the burying hollies can
tend to get a little bit of an iron chlorosis, and they would be
they would be helped by an application of like a keylated iron or something right
now. But in general, yeah, it's not like you got to get
it down right now. Think they're in the pine family and they're being replanted,
being dug up and replant it. Oh okay, Well, hopefully they're
small plants. And I don't know exactly which species six sceptven feet. I
don't know to speakers either, Yeah, no, I wouldn't fertilize that.
Their problem is going to be they're going to have a lot of roots cut
off. The vast majority of the roots will be lost. You'll have the
big old roots, but not the little feeder roots that do the work.
And so I would just get them moved without letting those roots are dry.
I would get them watered in very very well. I would use, you
know, a product like the Medina product that we talk about all the time
when it comes to transplanting your plants. Medina has some hash to grow products
that do excellent for that. And just make sure that that you water those
roots in really well, settle soil around them, hold off on a granular
fertilizer application, unless you're going to use an organic product. You know,
the microlife has a couple of good organics. It can be mixed into the
soil. But it's not that the plant needs nutrients right now. It's that
it needs to settle in and start to grow roots and then it can benefit
from the nutrients. Sounds good, all right, Joe, Thank you very
much, Yes, sir, good luck with that. Do you wish you
well? Hey, have you been out to in Channed Forest lately? And
that's in Richmond. If you're in Richmond, you're heading up toward sugar Land
Way on fifty nine. Enchanted Forest is off to the right. That's kind
of the general location of where they are. They have. Of course,
the first group of Christmas trees came in out there. I think they have
some frasier first. They got some other stuff coming in as well. Of
course they got all the cool seasoned color that you need. But Enchanted Forest
is I guess. I enjoy going just because I love the location, the
whole setting, the whole scene is just cool. But when it comes to
plants, they've got it all. They're going to beginning by the way,
Noble fur Grand Nordman and silvertip firs all coming in over the weekend, and
so they'll be ready to go with those points sets are going to be arriving.
Everything else that you would need. Is there their selection of winter vegetables
and herbs for planting now? Is it's excellence outstanding. They're on FM twenty
seven fifty nine if you want to go looking for them. But I just
you know, what I generally recommend that people would just do is just go
ahead and go to the website enchanted Forest Richmond dot com or Richmond, TX
dot com enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. You're going to find a
really really good wealth of information at that website. It's a new one they
put together, and boy did they ever do an excellent job of it.
Let's see we are we are looking here? I mean, go ahead.
I want to make a couple of comments about fall vegetables right now. Some
things you might want to to mention or you might want to be thinking about.
This is a time for all those cool season crops, like the coal
crops, that's the blue leaf vegetables also called cruciferous crops. I can't even
say the word cruciferous crops. By the way, do you know why they
call coke? Fun fact? Do you know why they call coal crops cruciferous
crops? Cruciferus is a cross like shape. And if you look at the
blooms on broccoli, on kale, you know, cauliflower, cabbage, the
actual flower itself on those is the blooms is in a low cross shape,
little tiny four petals in a cross shape. That's a fun fact. Now
you can share that with all your friends that will be happy to know how
much you know about things that or whatever. Well, now's the time to
plant them. Now's the time to plant your cool season leafy greens like spinach
and lettuce and a arugula and a ygene plant a charge still, just be
ready to cover it up when it gets real cold. A lot of good
sirels and other good green to go in at that time. So just some
things to think about for the vegetable garden. If you've never vegetable garden before,
let me ask you this. At least get a container about five gallons
in size, could be larger, and try some things. You can plant
carrots now too, by the way, that would be fun, especially if
you got kids. Just follow the instructions and it's not that difficult to do.
If you haven't fertilized your lawn, now's the time to get that done.
And Nitrofossis Texas three step is really set up for the three things that
happen in the fall and our lawns. What is that Well, number one,
we fertilize with a fertilizer designed for fall, and nitrofoss falls special winter
riser is just that it absolutely has the exact ratios of nutrients designed for our
soils in the fall season to help your lawn go into fall stronger and therefore
come out of fall stronger. The nitro fross barricades a second step that's a
pre emergent its weed seeds from germinating. Now, when you put those two
down, then go ahead and follow those two different applications with half inch of
water irrigation that moves the fertilizer down where the roots can get it, and
it moves the barricade down where it forms the barricade over the soil surface.
And then finally eagle tar fungicide. Well, that's a systemic funge aside to
sprown your lawn or apply to your lawn, and it deals with issues that
are going to show up like brown patch for example, especially if you've been
plagued with the year after year and the take off root ruts. Another example
of what the eagle toar fungicide can do. You're gonna find nitroposs products at
KDE Hardware up at RCW where I was yesterday, and even out at the
arbor Gate in Tomball. Well, let's take a break our number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four and we'll be right back. Welcome
back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening. Our phone number if you'd
like to give us a call is seven to one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. You know, a while back I had Scott from Starhope
here on the show and we just had a really nice interview and learned a
lot about all the things Star Hope does. Do you know that with your
support, hundreds and hundreds of Houstons homeless people will be calling Star home for
Thanksgiving. In addition to their long term recovery programs, as Star of Hope
offers, they and first of all, they help you with employment. They
help you with education with life skills. They serve more than five thousand meals
a week to their residents. You can provide a person with the Thanksgiving meal
for two dollars and eighty cents. That is minimal, So what a great
way to provide us and to celebrate the season of Thanksgiving. We're certainly thankful
for all the things that we enjoy, and two dollars and eighty cents for
a meal is not much. How many meals will you provide if you want?
If you'd like to donate, want you just go to the website and
check it out. It's sohmission dot org s o h mission dot. Are
you know. One of the things that I really like about Star of Hope
is it's great to bring people in to give them a place to stay.
It's great to give people food, but to go beyond and to commit to
those folks and to walk them through the changes that go from homelessness to an
established citizen of the community with a job, a place to live, transportation.
That is a huge jump. And Star of Hope makes it so easy
for people to come in if they will commit and be part of the program
to change their lives and the lives of their children as well. We're going
to go to Branham now and we're going to talk to Mark. Hello,
Mark, good morning morning. Quick quick question for you. Kind of new
to the area from South Texas and have some acreage in between Burnham and Avinesota
where there were some the little roses, knockout roses planted that have long since
been gone. But wanting to put some primrose jasmine in its kind of a
just a shrub and privacy and curious how it does up here and where I
might be able to buy it in three to five gallon containers. Yeah,
you'd have to call around on the where. You know, we talk about
our garden centers and stuff. I know you've got some garden center out there
and Brenham. You might check there as you come in into town from out
in the Brenham area. You're going to be coming in two ninety, so
you're going to come through into I think the best gardening city in the country
in that Houston. But we have a lot of garden centers out north and
to the west, like our Brigade Plants forll Seasons is certainly out that way,
and you ought to be able to find it. It does okay.
Here it is. It's a pretty tolerant plant of some rough conditions. You
know, it gets a little dry, it's okay. It gets a little
hot, it's okay. Uh. And sometimes the bloom we get on them
is not what I would like to see. It's it's kind of a spotty
yellow flowering going on. But in the right conditions they can really load up
and be quite beautiful. Yeah, And what I'm like, what I liked
about the plant was the clumping aspect of it. Yeah, and the greenery
really more so than the flowering. Yes, down I live down near the
George West area and some highly it got very dry quite all this, but
the plant did fantastic, So that's what I like about it. Yeah,
well I'm sure, yeah, Jearge West and three Rivers and all down in
that area that that can get a little on the dry side. But yeah,
it's good. It's everybringer. It's hardy enough for here and so we
you know, we generally do pretty good. It's especially good when you put
it over, like if you have a wall, that's where you need something
to spill over the wall, or maybe a slope that you know, those
long arching canes of primrose jasmine are really good for sort of covering and hiding
and spilling over too. Yeah, and I have exactly that. I have
a fence on the property line that is kind of sloped down toward the home,
and so I am looking for something that will utilize that fence as some
structure as well, as I said, fill out and give me some additional
privacy. So good, that's great, and I enjoy your show, and
thank you very much for the information. All right, thanks for listening.
Welcome up to the area. Glad to have you. I keep talking about
soil and the importance of soil, and you know, there are so many
ways that organic matter enhances our plants. Organic matter. When we say organic
matter, we mean it was once alive, now it's dead. And so
we're talking about compost we're talking about mulchz, you know, but especially talking
about composted organic matter is just so enriches. It releases the nutrients from the
plants that were composted back into the soil. It spurs microbial activity. And
when you got good microbial activity, roots are well taken care of. That's
important. And nature's way resources has been leading when it comes to providing new
innovative quality blends and mixes for the lawns and the landscapes here in the Greater
Houston area. Now they're up there toward Conroe on Interstate forty five, right
where fourteen eighty eight comes in. You just turn right if you're going north,
go across the railroad tracks. You're right there. You can buy bulk.
You can buy them by the bag. They provide everything that you would
need in the way of a blend. For example. Do you just need
a good straight run compost, They have that. Do you want a leaf
mole compost. Do you want a shredded hardwood moltz for example? Do you
want a special blend like a rose soil, Well, they have it.
I mean they actually were the first to have it, and they're first in
a lot of things. John Ferguson is. He's just an expert when it
comes to understanding how to create a soil environment where plants thrive, and his
products do just that. They take the time to do it right. While
you're out there, go see the nursery too. By the way, they
got a wonderful nursery, lots of native plants in it as well. Now
The phone number is nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine three
six three two one sixty nine ninety Give John or In a call and let
them help you create a plan for building that bed. The brown stuff before
the green stuff, that just makes your gardens thrive, be beautiful and bountiful.
Well, we're coming close here to the end of another hour on Garden
Line. I had a number of things I wanted to cover today and the
time just goes flying by. Hey, I just want to mention for those
of you who are interested the Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance. We call that OBA.
The OBA folks are putting on the lone Star You'll Ball fundraiser. Now,
this is an evening with Sheik Russell, a legendary Texas singer songwriter.
Many of you know Shak Russell show up in your Western attirety. You need
to buy tickets ahead of time. You go to OBA online dot org slash
register, OHBA online dot org slash register. It's going to be at the
ball room at Tanglewood on Thursday, December seventh, from five thirty to nine
thirty pm. And they are going to have everything from a delicious dinner they're
going to have a silent auction for a good cause. By the way,
they'll be announcing the silent auction winners. They're going to have cocktails and magician
and fortune telling and also the VC Strings will be there to perform as well.
And then finally it winds up with the Sheik Russell performance at the OBA
yule Ball. The yule Ball fundraiser, good cause and a fun event.
OBA always puts on fun events. Well, you're listening to garden Line and
here we are running out of time in our last hour. I want to
remind you that if you haven't been to my website, it's Gardening with Skip
dot Com, you need to go there. That's where I put everything that
I put together that's timely. For example, I just put up comments on
the new USDA Heartiness Zone map. Also up there you'll find my lawn care
schedule for fertilizing and my laun care schedule for dealing with insects, diseases and
weeds in your lawn. Lots of products both organic and synthetic options. It
tells you month by month January to December what you need to do. Also
on that website is a publication I stuck up there that I co authored with
an A and M horticulture specialist on protecting your plants when it comes to frosts
and freezes, and it is nine pages of color pictures and beautiful diagrams just
to make it really clear exactly what you're doing. It addresses things like do
I water before freeze? Should I spray so ice kits on the plant?
How do I cover them up? What about putting heat underneath the cover and
on and on down the lines. Very effective. So anyway, that's the
kind of stuff I keep putting on the website. I'm going to keep adding
to it little by little. We've got a big renovation coming up when we
get into the new year. I'm going to add a lot of things to
it at that point in time. But just keep checking back and you'll find
a lot of information that I think will be very very helpful to you.
There. Well, we're going to take a break here. Our phone number
is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a
call, get on the boards and we'll talk to you when we come back.
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 scip Rictor. It's crazy, yes, Trim, just watch
him as we got day. Well, good morning, and welcome back to
Garden Line. It is a beautiful sunday. We are shaping up to enjoy
today. I'm going to be outside later today, walking around my place doing
kind of an assessment of Hey, what do I need to get done here?
I find myself run around telling other people I have a garden. May
make time to go home and enjoy mine that. It is such a I
don't know. Gardening is its therapy. I'm telling you. You just get
out. You enjoy creating beauty. You enjoy the fact that every day is
a new day. Every season is a new season, every year is a
new year. I mean literally, it really is the fact that it's not
a rut. Everything changes and I just think that makes it good and we
just kind of go with the flow. Hey, that's called nature. Nature
is constantly changing on us. If you want to plant a tree or a
shrub this year, you know, falls the best time to do it.
Winter is a great time too. But we're in the big middle of an
excellent excellent time and Verdant Tree Farm has got a selection that is just outstanding
of the particular species that do best here. That is one thing that's very
important, picking a species that'll do best here. You know, whether you're
looking at a palm tree, or whether you're looking at a standard type of
tree, you know, one of the many shade trees and blooming trees we
put around the landscape, or even a very large you know, holly for
example. They can provide all of that and it's turnkey. You pick your
tree, they tag it, they bring it to your house, they plant
it, and they do it right. And that's very important. Planting a
tree incorrectly, Oh it's a disaster. Don't do it. Make sure somebody
knows what they're doing. Course, Verdant knows how to do that. They
have the right palm, the right tree for any budget that you have.
They even offer a ten percent discount for military and first responders. There's several
locations. You can go out to barker Cypress on the West Side and they
got a farm there. If you go to paar Land on Broadway Street,
you can get Verdant Tree trees there as well as well as up in the
heights where Yale comes into interstate ten Verdant v E R D A N T.
Treefarm dot com Verdant Treefarm dot com. Don't delay. I mean again,
this is primetime, So go ahead and make those moves now so that
when next summer comes, your trees are already going to have a head start
in getting some roots established so that they can do well. You're listening to
Guardline and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know,
I just thinking about planting trees. I should also mention that if you
want the one tool that will help you have success with your trees through the
summers to come, that is the tree hugger sprinkler. And I always say
when you buy a tree or a shrike, says tree hugger sprinkler, but
it could be called shrub hugger sprinkler, rose hugger sprinkler. I mean it
can water a small area or you can turn it on and what are a
larger So as your tree grows, when we get to next summer, it
will be hot and dry. It's just what happens in the summer here and
when we get there. You can put a tree hugger around a tree,
and when you turn the hose on, you water the primary most concentrated areas
of that tree's root zone and you give them a good rescue treatment. You
don't have to turn on your whole landscape irrigation system. You can go to
tree huggersprinkler dot com if you want more information, but I can tell you
they carry them in a lot of places here around the Greater Houston area.
Discussing general gardening types of things, when we're planting perennials, that getting that
done in the fall gives you a head start in a number of ways.
Well, of course, they're making a root system, so when next summer
comes, the plants have a much better root system and they're more ready to
go to be resilient and deal with what nature throws at us. Another thing
to think about is that plant is actually getting the head start that it needs
to actually compete with the same plant and a larger sized planet in spring.
For example, let's say you bought a four inch pot of a particular little
perennial that you had, and then you compared that to getting maybe a six
inch pot in the spring. If you plant the four inch and now the
six inch in spring, by next summer, you're gonna have trouble telling any
difference at all in them. And there's a difference in cost between a four
inch pot and a six inch pot. The same thing could be said,
you know, of any size of plant. The fall planting of our perennials
gives them the head start, and so if you want to make your dollar
go a little bit further, that's one way you can do it. Just
go ahead and get them in now, take care of them, water them
in with medina has to grow six twelve six or i'd say the right number.
They're medina hastger, you know what I'm talking about. But the fact
that you're getting them started now and getting the roots in good shape just sets
you off for six excess and in spring you're gonna have the gardening fever.
There's gonna be a thousand things you want to go out and get done.
That's fine, But why not go ahead and get this stuff taken care of
now before we enter the holiday season. I mean, do it during the
holidays. I don't know how some of you are, but sometimes relatives can
stay a little extra long, and it helps to have an excuse like oop,
I've got to get those potatoes in the ground or something like that.
Just an excuse to get outside for a minute and hear the same stories.
Anyway, why not get it done ahead of time or enjoy your time with
family during the holidays. So if you're looking for gifts for people, by
the way, their plants are great gifts. I mean they really are.
Think about Buchanan's plants and the Heights for example. They have beautiful plants.
I mean, what about imagine going to somebody's house for dinner or for some
gathering maybe Thanksgiving, and taking a beautiful Christmas cactus or Thanksgiving cactus it's just
in bloom, or maybe a caliit. They have those at Buchanans plants to
They're just gorgeous inside the house. Why do not do that? Pick up
a plant just as a gift. But you know what, when you're there,
get ready at Buchanans because they've got Noble fur and Frasier fur, and
Nordman for and con Koler fur. I didn't even know what some of those
were before for sale. The plant selection they have is just immense, as
well as the gift shops. Oh my gosh, you got to go in
and check out the gift shops for the holiday seasons. Just go to Buchanan's
Plants. They're on Eleventh Street than the Heights. Buchanans Plants dot com,
Buchanans Plants dot com. It's as simple as that. I enjoy anytime I
get to visit a good quality garden center like Buchanans Plants. I always like
to visit with the staff too, could you know. You kind of get
asking them questions and kind of feel things out a little bit, and I've
just been so impressed with the knowledge of the staff. Then not only are
they friendly and resourceful, but you can walk in with just it's kind of
like, Okay, I have this shady area, nothing wants to grow there,
and next thing you know, they're giving you this pallet of plants that
will just thrive and make that shaded area just light up in beauty. Well
that's what I'm talking about. Hey, we're gonna take a little break.
We will be back if you'd like to get on the board with Josh seven
one three, two, one two five eight seven four. Good morning,
and welcome back to garden Line on a beautiful Sunday day. This afternoon.
I hope you get out and do some plant shopping, do some yard prep,
do some gardening prep. This is the season. It's a great time
to get out. The weather's nice. I mean, you want to be
outside in this kind of weather that is that is really cool. I love
I love doing that. That's my happy place when I'm out in the garden
messing with plants and soil and all kinds of things. That's just that's the
good stuff. By the way, when you're out in the garden taking care
of things, don't forget if you haven't done your lawn fertilization. You got
to get that fall fertilizer application down soon, sooner rather than never, right,
So don't delay get it down. I know on the chart, I
give you the time on my long care chart when I recommend you do the
fertilizing. If you miss that time, it's okay to do it later.
Just just get it done. If you missed it, go ahead and get
it done. Microlife, for example, they've got the brown patch that is
a excellent fertilizer and excellent fertilizer for fall application, and it does help in
terms of providing the microbial activity to your soil and just helping the lawn get
stronger and healthier so it can fight and prevent and deal with some of the
issues like brown patch that can happen while you're doing that. I would also
put down a hummate's plus. The humates is a concentrate. It has some
potassium in it as well as all the benefits the humantes alone give your soil.
But when you do the brown patch plus the humates, you really have
a good fall fertilizer mix there for your lawn. For the organic application organic
products, in other words, to make your lawn healthy and successful. You
can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. That's where you find out about all
of these products as well as where you can purchase them. It's not hard
finding Microlife fertilizers here in the Greater Houston area. I'm gonna go to the
phones here in just one second. I wanted to mention that if you are
thinking, if you've been thinking about maybe adding some houseplants into the house,
you know, cool season is a wonderful time to have house plants because you
spend a little more time indoors than we do when it's a little milder outside.
But houseplants just brighten up a space, and you want to pick plants
that fit the light levels of the room that you're in. And we have
plants that take very low light levels, not not a dark closet, but
very low light levels. In fact, one of them is called closet plant.
Aboutophylum is a great plant for that. The I found that the mother
in law's tongue, the sense of area is it does pretty well in fairly
low light conditions, as does a ZZ plant. Isn't that an interesting name?
ZZ plant? Those are really unusual. They are tough as nails,
as are the sense of areas. And so if you want to start with
trying new house plants, I would do that ZZ and sense of aaria.
Those two. If you can't grow them, I'm sorry, I cannot help
you. I'm pretty sure if you set them out there and never looked at
them again, they would be Okay. They're that tough. No, they
can take drought. They you know, they're they're just a good tough plant.
And then there's gorgeous plants. One of my favorite groups is the aglionemas,
the Chinese evergreens. Normally, we used to just have aglionemas in the
past that were just basically silver or green or some splotchy version of the two.
Now we got some beautiful colors that are kind of a coral to reddish
pink all mixed in in the leaves, and that's kind of become the thing
that I begin to purchase and collect, and they just do so well,
and they'll put up with fairly low light conditions as well. So that's another
good little tip in terms of decorating for the holidays. And then of course
we have all the upright plants. A Norfolk Island pine ours becomes a like
as if it were a Christmas tree, little stuff hanging on it, lights
and other things in the wintertime, a lot of fun, a lot of
fun in the house. Plants. Well, let's head out to Fairfield and
we're going to talk to Marty. Hello, Marty morning, skip morning.
Question. I'm just about on my last stry for a Shitchers and I wondered
if there wasn't a native that would like live through our cold winters, can
they come? Is your goal to have something to eat or just the fragrance
of the blooms. Okay, now I've tried the Meyer lemon, I've tried
the Mexican line. Do you have one avocado? And that's about it.
Okay, there's not a native one to speak of here. If you want,
if you want the hardiest cetrus, it's probably going to be kumquats.
Those are the little fruit the size of your thumb. They can be oblong
or they can be round, depending on if you get not my Wa Nagami
cultivars. They can take really cool weather, and I think the ballooms are
just absolutely awesome. The next step would probably be there are a couple of
like a chain shaw tangerine. I wouldn't recommend it because it is so seedy
that that just annoys me, but it is cold, hardy. And then
there're satsuma oranges, satsumas. Once you get a satsuma to about year three
and it's well established, I've seen satsumas take temperatures down into the low twenties
and do just fine. And it's not They're not huge cetris trees, so
it's easy to cover them if you need to. But I would try a
satsuma orange. It's a mandarin type orange, very easy to peel. I
need to lead it in the ground. You could do either way. I've
seen them in containers, but it needs to be a really large container,
like the equivalent volume of a half whiskey barrel kind of thing. And then
you just have to make sure they don't lack for water because they fill that
root system in that confined space, can fill the soil in the confined space
with roots, and so in summertime, you kind of might even need to
move them in a little bit of shade if they're in a container, just
so you can keep them watered. But I think they're great plants. They're
easy. And there's one called orange frost. There is a Miho and a
sito. Those are all three excellent varieties. There's another onetor Oh yeah,
yeah, those places are going to carry them. I mean I was.
I was at the Arbrogate the other day and they they always have fruit trees
there, but I was looking at some of their citrus out there. But
yeah, it's gonna be easy to find. And you're lucky, aren't you
lucky to have both those places? In driving that's cheating that is cheap.
All right, sorry, thank you for the goal. If you love birds,
if you love being outside and enjoying the birds, or watching the birds,
hearing their songs and the antics, Wildbirds Unlimited has got you covered.
I mean, anything that you need for birds, they've got it, and
they have the quality stuff. For example, right now, I'd recommend you
do their unlimited uh, the Wildbirds Unlimited super blend, the winter super blend
that has the fat and protein that the birds need to supply them as we
go into this season. And you know, they have blends for all kinds
of different bird groups. You know, if you want to attract finches or
if you want to know, whatever you want to tract, they're going to
have a blend for that. And their blends are one bird food in other
words, not the red bebies. The cheap bird seed has that you're going
to throw so much of that away. No, actually, the birds are
going to throw so much of that on the ground because they don't want to
eat it. They don't like it. It's hard, it's hard to eat.
Instead, you end up paying more for a cheap bird bird feed because
you don't get as much bird food out of it. Wabirds, isn't that
way now? Wabirds again the perfect place to buy gifts. You can go
see somebody for Thanksgiving or Christmas gifts. Who wouldn't love a beautiful bird feeder
that they can enjoy outside, maybe a hummingbird feeder, But there's a lot
more for people that are into birds. There's books that they have there and
always excellent, excellent advice. By the way, you go to one of
their mini stores here in the Houston area. You can find them just by
going to WBU dot com forward slash Houston. Simple as that. I'm going
to head now out to Beaumont and we're going to talk to Nancy. Hello,
Nancy, good morning. I have from top. Well, I've been
having quite a few these large brownish orange mushrooms growing in my front yard with
scallops. There's scallops looking How concerned should I be? Not at all?
Not at all? Those are those are decaying organic matter under the ground.
Sometimes we have mushrooms that are actually part of the microbial system that connects to
roots and like truffles. You've heard of truffles for example, Well, truffles
are growing on tree roots in a symbiotic relationship with the tree roots. We
have mushrooms that do that here, but most mushrooms are just decaying organic matter,
and you don't need to worry about them. If you get at the
very base of a tree and you have a whole cluster of little honey colored
mushrooms, there's potential that that could be a root disease of that tree.
But in general, the way you're describing, I wouldn't worry about it.
Okay, great, thank you so much. All right, Nancy, Hey,
and you guys, you guys have some a shardwears in our group out
in that direction and an Orange Texas and yeah, that's good. I'm glad
M and D supplies the one here in Beaumont. Well they're a good one.
Ye, yes, thank you very sorry, No, go ahead,
that's okay, We're done, but thanks for the call. I appreciate it
very much. Bye bye, bye, take care. Let's seehere are we
going to go here? We're going to go to Mark in clear Lake.
Hello Mark, good morning, sir. Actually I live in clear Lake right
now. I'm in Austin, Okay. Well, enjoy Austin and used to
live over there. Well, it's pretty weird here you know, so thank
you to emails, one of them yesterday at six in the morning and just
now a little bit ago this morning. So I have two different questions.
I don't know if you've seen the first one, but it looks like there
are some dirt piles and they don't appear to be from ants, because nothing
scatters, and the dirt itself is like large chunks. I wondered if that
was crawfish or whatever. You know, what is it and how can I
deal with that? One? Those are I saw that that's not crawfish.
You have some big old night crawler earthworms that are coming to the surface and
depositing their castings there in those piles. That is not, my goodness,
that's not what night crawling. The big large earthworms, like a nightcrawler type
earthworm. They just make bigger castings than smaller. But that's nothing to worry
about. In fact, it's a good thing happening in the lawn. Now,
as far as the plant you sent me, that could be a honeyvine
milkweed, it looks a lot like it. I'm not a milkweed expert,
but if I were to look at the pictures you sent, and I would
be about eighty percent. Sure, that's a honey vine milkweed. Okay,
well we hope for some monarchs. Then that's good. We'll get you some
other kinds of milkweed. We've got a number of great types, and I
like to hedge the bat. Plus you get blooms at different times of the
year depending on what kinds you're growing. Yes, okay, well super well,
thank you very very much, sir. All right, thank you,
appreciate appreciate you following up on that email very much. Yeah. I just
the nature of the job here, I'm not able to type out replies to
each email. I just I wouldn't even begin to get that done. And
so what I ask is if you email me, I can give you permission
to send in a photo and then call the show between six and ten on
Saturday or Sunday and we can talk about it like that. But that is
just at least that's a way that I can help you. But just being
able to type out the replies, it just can't happen. That's not Unfortunately,
that's not going to be able to happen. Someone mentioned earlier me recommending
the has to grow the six twelve six for watering implants. They were going
to water some of their plants in. And it is a good it's a
good way to use. It's the way I use it, and that is
to mix it in water water in your transplant right when you plant it,
just with a good has to grow water. It's got seaweed extract, it's
got Medina soil activator, and it has a six twelve six fertilizer in it
as well. Now, the thing I do after that is do it again
about a week later, and then a third time I'm a week after that,
and that way for a good period of time there those plant roots are
getting really good stuff to help them get established and get off the ground to
a good start. You can use has to grow for other things. You
can use as a fold your feed if you want to do something like that,
that's fine. That's just the way that I like to use the Medina
has to grow six twelve six. Well, you're listening to garden Line today
and we're here to answer your gardening questions. If you would like to give
me a call, a call Josh it's seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. He will get you on the board and then when we
come back, we'll visit with you. And by the way, Scott,
when we come back, you will be the very first up. Well,
there's a blast from the past. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and we are looking forward to visiting with you about
gardening. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Now you know we love feed stores here on the Garden Line,
and I'll favorede feed store out in the Mott Bellevue region is Texas feed Stop.
I don't care if you live in Baytown or Mont Bellevue or anywhere out
that way. This is a mom and pop place that treats you like you
remember the old time feed stores always treated you. I'm talking about service,
you know, carrying your bags out for you, being a part of the
community, supporting the community, hiring teams from the community to help and to
be part of the service, and making you feel like family. That's what
Texas feed Stops all about. Now they're on Highway one forty six, just
a few minutes north of Itan in Mott Bellevue, so from Baytown. I
mean, that's just that's your next door feed store right there, And not
only do they provide the customer service, but they have all the products.
If I talk about a fertilizer here on guard Line, it's at Texas feed
Stop. And there's the soils that we talk about here. You're going to
find bags of that also there. So when you're trying to make your yard
or your garden more beautiful and bountiful, they're going to have what you need
to exactly make that happen. At Texas Feeds Up Brian and Hope Rhodes.
It's a family owned operation, and just go by there and you'll see what
I mean about. They make you feel like family. I want to go
out to Scott in Kingwood now, Hello, Scott, Hello, how are
you this morning? What's up? I'm doing good, Skip. I like
your show. I really appreciate you. Well. I'm glad I knew someone
out there liked it, but I hadn't heard them yet, So now I
knew who that one person is. Thank you. I'm sure there's a lot
more than one person. I need two questions. I need to get some
thirty gallon or forty five gallon Eagle Hollies somewhere locally. Do you have any
ideas where I might look toward to get those? Yeah, yeah, you're
in You're in Kingwood, so you know Kingwood Garden and Warrens. Of the
first two places I would I would call and say, do you haven't can
you get them? Well, I've been there, they don't have them,
haven't been don't? Maybe they can get them. I never thought about that
they might be able to. Are you a to go get them or do
you need people to deliver them? Okay, I can either have them delivered
or you put them in a truck because I'm going to get somebody to plan.
I need somebody that'll plant them too. Yeah, okay, well if
you're going to do that. Uh, this is across town. But it's
the two that come to mind, because I've seen the Eagleston at both places.
Uh. There's the oh my gosh RCW Nursia. I was just out
there yesterday and looking at the eaglestons that they had at RCW. Uh and
there were two forty nine comes into belt Way eight and then Verdant Tree Farm.
Probably the closest one to you would be the one at Yale and I
ten downtown, but I know they carry eaglestons as well, and both of
those places v e r A win no v e r d A n T.
It's just my accent mispronouncing verdant. Verdant as ingredient as in green,
and verdant will also deliver and plant for you. And so you could give
either one of those call and I know they have angles eaglesom's if you can't
find them there nearby, Okay, it wouldn't last quick question, Yes,
when I put when I plant color, you know, uh, stuff like
that. Am I supposed to put fertilizer in the hole or do I plant
them and put fertilizer on top? In general, I say don't put fertilizer
in the planting hole, especially if it's a salt based fertilizer, a synthetic
salt blazed fertilizer that's not slow release, because people can burn roots doing that.
People think, well, I got to put this all down there because
these are well, let the plant get growing some roots and then put fertilizer
on top and wash it in. You can do that now. And the
last question, wait, let me let me add one thing to that.
When you put an organic product like a microlife for example, in the hole
and mix it up. It's going to be just fine. It's not going
to burn roots. It's it's microbialy decomposed to release the nutrients that are in
there. And so you'll what number do you use when you put it in
the hole. I would just use this sick the green bag six two four.
That's a good one. Your goal on getting those those kind of plants
going is you want to get some good nitrogen in there to give them a
boost. But you can do it either way. I just remember the main
way we fertilizer is putting it on top of the ground, watering it in.
Okay, cool, Hey about these eagles and dollars? Are you Is
it important to put shale in the hull. I'm hearing more and more about
shale in the hull when you climb the tree. No, not in the
hole. If you're going to use shale and a heavy clay soil, that's
good, but you need to put it about three inches thick and mix it
in as deeply as you can in a wide area. Just putting a little
in the hole won't accomplish anything, but you're trying to create a lot of
that little porous shell rock in the soil to open up the clay a little
bit longer term. Now compost will do that short term, and so mixing
composts in a large area is also good, and your hollies will like just
remember with your holly the first two or three years especially watch the watering because
they need to not get dry, especially with the confined root system they start
out with. And so that's the key on holly's. You should have told
me that about a year ago, because I've already lost to this summer because
I didn't water. But enough, I don't think, well there you go
now, you know, But it's just make sure your watering system works.
You know, Hollys have stiff leaves and you got a sprinkle of on one
side the bush, and the leaves are deflecting the water. So you have
dry root areas around the plant. Just make sure I would hand water the
first year. You could also have an autosystem, but occasionally I'd go in
there with one of those watering ones and just make sure all around the plant
that was given a good soaking. Do you do that every year? The
hand watering heavy the heavy watering like that, Well, you know, I
got an irrigation system, but they didn't put out enough water, died because
of the drought. Well, didn't do a good job. Well, it's
you want to wet the soil thoroughly and then you want it to dry out
just a bit and then wet the soil thoroughly again. And so whatever watering
system that takes, however long you have to run it to accomplish that,
that's the goal. All right, Hey, good luck with those Eagleston Scott.
They're beautiful and I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for listening to
garden Line. We are going to be taking a break here in just a
bit. I did want to mention those of you who haven't done your fall
fertilization, you ought to consider the nitrofoss three step. The three step is
a fertilizer, a fungicide, and a weed control product. So I'm gonna
go a little backwards here. I'm gonna start with the fungicide. I normally
do it the other way around, but nitrofoss egle fungicide is a systemic It
soaks into the grass tissues. You want to get it in there ahead of
time. If you've had an ongoing problem with brown patch the big circles in
the cool season because it will protect the plant when that disease tries to hit
and create those circles. And boy, are we ever in good brown patch
weather right now. So if you've got a problem traditionally whether you need to
take care of that. Number two you want to make sure and put down
the barricade. That's a weed control product. And number three, the Nitrofoss
Fall Special is the fertilizer for fall. Now, with the Fall Special in
the barricade, apply one, turn right around, ply the other one and
then water with a half inch of water and that'll move them into the soil
where they do what they're going to do. And you're going to find Nitrofoss
out in Kingwood, Warren's Garden Center, Southern Gardens. You're going to find
it at A's Hardware and Sinkle Ranch and the Grower's Outlet in Willis. We're
going to take a break. The number seven one three, two one two
fifty eight seventy four will be right back. Welcome back to garden Line on
a beautiful Sunday morning. We're glad you're listening and looking forward to talking to
you about the things that interest you when it comes to gardening. What kind
of questions do you have? Let's help you with that, Like I enjoy
saying on the layer, it's no, there's no such thing as a brown
thought. There's only uninformed thumbs, and we will help inform your thumb.
Now, some people seem to just have a knack for growing plants. But
what's happening. There's not any kind of aura of magic going on there.
They're just doing the things right that need to be done. They kind of
have a natural sense of what to do with the plants. And you can
learn, you can learn to take care of plants. I stress and stress
and stress important, importance, importance, importance, soil, good soil,
good drainage, good nutrient content, all the aspects of soil that just set
the plant up for success. That one step right there, one step alone,
and you're way past halfway to success just on that, and then picking
things that want to grow here, variety species that do well here. That
is huge, very huge. I mean, you could do everything else right,
and if it's a blue spruce in Houston, Texas, it's going to
be in trouble. That beautiful forsythia. You brought it want to bring back
from the Midwest. Isn't going to be in trouble here. They just don't
grow. Picking the right plant very important. And then you know, general
care, making sure that the watering and fertilizing and things we do is in
line with what the plant needs. That's important too. But listen, this
is not that hard now. Learning gardening is a learning process that lasts for
a lifetime. Every week, pretty much every day, I learned something about
gardening because it's evolving, it's changing, there's always something new. There's only
ten bazillion plants and no one could know them all. But learning is an
ongoing process and that makes it fun. You know, I know people a
lot of us that are hort of cultures. We go through phases. You
know, I'm my latest, Okra is my latest, and a long list
of obsessions, horticultural obsessions that I have. But you know, I've gone
through times where I was re into palms, studying about palm trees or hibiscuits
or something else. And it's always something new, there's always something fun.
Like if you've never done bones eye bones eye is a great fun little hobby.
It kind of cool, doesn't require a lot in the way of tools
and equipment and all that simple to do. By the way, the Quality
Feed Store downtown they do bones eye there and they do occasionally they have some
meetings there and I think they do some teaching too on how to do bones
eye. But if you're interested in that particular hobby, that would be one
I would send you to Quality Feed Downtown, Equipment and Alesion on Luzon Street.
But that's just an example of what I'm talking about. Gardening is a
learning process that's fun. What do you care about. Maybe all you want
is beautiful house plants, good, go for it. Maybe you would like
to be able to actually produce things inside like tomatoes. There's a light,
there are lighting systems, and there's advice. I can give you the help
you have literally grow your tomatoes indoors. If you want to go to that
kind of trouble, you can do that. That's the cool thing about gardening.
Always something new outside. I keep saying, plant trees, plant woody
ornamentals. Now's the time, now's the time. It's important. Well,
it's also time to start looking at doing some winter care for those woody ornamentals.
And one of the things we do in winter is we try to get
the majority of our pruning done in the dormant season. There's things to be
pruned year round. There's always stuff you can do, but especially for major
pruning jobs on a plant, on a tree, it's better to get that
done in the cool season if you can an Affordable tree service. They're the
tree service that we trust. You're on garden Line. I'm visiting with Martin
and his wife Joe. They're just great folks and they've been around a long
time. I mean they you know, they've been doing this for years and
years. In fact, I think over thirty years now of experience for Martin,
and he knows what he's doing. And when you turn someone loose on
your woody ornamentals with us SAW, they better know what they're doing. And
Martin does. And you can call them. You can have the phone numbers
seven to one to three, six twenty six sixty three. Are you just
go to the website afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot com.
Tell them you're from garden Line. So you get up in the list and
do it soon because they're booking. I know they're booking stuff out in January
and February now as someone called the other day and said they they're going to
have them come out in December, you need to get on the line because
Martin stay's busy. That's what happens when you do work right, is word
gets around, Customers ask you to come back, they tell their friends,
and you get busy. And that's a good thing. So if you want
to hire a good person that can do a good job, don't delay and
call Affordable Tree Service sooner rather than later. Kind of a traffic jam for
pruning in the cool season, because that's you know, we're getting a lot
of that kind of stuff done at that time of the year. You know,
picking a really nice quality tree that fits your site is important. I
remember the day back and this is back like sixties and seventies when everybody had
an Arizona ash tree in the front yard. It's like when they built your
house that you got an Arizona ash And then when those things started falling apart
thirty forty years later, we kind of realized, okay, we need to
not plant those trees, and they went by the wayside, so you don't
see them much anymore. Silver leafed maple as another one that it just doesn't
have a good long term future, and there's some other trees. Unless the
conditions are just right, they don't. So you want to pick us species
that does well. And we have a lot of new things, you know.
I was out at RCWA yesterday at RCW Nursery. They have their spring
fling and I appreciate them having me come out that that was enjoyable. But
while we're out there, I was looking over the San Philipe red maple.
That is a really cool red maple now that that's a strain that was discovered
that it has some really early you know, maple has a little samaras,
a little reddish seed pod things that come out in the spring. They came
out even earlier on those, and they're really beautiful trees. And they have
a wide variety of trees out there at RCW. I mean, if it
grows here and does well, they probably grow it. And that includes large
shrubs like that Eagleston holly we were talking about while ago. Now RCW Nursries
dot Com. That's the website. I would say you just go ahead and
start there. Just go there. The nursery itself is where Tombo Parkway comes
into Beltway eight and so it's really easy to find. And again, thank
you folks RCW for hosting me out there yesterday and for everybody that came out.
We had had a really good time. I when I got home I
could hardly talk. I've done so much talking to all the gardeners and everything
coming by. We're gonna head out now to Montgomery and talk to Erin.
Hello, Erin, Hey, how you doing it? Eight? Sir?
I'm good? What's up? So? I've been thinking about planning an evergreen
privacy hedge along my fence line. Most of the varieties that people would normally
use are not formed tolerant for our climate. I was thinking to go with
Spartan junipers. Is there something else that you might suggest? You know,
I am not familiar with Spartan in terms of its performance here, so I'm
gonna have to just say I don't know on that one. There are a
lot of things you can use. How big of a length of area are
you going to try to do as a run. I've got about eighty feet
on one fence line, probably about two hundred total linear feet of me where
I will plan. That's a lot well out in the countryside. I like
the Eastern red ceedar. They are tough and you know they do we know
they do well. You see them out in the wild and that makes a
good head. And now eventually it's going to be a very large tree,
but that takes a long long time. Yeah, that was my concern with
the red seedar is that it was going to outgrow the space that I had
for it, which is why I was looking at spartan juniper. It grows
more bags. Yeah, junipers and Arbividi's those kinds of plants are gonna they're
gonna make a good cover. My hesitation on some of them. And again
I don't know spartan specifically, but you do get some foliage blights that can
happen on them during wet years. And then they get the bagworms, those
little things that hang like Christmas ornaments in the tree that eat all the leaves
off. That's something we have to deal with on them. Another option would
be to go with aypon and do the hedging necessary to get a nice screen.
And you can do that, you can make yopons do that. Is
this would with something that's like eight feet high block the view adequately. No,
Yeah, something eight feet high would be fun. Okay, So southern
wax myrtle is another native from the region that would do real well. And
as you share it, it gets denser and denser too. And then I
guess one other option might be Caroline and cherry laurel. That one maybe a
little further east from you, would be a little happier, but that would
be an option. But yeah, I think southern wax medal would be a
good native to put out there. Okays. Yes, And all those,
by the way, all those are evergreens, which you want the screen year
round. So hey, erin, thank you for the call, appreciate that.
Good to talk to you. Well, we're going to take a break
here. We've put another hour in the book's got another one coming up,
in fact, our last one of the day. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two on two
five eight seven four. Give Josh a call. I'm going to get you
on the boards and we'll talk to you when we come back. KTRH Garden
Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this programme.
It's too casey rh Garden Line with skip Richter. It's so crazy,
Trim. Just watch him as the world. Well, good Sunday morning,
Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here
to answer your gardening questions and just generally talk gardening. I enjoy it when
folks call because I get to visit with gardeners, and that is one of
the my favorite things to do. It's always fun to hang out and be
with gardeners, talk about things, help people with their projects, and so
on. That's what we're here about. That is for sure. Hey,
if you've thought about buying a tractor, you need to know about something that's
going on with Lansdown, Moody and Caboda. Now you put those two together
and you've got a great team. By the way, Lansdowne is a Houston
company. It's been here since nineteen thirty six. Not some big ad corp
from out of town, some big ownership group out of town. No,
this is hometown, through and through. There's nine Landsdown locations, by the
way, here on the Gulf Coast. And if you want to learn more
about Lansdown you need to go to lmtractor dot com. And you also need
to go buy and sit on one and check it out, and you'll see
what I'm talking about. Their deal right now is you pick your tractor,
and I'd recommend the L twenty five oh two. It's a Cabota Workhorse number
two. You click on tractor package dot com or you go to tractor package
dot com and you click on the package deal you want. Do you need
a box blade, do you need a front end loader, post hole digger,
rotary cutter? You put together the package you want and then you go
with their great finance plan that is unheard of. Eighty four months without interest,
no money down, eighty four months without interest. You're not going to
beat that. Go to lmtractor dot com and check this all out, and
then swing by and sit on a Komota tractor, and I think you'll see.
Like I like to put it, it's a sweet ride, that is
for sure. We're going to head out now to Clear Lake and talk to
Roger. Hello, Roger good Good. So I've got some crape myrtles and
they're black with white spots all over them, on order how I could treat
dead. That's creat myrtle bark scale and it's a difficult one to treat.
The black is the city mold that's just growing on the sugary stuff the scale
puts out. So it'd be like if you took sugar water and spray your
plants, you'd get kind of a black city mold that grows on it.
So the scale, Uh, there's a couple of approaches to dealing with them.
One is to use something systemic to go up in the plant, and
when the scale sucks the juice out of the plant, it kills it.
The problem with the systemics is in the summertime, crape myrtles are a main
food source for honeybees in urban areas or even rural areas, and so when
you put that in your plant, you can affect be health and so we
tend to stay away from that unless we just have to use it. The
other thing is in the spraying. Probably around March or April, the little
crawlers will come out. Think of them as a little baby scale without any
protection, and they're crawling around to move over and set up shop on some
other part of the branch. At that stage, an insecticide spray on those
branches all around those branches will work. An oil spray horticultural oil again perfect
coverage all around. Every branch area will smother the scale too, and they're
easiest to kill at that stage, and then they have some beneficial insects that
tend to help us out going through the year. Are you there so likenme
oil or Niam oil would be fine, just any It'll say, like horticultural
oil, and it's just it's just a very lightweight oil. It's lighter than
dormant oil. It's more think of it as more watery than dorman. That
would be probably here. I would It depends on the year because they're all
different, but typically you ought to be applying that probably mid to late March,
maybe early April, depending on the kind of year that we have.
But you're pretty far south, so I'm going to say mid to late March
likely, okay, and just bush away from the systemic n well I do
for the reasons I said, But you know, I understand there are situations
where you need something that's going to be within the plant to kill the scale
and and so on and not have to wait each each March to do that.
The only the only other thing to think about if you want to do
this is if you get some double sided sticky tape and put it on branches,
around branches where you see scale and just check it every few days.
If you see these little reddish tiny things stuck on the tape, that means
it's time to spray, because that's the crawlers. So that would be the
way to go for me. Giving you a rough estimate of when to knowing
it at your house in twenty twenty four when okay, great, perfect,
Thanks Ki, Thank you, Roger. I appreciate, appreciate the call very
much. You know, products like that, you're going to find them at
ACE hardware stores all over the place. ACE carries when it comes to pest
control, disease control, weed control, and certainly fertilizing your plants, they
have got everything you need. They're the place for that. But they're also
the place for Christmas lighting. And you probably haven't thought about that with Ace,
but it sure is. Do you need swag for indoors and outdoors?
I mean we're talking about Reese, we're talking about Garland and oh my gosh,
do they ever have a selection of Christmas light kits all kinds indoor outdoor,
various sizes and colors. And you know how Christmas lights can vary.
They've got it all. They even have custom lights by the foot and go
buy an ACE Hardware store and find out about that. By the way,
you can go to a hardware dot com, Acehardware dot com, Forward Slash
Houston, or just go to Acehardware dot Com and look for the store locator,
put in your zip code and it'll tell you. It'll give you a
little map of all the stores that are close to you. To make it
even easier, we are going to now go to a task Asda and talk
to Cheryl. Hello, Cheryl christ Yes, I called you yesterday about my
lawn turning like straw in certain areas not circul sent you for pictures. I've
got it. I've got it. Okay. What that is? That is
one of the rhizoctonia diseases, and the one we call brown patch. It
makes a big circles. That's a riizoctonia disease. There's some of that here
sometimes that are a little bit of regular, but as they progress you tend
to see the circular areas of them. But that's what it is. At
this point, you got quite a bit of it out there. But if
you hurry up and got down a nitroposs eagle fungicide spray. What helps shut
it down where it is, what's already been lost, the leaves that have
been ritted off, the runner that's going to sit there brown until next spring
when they could put new, fresh green leaves on those runners. Okay,
skip about oh about a month ago. I already put the microflos three steps
down. Okay, Well, I don't know about the application or the timing
or anything like that, but that's the one that we recommend. There are
other fungicides that you can use for controlling diseases in the lawn, but in
general, that should do the trick for you. So, well, what
don't you think if I've already done that and I'm seeing like more spots,
Yeah, you think, what type of funch of side should I use something?
Look for something that has If you can find something with the ingredient azoxystrobin
a zo x y, that would be a different chemistry to try. It's
going to be a little hard to find those products. They're they're they're difficult
to find. The bottom line, you kind of have to go to a
place that just has a really wide variety, like south southwest Houston. Uh.
The feed the fertilizer store Southwest Fertilized, they would happen. Hey,
I got a I gotta run for a break, But I would. I
would if ever, you had called Bob at Southwest and see if he has
a zoxystroban for the lawn that you could try as an alternative to switch to.
Thank you very much for thank you for that call. We're gonna take
a break. We'll be right back, Chris. You will be the first
up when we come back. If your toe it didn't happen, you do
not have a pulse right now, I'm telling all a foot loose. Hey,
welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we are here to talk gardening with you. Now. If you've listened to
me for even one show, you know what I think about Vego garden beds.
It's the best. It's absolutely the best. I built beds out of
center blocks. I built beds that were just soil sided them binding around the
so I built treated timber bed I built a lot of kind of beds in
my life, and nothing is as good as Vego. Vego beds. The
metal is protected in a way where it will not rust and corrode. Then
they coat it with a what I think is a beautiful paint, a very
quality, high quality, long lasting paint that comes in some muted colors,
kind of earthy colors like the greenish and the tan and things like that that
really are appropriate for a garden bed. They last forever, they'll weigh out
last or treated wood beds, and they don't warp like treated wood beds do
either. Now, if you're an organic gardener, this is your solution,
an alternative to treated wood. But for all gardeners. Vego beds come in
every shape and size you can imagine. They're modular, so you put them
together. Do you want an L shape? Do you want a see shape?
Do you want a rolling bed? They've got those. Do you want
beds with self watering trays in the bottom, They've got those. They have
all the kinds of accessories you need to go with them to go online vegogarden
dot com, vegogarden dot com, uh and you will find the beds that
you are looking for right there. Lots of options are Many of our garden
centers too, are carrying Vego beds now, so check out some of your
local garden centers. I think you'll find Vego beds available there too. Well,
let's see, we are going to now head to Chris in the Woodlands.
Hello Chris, Hi, good morning, Skip. How are you doing
well? Chris? How are you today? All right? I have a
what I think is a cheffalle era that has grown taller than my greenhouse.
Oh. I need to figure out how to get it in there. You
can I lob off the top. You can if you want to do that.
Yeah, you know, got a couple of Yeah, you could.
You could print it anyway you want to prune it. Sometimes pruning kind of
creates a esthetically unpleasing plant when you're done, but that's what it is now,
Okay, well, then you can do that. You can also do
something called an air layer, and that is where you wound the stem.
You put some Sphagnum moss or potting soil around it and rapid in plastic and
roots into that moss or soil, and then you cut it off and that
plant then can be planted up as an already rooted cutting. And you can
go online to learn how to do air layering. But that would be another
option for anything that gets gangly. Dracinas get tall and gangly like that corn
plant. So a lot of things, and air layering is a good option,
but there's nothing wrong with just thrown it away and then moving the plant
where you need to move it. Well, if I lop it off,
can I try to root it at that point what I've taken off? Well,
you can. It's harder to root because it has no connection. It
has to survive long enough to get a root going, and so I would
use a rooting hormone on that stem before you try to root it. But
with the air layering, it's still connected to mom and so it has that
flow of water and nutrients and as it gets roots established, it just it's
almost like a one success rate when you have it connected to the mother plant.
Still okay, air laring, I will check that check out. Thank
you all right, Chris, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Appreciate your call very much. We're going to go now to Fred and sugar
Land. Hello Fred, good morning, Skip, and hey listen, thanks
for all educating you do. Thank you really helpful. I wanted some information
about wish of the Medina products to use. We started out using has to
grow and now they have Medina plus and wondering what we use in addition to
things like color Store on betting plants. Do we use all of it?
Is it too much fertilizing or yeah, it's your recommendation. Yeah, it's
just a matter of what rate of what nutrients are you applying. There are
a lot of good brands out there. Color Stars a great brand, Medina
is a great brand. They will both of them will accomplish your results for
you. The Medina, there's there's different ratios of nutrients. So what I've
been talking about is the six twelve six that's the one I used to water
plants in. Then there's one that's kind of a has to grow for lawns
that has a higher nitrogen content and a lower phosphorus content, and for ongoing
feeding. I tend to use that one, especially during the growing season more
and so you know, each each fertilizer has its pros and consent, But
it's a matter of you know, if you put excessive amounts of any one
thing on, that's not good. Or if you use three different things when
you only need one application of fertilizer, then that's not good. So like
using color Store when we plant them, would we then also use a Medina
product on them as they start to grow in the around. You could do
that, but you know, with the color Star you're putting, you're putting
a similar nutrient group in the in the in the soil around the plant,
so I kind of have to see the specifics the plants you're going to plant.
You know, like color Star, you can mix it in the soil
and then plant, or you can just plant and then if it were me,
I generally use the color Store as a surface application, scratch it into
the surface and watered in. So you might want to use the Medina to
water the plant in is a liquid and then move toward the Color Store fertilization
going forward for that color bed. Okay, so we use both then,
oh yeah, you can use both. Okay, good, Thank you very
much, sir. All right, thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call
very much. You know, we love feed stores here on Garden Line,
and League City Feed is an outstanding little feed store that has that old fashioned
field you know that's been I guess they're in the third generation now Thunderbergs are
running that store. It started over forty years ago and Leake City Feed is
easy to find. It's, you know, on Highway three, just a
few blocks of Highway ninety six. So everyone around League City, in Santa
Fe and Webster and Lamark and that whole region. Oh, coming to reality.
This is your hometown feed store. And it's one of those places that
when I say old fashion, I mean you know, they carry the bags
out for you and they carry what you need. If you need a fertilizer
that I talk about on Guardenline, it's at League City Feed. If you
need a pesticide, a herbicide, a fungicide, they've got that. Do
you need pet foods or certainly livestock foods. Do you need perhaps backyard chicken
care things like maybe you need some of the supplies for that or the foods.
But they got all of that everything but the chickens, I guess is
the way you would put it now. League City Feed is open Monday through
Saturday, nine to six. It's closed on Sunday. And here's the number.
You write this down if you live in that area. Two eight one
three three two one six one two two eight one three three two one six
one two. We are now going to go to Missouri City and talk to
Leslie, Hello, Leslie, Hi, how are you today? I'm well
good. I have two sunshine laugustrum hedges that managed to survive the freeze more
or less. They're looking kind of stringy, and I'd really like to like
seriously cut them back, like fifty percent, take the top half off and
kind of let them fill it in. My question is should I do that?
Is okay to do that this time of year, first of all?
And then should I do it like in stages, a little bit at a
time, or can I just whack away at it? Okay? Well,
I would wait until we get towards the end of winter to do that.
That pruning okay, but printing is a stimulating process. When you prune and
the weather's right, plants try to send out new, succulent, new growth.
And we don't want to do that right before we're going to get a
good hardcore freeze here at some point. So I would wait until, you
know, toward the end of winter to do it. And as far as
how much you can come back as much as you want, and they will
regre, okay, just after you cut them back, I sprinkle a little
fertilizer around them, watered in really good. Scratch it into the soil surface.
If you got some molts, they're watered in really good and they will
come right back. That's a good plan. What type of fertilizer just a
general for a lot of things like shrubs, because my goal is to grow
leaves, not fruit or anything else like that. I just use lot fertilizer
on them. Land for Life just fine to use on it. It's got
a lot of nitrogen in it. The spring type of lawn fertilizer. You
could also go by there. There are a number of our companies, Nitrophiles,
Nelson's and others make tree fertilizers. Microlife makes a tree fertilizer. You
can use those as well. I mean, you know it's not it has
to be exactly this, but all of that will provide good nutrients. But
remember with a shrub, you're just supporting good vegetative growth. That's the main
thing that you need to do, right, all right, Okay, And
I heard you mentioned earlier carbo load for lawns. What who makes that?
Nelson's. That's a Nelson's product. They're the ones that are given the two
dollars for every bag of Randy Lemon's scholarship. But remember the carbo load,
Leslie. If you're going to do it, do it real soon, because
you need the fertilizer soon and you need a weed control product that comes in
the carbo load. You need it down soon because the longer you wait,
the less benefits you're going to get. Yeah, I figured i'd do it
this week. Well you're off, so that'd be good. Okay, thanks
very much, all right, thank you. Sounds like a good plan.
You know. Star of Hope is an organization that my wife and I support.
We believe in it. Star of Hope brings people in, it feeds
them and houses them. It provides the kind of training on education, employment,
and life skills that make for a change in life. Not just here's
a handout, but let us take you in, walk alongside you, and
help you turn your life around so that you become a contributing citizen to the
community, so that your kids have a future, so that you have a
hope and don't live with the stress of where you are right now. For
two dollars and eighty cents, you can provide a Thanksgiving meal for people at
Star of Hope. So how many meals are you going to provide this year.
I mean really two dollars and eighty cents. That is simple and it
makes a difference. And I know when I give a dollar to Star Hope,
that dollar is going to go into life change. It's not going to
get wasted in any way, shape or form. Go to sohmission dot org
to learn more. Sohmission dot org. We're going to go now to Bill
and Friends with Hey Bill, I've got about a minute and a half.
If we need to hang past the break, we can do that too.
How can we help today? Hey Jeff, thanks taking my cap. Yes,
sir, I've heard you talk. I've heard people already discussed brown patch.
I'm only concerned to vote my lawn. I typically say I want to
Mama, but that's one I'm going to talk vote is Saint Augustine. I've
got brown patch. I've fertilized a couple times a year, maybe three times
with a just that that's usually inside the door on pallets of Scotts, Okay,
Scott's fertilizer, and yeah, I use the turf and speed in the
winter and the regular whatever they have on. Let's tell if they're the biggest
pilot that is going at that time of the season. Any better suggestions for
me? Okay? Yeah, I would go online to gardening with Skip dot
com, my website Gardening with Skip dot Com. The lawn care schedules,
there's two of them are on there. One is fertilizer, the other is
all the pest and weeds and diseases that you have. They tell you exactly
the products to use. I would switch over to one of our local products
here that you'll find on that schedule and it tells you when to use it.
If you want an organic product or synthetic, they're all there on that
schedule, and if I were you, I would shift toward that. Okay,
If you want to talk a little further on this, we can do
that. Just hang on if not. If that ent here's your question.
But I do thank you for calling, and we're going to take a little
break here. Turn things over to Nicky for the news. Our number is
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden
Line. On a great Sunday. Boy, it's a little cloud drilling in
here. Get a little cloudy, is that's okay? Temperature is just perfect,
good time to be outside, you know. We do love feed stores
on Garden Line, and I tell you I love Quality Feed in Garden Company.
I've been going there since gosh, I don't know when the last time.
First time I went into Quality Feed, well, I know they were
in the previous location, and they've been in the new one, which is
on Luzon Street near the intersection of Equipment and Allsion. They've been in the
new one for a while now. Quality Feed's been around since nineteen twenty eight.
Ken and Chris have owned it for the last thirty two years of that,
and it's just a cool place to go. I mean they have everything
you need. I mean, if I talk about a fertilizer, it's there.
Do you need insect disease and weed control, it's there. They really
specialize in chickens. I mean they're always getting new chicks in. So if
you had some backyard chickens and all the things you need to take care of
them and get them going, Quality feeds a place to go. Just give
them a call. They always have something going on in terms of the new
shipments coming in of the chicks and everything like that. Hey also you can
pick up a good quality potting soils. They're the ones we recommend, and
Ken even makes his own kin spotting soil. They're experts on bonese. I
mentioned that earlier in the show today, that that is an area that they
know a lot about and they can guide you on that as well, even
purchasing a boneseye tree from them to get a good start and get going.
The antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight that is way way way cool to
hey. By the way, qualityfeed coo dot com. That's the website,
qualityfeedco dot com. They're open today, by the way, from eleven thirty
am to four pm, so you can still get by there and pick up
some supplies for maybe some afternoon activities out in the yard. In the garden,
We're going to go to Tom in Cyprus. Now, Hello Tom Warren
Skip. I got a fall garden going. I have some squashes are just
growing like gangbusters, and I think I've got too many squashes per foot that's
got like little a bunch of walnut size. There may be six inches apart
on the vine. So I want to know how far apart I should send
those in order to get a decent size out of them. What kind of
squash did you say? Acorn? Acorn. No, I've never sinned acorn
squashes before. I think that they I don't think you need to. You
does your vine? Does your The leaves look good and strong and green and
everything. Oh yeah, they're big as a dinner plate and just dark green.
Everything looks good. Some of the vines there's spaced to part, like
you know, eighteen inches apart or something like that. But then there's one
vine. I guess the butterflies were too busy there, and there's like every
six inches a little walnut size, and I'm just worried that they're not going
to all grow to a good baking size. Well they will, they'll grow.
The carbohydrates is what the leaves produce. That makes the squash an acron
squash what it is, and so you just want to make sure the foliage
stays healthy. But if it's healthy foliage, I've never thinned an acorn squash
in my life. Okay, Well, I just that was the thought that
I had, So I will defer to your expertise on that. And I
guess I'll have to give some of them away to the neighbors. Yeah,
and I call me back when we get through this season. I'd like to
hear about how that did. Did you notice they were a little smaller than
the other vines or anything like that. It sounds like you got one.
I don't wist, say ya to save some seed from it, or hand
pollinate it and save some seed from Maybe you have a super compact productive acron
squash variety that you just created there. Yeah, well that's another curious thing
I've got. I planted. I plant these things in a little hill,
and I've got three hills growing, so I guess I have a total of
six six lines. And then the one hill is just not as strong as
the other two, but that strongest one, it's just got so many of
them on there that that was my That was my thought. You know,
there's too many of them. But now I'll just see what happens, and
I'm probably gonna have more than I can eat. Anyway, I was going
to say, if you got to pick up, you might want to call
star a Hope and say, hey, I've got some I got some stuff
for you to use and feed and families in here and haul them a load.
Yeah that's not a bad idea, but I don't I don't know how
I appreciate it. Yeah, I don't know how to handle that there.
I'm not telling nobody go all your vegetables to star Hope, just a thought.
Hey, but dude, let me know. I'm curious as to how
that how that turns out for you. You take care you're listening to garden
Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I always love
to go to Arbigate. I was. I was at at Arbrogate the other
day, just visiting, visiting mckennell little bit. And you know, Arbigate
is one of those gardeners, garden centers, it's the destination places that you
love to go to. I just find that this time of year it is
so festive. I mean the gift shop, oh my gosh, it just
loaded with great gifts. And by the way, do you want to give
for maybe a hostess at a party you're going to or gathering, maybe Thanksgiving
or something in the holidays, why not a cycleman? Why not take them
a cycle But that's a beautiful gift. You don't put setters or beautiful gifts.
There's a lot of great plants that are good gifts. Many, many
options, and you're going to find them all there at the Arborgate Nursery.
By the way, you want to mark your calendar because Sunday, November twenty
six from one pm to five pm. Also on Thursday, November thirtieth,
from one to five they're going to have Senna, mister and Missus Senate.
As a matter of fact, out there at the Arburgate Nursery. It's a
chance to come, bring the kids and bring your camera so you can take
pictures with them. That's kind of a cool fun thing they do. They're
Christmas trees are looking great. When I was by there, those trees they
brought in from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. They are just gorgeous
and like a good place would do. They put them right into little buckets
of water. They're not sitting dry on a lot so that the needles don't
make it all the way to Christmas. When you put the tree up,
then they're taking good care of them and they're beautiful tree. So check them
out at Arburgate Arbrogate dot com. Why are you're there always? While you're
there, remember brown stuff before green stuff. Their one two three system food
soil compost. Grab a bag of each for planting, for preparing, for
making sure what you put in the ground is successful, because that's a quality
set of products. We're going to go now to Katie and talk to Sydney.
Hello, Sydney, Hi there, I have a very quick question.
I need your expertise on this. I just had some brand new Saint Augustine
sawd laid down in my yard yesterday morning. Okay, in my backyard,
and the man who put it down first they scraped everything away and put new
top soil then the side. But he said that my sprinkler setting needs to
be Here's what he has it on. He insisted on this three times a
week, forty five minutes each time at five am. And I'm really questioning
about that forty five minutes. I want to know what you think. Well,
he doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm just going to be blunt.
Is your sprinkler Is it a pop up solid spray head, is it
a rotor where streams go back and forth across the lawn or what kind of
sprinkler heads do you It was laid in by a sprinkler company that you recommend
it comes up like when it goes on the heads pop up out of the
ground and spray. Well, I was just asking because different kinds of heads
they produce water at different rates and so that's a factor. But listen right
now, I have not watered my lawn in three weeks and watered it at
all, and it could I have watered it once probably, yes, in
there I could, but it's the temperatures are cool, the demands are really
low, and we've had some rain, and the soil doesn't dry out as
fast as it was back in August, and so even under hot summer conditions,
you need to water once or at the most twice a week and that's
it. A good soaking and let it dry out. So I don't know
what to say other than he's absolutely wrong. Your lawn does not need that.
What that will do is you will see more brown patch on your lawn.
Well, he actually brought that up. I argued with him, and
he argued back, no, no, you're going to have brown patch and
you don't want that. He made the spot in my front yard this summer
and when it was hot, droughout high tenths. Yeah, he had it
watering like five times a week, all right, well, hey, Katie,
I've got to run to a break. If you want to hang around,
we can continue the discussion after break. But he's wrong. It may
be time to get a new person to do that. If they don't know
what they're doing. You think it's to be turned off all together. The
sprinklers, well, I would run it here and there as needed when we
have long dry periods. But I really have to run. But no,
not necessarily all together. Forever. We're going to go to break. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to guard Line. We're glad you're listening today,
having a good time talking about all kinds of things, gardening stuff that
you might be interested in. I was just visiting with Sydney, and I
wish I had still had her on the phone right now. I was understanding
that that grass had been in a little bit longer now if it was a
brand new install, and I probably misunderstood that, but anyway, if it
was a brand new install, yes, you do often. You water frequently.
In fact, in the summertime, I would water every day. I
maybe have very light watering in the morning or in the afternoon as well.
The first few days, the first week or so, you're watering daily and
then you're backing off to maybe every other day, and once it's established,
you're not watering very often. But once once grass is established, and if
Sidney, if I'm not mistaken, yours was, then that kind of three
times a week is wait wait, wait, wait too much. Don't need
that. But if I misunderstood that, just know that, yes, for
the first couple of weeks, you need to keep it moist because it doesn't
have any roots in the ground. Once it has roots in the ground,
with our mild temperatures, then you're going to be just fine. So want
to make sure we're clear on that. You are listening to garden Line and
our phone number if you'd like to give us a call A seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Folks at Nelson Plant Food make a very high quality fall fertilizer
and it's called carbo load. And why don't they call it carbo load?
Here's why. When you put your nutrients down in the right ratio for fall,
which is not a lot of nitrogen. It's a modern amount of nitrogen,
but a good amount of the last number. The third number potassium.
You make that plant stronger. It takes up the nutrients and it's able to
take the sunlight and it's able to make carbohydrates and carbohydrates. Think of them
as anti freeze for your plant. That's kind of what they are. They
do a lot of other things, but it makes your plant go through winter
better. And then in the spring, the new growth that your grass has
when we first come out of winter, that's coming from stored energy, which
means carbohydrates, which means you fertilized in the fall and you provided the plant
what it needed to go into winter strong and come out strong. So Nelson's
carbo load is designed like that, and it also has a pre emergent herbicide
in it so that any winter weeds that germinate after you put it down and
water it in with about a half inch of water, it's going to have
that force field over the surface, if you will, that protective area right
at the surface of the soil that a weed seed is just not able to
get established when it tries to sprout, and that's what it does. Don't
delay on it, go ahead and get it done. Remember that Nelson's fall
Every bag of carbo load they say that you buy, they're going to donate
two dollars to Randy's Memorial Scholarship. And anyone who knows Randy know exactly how
much you love Texa and m and how proud he would be to know his
legacy lives on in that way. And thank you Dean and the folks at
Nelson's for doing that. Our phone number is seven to one to three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four. We're running real short on time, but I probably have time for
a one more call. If somebody would like to call in, we'd be
glad to help you. But don't delay because we're going to run on time
here in just about three minutes. Uh. If you have not signed up
to go to the Texas Tomato Lovers Conference, you got to consider doing that.
Now. I know tomatoes. It's like the queen of the garden.
You know. People care about their tomatoes and they want to grow tomatoes better,
and they're always looking for new ways, new verra and things. The
Texas Tomato Lovers Conference is put on by Texas Gardener Magazine and it will be
in January. On January thirteenth, that's a Saturday. It'll be at the
Anti Crows Emporium on an Independence, Texas. So just another good reason to
go up there. That's always a beautiful place to visit. That's one hundred
dollars for registration, but they have very limited space available. Now what you're
going to get is a full day of programs. I mean they're going to
start off with a light breakfast and coffee there there. Rosanne Green's going to
talk about growing tomatoes with and for a young family Destin Nook, the Texas
Garden Guy, a friend of mine, is going to be talking about mastering
container grown tomatoes. And Patti Leander, one of my master gardeners when I
was back in Travis County. A boy, is she ever a vegetable expert.
She writes for Texas Gardener. By the way, she's going to speak
on no before you grow the best Varieties for twenty twenty four plus eight steps
for grafting success. Did you know you can graft tomatoes? Pat you will
teach you how to do it. Kevin og from the State Plant Clinic at
Texas A and M is going to be talking about the beauty of disease tomatoes.
Now that sounds like a pathologist right there, putting beauty and disease in
the same sentence. I'm going to be talking about the ten commandments of Tomato
success, to Meida success, the ten commandments of to Meida success. If
you're interested in coming, go ahead and get signed up because those spaces are
going fast and all you have to do to sign up, by the way,
is called two five four eight four eight ninety three ninety three, or
you can email Sally at Texas Gardner dot com. We're going to head now
out to spring. For some reason, I have the hardest time finding the
cursor. Hey, Carl, how can we help today? We're running short
on time, but I bet we can get it done, okay, real
quick. My yard was doing great, very healthy, and then brown pass
just like exploded, and I thought I'd been doing everything fine. Is it
too late to put down the fungus stuff? You can? And what that
will do is it will prevent additional infections. But the areas that have been
affected. The brown patch rots the leaves off the runner, but it doesn't
kill the runner. So you get this brown area and it's going to stay
brown until the weather worms up in spring and the grass actively begins putting out
new leaves, and so those spots are not going to be cured by the
fungus. You're just going to protect the other grass from getting the fungus rotting
the leaves off of its runners. Okay, great, thank you. Yeah,
it's been it's been a rough year for it. I'm seeing it pop
up everywhere. But I was warning gardeners several weeks ago that this is the
temperature and when everything's right, brown patch sure takes off. But good luck
with that. Yes, sir, thank you for the call. Carl,
I appreciate that. Yeah, there are things that you know. This is
true. Let's just end this with a real quick philosophical understanding of how disease
and lawns work, and that is that when the conditions are right for the
disease, it takes off and it does what it does. And we could
use algae as an example. That's not a disease. But you've got a
brick side on your house, there's no algae on it. Starts springing it
with a mist of water all day long for a few days and watch what
shows up algae you created the conditions it showed up. When you take a
lawn and you push it with nitrogen, especially a lawn in stress state,
when you mow it too low, and when you water water keeping it wet
a lot, you're going to have brown patch. It's going to take off
and grow. Those are the conditions that predispose the lawn to that disease as
infection. Each disease has conditions that make it where that disease can proliferate,
and so part of our brown patch management may be using a product to protect
against it when we have an area that gets it all the time. But
a big part of it is just watching the way you take care of your
lawn. We can't control the temperature. That's the last factor in brown patch.
When it cools off here it comes. But we can control keeping it
wet all the time. We can control overdoing the nitrogen fertilizer. Notice our
fall fertilizers aren't super high in nitrogen. And finally we can control not mowing
the grass so short. Keep it about two and a half inches high.
That's what Saint Augustine wants to be. You can go a little higher than
that if you want, but anyway, those are some tips, some things
that think about on brown Patch because it's going to be appearing all week until
we come back again next Saturday. By the way, you are listening to
garden Line, and we're here every Saturday. We're here every Sunday from six
am to ten am. You can listen to us of course on the air.
It covers a wide area, all the way from Louisiana border. Someone's
telling me the other day they were in Lake Charles listening to the guard Line.
I've heard people call from Buffalo Way up I forty five and all the
way over in certainly in New Bronfels, Texas. We cover an area,
but maybe you live outside that area. You can listen to us online.
You go to my website gardening with Skip dot com. There's now a listen
to garden Line button on there'll take you to this page where you can listen
live or you can listen to past shows. We're available by podcasts, so
just go to your podcast supplier, maybe iHeartMedia or whoever you use, and
type in garden Line and you can listen to pass shows that way as well.
Well. Thanks for listening. We're glad you're with us today. Certainly
had a good weekend. I hope you have a good rest of your weekend,
and we'll look forward to talking to you again next weekend here on guarden Line.